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• Formal negotiations
• Finance
• Global review
• Global report
• Digital sequence information
• Harmful subsidies
• Marine biodiversity
• Planning, monitoring, reporting and review
• Article 8(j) implementation
• Biodiversity and climate change
• Links with other bodies
• Around the COP
• Armenian presidency
• Protests
• Lobbying and influence
• Carbon and biodiversity markets

Countries have completed the first “global review” of their progress towards reversing nature loss by 2030 at the COP17 biodiversity talks in Yerevan, Armenia.

The review “notes with deep concern” that, unless action is “rapidly accelerated”, the goal to reverse nature loss and meet a set of 23 targets by 2030 “will not be achieved”.

It “urges” countries to accelerate action, including by “increased ambition in addressing the gaps”.

Much of the discussions in Yerevan focused on how to raise the necessary funds to help developing countries protect nature.

Some major economies pushed to expand the range of nations that are expected to provide finance, with countries agreeing at the end of the two weeks of talks that non-donors that want to contribute can “signal interest” before COP18.

This came after developed countries failed to meet a target to significantly ramp up nature finance over the last few years.

It also came as a landmark fund agreed at COP16 in Colombia to pay communities for the genetic resources derived from nature stands nearly empty two years on.

The Yerevan talks marked the halfway point of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature” first made in 2022 and due to be achieved by 2030.

During the nearly 12-hour-long final plenary, countries voted for Quito, Ecuador, to host the COP18 nature talks, which will be held in 2028.

Countries managed to sign off on all the major negotiation texts, marking a stark contrast to COP16, which ran so far over time that the Colombian presidency lost “quorum”, forcing talks to resume in Rome months later. 

Below, Carbon Brief has detailed analysis of all of the key outcomes from COP17.

• Formal negotiations

  • Finance
  • Global review
  • Global report
  • Digital sequence information

    • Money in vs money out
    • Industry-led initiatives

  • Harmful subsidies
  • Marine biodiversity
  • Planning, monitoring, reporting and review
  • Article 8(j) implementation
  • Biodiversity and climate change
  • Links with other bodies

• Around the COP

  • Armenian presidency
  • Protests
  • Lobbying and influence
  • Carbon and biodiversity markets

Formal negotiations Finance

Finance, predictably, was at the heart of the discord and deadlock at the Yerevan talks. 

At COP17, discussions on finance had to achieve several outcomes. 

The first part – to take stock of biodiversity finance mobilised so far to meet the nature deal’s goals – fell under the global review.

As the global report noted, developed countries failed to meet their commitments to raise “at least $20bn a year by 2025” for nature. Delegates pointed to falling aid levels and a sharp 27% decline in environmental funding for the 2026-30 period.

The second part was to agree on how to mobilise resources for the next four years, to meet the GBF’s goals and targets.

Calls to “broaden the contributor base” of who pays to protect nature – and whether that should include emerging economies – became the most fraught element of the talks.

Eventually, countries agreed on what Switzerland described as a “super, mega-delicate” text. It hinged on major “political compromises”, with “no major winner or loser”, according to Kenya. 

Per the decision, countries that want to be included on a list of developed country donors can “signal interest” through bilateral, confidential consultations before COP18 and every alternate COP after. 

Finally, countries also agreed on criteria to shape and resource a new, permanent financial mechanism to protect nature after 2030. 

However, this did not immediately take the form of a new fund under the COP that biodiverse countries have demanded since 2022, deferring the mechanism’s institutional structure to COP18.

Resource mobilisation discussions at the GBF’s halfway mark were supposed to agree on how to close the “biodiversity finance gap” and to “increase resources from all sources” to “at least” $200bn per year by 2030, as set out in target 19 of the GBF. 

The talks were largely dominated by a push, led by the JUSCANZ bloc of developed countries, to “broaden the contributor base”. This could see emerging economies, such as Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia and India, being added to the list of countries that pay to protect nature. 

Article 20 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) states that developed countries “shall provide new and additional financial resources” to developing countries to meet the costs of implementing measures to protect nature. 

The second paragraph of Article 20 of the UN biodiversity convention. Source: UN CBD

The text states that other countries – including emerging economies – may “voluntarily assume” these obligations to pay. However, it adds that this list of developed countries “shall” be reviewed periodically and amended “if necessary”. 

The list was last amended in 2006.

(See this “jargon buster” which explains the specific meaning and legal weight of various terms and verbs used in UN formal documents.)

Discussions around this fraught subject had reached a dead end at intersessional talks this year, but resurfaced in Yerevan. 

The first “non-paper” had four different options for expanding the contributor base. These ranged from using the World Bank’s country income groups “as a proxy” to identify high-income countries, to commissioning a study on the impacts of being included on the list.

By 21 October, the number of options swelled to eight, including two from Saudi Arabia and one from Peru. 

Some countries “expressed concern” that certain options were based on a CBD secretariat study on “what constitutes a developed country”, Earth Negotiations Bulletin reported. 

By the end of the first week, it was clear that the finance deadlock would have to go into informal ministerial consultations for any consensus to emerge. 

At a press conference on 28 October, Christopher O’Sullivan, Ireland’s nature minister and representing the EU delegation, told Carbon Brief:

“Our position isn’t that we want to pull back in terms of contributing…but it’s been 20 years since that list was added to, times have changed and there are new realities. We just simply want those new realities reflected. I don’t fully understand why there’s so much opposition to that.”

The EU chose not to comment on which countries it would like to see on that list.

Lim Li Ching from the Third World Network, meanwhile, called the push for others to “assume the obligations” of developed countries “sheer hypocrisy”, adding that any country could make a voluntary contribution. She told Carbon Brief:

“At a forum like the CBD, this linking of income status with finance does not take into account where historical and current responsibilities lie. If you want to generate more funding for biodiversity, let’s look at sovereign debt burdens and rules, which are inequitable for developing countries. But if you can fund wars, and provide resources for your defence industry, then you know where the priorities are.”

On 29 October – at a plenary meant to adopt final texts for the most contentious subjects – Norway’s Gaute Hanssen announced that resource-mobilisation discussions would go into a smaller “friends of the chair” meeting. 

Facilitated by Carolina Caceres from Canada and Imèn Meliane from Tunisia, the meeting would discuss the most contentious elements of a draft decision that had swelled to 112 brackets, denoting areas of disagreement on specific details in the text.

While the meeting was open to all, countries that were called to be present included Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, the EU, Fiji, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the UK.

At the same time, a “non-paper” text by finance and environment ministers laid out countries’ red lines and compromises.

A key paragraphs from a minister’s non-paper on nature finance published on 29 October. Source: UN CBD

At the end of COP17, countries welcomed a final compromise text, with Kenya thanking the “strong women” co-chairs who strove to strike a “delicate” balance. 

China, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Fiji cautioned against any further interventions, with Brazil warning: “If we open this text, we will never close it again.”

While the final decision “recognises” that “contributions from more parties would improve the mobilisation” of biodiversity finance, it steered away from issuing criteria to expand the list of donor countries. 

The text makes it clear that no additions to the list would be made without inviting and confidentially consulting with interested countries, to secure their explicit consent. 

Instead, the CBD secretariat “invites” countries keen to be on the list and “assume the obligations” of developed countries to “signal interest” before COP18 and at every alternate COP thereafter. 

At the same time, developing countries can contribute to meeting the GBF and biodiversity convention’s goals on a “voluntary basis”, with contributions not implying inclusion on the list.

A negotiator for China told Carbon Brief at the closing plenary: 

“We welcome this balanced document. It was a very long discussion that has gone [on] since [2022 nature talks in] Nairobi. But actually this time, there were a lot of sensitive issues, [there were] a lot of critical things we didn’t open in the contact groups; it mainly went to the high-level discussion.”

The decision also establishes a financial mechanism for nature funding after 2030 under the governance of the COP, a key ask from developing countries. 

However, it defers decisions on what form this mechanism would take – whether this would be a new fund or based on existing arrangements – until COP18. 

Oscar Soria at the Common Initiative told Carbon Brief that the decision on the financial mechanism leaves things “very open”, with “no movement” towards a new fund or money and no upgrades to existing funding arrangements.

The text acknowledges the links between debt and biodiversity eight times, mentioning how debt-related instruments can be included in biodiversity plans, but does not go further.

“It is almost as if the debt studies they called for at COP16 didn’t happen,” said Soria, who had earlier flagged serious methodological issues with the first-ever COP-commissioned report on debt and biodiversity. 

Global review

In Yerevan, countries agreed on the first stocktake of progress towards the 2030 nature targets – known as the “global review”. 

The review was one of the keenly anticipated outcomes from COP17 and was seen as less controversial than some of the other major negotiation strands. 

It was swiftly signed off by countries at the start of the final COP17 plenary, with just one last-minute addition. 

The concept of carrying out a global review on “collective progress” was set out in the GBF and its underlying documents. 

The details of how this review would be carried out were supposed to be agreed at COP16, but it was not discussed before the plenary in Cali was suspended for loss of “quorum”. It was instead adopted at the resumed COP16 negotiations in Rome in February 2025.

The global review was based largely on the findings of the global report and other information provided by countries. 

The final text “welcomes” and also “notes with deep concern” the findings of the global report. It then homes in on various ways countries can increase their biodiversity action to get on track to meet the targets. 

As of 19 October, when COP17 officially began, the non-paper contained 152 brackets, which indicate areas of disagreement in UN texts.

Smaller “contact group” discussions took place to try and reduce the number of brackets throughout the first week. This group was co-chaired by Sanne Kruid from the Netherlands and Sivendra Michael from Fiji. 

A few days into the talks, Kruid told Carbon Brief that the progress on the global review was “relatively positive”, with countries “engaging quite well”. 

One contentious section of the 11-page text was paragraph 15, which “urges” countries to accelerate implementation of nature targets, “including by increased ambition” in addressing key challenges. 

Some developing countries were wary of including the word “ambition” in this section, arguing that higher ambition requires more nature finance, which is already falling “far short”. 

Kirsty Leong, a policy expert at WWF, told Carbon Brief: 

“You have one side wanting to have very strong language and high ambition in what countries should do…and the other side of the room saying the main problem in implementation is that they don’t have the means to do it.” 

But the word made it into the final text, which “urges” parties to accelerate implementation of the GBF, “including by increased ambition”, while recognising that developing countries need more support to “allow for higher ambition in their actions”. 

Another hotly debated section was paragraph 26, which “encourages” countries to accelerate reform of nature-harming subsidies, “in accordance with national circumstances”.  

Earlier in the talks, it was also unclear whether this would feature in the final version due to pushback from countries including Saudi Arabia and Russia. (See: Harmful subsidies) 

Earlier drafts of paragraph 16 – another key section – focused on supporting increased action to address biodiversity loss, and also mentioned transforming global financial systems and economic sectors. 

This was heavily stripped back in the final version, which “emphasises that accelerating implementation would need to be supported through increased action to address the underlying drivers of biodiversity loss.”  

The review also “notes with deep concern” that the 2050 nature goals “may be at risk” if 2030 targets are not achieved.

The COP17 presidency and others frequently discussed a “Yerevan pathway” during the negotiations.

It was unclear whether this would feature in a separate cover decision text, similar to those agreed at climate COP summits, or in another way. 

In the end, the “pathway” referred to the sections of the global review outlining calls for countries to scale up action to meet the 2030 nature targets. 

A CBD statement said it “sets out a shared response to those findings [of the global report], identifying priorities for action through 2030 and areas where progress will need to be accelerated”.

Elsewhere in the global review talks, Earth Negotiations Bulletin said a small group was also set up to address references to “actors other than national governments”.

These “actors” include Indigenous peoples and local communities. Joji Carino from the not-for-profit Forest Peoples Programme called for this wording to be “discontinued”. 

She told a 20 October press briefing that the phrase is a “major regression”, believing it makes it sound like “governments were always the central actor” and Indigenous peoples were “just there on the side”.

This phrase featured a number of times in the final global review document, with Indigenous peoples and local communities also highlighted several times. 

On 28 October, rumours circulated that the COP17 president, Hambardzum Matevosyan, wanted to bring the global review text for agreement at a plenary session that evening, two days before talks were due to end. 

When Carbon Brief ran into Matevosyan in a lift that afternoon, he said this would only occur if countries reached a consensus on the text. They did not manage this and he confirmed in the evening plenary that consultations would continue. 

Carbon Brief understands that Brazil was the main blocker on movement of the text at this stage. The issues were not necessarily with the text itself, but with progress on other texts – namely, resource mobilisation. 

(Similarly, at COP16, the Democratic Republic of the Congo called for the full monitoring framework text to be put in brackets due to dissatisfaction over resource mobilisation.)

In the final plenary on 30 October, countries supported the presidency’s proposals to clear the remaining 28 brackets in the text. 

