You are here
I. Climate Science
Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes
Drought and heatwaves occurring together – known as “compound” events – have “surged” across the world since the early 2000s, a new study shows.
Compound drought and heat events (CDHEs) can have devastating effects, creating the ideal conditions for intense wildfires, such as Australia’s “Black Summer” of 2019-20 where bushfires burned 24m hectares and killed 33 people.
The research, published in Science Advances, finds that the increase in CDHEs is predominantly being driven by events that start with a heatwave.
The global area affected by such “heatwave-led” compound events has more than doubled between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, the study says.
The rapid increase in these events over the last 23 years cannot be explained solely by global warming, the authors note.
Since the late 1990s, feedbacks between the land and the atmosphere have become stronger, making heatwaves more likely to trigger drought conditions, they explain.
One of the study authors tells Carbon Brief that societies must pay greater attention to compound events, which can “cause severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and society”.
Compound eventsCDHEs are extreme weather events where drought and heatwave conditions occur simultaneously – or shortly after each other – in the same region.
These events are often triggered by large-scale weather patterns, such as “blocking” highs, which can produce “prolonged” hot and dry conditions, according to the study.
Prof Sang-Wook Yeh is one of the study authors and a professor at the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When heatwaves and droughts occur together, the two hazards reinforce each other through land-atmosphere interactions. This amplifies surface heating and soil moisture deficits, making compound events more intense and damaging than single hazards.”
CDHEs can begin with either a heatwave or a drought.
The sequence of these extremes is important, the study says, as they have different drivers and impacts.
For example, in a CDHE where the heatwave was the precursor, increased direct sunshine causes more moisture loss from soils and plants, leading to a drought.
Conversely, in an event where the drought was the precursor, the lack of soil moisture means that less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporation and more goes into warming the Earth’s surface. This produces favourable conditions for heatwaves.
The study shows that the majority of CDHEs globally start out as a drought.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on these events due to the devastating impact they have on agriculture, ecosystems and public health.
In Russia in the summer of 2010, a compound drought-heatwave event – and the associated wildfires – caused the death of nearly 55,000 people, the study notes.
Saint Basil’s Cathedral, on Red Square, in Moscow, was affected by smog during the fires in Russia in the summer of 2010. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock PhotoThe record-breaking Pacific north-west “heat dome” in 2021 triggered extreme drought conditions that caused “significant declines” in wheat yields, as well as in barley, canola and fruit production in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, says the study.
Increasing eventsTo assess how CDHEs are changing, the researchers use daily reanalysis data to identify droughts and heatwaves events. (Reanalysis data combines past observations with climate models to create a historical climate record.) Then, using an algorithm, they analyse how these events overlap in both time and space.
The study covers the period from 1980 to 2023 and the world’s land surface, excluding polar regions where CDHEs are rare.
The research finds that the area of land affected by CDHEs has “increased substantially” since the early 2000s.
Heatwave-led events have been the main contributor to this increase, the study says, with their spatial extent rising 110% between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, compared to a 59% increase for drought-led events.
The map below shows the global distribution of CDHEs over 1980-2023. The charts show the percentage of the land surface affected by a heatwave-led CDHE (red) or a drought-led CDHE (yellow) in a given year (left) and relative increase in each CDHE type (right).
The study finds that CDHEs have occurred most frequently in northern South America, the southern US, eastern Europe, central Africa and south Asia.
Spatial and temporal occurrence of compound drought and heatwave events over the study period from 1980 to 2023. The map (top) shows CDHEs around the world, with darker colours indicating higher frequency of occurrence. The chart in the bottom left shows how much land surface was affected by a compound event in a given year, where red accounts for heatwave-led events, and yellow, drought-led events. The chart in the bottom right shows the relative increase of each CDHE type in 2002-23 compared with 1980-2001. Source: Kim et al. (2026) Threshold passedThe authors explain that the increase in heatwave-led CDHEs is related to rising global temperatures, but that this does not tell the whole story.
In the earlier 22-year period of 1980-2001, the study finds that the spatial extent of heatwave-led CDHEs rises by 1.6% per 1C of global temperature rise. For the more-recent period of 2022-23, this increases “nearly eightfold” to 13.1%.
The change suggests that the rapid increase in the heatwave-led CDHEs occurred after the global average temperature “surpasse[d] a certain temperature threshold”, the paper says.
This threshold is an absolute global average temperature of 14.3C, the authors estimate (based on an 11-year average), which the world passed around the year 2000.
Investigating the recent surge in heatwave-leading CDHEs further, the researchers find a “regime shift” in land-atmosphere dynamics “toward a persistently intensified state after the late 1990s”.
In other words, the way that drier soils drive higher surface temperatures, and vice versa, is becoming stronger, resulting in more heatwave-led compound events.
Daily dataThe research has some advantages over other previous studies, Yeh says. For instance, the new work uses daily estimations of CDHEs, compared to monthly data used in past research. This is “important for capturing the detailed occurrence” of these events, says Yeh.
He adds that another advantage of their study is that it distinguishes the sequence of droughts and heatwaves, which allows them to “better understand the differences” in the characteristics of CDHEs.
Dr Meryem Tanarhte is a climate scientist at the University Hassan II in Morocco, and Dr Ruth Cerezo Mota is a climatologist and a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Both scientists, who were not involved in the study, agree that the daily estimations give a clearer picture of how CDHEs are changing.
Cerezo-Mota adds that another major contribution of the study is its global focus. She tells Carbon Brief that in some regions, such as Mexico and Africa, there is a lack of studies on CDHEs:
“Not because the events do not occur, but perhaps because [these regions] do not have all the data or the expertise to do so.”
However, she notes that the reanalysis data used by the study does have limitations with how it represents rainfall in some parts of the world.
Compound impactsThe study notes that if CDHEs continue to intensify – particularly events where heatwaves are the precursors – they could drive declining crop productivity, increased wildfire frequency and severe public health crises.
These impacts could be “much more rapid and severe as global warming continues”, Yeh tells Carbon Brief.
Tanarhte notes that these events can be forecasted up to 10 days ahead in many regions. Furthermore, she says, the strongest impacts can be prevented “through preparedness and adaptation”, including through “water management for agriculture, heatwave mitigation measures and wildfire mitigation”.
The study recommends reassessing current risk management strategies for these compound events. It also suggests incorporating the sequences of drought and heatwaves into compound event analysis frameworks “to enhance climate risk management”.
Cerezo-Mota says that it is clear that the world needs to be prepared for the increased occurrence of these events. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These [risk assessments and strategies] need to be carried out at the local level to understand the complexities of each region.”
Dangerous heat for Tour de France riders only a ‘question of time’
Extreme weather
|Analysis: What are the causes of recent record-high global temperatures?
El Niño
|Study links world’s top oil and gas firms to 200 ‘more intense’ heatwaves
Heatwaves
|Q&A: How China is adapting to ‘more frequent and intense’ heat extremes
China Policy
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_47fbf80cecd7365d4503cf87f3ff8518 .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
ENERGY SPIKE: US-Israeli attacks on Iran and subsequent counterattacks across the Middle East have sent energy prices “soaring”, according to Reuters. The newswire reported that the region “accounts for just under a third of global oil production and almost a fifth of gas”. The Guardian noted that shipping traffic through the strait of Hormuz, which normally ferries 20% of the world’s oil, “all but ground to a halt”. The Financial Times reported that attacks by Iran on Middle East energy facilities – notably in Qatar – triggered the “biggest rise in gas prices since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.
‘RISK’ AND ‘BENEFITS’: Bloomberg reported on increases in diesel prices in Europe and the US, speculating that rising fuel costs could be “a risk for president Donald Trump”. US gas producers are “poised to benefit from the big disruption in global supply”, according to CNBC. Indian government sources told the Economic Times that Russia is prepared to “fulfil India’s energy demands”. China Daily quoted experts who said “China’s energy security remains fundamentally unshaken”, thanks to “emergency stockpiles and a wide array of import channels”.
‘ESSENTIAL’ RENEWABLES: Energy analysts said governments should cut their fossil-fuel reliance by investing in renewables, “rather than just seeking non-Gulf oil and gas suppliers”, reported Climate Home News. This message was echoed by UK business secretary Peter Kyle, who said “doubling down on renewables” was “essential” amid “regional instability”, according to the Daily Telegraph.
China’s climate planPEAK COAL?: China has set out its next “five-year plan” at the annual “two sessions” meeting of the National People’s Congress, including its climate strategy out to 2030, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. The plan called for China to cut its carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 17% from 2026 to 2030, which “may allow for continued increase in emissions given the rate of GDP growth”, reported Reuters. The newswire added that the plan also had targets to reach peak coal in the next five years and replace 30m tonnes per year of coal with renewables.
ACTIVE YET PRUDENT: Bloomberg described the new plan as “cautious”, stating that it “frustrat[es] hopes for tighter policy that would drive the nation to peak carbon emissions well before president Xi Jinping’s 2030 deadline”. Carbon Brief has just published an in-depth analysis of the plan. China Daily reported that the strategy “highlights measures to promote the climate targets of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030”, which China said it would work towards “actively yet prudently”.
Around the world- EU RULES: The European Commission has proposed new “made in Europe” rules to support domestic low-carbon industries, “against fierce competition from China”, reported Agence France-Presse. Carbon Brief examined what it means for climate efforts.
- RECORD HEAT: The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said there is a 50-60% chance that the El Niño weather pattern could return this year, amplifying the effect of global warming and potentially driving temperatures to “record highs”, according to Euronews.
- FLAGSHIP FUND: The African Development Bank’s “flagship clean energy fund” plans to more than double its financing to $2.5bn for African renewables over the next two years, reported the Associated Press.
- NO WITHDRAWAL: Vanuatu has defied US efforts to force the Pacific-island nation to drop a UN draft resolution calling on the world to implement a landmark International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on climate, according to the Guardian.
The number of nations that submitted their national reports on tackling nature loss to the UN on time – just half of the 196 countries that are part of the UN biodiversity treaty – according to analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research- Sea levels are already “much higher than assumed” in most assessments of the threat posed by sea-level rise, due to “inadequate” modelling assumptions | Nature
- Accelerating human-caused global warming could see the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit crossed before 2030 | Geophysical Research Letters covered by Carbon Brief
- Future “super El Niño events” could “significantly lower” solar power generation due to a reduction in solar irradiance in key regions, such as California and east China | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
CapturedUK greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 fell to 54% below 1990 levels, the baseline year for its legally binding climate goals, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Over the same period, data from the World Bank shows that the UK’s economy has expanded by 95%, meaning that emissions have been decoupling from growth.
Spotlight Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ community wind turbineFollowing the recent launch of the UK government’s local power plan, Carbon Brief visits one of the country’s community-energy success stories.
The Lawrence Weston housing estate is set apart from the main city of Bristol, wedged between the tree-lined grounds of a stately home and a sprawl of warehouses and waste incinerators. It is one of the most deprived areas in the city.
Yet, just across the M5 motorway stands a structure that has brought the spoils of the energy transition directly to this historically forgotten estate – a 4.2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine.
The turbine is owned by local charity Ambition Lawrence Weston and all the profits from its electricity sales – around £100,000 a year – go to the community. In the UK’s local power plan, it was singled out by energy secretary Ed Miliband as a “pioneering” project.
‘Sustainable income’On a recent visit to the estate by Carbon Brief, Ambition Lawrence Weston’s development manager, Mark Pepper, rattled off the story behind the wind turbine.
In 2012, Pepper and his team were approached by the Bristol Energy Cooperative with a chance to get a slice of the income from a new solar farm. They jumped at the opportunity.
“Austerity measures were kicking in at the time,” Pepper told Carbon Brief. “We needed to generate an income. Our own, sustainable income.”
With the solar farm proving to be a success, the team started to explore other opportunities. This began a decade-long process that saw them navigate the Conservative government’s “ban” on onshore wind, raise £5.5m in funding and, ultimately, erect the turbine in 2023.
Today, the turbine generates electricity equivalent to Lawrence Weston’s 3,000 households and will save 87,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) over its lifetime.
Ambition Lawrence Weston’s Mark Pepper and the wind turbine. Artwork: Josh Gabbatiss ‘Climate by stealth’Ambition Lawrence Weston’s hub is at the heart of the estate and the list of activities on offer is seemingly endless: birthday parties, kickboxing, a library, woodworking, help with employment and even a pop-up veterinary clinic. All supported, Pepper said, with the help of a steady income from community-owned energy.
The centre itself is kitted out with solar panels, heat pumps and electric-vehicle charging points, making it a living advertisement for the net-zero transition. Pepper noted that the organisation has also helped people with energy costs amid surging global gas prices.
Gesturing to the England flags dangling limply on lamp posts visible from the kitchen window, he said:
“There’s a bit of resentment around immigration and scarcity of materials and provision, so we’re trying to do our bit around community cohesion.”
This includes supper clubs and an interfaith grand iftar during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Anti-immigration sentiment in the UK has often gone hand-in-hand with opposition to climate action. Right-wing politicians and media outlets promote the idea that net-zero policies will cost people a lot of money – and these ideas have cut through with the public.
Pepper told Carbon Brief he is sympathetic to people’s worries about costs and stressed that community energy is the perfect way to win people over:
“I think the only way you can change that is if, instead of being passive consumers…communities are like us and they’re generating an income to offset that.”
From the outset, Pepper stressed that “we weren’t that concerned about climate because we had other, bigger pressures”, adding:
“But, in time, we’ve delivered climate by stealth.”
Watch, read, listenOIL WATCH: The Guardian has published a “visual guide” with charts and videos showing how the “escalating Iran conflict is driving up oil and gas prices”.
MURDER IN HONDURAS: Ten years on from the murder of Indigenous environmental justice advocate Berta Cáceres, Drilled asked why Honduras is still so dangerous for environmental activists.
TALKING WEATHER: A new film, narrated by actor Michael Sheen and titled You Told Us To Talk About the Weather, aimed to promote conversation about climate change with a blend of “poetry, folk horror and climate storytelling”.
Coming up- 8 March: Colombia parliamentary election
- 9-19 March: 31st Annual Session of the International Seabed Authority, Kingston, Jamaica
- 11 March: UN Environment Programme state of finance for nature 2026 report launch
- London School of Economics and Political Science, fellow in the social science of sustainability | Salary: £43,277-£51,714. Location: London
- NORCAP, innovative climate finance expert | Salary: Unknown. Location: Kyiv, Ukraine
- WBHM, environmental reporter | Salary: $50,050-$81,330. Location: Birmingham, Alabama, US
- Climate Cabinet, data engineer | Salary: hourly rate of $60-$120 per hour. Location: Remote anywhere in the US
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
DeBriefed
|DeBriefed
|DeBriefed
|DeBriefed
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_e356a94483cda2a46a3996a5fa58e913 .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ mean for climate change?
China’s leadership has published a draft of its 15th five-year plan setting the strategic direction for the nation out to 2030, including support for clean energy and energy security.
The plan sets a target to cut China’s “carbon intensity” by 17% over the five years from 2026-30, but also changes the basis for calculating this key climate metric.
The plan continues to signal support for China’s clean-energy buildout and, in general, contains no major departures from the country’s current approach to the energy transition.
The government reaffirms support for several clean-energy industries, ranging from solar and electric vehicles (EVs) through to hydrogen and “new-energy” storage.
The plan also emphasises China’s willingness to steer climate governance and be seen as a provider of “global public goods”, in the form of affordable clean-energy technologies.
However, while the document says it will “promote the peaking” of coal and oil use, it does not set out a timeline and continues to call for the “clean and efficient” use of coal.
This shows that tensions remain between China’s climate goals and its focus on energy security, leading some analysts to raise concerns about its carbon-cutting ambition.
Below, Carbon Brief outlines the key climate change and energy aspects of the plan, including targets for carbon intensity, non-fossil energy and forestry.
Note: this article is based on a draft published on 5 March and will be updated if any significant changes are made in the final version of the plan, due to be released at the close next week of the “two sessions” meeting taking place in Beijing.
- What is China’s 15th five-year plan?
- What does the plan say about China’s climate action?
- What is China’s new CO2 intensity target?
- Does the plan encourage further clean-energy additions?
- What does the plan signal about coal?
- How will China approach global climate governance in the next five years?
- What else does the plan cover?
Five-year plans are one of the most important documents in China’s political system.
Addressing everything from economic strategy to climate policy, they outline the planned direction for China’s socio-economic development in a five-year period. The 15th five-year plan covers 2026-30.
These plans include several “main goals”. These are largely quantitative indicators that are seen as particularly important to achieve and which provide a foundation for subsequent policies during the five-year period.
The table below outlines some of the key “main goals” from the draft 15th five-year plan.
CategoryIndicatorIndicator in 2025Target by 2030Cumulative target over 2026-2030Characteristic Economic developmentGross domestic product (GDP) growth (%)5Maintained within a reasonable range and proposed annually as appropriate.Anticipatory ‘Green and low-carbonReduction in CO2 emissions per unit of GDP (%)17.717Binding Share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption (%)21.725Binding Security guaranteeComprehensive energy production
capacity (100m tonnes of
standard coal equivalent)
51.358Binding Select list of targets highlighted in the “main goals” section of the draft 15th five-year plan. Source: Draft 15th five-year plan.
Since the 12th five-year plan, covering 2011-2015, these “main goals” have included energy intensity and carbon intensity as two of five key indicators for “green ecology”.
The previous five-year plan, which ran from 2021-2025, introduced the idea of an absolute “cap” on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, although it did not provide an explicit figure in the document. This has been subsequently addressed by a policy on the “dual-control of carbon” issued in 2024.
The latest plan removes the energy-intensity goal and elevates the carbon-intensity goal, but does not set an absolute cap on emissions (see below).
It covers the years until 2030, before which China has pledged to peak its carbon emissions. (Analysis for Carbon Brief found that emissions have been “flat or falling” since March 2024.)
The plans are released at the two sessions, an annual gathering of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). This year, it runs from 4-12 March.
The plans are often relatively high-level, with subsequent topic-specific five-year plans providing more concrete policy guidance.
Policymakers at the National Energy Agency (NEA) have indicated that in the coming years they will release five sector-specific plans for 2026-2030, covering topics such as the “new energy system”, electricity and renewable energy.
There may also be specific five-year plans covering carbon emissions and environmental protection, as well as the coal and nuclear sectors, according to analysts.
Other documents published during the two sessions include an annual government work report, which outlines key targets and policies for the year ahead.
The gathering is attended by thousands of deputies – delegates from across central and local governments, as well as Chinese Communist party members, members of other political parties, academics, industry leaders and other prominent figures.
What does the plan say about China’s climate action?Achieving China’s climate targets will remain a key driver of the country’s policies in the next five years, according to the draft 15th five-year plan.
It lists the “acceleration” of China’s energy transition as a “major achievement” in the 14th five-year plan period (2021-2025), noting especially how clean-power capacity had overtaken fossil fuels.
The draft says China will “actively and steadily advance and achieve carbon peaking”, with policymakers continuing to strike a balance between building a “green economy” and ensuring stability.
Climate and environment continues to receive its own chapter in the plan. However, the framing and content of this chapter has shifted subtly compared with previous editions, as shown in the table below. For example, unlike previous plans, the first section of this chapter focuses on China’s goal to peak emissions.
11th five-year plan (2006-2010)12th five-year plan (2011-2015)13th five-year plan (2016-2020)14th five-year plan (2021-2025)15th five-year plan (2026-2030) Chapter titlePart 6: Build a resource-efficient and environmentally-friendly societyPart 6: Green development, building a resource-efficient and environmentally friendly societyPart 10: Ecosystems and the environmentPart 11: Promote green development and facilitate the harmonious coexistence of people and naturePart 13: Accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development to build a beautiful China SectionsDeveloping a circular economyActively respond to global climate changeAccelerate the development of functional zonesImprove the quality and stability of ecosystemsActively and steadily advancing and achieving carbon peaking Protecting and restoring natural ecosystemsStrengthen resource conservation and managementPromote economical and intensive resource useContinue to improve environmental qualityContinuously improving environmental quality Strengthening environmental protectionVigorously develop the circular economyStep up comprehensive environmental governanceAccelerate the green transformation of the development modelEnhancing the diversity, stability, and sustainability of ecosystems Enhancing resource managementStrengthen environmental protection effortsIntensify ecological conservation and restorationAccelerating the formation of green production and lifestyles Rational utilisation of marine and climate resourcesPromoting ecological conservation and restorationRespond to global climate change Strengthen the development of water conservancy and disaster prevention and mitigation systemsImprove mechanisms for ensuring ecological security Develop green and environmentally-friendly industries Title and main sections of the climate and environment-focused chapters in the last five five-year plans. Source: China’s 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th five-year plans.
The climate and environment chapter in the latest plan calls for China to “balance [economic] development and emission reduction” and “ensure the timely achievement of carbon peak targets”.
Under the plan, China will “continue to pursue” its established direction and objectives on climate, Prof Li Zheng, dean of the Tsinghua University Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development (ICCSD), tells Carbon Brief.
What is China’s new CO2 intensity target?In the lead-up to the release of the plan, analysts were keenly watching for signals around China’s adoption of a system for the “dual-control of carbon”.
This would combine the existing targets for carbon intensity – the CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – with a new cap on China’s total carbon emissions. This would mark a dramatic step for the country, which has never before set itself a binding cap on total emissions.
Policymakers had said last year that this framework would come into effect during the 15th five-year plan period, replacing the previous system for the “dual-control of energy”.
However, the draft 15th five-year plan does not offer further details on when or how both parts of the dual-control of carbon system will be implemented. Instead, it continues to focus on carbon intensity targets alone.
Looking back at the previous five-year plan period, the latest document says China had achieved a carbon-intensity reduction of 17.7%, just shy of its 18% goal.
This is in contrast with calculations by Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which had suggested that China had only cut its carbon intensity by 12% over the past five years.
At the time it was set in 2021, the 18% target had been seen as achievable, with analysts telling Carbon Brief that they expected China to realise reductions of 20% or more.
However, the government had fallen behind on meeting the target.
Last year, ecology and environment minister Huang Runqiu attributed this to the Covid-19 pandemic, extreme weather and trade tensions. He said that China, nevertheless, remained “broadly” on track to meet its 2030 international climate pledge of reducing carbon intensity by more than 65% from 2005 levels.
Myllyvirta tells Carbon Brief that the newly reported figure showing a carbon-intensity reduction of 17.7% is likely due to an “opportunistic” methodological revision. The new methodology now includes industrial process emissions – such as cement and chemicals – as well as the energy sector.
(This is not the first time China has redefined a target, with regulators changing the methodology for energy intensity in 2023.)
For the next five years, the plan sets a target to reduce carbon intensity by 17%, slightly below the previous goal.
However, the change in methodology means that this leaves space for China’s overall emissions to rise by “3-6% over the next five years”, says Myllyvirta. In contrast, he adds that the original methodology would have required a 2% fall in absolute carbon emissions by 2030.
The dashed lines in the chart below show China’s targets for reducing carbon intensity during the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th five-year periods, while the bars show what was achieved under the old (dark blue) and new (light blue) methodology.
Dashed lines: China’s carbon-intensity targets during the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th five-year plan periods. Bars: China’s achieved carbon-intensity reductions according to either the old methodology (dark blue) and the new one (light blue). The achieved reductions during the 12th and 13th five-year plans are from contemporaneous government statistics and may be revised in future. The reduction figures for the 14th five-year plan period are sourced from government statistics for the new methodology and analysis by CREA under the old methodology. Sources: Five-year plans and Carbon Brief.The carbon-intensity target is the “clearest signal of Beijing’s climate ambition”, says Li Shuo, director at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s (ASPI) China climate hub.
It also links directly to China’s international pledge – made in 2021 – to cut its carbon intensity to more than 65% below 2005 levels by 2030.
To meet this pledge under the original carbon-intensity methodology, China would have needed to set a target of a 23% reduction within the 15th five-year plan period. However, the country’s more recent 2035 international climate pledge, released last year, did not include a carbon-intensity target.
As such, ASPI’s Li interprets the carbon-intensity target in the draft 15th five-year plan as a “quiet recalibration” that signals “how difficult the original 2030 goal has become”.
Furthermore, the 15th five-year plan does not set an absolute emissions cap.
This leaves “significant ambiguity” over China’s climate plans, says campaign group 350 in a press statement reacting to the draft plan. It explains:
“The plan was widely expected to mark a clearer transition from carbon-intensity targets toward absolute emissions reductions…[but instead] leaves significant ambiguity about how China will translate record renewable deployment into sustained emissions cuts.”
Myllyvirta tells Carbon Brief that this represents a “continuation” of the government’s focus on scaling up clean-energy supply while avoiding setting “strong measurable emission targets”.
He says that he would still expect to see absolute caps being set for power and industrial sectors covered by China’s emissions trading scheme (ETS). In addition, he thinks that an overall absolute emissions cap may still be published later in the five-year period.
Despite the fact that it has yet to be fully implemented, the switch from dual-control of energy to dual-control of carbon represents a “major policy evolution”, Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), tells Carbon Brief. He says that it will allow China to “provide more flexibility for renewable energy expansion while tightening the net on fossil-fuel reliance”.
Does the plan encourage further clean-energy additions?“How quickly carbon intensity is reduced largely depends on how much renewable energy can be supplied,” says Yao Zhe, global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, in a statement.
The five-year plan continues to call for China’s development of a “new energy system that is clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient” by 2030, with continued additions of “wind, solar, hydro and nuclear power”.
In line with China’s international pledge, it sets a target for raising the share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption to 25% by 2030, up from just under 21.7% in 2025.
The development of “green factories” and “zero-carbon [industrial] parks” has been central to many local governments’ strategies for meeting the non-fossil energy target, according to industry news outlet BJX News. A call to build more of these zero-carbon industrial parks is listed in the five-year plan.
Prof Pan Jiahua, dean of Beijing University of Technology’s Institute of Ecological Civilization, tells Carbon Brief that expanding demand for clean energy through mechanisms such as “green factories” represents an increasingly “bottom-up” and “market-oriented” approach to the energy transition, which will leave “no place for fossil fuels”.
He adds that he is “very much sure that China’s zero-carbon process is being accelerated and fossil fuels are being driven out of the market”, pointing to the rapid adoption of EVs.
The plan says that China will aim to double “non-fossil energy” in 10 years – although it does not clarify whether this means their installed capacity or electricity generation, or what the exact starting year would be.
Research has shown that doubling wind and solar capacity in China between 2025-2035 would be “consistent” with aims to limit global warming to 2C.
While the language “certainly” pushes for greater additions of renewable energy, Yao tells Carbon Brief, it is too “opaque” to be a “direct indication” of the government’s plans for renewable additions.
She adds that “grid stability and healthy, orderly competition” is a higher priority for policymakers than guaranteeing a certain level of capacity additions.
China continues to place emphasis on the need for large-scale clean-energy “bases” and cross-regional power transmission.
The plan says China must develop “clean-energy bases…in the three northern regions” and “integrated hydro-wind-solar complexes” in south-west China.
It specifically encourages construction of “large-scale wind and solar” power bases in desert regions “primarily” for cross-regional power transmission, as well as “major hydropower” projects, including the Yarlung Tsangpo dam in Tibet.
As such, the country should construct “power-transmission corridors” with the capacity to send 420 gigawatts (GW) of electricity from clean-energy bases in western provinces to energy-hungry eastern provinces by 2030, the plan says.
State Grid, China’s largest grid operator, plans to install “another 15 ultra-high voltage [UHV] transmission lines” by 2030, reports Reuters, up from the 45 UHV lines built by last year.
Below are two maps illustrating the interlinkages between clean-energy bases in China in the 15th (top) and 14th (bottom) five-year plan periods.
The yellow dotted areas represent clean energy bases, while the arrows represent cross-regional power transmission. The blue wind-turbine icons represent offshore windfarms and the red cooling tower icons represent coastal nuclear plants.