Brazil made a last-minute request to mention people of African descent in paragraph 35, which “emphasises” the contributions of actions from various groups of people to the GBF. 

Colombia supported the proposal, and no country objected, so the COP17 president approved the addition before gavelling through the document, saying “we have started very good”.  

Daudi Sumba, the chief conservation officer at WWF International, said in a statement: 

“Negotiators returning home must now turn the global review into clear dedicated action, scaling nature’s recovery by transforming the most damaging sectors and activities across our food and finance systems.”

Global report

Just ahead of COP17, the UN released a global report finding that the world is falling behind on 22 out of 23 of its nature targets for 2030. 

It said that the GBF has led to “unprecedented” interest in tackling biodiversity loss, but added:

“However, unless collective implementation accelerates rapidly, the 2030 targets and mission will not be achieved.”

The global report provided a basis for the global review of progress towards meeting the targets of the GBF, which was undertaken by countries in Yerevan.

The scheduling of both the global report and the global review were agreed as part of the GBF and its underlying documents in 2022.

The global report draws on countries’ national reports, which were due to be submitted to the UN in February of this year. It also draws on countries’ national nature plans, known as “national biodiversity strategies and action plans” (NBSAPs) and national targets, which were both due in 2024.

Not all countries have met the call to publish these documents and targets. According to the UN, 45% of countries published NBSAPs in time to be considered for the report, 83% had submitted at least one national target and 66% had produced their new national report. 

The first draft of the global report was published on 29 June 2026. This draft was subject to a “peer-review process”, which invited countries and observers, such as NGOs and businesses, to submit comments on all aspects of the report.

The second draft, which has been revised based on the peer review, was published on Sunday 26 July, just ahead of COP17 preparatory talks being held in Nairobi.

The final version – titled “The state of biodiversity action: The global report on collective progress” – was published on 24 September.

The second draft of the global report included a scorecard showing numerical data on progress towards each of the GBF’s 23 targets, based on different metrics. (See Carbon Brief’s article.)

Some of these figures featured in the finalised report, but a “decision was made” to leave them out of the final scorecard, the CBD confirmed to Carbon Brief.

Instead, the final scorecard solely uses a colour-coding system to rank progress on these metrics. But the colours are not that straightforward to interpret.

The rankings from worst (red) to best (green) are based on where progress on each metric ranks relative to the highest and lowest scores achieved in each instance.

This means that, for example, a poor-performing target can have certain figures coloured green on scores as low as 43%, while this same score appears as yellow in other instances.

Digital sequence information

Digital sequence information (DSI) – the genetic data derived from nature – was one of the most keenly watched “fights” by countries, companies, academia and Indigenous peoples alike.

This data is used in a wide range of industries, including pharmaceuticals and agribusiness companies, to develop products such as medicines, cosmetics, supplements and crop varieties.

At COP16, countries agreed to the first-ever global fund – the Cali Fund – to which companies using DSI “should contribute”, along with a unique multilateral mechanism to support it.

They established a steering committee to conduct studies and provide advice to the COP on the small print still left unresolved on the Cali Fund and mechanism.

In Yerevan, countries were supposed to consider and finalise these details, such as who “should” pay into the fund and how this money would reach countries and Indigenous communities protecting the world’s genetic diversity.

However, following two weeks of deep divisions, delays and then fears of rushing crucial details in the plenary, most of this work has been pushed to intersessional negotiations leading up to COP18 in 2028. 

Countries did, however, finalise a review methodology to assess how the mechanism and thinly lined fund are working by COP18. 

Money in vs money out

Countries had a lot to achieve on DSI at COP17. This task list had been broadly grouped by the steering committee into two categories: “money in” and “money out”. The Cali decision gave the steering committee two years to prepare studies and documents to support COP17 deliberations on both tracks. 

“Money in” refers to which – and by how much – companies pay into the fund, defined by “thresholds” and contribution rates. Thresholds mean deciding which companies – small, medium or large – “should” contribute to the Cali Fund and whether that is decided on the basis of size, revenue or their “proportional” use of DSI. 

Contribution rates refer to how much companies pay. Days before COP17, the CBD secretariat submitted a 209-page study, conducted by an external consultant, on thresholds and contribution rates.

Contributions to the fund, however, are voluntary, with indicative rates already set out in the COP16 decision – 0.1% of revenue, or 1% of profits. According to a DeSmog investigation, pharmaceutical trade lobbies “challenged” these rates and called for a radical rethink of the fund itself. (See: Lobbying and influence.)

“Money out”, meanwhile, refers to how the Cali Fund’s resources are allocated, disbursed and spent. 

As Carbon Brief reporting has shown, there has been barely any “money in” to the Cali Fund over the past two years. At the start of COP17, the fund had only $6,000 in it. By the end of it, pledges went up, but not by much: totalling $10,565 and less than $9,000 in actual deposits.

To date, not a single large company among the sectors identified as reliant on DSI has contributed to the fund. 

Observers and government delegates across blocs told Carbon Brief that the bulk of the steering committee’s work leading up to COP17 was focused on the “money out”. 

This included an emphasis on certificates and other “incentives” for companies to pay. Obtaining such a certificate for a full contribution, for instance, could indemnify companies from paying any more for DSI use that year. Right now, every voluntary contribution, no matter how small, gets a receipt from the Cali Fund.

“Money out” also comprises how funds would be allocated and disbursed to countries and Indigenous communities, as well as transparency on how it would be spent. 

At the talks, Brazil – supported by other developing countries – called for Cali Fund contributions to reach at least $200m in its pilot phase before discussing allocation. 

Dr Siva Thambisetty, associate professor of law at the London School of Economics, told Carbon Brief:

“We seemed to collapse the entire question to certificates. I question whether we should have spent so much time on allocation strategies when the ‘money in’ has been so insignificant.” 

Through most of the talks, industry – supported by the EU and UK – sought “legal clarity” on “certificates” for potential contributions. 

At an informal dialogue on DSI on 23 October attended by Carbon Brief, industry representatives echoed calls for more “legal certainty” before they would pledge more. They also warned of “obligation stacking” from having to share benefits from using genetic resources under other treaties.

While the first non-paper on DSI on 20 October had 154 brackets, countries worked over the weekend to remove contentious elements. 

However, disagreements on these details underpinning the text were still substantive. At 6am on 28 October, the COP president sent out a letter calling for informal ministerial consultations, steered by Norway and Zimbabwe. The letter also set out “overarching questions” to resolve.

Extract from a letter issued by the COP17 president on 28 October listing key issues for ministers to resolve on DSI. Credit: COP17 Presidency.

The penultimate DSI text only emerged late on the final day of COP17, with parties such as Fiji saying that many countries had very little time to read it. 

After multiple interventions from countries including Fiji, India, the EU, Brazil, China and Argentina, parties could find no way forward. 

The chair of a working group tasked with resolving some of the most contentious negotiations before the final plenary called for a “friends of the chair” group to determine intersessional work on DSI, led by Fiji. He urged these consultations to continue in parallel with the COP17 plenary, or risk having no COP decision at all.

At 5am on 31 October, the COP president proposed a draft decision on DSI, as the final plenary entered its seventh hour. 

The text “reaffirms” the indicative contribution rates agreed at COP16. It sets out an allocation methodology on how funds from the Cali Fund will be disbursed after COP18, while “allow[ing]” the steering committee to make payments “on an exceptional basis” if contributions to the Cali Fund reach $150m.

The allocations from the Cali Fund for Indigenous peoples in the COP17 decision. Credit: UN CBD

Only contributions by companies amounting to “1% of their profit or 0.1% of their revenue” will be entitled to a Cali Fund certificate for the year, it clarifies.

The president’s text was adopted without objections at 5:25am, with the emptying plenary hall bursting into applause. 

Speaking to Carbon Brief minutes after the DSI decision was adopted, Fiji’s Sivendra Michael said he was “so glad I was given the opportunity to chair and bring this decision to a close”. He added: 

“It matters a lot, especially for Indigenous people back home, because any work that is done in the methodology and how benefits get distributed should respect the rights of Indigenous peoples. 

“I knew I would land it before I left here. It also shows Pacific leadership in this space, because Pacific islands may be small, but our leadership has really been demonstrated across the room, when we can come in and offer bridging proposals and push countries to show what flexibility looks like.” 

Despite Michael welcoming the decision, others were more critical.

Dr June Rubis, Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC) representative from Asia on the Cali Fund’s steering committee, said:

“Many wealthy nations asked for a voluntary fund, got one, and business has spent the last two years stalling contributions, throwing doubt on the multilateral mechanism. 

“The commitment made in Cali still stands and Indigenous peoples and local communities cannot keep waiting while companies free-ride off nature’s genetic information. While setting the rules for new funds like this does take time to get right, governments need to start treating this as a matter of economic resilience and human survival.”

Thambisetty told Carbon Brief after the talks concluded:

“The Cali Fund is on life support. We leave Yerevan with an open-ended working group. It became clear that work in the run-up to COP17 was distorted by industry echo chambers, a receptive steering committee and lack of close engagement and oversight.

There is much work ahead, but we need transparency, a robust and imaginative public narrative and, inevitably, a hardening of the regulatory ecosystem by states where large DSI users are based.”

Industry-led initiatives

In addition to the work on DSI by parties, there was an industry-led initiative announced at COP17.  

The proposal – seen by Carbon Brief – aims to start a separate philanthropic fund, called the Biodiversity Foundation Initiative. 

This initiative argues that the Cali Fund and national benefit-sharing measures “create complex payment obligations, compliance requirements and unpredictable financial exposure”. 

Rubis expressed concern that industry was “picking up on our language of ‘different pathways’” to start its own fund with the expectation it would then receive particular certificates from key governments. 

While the initiative says it “intends to complement – not replace” – the Cali Fund, it also notes that it hopes to “engage key governments” and “build political support”, with little clarity on whether communities would receive benefits.

Other Indigenous leaders and academics told Carbon Brief they were being “actively lobbied” at COP17 to support this initiative, although its architects described their outreach as a “co-design” phase for the fund.

Harmful subsidies

Nature-harming subsidies were a central point of discussion throughout COP17 – both inside negotiation rooms and at side events in Yerevan. 

Governments spend as much as $1.8tn each year on subsidies and incentives that could be “harmful” to biodiversity across a range of sectors, particularly fossil fuels and agriculture. 

Target 18 of the GBF sets out the aim to identify – by 2025 – and then “eliminate, phase out or reform” these harmful incentives. It also outlines that subsidies should be reduced by at least $500bn each year by 2030. 

Carbon Brief analysis published in July found that 84% of countries missed the 2025 identification deadline. Countries have also shown “insufficient” progress so far on target 18, according to the global report. 

At an event on 26 October, UN biodiversity chief Astrid Schomaker described subsidy reform as “politically charged and socially sensitive”. This was evident throughout the negotiations, despite countries already agreeing to the terms of target 18 four years ago. 

Harmful subsidies featured in several negotiated outcomes from Yerevan – most notably in the global review. (See: Global review) 

Earlier versions of a subsidy-related paragraph in the review “urge[d]” stronger action on target 18. 

In a non-paper released on 25 October, this was softened to “encourage” countries to scale up identification, elimination, phase-out or reform of harmful incentives, “in accordance with national circumstances”. 

Bracketed text on subsidies from a 25 October non-paper on the global review. Source: UN CBD

Carbon Brief understands that Colombia, the UK, Norway, EU nations and many others were in favour of including a paragraph on harmful subsidy reform in the global review. Countries opposed to this included Saudi Arabia and Russia. Near the end of the negotiations, India also proposed removing this paragraph from the text. 

The final global review text agreed at COP17 “encourages” countries to “accelerate the implementation of target 18”, but in “accordance with national circumstances”. 

Eva Zabey, the chief executive of Business for Nature, said in a statement:   

“This COP is a turning point on incentive reform. ⁠Through the adoption of this decision, parties have made it a key priority. Incentive reform has moved from the margins to the mainstream of the biodiversity agenda.” 

Ahead of COP17, more than 130 businesses and financial organisations signed an open letter calling for governments to reform nature-harming incentives.

On 19 October, a Conservation International report estimated that harmful subsidies result in $11-24.7tn of “hidden environmental and social damage costs” every year.    

COP17 also saw the launch of several initiatives focused on subsidy reform, with a number of related announcements on 26 October. 

On this day, the COP17 presidency launched the “Yerevan call” on positive biodiversity incentives – a political declaration to increase action and reaffirm commitments to target 18. 

It formed one of four “flagship” priorities for the COP17 presidency, with the others focused on conservation measures, mountain and freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity monitoring. 

A new group called the “friends of target 18” was also announced. The initiative, put together by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), will be co-chaired by Colombia and Finland. 

Armenia is the only other country currently officially involved in the group, while France, Malawi and Guinea have indicated they will join. 

The “friends” group has already held several informal meetings since March 2025, said Farooq Ullah, a senior policy advisor at the IISD. He told Carbon Brief that the group intends to help countries share information and solutions on subsidy reform, and to strengthen “political will” on tackling subsidies. 

Ullah said more information and the full list of countries involved will be published in May 2027, during the first planned in-person meeting of the “friends”. 

The IISD also published a report on national-level progress on target 18, finding that countries are “not on track” to meet their commitments on subsidy reform. 

Throughout COP17, the narrative around harmful subsidies focused primarily on economic – rather than environmental – benefits of reform. Ullah told Carbon Brief: 

“Something is different now. Governments are taking this seriously for the first time and, honestly, it may not be for environmental reasons. It is because they are out of money.”

Dozens of countries around the world increased their fossil-fuel subsidies this year to ward off energy price rises after the US-Israel war on Iran disrupted supplies flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Marine biodiversity

There were three main points of contention around the text on marine and coastal biodiversity in Yerevan.

The main sticking point concerned references to the agreement on marine biodiversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction, known as BBNJ, or the “High Seas Treaty”. The BBNJ agreement entered into force in January of this year and it has been ratified by more than 100 countries.

The initial non-paper presented for discussion contained six direct references to the treaty – all in brackets. While most parties were in agreement about the importance of recognising the treaty in this text, Russia remained adamantly opposed to most of these references.

Similarly, while many parties wanted to include text in the decision that “welcomes with appreciation” the treaty’s entry into force, Russia said it “could not accept” anything other than “takes note of”.

Ultimately, references to the BBNJ agreement were removed from the preambular paragraphs and several other places in the text, with the decision saying it “takes note of” the treaty’s entry into force.

Parties did agree to establish an informal advisory group on work conducted under the CBD in relation to marine areas beyond national jurisdiction.

The establishment of this group was a “very important” part of the text, said Lolita Couchene, advocacy officer at Nausicaá. Couchene pointed out that the Yerevan summit is the first CBD COP since the entry into force of the BBNJ treaty. She told Carbon Brief:

“There are really high stakes around how it will be addressed…It’s really important, because the entry into force of the BBNJ agreement is a major milestone for ocean governance, and its implementation will also depend on how it connects effectively with the other international frameworks – especially the Convention on Biological Diversity.”

The second sticking point was around one of the annexes to the decision, which concerned ecologically or biologically significant marine areas, known as “EBSAs”.

At COP16 in Cali, negotiators finally came to a decision on the process for scientifically describing EBSAs, after eight years of negotiations. Alongside this, parties requested “voluntary guidelines on peer-review processes” for describing EBSAs. 

That language proved contentious in Yerevan, even though it had already been agreed two years earlier. Some parties felt that the word “guidelines” – even directly following “voluntary” – could be seen as too binding. However, many other parties were dissatisfied with the proposed alternative of “voluntary reference elements for good practice”.

As of the second week of the COP, both of these options remained bracketed in the text, along with a compromise option of “voluntary guidance”.

Annex I from the marine and coastal biodiversity text released on 25 October. Source: UN CBD

Ultimately, it was this third option that made it into the text adopted during the closing plenary. 

The final sticking point with the text was around explicit mentions of Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), as well as women and youth. These mentions were also contested by Russia. 

All of the bracketed mentions of these groups were removed before the text went to the plenary for approval, although the final decision does retain one reference that had not been bracketed.

Xiomara Acevedo, founder and director of the civil society organisation Barranquilla+20, told Carbon Brief that the “regression” on language around IPLCs, women and youth is “concerning because this is already agreed language”. She added:

“We cannot achieve global biodiversity targets by weakening the recognition of the peoples, communities and knowledge systems that have contributed to protecting biodiversity for generations.”

When the marine biodiversity text was discussed in the final plenary session, several parties noted their unhappiness with Russia’s resistance to certain elements of this text. A Chilean delegate said she had “deep concern in the steps we are taking back”. She added:

“We are erasing with our elbow what we have just written.”

Her statement was met with lasting applause in the plenary room.

Planning, monitoring, reporting and review

Alongside the global review, delegates negotiated a separate text on “further enhancing” planning, monitoring, reporting and review (PMRR).

This included additional work on the monitoring framework, which was one of the last issues to get resolved at COP16 – ultimately, it was agreed at the resumed session in Rome in February 2025. 

Coming into Yerevan, there “wasn’t really a mandate to continue working on the monitoring framework”, Victoria Romero, senior policy officer for biodiversity at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), told Carbon Brief. Rather, she said, the discussions were very “process-oriented”.

The PMRR decision “welcomes with appreciation” parties’ efforts to provide information in a timely manner, but also “notes with concern” the “institutional, technical, capacity and resource challenges” that made it difficult for parties to do so.

Much of the discussion in Yerevan centred on those challenges. Romero told Carbon Brief:

“There’s an acknowledgement that the monitoring framework wasn’t used as much as it should have. But then one of the gaps identified – that is addressed at this COP – is this expression of needs of capacity to be able to use the monitoring framework.”

The decision “requests” that the Global Environment Facility ensure that “timely, adequate and accessible resources” are available for parties as they prepare their eighth national reports.

In a non-paper released on the first day of the talks, disagreement was clear on several issues, including the level of detail of reporting; the post-2030 work of the convention; development and addition of indicators; and specific references to Indigenous peoples and local communities, women and youth.

An annex to the decision laid out more than a dozen additional, optional indicators that parties could use to report on their progress towards the global targets. Parties were split on how to refer to these indicators, with some supporting text that “agrees” to their inclusion and some wanting weaker text that “takes note” of the additional indicators.

The entire annex was also placed in brackets at one point, but parties later agreed to remove those, with the provision that a footnote be added to clarify that the indicators themselves had not been negotiated by the COP or its subsidiary bodies, according to Earth Negotiations Bulletin.

The final text “takes note” of the additional proposed indicators, while adding that their use is “optional and subject to national circumstances”.

Parties also diverged on how to refer to the convention’s work after 2030: as a post-2030 strategic plan; a possible follow-up to the Framework; or continued implementation of the GBF towards its 2050 goals. Some parties felt it was important not to prejudge the outcome of COP19 by specifying what the post-2030 work would look like.

Text on post-2030 work submitted by the working group chair for plenary consideration. Source: UN CBD

Ultimately, parties agreed to a compromise, brought forward by the EU at the final plenary, to ask the subsidiary bodies for “recommendations on an inclusive, transparent and party-driven way forward for the period post-2030 without prejudging the outcome” in reference to future work.

The decision also agreed to establish an ad hoc technical expert group on the “further operationalisation” of the monitoring framework. This group, which will support parties in preparing their eighth national reports, was a “positive outcome” from the PMRR decision, Romero said.

Article 8(j) implementation

One of the major outcomes from COP16 was the agreement to create a new permanent body for Indigenous peoples. 

This would provide a space to advise and offer the views of Indigenous peoples directly at biodiversity COPs for the first time. 

Discussions on the role of Indigenous peoples take place at UN biodiversity COPs under Article 8(j) of the Convention on Biological Diversity. 

This mandates that countries “respect, preserve and maintain” the knowledge of Indigenous peoples and local communities related to biodiversity conservation, and to “encourage the equitable sharing of benefits”.

At COP17, countries negotiated several documents related to figuring out how this mechanism would be implemented within the CBD, its budget and other organisational matters.

At the end of the final plenary session on 30 October, countries agreed on the “modus operandi” of the permanent body. This was widely celebrated after two weeks of tense and divided negotiations. 

The divisions centred on a number of things, including the composition between Indigenous peoples and local communities in a “friends of the bureau” group, plus the geographical rotation of nominations for co-chairs of the subsidiary body.

Several “contact group” negotiations took place on 8(j) at COP17, co-chaired by Jennifer Corpuz from the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity and Sikeade Oluwakemi Egbuwalo from Nigeria. 

On 27 October, Corpuz told Carbon Brief that countries showed “constructive spirit”, but a lot of “red lines” remained. She added: 

“We’re trying our best to get past them, but we know that there are very, very strong views on either side of the table.”

It would be a “failure of COP17” to not agree on the modus operandi, said the DRC on behalf of the African group in the final plenary session on 30 October.  

The DRC claimed the plenary would lose “quorum” in “30 minutes” as the talks ran well into overtime, calling on countries to “show courage” on the issue. 

In the end, countries signed off on the terms of how the permanent body would be implemented. 

More detailed coverage of 8(j) negotiations and outcomes will be added to this article shortly. 

Biodiversity and climate change

Countries in Yerevan agreed to a new text on biodiversity and climate change, which included new voluntary guidance for scaling up nature-based solutions, but left out references to a landmark legal climate opinion and new biodiversity science.

Though recognising the links between climate change and biodiversity was a key objective of the Colombian presidency in Cali at COP16, the mood at COP17 was distinctly different, observers told Carbon Brief.

In Cali, countries agreed to a text that “recognises” that biodiversity loss and climate change are “interdependent” issues that “need to be addressed urgently and in a coherent and balanced manner”.

Despite finding agreement two years ago, negotiators decided to revisit this passage again in Yerevan, explained An Lambrechts, head of the Greenpeace delegation at COP17. She told Carbon Brief:

“They actually went to having this exact same debate about some words in the text that they had at COP16. For example, if they refer to interconnected ‘crises’ or ‘challenges’ – and that kept going in circles for a long time.

“[There is] a feeling that there is some backtracking because the world has changed, compared to Cali.”

One key area of contention this year was a movement to cite the International Court of Justice’s landmark advisory “opinion” on climate change within the biodiversity and climate change text. (See Carbon Brief’s in-depth summary of the ICJ opinion.)

Several draft versions of the text contained a reference to the ICJ’s opinion in brackets (illustrated below).

A draft version of the biodiversity and climate change text from 30 October. Source: UN CBD

Debates on whether or not to include the reference continued into COP17’s last scheduled day.

The Pacific small island states, Panama, the EU and Brazil supported citing the advisory opinion in the text, Carbon Brief understands, with small islands indicating it was a “red line”.

Meanwhile, Russia, Saudi Arabia and India were “in favour of deletion”, an observer said.

During the final plenary, Russia restated that it would not be willing to agree to the text unless the reference to the ICJ opinion was removed, telling the presidency:

“We are just not willing to move on that, particularly at this time of night.”

Russia also asked the presidency to delete other passages of text referencing IPBES assessments on how to achieve “transformative change” for nature and on the “nexus” between biodiversity, water, food and health.

This was opposed by the UK, which noted that past COPs had “previously welcomed” new scientific assessments and reports.

In a further intervention, the UK suggested a “compromise” of deleting a reference to the transformative change assessment, but keeping a reference to the nexus assessment – arguing this was the more “relevant” report for the biodiversity and climate text. 

Russia accepted this compromise.

The text was adopted without references to the ICJ opinion on climate change and the IPBES transformative change assessment.

Another key passage in the climate text refers to the development of new “voluntary guidelines” for helping countries scale up nature-based solutions to climate change.

The text “invites” countries to “consider using the voluntary guidelines” to “integrate” nature-based solutions and “social and environmental safeguards in mitigation and adaptation measures”.

It also “requests” that CBD executive secretary Astrid Schomaker “invites” countries and civil society to submit their “views and reflections” on the voluntary guidelines.

Links with other bodies

Following a strong outcome for “links with other bodies” at COP16, negotiations stalled on a number of agenda items in Armenia. 

These links were discussed explicitly within agenda item 13, which covers “cooperation with other conventions and international organisations”. 

However, references to other “bodies and synergies” across the three Rio conventions were also contentious across several other agenda items, including biodiversity and climate change, as well as the text on marine and coastal biodiversity.

Work mandated by the final COP16 decision led to two documents on cooperation with other bodies being produced during intersessional meetings, which formed the basis of negotiation in Yerevan. 

However, not all parties supported these documents and disagreements quickly arose. 

View of the room during an event on cooperation among the Rio Conventions. Credit: IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis

Negotiations at COP16 had led to some “really ambitious text” on synergies within the biodiversity and climate change item, according to Bethan Laughlin, senior policy specialist at the Zoological Society of London. 

Laughlin told Carbon Brief: 

“What we saw was real pushback against the ambition that these annexes brought to the table, with significant resistance from a small number of parties to strengthening synergies, in general. There was also resistance from some to anything that might not be in line with some governments’ national priorities…[This] manifested in the [final] decision, really whittling it down and weakening it.”

Across the first week, in discussion on links with other bodies, contentious elements included the development of a multilevel road map to enhance synergies across the Rio conventions and a “supplement to the voluntary guidelines on ecosystem-based adaptation and disaster risk reduction”. 

A heavily bracketed “non-paper” published during the second week of COP17 highlighted the lack of consensus. 