Maps showing layout of key energy projects in China during 2026-2030 (top) and 2021-2025 (bottom). Source: Chinese government’s 15th five-year plan and 14th five-year plan.The 15th five-year plan map shows a consistent approach to the 2021-2025 period. As well as power being transmitted from west to east, China plans for more power to be sent to southern provinces from clean-energy bases in the north-west, while clean-energy bases in the north-east supply China’s eastern coast.
It also maps out “mutual assistance” schemes for power grids in neighbouring provinces.
Offshore wind power should reach 100GW by 2030, while nuclear power should rise to 110GW, according to the plan.
What does the plan signal about coal?The increased emphasis on grid infrastructure in the draft 15th five-year plan reflects growing concerns from energy planning officials around ensuring China’s energy supply.
Ren Yuzhi, director of the NEA’s development and planning department, wrote ahead of the plan’s release that the “continuous expansion” of China’s energy system has “dramatically increased its complexity”.
He said the NEA felt there was an “urgent need” to enhance the “secure and reliable” replacement of fossil-fuel power with new energy sources, as well as to ensure the system’s “ability to absorb them”.
Meanwhile, broader concerns around energy security have heightened calls for coal capacity to remain in the system as a “ballast stone”.
The plan continues to support the “clean and efficient utilisation of fossil fuels” and does not mention either a cap or peaking timeline for coal consumption.
Xi had previously told fellow world leaders that China would “strictly control” coal-fired power and phase down coal consumption in the 15th five-year plan period.
The “geopolitical situation is increasing energy security concerns” at all levels of government, said the Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress in a note responding to the draft plan, adding that this was creating “uncertainty over coal reduction”.
Ahead of its publication, there were questions around whether the plan would set a peaking deadline for oil and coal. An article posted by state news agency Xinhua last month, examining recommendations for the plan from top policymakers, stated that coal consumption would plateau from “around 2027”, while oil would peak “around 2026”.
However, the plan does not lay out exact years by which the two fossil fuels should peak, only saying that China will “promote the peaking of coal and oil consumption”.
There are similarly no mentions of phasing out coal in general, in line with existing policy.
Nevertheless, there is a heavy emphasis on retrofitting coal-fired power plants. The plan calls for the establishment of “demonstration projects” for coal-plant retrofitting, such as through co-firing with biomass or “green ammonia”.
Such retrofitting could incentivise lower utilisation of coal plants – and thus lower emissions – if they are used to flexibly meet peaks in demand and to cover gaps in clean-energy output, instead of providing a steady and significant share of generation.
The plan also calls for officials to “fully implement low-carbon retrofitting projects for coal-chemical industries”, which have been a notable source of emissions growth in the past year.
However, the coal-chemicals sector will likely remain a key source of demand for China’s coal mining industry, with coal-to-oil and coal-to-gas bases listed as a “key area” for enhancing the country’s “security capabilities”.
Meanwhile, coal-fired boilers and industrial kilns in the paper industry, food processing and textiles should be replaced with “clean” alternatives to the equivalent of 30m tonnes of coal consumption per year, it says.
“China continues to scale up clean energy at an extraordinary pace, but the plan still avoids committing to strong measurable constraints on emissions or fossil fuel use”, says Joseph Dellatte, head of energy and climate studies at the Institut Montaigne. He adds:
“The logic remains supply-driven: deploy massive amounts of clean energy and assume emissions will eventually decline.”
How will China approach global climate governance in the next five years?Meanwhile, clean-energy technologies continue to play a role in upgrading China’s economy, with several “new energy” sectors listed as key to its industrial policy.
Named sectors include smart EVs, “new solar cells”, new-energy storage, hydrogen and nuclear fusion energy.
“China’s clean-technology development – rather than traditional administrative climate controls – is increasingly becoming the primary driver of emissions reduction,” says ASPI’s Li. He adds that strengthening China’s clean-energy sectors means “more closely aligning Beijing’s economic ambitions with its climate objectives”.
Analysis for Carbon Brief shows that clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025, representing around 11% of China’s whole economy.
The continued support for these sectors in the draft five-year plan comes as the EU outlined its own measures intended to limit China’s hold on clean-energy industries, driven by accusations of “unfair competition” from Chinese firms.
China is unlikely to crack down on clean-tech production capacity, Dr Rebecca Nadin, director of the Centre for Geopolitics of Change at ODI Global, tells Carbon Brief. She says:
“Beijing is treating overcapacity in solar and smart EVs as a strategic choice, not a policy error…and is prepared to pour investment into these sectors to cement global market share, jobs and technological leverage.”
Dellatte echoes these comments, noting that it is “striking” that the plan “barely addresses the issue of industrial overcapacity in clean technologies”, with the focus firmly on “scaling production and deployment”.
At the same time, China is actively positioning itself to be a prominent voice in climate diplomacy and a champion of proactive climate action.
This is clear from the first line in a section on providing “global public goods”. It says:
“As a responsible major country, China will play a more active role in addressing global challenges such as climate change.”
The plan notes that China will “actively participate in and steer [引领] global climate governance”, in line with the principle of “common,but differentiated responsibilities”.
This echoes similar language from last year’s government work report, Yao tells Carbon Brief, demonstrating a “clear willingness” to guide global negotiations. But she notes that this “remains an aspiration that’s yet to be made concrete”. She adds:
“China has always favored collective leadership, so its vision of leadership is never a lone one.”
The country will “deepen south-south cooperation on climate change”, the plan says. In an earlier section on “opening up”, it also notes that China will explore “new avenues for collaboration in green development” with global partners as part of its “Belt and Road Initiative”.
China is “doubling down” on a narrative that it is a “responsible major power” and “champion of south-south climate cooperation”, Nadin says, such as by “presenting its clean‑tech exports and finance as global public goods”. She says:
“China will arrive at future COPs casting itself as the indispensable climate leader for the global south…even though its new five‑year plan still puts growth, energy security and coal ahead of faster emissions cuts at home.”
What else does the plan cover?The impact of extreme weather – particularly floods – remains a key concern in the plan.
China must “refine” its climate adaptation framework and “enhance its resilience to climate change, particularly extreme-weather events”, it says.
China also aims to “strengthen construction of a national water network” over the next five years in order to help prevent floods and droughts.
An article published a few days before the plan in the state-run newspaper China Daily noted that, “as global warming intensifies, extreme weather events – including torrential rains, severe convective storms, and typhoons – have become more frequent, widespread and severe”.
The plan also touches on critical minerals used for low-carbon technologies. These will likely remain a geopolitical flashpoint, with China saying it will focus during the next five years on “intensifying” exploration and “establishing” a reserve for critical minerals. This reserve will focus on “scarce” energy minerals and critical minerals, as well as other “advantageous mineral resources”.
Dellatte says that this could mean the “competition in the energy transition will increasingly be about control over mineral supply chains”.
Other low-carbon policies listed in the five-year plan include expanding coverage of China’s mandatory carbon market and further developing its voluntary carbon market.
China will “strengthen monitoring and control” of non-CO2 greenhouse gases, the plan says, as well as implementing projects “targeting methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons” in sectors such as coal mining, agriculture and chemicals.
This will create “capacity” for reducing emissions by 30m tonnes of CO2 equivalent, it adds.
Meanwhile, China will develop rules for carbon footprint accounting and push for internationally recognised accounting standards.
It will enhance reform of power markets over the next five years and improve the trading mechanism for green electricity certificates.
It will also “promote” adoption of low-carbon lifestyles and decarbonisation of transport, as well as working to advance electrification of freight and shipping.
Ma Jun: ‘No business interest’ in Chinese coal power due to cheaper renewables
China energy
|Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months
China energy
|China energy
|Analysis: Clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025
China energy
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_00e5e7e6d67b02f7974897ea7b8e7e21 .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ mean for climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Pace of global warming has nearly doubled since 2015, reveals study
An acceleration in human-caused global warming could see the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit breached before 2030, a new study suggests.
The paper, published in Geophysical Research Letters, finds that, over the past decade, the planet has been warming at its fastest rate on record.
The authors isolate the trend of human-driven warming in the long-term global temperature record, removing the influence of natural factors, such as El Niño, volcanic eruptions and solar variation.
They find that the world had been warming at a rate of around 0.2C per decade since the 1970s, but has “accelerated” since 2015 to a rate of 0.35C per decade.
The study warns that if the current rate of warming persists, the 1.5C Paris threshold will be breached in the next few years.
“The essential result of this paper isn’t how fast we’re warming, but that warming is now happening faster than before and that the difference isn’t negligible,” an author on the study tells Carbon Brief.
Warming signalThe year 2024 was the hottest on record, with global average temperatures at the surface exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for the first time.
Crossing the 1.5C threshold in a single year is not equivalent to a breach of the Paris Agreement, which refers to long-term warming – typically interpreted as over a 20-year period.
However, rapidly rising global temperatures are prompting scientists to ask when this internationally recognised threshold might be broken.
Human activity has been the primary driver of rising global temperature in the long term, through greenhouse gas emissions and land-use change. However, natural factors also have warming and cooling effects from year to year.
The study authors identified three main sources of this natural variability.
El Niño and La Niña – collectively referred to as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) – are generally the largest drivers of year-to-year fluctuations in global temperatures. The study authors identify volcanic activity and changes in solar variation as the other two main natural influences on global temperature trends.
Study author Dr Grant Foster, formerly from the consulting firm Tempo Analytics and now retired, describes these sources of natural variability as “random noise” that sits on top of the long-term warming signal. He explains that “the larger the noise, the harder it is to see the real trend”.
To isolate the warming trend, the authors used a statistical technique that they first employed in a 2011 paper to remove the contributions of ENSO, volcanic activity and solar variation from the global temperature record.
The authors carried out this analysis on five separate datasets of global average surface temperature – NASA, NOAA, the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of East Anglia’s HadCRUT5, Berkeley Earth and Copernicus ERA5.
The plots below show the global temperature between 1880 and 2024, relative to pre-industrial temperatures, from the five datasets.
Each plot shows the original warming record (light blue), in which all drivers of warming are included, as well as the adjusted record (dark blue) which excludes the effects of ENSO, volcanoes and solar activity.
Global temperature trends from five datasets, including (light blue) and excluding (dark blue) the effects of El Nino, volcanic activity and solar activity. Source: Foster and Rahmstorf (2026).Removing the effects of natural variability makes the years 2023 and 2024 slightly cooler, the study notes, but they remain the two warmest years since the beginning of instrumental record.
AccelerationRecord-high temperatures in recent years have led scientists to ask whether global warming is accelerating.
The authors of the new study decided to use two different statistical approaches to test whether they can identify a “statistically significant” acceleration in global warming from the long-term temperature record.
The “noise” from natural drivers of temperature change, such as ENSO, can make it tricky to spot underlying trends. However, Foster tells Carbon Brief that after removing the influence of natural variability, “acceleration is easy to prove statistically – some might even say it becomes obvious”.
Both tests find that warming is accelerating with more than 98% confidence for each of the five datasets. When the same tests were run on the unadjusted data, they failed to reach even 95% confidence, showing the importance of removing natural variability from the warming signal, according to the study authors.
Under the first statistical approach, called a quadratic analysis, the authors applied a single curved trend line to the warming signal.
For the second approach, the authors used a technique to identify the month when the rate of global warming changed noticeably. The different datasets estimated this date to range from February 2013 to February 2014. They then calculated the speed of global warming both before and after these dates.
Global temperatures increased at an average rate of around 0.2C per decade over 1970-2015, according to the study.
In contrast, the authors find that warming rates have increased to 0.34-0.42C per decade, across the five different datasets, since the February 2013-February 2014 period.
The study reveals that the rate of warming observed over the past decade has been higher than any previous decade in the instrumental record.
Foster tells Carbon Brief that “the essential result of this paper isn’t how fast we’re warming, but that warming is now happening faster than before and that the difference isn’t negligible”.
If this warming rate remains constant, the Paris Agreement 1.5C threshold would be breached between 2026 and 2029, the authors find.
(Their approach estimates the 20-year period where the average exceeds 1.5C of warming, and the breach of the limit is taken as the halfway point in this period.)
The table below shows key results for the five different datasets, including estimates for the date that warming started accelerating, the rate of warming and the year that the Paris Agreement will be breached in each.
Data sourceDate of accelerationWarming rate (C per decade)Year to cross 1.5C NASAApril 20130.362028 NOAAFebruary 20130.362028 HadCRUTJanuary 20140.342029 BerkleyFebruary 20140.362028 ERA5February 20140.422026 Results for the five different datasets, including estimates for the date that warming started accelerating, the rate of warming and the year that the Paris Agreement will be breached in each. Source: Foster and Rahmstorf (2026). ‘Statistical significance’There are “many opinions” among climate scientists about how fast the planet is currently warming, Foster tells Carbon Brief.
For example, a study from Dr James Hansen calculates a warming rate of 0.27C per decade after 2010. Similarly, the latest Indicators of Global Climate Change report estimates warming of 0.27C per decade over 2015-24.
Foster continues:
“But we all agree it’s higher than before. [The] thing is, we couldn’t prove that statistically.”
Foster tells Carbon Brief that in 2024, Dr Claudie Beaulieu – an assistant professor at the University of California – led a study which concluded that “a recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet”.
Beaulieu used the same statistical method as Foster to investigate whether global temperature data shows an acceleration in warming. However, she did not first remove the natural drivers of temperature change, such as ENSO.
(Carbon Brief wrote about Beaulieu’s work in more detail when it was published.)
Foster tells Carbon Brief that the study was “excellent”, adding:
“They found that confirming acceleration was a close call – the data are very suggestive – but not quite ‘statistically significant.’”
Foster explains that after removing the natural influence, the warming trend is clearer, making it easier to find statistically significant warming levels.
Beaulieu praises the new study, explaining that “the fact that the acceleration signal appears consistently across all five independent datasets is reassuring”.
However, she stresses that “the acceleration may prove temporary”.
She says that “continued monitoring over the next several years will be essential to determine whether the accelerated warming rate identified here represents a lasting shift”.
The study authors say that the main limitation of their work is that the method of removing natural variability is “empirically based, but approximate and imperfect”.
Foster says:
“We estimate the impact of things like El Niño by comparing past values of the El Niño index to past temperature changes, hence we don’t need to know the physics behind it, just the numbers. Statistical results like this are only approximate.”
Meanwhile, an acceleration in warming is supported by many other observations of the Earth’s climate.
For example, ocean heat content – the measure of the amount of energy stored in the ocean – is rising year on year. There is also evidence of acceleration in recent years, with the period from 2020 onward seeing the largest year-to-year increases in ocean heat content on record.
In addition, the Earth’s energy imbalance, which measures the difference between incoming solar radiation and outgoing radiation, has also increased in recent years.
Analysis: What are the causes of recent record-high global temperatures?
El Niño
|UNEP: New country climate plans ‘barely move needle’ on expected warming
Emissions
|Overshoot: Exploring the implications of meeting 1.5C climate goal ‘from above’
Global temperature
|Experts: The key ‘unknowns’ of overshooting the 1.5C global-warming limit
Global temperature
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_6fb63805d9cdfdcde5e71564117b7a5b .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post Pace of global warming has nearly doubled since 2015, reveals study appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: UK emissions fall 2.4% in 2025 as coal hits 400-year low
The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions fell by 2.4% in 2025 to their lowest level in more than 150 years, according to new Carbon Brief analysis.
The biggest factors were gas use falling to a 34-year low and coal use dropping to levels last seen in 1600, when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne and William Shakespeare was writing Hamlet.
These shifts were helped by record-high UK temperatures, elevated gas prices, the end of coal power in late 2024 and a sharp slowdown in the steel industry.
Other key findings of the analysis include:
- The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions fell to 364m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2025, the lowest level since 1872.
- Coal use roughly halved, with more than half of this due to the end of coal power and another third due to closures and other issues in the steel industry.
- Gas use fell by 1.5% to the lowest level since 1992, with roughly equal contributions from cuts in heat for buildings and industry, more than offsetting a small rise in gas power.
- Oil use fell by 0.9%, despite rising traffic, helped by more than 700,000 new electric vehicles (EVs), electric vans and plug-in hybrids on the nation’s roads.
- The UK’s emissions are now 54% below 1990 levels, while its GDP has nearly doubled.
The 2.4% (8.9MtCO2e) fall in emissions in 2025 was only slightly more than half of the 15MtCO2e cut needed each year on average until 2050, to reach the UK’s legally binding net-zero target.
The analysis is the latest in a decade-long series of annual estimates from Carbon Brief, covering emissions during 2024, 2023, 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014.
Emissions fall to 150-year lowThe UK’s territorial greenhouse gas emissions – those that occur within the country’s borders – have now fallen in 27 of the 36 years since 1990.
(The recent fall in territorial emissions has not been “offset” by a rise in the amount of CO2 embedded in imports, which has stayed relatively constant since around 2008.)
Apart from brief rebounds after the global financial crisis and the Covid-19 lockdowns, UK emissions have fallen every year for the past two decades.
The latest 9MtCO2e (2.4%) reduction takes UK emissions down to 364MtCO2e, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis, which is 54% below 1990 levels.
This is the lowest since 1872, as shown in the figure below.
UK territorial greenhouse gas emissions, MtCO2e, 1850-2024. Note the impact of general strikes in 1921 and 1926; the miners’ strike of 1984 had a smaller impact. Source: Jones et al. (2023) and Carbon Brief analysis of figures from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).The latest fall puts UK emissions below the level seen during the 1926 general strike, when the nation’s industrial base was brought to a standstill.
It means that UK emissions are now at sustained lows not seen since Victorian times.
Nevertheless, emissions will need to continue falling in order to meet the UK’s legal climate goals and its net-zero target, which is part of international efforts under the Paris Agreement to stop dangerous warming.
Record lows for coal and gasThe key factors in driving down UK emissions in 2025 were coal and gas use falling to their lowest levels since 1600 and 1992, respectively.
For gas, this was mainly down to lower demand from building heat and from industry, likely at least partly related to record-high temperatures and elevated gas prices. For coal, this was a combination of the end of coal power and a steel-industry slowdown, as shown below.
Contributions to emissions changes in 2025, MtCO2e. Left to right: Reduction due to building heat and industry; Reduction due to the end of coal power; Reduction due to the steel-industry slowdown; Reduction due to other factors; Overall reduction. Source: Carbon Brief analysis.These were not the only factors driving the change in UK emissions in 2025.
The UK saw record generation from renewable sources, particularly wind and solar, but a further decline in nuclear generation, the end of coal power and an increase in electricity demand for the second year running meant that gas-fired power output also went up slightly.
In the transport sector, demand for oil fell by 0.9% year-on-year, even though traffic levels went up by around 1%, according to provisional figures through to September 2025.
This partly reflects the changing makeup of vehicles on the road.
By 2024, there were 2.8m fewer diesel vehicles than there were in 2019, a trend likely to continue due to falling diesel car sales. In contrast, there are now nearly 3m EVs, plug-in hybrids or electric vans on the nation’s roads, making up 5% of the car fleet overall and 2% of vans.
These electrified vehicles are cutting UK emissions by more than 7MtCO2 every year, according to Carbon Brief analysis, with the 700,000 new EVs in 2025 alone saving nearly 2MtCO2.
Drivers with EVs saved a total of £2m in lower fuel costs in 2025, the analysis shows, as EVs are much more efficient and, therefore, cheaper to run than petrol or diesel vehicles. This amounts to more than £700 per EV per year and more than £1,100 for each electric van.
Despite falling demand for oil-derived fuels and the impact of the growing EV fleet, Carbon Brief estimates that the UK’s oil-related emissions actually increased by 0.2% in 2025. This is largely down to a shift in the amount and type of biofuel blended into diesel and petrol at the pump.
Coal falls to lowest level in 400 yearsThere have been dramatic declines in UK coal use over the past decade, in particular resulting from the phaseout of coal-fired electricity generation.
UK coal demand fell by another 56% in 2025 to just under 1m tonnes (Mt). This is down 97% from the 37Mt burned in 2015 and is 99.6% below the peak of 221Mt in 1956.
As shown in the figure below, coal demand is now at the lowest level since 1600, when Elizabeth I was the queen of England and Ireland.
(It was during her five-decade reign that coal had become the country’s main source of fuel, following an Elizabethan “energy crisis” triggered by a lack of wood for making charcoal.)
Annual UK coal demand, million tonnes, 1500-2025. Note the impact of general strikes in 1921 and 1926, as well as the miners’ strike of 1984. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of data from DESNZ and Roger Fouquet.The UK’s last coal-fired power plant, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire, closed down on 30 September 2024. It had run at low levels that year, but still burned some 0.7m tonnes of coal. The end of coal power contributed nearly three-fifths of the fall in demand for the fuel in 2025.
There has also been a marked reduction in UK steel production in recent years, particularly since the closure of two of the nation’s last blast furnaces at Port Talbot in south Wales in 2024.
The last blast furnaces in the country are at the British Steel plant in Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire, which had been due for closure in early 2025 until the government stepped in to keep it open.
The slowdown in coal-based steel production accounts for around a third of the decline in UK coal use in 2025, but only 14% of the drop in the past decade, which was mainly due to coal power.
Globally, the steel industry is facing intense competition in an oversupplied market, with a growing “glut” that has driven down prices. At the same time, the industry in the UK has ageing equipment and expensive electricity, which UK Steel says is largely a result of high gas prices.
The Port Talbot site is being converted to “electric arc furnace” (EAF) steelmaking, which does not rely on coal. The same shift is under discussion for the Scunthorpe site. Analysis from thinktank Green Alliance suggests EAFs would be the cheapest option for both sites.
Gas falls to lowest level in 34 yearsThere have also been dramatic declines in UK demand for gas over the past 15 years. After another 1.5% drop in 2025, gas use is now at the lowest level since 1992, as shown below.
This means gas demand is now similar to when the UK began its “dash for gas” in the early 1990s. Starting in 1991, this period saw a wave of new gas-fired power stations being built. It was triggered by a change in regulations to allow the use of gas to generate electricity, advances in turbine technology, a period of low gas prices and the privatisation of the UK electricity system.
In total, UK gas demand has fallen by nearly two-fifths since 2010. Half of this overall reduction is due to a 50% fall in gas-fired electricity generation, which has been displaced by falling demand and renewable sources. Another third of the overall reduction is from home heating, where demand has dropped due to more efficient gas boilers and improved insulation.
Annual UK gas demand, terawatt hours, 1822-2025. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of data from DESNZ and Roger Fouquet.In 2025, the 1.5% reduction in gas use was caused by roughly equal contributions from lower demand for building heat and from industrial users.
This was helped by 2025 being the hottest year on record, with high gas prices likely also a factor.
Gas prices have remained significantly above the levels seen before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. At the start of March 2026, UK gas prices roughly doubled as a result of the conflict in the Middle East triggered by the US and Israeli attacks on Iran.
Whereas the UK’s fleet of EVs is already having a significant impact on emissions, domestic heat pump sales remain at relatively low levels, particularly compared with other European nations.
After a 25% year-on-year increase in 2025, there were still only 125,000 heat pump sales in the UK. These new installations will have cut UK emissions by around 0.2MtCO2 in 2025 relative to gas heating, shows Carbon Brief analysis.
By the end of 2025, the UK had a total of around 450,000 domestic heat pumps, generating total savings of roughly 0.7MtCO2 after accounting for the increase in electricity demand.
The 2.3m domestic heat pumps expected by 2030 in the National Energy System Operator’s “future energy scenarios” would save the UK around 4.5MtCO2 per year.
Emissions continue to decouple from growthIn total, UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 fell to 54% below 1990 levels, the baseline year for its legally binding climate goals.
Since then, the UK economy has nearly doubled in size, with GDP growing by 95% according to data from the World Bank, as shown in the figure below.
Change since 1990, %, in UK greenhouse gas emissions (red) and GDP adjusted for inflation (blue). Source: Carbon Brief analysis of figures from DESNZ and the World Bank.Transport remains the single-largest sector, accounting for around 30% of UK emissions, followed, in order, by buildings, agriculture, industry and electricity generation.
The majority of emissions cuts over recent decades have come in the power sector – formerly, the UK’s largest emitter – as coal has been phased out and renewables have replaced gas.
This is set to change over the next 10-15 years. The rise of EVs is set to make transport the largest source of emissions cuts from now until 2040, according to the Climate Change Committee.
While industrial emissions have also declined significantly since 1990, falling some 74% by 2025, the size of UK manufacturing output has also roughly doubled.
Despite the progress in cutting emissions to date, the UK has a long way to go if it is to meet its climate goals in the future, including the yet-to-be legislated seventh “carbon budget”, covering the years 2038-2042, as well as the 2050 net-zero target.
Emissions would need to fall by 15MtCO2e each year until 2050 on average, in order to meet the net-zero target. Meeting the UK’s 2035 international pledge under the Paris Agreement, a 78% reduction below 1990 levels, emissions would need to fall by 22MtCO2e per year.
These figures can be compared with the 9MtCO2e cut achieved in 2025. Emissions did, in fact, fall by an average of 15MtCO2e per year over the past decade – and by an average of 13MtCO2e per year since the turn of the century.
MethodologyThe starting point for Carbon Brief’s analysis of UK greenhouse gas emissions is preliminary government estimates of energy use by fuel. These are published monthly, with the final month of each year appearing in figures published at the end of the following February. The same approach has accurately estimated year-to-year changes in emissions in previous years (see table, below).
Annual change in UK greenhouse gas emissions, % YearOfficial figuresCarbon BriefDifference 20102.52.70.1 2011-7.2-7.7-0.4 20123.13.60.6 2013-2.1-4.1-2.0 2014-7.4-7.5-0.1 2015-3.8-3.70.0 2016-5.4-5.7-0.3 2017-2.4-2.00.4 2018-1.6-1.7-0.1 2019-3.6-3.9-0.3 2020-8.9-8.80.1 20213.63.5-0.1 2022-4.3-3.60.7 2023-5.0-5.2-0.2 2024-2.7-3.0-0.3 2025-2.4One large source of uncertainty is the provisional energy use data, which is revised at the end of March each year and often again later on.
Emissions data is also subject to revision in light of improvements in data collection and the methodology used, with major revisions in 2021 and more minor changes in early 2026.
The latest changes to the DESNZ emissions methodology have led to 2% reduction in baseline 1990 emissions, but the impact on recent years is minimal.
This does not affect the UK’s carbon budgets, which are set in terms of tonnes of emissions over a five-year period, rather than a percentage reduction compared with 1990 levels.
The table above applies Carbon Brief’s emissions calculations to the comparable energy use and emissions figures, which may differ from those published previously.
Another source of uncertainty is the fact that Carbon Brief’s approach to estimating the annual change in emissions differs from the methodology used for the government’s own provisional estimates. The government has access to more granular data not available for public use.
Carbon Brief’s analysis takes figures on the amount of energy sourced from coal, oil and gas reported in Energy Trends 1.2. These figures are combined with conversion factors for the CO2 emissions per unit of energy, published annually by the UK government. Conversion factors are available for each fuel type, for example, petrol, diesel, gas and coal for electricity generation.
For oil, the analysis also draws on Energy Trends 3.13, which further breaks down demand according to the subtype of oil, for example, petrol, jet fuel and so on. Similarly, for coal, the analysis draws on Energy Trends 2.6, which breaks down solid fuel use by subtype.
Emissions from each fuel are then estimated from the energy use multiplied by the conversion factor, weighted by the relative proportions for each fuel subtype.
For example, the UK uses roughly 50m tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in the form of oil products, around half of which is from road diesel. So half the total energy use from oil is combined with the conversion factor for road diesel, another one-fifth for petrol and so on.
Energy use from each fossil fuel subtype is mapped onto the appropriate emissions conversion factor. In some cases, there is no direct read-across, in which case the nearest appropriate substitute is used. For example, energy use listed as “bitumen” is mapped to “processed fuel oils – residual oil”. Similarly, solid fuel used by “other conversion industries” is mapped to “petroleum coke” and “other” solid fuel use is mapped to “coal (domestic)”.