Observers told Carbon Brief that some parties pushed back against any references to mitigation within the voluntary guidelines text, alongside references to the recent “nexus” and “transformative” change IPBES assessments. 

This mirrors a wider trend of objecting to science and implementation language, both at COP17 and within the wider multilateral space. 

There was also significant pushback in the marine and coastal biodiversity negotiations on references to the agreement on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (the “High Seas Treaty”), which entered into force in January. (See: Marine biodiversity)

A reference to the High Seas Treaty was bracketed in early versions of the cooperation text, but remained in the final version.

Ultimately, parties decided to pass the multilevel roadmap to peer review, providing parties and stakeholders with more time to provide additional views on the roadmap. 

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Camila Jardim, an international political expert at Greenpeace Brazil, said negotiators “struggled to uphold the commitments made in Cali”, adding: 

“There was pushback against the synergies agenda – even regarding the use of the term ‘synergies’ itself.”

A draft text was gavelled through during the final plenary for cooperation; however, it pushed work on a number of elements into future meetings.

In the closing days of COP17, the CBD presidency alongside the presidencies of other Rio conventions – the UNFCCC’s COP31, UNCCD’s COP17 and UNCCD’s COP18 – released a joint statement declaring their intention to accelerate work on biodiversity through the use of synergies. It added: 

“We call for elevating Rio convention synergies higher on the political agenda, providing opportunities for parties, other governments and relevant stakeholders to engage and contribute in an open, inclusive, transparent, balanced and participatory manner.”

Around the COP Armenian presidency

Armenia was chosen over Azerbaijan as the host of COP17 in a vote held at the previous UN nature summit in 2024.

(At UN biodiversity talks, countries vote in a secret ballot for the next host nation, at the end of each COP.)  

This year’s summit took place in the mountainous nation’s capital of Yerevan – one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. 

Several delegates told Carbon Brief that the COP17 president, Hambardzum Matevosyan, was engaged and well-organised throughout the talks. 

During the summit, Matevosyan, Armenia’s environment minister, kept a relatively low public profile outside the walls of the official negotiation rooms.  

He spoke at high-level events and a small number of press conferences – alongside frequent Facebook updates – but remained tight-lipped to the media about how the talks were progressing. 

He told journalists on 22 October that he had discussed key negotiation issues with countries in the months leading up to the summit, to expedite progress at the talks. 

At a mid-point press briefing on 26 October, Matevosyan described “encouraging momentum” and cooperation in the negotiations. He added that he believed COP17 would be judged by its “lasting results”, beyond the final gavel falling. 

Speaking at a press conference after the all-night, 12-hour final plenary session, Matevosyan said: “We have achieved more than we could have expected”. 

CBD executive secretary Schomaker said the COP achieved “remarkable things at a moment when multilateralism is supposedly not functioning”.

Attendees also widely praised the logistics in Yerevan, with free buses to the conference venue and efforts to ease city congestion, including traffic restrictions and closing local schools.

However, Armenia’s hosting of the COP also drew attention to its own environmental record. 

Civil-society groups criticised the launch of operations at a gold mine in the south-east of the country just over one week before COP17 began. (See: Protests)

Prime minister Nikol Pashinyan’s framing of the mine as a “success” also drew criticism, according to Armenian investigative outlet Hetq.

Mining is a key economic sector in Armenia, with the nation holding reserves of rare minerals, copper and gold. Land-use change – mainly for agriculture, but also partly for mining – is one of the key drivers of biodiversity loss. 

Hetq also reported that “construction waste” from the COP17 negotiations venue “spilled” into a gorge that was recently recognised as a specially protected natural area. 

Hetq said Armenia’s ministry of environment “noted that it is not a body that exercises supervisory functions over environmental protection norms”. 

Protests

Protests at COP17 were muted, compared to the loud marches seen at most climate COPs, with many “silent” demonstrations inside the blue zone when negotiations were under way. 

On the first day of the talks, Armenian activists wearing t-shirts and carrying signs drawing attention to the controversial Amulsar gold mine were prevented from entering the venue. 

Two days later, one of the same activists, Anna Shahnazaryan, was again denied entry to the venue – although she was later allowed to speak at an event organised by the CBD women’s caucus. 

In a press conference, Shahnazaryan said that the mine – which began operations one week before COP17 – “undermines and obstructs all 23 targets” of the GBF. She added:

“This is similar to the climate COPs, where the whole world gathers to discuss the climate crisis, but oil industry representatives attend and strike deals. The same thing is happening here at our COP. We must not allow the discourse on biodiversity conservation to be cynically turned into mining rhetoric.”

The UN special rapporteur for environmental defenders, Michel Forst, told Carbon Brief:

“Biodiversity [loss], climate [change] and pollution are the main threats to the planet currently. And my concern as special rapporteur is that I see many people could not participate in COP meetings. I’m there also to prevent attacks from occurring, but to ensure people have the full right to participate and express themselves safely in these premises.”

As wildfires raged in Indonesia, activists wearing pollution masks in the foyer of the COP17 venue drew attention to the extinction risk facing Tapanuli orangutans. 

According to a new report by conservation NGO Mighty Earth, around 7% of the species’ population was wiped out by Cyclone Senyar, which struck Sumatra last year. The report noted that the storm was “supercharged” by climate change.

Prof Serge Wich, a primatologist who helped identify the Tapanuli orangutans as a distinct species only in 2017, said in the report: 

“[Extinction of these orangutans] would be a terrible failure by humanity, the conservation community and governments. With all the knowledge and money we have in the world, if we can’t save charismatic species like this… what is the hope for all the other species that we care about?”

The largest protest by far at COP17 was held by Brazilian Indigenous groups ahead of the country’s presidential run-off election on 25 October. Protesters said the vote was crucial to “defend democracy”, Brazil’s sovereignty and biodiversity. 

According to a statement by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the “electoral advance of the far right” in Brazil’s Congressional elections earlier this month brought back issues that are “not abstract” to Indigenous peoples, but are tied to their safety, autonomy and survival. 

Prior to the election, Carbon Brief analysis showed that Lula’s third term as president prevented the deforestation of an area of Amazon rainforest roughly the size of the US state of New Jersey. 

Camila Jardim from Greenpeace Brazil told Carbon Brief at a press briefing that the incoming Brazilian Congress will, nonetheless, have a stronger ability to “dismantle” environmental protections due to the large majority won by far-right parties. 

As ministers huddled behind closed doors on 29 October, human-rights organisations held a silent protest in the main hallway to draw attention to frontline environmentalists killed defending biodiversity. 

Protest in the COP17 corridors drawing attention to the killings of environmental defenders. Credit: ENB/IISD | Mike Muzurakis Lobbying and influence

Throughout the talks, advocacy groups highlighted the role of lobbying within negotiations on key texts.

Investigative outlet DeSmog said a leading pharmaceutical group had tried to weaken the terms of the Cali Fund, since it was first announced in 2024. 

DeSmog said it had seen documents in which the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) called for a “radical rethink” of the fund. 

The outlet quoted Guilherme Cintra, director of innovation policy at IFPMA, saying the group had “long supported the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity and continues to deliver against the targets set out in the Global Biodiversity Framework”.

However, DeSmog also quoted the industry group stating that the “modalities of the decision” to establish the Cali Fund should be “significantly reviewed, revised and clarified”.

Various charities raised concerns about the potential role of lobbying in the run-up to COP17, including Amnesty International, which warned in a briefing document: 

“Companies and industry associations have massively stepped up their lobbying to counter and roll back biodiversity protections, which they see as limiting their business opportunities. To do this, they turn up in large numbers at the COPs, and take up space that could be used for the voices of affected communities.”

As the negotiations continued into their second week, charities continued to caution about the potential for lobbying.

For example, Greenpeace called on governments to “get their act together and…prevent corporate lobbyists from capturing the negotiations”.

Carbon and biodiversity markets

Despite controversy surrounding biodiversity offsets and credits, they are officially accepted as one of the official means of achieving the GBF’s target 19.

Amid a shortfall in international public finance for biodiversity, these markets were expected to feature prominently in Yerevan.

“One area the discussion has moved forward quite a lot is the area of biodiversity credits,” said UN biodiversity chief Schomaker at a nature finance press conference ahead of COP17 in September. 

She admitted that credits were “rather controversially discussed” at COP16 and “among the messages” from Indigenous communities and civil society was the “need to really learn from carbon credits”. Schomaker added that they “remain an important instrument”, if they can be “high-integrity”.

At a press conference on the first day at COP17, Indigenous leaders opposed the use of “charismatic species” – such as lions or rhinos that are generally popular with people – as credits to “offset” biodiversity loss. 

Speaking to reporters, Tom Goldtooth, Dakota environmentalist and executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, called biodiversity credits a “violation of the sacred, of Indigenous peoples’ values”.

Criticising “buffalo bonds” for carbon storage, Goldtooth continued:

“It’s Chevron, it’s Shell leasing trees using colonial structures of property rights. I cannot comprehend a world where they use whales as carbon sponges. We come from the buffalo, but markets do not understand this. For us, nature is not an asset class; nature is Mother Earth and Father Sky.”

On 27 October, the EU environment commissioner Jessika Roswall launched an initiative called “Friends of Credits for Nature and Biodiversity” at an event co-hosted with France and Peru. 

According to the EU’s statement, the “informal” initiative aims to build “governmental support” and international cooperation on nature credits. It has been “welcomed” by Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain, as well as Australia, Botswana, Canada, Chile, Indonesia, Japan and New Zealand. 

When asked why the EU was focusing on “broadening the contributor base” through biodiversity markets at COP17, Roswell told Carbon Brief that nature credits were part of the EU’s attempts to close the nature investment gap as part of target 19. 

She told Carbon Brief that biodiversity finance is not just a “question of will”, but also the “bigger horizontal risk” of not working on the areas. As such, Rosland said the EU is “working on a broader perspective” and looking at a range of solutions, “not only public money”.

In Yerevan, China also announced that it would be testing nature markets, with a pilot in Sichuan, reported Carbon Pulse. 

During the COP17 plenary, however, Peru called for biodiversity offsets to be scrutinised as a financial instrument listed in the GBF’s Target 19. 

Peru’s call for a study to examine whether biodiversity credits and offsets “generate additionality in biodiversity conservation” was included in the final resource mobilisation decision.

Peru’s call for an amendment to scrutinise biodiversity offsets in the resource mobilisation decision at COP17. Credit: UN CBD. COP17: Which countries have released new pledges to tackle nature loss? 16.10.2026 COP17 Yerevan COP17: Tracking progress towards the UN’s 2030 nature targets 15.10.2026 COP17 Yerevan COP17: Developed countries ‘fall far short’ of UN targets for nature finance  15.10.2026 COP17 Yerevan Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit 12.10.2026 COP17 Yerevan .cb-tweet img{ border: solid 1.25px #333333; border-radius: 5px; } @media (max-width:650px){ .cb-tweet{ width:100%; } }

The post COP17: Key outcomes agreed at the UN biodiversity conference in Yerevan appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Open access notables

Are Modern Droughts Unprecedented?, Helpap et al., AGU Advances

Global drought variability of past centuries remains poorly understood due to sparse instrumental records and limited paleoclimate reconstructions. Yet, quantifying long-term forced and unforced variability is key for assessing the extremeness of modern (2000–2024) drought events. Here, we combine 20 ensemble members from a 600-year climate simulation (ModE-Sim, 1420–2009) and modern reanalysis data (ERA5-Land, 1950–2024) to place recent droughts in a multi-century context. Drought magnitude and timing are measured using the annual maximum potential cumulative water deficit (PCWD), which integrates atmospheric moisture demand and supply, the daily timing of precipitation events, snow melt, and radiation. We analyze the deviation of modern annual, multi-year mean, and 30-year extreme PCWD from alternative reference periods that sample forced and unforced variability to a variable extent. We find a strong decline in the number of regions with unprecedented modern (2000–2024) single-year and 25-year mean PCWD as the reference is extended into the past and with the additional consideration of unforced atmospheric variability. This is not the case for extreme droughts. 30-year extreme PCWD has increased beyond the range of variability of the last 600 years in over half of all regions globally. This suggests that drought extremes are intensifying more rapidly beyond the range experienced in the past than mean conditions. While individual droughts in the modern era may not appear unprecedented when viewed against a century-long record, the shift in their frequency distribution indicates a rising risk of damaging impacts and an increasing likelihood of droughts reaching unprecedented magnitudes in the near future.

Declining spring production in the Barents Sea ice zone under climate forcing, Zhang et al., Nature Communications

Under anthropogenic forcing, Barents Sea greening and increased annual production are well-documented, yet seasonal differences in production trends are less clear. Here, using satellite ocean color data, we report a 45% decline in spring (April-May) primary production in the nitrate-limited Barents Sea ice zone between 1998 and 2023, corresponding to a reduction of 90.43 mg C m−2 day−1 per decade (p < 0.05). This decline is driven by reduced spring nitrate availability, resulting from slower winter nitrate replenishment rates, increased upstream consumption, and net nitrate export linked to Atlantification. Moreover, a North Atlantic-Arctic atmospheric wave train and reduced freshwater input have deepened the mixed layer, lowering light availability and further limiting production. These findings indicate that continued warming will likely suppress spring production in the Barents Sea ice zone, triggering nutrient-driven cascading effects on Arctic food webs and biodiversity.

Future Decline of Ice-Algal Primary Productivity in the Arctic Ocean: Model Intercomparison, Zhang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans

In polar oceans, ice algae grow within and beneath sea ice, supporting marine food web and contributing to the marine carbon cycle. This study compares three sea ice–ocean models developed in Japan, Canada, and Australia to estimate the changes in Arctic ice-algal primary production (ice-PP) from the mid-20th century to the end of the 21st century under a high greenhouse-gas emission scenario. All three models show that ice-PP is high in shelf seas, such as the Chukchi and Laptev Seas, and lowest in the central Arctic Ocean. Two models project an overall ice-PP decline in all Arctic sub-regions, because reductions in sea ice and nutrient availability outweigh the benefits of increased light penetration. However, one model projects a temporary increase in ice-PP in Pacific-side and central Arctic regions during the mid-21st century, when the improved light condition dominates. Additional model experiments demonstrate that inter-model differences are strongly influenced by the representation of light utilization. These results highlight the need for improved observations and experiments to better constrain future Arctic ice algae projections.

Accounting for global carbon dioxide production from human metabolism between 1985 and 2015: a modelling study, Gonzalez et al., The Lancet Planetary Health 

Human activity is a dominant driver of global carbon emissions, yet one universal source–human metabolism–has never been quantified using free-living measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) production at scale. We aimed to describe the contribution of human metabolism to global CO2 emissions between 1985 and 2015. In this modelling study, we used the largest available database of doubly labelled water (DLW) measurements from 1986 to 2019. The other data sources comprised WHO Global Health Observatory, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and Non-communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We first allometrically modelled human CO2 production (kg per year) using measurements available for 4479 female and 2277 male participants from the International Atomic Energy Agency DLW database to derive predicted estimates of human CO2 production adjusted for differences in body mass and sex. Second, by combining predicted estimates based on allometric scaling of CO2 production for body mass with available population demographic information, generalised additive models were used to describe the 30-year progression of human body mass and per capita and global CO2 production. We used the time-series country-specific measurements from 1985 to 2015 with population-level global human metabolic CO2 production summarised as cumulative sum for the progression analyses. Data were collected between 1986 and 2019. Mean ± SD (range) participant age was 40 ± 26 (0 to 101) and body mass was 63.3 ± 27.8 (2.4 to 101.9). 9006 measurements from 6756 participants (4479 women and 2277 men) from the DLW database were used to derive estimates of human CO2 production adjusted for differences in body mass and sex. We observed that human metabolic CO2 production approximately doubled over a 30-year period, from 1·18 Gt per year to 2·05 Gt per year. This increase was driven mostly by population growth (>60%) with a minor contribution from increases in body mass. Per capita sex differences equalised at the population level, and continental differences reflect population shifts rather than physiological differences, with Asia accounting for the majority of human metabolic CO2 production among all continents. Our findings suggest that human metabolism is a quantitatively important component of the fast carbon cycle and should be accounted for in carbon system modelling to enhance precision and fidelity. With a projected peak global population in the mid-to-late 21st century, metabolic CO2 production will increasingly contribute to global carbon fluxes. Does populist anti-climate rhetoric drive public opposition to climate policy? Testing socio-cultural and economic frames, Bolet et al., Environmental Politics Right-wing populist (RWP) parties increasingly oppose climate policies, framing them as economically costly or imposed by an out-of-touch elite. Yet, little is known about the impact of such rhetoric on individuals or whether counter-frames can mitigate its effects. Using a pre-registered, UK-based survey experiment, we test whether exposure to either of these anti-climate frames influences attitudes and behaviour towards the UK’s ‘net-zero’ goal. We also test whether a counter-frame could alleviate these effects. We find both negative frames reduce support for net zero, with the economic frame showing stronger, more robust effects than the socio-cultural frame, and the counter-frame was ineffective. Still, even among those exposed to the negative economic frame, a majority supported the net zero goal (58%) and related policies (55%). Nonetheless, this study highlights the challenge to climate policy posed by RWP parties and suggests mere promises of compensatory benefits may be insufficient to build popular support. Does climate policy kill jobs? Assessing the gap between the measured and perceived job transition risk in Western Canada, Rhodes et al., Energy Policy Compulsory climate policies, including carbon taxes and regulations, have been framed in terms of threats to employment. The ‘job-killing’ narrative has been particularly strong in Canada, where economic concerns have been tied to the consumer carbon tax, leading to its elimination in April 2025. Using a representative web-based survey of communities with fossil fuel-dependent employment in Western Canada (n?=?1665), our study aims to: (1) introduce and validate an empirical measure of the perceptions gap between perceived and measured job risk from climate policy, (2) identify the socio-economic, political, and regional determinants of the perceptions gap, and (3) assess how measured risk, perceived risk, and the perceptions gap are associated with support for specific climate policies. We find that perceived and measured job risk are positively correlated, but respondents systematically overestimate risk. Perceived job risk is highest in oil- and gas-producing Alberta, Saskatchewan, and northeastern British Columbia. Sectoral emissions intensity is the strongest predictor of perceived risk. The perceptions gap narrows with higher education and trust in scientists, but widens with income insecurity, right-leaning ideology, and especially engagement with climate delay discourses, which has the largest association. Both measured and perceived risk, and the gap between them, reduce support for most climate policies, particularly industry-focused policies. In contrast, perceived risk and the gap are not significantly associated with support for the fossil fuel consumption tax, suggesting industry policies are seen as more direct threats to employment. The study helps support climate-energy communication and decision-making. From this week's government/NGO section:

Protecting Health in the Age of Climate Disinformation: Safeguarding information integrity in the context of climate change and health, Schran et al., WHO Civil Society Working Group on Climate and Health

The authors discuss how climate disinformation directly and indirectly harms human health around the world, from undermining emergency warnings and public-health guidance to delaying policies on air pollution, clean energy and fossil fuels. Case studies highlighted in the report show that climate disinformation interacts with existing inequalities and power structures. The case studies include wildfire misinformation in Canada and Maui, backlash against London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, cascading climate and information risks during floods in South Sudan, fossil fuel greenwashing, development narratives affecting Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia, and attacks on scientists, journalists and environmental defenders. Those trying to provide evidence can also become targets.

The 2026 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: a decade of escalating health harms and a decisive moment for all, Romanello et al., Lancet

The authors found that health effects are escalating faster than climate action with experts calling for climate change to be declared a global health emergency. While progress has been made to deliver real health gains through clean energy investment, health system leadership and health-protecting legislation, these positive signs are not enough to offset the harm from the impacts of fossil-fuel driven climate change. The report represents the work of 146 experts from 71 collaborating institutions, monitoring progress across 54 indicators, including four new indicators introduced this year, providing the most comprehensive assessment yet of the links between climate change and health. 214 articles in 80 journals by 1137 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Atmospheric Adjustments Drive Long-Term Weakening of the Zonal Sea Surface Temperature Gradient in the Tropical Atlantic, Liu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026jd046795

Drivers of Compound Marine Heatwaves and Acidity Extremes in the Southern Ocean, Wong et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access 10.1029/2026gb009430

Earth’s east–west albedo symmetry, Zhang et al., Nature Open Access 10.1038/s41586-026-10624-2

Inter-hemispheric contrast in the sensitivity of polar amplification to sea-ice coverage conditions, Chung et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04185-5

Responses of extreme fire weather to CO2 emission reductions and underlying mechanisms, Kim et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.adw4705

The circulation and water mass (trans)formations in the Arctic Mediterranean Sea and their implications for the deep ocean circulation: a narrative, Rudels & Carmack, Ocean science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-3287-2026

Towards a theory for Earth’s albedo stability and hemispheric symmetry in the 21st Century, Feldman et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03817-0

Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report II: ozone interactions with climate change: drivers and long-term trends, Szopa et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences Open Access 10.1098/rsta.2025.0272

Why was the mid-to-late summer precipitation variability in the Yangtze River abnormally enlarged since late 1990s?, WANG et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.10.005

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: In silico modelling of radiative efficiencies of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, Atmospheric Environment, 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2024.120839 14 cites.

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Observations of climate change, effects

Are Modern Droughts Unprecedented?, Helpap et al., AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2026av002536

Changes in Climatic Seasons and Climate Comfort in the Tibetan Plateau and Its Eastern Adjacent Regions Under Global Warming, Shang et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70633

Climate Change Impacts on Wind Extremes: What Are the Trends and What Should Wind Engineers Do?, Turner & Wu, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 10.1175/bams-d-26-0193.1

Extensive glacier loss in the coterminous United States, Fountain et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2600941123

Late Holocene reexpansion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, Young et al., Science 10.1126/science.aed3379

Recent Trends of Utah’s Changing Wintertime Weather and Climate Characteristics, Meyer et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0543.1

Sharp rise of autumn heat extremes over southern China in a warmer climate, Wang et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2026.109406

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: The fastest-growing and most destructive fires in the US (2001 to 2020), Science, 10.1126/science.adk5737 108 cites.

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Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

Choosing the Right Sea Surface Temperature Datasets: Benchmarking and Guidance for Climate Applications, Chan et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society pdf 10.1175/bams-d-25-0210.1

Inconsistency in assessments of fire frequency and severity dynamics across Canada’s boreal ecosystems, Fu et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111372

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Characterizing heatwaves based on land surface energy budget, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01784-y 22 cites.

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Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

AMOC weakening across latitude and time in CMIP6 future scenarios, Ashton-Key et al., Ocean science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-3245-2026

Circulation Pattern Associated With Record 2025–26 North American Winter May Become More Common, Johnson et al., Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026ef009943

Does the Evolution of Indian Ocean Acidification Follow CMIP6 Projections Under a High-Emission Scenario?, Ghoshal et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans 10.1029/2026jc024515

Increased southward swings of the South Indian convergence zone under greenhouse warming, Wang et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02767-x

Quantifying Projected Hydroclimate Changes per Degree of Global Warming over the Contiguous United States, Stebbins & McCrary, Journal of Hydrometeorology 10.1175/jhm-d-26-0057.1

Tropical Cyclone Activity in the Vicinity of Hawai‘i in Present and Future Climates, Murray et al., Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 10.1175/jamc-d-25-0198.1

Two components underlie the mixed-type El Niño: quantification and future projection, Lianyi et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1969365

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Historical and Future Asymmetry of ENSO Teleconnections with Extremes, Journal of Climate, 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0619.1 20 cites.

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Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

Does the Beaufort Gyre Freshwater Storage Directly Respond to Changes in Bering Strait Inflow? Insights From NEMO Modeling Experiments, Fu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023782

Emulating absent land processes reduces carbon budgets in CMIP6 models, Liddicoat et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04111-9

Evaluation of Dust Optical Depth in CMIP6 Simulations over the Middle East–North Africa Region, Dayanandan et al., Atmospheric Environment 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.122431

Stratospheric aerosol forcing for CMIP7 – Part 2: Volcanic sulfur dioxide emissions, Aubry et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-10155-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Evaluating the phase evolution of CMIP GCMs for agricultural climate-change impact assessments in China, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.110282 6 cites.

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Cryosphere & climate change

Can a simple geoengineering approach restore dwindling Arctic ice?, Irfan, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2630778123

Extensive glacier loss in the coterminous United States, Fountain et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2600941123

Inter-hemispheric contrast in the sensitivity of polar amplification to sea-ice coverage conditions, Chung et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04185-5

Regime shift in high arctic fjord signals the vulnerability of the Arctic’s Last Ice Area, Bonneau et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-68201-6

What Is the Observed Sensitivity of Arctic Sea Ice?, Rauschenbach et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl124943

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Review article: Retrogressive thaw slump characteristics and terminology, The Cryosphere, 10.5194/tc-18-4787-2024 62 cites.