The energy use figures are calculated on an inland consumption basis, meaning they include bunkers consumed in the UK for international transport by air and sea. In contrast, national emissions inventories exclude international aviation and shipping.
The analysis, therefore, estimates and removes the part of oil use that is due to the UK’s share of international aviation. It draws on the UK’s final greenhouse gas emissions inventory, which breaks emissions down by sector and reports the total for domestic aviation.
This domestic emissions figure is compared with the estimated emissions due to jet fuel use overall, based on the appropriate conversion factor. The analysis assumes that domestic aviation’s share of emissions is equivalent to its share of jet fuel energy use.
In addition to estimating CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use, Carbon Brief assumes that CO2 emissions from non-fuel sources, such as land-use change and forestry, are the same as a year earlier. The remaining greenhouse gas emissions are assumed to change in line with the latest government energy and emissions projections.
These assumptions are based on the UK government’s own methodology for preliminary greenhouse gas emissions estimates, published in 2019.
Note that the figures in this article are for emissions within the UK measured according to international guidelines. This means they exclude emissions associated with imported goods, including imported biomass, as well as the UK’s share of international aviation and shipping.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published detailed comparisons between various approaches to calculating UK emissions, on a territorial, consumption, “environmental accounts” or “international accounting” basis.
The UK’s consumption-based CO2 emissions increased between 1990 and 2007. Since then, however, they have fallen by a similar number of tonnes as emissions within the UK.
Bioenergy is a significant source of renewable energy in the UK and its climate benefits are disputed. Contrary to public perception, however, only around one-quarter of bioenergy is imported.
International aviation is considered part of the UK’s carbon budgets and faces the prospect of tighter limits on its CO2 emissions. The international shipping sector has a target to at least halve its emissions by 2050, relative to 2008 levels.
Analysis: Trump has overseen larger coal decline than any other US president
Coal
|Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months
China energy
|Analysis: World’s biggest historic polluter – the US – is pulling out of UN climate treaty
Emissions
|Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been flat or falling for 18 months
China energy
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_6265e70f40545c6fff2c329122e83a7c .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post Analysis: UK emissions fall 2.4% in 2025 as coal hits 400-year low appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What the EU’s new industry and ‘Made in Europe’ rules mean for climate action
The European Commission has put forward a plan to boost production of EU-made, low-carbon steel, cement and renewables in an effort to rely less on other countries.
The proposed “Industrial Accelerator Act” (IAA) aims to boost “resilient and decarbonised” industrial production in EU manufacturing, says the commission.
Under the proposal, a percentage of products bought from “energy-intensive industries” and other sectors under public-procurement deals would be required to be “low-carbon” and made in the EU.
This includes targets for steel, aluminium and electric vehicle (EV) parts.
Non-EU countries with trade agreements, such as the UK and Japan, could also be included in the “Made in Europe” portion of the plan.
The proposal – which must be approved by the European Parliament and EU member states – could save millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) by 2030, claims the commission.
Much of the media coverage on the proposed policy focuses on its aim to tackle reliance on China for low-carbon technologies, while Politico calls it a “climate law in disguise”.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief outlines the key details of the proposal, what must happen for it to take effect and what it could mean for climate change.
Where does the ‘Industrial Accelerator Act’ proposal come from?The publication of the proposed IAA follows weeks of delays as the EU attempts to boost its manufacturing industries – which have been struggling with international competition and high energy costs – while also supporting decarbonisation.
Industries such as steel, cement and chemicals produce roughly a fifth of the EU’s emissions, so decarbonising them will be essential for achieving the bloc’s net-zero goals.
The IAA is an effort to help energy-intensive industries cut their emissions while remaining globally competitive, in part by “creating lead markets for low-carbon products”.
It was first announced in the European Commission’s 2024 political guidelines, laying out its priorities for the five years out to 2029.
In the section concerning the EU’s plans for a “clean industrial deal” – referring to broader plans to support industries and accelerate their decarbonisation – the guidelines stated:
“We will put forward an industrial decarbonisation accelerator act to support industries and companies through the transition.”
When the clean industrial deal was subsequently released in February 2025, it said the promised act would introduce “clean, resilient, circular, cybersecure” criteria that would “strengthen demand for EU-made clean products”.
The act was also intended to “speed-up permitting for industrial access to energy and industrial decarbonisation” and “develop a voluntary label on the carbon intensity of industrial products”.
Underpinning these plans was the idea of increasing demand for low-carbon products in public and private procurements – in particular, those that were “Made in Europe”.
The proportion of products that will be included under the “Made in Europe” definition remains unclear. In the final proposal, the commission notes it will “tailor requirements to the specific structure, maturity and dependencies of each sector”.
The word “decarbonisation” was dropped from the act’s title by commission president Ursula von der Leyen in her state of the EU address in September 2025, in order “to allow for a broader sectoral and technological scope”.
This reflects wider disputes within the commission itself around the coverage of the IAA. There has also been strong opposition to the proposed “made in Europe” section of the act from different groups of member states.
The debate has also taken place against the background of calls to weaken key parts of EU climate policy – in particular, the EU emissions trading system (ETS).
Environmental groups have voiced concerns about the climate focus of the IAA being sidelined, at the expense of boosting the bloc’s competitiveness.
A major issue in the discussions has been whether the “made in Europe” label should include “trusted partners” from outside the EU, such as the UK and Switzerland.
The commission’s trade directorate has reportedly pushed for a more open system that includes more countries. Germany has been among the member states warning that restrictive rules could deter foreign investment and raise prices.
Meanwhile, Politico reported that the commission’s growth directorate, supported by France, wanted “made in Europe” to be restricted to countries in the European Economic Area – the 27 EU member states alongside Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
The publication of the IAA proposal – which follows on from the automotive package adopted by the EU in December 2025 – was delayed numerous times amid the disagreements.
According to Politico, “haggling” continued over the Monday and Tuesday before the proposal was released, before it could be agreed internally within the commission by the “college of commissioners”.
What is in the IAA proposal?Following these tense internal negotiations, the European Commission released its IAA proposal on 4 March 2026. It says the proposal will “increase demand for low-carbon, European-made technologies and products”.
The act sets a goal of increasing manufacturing’s share of EU GDP to 20% by 2035, up from 14.3% in 2024.
It introduces “targeted and proportionate” low-carbon and “made in EU” requirements for public procurement and public support schemes for specific sectors.
These will initially apply to steel, cement, aluminium, cars and net-zero technologies – defined within the proposal as batteries, battery energy storage systems (BESS), solar PV, heat pumps, wind turbines, electrolysers and nuclear technologies. It also establishes a framework that could be extended to other energy-intensive sectors in the future.
The commission notes that these sectors have been chosen due to their strategic importance, as well as being “essential enablers of the clean transition and vital to downstream industries”.
However, it says they are facing declining production in Europe, slower decarbonisation investments and global competition and market distortions, such as unfair subsidies.
For steel, the proposal would introduce a requirement for public procurement and public support schemes to use low-carbon steel within the automotive and construction industries.
This will help “create market demand” and “give investors confidence and predictability, boosting innovation and making clean steel a core part of the EU’s industrial future”, says the commission.
However, this falls short of the 70% low-carbon steel requirement that had been included in an earlier draft of the act, according to Reuters. Other earlier drafts of the IAA proposal had also included an emissions label for steel.
This voluntary carbon-intensity label had previously been set out within the clean industrial deal and had originally been expected to come into effect in 2025, before being pushed back and, ultimately, excluded from the IAA.
Beyond steel, the IAA sets minimum “Made in EU” requirements for public procurement of 70% for EVs, 25% for aluminium and 25% for cement.
The European Commission will now offer the UK, Japan and other like-minded countries the opportunity to be included under the “Made in Europe” manufacturing targets, if they offer reciprocal access to EU-based manufacturers, according to the Financial Times. The outlet adds that this is being welcomed by the UK government, which had lobbied for such access for months.
The measures within the IAA are in line with the recommendations of the Draghi report on EU competitiveness, says the commission. As such, it says they are designed to “increase value creation in the EU, strengthening our industrial base against the backdrop of growing unfair global competition and increasing dependencies on non-EU suppliers in strategic sectors”.
Alongside the introduction of requirements on public procurement within the bloc, the IAA proposal highlights that the EU is “committed to maintaining that openness as a key source of economic strength and resilience”.
The EU hosted almost a quarter of global foreign direct investment in 2024.
To further support such investment and ensure the benefits extend to technology transfer and job creation, the IAA introduces additional conditions for international investments.
These would apply for investments of more than €100m in emerging sectors such as batteries, EVs, solar PV and critical raw materials by companies that hold more than 40% of global production capacities.
Conditions would include EU companies holding a majority share, technology transfer, integration into EU value chains and job creation, according to the European Commission. There would also need to be a guarantee that a minimum of 50% of employees are European.
The introduction of common conditions across the bloc would mean the IAA “strike[s] a carefully calibrated balance by ensuring that strategic foreign investments contribute to Europe’s competitiveness, resilience and industrial transformation, while preventing fragmentation”, according to the commission.
Additionally, EU member states would be required to set up a single digital permitting process to “speed up and simplify manufacturing projects” under the IAA.
This would include dedicated single points of contact and maximum timelines of 18 months for certain projects, such as energy-intensive industry decarbonisation projects or those located in “industrial acceleration areas”.
Member states would designate these areas to encourage strategic manufacturing clusters, it says. The commission adds that projects within these areas would benefit from improved coordination and access to infrastructure, finance and skills ecosystems, as well as faster permitting.
What comes next?The commission’s proposal will now be negotiated by members of the European Parliament and then by country ministers at the Council of the EU.
After these negotiations take place, the proposal can be adopted and the act can take effect.
But this may not be a simple process, as many countries remain divided on the key terms of the proposed law. (See: Where does the ‘Industrial Accelerator Act’ proposal come from?)
Nine EU countries pushed back on the proposal last December, reported Politico. The UK has been “lobbying” countries including Germany, Italy and the Netherlands to oppose it, according to Bloomberg. Reuters noted that the plan is backed by France.
EU commissioner for internal market and services, Stéphane Séjourné, told a press conference on 4 March that the “faster” the proposal moves through the EU lawmaking stages, the “more stability we will actually have”.
After the law takes effect, the commission says it will evaluate the key results three years later. A full review is then proposed after five years.
What could the act mean for carbon emissions?The IAA could save around 30.6m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) in 2030, according to the European Commission.
According to the impact assessment published alongside the proposed act, the changes brought in for the steel, cement, aluminium, battery and vehicle sectors would drive significant CO2 reductions by 2030.
The document breaks down these emissions savings for 2030 as follows:
- Producing more batteries in the EU, rather than relying on imports from China, could save 25.6MtCO2.
- The 25% low-carbon steel target in the automotive and construction sectors could save around 3.4MtCO2.
- Vehicle manufacturing emissions could drop by 0.7MtCO2 due to “shifts in production”.
- The 5% low-carbon cement target could save 0.69MtCO2.
- The 25% low-carbon aluminium target could save 0.22MtCO2.
According to the impact assessment, the emissions required to produce a battery in the EU are around 25% lower than a “Chinese manufactured battery using the average Chinese grid”. This is due to “strict” EU environmental standards, it adds.
The report estimates that all of these savings in CO2 would be worth more than €3bn in avoided climate damages.
Streamlining the process for permitting to “accelerate” decarbonisation projects should also “lea[d] to an accelerated pace of GHG [greenhouse gas] savings”, the document says, but does not list a figure for this.
The impact assessment for the IAA proposal notes that there is currently a “structural imbalance” in the EU’s industrial transition.
It states that although emissions associated with industrial production are declining, this is “largely driven by shrinking production”, rather than improved carbon efficiency.
Carbon emissions and production volumes in the EU iron and steel sectors have dropped “almost in parallel” between 2005 and 2023, says the report.
It adds that projections show that these emissions will need to decline “much faster” to meet future EU climate targets.
The “competitiveness and decarbonisation” of EU manufacturing is “unlikely to improve” without further action, such as the IAA, says the report.
In other words, the IAA effectively aims to ensure that emissions cuts can accelerate while maintaining – or even increasing – industrial production within the EU.
What has the reaction to the IAA been?While many welcomed the IAA proposal as a “first step”, others criticised the final proposal for walking back on the ambition in earlier drafts.
In a statement released alongside the proposal, Stéphane Séjourné, executive vice-president for prosperity and industrial strategy at the European Commission, said the IAA marked a “major step in the renewal of the European economic doctrine”. He added:
“Facing unprecedented global uncertainty and unfair competition, European industry can count on the provisions of this Act to boost demand and guarantee resilient supply chains in strategic sectors. It will create jobs by directing taxpayers’ money to European production, decreasing our dependencies and enhancing our economic security and sovereignty.”
Others shared his sentiment that in the face of a changing international trade environment, the IAA would boost European competitiveness. Neil Makaroff, director at the European thinktank Strategic Perspectives, said in a statement:
“With its first ‘made in Europe’ policy, the EU is embracing long-overdue economic realism and adapting itself to the new brutal global trade reality. Rather than letting the single market be an open outlet for Chinese overcapacities, each euro of taxpayer money can be directed to rebuild Europe’s manufacturing base. This is how Europeans can start learning the language of industrial powers.”
Tinne van der Straeten, the CEO of WindEurope, said the IAA sent an “important political signal”, but “a simple and harmonised implementation of the new rules is crucial”.
WWF highlighted that public procurement is only a small part of the EU economy and called for complementary measures that also target private consumption.
Camille Maury, senior policy officer on industrial decarbonisation at WWF EU, said:
“The commission has finally pressed the accelerator on clean industry by opening the door to create demand for clean products. However, to win the race to decarbonise, the commission and policy makers will need to put effort into strengthening low-carbon requirement criteria and designing truly green labels for steel and cement that exclude fossil fuel-based production.”
In particular, the lack of a low-carbon label for steel within the IAA drew criticism, with, for example, Daniel Pietikainen, policy manager for steel at climate NGO Bellona Europa, saying:
“The Act no longer provides the basis for a low-carbon steel label. While we can work with the Ecodesign Regulation as the vehicle for a steel label, the commission must commit to an ambitious timeline now. Any operational labelling scheme that is contingent on a delegated act with no clear timeline is not a signal; it is a delay.”
Similarly, the exceptions for international investment in emerging sectors, such as batteries and solar, were labelled as a “very disappointing…watering-down” by Christoph Podewils, secretary general of the European Solar Manufacturing Council. In a statement, he added:
“We need ‘Made in Europe’ to ensure the continent’s long-term energy security. The current explosion in energy prices, caused by the war in Iran, demonstrates the importance of being independent of other regions.
“If the European solar industry has to wait another three years after the legislation is adopted, many companies will have disappeared in the meantime due to ongoing unfair competition from China.”
Analysis: EVs just outsold petrol cars in EU for first time ever
Energy
|Q&A: European Commission’s proposal to cut EU emissions 90% by 2040
EU policy
|Q&A: What does the new German coalition government mean for climate and energy?
Emissions
|The Carbon Brief Profile: Germany
Country profiles
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_e42ccddf0d55b33d2353db0ef6b04456 .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post Q&A: What the EU’s new industry and ‘Made in Europe’ rules mean for climate action appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 5 March 2026: New five-year climate goals revealed at ‘two sessions’ meeting
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.
China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments Government ‘work report’ for 2026 announcedLOWER GROWTH: China is aiming for economic growth of 4.5-5% in 2026, reported state-run newspaper China Daily in its coverage of the “government work report” – an outline of China’s policies in 2026 delivered by Chinese premier Li Qiang at the annual “two sessions” meeting of key government and party officials in Beijing. This is the lowest target since 1991, said BBC News, as China “grapples with challenges both at home and abroad”. Li said “geopolitical risks are rising”, noted the Financial Times. The lower GDP target reflects a shift to what Beijing calls “high-quality growth”, said the Guardian.
‘GREEN DEVELOPMENT’: The work report cited the publication of China’s 2035 climate pledge under the Paris Agreement as one of the achievements made last year, noted state-run broadcaster CGTN. Another CGTN article said that “new quality productive forces” also “grew steadily” in 2025, referring to a term that includes “green development”. Financial services firm ING said that the report highlighted priorities for 2026 including “high-quality” and “green development”, as well as domestic consumption, but that it also scaled back China’s consumer “trade-in” policy relative to 2025.
‘LAX’ INTENSITY: The report set a target to cut China’s “carbon intensity” – its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per unit of GDP – by 3.8% in 2026, reported Reuters, which quoted Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air saying this was “alarmingly lax”. He told Carbon Brief that emissions could rise by up to 0.5-1.0% while still meeting this target.
DUAL-CARBON DOUBTS: The work report said that China’s goal of peaking CO2 emissions before 2030 would be “accomplished as planned” and that a system to control the total amount of emissions would also be implemented, said Bloomberg. The report offers little detail on the shift to this system for the “dual control of carbon”, said Greenpeace East Asia’s Yao Zhe in a statement.
上微信关注《碳简报》TRANSITION FUND: Another China Daily article reported that China will “establish a national fund for low-carbon transition” this year. Citing the work report, it said this fund would be used to “foster new growth drivers such as hydrogen power and green fuels”. The newspaper pointed to other climate-related elements of the report, including promoting the “clean and efficient use of fossil fuels” and “zero-carbon industrial parks”, expanding the coverage of China’s emissions trading system and improving systems for carbon accounting.
Pre-meeting positioningCARBON ‘CO-BENEFIT’S: The Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) published new air quality standards that could “cut CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions by more than 7bn metric tonnes [over a decade] as a co-benefit”, said the state-run newspaper China Daily. Energy news outlet China Energy Net reported that these co-benefits could come from the new standards “effectively fostering…development of new quality productive forces such as clean energy and new-energy vehicles”, as well as driving low-carbon transitions in the “industrial, energy and transportation” sectors.
GATHERING VIEWS: In a press conference held ahead of the two sessions, MEE spokesperson Pei Xiaofei told Shanghai-based outlet the Paper that 85% of policy proposals submitted to the ministry for the meetings were focused on “building a Beautiful China”, meeting China’s carbon peak and neutrality goals and “tackling pollution”. According to a partial transcript published on the MEE website, MEE atmospheric environment director Li Tianwei said “heavy reliance” on fossil fuels, dominance of heavy industries and “road-centric” transport presented continuing “challenges” for emissions reduction.
Subscribe: China Briefing- .listing{background: #f4f4f4} .listing ul{list-style:none; margin:0} ol {background: #F4F4F4; padding: 0px;} .listing ul {background: #F4F4F4; padding: 0px;} .listing li{font-size:0px;}
Sign up to Carbon Brief's free "China Briefing" email newsletter. All you need to know about the latest developments relating to China and climate change. Sent to your inbox every Thursday.
OFFICIAL OUTLOOK: Several director generals of National Energy Administration (NEA) departments published articles on their outlook for the fifteenth five-year plan. Development and planning department head Ren Yuzhi wrote in China Electric Power News that China must “expand the non-fossil energy supply system”, construct a power system “compatible with high proportions of renewable energy” and “promote the peaking of coal and oil consumption”. Head of the new energy and renewable energy department Li Chuangjun argued that the “main” direction for clean energy was “expanding scale, improving quality and ensuring reliable substitution”. The heads of the oil and gas, market regulation and power safety departments also authored articles.
OFFICIAL STATS: Meanwhile, new government statistics showed that China’s energy and industry emissions saw a 0.3% decline in 2025, reported the Financial Times. [The data confirmed earlier analysis for Carbon Brief that also calculated a drop of 0.3%.] The data release also revealed that “solar power generation overtook wind for the first time” in 2025, according to Bloomberg. China’s carbon intensity fell 5.1% in 2025, reported the state-run newspaper China Daily in its coverage of the data. [Carbon Brief put this figure at 4.7%, but the scope of the official data appears to have changed.]
Merz’s many meetingsEXTENDED COOPERATION: China and Germany signed an agreement on climate change during a visit by chancellor Friedrich Merz to Beijing, reported Agence France-Presse. The agreement to “extend” a Sino-German dialogue and cooperation mechanism on “climate change and the green transition” pledged to focus on “energy, industry, energy efficiency and the circular economy”, as well as “further implementing the objectives of the Paris Agreement”, said energy news outlet BJX News. Reuters noted that Germany signed far fewer agreements than the UK or Canada during their own recent visits, quoting Merz as saying that trade dynamics were “not healthy” due to overcapacity.
TECH TOUR: Xi told Merz that Germany’s focus on “technology, innovation and digitalisation…aligns closely with China’s smart, green and integrated development”, reported state news agency Xinhua. Merz later met with the heads of several Chinese technology firms in the eastern city of Hangzhou, including representatives from electric vehicle companies, reported the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP).
OVERCAPACITY OUTCRY: Ahead of Merz’s China visit, EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič called for adapting global trading rules to account for “overcapacities”, “unfair trade policies” and “state subsidies”, said SCMP, quoting Šefčovič as saying Europe was “monitoring very closely the increase of plug-in hybrid Chinese vehicle” exports to the EU. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also called on China to halve state support for industry, noting that industrial policies are “giving rise to international spillovers and pressures” and have had a “negative” impact on China’s economy, according to the Financial Times.
More China news- ENERGY SECURITY: Chinese refiners have been instructed to “suspend exports of diesel and gasoline” following the outbreak of the Iran war, reported Bloomberg.
- GET THE GAS: China will waive some import charges for certain oil and gas exploration equipment and gas imports to “improve” energy production and “support” gas utilisation, said energy news outlet International Energy Net.
- LAW REVISIONS: The NEA aims to revise the Electricity Law and Renewable Energy Law in 2026, according to economic news outlet Jiemian.
- DIPLOMATIC ENDEAVOURS: The party committee of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in the communist party-affiliated People’s Daily that addressing climate change through “concrete actions” is a major element of its diplomatic strategy.
- SOLAR RUSH: Solar manufacturers are “ramping up production to boost exports” ahead of the cancellation of solar-export rebates in April, reported energy news outlet China Energy Net.
- DOC DROP: The UK has published its climate agreement with China, signed last year, which includes agreements on “offshore windfarms, electricity grids, battery storage, carbon capture and hydrogen”, reported the Daily Telegraph.
China will set a carbon-intensity reduction target of 17% for 2030, according to a draft of the 15th five-year plan– although analysts note changes to the metric’s methodology.
More broadly, the draft represents continuity with China’s “build before breaking” approach to the energy transition.
Below are some of its key implications for China’s energy transition. A full analysis will be published on the Carbon Brief website tomorrow.
‘Active and steady’ advanceAchieving China’s climate targets will remain a key driver of the country’s policies in the next five years from 2026-30, according to the draft 15th five-year plan.
The draft, released this morning, said China will “actively and steadily advance and achieve carbon peaking”, with policymakers continuing to strike a balance between building a “green economy” and ensuring stability.
Five-year plans are one of the most important documents in China’s political system, outlining policy direction for the next five years.
The latest plan covers the years until 2030, before which China has pledged to peak its carbon emissions. (Analysis for Carbon Brief found that emissions have been “flat or falling” since March 2024.)
China will “continue to pursue” its established direction and objectives on climate, Professor Li Zheng, dean of the Tsinghua University Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development (ICCSD), told Carbon Brief.
Carbon-intensity confusionIn the lead-up to the release of the plan, analysts were keenly watching for signals around China’s adoption of a “dual-control of carbon” system that will see targets set for both carbon intensity and total carbon emissions.
Looking back at the previous five-year plan period, the latest document said China had already achieved a carbon-intensity reduction of 17.7%, just shy of its 18% goal.
Analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), had suggested that China had only cut its carbon intensity by 12% over the past five years.
He told Carbon Brief that the newly reported 17.7% figure is likely due to an “opportunistic” methodological revision to include industrial processes.
The draft 15th five-year plan sets a binding target of another 17% reduction in carbon intensity by 2030. The new methodology means that this leaves space for overall emissions to rise by “3-6% over the next five years”, Myllyvirta said.
The plan also did not set an absolute emissions cap, although Myllyvirta noted that a cap may be announced later in the five-year period, or imposed on select industries via China’s carbon market.
Double in a decadeThe five-year plan continued to call for China’s development of a “new energy system that is clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient” by 2030, with continued additions of “wind, solar, hydro and nuclear power”.
It also called for a doubling of “non-fossil energy” in “10 years” – although it did not clarify whether this meant their installed capacity or electricity generation, or what the exact starting point would be.
Research has shown that doubling wind and solar capacity by 2035 in China would be “consistent” with aims to limit global warming to 2C.
But the plan continued to support the “clean and efficient utilisation of fossil fuels” and did not mention either a cap or peaking timeline for coal consumption.
“How quickly carbon intensity is reduced largely depends on how much renewable energy can be supplied,” said Yao Zhe, global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, in a statement.
Meanwhile, clean-energy technologies continue to play a role in upgrading China’s economy, with several “new energy” sectors listed as key to its industrial policy.
Named sectors include smart electric vehicles, “new solar cells”, new-energy storage, hydrogen and nuclear fusion energy.
This comes as the EU outlined measures to limit China’s hold on clean-energy industries.
However, China is unlikely to crack down on clean-tech production capacity, Dr Rebecca Nadin, director of the Centre for Geopolitics of Change at ODI Global, told Carbon Brief.
Instead, she said, Beijing is “prepared to pour investment into these sectors to cement global market share, jobs and technological leverage”.
Watch, read, listen‘A LOT AT STAKE’: The Penn Project on the Future of US-China Relations held a webinar discussing China’s strength in clean-energy industries and how the US should respond.
KEEPING COAL AFLOAT: Electricity Market Tracker explored the impact of China’s coal “capacity payment” mechanism and what it could mean for the country’s energy transition.
TRACKING PRIORITIES: The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies podcast outlined key energy and climate issues to watch in China in 2026.
FINDING BALANCE: The Asia Society Policy Institute unpacked the drivers behind China’s overcapacity challenges and what a “plausible new equilibrium” might look like.
166.6bn yuanThe direct economic losses ($24.2bn) caused by “floods and geological disasters” in China last year, according to a National Bureau of Statistics data release published by BJX News. China suffered a further 8.6bn yuan ($1.3bn) in losses due to drought, it added.
New science- Rising greenhouse gas emissions have caused “icing days” – during which the daily maximum temperature is lower than 0C – to become less common, but more intense in China over 1961-2020 | Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmospheres
- “A-share listed companies” in China “significantly enhanced” their carbon emission reductions and green innovation over 2007-22 in response to rising “climate risk”, but did not show a significant change to their “environmental protection” | Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change
China Briefing is written by Anika Patel and edited by Simon Evans. Simon Evans contributed to the writing of this edition. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
China Briefing
|China Briefing
|China Briefing 22 January 2026: 2026 priorities; EV agreement; How China uses gas
China Briefing
|China Briefing
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_653aa91ab1a5872e52782cf15ba5f67f .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post China Briefing 5 March 2026: New five-year climate goals revealed at ‘two sessions’ meeting appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Half of nations meet UN deadline for nature-loss reporting
Half of nations have met a UN deadline to report on how they are tackling nature loss within their borders, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
This includes 11 of the 17 “megadiverse nations”, countries that account for 70% of Earth’s biodiversity.
It also includes all of the G7 nations apart from the US, which is not part of the world’s nature treaty.
All 196 countries that are part of the UN biodiversity treaty were due to submit their seventh “national reports” by 28 February, of which 98 have done so.
Their submissions are supposed to provide key information for an upcoming global report on actions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, in addition to a global review of progress due to be conducted by countries at the COP17 nature summit in Armenia in October this year.
At biodiversity talks in Rome in February, UN officials said that national reports submitted late will not be included in the global report due to a lack of time, but could still be considered in the global review.
Tracking nature actionIn 2022, nations signed a landmark deal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030, known as the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF).
In an effort to make sure countries take action at the domestic level, the GBF included an “implementation schedule”, involving the publishing of new national plans in 2024 and new national reports in 2026.
The two sets of documents were to inform both a global report and a global review, to be conducted by countries at COP17 in Armenia later this year. (This schedule mirrors the one set out for tackling climate change under the Paris Agreement.)