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Sea level & climate change

Enhanced risk to India’s west coast: Bias-corrected high-resolution CMIP6 projections of regional sea level rise, Joseph & Manoj, Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans 10.1016/j.dynatmoce.2026.101696

Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry

A transient global warming event during Earth’s penultimate icehouse, Yao et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2601643123

Assessing the MIS 5.3 and MIS 5.1 sea-levels along the Tyrrhenian Sea coast of central Italy: A challenge for ice volume models?, Bulian et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105585

Impact of Ocean Physical Conditions on Oceanic Carbon Pumps and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide at the Last Glacial Maximum, Nishida et al., Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026pa005487

Net Carbon Transfer From Ocean to Land During the Last Deglaciation Synchronous With Sea Level Rise and Lagging Atmospheric CO2 by Several Millennia, Köhler & Mulitza, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl123828

Ocean carbon sequestration during glacial climates due to combined Antarctic sea ice expansion and ocean circulation change, Grégorio et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.ady6777

Past abrupt changes in Atlantic Ocean currents controlled the Earth’s energy balance, [authors did not process], Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-02086-y

The Franks Model CO2 Proxy: Do Assimilation Rate Values or Isotopic Corrections Optimize CO2 Reconstruction Accuracy?, Morck et al., Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology Open Access 10.1029/2025pa005350

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Artificial intelligence reveals past climate extremes by reconstructing historical records, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-53464-2 27 cites.

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Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Can oxygen supersaturation enhance thermal resilience in marine organisms?, D'Aniello et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108358

Changes in species composition of South Georgia seabirds and mammals 1985–2023: decrease in opportunities for local enhancement?, Monier et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1098/rstb.2025.0363

Climatic variability and trends in Sudan’s savannah woodlands: implications for ecosystem resilience, Saeed et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1863836

Declining spring production in the Barents Sea ice zone under climate forcing, Zhang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-79272-4

Elevated CO2 Increases the Canopy Temperature of Mature Quercus robur (Pedunculate Oak), Brown et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70565

Environmental stress amplifies midday depression of photosynthesis across global ecosystems, Liu et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111540

Functional restructuring of kelp forest macroinvertebrate communities under tropicalisation, Attlan et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108465

Future Decline of Ice-Algal Primary Productivity in the Arctic Ocean: Model Intercomparison, Zhang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026jc024067

Has drought limitation on Larix principis-rupprechtii growth expanded to higher altitudes in semiarid northern China?, Yang et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111547

How is climate change affecting conifers and their ability to sequester carbon?, Abraham, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02847-0

Marine heat waves in vulnerable coral reef regions are skillfully predictable on multi-year timescales, Karwat et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-78279-1

Net primary productivity in the Gulf of California: spatio-temporal patterns and drivers in a warming climate (2003–2024), González-Rodríguez et al., Ocean science Open Access pdf 10.5194/os-22-3385-2026

Persistent seasonal deoxygenation alters benthic metabolic processes and accelerates hypoxia feedbacks in the Baltic Sea, Alampalli et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04120-8

Putting a time scale on emerging climate change stressors: a Vulnerability Index for Atlantic Ocean marine ecosystem services, Loveridge et al., Global Environmental Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103251

Recovery without resilience? Contrasting benthic recovery trajectories six years after a mass coral bleaching event, Elma et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108223

Shrinking windows: Asymmetric climatic drivers shorten phenological intervals in subtropical plants, Zhang et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111514

The future of tanner’s sumac (Rhus coriaria) in a warming world, Ç?v?a, Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-72862-8

Vegetation increasingly controlled by atmospheric dryness rather than soil moisture, Williams, Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2008jd009930

What Does the Future Hold? Habitat Suitability and Conservation Implications for Rare and Widespread Plant Species Under Climate Change, Lopes et al., Diversity and Distributions Open Access pdf 10.1111/ddi.70252

What’s cooking? The effect of temperature on the immune response, Lied, Journal of Gastrointestinal & Digestive System 10.4172/2161-069x-c1-061

Will the Mediterranean Sea Be a Cul-de-Sac for Marine Gastropods Under Climate Change?, Giannini et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.73677

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: No Future Growth Enhancement Expected at the Northern Edge for European Beech due to Continued Water Limitation, Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.17546 57 cites.

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GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

A hybrid artificial neural network approach to forecasting CO? emissions in the United States under policy uncertainty and energy consumption, Athari et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-77197-y

Are ghost forest trees a substantial source of methane from reservoirs?, Dittmann et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-4893-2026

Assessment of methane emissions from European countries using satellite and surface observations, Sun et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-14981-2026

Can radon help to improve methane emission estimates? Results from a dual-tracer inversion, Maier et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-14699-2026

Can the Carbon Storage Function of a Degraded Mountain Wet Meadow Be Restored?, Cooper et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026jg009823

CH4 emissions from Northern Europe wetlands: compared data assimilation approaches, Monteil et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-25-14251-2025

China’s lake expansion amplified rapid CO2 emissions, Feng et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.aea4657

China’s lakes remain carbon sources: Insights from the balance between intrinsic carbon sequestration and emissions, Wang et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.aed7393

Combined water table and temperature dynamics control CO2 emission estimates from drained peatlands under rewetting and climate change scenarios, Denager et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-441-2026

Constraining African Fire CO2 Emissions During 2015–2016 Using Satellite XCO2 Retrievals, Lv et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl117400

Dark CO2 fixation in soils: A meta-analysis of mechanisms and controlling factors, Maree et al., Animal Frontiers Open Access 10.1093/af/vfae050

Development of a parametrised atmospheric NOx chemistry scheme to help quantify fossil fuel CO2 emission estimates, Schooling et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-25-15631-2025

Diel variability affects the inorganic carbon system in the sea-surface microlayer and influences air-sea CO2 flux estimates, Lopéz-Puertas et al., Ocean science Open Access pdf 10.5194/os-21-3471-2025

Drivers of CO2 emissions during the dry phase in Mediterranean and Temperate ponds, Aragón et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-181-2026

Dynamics and burial of sedimentary organic carbon in the changing Arctic shelf seas, Hu et al., Earth-Science Reviews 10.1016/j.earscirev.2026.105737

Enhanced Carbon Sink Through Medium-Level Tropical Cyclones in the Offshore East China Sea, Ma et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles 10.1029/2026gb009070

Fine-scale spatial variability of winter CO2 and CH4 fluxes in Arctic tundra derived from snowpack gradient measurements, Gosselin et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-23-7447-2026

How is climate change affecting conifers and their ability to sequester carbon?, Abraham, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02847-0

Intertidal mussel–symbiont associations act as CO2 sinks during daily emersion, Spilmont et al., Biology Letters 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0498

Partitioning Methane Sources and Diffusive Flux Along the US Cascadia Margin Reveals Dominant Influences of Localized and Ephemeral Features, Dugan et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles 10.1029/2026gb009143

Quantifying European SF6 emissions from 2005 to 2021 using a large inversion ensemble, Vojta et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-25-15197-2025

Reforestation dominated China’s forest carbon sink from 1986 to 2019, Xu et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-02074-2

Regionalized greenhouse gas emissions and infrastructure requirements for future global iron and steel production, Terlouw et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04129-z

Response of the Southern Ocean Air-Sea CO2 Flux to Positive and Negative Emissions, Keppler & Landschützer, Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-019-43826-y

Restoration-induced litter accumulation caused a CO2 leakage in a Tibetan alpine steppe, Qi et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111530

Seasonal trends in China’s net ecosystem productivity: Offset characteristics and shifts in driving forces against the background of abrupt changes, Zhang & Xia, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111428

Silent Alarms? Unveiling Destabilization Risk in Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Fluxes, Andrade et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.71100

Source or Sink? Precipitation Shapes Future Terrestrial Carbon Uptake in Australia, Bennett et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026jg009820

Spatial Variation of Post-Fire Aboveground Carbon Accumulation Rates in Young Forests North of 45°N, Zhou et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gb009207

Synoptic Features Driving the CO2 Sink in the Mediterranean Sea in Winter, Reale et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025jd044310

Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report II: ozone interactions with climate change: drivers and long-term trends, Szopa et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences Open Access 10.1098/rsta.2025.0272

Unexpected Inter-Annual Variability in Methane Emissions From Western Siberia’s Oil and Gas Sector, Taguchi et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl122886

[Articles] Accounting for global carbon dioxide production from human metabolism between 1985 and 2015: a modelling study, Gonzalez et al., The Lancet Planetary Health Open Access 10.1016/j.lanplh.2026.101546

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Spatio-temporal effects of urbanization on CO2 emissions: Evidences from 268 Chinese cities, Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113569 77 cites.

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CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

Artificial upwelling via Stommel pipes under present and future climate conditions: an Earth system model assessment, Jürchott & Kemper, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1938661

Co–Cu Bimetallic–Modified ATP Catalysts for Efficient and Low-Energy CO2 Capture, Jiang & Han, Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.2391

Distinguishing the gas and water sides of the gas–water interface: Where do amines capture CO2 in microdroplets?, Zhang et al., Atmospheric Environment 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.122261

Vortex Flow: A Green Process Intensification Strategy for Absorption-Based CO2 Capture, Zhao et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.70010

Wellbore Interface and Cement Defects in CO2 Geological Storage: A Review, Citalingam et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.70012

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Comprehensive review of CO2 geological storage: Exploring principles, mechanisms, and prospects, Earth-Science Reviews, 10.1016/j.earscirev.2023.104672 413 cites.

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Decarbonization

Against all odds? Explaining the new clean hydrogen strategy of the European Union, Eikeland et al., Energy Research & Social Science 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104921

Analysis of low carbon transformation strategy and CO2 emission metabolism in the steel industry, Li et al., Journal of Industrial Ecology 10.1111/jiec.70110

Beyond degrees Celsius: Mapping competing justice scenarios in Australia's energy transition, Velge et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.105040

From least cost to more just: Exploring the ability of optimisation models to represent energy justice considerations in low-carbon transitions, Laes et al., Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104514

Green energy transition in China’s primary aluminum industry: economic evaluation and pathways, ZHANG et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.accre.2026.06.031

How has the public in the United States supported renewable energy? ?A longitudinal study from 2010 to 2023, Hao, Environmental Sociology 10.1080/23251042.2026.2711921

Is there enough trust for a low carbon transition in the Arctic? Exploring public expectations for renewable energy in Longyearbyen, Julsrud & Standal, Climate Policy Open Access pdf 10.1080/14693062.2026.2691435

Leveraging existing grid infrastructure for rapid US renewable and storage deployment, Chojkiewicz et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2603919123

Where to charge? A data-driven national framework for locating and sizing electric freight charging infrastructure in Colombia, Gil et al., Energy Sustainable Development/Energy for sustainable development Open Access 10.1016/j.esd.2026.102044

Wind Energy Futures: Which Locations Across the Western U.S. Are Most Resilient to Environmental Change?, Liu et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008184

Would you let your car feed the grid? Comparing vehicle-to-grid smart charging preferences across six European countries, Jensen et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104855

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Transition to zero-net emissions for Qatar: A policy based on Hydrogen and CO2 capture & storage development, Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113256 30 cites.

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Geoengineering climate

Impacts of water advection and CO2 exchange on the carbon dioxide removal potential of ocean alkalinity enhancement, Moras et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-7523-2026

Lethal by Design? Resolving Differences Between Experimental and Real-World Alkalinity Perturbations in Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement, Bach et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023598

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Ocean alkalinity enhancement approaches and the predictability of runaway precipitation processes: results of an experimental study to determine critical alkalinity ranges for safe and sustainable application scenarios, Biogeosciences, 10.5194/bg-21-4587-2024 46 cites.

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Black carbon

Black carbon aerosols intensified India’s 2015 mega heatwave and expanded heat stress exposure, Tiwari et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-04157-9

The Hidden Health and Climate Burden of Black Carbon under China’s Dual Carbon Strategy, Xu et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-77632-8

Aerosols

Aerosol–cloud interactions influence the climate response to AMOC weakening, Vella & Lohmann, Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-14939-2026

Stratospheric aerosol forcing for CMIP7 – Part 2: Volcanic sulfur dioxide emissions, Aubry et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-10155-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Increasing cross-border dust storm from Mongolia to China during 1987–2022, Global and Planetary Change, 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2024.104578 23 cites.