The deadline for nations’ seventh national reports, which contain information on their progress towards meeting the 23 targets of the GBF based on a set of key indicators, was 28 February 2026.
According to Carbon Brief’s analysis of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s online reporting platform, 98 out of the 196 countries that are part of the nature convention (50%) submitted on time.
The map below shows countries that submitted their seventh national reports by the UN’s deadline.
Countries that submitted their seventh national reports to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity by the deadline of 28 February. Data source: Convention on Biological Diversity.This includes 11 of the 17 “megadiverse nations” that account for 70% of Earth’s biodiversity.
The megadiverse nations to meet the deadline were India, Venezuela, Indonesia, Madagascar, Peru, Malaysia, South Africa, Colombia, Mexico, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Australia.
It also includes all of the G7 nations (France, Germany, the UK, Japan, Italy and Canada), excluding the US, which has never ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The UK’s seventh national report shows that it is currently on track to meet just three of the GBF’s 23 targets.
This is according to a LinkedIn post from Dr David Cooper, former executive secretary of the CBD and current chair of the UK’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee, which coordinated the UK’s seventh national report.
The report shows the UK is not on track to meet one of the headline targets of the GBF, which is to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030.
It reports that the proportion of land protected for nature is 7% in England, 18% in Scotland, 11% for Wales and 9% in Northern Ireland.
National plansIn addition to the national reports, the upcoming global report and review will draw on countries’ national plans.
Countries were meant to have submitted their new national plans, known as “national biodiversity strategies and action plans” (NBSAPs), by the start of COP16 in October 2024.
A joint investigation by Carbon Brief and the Guardian found that only 15% of member countries met that deadline.
Since then, the percentage of countries that have submitted a new NBSAP has risen to 39%.
According to the GBF and its underlying documents, countries that were “not in a position” to meet the deadline to submit NBSAPs ahead of COP16 were requested to instead submit national targets. These submissions simply list biodiversity targets that countries will aim for, without an accompanying plan for how they will be achieved.
As of 2 March, 78% of nations had submitted national targets.
At biodiversity talks in Rome in February, UN officials said that national reports submitted late will not be included in the global report due to a lack of time, but could still be considered in the global review.
Funding ‘delays’At the Rome talks, some countries raised that they had faced “difficulties in submitting [their national reports] on time”, according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.
Speaking on behalf of “many” countries, Fiji said that there had been “technical and financial constraints faced by parties” in the preparation of their seventh national reports.
In a statement to Carbon Brief, a spokesperson for the Global Environment Facility, the body in charge of providing financial and technical assistance to countries for the preparation of their national reports, said “delays in fund disbursement have occurred in some cases”, adding:
“In 2023, the GEF council approved support for the development of NBSAPs and the seventh national reports for all 139 eligible countries that requested assistance. This includes national grants of up to $450,000 per country and $6m in global technical assistance delivered through the UN Development Programme and UN Environment Programme.
“As of the end of January 2026, all 139 participating countries had benefited from technical assistance and 93% had accessed their national grants, with 11 countries yet to receive their funds. Delays in fund disbursement have occurred in some cases, compounded by procurement challenges and limited availability of technical expertise.”
The spokesperson added that the fund will “continue to engage closely with agencies and countries to support timely completion of NBSAPs and the seventh national reports”.
This article was updated to add in the proportion of area protected for nature in Wales.
Brazil’s biodiversity pledge: Six key takeaways for nature and climate change
Nature policy
|‘Cali Fund’ aiming to raise billions for nature receives first donation – of just $1,000
International policy
|COP30: Key outcomes for food, forests, land and nature at the UN climate talks in Belém
COP30 Belém
|COP30: Could Brazil’s ‘Tropical Forest Forever’ fund help tackle climate change?
COP30 Belém
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_80987a2ed2cd719a8e08f4f9e6e978c2 .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post Analysis: Half of nations meet UN deadline for nature-loss reporting appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
‘DRILL, BABY’: US president Donald Trump “doubled down on his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda” in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, said the Los Angeles Times. He “tout[ed] his support of the fossil-fuel industry and renew[ed] his focus on electricity affordability”, reported the Financial Times. Trump also attacked the “green new scam”, noted Carbon Brief’s SOTU tracker.
COAL REPRIEVE: Earlier in the week, the Trump administration had watered down limits on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, reported the Financial Times. It remains “unclear” if this will be enough to prevent the decline of coal power, said Bloomberg, in the face of lower-cost gas and renewables. Reuters noted that US coal plants are “ageing”.
OIL STAY: The US Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments brought by the oil industry in a “major lawsuit”, reported the New York Times. The newspaper said the firms are attempting to head off dozens of other lawsuits at state level, relating to their role in global warming.
SHIP-SHILLING: The Trump administration is working to “kill” a global carbon levy on shipping “permanently”, reported Politico, after succeeding in delaying the measure late last year. The Guardian said US “bullying” could be “paying off”, after Panama signalled it was reversing its support for the levy in a proposal submitted to the UN shipping body.
Around the world- RARE EARTHS: The governments of Brazil and India signed a deal on rare earths, said the Times of India, as well as agreeing to collaborate on renewable energy.
- HEAT ROLLBACK: German homes will be allowed to continue installing gas and oil heating, under watered-down government plans covered by Clean Energy Wire.
- BRAZIL FLOODS: At least 53 people died in floods in the state of Minas Gerais, after some areas saw 170mm of rain in a few hours, reported CNN Brasil.
- ITALY’S ATTACK: Italy is calling for the EU to “suspend” its emissions trading system (ETS) ahead of a review later this year, said Politico.
- COOKSTOVE CREDITS: The first-ever carbon credits under the Paris Agreement have been issued to a cookstove project in Myanmar, said Climate Home News.
- SAUDI SOLAR: Turkey has signed a “major” solar deal that will see Saudi firm ACWA building 2 gigawatts in the country, according to Agence France-Presse.
The profits made by five major oil firms since prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago, according to a report by Global Witness covered by BusinessGreen.
Latest climate research- Claims about the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change, made in a recent US Department of Energy report, are “factually incorrect” | AGU Advances
- Large lakes in the Congo Basin are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from “immense ancient stores” | Nature Geoscience
- Shared Socioeconomic Pathways – scenarios used regularly in climate modelling – underrepresent “narratives explicitly centring on democratic principles such as participation, accountability and justice” | npj Climate Action
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
CapturedThe constituency of Richard Tice MP, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of Reform UK, is the second-largest recipient of flood defence spending in England, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Overall, the funding is disproportionately targeted at coastal and urban areas, many of which have Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs.
Spotlight Is there really a UK ‘greenlash’?This week, after a historic Green Party byelection win, Carbon Brief looks at whether there really is a “greenlash” against climate policy in the UK.
Over the past year, the UK’s political consensus on climate change has been shattered.
Yet despite a sharp turn against climate action among right-wing politicians and right-leaning media outlets, UK public support for climate action remains strong.
Prof Federica Genovese, who studies climate politics at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief:
“The current ‘war’ on green policy is mostly driven by media and political elites, not by the public.”
Indeed, there is still a greater than two-to-one majority among the UK public in favour of the country’s legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, as shown below.
Steve Akehurst, director of public-opinion research initiative Persuasion UK, also noted the growing divide between the public and “elites”. He told Carbon Brief:
“The biggest movement is, without doubt, in media and elite opinion. There is a bit more polarisation and opposition [to climate action] among voters, but it’s typically no more than 20-25% and mostly confined within core Reform voters.”
Conservative gear shiftFor decades, the UK had enjoyed strong, cross-party political support for climate action.
Lord Deben, the Conservative peer and former chair of the Climate Change Committee, told Carbon Brief that the UK’s landmark 2008 Climate Change Act had been born of this cross-party consensus, saying “all parties supported it”.
Since their landslide loss at the 2024 election, however, the Conservatives have turned against the UK’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050, which they legislated for in 2019.
Curiously, while opposition to net-zero has surged among Conservative MPs, there is majority support for the target among those that plan to vote for the party, as shown below.
Dr Adam Corner, advisor to the Climate Barometer initiative that tracks public opinion on climate change, told Carbon Brief that those who currently plan to vote Reform are the only segment who “tend to be more opposed to net-zero goals”. He said:
“Despite the rise in hostile media coverage and the collapse of the political consensus, we find that public support for the net-zero by 2050 target is plateauing – not plummeting.”
Reform, which rejects the scientific evidence on global warming and campaigns against net-zero, has been leading the polls for a year. (However, it was comfortably beaten by the Greens in yesterday’s Gorton and Denton byelection.)
Corner acknowledged that “some of the anti-net zero noise…[is] showing up in our data”, adding:
“We see rising concerns about the near-term costs of policies and an uptick in people [falsely] attributing high energy bills to climate initiatives.”
But Akehurst said that, rather than a big fall in public support, there had been a drop in the “salience” of climate action:
“So many other issues [are] competing for their attention.”
UK newspapers published more editorials opposing climate action than supporting it for the first time on record in 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Global ‘greenlash’?All of this sits against a challenging global backdrop, in which US president Donald Trump has been repeating climate-sceptic talking points and rolling back related policy.
At the same time, prominent figures have been calling for a change in climate strategy, sold variously as a “reset”, a “pivot”, as “realism”, or as “pragmatism”.
Genovese said that “far-right leaders have succeeded in the past 10 years in capturing net-zero as a poster child of things they are ‘fighting against’”.
She added that “much of this is fodder for conservative media and this whole ecosystem is essentially driving what we call the ‘greenlash’”.
Corner said the “disconnect” between elite views and the wider public “can create problems” – for example, “MPs consistently underestimate support for renewables”. He added:
“There is clearly a risk that the public starts to disengage too, if not enough positive voices are countering the negative ones.”
Watch, read, listenTRUMP’S ‘PETROSTATE’: The US is becoming a “petrostate” that will be “sicker and poorer”, wrote Financial Times associate editor Rana Forohaar.
RHETORIC VS REALITY: Despite a “political mood [that] has darkened”, there is “more green stuff being installed than ever”, said New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells.
CHINA’S ‘REVOLUTION’: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast reported from China on the “green energy revolution” taking place in the country.
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean, Brasília
- 3 March: UK spring statement
- 4-11 March: China’s “two sessions”
- 5 March: Nepal elections
- The Guardian, senior reporter, climate justice | Salary: $123,000-$135,000. Location: New York or Washington DC
- China-Global South Project, non-resident fellow, climate change | Salary: Up to $1,000 a month. Location: Remote
- University of East Anglia, PhD in mobilising community-based climate action through co-designed sports and wellbeing interventions | Salary: Stipend (unknown amount). Location: Norwich, UK
- TABLE and the University of São Paulo, Brazil, postdoctoral researcher in food system narratives | Salary: Unknown. Location: Pirassununga, Brazil
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
DeBriefed
|DeBriefed
|DeBriefed
|DeBriefed
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_456f972e6aab12ee3cbed8aecb0fb77d .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
The Lincolnshire constituency held by Richard Tice, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of the hard-right Reform party, has been pledged at least £55m in government funding for flood defences since 2024.
This investment in Boston and Skegness is the second-largest sum for a single constituency from a £1.4bn flood-defence fund for England, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
Flooding is becoming more likely and more extreme in the UK due to climate change.
Yet, for years, governments have failed to spend enough on flood defences to protect people, properties and infrastructure.
The £1.4bn fund is part of the current Labour government’s wider pledge to invest a “record” £7.9bn over a decade on protecting hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from flooding.
As MP for one of England’s most flood-prone regions, Tice has called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
He is also one of Reform’s most vocal opponents of climate action and what he calls “net stupid zero”. He denies the scientific consensus on climate change and has claimed, falsely and without evidence, that scientists are “lying”.
Flood defencesLast year, the government said it would invest £2.65bn on flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) schemes in England between April 2024 and March 2026.
This money was intended to protect 66,500 properties from flooding. It is part of a decade-long Labour government plan to spend more than £7.9bn on flood defences.
There has been a consistent shortfall in maintaining England’s flood defences, with the Environment Agency expecting to protect fewer properties by 2027 than it had initially planned.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has attributed this to rising costs, backlogs from previous governments and a lack of capacity. It also points to the strain from “more frequent and severe” weather events, such as storms in recent years that have been amplified by climate change.
However, the CCC also said last year that, if the 2024-26 spending programme is delivered, it would be “slightly closer to the track” of the Environment Agency targets out to 2027.
The government has released constituency-level data on which schemes in England it plans to fund, covering £1.4bn of the 2024-26 investment. The other half of the FCERM spending covers additional measures, from repairing existing defences to advising local authorities.
The map below shows the distribution of spending on FCERM schemes in England over the past two years, highlighting the constituency of Richard Tice.
Flood-defence spending on new and replacement schemes in England in 2024-25 and 2025-26. The government notes that, as Environment Agency accounts have not been finalised and approved, the investment data is “provisional and subject to change”. Some schemes cover multiple constituencies and are not included on the map. Source: Environment Agency FCERM data.By far the largest sum of money – £85.6m in total – has been committed to a tidal barrier and various other defences in the Somerset constituency of Bridgwater, the seat of Conservative MP Ashley Fox.
Over the first months of 2026, the south-west region has faced significant flooding and Fox has called for more support from the government, citing “climate patterns shifting and rainfall intensifying”.
He has also backed his party’s position that “the 2050 net-zero target is impossible” and called for more fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea.
Tice’s east-coast constituency of Boston and Skegness, which is highly vulnerable to flooding from both rivers and the sea, is set to receive £55m. Among the supported projects are beach defences from Saltfleet to Gibraltar Point and upgrades to pumping stations.
Overall, Boston and Skegness has the second-largest portion of flood-defence funding, as the chart below shows. Constituencies with Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs occupied the other top positions.
Top 10 English constituencies by FCERM funding in 2024-25 and 2025-26. Source: Environment Agency FCERM data.Overall, despite Labour MPs occupying 347 out of England’s 543 constituencies – nearly two-thirds of the total – more than half of the flood-defence funding was distributed to constituencies with non-Labour MPs. This reflects the flood risk in coastal and rural areas that are not traditional Labour strongholds.
Reform fundingWhile Reform has just eight MPs, representing 1% of the population, its constituencies have been assigned 4% of the flood-defence funding for England.
Nearly all of this money was for Tice’s constituency, although party leader Nigel Farage’s coastal Clacton seat in Kent received £2m.
Reform UK is committed to “scrapping net-zero” and its leadership has expressed firmly climate-sceptic views.
Much has been made of the disconnect between the party’s climate policies and the threat climate change poses to its voters. Various analyses have shown the flood risk in Reform-dominated areas, particularly Lincolnshire.
Tice has rejected climate science, advocated for fossil-fuel production and criticised Environment Agency flood-defence activities. Yet, he has also called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
This may reflect Tice’s broader approach to climate change. In a 2024 interview with LBC, he said:
“Where you’ve got concerns about sea level defences and sea level rise, guess what? A bit of steel, a bit of cement, some aggregate…and you build some concrete sea level defences. That’s how you deal with rising sea levels.”
While climate adaptation is viewed as vital in a warming world, there are limits on how much societies can adapt and adaptation costs will continue to increase as emissions rise.
Climate change and La Niña made ‘devastating’ southern African floods more intense
Attribution
|Guest post: How adaptation has cut flood deaths and losses in Europe
Attribution
|Media reaction: The 2025 Texas floods and the role of climate change
Extreme weather
|Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world
Attribution
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_1688feafd9e9a3680ce3c7c942467663 .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Charting credible pathways to phase out fossil fuels – Santa Marta 2026
In April 2026, Colombia and the Netherlands will bring together a “coalition of the willing” governments and partners in Santa Marta to advance a roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels. Carbon Tracker is contributing through the associated Global Science & Policy Conference, an academic convening immediately before the governmental conference that translates current research and ideas on transition pathways into roadmap options and evidence for the main intergovernmental discussions.
What is the Santa Marta Process?The Santa Marta Process is intended to move the fossil fuel phase-out debate from general commitments to practical pathways which can inform an overall roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. It will focus on the real-world challenges: supply and demand, economic and fiscal vulnerabilities, the role of state-owned enterprises, pathways to diversify and decarbonise, the key enabling condition of finance. The process links political decision-making with expert and civil society inputs so that the roadmap reflects both climate objectives and economic realities.
Why it mattersThe Santa Marta conference in April is unprecedented – the first time that a strong group of countries have come together actively to discuss how to transition away from fossil fuels, to meet the goals of the Paris agreement to limit warming. This conference marks the start of an ongoing Santa Marta Process to progress real-world transition, with a second conference envisaged for later this year. The challenge of the transition raises important questions that sit with finance ministries, economic planners, regulators and investors: fiscal reliance on fossil revenues, balance-of-payments exposure, sovereign credit dynamics, and the enabling conditions required to mobilise investment at scale. The Santa Marta Process provides a collaborative forum to address these constraints directly and to test policy and financing approaches against real-world geo-political and economic conditions.
How Carbon Tracker is contributingCarbon Tracker is a co-convener of the Global Science & Policy Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels hosted by the Universidad del Magdalena in Santa Marta on 24-25 April 2026. Carbon Tracker will work with universities and partner organisations to provide cutting-edge research and analysis that will inform the decisions governments and finance actors need to make. The purpose of this expert convening is to develop policy-relevant outputs – grounded in evidence – that can inform the roadmap discussions and strengthen the quality of the political decisions.
What Carbon Tracker brings to the tableCarbon Tracker works at the intersection of the energy transition and capital markets. Our contribution will focus on three areas:
- Managed decline through a finance and economics lens – Analysis of how different fossil fuel phase-out pathways may affect sovereign credit, fiscal resilience and market pricing of transition risk, including implications for sovereign borrowing costs and access to investors’ capital.
- Diversification and transition finance enabling conditions – Evidence on the policy and investment conditions that support diversification and mobilise capital to fund clean energy infrastructure at scale, with a focus on the questions typically led by finance ministries, economic planners and regulators.
- Data and decision support – Scenario-based work (drawing on the Global Registry of Fossil Fuels as a policy tool) to help compare decline pathways. These scenarios are intended to demonstrate the implications of various routes to decabonisation and transition trade-offs, not to prescribe outcomes.
The Science Pre-Conference convenes scholars, think tanks and practitioners across economics, political science, law, sociology and related disciplines. It includes outcome-focused workstreams: self-organised workshops designed to produce practical outputs which will feed into the inter-governmental conference proper. Workstreams include central banking, fossil methane, roadmap architecture, labour transition and regional economic diversification, economics and data, and state-owned enterprises, among others. Co-conveners are Universidad del Magdalena; University of British Columbia; University of Sussex; Hong Kong University of Science & Technology Guangzhou; Carbon Tracker Initiative; Climate Strategies; IISD; and LINGO.
Explore Carbon Tracker key resources relevant to the Santa Marta roadmapPetroStates of Decline: oil and gas producers face growing fiscal risks as the energy transition unfolds – fiscal exposure and sovereign risk
https://carbontracker.org/reports/petrostates-of-decline/
Switching to battery powered electric vehicles will save the Global South over $100 billion annually – demand-side disruption and oil demand implications
https://carbontracker.org/reports/electric-vehicles-in-the-global-south/
Tracking Emissions to Source – methodology underpinning the Global Registry of Fossil Fuels
https://carbontracker.org/reports/tracking-emissions-to-source/
Global Registry of Fossil Fuels – overview of the tool and how it is used
https://carbontracker.org/finally-we-have-a-global-registry-of-fossil-fuels/
For more information, contact the policy team financialpolicy@tracker-group.org
The post Charting credible pathways to phase out fossil fuels – Santa Marta 2026 appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.
DeBriefed 13 February 2026: Trump repeals landmark ‘endangerment finding’ | China’s emissions flatlining | UK’s ‘relentless rain’
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
DANGER DANGER: The Trump administration formally repealed the US’s landmark “endangerment finding” this week, reported the Financial Times. The 2009 Obama-era finding concluded that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and has provided a legal basis for their regulation over the past two decades, said the New York Times.
RACE TO COURT: Multiple environmental groups have already threatened to sue over the administration’s decision, reported the Guardian. The fate of the ruling is likely to ultimately be decided by the Conservative-majority Supreme Court, explained the New York Times.
‘BEAUTIFUL CLEAN COAL’: Separately, Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring the Pentagon to buy coal-fired power, a move aimed to “revive a fuel source in sharp decline”, reported the Los Angeles Times. Despite his efforts, Trump has overseen more retirements of coal-fired power stations than any other US president, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Around the world- CLIMATE TALKS: UN climate chief Simon Stiell said in a speech on Thursday that climate action can deliver stability in the face of a “new world disorder“ while on a visit to Turkey, which will host the COP31 climate summit later this year, reported BusinessGreen.
- IBERIAN CATASTROPHE: A succession of storms that hit Spain and Portugal in recent weeks have caused millions of euros worth of damage to farmlands and required more than 11,000 people to leave their homes in Spain’s southern Andalusia region, said Reuters.
- RISKY BUSINESS: The “undervaluing” of nature by businesses is fuelling its decline and putting the global economy at risk, according to a new report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), covered by Carbon Brief. Carbon Brief interviewed IPBES chair Dr David Obura at the report’s launch in Manchester.
- CORAL BLEACHING: A study covered by Agence France-Presse found that more than half of the world’s coral reefs were bleached over a three-year period from 2014-17 during Earth’s third “global bleaching event”. The world has since entered a fourth bleaching event, starting in 2023, a scientist told AFP.
- ‘HELLISH HOTHOUSE EARTH’: In a commentary paper, scientists argued that the world is closer than thought to a “point of no return”, which could plunge Earth into a “hellish hothouse” state, reported the Guardian.
The record amount of solar, onshore wind and tidal power secured in the latest auction for new renewable capacity in the UK, reported Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research- Human-caused climate change made the hot, dry and windy weather in Chile and Argentina three times more likely | World Weather Attribution (Carbon Brief also covered the study)
- “Early-life” exposure to extreme heat “increases risk” of neurodevelopmental delay in preschool children | Nature Climate Change
- Climate change, urbanisation and species characteristics shape European butterfly population trends | Global Ecology and Biogeography
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
CapturedChina’s carbon dioxide emissions have “now been flat or falling for 21 months”, analysis for Carbon Brief has found. The trend began in March 2024 and has lasted almost two years, due in particular to falling emissions in major sectors, including transport, power and cement, said the analysis. The analysis has been covered widely in global media, including Agence France-Presse, Bloomberg, New York Times, BBC World Service and Channel 4 News.
Spotlight UK’s ‘relentless rain’This week, Carbon Brief takes a deep dive into the recent relentless rain and floods in the UK and explores how they could be linked to climate change.
It is no secret that it can rain a lot in the UK. But, in some parts of the country, it has rained every day of the year so far, according to Met Office data released this week.
In total, 26 stations set new monthly rainfall records for January. Northern Ireland experienced its wettest January for 149 years and Plymouth, in the south-west of England, experienced its wettest January day in 104 years.
Areas witnessing long periods of rain included Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, which has seen 41 consecutive days of rain “and counting”, reported the Guardian. The University of Reading found that its home town had its longest period of consecutive rain – 25 days – since its records for the city began in 1908.
The relentless rainfall has caused flooding in many parts of the country, particularly in rural areas.
There were more than 200 active flood alerts in place across England and Wales at the weekend, with flood warnings clustered around Gloucester and Worcester in the West Midlands, as well as Devon and Hampshire in southern England. A flood “alert” means that there is a possibility of flooding, while a “warning” means flooding is expected.
“Growing up, the road to my school never flooded. But the school has already had to close three times this year because of flooding,” Jess Powell, a local resident of a small village in Shropshire, told Carbon Brief.
Burst river bank of the river Severn in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Credit: Alice Vernat-Davies Climate linkWhile there has not yet been a formal analysis into the role of climate change in the UK’s current lengthy period of rain and flooding, it is known that human-caused warming can play a role in wet weather extremes, explained Dr Jess Neumann, a flooding researcher from the University of Reading. She told Carbon Brief:
“Warmer air can hold more moisture – about 7% more for every 1C of warming, increasing the chance of more frequent and at times, intense rainfall.”
The UK owes its rainy climate in large part due to the jet stream, which brings strong winds from west to east and pushes low-pressure weather systems across the Atlantic.
Scientists have said that one of the factors behind the UK’s relentless rain is the “blocking” of the jet stream, which occurs when winds slow, causing rainy weather patterns to get stuck.
The impact of climate change on the jet stream is complex, involving a lot of different factors. One theory, still subject to debate among scientists, is that Arctic warming could play a role, explained Neumann:
“As the Arctic warms faster than the tropics, the temperature gradient that fuels the jet stream weakens, causing it to become slower and wavier. Blocking patterns develop that can cause weather conditions to get stuck over the UK, increasing the likelihood of extreme rainfall and flooding.”
Adaptation needsLong periods of rain saturate the ground and can have adverse impacts on agriculture and wildlife.
Prof Richard Betts, a leading climate scientist at the Met Office and the University of Exeter, said that these impacts can have harmful effects in rural areas:
“The climate change-driven increase in flood risk is impacting food production in the UK. In 2024, the production of wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape shrunk by 13% due to widespread flooding of farmland.
“Assistance with recovery after flooding is increasingly important – obviously, financial help via insurance and reinsurance is vital, but also action to reduce impacts on mental health is increasingly important. It’s very stressful dealing with the impacts of flooding and this is often not recognised.”
One key adaptation for floods in the UK could be to “integrate natural flood management, including sustainable urban drainage, with more traditional hard engineering techniques”, added Neumann:
“Most importantly, we need to improve our communication of flood risk to help individuals and communities know how to prepare. We need to shift our thinking from ‘keeping water out’ to ‘living with water’, if we want to adapt better to a future of flooding.”
Watch, read, listen‘IRREVERSIBLE TREND?’: The Guardian explored how Romania’s emissions have fallen by 75% since the 1990s and have been decoupled from the country’s economic growth.
UNDER THE SEA: An article in BioGraphic explored whether the skeletons of dead corals “help or hinder recovery” on bleached reefs.
SPEEDING UP: Through dynamic charts, the Washington Post showed how climate change is accelerating.
Coming up- 16-19 February: Sixth meeting of the subsidiary body on implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Rome, Italy
- 20 February: Webinar on the key findings from the International Energy Agency policy brief: the value of demand flexibility: benefits beyond balancing
- 20 February: UN day of social justice
- 22-27 February: Ocean Sciences Meeting, Glasgow, UK
- UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), national senior climate change expert | Salary: Unknown. Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh
- British Antarctic Survey, marine biologist | Salary: £31,183. Location: Antarctica
- Green Climate Fund, regional lead for resource mobilisation – Europe | Salary: $109,000. Location: Seoul, South Korea
- Scientific American, documentary film proposals | Up to $80,000 per commissioned film
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
DeBriefed
|DeBriefed 30 January 2026: Fire and ice; US formally exits Paris; Climate image faux pas
DeBriefed
|DeBriefed 23 January 2026: Trump’s Davos tirade; EU wind and solar milestone; High seas hope
DeBriefed
|DeBriefed
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_0c1fb743ebca86b78322921d07b11a5a .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post DeBriefed 13 February 2026: Trump repeals landmark ‘endangerment finding’ | China’s emissions flatlining | UK’s ‘relentless rain’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #7 2026
Shifting baselines alter trends and emergence of climate extremes across Africa, Taguela & Akinsanola, Atmospheric Research
World Meteorological Organization baselines used to identify climate extremes are routinely updated to reflect recent climate conditions. Yet the implications of these updates for the characterization, trends, and detectability of climate extremes remain poorly understood, particularly in data-sparse and highly vulnerable regions such as Africa. Here, we quantify how updating the reference period from 1981–2010 to 1991–2020 systematically alters the characterization of temperature and precipitation extremes across the continent. Using multiple observational and reanalysis datasets (BEST, ERA5, MERRA-2, CHIRPS), we assess the sensitivity of percentile-based thresholds, long-term trends, and the Time of Emergence (ToE) to changes in the reference period. ToE is employed here as a diagnostic of detectability rather than a definitive marker of anthropogenic signal onset. Our results show that the updated baseline leads to higher temperature thresholds, resulting in a reduced frequency and slower trends for warm extremes (TX90p, TN90p), and a concurrent increase in cold extremes (TX10p, TN10p). Precipitation extremes exhibit more heterogeneous and dataset-dependent responses: trends in extreme precipitation totals (R95pTOT, R99pTOT) generally weaken, whereas intensity-based metrics (R95pINT, R99pINT) often strengthen, particularly in MERRA-2. Moreover, the choice of baseline strongly influences the estimated ToE. Warm extremes emerge 2–8 years later under the newer baseline, while cold extremes emerge earlier (by up to 15 years) due to enhanced signal-to-noise ratios. For precipitation, ToE responses vary widely across datasets and regions. In CHIRPS, the ToE of intense rainfall events is delayed, whereas in MERRA-2 it advances by over 2 decades in some regions. These results indicate that ToE estimates derived from recent decades are highly sensitive to baseline selection. By explicitly isolating the effect of baseline choice, this study provides a critical framework for interpreting extremes, reconciling dataset discrepancies, and improving the robustness of climate monitoring and risk communication across Africa.