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Climate change communications & cognition

Assessing the integration of climate change education in Sri Lanka’s secondary education system, Senavirathna, Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2026.2725470

Can Moral Framing Reduce Climate Change Polarization? Textual and Experimental Evidence from Norway, Enstad & Thorbjørnsrud, Environmental Communication Open Access 10.1080/17524032.2026.2623481

Climate Change Perception and Eco-Anxiety among Young Adults in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does Environmental Literacy Play a Role?, Odo et al., Global Social Welfare 10.1007/s40609-026-00468-z

Do climate change knowledge and risk perceptions drive flood preparedness? Evidence from New Orleans, Jayasinghe et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100852

Do climate emotions matter? Investigating their role in pro-environmental behavior, Blumenschein et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103092

Do weather-related extreme events influence climate-related opinions? The case of the 2019–2020 Australian Black Summer bushfires, Andreotta et al., Royal Society Open Science Open Access 10.1098/rsos.251450

Does populist anti-climate rhetoric drive public opposition to climate policy? Testing socio-cultural and economic frames, Bolet et al., Environmental Politics Open Access pdf 10.1080/09644016.2026.2731598

Engaging through enraging: Does inciting anger about climate change increase support for climate action?, Stanley et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103074

Framing Climate Change in Children’s Picture Books: A Qualitative Study of Authors and Illustrators, Shelford, Environmental Communication Open Access 10.1080/17524032.2026.2716354

Global warming and the National Cattlemen’s Association 1986–1996, Jacquet & Loy, PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001061

Greenwashing the future? Computational text analysis of environmental reporting from the fossil fuel industry, Rauner, Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2025.2603031

Hacking adaptation: What role can policy hackathons play in understanding and adapting to climate change impacts?, McEvoy et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104516

What Makes Climate Change Feel Distant? Evidence from Eight Countries in the Global North and South, Ejaz et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103180

What’s next? How arts-based and creative participatory methods can address the problem of climate assembly follow-up, Carrick et al., Climate Policy Open Access 10.1080/14693062.2026.2685651

Whispers of Change: Positive Climate Communication Through ASMR and Its Potential for Climate Engagement, Blessing & Kalch, Environmental Communication Open Access 10.1080/17524032.2026.2753498

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Demographics shape public preferences for carbon dioxide removal and solar geoengineering interventions across 30 countries, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01800-1 13 cites.

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Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

A bottom-up quantification of greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation potential in Kenya's crop and livestock systems, Kakai et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1920404

Advancing agricultural risk assessment through entropy-weighted TOPSIS and the IPCC framework: Insights from the Eastern Himalayas, Sonowal & Malakar, Environment Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-026-08204-5

Can seaweed mitigate methane from cows on a global scale?, DiCorato, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2626533123

CO2 Rise Directly Impairs Crop Nutritional Quality, Kakaraparthi et al., Frontiers in Public Health Open Access pdf 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1674328

Heterogeneous impacts of fire-sourced ozone (O3) pollution on global crop yields in the future climate scenarios, Li et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-25-14501-2025

How much climate-smart agriculture is enough? A dose-response analysis of technology adoption effects on farmer welfare in Ghana, Prah et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000886

Potential distribution of the cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale) in the Caatinga under CMIP6 climate projections from EC-Earth3-Veg and MIROC6, Vieira et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2026.1751554

Quantifying the contribution of cultivar parameter variation to uncertainty in future warming impacts on wheat yields across China's major winter wheat regions, Liujun et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111559

Spain’s seafood futures to 2050 under climate change and contrasting transition scenarios, Saralegui-Díez et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-60217-2

Sustainable or maladaptive? A systematic review of climate adaptation strategies among smallholder farmers in SADC and South India, Wynsberghe, AI and Ethics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s43681-021-00043-6

Towards realistic representation of forest management and stand age dynamics in a terrestrial biosphere model (DLEM): impacts on forest carbon dynamics in the Southeastern United States, Li et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111539

Win-win or window dressing? Opportunity and opposition to agrivoltaics in the United States, Donnison et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104940

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Long-term carbon storage in shelf sea sediments reduced by intensive bottom trawling, Nature Geoscience, 10.1038/s41561-024-01581-4 54 cites.

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Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

Anthropogenic groundwater declines may exert far-reaching climatic impacts, Paldor & Paldor, Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-75635-5

Are Modern Droughts Unprecedented?, Helpap et al., AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2026av002536

Attribution of Changes in European Flood and Drought Magnitudes to Climatic and Socioeconomic Drivers, Tilloy et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007858

Disentangling climate change and urbanization effects on future tropical cyclone compound flood hazards, Liu et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103199

Enhanced extremes without intensification of South America’s water cycle from 1980 to 2010, Zarei & Destouni, Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03661-2

Improved climate services in Hawai‘i: the collaborative development of drought-related decision support tools, Longman et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1768549

Integrating machine learning to assess climate risks on reservoir’s inflow and hydropower generation across West African basins, Akaffou et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000986

On the Stability and Sensitivity of Climate-Informed Flood Frequency Models, Bae et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl124039

Quantifying Projected Hydroclimate Changes per Degree of Global Warming over the Contiguous United States, Stebbins & McCrary, Journal of Hydrometeorology 10.1175/jhm-d-26-0057.1

Tropical Cyclone Activity in the Vicinity of Hawai‘i in Present and Future Climates, Murray et al., Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 10.1175/jamc-d-25-0198.1

Why Does a Shallow Land Model Underestimate the Dryland Drying Trends?, Zhang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2026jd046571

Why was the mid-to-late summer precipitation variability in the Yangtze River abnormally enlarged since late 1990s?, WANG et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.10.005

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Strong Linkage Between Observed Daily Precipitation Extremes and Anthropogenic Emissions Across the Contiguous United States, Geophysical Research Letters, 10.1029/2024gl109553 5 cites.

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Climate change economics

Balancing climate ambition and price stability: The case of South Africa’s carbon tax, Lartey, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115483

Bridging innovation and investment: the Paris Agreement’s effect on green and brown US-listed energy stocks, Barrales-Ruiz & Neudörfer, Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2026.2713884

Climate at what cost? A survey experiment on trade-offs between decarbonization ambitions and socioeconomic costs, Duin et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104877

Climate finance and women’s employment in the CEMAC region: a catalyst for gender equality?, Zitou & Zitou, Climate and Development Open Access pdf 10.1080/17565529.2026.2691368

Closing the climate–economics communication gap, Rosenthal, ISLE Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 10.1093/isle/isz105

Does climate policy kill jobs? Assessing the gap between the measured and perceived job transition risk in Western Canada, Rhodes et al., Energy Policy Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115628

Obstacles to Sub-Saharan Africa’s clean energy transition: the ‘tyranny of sovereign ratings’, Kruger et al., Climate Policy Open Access pdf 10.1080/14693062.2026.2719104

Sustainable finance taxonomies – Designed to support the transition to a net-zero economy?, Marchewitz et al., Climate Policy Open Access pdf 10.1080/14693062.2026.2703374

The clean energy trade war: assessing the climate costs of U.S. solar tariffs on China’s PV sector, Yuan & Zheng, Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1835650

Undermining climate action? Challenges of public-private co-financing of carbon removal in the Global North, Christiansen et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104447

Unmasking the dark side: how does fossil fuel financing hurt the carbon neutrality targets?, Anwar et al., Environmental Sciences Europe Open Access 10.1186/s12302-026-01509-2

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Analysis of decoupling between CO2 emissions and economic growth in China's provincial capital cities: A Tapio model approach, Urban Climate, 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.101885 55 cites.

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Climate change mitigation public policy research

A stochastic policy assessment of Spain’s 81% renewable electricity target for 2030, Orive & Blanco, Energy Sustainable Development/Energy for sustainable development Open Access 10.1016/j.esd.2026.102068

China’s petrochemical plants’ CO2 emissions and high-impact contributors for carbon-neutrality production, chen et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.adx7784

Coordinated development of the “water-energy-land-carbon” system in nine provinces and regions of the Yellow River Basin and analysis of obstacle factors, Wang et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2026.1932520

Do credible climate transition plans matter for carbon performance? Evidence from Fortune Global 500 firms, Silvia et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1907357

How can energy policy support a just transition for countries in the global South? Insights from South Africa's renewables procurement, Taylor et al., Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115443

How could the government support the spread of alternative energy projects?, Czipf, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115513

How does knowledge utilization influence climate policy innovation? Energy modelling and the legitimization of the 55% target in the European Union, Huber et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104947

Spatial governance of China’s data-center expansion as a climate-action lever under resource and digital lock-in, Chen et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1990264

Strategic discharge or full reuse? Circular water economy assessment under WEFE-Climate Change Nexus, Yapan et al., Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104442

The double materiality of Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund: An irreconcilable case of aligning the ‘oil fund’ with Net Zero?, Jackson, Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104730

The double-edged sword of carbon offsets: Can it cut in favor of health and energy equity?, Tzankova et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104798

What money can’t buy: Company experience and community resistance to renewable energy infrastructure, Ratan & Vega-Araújo, Energy Policy Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115473

Who is who? Competing coalitions in climate-AFOLU politics in Argentina, Ryan & Laguna, Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2026.2636026

“Inward efficiency gains” or “carbon leakage”? regional carbon emission efficiency effects and spatial spillovers of China’s emissions trading system, Kong et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1932454

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Study on the synergistic effect of air pollution prevention and carbon emission reduction in the context of "dual carbon": Evidence from China's transport sector, Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113370 194 cites.

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Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

A Proof of Concept for Rapid Evaluation of Urban Climate Adaptations Using Simplified Simulations over an Indian City, Brousse et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Open Access 10.1175/bams-d-25-0197.1

Adapting to the risk of Atlantic circulation change, Jongman & Hall, Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-026-01961-1

Are communities in a cyclone-prone area more vulnerable than those in a flood-prone area? towards a climate vulnerability index for rural households in Bangladesh, Ahmed et al., Figshare Open Access 10.6084/m9.figshare.33282103

Beyond climate migration: the right to remain and the right to development as complementary frameworks for climate mobility governance in Africa, Addaney, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1928809

Distributive effects of climate change: How does rising temperatures affect energy allocation between cities?, Dong et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103183

Do climate-Adaptive City pilot policy effectively mitigate climate risks? — a quasi-natural experiment from Chinese prefecture-level cities, Cheng & fang, Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100867

Engaged research and its implications for transformation in climate adaptation sciences, Cann, PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001093

FEMA phase-out? Catastrophic extremes challenge decentralization of US flood insurance, Nayak et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2537388123

Heatwave-induced capacity bottlenecks in European electricity grids, Liang et al., Nature Energy Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41560-026-02151-1

How Do Adaptation Practices Become Climate Maladaptive? A Scoping Review of Empirical Scholarship, Shah et al., Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Open Access 10.1002/wcc.70074

Managing climate risks through adaptation policy: Evidence from China’s climate-adaptive city pilots, Gao et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100823

Reviving connections: Dene wellbeing and climate adaptation in Tthets'éhk'edél??, Ireland et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1694811

Systemic collapse emergence from climate-induced perturbations in transportation networks, Faccin et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2532180123

The production of adaptation results: how does the Green Climate Fund turn adaptation projects into impact?, Barnes & Fisher, Figshare Open Access 10.6084/m9.figshare.33269217

Translating national climate policies to resilience actions at the subnational level in low resource settings: Lessons from Ghana’s health systems, Abugnaba-Abanga et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000779

What leads to equitable adaptation intentions in city practitioners?, Goto et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100819

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Effects of ocean acidification and polystyrene microplastics on the oysters Crassostrea gigas: An integrated biomarker and metabolomic approach, Marine Environmental Research, 10.1016/j.marenvres.2024.106434 26 cites.

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Climate change impacts on human health

Climate change and malaria in west Africa: a review of strategies to handle one of the world’s most prominent anthroponoses, Filho et al., The Lancet Planetary Health Open Access 10.1016/j.lanplh.2026.101484

Heatwave-attributable Parkinson’s mortality is projected to increase by the 2080s in China under a high-emissions scenario, (13940) et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-03589-7

Heatwaves have killed millions. Here’s how scientists tally lives lost, Glickman, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02430-7

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: A framework for ageing and health vulnerabilities in a changing climate, Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-024-02156-2 52 cites.

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Climate change & geopolitics

When diversification fails: Geopolitical contagion and hidden vulnerabilities in Europe’s energy transition, Pokou & Kamdem, Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115520

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: The politics of countering climate change in Southeast Asia, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1486796 9 cites.

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Other

Canadian lakes show contrasting phosphorus trends across climatic regions, Guo et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04113-7

Fires in Europe are breaking records: here’s what the future holds, Schwab, The Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection, and Critical Care 10.1097/ta.0b013e31802f734a

Is Deep-Sea Mining the New “Green Frontier”? A Corpus-assisted Discourse Analysis of Arguments on the Climate Crisis and Deep-Sea Mining in the Pacific, Skiveren et al., Environmental Communication Open Access pdf 10.1080/17524032.2026.2723746

Navigating while contesting COP28’s paradoxes with international solidarity actions: a youth delegation’s collaborative and feminist auto-ethnography, Robitaille et al., Climate and Development Open Access pdf 10.1080/17565529.2026.2718467

Repurposing Illegal Coca Cultivation in Colombia to Unlock Large Climate Benefits and Support Legal Livelihoods, Rodríguez-Martínez & Cherubini, Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026ef008712

Three Decades of Scientific Debate on the Additionality of Forest Carbon Offsets: Are We Going in Circles?, Christiansen et al., Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Open Access 10.1002/wcc.70085

What comes after social tipping? Perspectives from transitions towards net-zero, Binder et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000982

What is energy literacy? From prerequisite for participation to social practice, Kools & Höffken, Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.105020

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Long-term variabilities in thermal structure, CO2 concentration and associated cooling rates in the Earth's middle atmosphere: Observations and model simulations, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 10.1016/j.jastp.2023.106070 7 cites.