[The same innocently mindless yet deceptive baseline updates pertain in other domains.]
Enhanced weather persistence due to amplified Arctic warming, Graversen et al., Communications Earth & Environment
Changing weather is an aspect of global warming potentially constituting a major challenge for humanity in the coming decades. Some climate models indicate that, due to global warming, future weather will become more persistent, with surface-air temperature anomalies lasting longer. However, to date, an observed change in weather persistence has not been robustly confirmed. Here we show that weather persistence in terms of temperature anomalies, across all weather types and seasons, has increased during recent decades in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes. This persistence increase is linked to Arctic temperature amplification – the Arctic warming faster than the global average – and hence global warming. Persistent weather may lead to extreme weather, and for many plants such as crops, weather persistence can be devastating, as these plants often depend on weather variations. Hence, our results call for further investigation of weather-persistence impact on extreme weather, biodiversity, and the global food supply.
Northward shift of boreal tree cover confirmed by satellite record, Feng et al., Biogeosciences
The boreal forest has experienced the fastest warming of any forested biome in recent decades. While vegetation–climate models predict a northward migration of boreal tree cover, the long-term studies required to test the hypothesis have been confined to regional analyses, general indices of vegetation productivity, and data calibrated to other ecoregions. Here we report a comprehensive test of the magnitude, direction, and significance of changes in the distribution of the boreal forest based on the longest and highest-resolution time-series of calibrated satellite maps of tree cover to date. From 1985 to 2020, boreal tree cover expanded by 0.844 million km2, a 12 % relative increase since 1985, and shifted northward by 0.29° mean and 0.43° median latitude. Gains were concentrated between 64–68° N and exceeded losses at southern margins, despite stable disturbance rates across most latitudes. Forest age distributions reveal that young stands (up to 36 years) now comprise 15.4 % of forest area and hold 1.1–5.9 Pg of aboveground biomass carbon, with the potential to sequester an additional 2.3–3.8 Pg C if allowed to mature. These findings confirm the northward advance of the boreal forest and implicate the future importance of the region's greening to the global carbon budget.
Securing the past for the future – why climate proxy archives should be protected, Bebchuk & Büntgen, Boreas
Glaciers, corals, speleothems, peatlands, trees and other natural proxy archives are essential for global climate change research, but their scarcity and fragility are not equally recognised. Here, we introduce a rapidly disappearing source of palaeoclimatic, environmental and archaeological evidence from some 5000 years ago in the Fenland of eastern England to argue for the protection of natural proxy archives. We describe the region's exceptional, yet neglected subfossil wood sources, discuss its multifaceted value for scholarship and society, and outline a prototype for sustainable proxy preservation. Finally, we emphasise the urgency and complexity of conservation strategies that must balance academic, public and economic interests across different spatiotemporal scales.
From this week's government/NGO section:Poll Shows GOP Voters Support Solar Energy, American-Made Solar, Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, First Solar
A national poll by the authors found widespread support for solar energy among Republicans, Republican-leaning Independents, and voters who supported President Donald J. Trump. The poll of 800 GOP+ voters found that they are in favor of the use of utility-scale solar by a more than 20-point margin, with 51% in favor; if the panels used for solar energy are American made with no ties to China, support for solar energy soars higher. Those in favor jump to 70%, while only 19% are opposed; 68% agree that the United States needs all forms of electricity generation, including utility solar, to be built for lowering electricity costs, compared to 22% who disagreed; 79% agree that the government should allow all forms of electricity generation, including utility-scale solar, to compete on their own merits and without political interference, versus 11% who disagreed; a clear majority (52%) of GOP+ voters are more likely to support a Congressional candidate if they support an all-of-the-above energy agenda, including the use of solar; and 51% are more likely to vote for a candidate who supported an American company building a solar panel manufacturing plant in the US.Hot stuff: geothermal energy in Europe, Tatiana Mindeková and Gianluca Geneletti, Ember
Advances in drilling and reservoir engineering are unlocking geothermal electricity across much wider parts of Europe, at a time when the power system needs firm, low-carbon supply and reduced reliance on fossil fuels. Once limited to a few favorable locations, geothermal is now positioned to scale. Around 43 GW of enhanced geothermal capacity in the European Union could be developed at costs below 100 €/MWh today, comparable to coal and gas electricity. The largest potential is concentrated in Hungary, followed by Poland, Germany and France. While representing only a fraction of Europe’s total geothermal potential, the identified EU-level deployment could deliver around 301 TWh of electricity per year, reflecting geothermal’s high capacity factor. This is equivalent to about 42% of coal- and gas-fired generation in the EU in 2025. 178 articles in 67 journals by 1224 contributing authorsPhysical science of climate change, effects
Amplifying Variability of the Southern Annular Mode in the Past and Future, Ma et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl119214
An Analytical Model of the Lifecycle of Tropical Anvil Cloud Radiative Effects, Lutsko et al., Open Access pdf 10.22541/essoar.175492939.96377329/v1
Causes and consequences of Arctic amplification elucidated by coordinated multimodel experiments, Screen et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-03052-z
Enhanced Adiabatic Heating Drives Faster Warming of Early Summer Hot Extremes in North China, Fang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl120396
Evolution of Temperature Extremes During the Holocene: From the Modeling Perspective, Dou & Shi, Open Access pdf 10.22541/au.175329652.23512823/v1
Recent Tropical Cyclone Outer Size Increases in the Western North Atlantic, Balaguru et al., Earth's Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007162
What Factors Explain the Current Arctic Albedo and Its Future Change?, Kim & Taylor, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025jd044070
Observations of climate change, effects
A Climatology of Heatwaves Over Greece for the Period 1960–2022, Ioannidis et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.70204
Amplifying Variability of the Southern Annular Mode in the Past and Future, Ma et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl119214
Climate change and fires drive mire development in central Siberian permafrost areas over the past century, Babeshko et al., The Holocene 10.1177/09596836251407585
Climate change has increased global evaporative demand except in South Asia, Karimzadeh et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-02959-x
Enhanced weather persistence due to amplified Arctic warming, Graversen et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-03050-1
Increased contributions of climate-driven wildfires to nitrogen deposition in the United States, Campbell et al., Open Access pdf 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6673143/v1
Long-term spatiotemporal analysis of variation in soil moisture over Iran, Darand & Tashan, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar 10.1016/j.jastp.2026.106727
Northward shift of boreal tree cover confirmed by satellite record, Feng et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-1089-2026
Record-Breaking Summertime Terrestrial and Marine Heat Waves in Southeast Asia Driven by Internal Variability during 2020–22, Wang et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0202.1
Resolving the changing pace of Arctic rivers, Geyman & Lamb, Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02512-w
Shifting cyclone travel speed and its impact on global mangrove ecosystems, Mo et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adx6799
Stratopause trends observed by satellite limb instruments, Dubé et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-26-2161-2026
Strongly Heterogeneous Surface-Water Warming Trends in High Mountain Asia, Smith & Bookhagen, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl119418
“Vulnerabilities and compound risks of escalating climate disasters in the Brazilian Amazon”, Pinho et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-025-66603-0
Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects
A database of databases for Common Era paleoclimate applications, Evans et al., Earth System Science Data Open Access 10.5194/essd-18-1185-2026
Exploring Clear-Sky Longwave Radiative Closure in the Arctic: A Downwelling Case Study, Mosselmans et al., Atmospheric Science Letters Open Access 10.1002/asl.70000
Learning From Natural Experiments to Accelerate Demographic Research on Climate-Related Threats to Human Populations, Fussell et al., WIREs Climate Change Open Access 10.1002/wcc.70031
Sea Surface Temperature and Directional Wave Spectra During the 2023 Marine Heatwave in the North Atlantic, Peláez-Zapata et al., Scientific Data Open Access 10.1038/s41597-025-06268-y
Securing the past for the future – why climate proxy archives should be protected, Bebchuk & Büntgen, Boreas Open Access pdf 10.1111/bor.70039
Shifting baselines alter trends and emergence of climate extremes across Africa, Taguela & Akinsanola, Atmospheric Research Open Access 10.1016/j.atmosres.2026.108839
Time irreversibility as an indicator of approaching tipping points in Earth subsystems, Kooloth et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-03165-5
Where to place? Strategic siting of urban climate monitoring stations using Local Climate Zones and city-scale PALM modeling, Schneider et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102782
Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects
ENSO's Impacts on Southeastern Australia's Future Rainfall Risk, Huang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl118673
Future Intensification of Compound Heatwaves and Socioeconomic Exposure in Africa, Bobde et al., Earth's Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007022
Increased Streamflow Intermittence in Europe Due To Climate Change Projected by Combining Global Hydrological Modeling and Machine Learning, Abbasi et al., 10.22541/essoar.173557434.40176318/v1
Mesoscale Convective Systems over South America: Representation in Kilometer-Scale Met Office Unified Model Climate Simulations, Gilmour et al., Journal of Climate Open Access 10.1175/jcli-d-24-0754.1
More Frequent and Intense Tropical Cyclone-Heat Wave Compound Extremes Over the Coastal Regions of China in a Warmer Climate, Wang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 10.1029/2025jd044509
Multiple Fire Index Examination of Future Climate Change Affecting Wildfire Seasonality and Extremes in the Contiguous United States, Kessenich et al., Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 10.1175/jamc-d-24-0230.1
Spatiotemporal prioritization of soil erosion risk using the RUSLE model and CMIP6 projections under future climate scenarios in a Mediterranean watershed, ?pek & Kahya, Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1760569
Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection
Climate Models Tend to Underestimate Scaling of UK Mean Winter Precipitation With Temperature, Carruthers et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl118201
High-resolution forecasting of soil thermal regimes using different deep learning frameworks under climate change, Saeidinia et al., Open Access pdf 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7642696/v1
Performance Evaluation of CMIP6 Models on the Arctic-Siberian Plain Teleconnection Affecting the East Asian Heat Waves, Kim et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100867
Runoff evaluation in an Earth System Land Model for permafrost regions in Alaska, Huang et al., Geoscientific Model Development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-1193-2026
Significance of Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies to Arctic sea ice variability revealed by deep learning, Li et al., npj Climate and Atmospheric Science Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41612-026-01347-2
Temperature variability projections remain uncertain after constraining them to best performing Large Ensembles of individual Climate Models, & , Open Access pmh:oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/792982
The ACCESS-AM2 climate model underestimates aerosol concentration in the Southern Ocean; improving aerosol representation could be problematic for the global energy balance, Fiddes et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-25-16451-2025
The representation of climate impacts in the FRIDAv2.1 Integrated Assessment Model, Wells et al., Open Access 10.5194/egusphere-2025-2756
Understanding CMIP6 Multi-Model Ensemble Projected Pacific Warming Pattern Variability, McGregor et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl118815
Unveiling the dominant control of the systematic cooling bias in CMIP6 models: quantification and corrective strategies, Zhang et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-26-2175-2026
What Factors Explain the Current Arctic Albedo and Its Future Change?, Kim & Taylor, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025jd044070
Cryosphere & climate change
Circulation and ocean–ice shelf interaction beneath the Denman and Shackleton Ice Shelves, Rintoul et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adx1024
Evaluating the effectiveness of artificial covering in reducing glacier melt, LIU et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.01.011
Glacier surging and surge-related hazards in a changing climate, et al., pmh:oai:durham-repository.worktribe.com:4929395
Melting glaciers as symbols of tourism paradoxes, Salim et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02544-2
Melting ice and transforming beliefs, Allison et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02551-3
Negligible global but substantial regional effect of vegetation greening on the 21st century permafrost, Ran et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2025.12.012
Northward shift of boreal tree cover confirmed by satellite record, Feng et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-1089-2026
Recent and projected changes in rain-on-snow event characteristics across Svalbard, Vickers et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-19-6907-2025
Record-breaking Greenland ice sheet melt events under recent and future climate, Bonsoms et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-69543-5
Spatially variable response of Antarctica’s ice sheets to orbital forcing during the Pliocene, Patterson et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-025-01840-y
Stabilizing feedbacks allow for multiple states of the Greenland Ice Sheet in a fully coupled Earth System – Ice Sheet Model, Andernach et al., Open Access pdf 10.5194/egusphere-2025-4736
The impact of 75?years of climate change on Mediterranean glacier mass balance, Wang et al., Global and Planetary Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105370
Sea level & climate change
Estimates of Future Sea Levels Under Sea-Level Rise: A Novel Hybrid Block Bootstrapping Approach and Australian Case Study, Hague et al., 10.22541/essoar.174835238.88076315/v3
Feedback-based sea level rise impact modelling for integrated assessment models with FRISIAv1.0, Ramme et al., Open Access pdf 10.5194/egusphere-2025-1875
Observation-based quantification of physical processes that impact sea level, Groeskamp, Ocean Science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-501-2026
Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry
An unpredictable body size response to the Permo-Triassic climate crisis, , Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.18380698
Ocean heat forced West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat after the Last Glacial Maximum, Mawbey et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-68949-5
Spatially variable response of Antarctica’s ice sheets to orbital forcing during the Pliocene, Patterson et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-025-01840-y
Biology & climate change, related geochemistry
Applying invasion biology frameworks to predict the impacts of range-expanding predators, Beshai et al., Ecology 10.1002/ecy.70315
Blue carbon ecosystems and coral reefs as coupled nature-based climate solutions, Fakhraee, Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-026-01768-0
Climate-driven reproductive decline in Southern right whales, Charlton et al., Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-026-36897-1
Conserving key coastal areas for mangrove expansion and eco-tourism secures ecosystem services under sea-level rise, Stamoulis et al., npj Ocean Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44183-025-00170-1
Contrasting drought responses in two grassland plant–microbe systems under climate change, Yang et al., Journal of Ecology Open Access 10.1111/1365-2745.70251
Coral reefs in the Mahafaly Seascape (SW Madagascar) as potential climate refugia following the 2024 mass bleaching event, Randrianarivo et al., PeerJ Open Access pdf 10.7717/peerj.20319
Critical snowpack thresholds and escalating risks for extreme decreases in vegetation productivity across Northern Hemisphere ecosystems, et al., Open Access pmh:oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/394060
Ecological Niche Modeling Reveals Historical Population Dynamics and Future Climate Response of the Carnivorous Plant Nepenthes mirabilis in Southeast Asia, Huang et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.72707
Future diversity and lifespan of metazoans under global warming and oxygen depletion, Kaiho, Open Access pdf 10.5194/egusphere-2025-1853
Genomics of rafting crustaceans reveals adaptation to climate change in tropical oceans,Liu et al., Nature Communications , Open Access 10.6084/m9.figshare.29614727
Heat wave impacts on tree growth and recovery in temperate forests depend on leaf phenology, Bonfanti et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111020
Impact of Climate Change on the Multiple Facets of Forest Bird Diversity in a Biodiversity Hotspot Within the Atlantic Forest, Mota et al., Diversity and Distributions, Open Access 10.6084/m9.figshare.c.7614515.v1
Impacts of Climate Change on the Distribution of Suitable Habitat for Invasive Coreopsis Species in China, Jia et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.73073
Mitigating and adapting to climate change: the role of nature-based solutions in sustaining vegetation health in the Isiukhu River Basin, Tela et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1721489
Mountains magnify mechanisms in climate change biology, de la Fuente et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02549-x
Oaks and Climate Change: Contrasting Range Responses of Mediterranean and Temperate Quercus Species in the Western Palearctic, Ülker & Tav?ano?lu, Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.73055
Over a century of global decline in the growth performance of marine fishes, Yan et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-69416-x
Predicted Effects of Climate Change on Future Distributions of Ectomycorrhizal Fungi, Qi et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.72743
Severe and widespread coral reef damage during the 2014-2017 Global Coral Bleaching Event, Eakin et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-025-67506-w
Significant Increase in Summer Vegetation Growth (NDVI) in Eastern Siberia in the Mid-1990s: Combined Effects of Summer North Atlantic SST and May Land–Atmosphere Interaction, Tian et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-24-0535.1
Stronger Sensitivity of Plant Photosynthesis to Rising CO2 in High Elevation Ecosystems, , 10.1111/ele.70328/v1/review3
The Evolution of Southern Ocean Net Primary Production in a Changing Climate: Challenges and Opportunities, Tagliabue et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70653
Tree Regeneration After Unprecedented Forest Disturbances in Central Europe Is Robust but Maladapted to Future Climate Change, et al., Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.18449661
Warmer climate disrupts the trade-off between post-fire loss and recovery of grassland GPP, Cui et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105363
GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry
An anthropogenically induced gradient in net carbon exchange of a temperate mangrove forest in South Australia, Yang et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1720464
Discrepancies in national inventories reveal a large emissions gap in the wastewater sector, , Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.17715043
Dissolved Organic Matter Composition in the Laurentian Great Lakes Ice and Its Contribution to Spring Melt, Arsenault et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025jg009367
Elucidating the Role of Marine Benthic Carbon in a Changing World, Schultz et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles 10.1029/2025gb008643
Empirical Parameterization of Organic Matter Reactivity in Subsea Permafrost and Implications for Greenhouse Gas Fluxes From a Warming Arctic Shelf, Arndt et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles 10.1029/2025gb008712
High-efficiency methane consumption by atmospheric methanotrophs in subsurface karst caves: The irrefutable methane sink, Liu et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.ady5942
How can we trust TROPOMI based methane emissions estimation: calculating emissions over unidentified source regions, Zheng et al., Open Access 10.5194/egusphere-2025-1446
Impact of Land Use Change and Drought on the Net Emissions of Carbon Dioxide and Methane From Tropical Peatlands in Southeast Asia, Hirano et al., AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2025av001861
Inhibition of Arctic Soil Dissolved Organic Carbon Export by the Retention Capacity of Thawing Permafrost, He et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl120418
Mature riparian alder forest acts as a strong and consistent carbon sink, Krasnova et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-22-7089-2025
Patterns and drivers of African carbon recovery after disturbance, Li et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111061
Reducing the Discrepancy in Quantifying the Temperature Dependence of Global Wetland Methane Emission, Hu et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70748
Revegetation induces asynchronous changes of deep soil carbon and nitrogen stocks in the Loess Plateau of China, Wang et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1754187
Seasonal Controls of Biogenic Uptake and Anthropogenic Emissions on Carbon Dynamics in a Post-Industrial Shrinking City, Hwang & Papuga, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 10.1029/2025jg008867
Standardising research on marine biological carbon pathways required to estimate sequestration at Polar and sub-Polar latitudes, Morley et al., Earth Open Access 10.1016/j.earscirev.2025.105372
Substantial contribution of trees outside forests to above-ground carbon across China, Su et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-025-03150-y
Super-sniffer aeroplane finds oil fields’ hidden emissions, , Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-00335-z
The impact of warming on peak-season ecosystem carbon uptake is influenced by dominant species in warmer sites, Brinkhoff et al., Open Access 10.5194/egusphere-egu25-245
The ocean’s biological carbon pump under pressure, Middelburg, Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aef3182
Unlocking the Impact of Temperature and Salinity on Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Estuarine Salt Marsh Soils, Sang et al., Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025ef006912
What is causing the methane surge?, Nisbet & Manning, Science 10.1126/science.aee6226
Why methane surged in the atmosphere during the early 2020s, Ciais et al., Science 10.1126/science.adx8262
CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering
Afforestation-Related Fertilisation Quickly Turns Barren Cutaway Peatland Into a Carbon Dioxide Sink, Buzacott et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70644
Careful land allocation for carbon dioxide removal is critical for safeguarding biodiversity, , Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02567-3
Clarifying what is meant by greenhouse gas ‘removals’ and categorising types of ‘removal-related activities’, Brander et al., Carbon Management Open Access 10.1080/17583004.2026.2625956
Decarbonization
A perspective on carbon footprint of decentralized manufacturing of lithium-ion cells industrialization, Jayadevan et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1630913
Cost competitiveness and carbon reduction of battery-electric vehicle and battery-swapping electric vehicle with incentive policy in China, Li et al., Energy for Sustainable Development Open Access 10.1016/j.esd.2026.101938
Evidence of a cascading positive tipping point towards electric vehicles, Mercure et al., Open Access pdf 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3979270/v1
Next-gen geothermal could bring clean power to much more of the planet, Battersby, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2601712123
Quantifying land-use metrics for solar photovoltaic projects in the western United States, Hu et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-02862-5
Racing against the clock: Modeling the global transition to renewable energy technologies, Bessi et al., Energy Research & Social Science 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104541
Study on phased strategies for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industrialization based on a tripartite evolutionary game, Zhou et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1731253
Timely deployment of best-in-class technologies to enable development and decarbonise construction, Dunant et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-025-67489-8
Geoengineering climate
Injection near the stratopause mitigates the stratospheric side effects of sulfur-based climate intervention, Yu et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-25-18449-2025
Climate change communications & cognition
(Not) all in this together? Viewing climate change as a question of (in)justice rather than common fate increases collective action, Hartwich et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.102944
A call for robust evaluations of the impacts of serious games for climate change mitigation: The Climate Fresk as a global case study, Hognon et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.102942
Beyond ownership structures: Oil company climate discourses in authoritarian Russia and Kazakhstan, Martus et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104582
Can neighbourhood interventions strengthen collective climate action?, Klöckner et al., Open Access pdf 10.31223/x5741b
Differences within global movements: insights from FFF climate protests in Western and Eastern Europe, Buzogány et al., Environmental Politics 10.1080/09644016.2026.2623726
From anxiety to hope: Do climate change-related emotions influence actual environmental behaviour?, Schwarz et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.102939
When climate action meets low efficacy: Rethinking the mental health consequences of pro-environmental engagement, Heriansyah, Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.102951
Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change
Determinants of climate change adaptation strategies’ adoption among maize farming households: evidence from Malawi, Nkhoma et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1743868
Exploring the influence of cognitive differences on farmers’ participation in forestry carbon sequestration projects: evidence from China, Zhu et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1746843
Future viability of European vineyards using bioclimatic climate analogues, Allaman et al., Open Access 10.2139/ssrn.5344049
Net ecosystem carbon balance and greenhouse gas budget of a canola-wheat cropping system in the northern prairies, Ferland et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111044
Promote or inhibit: how climate policy uncertainty may shape extreme weather’s impact on grain production, Zhang et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.3389/fevo.2026.1753076
Study on the Suitable Area of Ratoon Rice in China Under Climate Change, Luo et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.72724
Synergies in environmental and agricultural water availability under climate change, Lester et al., Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-025-01720-8
Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change
Australian Rainfall Projections Associated with ENSO Diversity in a Warming Climate: Insights from CMIP6 Large Ensembles, Li et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0218.1
Changes in the Frequency of Flood Events Across the United States Detectable by the Middle of This Century, Kim et al., Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025ef006677
ENSO's Impacts on Southeastern Australia's Future Rainfall Risk, Huang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl118673
Global Warming Enhances Tropical Cyclone–Induced Extreme Precipitation in the Arabian Sea: Insights From Convection-Permitting Model Experiments, Pathaikara et al., Earth's Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007294
Long-term spatiotemporal analysis of variation in soil moisture over Iran, Darand & Tashan, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar 10.1016/j.jastp.2026.106727
Multidimensional Flood Risk Analysis of High-Speed Rail Systems Under Future Climate Change, Liu et al., Risk Analysis 10.1111/risa.70184
Recent and projected changes in rain-on-snow event characteristics across Svalbard, Vickers et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-19-6907-2025
Renewability of fossil groundwaters affected by present-day climate conditions, Ferguson et al., Nature Geoscience pdf 10.1038/s41561-026-01923-4
Climate change economics
Climate Change and Economic Sustainability: Empirical Evidence on the Dynamics of Adjusted Net Savings in Benin's Regions, Logozo & Kougblenou Menou, Climate Resilience and Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1002/cli2.70026
Climate Shocks and the Poor: A Review of the Literature, Triyana et al., 10.1596/1813-9450-10742
Compound dry-and-hot extremes exacerbate income inequality and poverty in Europe, Schleypen et al., Global Environmental Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.103106
How Temperature Drives Health Insurance Demand?, Chen et al., Risk Analysis 10.1111/risa.70181
Increasingly frequent compound climate events worsen economic disparities in China's urban agglomerations, He et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102824
Modelling decarbonisation pathways in Europe: Balancing ambition and economic feasibility, Chyong & Schmidt, Open Access 10.2139/ssrn.5293284
Climate change mitigation public policy research
A multi-stakeholder assessment of the implications of non-energy policies on renewable energy development in the Philippines, Benitez & Dhakal, Energy for Sustainable Development 10.1016/j.esd.2025.101919
Advancing representations of equity and justice in climate mitigation futures, Pachauri et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000763
Determinants of firms’ acceptability of carbon taxation: a systematic literature review, Mwang'Onda et al., Climate Policy Open Access 10.1080/14693062.2026.2627746
EU policy on forest carbon sinks revisited, Kallio & Garvik, Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104332
Global governance complex for climate change: a bibliometric analysis, Li & Yaakop, Discover Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1007/s43621-025-02089-6
Ireland's carbon emission trends and degrowth opportunities: Based on modified Tapio - LMDI model, Zhao et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2025.114943
Mapping organized interests across arenas in Australian climate policy, Downie & Halpin, Environmental Politics 10.1080/09644016.2025.2597645
Navigating carbon neutrality: policy pathways and consistency on industrial decarbonization in China, Zhou et al., Carbon Balance and Management Open Access 10.1186/s13021-025-00356-7
Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals in Asia requires ambitious climate targets combined with sustainability-focused measures, Zhang et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-02970-2
Taking climate justice to court, Schack, Environmental Sociology Open Access 10.1080/23251042.2026.2627448
Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research
A method for tracking national progress towards climate change adaptation, Brullo et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100800
Climate change adaptation status of Turkish local governments: A comparative analysis, Küçük Horasan & Özerol, Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102815
Enabling democratic shifts through climate adaptation: the climate adaptation democracy framework, Comelli et al., Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2026.2624955
Exclusionary Environmentalism: Exploring Gender and Antifeminism in Far-Right Ecologisms, Brodtmann, Environmental Communication Open Access 10.1080/17524032.2025.2596614
Expert agreement on key elements of transformational adaptation to climate risks, Biesbroek et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02548-y
Exploring the coherence of urban heat adaptation plans, Tuomimaa et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1741647
Integrating value systems and place-based characteristics in climate risk assessments, Reveco et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1719404
Persistent vulnerability and precarious futures: the limits of adaptation in ‘climate migrant’ informal settlements of coastal Bangladesh, et al., Open Access 10.6084/m9.figshare.31300234.v1
Resource mapping amid climate crisis for protection of hunter gatherer community livelihoods in Northern Tanzania, Bwagalilo, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1691766
Climate change impacts on human health
Assessing children’s vulnerability to climate change in Small Island Developing States – A case study from Saint Kitts and Nevis, Ashorn et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000789
Climate Change and Disparities in Extreme Heat Exposure for Socially Vulnerable Areas in the Contiguous United States, Parsons et al., Open Access pdf 10.22541/essoar.174139309.92730243/v1
Early-life heat exposure increases risk of neurodevelopmental delay in preschool children, Cai et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02560-w
Expanding compound heat and ultraviolet radiation stress amplifies exposure risks for elderly populations, , Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.17568494
Overlooked toll of climate change on migrant children in the Americas, Pintea et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02525-5
The True Cost of Heat: Evaluating Heat-Related Mortality Estimation Methods in Texas, Rutt & Dessler, Open Access pdf 10.22541/essoar.175376679.98846268/v1
Other
Experimenting for impact: Combining research with advocacy for climate stability, Suter et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000837
Mapping the epistemic geography of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (1995–2022), Bau Larsen et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104291
The influence of incidental emotion on novice Pilots’ approach Decision-Making under uncertainty in the context of climate Challenges, Wang et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2025.100754
Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives
Can the clean-energy revolution save us from climate catastrophe?, Tollefson, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-00332-2
Securing the past for the future – why climate proxy archives should be protected, Bebchuk & Büntgen, Boreas Open Access pdf 10.1111/bor.70039
Support people and their livelihoods rather than fossil-fuel industries, , Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-00382-6
Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate ChangeBeyond Power Demand: How AI-Driven Metals Inflation Is Testing Utility Regulation, Shi et al., Morningstar/DBRS
Accelerating demand and material cost inflation result in a widening mismatch: utilities are being asked to expand their networks faster at precisely the moment when the unit cost of doing so is structurally higher. Utilities are faced with the impact of both cyclical and structural inflation on their capital planning and requirements. Regulatory and political constraints will determine whether cost recovery occurs quickly enough and broadly enough to align with accelerating capital requirements.Poll Shows GOP Voters Support Solar Energy, American-Made Solar, Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, First Solar
A national poll by the authors found widespread support for solar energy among Republicans, Republican-leaning Independents, and voters who supported President Donald J. Trump. The poll of 800 GOP+ voters found that they are in favor of the use of utility-scale solar by a more than 20-point margin, with 51% in favor; if the panels used for solar energy are American made with no ties to China, support for solar energy soars higher. Those in favor jump to 70%, while only 19% are opposed; 68% agree that the United States needs all forms of electricity generation, including utility solar, to be built for lowering electricity costs, compared to 22% who disagreed; 79% agree that the government should allow all forms of electricity generation, including utility-scale solar, to compete on their own merits and without political interference, versus 11% who disagreed; a clear majority (52%) of GOP+ voters are more likely to support a Congressional candidate if they support an all-of-the-above energy agenda, including the use of solar; and 51% are more likely to vote for a candidate who supported an American company building a solar panel manufacturing plant in the US.New England’s Offshore Wind Solution. The Region Can Ride Through Cold-Weather Demand Surges with Local Renewable Energy, Susan Muller, Union of Concerned Scientists
Wind energy off the New England coast can powerfully reinforce the reliability of the region's electric grid, particularly during winter when the system is most vulnerable to energy shortages. Combined with the energy available from onshore wind and solar resources, an offshore wind fleet can support a shift toward local solutions for winter reliability in New England, bringing consumers much-needed relief from high seasonal electricity bills. The authors' analysis of winter 2024–2025 wind speed data shows that the energy delivered by just two offshore wind projects, totaling 1,500 megawatts (MW) of capacity, would have lowered the risk of power outages, based on a key reliability metric, by 55 percent over the course of the season. A larger fleet of 3,500 MW would have reduced the risk of outages by 75 percent. In either case, the scale of energy delivered by an offshore wind fleet would have increased the total winter energy supply from local renewable resources above the energy supply from imported liquified natural gas.South Sudan. Country Climate and Development Report, Ling et al., World Bank Group
South Sudan has fallen into a vicious cycle of fragility, conflict, and climate vulnerability, with climate change acting as a threat multiplier, exacerbating displacement, food insecurity, social dislocation, resource conflict, and grievance. Already one of the fastest-warming countries, 80 percent of South Sudan’s population depends on climate-vulnerable livelihoods. More than half of the population is chronically food insecure, due to a combination of conflict and climate factors. The devastating floods of recent years are likely to become the new normal, and will be joined by increasing climate stress on labor productivity, agrifood systems, and human health. The authors identify priority investments to strengthen resilience in flood risk management, resilient rural livelihoods, sustainable natural resource use, and sustainable energy access. These require substantial fiscal resources, but the public finance system is under severe strain, and external support is set to decline sharply. Domestic revenue mobilization— particularly more targeted and effective use of existing government revenues and more efficient, transparent spending—is therefore essential to promote adaptation. Core governance reforms also need to support private sector development and climate action.2025 Transmission Planning and Development Report Card, Zimmerman et al., Americans for a Clean Energy Grid
The authors provide an updated assessment of U.S. transmission planning and development across 10 regions. Overall, there was incremental improvement in transmission planning across most of the regions, driven largely by reforms to regional planning. However, many regions continue to fall well short of best practices, and progress remains uneven relative to the scale and urgency of today’s transmission needs. Accelerating electricity demand — driven by data centers, manufacturing growth, and electrification — is increasing the importance of forward-looking transmission planning, compressing planning timelines, and raising the stakes for regions that continue to rely on incremental or reactive approaches.Clean Economy Works: December 2025 Analysis, Michael Timberlake, E2-Ecopnomy and Environment
At the end of 2025, the U.S. clean energy economy reached a clear inflection point. While companies continued to announce new investments—albeit fewer and with less capital per project that recent years—the pace and scale of cancellations, closures, and downsizes accelerated dramatically. The result was the largest annual reversal of clean energy investment since E2 began tracking in 2022. The data show not simply a slowdown, but a fundamental imbalance: for the first time, project losses far outpaced project gains, particularly in manufacturing sectors that had driven much of the post-IRA investment surge. This imbalance was felt across regions, industries, and political boundaries. For example, three dollars abandoned for every dollar announced: In 2025, clean energy cancellations and downsizes totaled $34.8 billion, nearly three times the $12.3 billion in new investment announced—producing a sharply negative return on clean energy investment activity; 38,031 manufacturing jobs eliminated: Project reversals and factory closures wiped out more clean energy jobs in 2025 than in all prior tracked years combined, resulting in a net loss of more than 15,000 jobs; $30.2 billion in manufacturing losses: Manufacturing facilities accounted for nearly all cancelled investment and job losses, underscoring the vulnerability of capital-intensive domestic clean energy supply chains.Global wind and solar 2025: The G7 gap, Diren Kocaku?ak and Mengqi Zhang, Global Energy Monitor
The global clean power pipeline surged in 2025. Announced and in-progress wind and utility-scale solar projects expanded by 11%, increasing from 4.4 terawatts (TW) to almost 5 TW worldwide. Globally, utility-scale solar led the expansion of the pipeline. The utility-scale solar pipeline grew by 17% and passed 2.2 TW, while the wind pipeline grew by 7%. The world’s richest economies are not driving that growth. The G7 countries, despite controlling roughly half of global wealth, account for 11% of the world’s prospective wind and utility-scale solar capacity additions. The center of gravity for new clean power has shifted decisively toward emerging and developing economies. China crossed a historic threshold. Its combined operating wind, utility-scale solar, and distributed solar capacity surpassed 1.6 TW in 2025, triple the combined capacity of its closest peers, the United States and India. Distributed solar is a pillar of the clean energy transition, but it is not evenly spread. While it represents about 42% of all existing and prospective solar capacity worldwide, deployment remains heavily concentrated in a small number of countries, leaving significant room to expand.Aspen National Water Strategy, Watson et al., Aspen Institute and the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability
Building on the insights and relationships developed through the Aspen-Nicholas Water Forum, the Aspen National Water Strategy Initiative advances a coordinated vision for U.S. water governance. Developed through 18 months of collaboration among water leaders from across sectors, regions, and backgrounds, the Aspen National Water Strategy identifies six interconnected strategies essential to securing water for America’s communities, economies, and ecosystems including elevating water security as a cornerstone of the nation’s economy; reforming water governance to establish clear structures and standards while enabling flexible, locally appropriate implementation; investing in rural water resources and services to strengthen rural communities and regional water security; equipping communities to adapt to rising water-related climate risks; modernizing water infrastructure while renewing existing assets; and accelerating the adoption of innovative water solutions at scale.Hot stuff: geothermal energy in Europe, Tatiana Mindeková and Gianluca Geneletti, Ember
Advances in drilling and reservoir engineering are unlocking geothermal electricity across much wider parts of Europe, at a time when the power system needs firm, low-carbon supply and reduced reliance on fossil fuels. Once limited to a few favorable locations, geothermal is now positioned to scale. Around 43 GW of enhanced geothermal capacity in the European Union could be developed at costs below 100 €/MWh today, comparable to coal and gas electricity. The largest potential is concentrated in Hungary, followed by Poland, Germany and France. While representing only a fraction of Europe’s total geothermal potential, the identified EU-level deployment could deliver around 301 TWh of electricity per year, reflecting geothermal’s high capacity factor. This is equivalent to about 42% of coal- and gas-fired generation in the EU in 2025.Cost Analysis of Heavy-Duty Vehicle Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Stationary Power Plants, Reznicek et al., National Laboratory of the Rockies/National Renewable Energy Lab
Heavy-duty proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells could be a low-cost, low emission alternative to combustion turbines for re-electrifying hydrogen if used as part of a long duration grid energy storage systems. Many studies expect heavy duty PEM fuel cell production costs to reduce as manufacturing volumes ramp up and their expected durability of 25,000-30,000 hours aligns well with a 30-year life for hydrogen seasonal energy storage plants that would likely operate less than 10% of the year. The labor, material, and equipment costs associated with installing PEM fuel cells and their required balance of plant for stationary applications have not been thoroughly explored, however. This study performs a detailed design and cost analysis of a 100 MW stationary PEM fuel cell power plant, capturing costs such as cooling, power electronics, pipes, valves, fittings, cabling, conduit, concrete foundations, buildings, and land. It employs methods consistent with NLR's solar PV benchmarking cost analysis and annual technology baseline to derive the total installed costs of stationary PEM fuel cell plants that utilize heavy duty PEM fuel cells. The anticipated total cost of building a stationary PEM fuel cell plant with today's technology is $954/kW. This cost could reduce to $567/kW - $754/kW by 2050, depending on potential cost reductions in fuel cells, inverters, and transformers. Both the estimated current cost and potential future costs are on the lower end if not less than estimated costs associated with natural gas combustion turbines, which range from $900/kW to $1,500/kW according to the EIA. Because PEM fuel cells do not produce pollutants such as NOx and SOx and can have much higher efficiencies than combustion turbines while still maintaining adequate start-up times and dynamic capabilities, this suggests that stationary PEM fuel cells could outperform combustion turbines for hydrogen long duration grid storage applications on the grounds of capital cost, operating costs, and emissions. About New ResearchClick here for the why and how of Skeptical Science New Research.
SuggestionsPlease let us know if you're aware of an article you think may be of interest for Skeptical Science research news, or if we've missed something that may be important. Send your input to Skeptical Science via our contact form.
Previous editionThe previous edition of Skeptical Science New Research may be found here.
Analysis: Trump has overseen more coal retirements than any other US president
Donald Trump has overseen more retirements of coal-fired power stations than any other US president, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
His administration’s latest efforts to roll back US climate policy have been presented by interior secretary Doug Burgum as an opportunity to revive “clean, beautiful, American coal”.
The administration is in the process of attempting to repeal the 2009 “endangerment” finding, which is the legal underpinning of many federal climate regulations.
On 11 February, the White House issued an executive order on “America’s beautiful clean coal power generation fleet”, calling for government contracts and subsidies to keep plants open.
On the same day, Trump was presented with a trophy by coal-mining executives declaring him to be the “undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal”.
These words are in sharp contrast to Trump’s record in office, with more coal-fired power plants having retired under his leadership than any other president, as shown in the figure below.
This is because coal plants have been uneconomic to operate compared with cheaper gas and renewables – and because most of the US coal fleet is extremely old.
Capacity of coal-fired power plants retiring under recent US presidents, gigawatts (GW). Source: Carbon Brief analysis of data from Global Energy Monitor.In total, some 57 gigawatts (GW) of coal capacity has already been retired during Trump’s first and second terms in office, compared with 48GW under Obama’s two full terms and 41GW under Biden’s single term.
Even in relative terms, the US has lost a larger proportion of its remaining coal fleet for each year of Trump’s presidencies than for either of his recent predecessors.
Trump’s record hints at the many practical and economic factors that have driven US coal closures, regardless of the preferences of the president of the day.
Indeed, Trump made variousefforts to prop up coal power during his first term in office. These were ultimatelyunsuccessful, as the figure below illustrates.
Coal-fired power capacity in the US, GW. Source: Global Energy Monitor.Coal plants have been retiring in large numbers over the past 20 years because they were uneconomic relative to cheaper sources of electricity, including renewables and gas.
These unfavourable market conditions, alongside air pollution regulations unrelated to climate change, have resulted in a steady parade of coal closures under successive presidents.
By 2024, wind and solar were generating more electricity in the US than coal.
More recently, analysis from the US Energy Information Administration shows that surging power prices have improved the economics of both coal and gas-fired power plants.
These rising prices have been driven by increasing demand, including from data centres, and by higher gas prices, due to increasing exports at liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals.
These factors saw coal-power output increase by 13% year-on-year in 2025, only the second rise in a decade of steady decline for the fuel, according to the Rhodium Group.
Nevertheless, many utilities have still been looking to shutter their ageing coal-fired power plants.
The vast majority of US coal plants are nearing retirement. Three-quarters of US coal capacity is more than four decades old and only 14% is less than 20 years old, as shown in the figure below.
Capacity of US coal plants by age group, GW. Source: Global Energy Monitor.In response, the Trump administration has recently invoked legislation designed for wartime emergencies to force a number of uneconomic coal plants to remain open.
Despite Trump’s efforts, clean energy made up 96% of the new electricity generation capacity added to the US grid in 2025. None of the new capacity came from coal power.
Analysis: Coal power drops in China and India for first time in 52 years after clean-energy records
China energy
|IEA: Declining coal demand in China set to outweigh Trump’s pro-coal policies
Coal
|Guest post: China and India account for 87% of new coal-power capacity so far in 2025
China energy
|Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
China energy
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_5652fce17545da9da37eb0d8c1dfa16c .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post Analysis: Trump has overseen more coal retirements than any other US president appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months
China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the final quarter of 2025, likely securing a decline of 0.3% for the full year as a whole.
This extends a “flat or falling” trend in China’s CO2 emissions that began in March 2024 and has now lasted for nearly two years.
The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that, in 2025, emissions from fossil fuels increased by an estimated 0.1%, but this was more than offset by a 7% decline in CO2 from cement.
Other key findings include:
- CO2 emissions fell year-on-year in almost all major sectors in 2025, including transport (3%), power (1.5%) and building materials (7%).
- The key exception was the chemicals industry, where emissions grew 12%.
- Solar power output increased by 43% year-on-year, wind by 14% and nuclear 8%, helping push down coal generation by 1.9%.
- Energy storage capacity grew by a record 75 gigawatts (GW), well ahead of the rise in peak demand of 55GW.
- This means that growth in energy storage capacity and clean-power output topped the increases in peak and total electricity demand, respectively.
The CO2 numbers imply that China’s carbon intensity – its fossil-fuel emissions per unit of GDP – fell by 4.7% in 2025 and by 12% during 2020-25.
This is well short of the 18% target set for that period by the 14th five-year plan.
Moreover, China would now need to cut its carbon intensity by around 23% over the next five years in order to meet one of its key climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Whether Chinese policymakers remain committed to this target is a key open question ahead of the publication of the 15th five-year plan in March.
This will help determine if China’s emissions have already passed their peak, or if they will rise once again and only peak much closer to the officially targeted date of “before 2030”.
‘Flat or falling’The latest analysis shows China’s CO2 emissions have now been flat or falling for 21 months, starting in March 2024. This trend continued in the final quarter of 2025, when emissions fell by 1% year-on-year.
The picture continues to be finely balanced, with emissions falling in all major sectors – including transport, power, cement and metals – but rising in the chemicals industry.
This combination of factors means that emissions continue to plateau at levels slightly below the peak reached in early 2024, as shown in the figure below.
China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement, million tonnes of CO2, rolling 12-month totals until September 2025. Source: Emissions are estimated from National Bureau of Statistics data on production of different fuels and cement, China Customs data on imports and exports and WIND Information data on changes in inventories, applying emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory and annual emissions factors per tonne of cement production until 2024. Sector breakdown of coal consumption is estimated using coal consumption data from WIND Information and electricity data from the National Energy Administration. The consumption of petrol, diesel and jet fuel is adjusted to match quarterly totals estimated by Sinopec.Power sector emissions fell by 1.5% year-on-year in 2025, with coal use falling 1.7% and gas use increasing 6%. Emissions from transportation fell 3% and from the production of cement and other building materials by 7%, while emissions from the metal industry fell 3%.
These declines are shown in the figure below. They were partially offset by rising coal and oil use in the chemical industry, up 15% and 10% respectively, which pushed up the sector’s CO2 emissions by 12% overall.
Year-on-year change in China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement, for the period January-September 2025, million tonnes of CO2. Source: Emissions are estimated from National Bureau of Statistics data on production of different fuels and cement, China Customs data on imports and exports and WIND Information data on changes in inventories, applying emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory and annual emissions factors per tonne of cement production until 2024. Sector breakdown of coal consumption is estimated using coal consumption data from WIND Information and electricity data from the National Energy Administration. The consumption of petrol, diesel and jet fuel is adjusted to match quarterly totals estimated by Sinopec.In other sectors – largely other industrial areas and building heat – gas use increased by 2%, more than offsetting the reduction in emissions from a 3% drop in their coal consumption.
Clean power covers electricity demand growthIn the power sector, which is China’s largest emitter by far, electricity demand grew by 520 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2025.
At the same time, power generation from solar increased by 43% and wind power generation by 14%, delivering 360TWh and 130TWh of additional clean electricity. Nuclear power generation grew 8%, supplying another 40TWh. The increased generation from these three sources – some 530TWh – therefore met all of the growth in demand.
Hydropower generation also increased by 3% and bioenergy by 3%, helping push power generation from fossil fuels down by 1%. Gas-fired power generation increased by 6% and, as a result, power generation from coal fell by 1.9%.
Furthermore, the surge in additions of new wind and solar capacity at the end of 2025 will only show up as increased clean-power generation in 2026.
On the other hand, the growth in solar and wind power generation has fallen short of the growth in capacity, implying a fall in capacity utilisation – a measure of actual output relative to the maximum possible. This is highly likely due to increased, unreported curtailment, where wind and solar sites are switched off because the electricity grid is congested.
If these grid issues are resolved over the next few years, then generation from existing wind and solar capacity will increase over time.
Developments in 2025 extended the trend of clean-power generation growing faster than power demand overall, as shown in the top figure below. This trend started in 2023 and is the key reason why China’s emissions have been stable or falling since early 2024.
In addition, 2025 saw another potential inflection point, shown in the bottom figure below. It was the first year ever that energy storage capacity – mainly batteries – grew faster than peak electricity demand in 2025 and faster than the average growth in the past decade.
Top columns: Year-on-year change in annual electricity generation from clean energy excluding hydro, terawatt hours. Left solid and dashed line: Annual and average change in total electricity generation, TWh. Bottom columns: Year-on-year change in energy storage capacity, gigawatts. Right solid and dashed line: Annual and average change in peak electricity demand. Sources: Power generation and demand from Ember; peak loads from China Electric Power News since 2020; peak loads until 2019 and pumped hydro capacity from Wind Financial Terminal; battery storage capacity from China Energy Storage Alliance; analysis for Carbon Brief by Lauri Myllyvirta.China’s energy storage capacity increased by 75GW year-on-year in 2025, while peak demand only increased by 55GW. The rise in storage capacity in 2025 is also larger than the three-year average increase in peak loads, some 72GW per year.
Peak demand growth matters, because power systems have to be designed to reliably provide enough electricity supply at the moment of highest demand.
Moreover, the increase in peak loads is a key driver of continued additions of coal and gas-fired power plants, which reached the highest level in a decade in 2025.
The growth in energy storage could provide China with an alternative way to meet peak loads without relying on increased fossil fuel-based capacity.
The growth in storage capacity is set to continue after a new policy issued by China’s top economic planner the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in January.
This policy means energy storage sites will be supported by so-called “capacity payments”, which to date have only been available to coal- and gas-fired power plants and pumped hydro storage.
Concerns about having sufficient “firm” power capacity in the grid – that which can be turned on at will – led the government to promote new coal and gas-fired power projects in recent years, leading to the largest fossil-fuel based capacity additions in a decade in 2025, with another 290GW of coal-fired capacity still under construction.
Reforming the power system and increasing storage capacity would enable the grid to accommodate much higher shares of solar and wind, while reducing the need for new coal or gas capacity to meet rising peaks in demand.
This would both unlock more clean-power generation from existing capacity and improve the economics and risk profiles of new projects, stimulating more growth in capacity.
Peaking power CO2 requires more clean-energy growthChina’s key climate commitments for the next five-year period until 2030 are to peak CO2 emissions and to reduce carbon intensity by more than 65% from 2005 levels. The latter target requires limiting CO2 emissions at or below their 2025 level in 2030.
The record clean-energy additions in 2023-25 have barely sufficed to stabilise power-sector emissions, showing that if rapid growth in power demand continues, meeting the 2030 targets requires keeping clean-energy additions close to 2025 levels over the next five years.
China’s central government continues to telegraph a much lower level of ambition, with the NDRC setting a target of “around” 30% of power generation in 2030 coming from solar and wind, up from around 22% in 2025.
If electricity demand grows in line with the State Grid forecast of 5.6% per year, then limiting the share of wind and solar to 30% would leave space for fossil-fuel generation to grow at 3% per year from 2025 to 2030, even after increases from nuclear and hydropower.
Such an increase would mean missing China’s Paris commitments for 2030.
Alternatively, in order to meet the forecast increase in electricity demand without increasing generation from fossil fuels would require wind and solar’s share to reach 37% in 2030.
Similarly, China’s target of a non-fossil energy share of 25% in 2030 will not be sufficient to meet its carbon-intensity reduction commitment for 2030, unless energy demand growth slows down sharply.
This target is unlikely to be upgraded, since it is already enshrined in China’s Paris Agreement pledge, so in practice the target would need to be substantially overachieved if the country is to meet its other commitments.
If energy demand growth continues at the 2025 rate and the share of non-fossil energy only rises from 22% in 2025 to 25% in 2030, then the consumption of fossil fuels would increase by 3% per year, with a similar rise in CO2 emissions.
Still, another recent sign that clean-energy growth could keep exceeding government targets came in early February when the China Electricity Council projected solar and wind capacity additions of more than 300GW in 2026 – well beyond the government goal of “over 200GW”.
Chemical industryThe only significant source of growth in CO2 emissions in 2025 was the chemical industry, with sharp increases in the consumption of both coal and oil.
This is shown in the figure below, which illustrates how CO2 emissions appear to have peaked from cement production, transport, the power sector and others, whereas the chemicals industry is posting strong increases.
Sectoral emissions from fossil fuels and cement, million tonnes of CO2, rolling 12-month totals. Source: Emissions are estimated from National Bureau of Statistics data on production of different fuels and cement, China Customs data on imports and exports and WIND Information data on changes in inventories, applying emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory and annual emissions factors per tonne of cement production until 2024. Sector breakdown of coal consumption is estimated using coal consumption data from WIND Information and electricity data from the National Energy Administration.Even though chemical-industry emissions are small relative to other sectors – at roughly 13% of China’s total – the pace of expansion is creating an outsize impact.
Without the increase from the chemicals sector, China’s total CO2 emissions would have fallen by an estimated 2%, instead of the 0.3% reported here.
Without changes to policy, emission growth is set to continue, as the coal-to-chemicals industry is planning major increases in capacity.
Whether these expansion plans receive backing in the upcoming five-year plan for 2026-30 will have a major impact on China’s emission trends.
Another key factor is the development of oil and gas prices. Production in the coal-based chemical industry is only profitable when coal is significantly cheaper than crude oil.
The current coal-to-chemicals capacity in China is dominated by plants producing higher-value – and therefore less price-sensitive – chemicals such as olefins and aromatics, as feedstocks for the production of plastics.
In contrast, the planned expansion of the sector is expected to be largely driven by plants producing oil products and synthetic gas to be used for energy. For these products, electrification and clean-electricity generation provide a direct alternative, meaning they are even more sensitive to low oil and gas prices than chemicals production.
Outlook for China’s emissionsThis is the latest analysis for Carbon Brief to show that China’s CO2 emissions have now been stable or falling for seven quarters or 21 months, marking the first such streak on record that has not been associated with a slowdown in energy demand growth.
Notably, while emissions have stabilised or begun a slow decline, there has not yet been a substantial reduction from the level reached in early 2024. This means that a small jump in emissions could see them exceed the previous peak level.
China’s official plans only call for peaking emissions shortly before 2030, which would allow for a rebound from the current plateau before the ultimate emissions peak.
If China is to meet its 2030 carbon intensity commitment – a 65% reduction on 2005 levels – then emissions would have to fall from the peak back to current levels by 2030.
Whether China’s policymakers are still committed to meeting this carbon intensity pledge, after the setbacks during the previous five-year period, is a key open question. The 2030 energy targets set to date have fallen short of what would be required.
The most important signal will be whether the top-level five-year plan for 2026-30, due in March, sets a carbon intensity target aligned with the 2030 Paris commitment.
Officially, China is sticking to the timeline of peaking CO2 emissions “before 2030”, which was announced by president Xi Jinping in 2020.
According to an authoritative explainer on the recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party for the upcoming five-year plan, published by state-backed news agency Xinhua, coal consumption should “reach its peak and enter a plateau” from 2027.
It says that continued increases in demand for coal from electricity generators and the chemicals industry would be offset by reductions elsewhere. This is despite the fact that China’s coal consumption overall has already been falling for close to two years.
The reference to a “plateau” in coal consumption indicates that in official plans, meaningful absolute reductions in emissions would have to wait until after 2030. Any increase in coal consumption from 2025 to 2027, before the targeted plateau, would need to be offset by reductions in oil consumption, to meet the carbon intensity target.
Moreover, allowing coal consumption in the power sector to grow beyond the peak of overall coal use and emissions implies slowing down China’s clean-energy boom. So far, the boom has continued to exceed official targets by a wide margin.
In addition, the explainer’s expectation of further growth in coal use by the chemicals industry indicates a green light for at least a part of its sizable expansion plans.
The Xinhua article recognises that oil product consumption has already peaked, but says that oil use in the chemicals industry has kept growing. It adds that overall oil consumption should peak in 2026.
Elsewhere, the article speaks of “vigorously” developing non-fossil energy and “actively” developing “distributed” solar, which has slowed down due to recent pricing policies.
Yet it also calls for “high-quality development” of fossil fuels and increased efforts in domestic oil and gas production, suggesting that China continues to take an “all of the above” approach to energy policy.
The outcome of all this depends on how things turn out in reality. The past few years show it is possible that clean energy will continue to overperform its targets, preventing growth in energy consumption from fossil fuels despite this policy support.
The key role of the clean-energy boom in driving GDP growth and investments is one key motivator for policymakers to keep the boom going, even when central targets would allow for a slowdown. It is also possible that the five-year plans of provinces and state-owned enterprises could play a key role in raising ambition, as they did in 2022.
About the dataData for the analysis was compiled from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Energy Administration of China, China Electricity Council and China Customs official data releases, as well as from industry data provider WIND Information and from Sinopec, China’s largest oil refiner.
Electricity generation from wind and solar, along with thermal power breakdown by fuel, was calculated by multiplying power generating capacity at the end of each month by monthly utilisation, using data reported by China Electricity Council through Wind Financial Terminal.
Total generation from thermal power and generation from hydropower and nuclear power were taken from National Bureau of Statistics monthly releases.
Monthly utilisation data was not available for biomass, so the annual average of 52% for 2023 was applied. Power-sector coal consumption was estimated based on power generation from coal and the average heat rate of coal-fired power plants during each month, to avoid the issue with official coal consumption numbers affecting recent data.
CO2 emissions estimates are based on National Bureau of Statistics default calorific values of fuels and emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory, for the year 2021. The CO2 emissions factor for cement is based on annual estimates up to 2024.
For oil, apparent consumption of transport fuels – diesel, petrol and jet fuel – is taken from Sinopec quarterly results, with monthly disaggregation based on production minus net exports. The consumption of these three fuels is labeled as oil product consumption in transportation, as it is the dominant sector for their use.
Apparent consumption of other oil products is calculated from refinery throughput, with the production of the transport fuels and the net exports of other oil products subtracted. Fossil-fuel consumption includes non-energy use such as plastics, as most products are short-lived and incineration is the dominant disposal method.
China energy
|Analysis: Clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025
China energy
|‘Rush’ for new coal in China hits record high in 2025 as climate deadline looms
China energy
|Explainer: Why gas plays a minimal role in China’s climate strategy
China energy
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_f2f428e18d17c60b86ceb33db0d653ab .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months appeared first on Carbon Brief.
These key strategies could help Americans get rid of their cars
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah Wesseler
Want to lower your carbon footprint? Consider ditching your car.
In a 2025 study, researchers at the World Resources Institute found that going car-free is the most effective step individuals can take to lower their personal emissions. In fact, it has a bigger impact than adding a home solar system and going vegan combined, they wrote, and 78 times more effective than composting.
But in much of the U.S., getting around without a car is difficult, if not impossible, due to overwhelmingly car-centric infrastructure. However, while going car-free may be hard for many Americans to imagine, this could change. As cities like Amsterdam and Paris have shown, when governments take decisive action to reduce car dependency, the results can be dramatic.
Moreover, the remedies for car dependency are well understood, at least at a high level. Decades’ worth of research from universities, government agencies, nonprofits, and design firms has created a significant body of knowledge about how to reduce reliance on cars.
Susan Handy, who leads the National Center for Sustainable Transportation at the University of California at Davis, said the main takeaways of this research are clear and compelling.
“When people live in more compact communities where they’re in closer proximity to the places they need to go, and when they have good alternatives to driving – meaning good bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and decent transit service – they will, in fact, drive less,” she said.
(Image credit: Tejvan Pettinger / CC BY 2.0)
Must-haves for reducing reliance on carsIn 2025, Kostas Mouratidis, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, published a peer-reviewed study identifying seven strategies that have successfully reduced car dependency in Western European cities.
Two of these strategies – raising awareness about the benefits of reducing car dependency and supporting compact cities through policy – are prerequisites for the others to succeed, he wrote.
Awareness-raising is vital to creating buy-in and shaping public behavior. This can take many forms, including open streets events, which temporarily close roads to vehicles and open them to other uses. Found everywhere from Bogotá to Tucson, these events demonstrate how space currently devoted to cars could be used for things like cycling, walking, and entertainment. In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan has used open streets days to build support for permanent pedestrianization.
Governments can also use information and incentives to raise awareness about alternatives to driving. In Portland, Oregon, households moving into some multifamily buildings receive a welcome packet from the municipality containing several hundred dollars’ worth of credits for bikeshare and public transportation, along with advice for navigating the area without a car.
This and similar initiatives take advantage of the fact that people are more likely to change their transportation habits when their lives are already in flux, said Stefanie Seskin, the director of policy and practice at the National Association of City Transportation Officials.
“Because you’re already moving and you’re changing your patterns, it’s a great time to try riding a bike, to try walking places, to try taking TriMet, [Portland’s] transit system,” she said.
Policies that make communities denser by locating buildings and amenities closer together are also critical for sustainable transportation to flourish.
“Without a relatively compact urban form, you cannot expect people to be able to walk or cycle to destinations that they need to cover their daily needs,” Mouratidis said.
One vital mechanism for achieving this is zoning. In many American communities, zoning regulations make it illegal to build anything other than single-family homes on 75% of residential land. Changing this policy allows apartment buildings and small businesses to pop up in areas where they have historically been prohibited, allowing more people to walk or cycle to amenities close to their homes.
Zoning changes can also lower the number of off-street parking spots developers are required to build for different building types, freeing up space that allows structures to be built closer to one another. Since parking is expensive to build, parking reform can also make neighborhoods more affordable.
Limiting private vehicles and investing in alternativesOnce communities reach sufficient levels of public buy-in and urban density, five additional strategies can successfully help people shift away from their cars, Mouratidis said. (Governments don’t need to wait to implement them until they’ve fully attained these goals, however, he stresses.)
These strategies are:
- Investing in public transportation
- Improving pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure
- Restricting car use
- Supporting shared mobility (such as car-sharing services)
- Facilitating virtual mobility (such as teleconferencing and online shopping).
These categories encompass a wide variety of actions. To restrict car use, some cities turn to congestion pricing programs in which drivers must pay to enter designated areas. Building on successful programs in Singapore, London, and Stockholm, New York City became the first U.S. city to implement congestion pricing in early 2025, charging cars $9 to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street during peak hours. In the program’s first year, 27 million fewer vehicles entered the affected area.
Investments in public transportation, pedestrian infrastructure, and bike lanes are also critical to reducing car dependency. Although many U.S. cities are struggling to fund existing public transit systems, some have found ways to not only maintain current services but also expand and improve them. In New York City, congestion pricing proceeds are being used to maintain and upgrade the city’s subways, buses, and commuter trains. In Virginia, the state government has dramatically increased its investment in public transportation as well as pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure in the past decade.
Illinois offers another promising model for supporting financially vulnerable public transportation systems. A law signed by Governor JB Pritzker in late 2025 designated $1.5 billion dollars annually for mass transit in Chicago and elsewhere in the state, with part of the funding coming from gas sales taxes that were diverted away from road construction.
This represents a “groundbreaking, transformational investment in Illinois’s transit system,” said Kevin X. Shen, a transportation policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s not only filling the fiscal cliff gap they faced that was threatening service cuts, but also going over that hump to increase transit service in ways that are needed for communities across the state.”
Big cities aren’t the only ones investing in alternatives to the car. In Dublin, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus that’s home to approximately 50,000 people, the local government is helping extend existing bus lines, upgrading bus stops, working with regional partners to introduce bus rapid transit service, upgrading its bicycle infrastructure, working with companies that provide bike- and scooter-share programs, and partnering with developers and designers to build walkable neighborhoods.
Obstacles to reducing car dependencyDespite these and other success stories, reliance on cars is growing around the world, Mouratidis said.
“Car ownership is increasing, the sales of cars are increasing, and overall, little is done towards reducing car dependence,” he said. “Globally, we have some cities that are quite pioneering in reducing car dependence. But besides those, there is little that is done.”
One challenge is that although government officials may understand the high-level solutions, many aren’t sure how to implement them on the ground.
“Anybody going through a master’s of city planning program now is probably familiar with the research about how the built environment affects car dependence,” Handy said. “[But] even if the planners and the public officials know something about that research and believe that this is what they should be trying to do, they don’t necessarily know how to do it.”
Moreover, governments often lack the support and resources they need to make progress on this issue. Opposition from NIMBY (which stands for “not in my backyard”) groups and others can block progress.
“There’s definitely a solid base of knowledge of what works,” Seskin said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that what works is initially popular, though. And I think that’s where things get tricky.”
The private sector also plays a vital role in determining how this issue plays out. Many businesses and other organizations take steps that reduce car dependency. For example, employer-run programs to shift people from cars to other modes of transportation are the most common and popular initiatives of this type in the country, Seskin said.
But other private-sector actions are less beneficial. For example, developers and financiers often slow attempts to make communities more compact, since they, not governments, ultimately determine exactly what gets built where.
“There’s a lot of inertia and risk aversion in the development community, so that’s why we keep getting the same stuff that we always get – because that’s what the private sector knows how to do,” Handy said.
Groups with economic interests in maintaining the status quo are another major barrier to progress, said Shen, who was the lead author of a 2024 report about car dependence in the U.S.
“We found that the oil, auto, and roadbuilding industries receive more than 80% of the over $2 trillion in yearly public and private transportation spending,” he said. “And if you look through our history, they’ve lobbied for decades to prioritize cars over a more complete or affordable set of transportation options.”
“Our transportation system isn’t just a blank slate where people are vying for the best technical solution,” he said. “There are industries with real financial interests in shaping how we get around.”
Cropped 11 February 2026: Aftershocks of US withdrawals | Biodiversity and business risks | Deep-sea mining tensions
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here. This is the last edition of Cropped for 2025. The newsletter will return on 14 January 2026.
Key developments Economic risks from nature lossRISKY BUSINESS: The “undervaluing” of nature by businesses is fuelling its decline and putting the global economy at risk, according to a new report covered by Carbon Brief. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) “business and biodiversity” report “urg[ed] companies to act now or potentially face extinction themselves”, Reuters wrote.
BUSINESS ACTION: The report was agreed at an IPBES meeting in Manchester last week. Speaking to Carbon Brief at the meeting, IPBES chair, Dr David Obura, said the findings showed that “all sectors” of business “need to respond to biodiversity loss and minimise their impacts”. Bloomberg quoted Prof Stephen Polasky, co-chair of the report, as saying: “Too often, at present, what’s good for business is bad for nature and vice-versa.”
Tensions in deep-sea mining Subscribe: Cropped- .pull-left{background: #f4f4f4} .listing ul{list-style:none; margin:0} ol {background: #F4F4F4; padding: 0px;} .listing ul {background: #F4F4F4; padding: 0px;} .listing li{font-size:0px;}
Sign up to Carbon Brief's free "Cropped" email newsletter. A fortnightly digest of food, land and nature news and views. Sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.
JAPAN’S TAKEOFF: Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, announced on 2 February that the country became the first in the world to extract rare earths from the deep seabed after successful retrievals near Minamitori Island, in the central Pacific Ocean, according to Asia Financial. The country hailed the move as a “first step toward industrialisation of domestically produced rare earth” metals, Takaichi said.
URGENT CALL: On 5 February, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) secretary general, Leticia Reis de Carvalho, called on EU officials to “quickly agree on an international rule book on the extraction of critical minerals in international waters”, due to be finalised later this year, Euractiv reported. The bloc has supported a proposed moratorium on deep-sea mining. However, the US has “taken the opposite approach”, fast-tracking a single permit for exploration and exploitation of seabed resources, and “might be pushing the EU – and others” to follow suit, the outlet added.
CAUTIONARY COMMENT: In the Inter Press Service, the former president of the Seychelles and a Swiss philanthropist highlighted the important role of African leadership in global ocean governance. It called for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining due to the potential harmful effects of this extractive activity on biodiversity, food security and the economy. They wrote: “The accelerating push for deep-sea mining activities also raises concerns about repeating historic patterns seen in other extractive sectors across Africa.”
News and views- ARGENTINE AUSTERITY: The Argentinian government’s response to the worst wildfires to hit Patagonia “in decades” has been hindered by president Javier Milei’s “gutting” of the country’s fire-management agency, the Associated Press reported. Carbon Brief covered a new rapid-attribution analysis of the fires, which found that climate change made the hot, dry conditions that preceded the fires more than twice as likely.
- CRISIS IN SOMALIA: The Somali government has begun “emergency talks” to address the drought that is gripping much of the country, according to Shabelle Media. The outlet wrote that the “crisis has reached a critical stage” amid “worsening shortages of water, food and pasture threatening both human life and livestock”.
- FOOD PRICES FALL: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s “food price index” – a measure of the costs of key food commodities around the world – fell in January for the fifth month in a row. The fall was driven by decreases in the price of dairy, meat and sugar, which “more than offset” increasing prices of cereals and vegetable oil, according to the FAO.
- HIGH STANDARDS: The Greenhouse Gas Protocol launched a new standard for companies to measure emissions and carbon removals from land use and emerging technologies. BusinessGreen said that the standard is “expected to provide a boost to the expanding carbon removals and carbon credit sectors by providing an agreed measurement protocol”.
- RUNNING OUT OF TIME: Negotiators from the seven US states that share the Colorado River basin met in Washington DC ahead of a 14 February deadline for agreeing a joint plan for managing the basin’s reservoirs. The Colorado Sun wrote: “The next agreement will impact growing cities, massive agricultural industries, hydroelectric power supplies and endangered species for years to come.”
- CORAL COVER: Malaysia has lost around 20% of its coral reefs since 2022, “with reef conditions continuing to deteriorate nationwide”, the Star – a Malaysian online news outlet – reported. The ongoing decline has many drivers, it added, including a global bleaching event in 2024, pollution and unsustainable tourism and development.
This week, Carbon Brief reports on the impacts of the US withdrawal from the global nature-science panel, IPBES.
The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the US from the world’s main expert panel that advises policymakers on biodiversity and ecosystem science “harms everybody, including themselves”.
That’s according to Dr David Obura, chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES.
IPBES is among the dozens of international organisations dealing with the fallout from the US government’s announcement last month.
The panel’s chief executive, Dr Luthando Dziba, told Carbon Brief that the exit impacts both the panel’s finances and the involvement of important scientists. He said:
“The US was one of the founding members of IPBES…A lot of US experts contribute to our assessments and they’ve led our assessments in various capacities. They’ve also served in various official bodies of the platform.”
Obura told Carbon Brief that “it’s very important to try and keep pushing through with the knowledge and keep doing the work that we’re doing”. He said he hopes the US will rejoin in future.
Carbon Brief attended the first IPBES meeting since Trump’s announcement, held last week in Manchester. At the meeting, countries finalised a new “business and biodiversity” report.
For the first time in the 14-year history of IPBES, there was no US government delegation present at the meeting, although some US scientists attended in other roles.
Cashflow impactsDziba is still waiting for official confirmation of the US withdrawal, but impacts were being felt even before last month’s announcement.
Budget information [pdf] from last October shows that the US contributed the most money to IPBES of any country in 2024 – around $1.2m. In 2025, when Trump took office, it sent $0, as of October.
Despite this, IPBES actually received around $1.2m extra funding from countries in 2025, compared to 2024, as other nations filled the gap.
The UK, for example, increased its contribution from around $367,000 in 2024 to more than $1.7m in 2025. The EU, which did not contribute in 2024 but tends to make multi-year payments, paid around $2.7m last year. These two payments made up the bulk of the increase in overall funding.
Wider effects of US exitDziba said IPBES is looking at other ways of boosting funds in future, but noted that lost income is not the only concern:
“For us, the withdrawal of the US is actually much larger than just the budgetary implications, because you can find somebody who can come in and increase the contribution and close that gap.
“The US has got thousands of leading experts in the fields where we undertake assessments. We know that some of them work for [the] government and maybe [for] those it will be more challenging for them to continue…But there are many other experts that we hope, in some way, will still be able to contribute to the work of the platform.”
One person trying to keep US scientists involved is Prof Pam McElwee, a professor of human ecology at Rutgers University. She told Carbon Brief that “there are still a tonne of American scientists and other civil society organisations that want to stand up”.
McElwee and others have looked at ways for US scientists to access funding to continue working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which the US has also withdrawn from. She said they will try and do the same at IPBES, adding:
“It’s basically a bottom-up initiative…to make the message clear that scientists in the US still support these institutions and we still are part of them.
“Climate science is what it is and we can’t deny or withdraw from it. So we’ll just keep trying to represent it as best we can.”
Watch, read, listenUNDER THE SEA: An article in bioGraphic explored whether the skeletons of dead corals “help or hinder recovery” on bleached reefs.
MOSSY MOORS: BBC News covered how “extinct moss” is being reintroduced in some English moors in an effort to “create diverse habitats for wildlife”.
RIBBIT: Scientists are “racing” to map out Ecuador’s “unique biological heritage of more than 700 frog species”, reported Dialogue Earth.
MEAT COMEBACK: Grist examined the rise and fall of vegan fine dining.
New science- Areas suitable for grazing animals could shrink by 36-50% by 2100 due to continued climate change, with areas of extreme poverty and political fragility experiencing the highest losses | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- The body condition of Svalbard polar bears increased after 2000, in a period of rapid loss of ice cover | Scientific Reports
- Studies projecting the possibility of reversing biodiversity loss are scarce and most do not account for additional drivers of loss, such as climate change, according to a meta-analysis of more than 55 papers | Science Advances
- 9-12 February: Climate and cryosphere open science conference | Wellington, New Zealand
- 18 February: International conservation technology conference | Lima, Peru
- 22-27 February: American Geophysical Union’s ocean sciences meeting | Glasgow, UK
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
Cropped 28 January 2026: Ocean biodiversity boost; Nature and national security; Mangrove defence
Cropped
|Cropped 14 January 2026: Wildfires scorch three continents; EU trade; Food and nature in 2026
Cropped
|Cropped 17 December 2025: ‘Deadly’ Asia floods; Boosting London’s water birds; UN headwinds
Cropped
|Cropped 3 December 2025: Extreme weather in Africa; COP30 roundup; Saudi minister interview
Cropped
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_183c70ba7f47fc3975e918264be21563 .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post Cropped 11 February 2026: Aftershocks of US withdrawals | Biodiversity and business risks | Deep-sea mining tensions appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: New UK onshore wind and solar is ‘50% cheaper’ than new gas
The UK government has secured a record 7.4 gigawatts (GW) of solar, onshore wind and tidal power in its latest auction for new renewable capacity.
It is the second and final part of the seventh auction round for “contracts for difference” (CfDs), known as AR7a.
In the first part, held in January 2026, the government agreed contracts for a record 8.4GW of new offshore wind capacity.
This makes AR7 the UK’s single-largest auction round overall, with its 14.7GW of new renewable capacity being 50% larger than the previous record set by AR6 in 2024.
In AR7a, 157 solar projects secured contracts to supply electricity for £65 per megawatt hour (MWh) and 28 onshore wind projects were contracted at £72/MWh.
This means they will help cut consumer bills, according to multiple analysts.
Energy secretary Ed Miliband welcomed the outcome of the auction, saying in a statement that the new projects would be “50% cheaper” than new gas:
“These results show once again that clean British power is the right choice for our country, agreeing a price for new onshore wind and solar that is over 50% cheaper than the cost of building and operating new gas”.
In addition to cutting costs, the new projects will help reduce gas imports.
In total, AR7 will cut UK gas demand by around 95 terawatt hours (TWh) per year, enough to cut liquified natural gas (LNG) imports by three-quarters, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Below, Carbon Brief looks at the seventh auction results for onshore wind, solar and tidal, what they mean energy for bills and the impact of the UK’s target of “clean power by 2030”.
- What happened in the latest UK renewable auction?
- What does the solar and onshore wind auction mean for bills?
- What does it mean for energy security, jobs and investment?
- What does the auction mean for clean power by 2030?
The latest UK government auction for new renewable capacity is the second and final part of the seventh auction round, known as AR7a.
It secured a record 4.9GW of new solar capacity across 157 projects, as shown in the figure below, as well as 1.3GW of onshore wind across 28 projects.
In addition, four tidal energy projects totalling 21 megawatts (MW) secured contracts, included within “other” in the figure below.
Capacity of solar, onshore wind and other technologies (including tidal) secured at each CfD auction in megawatts. Source: Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.Most of the solar that secured a contract has a capacity of less than 50MW. This is the cut-off point for projects to be approved by the local council. Larger schemes must instead go through the “nationally significant infrastructure project” (NSIP) process, subject to approval by the secretary of state for energy.
For the first time, one 480MW solar project – approved via this NSIP process – won a CfD in AR7a. The West Burton Solar NSIP is being developed in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire by Island Green Power. It is named after the grid connection it will use, freed up by the shuttering of the coal-powered West Burton plant.
However, Nick Civetta, project leader at Aurora Energy Research notes on LinkedIn that this site was only one of four eligible solar NSIPs to secure a contract.
Civetta adds that “wrangling these large projects into fruition is proving more painful than expected”.
Solar projects secured a “strike price” of £65/MWh in 2024 prices, some 7% cheaper than the £70/MWh agreed in the previous auction round.
In previous auction rounds CfD contracts were expressed in 2012 prices. For comparison, AR6 and AR7a solar contracts stand at £50/MWh and £47/MWh in 2012 prices, respectively.)
Alongside solar, 28 onshore wind projects secured contracts in the latest CfD auction, with a total capacity of 1.3GW.
This includes the Imerys windfarm in Cornwall, which at nearly 20MW is the largest onshore wind farm in England to secure a contract in a decade.
(Shortly after taking office in 2024, the current Labour government lifted a decade-long de facto ban on onshore wind in England.)
Overall, Scotland still dominated the auction for onshore wind, with 1,093MW of projects in the country in comparison to 38MW in England and 185MW in Wales.
.cb-tweet{ width: 65%; box-shadow: 3px 3px 6px #d3d3d3; margin: auto; } .cb-tweet img{ border: solid 1.25px #333333; border-radius: 5px; } @media (max-width:650px){ .cb-tweet{ width:100%; } }This includes the Sanquhar II windfarm in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland, which will become the fourth-largest onshore wind farm in the UK at 269MW.
In total, Wales secured contracts for 20 renewables projects in AR7a, with a capacity of more than 530MW. This is the largest ever number of Welsh projects to get backing in a CfD auction, according to a statement from the Welsh government.
Onshore wind secured a strike price of £72/MWh, up slightly from £71/MWh in the previous auction in 2024.
The prices for solar and onshore wind were 13% and 21% below the price cap set by Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) for the auction, respectively.
In its press release announcing the results, the government noted that the results for solar and onshore wind were less than half of the £147/MWh cost of building and operating new gas power stations.
Finally, four tidal energy projects secured contracts with a total capacity of 21MW at a strike price of £265/MWh, up from £240/MWh in 2024.
In total, taken together with the 8.4GW of offshore wind secured in the first part of the auction, AR7 secured a total of 14.7GW of new clean power, as shown in the chart below.
This is enough to power the equivalent of 16 million homes, according to the government. It also makes AR7 the single-largest auction round by far, at more than 50% larger than the previous record set by AR6 in 2024.
This means that the two auction rounds held since the Labour government took office in July 2024 – AR6 and AR7 – have secured a total of 24GW of new renewable capacity. This is more than the 22GW from all previous auction rounds put together.
New onshore wind, offshore wind, solar PV and other technologies’ capacity secured in each CfD auction, in megawatts. Source: DESNZ.However, several analysts noted that the AR7a results did not include any old onshore windfarms looking to replace their ageing turbines with new equipment – so-called “repowering projects” – despite the auction being open to them for the first time.
What does the solar and onshore wind auction mean for bills?Onshore wind and solar are widely recognised as the cheapest sources of new electricity generation in almost every part of the world.
The latest auction shows that the UK is no exception, despite its northerly location.
The prices for onshore wind and solar in the latest auction, at £72/MWh and £65/MWh respectively, are comfortably below recent wholesale power prices, which averaged £81/MWh in 2025 and £92/MWh in January 2026.
This means that the new projects will cut costs for UK electricity consumers, according to multiple analysts commenting on the auction outcome.
.cb-tweet{ width: 65%; box-shadow: 3px 3px 6px #d3d3d3; margin: auto; } .cb-tweet img{ border: solid 1.25px #333333; border-radius: 5px; } @media (max-width:650px){ .cb-tweet{ width:100%; } }The government lauded the results of AR7a for securing “homegrown energy at good value for billpayers – once again proving that clean power is the right choice for energy security and to meet rising electricity demand”.
In a statement, Miliband added:
“By backing solar and onshore wind at scale, we’re driving bills down for good and protecting families, businesses, and our country from the fossil fuel rollercoaster controlled by petrostates and dictators. This is how we take back control of our energy and deliver a new era of energy abundance and independence.”
As noted in Carbon Brief’s coverage of the offshore wind results under AR7 in January, electricity demand is starting to rise as the economy electrifies and many of the UK’s existing power plants are nearing the end of their lives.
Therefore, new sources of electricity generation will be needed, whether from renewables, gas-fired power stations or from other sources.
In his statement, quoted above, Miliband said that the prices for onshore wind and solar were less than half the £147/MWh cost of electricity from new gas-fired power stations.
(This is based on recently published government estimates and assumes that gas plants would only be operating during 30% of hours each year, in line with the current UK fleet.)
Trade association RenewableUK also pointed to the cost of new gas, as well as the £124/MWh cost of the Hinkley C new nuclear plant, in its response to the auction results.
In a statement, Dr Doug Parr, policy director for Greenpeace UK, said:
“These new onshore wind and solar projects will supply energy at less than half the cost of new gas plants. Together with the new offshore wind contracts agreed last month, these cheaper renewables will lower energy bills as they come online.”
Strike prices for solar dropped by 6% compared to last year and while onshore wind prices rose, this was by less than 2% despite a “difficult environment for wind generation”, according to Bertalan Gyenes, consultant at LCP Delta.
In a post on LinkedIn, he noted that “extending the contract length [for onshore wind projects] by five years seems to have helped keep this increase low”.
The January offshore wind round secured 8.4 GW at £91/MWh, as such, the onshore and solar projects are 25% cheaper per unit of generation.
(The offshore wind projects secured in January are nevertheless expected to cut consumer bills relative to the alternative, or at worst to be cost neutral.)
Parr added that while the AR7a auction results “show we’re getting up to speed” ahead of the clean power 2030 target (see below), “an even faster way for the government to make a really big dent in bills would be to change the system that allows gas to set the overall energy price in this country”. He adds:
“That would allow us to unshackle our bills from unreliable petrostates and get off the rollercoaster of volatile gas markets once and for all.”
What does it mean for energy security, jobs and investment?The onshore wind and solar projects secured in the latest auction round will generate an estimated 9 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
This is equivalent to roughly 3% of current UK electricity demand.
Combined with the estimated 37TWh from offshore wind secured during the first part of the auction, AR7 projects will be able to generate 46TWh of electricity, 14% of current demand.
If this electricity were to be generated by gas-fired power plants, then it would require around 95TWh of fuel, because much of the energy in the gas is lost during combustion.
This is several times more than the 25TWh of extra gas that could be produced in 2030 if new drilling licenses are issued, according to thinktank the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). As such, AR7 will significantly cut UK gas imports, ECIU says, reducing exposure to volatile international gas markets.
Furthermore, ECIU says that the impact of renewables in driving down gas demand – and subsequently electricity prices – is already being seen in the UK.
Five years ago, gas was setting the wholesale price of power in the UK 98% of the time due to the way the electricity market operates.
This price-setting dominance is being eroded by renewables, with recent analysis from the UK Energy Research Centre showing that gas set power prices 90% of the time in 2025.
A further effect of new renewables is that they push the most expensive gas-fired power plants out of the system, reducing prices. This is known as the “merit-order effect”.
Recent analysis from ECIU found that large windfarms cut wholesale electricity prices by a third in 2025.
Lucy Dolton, renewable generation lead at Cornwall Insight, said in a statement that the AR7a results will provide a “surge in momentum as [the UK] pushes toward secure, homegrown energy”, adding:
“These investments ultimately strengthen the UK’s position against volatile gas markets. If the past few years have shown us anything, it’s that remaining tied to international energy markets comes with consequences.”
The projects that secured CfDs will help the UK avoid burning significant quantities of gas, “the bulk of which would have been imported at a cost which the UK cannot control”, said RenewableUK in its statement.
Together with previous CfD auction rounds, the latest new renewable projects are expected to generate some 153TWh of electricity once they are all operating, according to Carbon Brief analysis. This is around half of current UK demand.
Generating the same electricity from gas would require some 311TWh of fuel, which is similar to the 339TWh of gas produced by the UK’s North Sea operations in the most recent 12-month period for which data is available. This figure can also be compared with the 130TWh of gas that was imported by ship as liquified natural gas (LNG) in the same period.
The government added that the AR7a projects will support up to 10,000 jobs and bring £5bn in private investment to the UK.
(In total, the new projects secured via AR7 are expected to bring investments worth around £20-23bn to the UK, according to Aurora.)
Additionally, the onshore wind projects are expected to generate over £6.5m in “community benefit” funds for people living near them, according to RenewableUK.
The AR7a results were released alongside the publication of the Local Power Plan by the government and Great British Energy.
This is designed to provide £1bn in funding for communities to own and control their own clean energy projects across the UK.
What does the auction mean for clean power by 2030?The AR7a results put the UK “on track for its 2030 clean power target”, according to the government.
Over AR6 and AR7, several changes have been made to the CfD process to help facilitate more projects to secure contracts.
A total of 24GW has been secured over the last two auction rounds – which have taken place under the current Labour government – compared to 22GW across the five auction rounds previously.
As part of its goal for clean power to meet 100% of electricity demand by 2030 and to account for at least 95% of electricity generation, the UK government is aiming for 27-29GW of onshore wind and 45-47GW of solar by the end of the decade.
As of September 2025, the UK had 16.3GW of installed onshore wind capacity and more than 21GW of solar capacity. Taken together, the onshore technologies therefore need to double in operational capacity over the next four years to reach the 2030 targets.
Analysis by RenewableUK suggests that the government will need to procure between 3.85GW to 4.85GW of onshore wind in the next two auctions for the 2030 goal to remain possible.
Writing on LinkedIn, Aurora’s Civetta said that the onshore clean power 2030 targets “remain a long way off”.
He continued that the gap for solar to reach its 45-47GW target is still a “whopping 18GW”, but added that there may be other ways for new capacity to be secured, beyond the CfD auctions.
He said these included a growing market for corporate “power purchase agreements” (PPAs), economic incentives for homes and businesses to install solar and the government’s recently released “warm homes plan”, all of which “should drive further procurement”.
.cb-tweet{ width: 65%; box-shadow: 3px 3px 6px #d3d3d3; margin: auto; } .cb-tweet img{ border: solid 1.25px #333333; border-radius: 5px; } @media (max-width:650px){ .cb-tweet{ width:100%; } }Dolton from Cornwall Insight adds that “the challenge now is delivery”, continuing:
“2.5GW of the winners have a delivery year of 2027/28, and over half – 3.7GW – have a delivery year of 2028/29, which brings them very close to the government’s 2030 clean power target.
“Historically, renewable projects in the UK have faced delays, often due to grid connection backlogs and planning holdups. With AR7 and some of AR8 representing the only realistic pipeline for pre-2030 capacity, keeping to schedule will be essential.”
When built, the projects announced today will help to bring the total capacity of CfD-supported wind and solar to 50.6GW, according to Ember.
While solar and onshore wind are expected to play an important role in decarbonising the electricity system, offshore wind is set to be the “backbone”.
The government is targeting 43-50GW of offshore wind by 2030, up from around 17GW of installed capacity today.
This leaves a gap of 27-34GW to the government’s target range.
Prior to the AR7 auction, a further 10GW had already secured CfD contracts, excluding the cancelled Hornsea 4 project.
The 8.4GW secured in January brings the gap to reach the minimum of 43GW over the four years to just 7GW.
Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months
China energy
|G7 ‘falling behind’ China as world’s wind and solar plans reach new high in 2025
International policy
|Five key climate and energy announcements in India’s budget for 2026
Explainers
|Analysis: EVs just outsold petrol cars in EU for first time ever
Energy
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_99e53f1f9dc00f79a153af73a2fd69dd .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post Q&A: New UK onshore wind and solar is ‘50% cheaper’ than new gas appeared first on Carbon Brief.
IPBES chair Dr David Obura: Trump’s US exit from global nature panel ‘harms everybody’
The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the US from the intergovernmental science panel for nature “harms everybody, including them”, according to its chair.
Dr David Obura is a leading coral reef ecologist from Kenya and chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the world’s authority on the science of nature decline.
In January, Donald Trump announced intentions to withdraw the US from IPBES, along with 65 other international organisations, including the UN climate science panel and its climate treaty.
In an interview with Carbon Brief, Obura says the warming that humans have already caused means “coral reefs are very likely at a tipping point” and that it is now inevitable that Earth “will lose what we have called coral reefs”.
A global goal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 will not be possible to achieve for every ecosystem, he continues, noting that a lack of action from countries means “we won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point”.
Despite this, it is still possible to reverse the “enabling drivers” of biodiversity decline within the next four years, he adds, warning that leaders must act as “our economies and societies fully depend on nature”.
The interview was conducted at the sidelines of an IPBES meeting in Manchester, UK, where governments agreed to a new report detailing how the “undervaluing” of nature by businesses is fuelling biodiversity decline and putting the global economy at risk.
- On US leaving IPBES: “Any major country not being part of it harms everybody, including themselves.”
- On reversing nature loss by 2030: “We won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point.”
- On the value of biodiversity: “Nature is really the life support system for people. Our economies and societies fully depend on nature.”
- On coral reefs: “We will lose what we have called coral reefs up until this point.”
- On nature justice: “The places that are most vulnerable don’t have the income, or the assets, to conserve biodiversity.”
- On IPBES’s latest report: “One of the key findings is all businesses have impacts and dependencies on nature.”
- On the next UN nature summit: “We need acceleration of activities and impact and effectiveness, more than anything else.”
Carbon Brief: Last month Trump announced plans for the US to exit IPBES and dozens of other global organisations. You described this at the time as “deeply disappointing”. What are your thoughts on the decision now and what will be the main impacts of the US leaving IPBES?
David Obura: Well, part of the reason that I’ve come to IPBES is because, of course, I believe in the multilateral process, because we bring 150 countries together, we’re part of the UN and the multilateral system and we’re based on knowledge [that provides] inputs to policymaking. We have a conceptual framework that looks from the bottom up on how people depend on nature. I’m also doing a lot of science on Earth systems at the planetary level, how our footprint is exceeding the scale of the planet. We have to make decisions together. We need the multilateral system to work to help facilitate that. It has never been perfect. Of course, I come from a region [Africa] that hasn’t been, you know, powerful in the multilateral process.
But we need countries to come together, so any major country not being part of it harms everybody, including themselves. It’s very important to try and keep pushing through with the knowledge and keep doing the work that we’re doing, so that, over time, hopefully [the US will] rejoin. Because, in the end, we will really need that to happen.
CB: This is the first IPBES meeting since Trump made the announcement. Has it had an impact so far on these proceedings and is there any kind of US presence here?
DO: This plenary is like every plenary that we have had. The current members are here. Some members are not. And, of course, we have some states here as observers working out if they’re going to join or not. And then we have a lot of private sector observers and universities and so on. The impact of a country leaving – the US in this case – has no impact on the plenary itself, because they’re not here making decisions on the things that we do.
We, of course, don’t have US government members attending in technical areas, but we do have institutions and universities and academics here attending as they have in the past. So, in that sense, the plenary goes on as it goes on – the science and the knowledge is the same. The decision-making processes we have here are the same. And, as I said earlier, what has an impact is the actual action that takes place afterwards, because a lot of the recommendations that we make are based on enabling conditions that governments put in place, to bring in place sustainability actions and so on. When governments are not doing that, especially major economic drivers, then the whole system suffers.
CB: When you were appointed as chair of IPBES more than two years ago, you said that your aim was to strengthen cohesion and impact and also get the findings of IPBES in front of more people. So how would you rate your progress on this now that it’s been about a couple of years?
DO: Well, like any intergovernmental process, we have a certain amount of inertia in what we do and it takes a few years to consult on topics for assessments and then to do them and to improve them and get them out.
One of the main things we’re discussing right now is we have had a rolling work programme from when IPBES started until 2030 and we need to decide on the last few deliverables and how we work in that period. We are asking for a mandate to spend the next year really considering the multiple options that we have in proposing a way forward for the last few years of this work programme. I feel that the countries are very aligned. We have done a lot of work, produced a lot of outputs. It is challenging for governments and other stakeholders to read our assessments and reach into them to find what’s useful to them. They make constant calls for more support, in uptake, in capacity building and in policy support.
The second global assessment in 2028 will be our 17th assessment [overall]. We would like to focus on really bringing all this knowledge together across assessments in ways that are relevant to different governments, different stakeholder groups, different networks to help them reach into the knowledge that’s in the assessments. And I think the governments, of course, want that as well, because many of them are calling for it. Many of the governments that support us financially, of course, want to see a return of investment on the money that they have put in.
CB: Nations agreed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. Back in 2023 we had a conversation for Carbon Brief and you said that you were “highly doubtful” this goal could be achieved for every ecosystem by that date. Where do you stand on this now?
DO: I work on coral reefs and part of the reason I’ve come to IPBES platform is because the amount of climate change we’re committed to with current fossil fuel emissions and the focus on economic growth means that corals will continue to decline 20, 30, 40 years into the future. I think of that there’s no real doubt. The question is how soon we put in place the right actions to halt climate change. That will then have a lag on how long it takes for corals to cope with that amount of climate change.
We can’t halt and reverse the decline of every ecosystem. But we can try and bend the curve to halt and reverse the drivers of decline. So, that’s some of the economic drivers that we talk about in the nexus and transformative change assessment, the indirect drivers and the value shifts we need to have. What the Global Biodiversity Framework [GBF, a global nature agreement made in 2022] aspires to do in terms of halting and reversing biodiversity decline – we absolutely need to do that. We can do it and we can put in place the enabling conditions for that by 2030 for sure. But we won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point to halt [the loss of] all ecosystems.
We’re now in 2026, so this is three years plus after the GBF was adopted. We still need greater action from all countries and all stakeholders and businesses and so on. That’s what we’re really pushing for in our assessments.
CB: Biodiversity loss has historically been underappreciated by world leaders. As the world continues to be gripped by geopolitical uncertainty, conflict and financial pressures, what are your thoughts on the chances of leaders addressing the issue of biodiversity loss in a meaningful way?
DO: What are the chances of addressing biodiversity loss? I mean, we have to do it. It’s really our life support system and if we only focus on immediate crises and threats and don’t pay attention to the long-term threats and crises, that only creates more short-term crises down the line, we make it harder and harder to do that. I hope that what I’m hoping we get to understand better through IPBES science, as well as others, is that we’re not just reporting on the state of biodiversity because it’s nice to have it, but it’s [because] diversity of nature is really the life support system for people. Our economies and societies fully depend on nature. If we want them to prosper and be secure into the long-term future, we have to learn how to bring the impact and dependencies of business, which is a focus of this assessment, in line with nature. And until we do that, we will just continue to magnify the potential for future crises and their impacts.
CB: You mentioned already that your expertise is in coral reefs. A report last year warned that the world has reached its first climate tipping point, that of widespread dying of warm water coral reefs. Do you agree with that statement and can you discuss the wider state of coral reefs across the world at this present moment?
DO: The report that came out last year in 2025 was a global tipping point report and it’s actually in 2023 the first one of those [was published]. I was involved in that one and we basically took what the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] has produced, which [is] compiled from the [scientific] literature [which said] that 1.5-2C was the critical range for coral reefs, where you go from losing 70-90% to 90-99% of coral reefs around the world. [It is] a bit hard to say exactly what that means. What we did was we actually reduced that range from 1.5C-2C to 1-1.5C, based on observations we’ve already made about loss of corals. In 2024, the world was 1.5C above historical conditions for one year. The IPCC number requires a 20-year average [for 1.5C to be crossed]. So, we’re not quite at the IPCC limit, but we’re very close. Also, with not putting in place fast enough emission reductions, warming will continue.
Coral reefs are very likely at a tipping point. And, so, I do agree with the statement. It means that we lose the fully connected regional, global system that coral reefs have been in the past. There will still be some coral reefs in places that have some natural protection mechanisms, whether it’s oceanographic or some levels of sedimentation in green water from rivers can help. And there’s resilience of corals as well. Some corals will be able to adapt somewhat, but not all – and not all the other species too. We will lose what we have called coral reefs up until this point. We’ll still continue to have simpler coral ecosystems into the future, but they won’t be quite the same.
It is a crisis point and my hope is that, in coming out from the coral reef world, I can communicate that this is, this has been a crisis for coral reefs. It’s a very important ecosystem, but we don’t want it to happen to more and more and more ecosystems that support more [than] hundreds of millions and billions of people as well. Because, if we let things go that far, then, of course, we have much bigger crises on our hands.
CB: Something else you’ve spoken about before is around equity being one of the big challenges when it comes to responding to biodiversity loss. Can you explain why you think that biodiversity loss should be seen as a justice issue?
DO: Well, biodiversity loss is a justice issue because we are a part of biodiversity and – just like the loss of ecosystems and habitats and species – people live locally as well. People experience biodiversity loss in their surroundings.
The places that are most vulnerable and don’t have the income, or the assets, to either conserve biodiversity, or need to rely on it too much so they degrade it – they feel the impacts of that loss much more directly than those who do have more assets. Also, the more assets you have, the more you can import biodiversity products and benefits from somewhere else.
So, it’s very much a justice issue, both from local levels experiencing it directly, but then also at global levels. We are part of it [biodiversity], we don’t own it. It’s a global good, or a common public good, so we need to be preserving it for all people on the planet. In that sense, there are many, many justice issues that are involved in both loss of biodiversity and how you deal with that as well.
CB: How would you say IPBES is working towards achieving greater equity in biodiversity science?
DO: One of the headline findings of our values assessment in 2022, which looked at multiple values different cultures have and different worldviews around the planet, [was that] by accommodating or considering different worldviews and different perspectives, you achieve greater equity because you’re already considering other worldviews in making decisions.
So, that’s an important first step – just making it much more apparent and upfront that we can’t just make decisions, especially global ones, from a single worldview and the dominant one is the market economic worldview that we have. That’s very important.
But, then, also in how we do our assessments and the knowledge systems that are incorporated in them. We integrate different knowledge systems together and try and juxtapose – or if they can be integrated, we do that, sometimes you can’t – but you just need to illustrate different worldviews and perspectives on the common issue of biodiversity loss or livelihoods or something like that.
We hope that our conceptual framework and our values framework really help bring in this awareness of multiple cultures and multiple perspectives in the multilateral system.
CB: When this interview is published, IPBES will have released its report on business and biodiversity. What are some of the key takeaways from this?
DO: Our assessments integrate so much information that the key messages are actually, in retrospect, quite obvious in a way. One of the key findings it will say is that all businesses have impacts and dependencies on nature.
Of course, when you think about it, of course they do. We often think, “oh, well ecotourism is dependent on nature”, but even a supermarket is dependent on nature because a lot of the produce comes from a natural system somewhere, maybe in a greenhouse or enhanced by fertiliser, but it still comes from natural systems. Any other business will have either impacts on the nature around it, or it needs tree shade outside so people can walk in and things like that.
So, that’s one of the main findings. It’s not just certain sectors that need to respond to biodiversity loss and minimise their impacts. All sectors need to. Another finding, of course, is that it’s very differentiated depending on the type of business and type of sector.
It’s also very differentiated in different parts of the world in terms of responsibilities and also capabilities. So small businesses, of course, have much less leeway, perhaps, to change what they’re doing, whereas big businesses do and they have more assets, so they can deal with shifts and changes much better.
It’s a methodological assessment, rather than assessing the state of businesses, or the state of nature in relation to businesses [and] they pull together a huge list of methodologies and tools and things that businesses can access and do to understand their impacts and dependencies and act on them. Then [there is] also guidance and advice for governments on how to enable businesses to do that with the right incentives and regulations and so on. In that sense, it helps bring knowledge together into a single place.
It has been fantastic to see the parallel programme that the UK government has organised [at the IPBES meeting in Manchester]. It has brought together a huge range of British businesses and consultancies and so on that help businesses understand their impacts on nature. There’s a huge thirst.
To some extent, I would have thought, with so much capacity already in some of these organisations, what would they learn from our assessments? But they’re really hungry to see the integration. They really want to see that this really does make a big difference, that others will do the same, that the government will really support moving in these directions. There’s a huge amount of effort in the findings coming out and I’m sure that that will be felt all around the world and in different countries in different ways.
CB: As we’re speaking now, you’re still in the midst of figuring out exactly what the report will say and going through line-by-line to figure this out. Something we’ve seen at other negotiations…has been these entrenched views from countries on certain key issues. And one thing I did notice in the Earth Negotiations Bulletin discussion of yesterday’s [4 February] negotiations was that it said that some delegations wanted to remove mentions of climate change from the report. Has this been a key sticking point here or have there been any difficulties from countries during these negotiations?
DO: The nature of these multilateral negotiations is that the science is, in a way, a central body of work that is built through consensus of bringing all this knowledge together. It’s almost like a centralising process. And, yes, different countries have different perspectives on what their priorities are and the messages they want to see or not.
We still, of course, deal with different positions from countries. What we hope to do is to be able to convene it so that we see that we serve the countries best by having the most unbiased reporting of what the science is saying in language that is accessible to and useful to policymakers, rather than not having language or not having mention of things in in the agreed text.
How it’ll work out, I don’t know. Each time is different from the others. I think one of the key things that’s really important for us is that you do have different governance tracks on different aspects of the world we deal in. So, the [UN] Sustainable Development Goals, as well [as negotiations] on climate change – the UNFCCC, the climate convention, is the governing body for that. There’s two goals on nature – the Convention on Biological Diversity and other multilateral agreements are the institutions that govern that part.
We have come from a nature-based perspective, with nature’s contributions to a good quality of life for people…We start in the nature goals, but we actually have content that relates to all the other goals. We need to consider climate impacts on nature, or climate impacts on people that affect how they use nature. The nexus assessment was, in a way, a mini SDG report. It looked at six different Sustainable Development Goals.
We try and make sure that while on the institutional mechanisms, certain countries may try and want us to report within our mandate on nature, we do have findings that relate to climate change that relate to income and poverty and food production and health systems [and] that we need to report [outwardly] so that people are aware of those and they can use those in decision-making contexts.
That’s a difficult discussion and every time it comes out a little bit differently. But we hope we move the agenda further towards 2030 in the SDGs. We have an indivisible system that we need to report on.
CB: The next UN biodiversity summit COP17 is taking place later this year. What are the main outcomes you’re hoping to see at that summit?
DO: The main outcomes I would hope to see from the biodiversity summit is greater alignment across the countries. We really need to move forward on delivering on the GBF as part of the sustainable development agenda as well. So there will be a review of progress. We need acceleration of activities and impact and effectiveness, more than anything else.
That means, of course, addressing all of the targets in the GBF. Not equally, necessarily, but they all need progress to support one another in the whole. We work to provide the science inputs that can help deliver that through the CBD [Convention on Biological Diversity] mechanisms as well. We hope they use our assessments to the fullest and that we see good progress coming out.
CB: Great, thank you very much for your time.
Prof Ben Santer: Trump administration is ‘embracing ignorance’ on climate science
Interviews
|Interview: How ‘mid-level bureaucrats’ are helping to shape Chinese climate policy
China energy
|The Carbon Brief Interview: UK Met Office chief executive Penny Endersby
In Focus
|The Carbon Brief Interview: UK Climate Change Committee’s Emma Pinchbeck
Interviews
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_9e2ddb3c7a408710af03dd93037138ec .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post IPBES chair Dr David Obura: Trump’s US exit from global nature panel ‘harms everybody’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate change made ‘fire weather’ in Chile and Argentina three times more likely
The hot, dry and windy weather preceding the wildfires that tore through Chile and Argentina last month was made around three times more likely due to human-caused climate change.
This is according to a rapid attribution study by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) service.
Devastating wildfires hit multiple parts of South America throughout January.
The fires claimed the lives of 23 people in Chile and displaced thousands of people and destroyed vast areas of native forests and grasslands in both Chile and Argentina.
The authors find that the hot, dry and windy conditions that drove the “high fire danger” are expected to occur once every five years, but that these conditions would have been “rarer” in a world without climate change.
In today’s climate, rainfall intensity during the “fire season” is around 20-25% lower in the areas covered by the study than it would be in a world without human-caused emissions, the study adds.
Study author Prof Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at Imperial College London, told a press briefing:
“We’re confident in saying that the main driver of this increased fire risk is human-caused warming. These trends are projected to continue in the future as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels.”
‘Significant’ damageThe recent wildfires in Chile and Argentina have been “one of the most significant and damaging events in the region”, the report says.
In the lead-up to the fires, both countries were gripped by intense heatwaves and droughts.
The authors analysed two regions – one in central Chile and the other in Argentine Patagonia, along the border between Argentina and Chile.
For example, in Argentina’s northern Patagonian Andes, the last recorded rainfall was in mid-November of 2025, according to the report. It adds that in early January, the region recorded 11 consecutive days of “extreme maximum temperatures”, marking the “second-longest warm spell in the past 65 years”.
Dr Juan Antonio Rivera, a researcher at the Argentine Institute of Snow Science, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences, told a WWA press briefing that these weather conditions dried out vegetation and decreased soil moisture, which meant that the fires “found abundant fuel to continue over time”.
In the northern Patagonian Andes of Argentina, wildfires started on 6 January in Puerto Patriada and spread over two national parks of Los Alerces and Lago Puelo and nearby regions. These fires remained active into the first week of February.
The fires engulfed more than 45,000 hectares of native and planted forest, shrublands and grasslands, including 75% of native forests in the village of Epuyén, notes the study.
At least 47 homes were burned, according to El País. La Nación reported that many families evacuated themselves to prevent any damage.
In south-central Chile, wildfires occurred from 17 to 19 January, affecting the Biobío, Ñuble and Araucanía regions.
They started near Concepción city, the capital of the Biobío region, where maximum temperatures reached 26C. In the nearby city of Chillán, temperatures reached 37C.
From there, the fires spread southwards to the coastal towns of Penco-Lirquen and Punta Parra, in the Biobío region.
The event left 23 people dead, 52,000 people displaced and more than 1,000 homes destroyed in the country, according to the study.
Inhabitants of Lirquen, in Chile, walk through the homes consumed by the flames in January 2026. Credit: UNAR Photo / Alamy Stock Photo.These wildfires burnt more than 40,000 hectares of forests, “tripling the amount of land burned in 2025” across the country, reported La Tercera.
The study adds that more than 20,000 hectares of non-native forest plantations, including Monterey pine and Eucalyptus trees, were consumed by the blaze and critical infrastructure was affected.
A WWA press release points out that the expansion of non-native pines and invasive species “has created highly flammable landscapes in Chile”.
Hot, dry and windyWildfires are complex events that are influenced by a wide range of factors, such as atmospheric moisture, wind speed and fuel availability.
To assess the impact of climate change on wildfires, the authors chose a “fire weather” metric called the “hot dry windy index” (HDWI). This combines maximum temperature, relative humidity and wind speed.
While this metric does not include every component that could contribute to intense wildfires, such as land-use change and fuel load data, study author Dr Claire Barnes from Imperial College London told a press briefing that HDWI is “a very good predictor of short-term, extreme, dry, fire-prone conditions”.
The authors chose to analyse two separate regions. The first lies along the coast and the foothills of the Andes around the Ñuble, Biobío and La Araucanía regions in central Chile. The second sits across the Chilean and Argentine border in Patagonia.
These regions are shown on the map below, where red circles indicate the wildfires recorded in January 2026 and pink boxes represent the study areas.
Location of forest fires in Chile and Argentina in January 2026 (red circles) and the study areas (pink boxes). Source: WWA (2026).The authors also selected different time periods for the two study regions, to reflect the “different lengths of peak wildfire activity associated with the fires in each region”.
For the central Chilean study area, the authors focus their analysis on the two most severe days of HDWI, 17-18 January. For the Patagonian region, they focus on the most severe five-day period, which took place over 2-6 January.
To put the wildfire into its historical context, the authors analyse data on temperature, wind and rainfall to assess how HDWI over the two regions has changed since the year 1980.
They find that in both study regions, the high HWDI recorded in January is not “particularly extreme” in today’s climate and would typically be expected roughly once every five years. However, they add that the event would have been “rarer” in a world without climate change, in which average global temperatures are 1.3C cooler.
The authors also use a combination of observations and climate models to carry out an “attribution” analysis, comparing the world as it is today to a “counterfactual” world without human-caused climate change.
They find that climate change made the high HDWI three-times more likely in the central Chilean region and 2.5-times more likely in the Patagonian region.
The authors also conduct analysis focused solely on November-January rainfall.
Both study regions experienced “very low rainfall” in the months leading up to the fires, the authors say. They find that fire-season rainfall intensity is around 25% lower in the central Chilean region and 20% lower in the Patagonia region in today’s climate than it would have been in a world without climate change.
Finally, the authors considered the influence of climatic cycles such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a naturally occurring phenomenon that affects global temperatures and regional weather patterns.
They find that a combination of La Niña – the “cool” phase of ENSO – combined with another natural cycle called the Southern Annular Mode, led to atmospheric circulation patterns that “favoured the hot and dry conditions that enhanced fire persistence and severity in parts of the region”.
However, they add that this has a comparably small effect on the overall intensity of the wildfires, with climate change standing out as the main driver.
(These findings are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. However, the methods used in the analysis have been published in previous attribution studies.)
Vulnerable communitiesThe wildfires affected native forests, national parks and small rural and tourist communities in both countries.
A 2025 study conducted in Chile, cited in the WWA analysis, found that 74% of survey respondents did not have appropriate education and awareness on wildfires.
This suggests that insufficient preparedness on early warning signs, response measures and prevention can “exacerbate the severity and frequency of these events”, the WWA authors say.
Aynur Kadihasanoglu, senior urban specialist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, said in the WWA press release that many settlements in Chile are close to flammable pine plantations, which “puts lives and livelihoods at risk”.
Additionally, the head of Chile’s National Forest Corporation pointed to “structural shortcomings” in fire prevention, such as lack of regulation in lands without management plans, reported BioBioChile.
In Argentina, the response to the fires has been hampered by large budget cuts and reductions in forest rangers, according to the WWA press release. Experts have criticised Argentina’s self-styled “liberal-libertarian” president Javier Milei for the cuts and the delay to declaring a state of emergency in Patagonia.
According to the Associated Press, “Milei slashed spending on the National Fire Management Service by 80% in 2024 compared to the previous year”. The service “faces another 71% reduction in funds” in its 2026 budget, the newswire adds.
Argentinian native forests and grasslands are experiencing “intense pressure” from wildfires, according to the study. Many vulnerable native animal species, such as the huemul and the pudú, are losing critical habitat, while birds, such as the Patagonian black woodpecker, are losing nesting sites.
Huemul deer in Argentine Patagonia, one of the vulnerable animal species to wildfires in the region. Credit: Bernardo Galmarini / Alamy Stock Photo.Climate change and La Niña made ‘devastating’ southern African floods more intense
Attribution
|Analysis: What are the causes of recent record-high global temperatures?
El Niño
|Met Office: Ten years of naming UK storms to warn the public
Guest posts
|Global wildfires burned an area of land larger than India in 2024
Land and soils
| jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_61678c92e1affd8869aa7a79297160f3 .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });The post Climate change made ‘fire weather’ in Chile and Argentina three times more likely appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Pages
The Fine Print I:
Disclaimer: The views expressed on this site are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) unless otherwise indicated and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s, nor should it be assumed that any of these authors automatically support the IWW or endorse any of its positions.
Further: the inclusion of a link on our site (other than the link to the main IWW site) does not imply endorsement by or an alliance with the IWW. These sites have been chosen by our members due to their perceived relevance to the IWW EUC and are included here for informational purposes only. If you have any suggestions or comments on any of the links included (or not included) above, please contact us.
The Fine Print II:
Fair Use Notice: The material on this site is provided for educational and informational purposes. It may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in an effort to advance the understanding of scientific, environmental, economic, social justice and human rights issues etc.
It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have an interest in using the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The information on this site does not constitute legal or technical advice.
This site is not the official webpage of the Industrial Workers of the World.