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Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

Colloquium: Manabe’s legacy of simulating and understanding global warming, Shaw, Reviews of Modern Physics 10.1103/mfpg-3th9

Europe’s record heatwave: does the continent have a new climate?, Chen, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02046-x

Future-proofing interpretations of the Paris Agreement’s limit of well below 2 °C, Lamboll & Rogelj, Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-026-02685-y

Nepal’s disaster is an urgent wake-up call, Huggel et al., Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-03314-6

The fragility of splendid isolation: Imminent global threat for the world’s island life, Lomolino, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2623374123

The worst El Niño in recorded history is brewing — here’s how governments must prepare, Hausfather, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02939-x

We Are in the Anthropocene—Now What?, Rockström et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007730

[Comment] Different futures ahead: why does 1·5°C matter?, Tong et al., The Lancet Planetary Health Open Access 10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101388

[Editorial] Climate overshoot, Schleussner et al., Nature Open Access 10.1038/s41586-024-08020-9

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Forest definitions require a re-think, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01779-9 23 cites.

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Book reviews

Sustainability or dystopia? What past patterns tell us about where society is heading, Wynsberghe, AI and Ethics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s43681-021-00043-6

Why climate policy misses the forest for the trees, Fleischman et al., BioScience Open Access pdf 10.1093/biosci/biaa094

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

Water Year 2026 In Review (Colorado River), Mazurek et al., Colorado Climate Center and the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University

Water Year 2026 was one for the record books in Colorado. It was the warmest on record by a substantial margin, and it was also one of the driest. Colorado also recorded its lowest snowpack, which strained water resources and contributed to widespread drought. This year’s climatic conditions had substantial effects across numerous sectors: from agriculture and wildlife to human health and recreation. The researchers found that, statewide, temperatures were 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit above the averages seen between 1991-2020. The 2026 average was also more than 2 degrees warmer than the previous record-warm water year of 1934. Overall, Colorado saw its warmest December, February, March and August on record. Those temperatures contributed to the state’s record-low mountain snowpack totals. The 2026 snowpack-peak was just 51% of the average usually seen statewide, and the high point arrived about a month earlier in the cycle than average. The total snowpack also faded away faster because of unprecedented early season melting in the March heat. The authors explain how the low snowpack totals resulted in record-low streamflow for parts of Colorado. The limited supply there ultimately clashed with high demand for water by users and mandatory storage reductions across the state’s reservoirs. The largest, Blue Mesa Reservoir located on the upper reaches of the Gunnison River, reported summertime storage well below the previous record minimum. Meanwhile, Lake Powell and Lake Mead – both crucial reservoirs for storing water from the Colorado River – also reported record-low levels this year.

State of the Park, Adirondack Council

The 45th annual Adirondack Council State of the Park tracks the decisions and actions taken by public officials at every level over the past year — and their potential to help or harm the Adirondack Park. For example, the Governor rolled back provisions of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and the State Environmental Quality Review Act, eroding the state’s national leadership on climate action and environmental oversight. The Governor imposed a one-year moratorium on new state-authorized data centers due to concerns about energy use, water consumption, and impacts on natural resources. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation created a new roadmap to help lake associations identify, prevent, and address harmful algal blooms, supporting cleaner water throughout the Adirondacks.

Key findings from fall 2026 poll among Black and Latino registered voters in battleground states, HIT Strategies, Climate Equity Action Fund and the League of Conservation Voters

The authors found that overwhelming majorities of Black and Latino voters in seven battleground states want candidates to address climate change, pollution and energy costs, even though those issues are not necessarily what voters name first when deciding who to support. 72% of respondents selected the cost of living as one of their top three voting issues, followed by access to healthcare (42%) and discrimination (30%). The findings show that Black and Latino voters overwhelmingly want candidates to address climate change. With household costs and health taking priority, the poll underscores the importance of talking about climate policy in terms of what matters most to voters, including affordable energy, clean air and safe drinking water.

Rising Incidents, Lax Oversight. Ohio Oil and Gas Incidents, Inspections, and Enforcement, 2015–2025, Gwen Klenke, FracTracker Alliance and the Buckeye Environmental Network

Ohio’s oil and gas incident records document spills, leaks, equipment failures, and other potentially harmful events. These incident reports should help the public understand where these incidents occur, the risks to safety, health, and the environment, and how regulators and operators respond. But the author's analysis of Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) records from 2015 through 2025 found that, even as ODNR has improved some aspects of its data collection, major gaps remain. Incident classifications are often unclear, key details are buried in narrative descriptions, and records do not consistently show whether an event led to inspection, cleanup, enforcement, or corrective action. These gaps are particularly notable amid growing problems with oil and gas wastewater disposal, including releases and oil and gas wastewater migration associated with injection wells. However, one thing is clear: incidents are increasing in frequency on an annual basis. Without an understanding of the severity and complexity of these increasing oil and gas incidents, the public and policymakers may be lulled into a false sense of complacency and may be less likely to address serious problems until they threaten to become a crisis. 2,529 oil and gas incidents were recorded in Ohio from 2015 through 2025. Incidents are generally increasing, rising from 103 in 2015 to 268 in 2025, despite year-to-year variation.

The Community and Economic Impacts of Data Centers, US. Chamber of Commerce

Data centers are economic engines powering America's future. They are long-term community investments creating permanent jobs and tax revenue that support community schools, roads, and parks without increasing taxes on residents. A single facility delivers thousands of jobs; hundreds of millions in local tax revenue that fund schools, roads, and public safety; and sustained economic growth for decades. Data center growth and community interests are not competing goals. Communities deserve transparency, early engagement, and confidence that developers will pay for the infrastructure needed to support new growth. When that happens, data centers become a powerful source of jobs, investment, and long-term economic opportunities.

Vermont Climate Assessment 2025, Galford et al., Climate Measurements Center of Excellence, Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont

Vermont is experiencing unprecedented weather extremes. Vermont’s climate is becoming warmer, wetter, and more variable. Shifting seasons are transforming how Vermonters live, work, and play/ A hotter Vermont increases risks to people, farms, and infrastructure. Water is a central climate challenge for Vermont, across all seasons and sectors. Climate risks are interconnected and compounding—requiring action now.

The Debt Discount: A study evaluating the financial track record of companies with transition plans, McGlynn et al., International Transition Plan Network and SCS Consulting Network

The International Transition Plan Network (ITPN) was launched at COP29 to support the development of global norms for private sector climate transition plans and drive climate policies that leverage the full potential of these plans. The research presented here is, to the best of the authors knowledge, the most comprehensive analysis undertaken to date of the financial implications of private sector climate transition plans. The authors found that companies that develop and disclose transition plans experience a lower cost of debt, and that investors appear to reward companies that implement their transition plans. They also found that disclosing a transition plan does not negatively effect profits or stock outperformance over the long run, addressing one of the key concerns for companies weighing the decision to publish.

Reducing green gas costs with bioCO2, Cadent Gas Limited

While the biomethane sector currently requires Government subsidy to scale, early evaluations suggest that selling bioCO2 greenhouse has removals (GGRs) to the private sector could reduce the level of Government support for biomethane by up to one-third compared to today. BioCO2 lowers the costs of renewable energy for consumers while encouraging new investment in domestic green gas production. The technology to capture, liquefy, transport and store bioCO? exists, but policy and infrastructure access have not yet been designed around smaller, geographically dispersed biomethane producers which require their CO2 to be transported by road rather than pipe. The Government’s recently launched Non-pipeline transport (NPT) Pathfinder process is an important first step, but there is more work to do to fully evaluate this opportunity and how it links to the current regulatory landscape. The sector and Government can work together to unlock bioCO2 capture and storage at scale.

Enhancing Ocean-Climate Resilience in Asia and the Pacific, Jeon et al., United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

Strengthen ocean science, data and observing systems by expanding ocean monitoring networks, integrating satellite, on-ground equipment and climate models to promote science based decision-making. Strengthen early warning systems for marine heatwaves, coastal flooding, storm surges, high waves and tsunamis to enhance preparedness, protect marine ecosystems, and reduce economic losses and disaster effects. Improve coastal hazard assessments and zoning by incorporating high-resolution topographic data, locally observed sea levels, sand intrusion and land subsidence to support effective coastal planning and adaptation. Develop risk-informed guidelines and build community resilience by identifying risk hotspots, developing a framework for climate-induced human mobility and relocation, developing evacuation plans and conducting regular emergency drills, improving emergency shelter and services, and improving community-based risk management and public awareness.

Climate stress reshapes youth migration in Ethiopia, Sørensen et al., Danish Institute for International Studies

Ethiopia’s rural economy and livelihoods depend on seasonal rainfall. When rains fail or fall out of season, crops fail, livestock die and household income collapses. For young people watching this unfold, migration may seem the immediate solution. Understanding locally specific climate vulnerabilities and young people’s mobility aspirations is therefore key to developing adequate policy responses.

Offshore Wind: Status and Issues, Comay et al., Congressional Research Service

During the second Trump Administration, federal policies toward U.S. offshore wind have shifted from those in place during the Biden Administration. President Trump halted Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) wind leasing and permitting and has directed other actions to reverse prior federal support for offshore wind. Also, in P.L. 119-21, the FY2025 budget reconciliation law, Congress limited offshore wind tax credits and rescinded unobligated balances for federally funded activities related to interregional and offshore wind electricity transmission. The industry has also faced economic challenges in recent years related to rising costs and supply chain delays, as well as lawsuits from coastal homeowners, the fishing industry, tribes, and those concerned about potential impacts to marine wildlife. Congress continues to consider issues related to offshore wind leasing, permitting, transmission, tax credits, and related matters through oversight and legislation.

Taking the temperature of EU climate policy, Colli et al., Trans European Policy Studies Association

A debate is raging in Europe about the European Green Deal. Launched with broad political support in 2019, it shaped the mandate of the first von der Leyen Commission. Seven years later, that consensus has eroded. Competitiveness, economic security and defense have moved up the political agenda, while increasingly difficult questions are being asked about who should bear the costs of the green transition. This edition of TEPSA Experts’ Debrief wants to take a fresh look at the debate and make sense of what is happening. Ten experts were invited to give their assessment of the European Green Deal and their ideas on the way ahead. None is complacent about the difficulties confronting Europe. But, with one exception, they argue for staying the course and pressing ahead with the Green Deal, while adapting its implementation to the obstacles encountered and to a profoundly changed political and economic environment.

Breaking the Cycle: Making Somaliland’s Rural Water Systems Climate Resilient, Nasir Ali and Kedir Jemal, Toda Peace Institute

The authors examine Somaliland’s water crisis, which reflects a policy gap between the scale of climate and demographic pressures and the capacity of current institutions to plan, finance and maintain rural water services. It will not be solved by emergency water delivery alone. The Government should treat rural water access as a climate adaptation and local governance priority, with groundwater protection, service standards and accountable financing implemented together. The authors present three key messages, and concludes with policy recommendations and implementation priorities.

AI Data Center Siting on Federal Lands. An Energy View, Rueda et al., RAND

The U.S. government, spurred by a 2025 executive order, is moving quickly to open federal land for artificial intelligence (AI) data center development and directing agencies to identify suitable sites. But energy availability—not just available acreage—is a binding constraint that will determine which sites can realistically support large-scale AI infrastructure. The authors evaluated 12 U.S. Department of Defense sites offered for data center leases, compared them with 17 U.S. Department of Energy sites, and developed a cost model to estimate energy infrastructure expenses across 31 candidate locations. A stakeholder workshop stress-tested these findings and informed public-private partnership guidance.

Connecting capital to capability: An energy security investment framework to optimize the NATO 1.5 percent investment commitment, Dockery et al., Atlantic Council

NATO’s 1.5 percent commitment can be the catalyst that connects capital to capability across the alliance. This broad mandate, applying across thirty-two member states with differing political considerations and priorities, requires a capability-based framework grounded largely in lessons from Ukraine’s defense of its energy system but also in other recently exposed vulnerabilities. Meeting this mandate will require building an energy system that can serve civilian and military energy demands and is resilient to physical and digital threats. This undertaking will be a generational challenge requiring long-term investment.

Dry, dark, and empty, Dunn et al., Atlantic Council

Growing threats to US national interests make a comprehensive review of installation infrastructure and power, fuel, and water systems increasingly urgent. This review could identify the tools needed to keep military departments ready for the next conflict and guide strategic investments in force-multiplying capabilities that strengthen mission readiness. Because US forces operate in combined and joint environments with allies, partners, and host nations, this effort should also integrate additional evaluation tools, funding resources, and long-term strategic planning to sustain military capabilities.

From Climate Science to Climate Governance, Joseph Ingram and Augusto Lopez-Claros, Canadian Global Affairs Institute

The authors argue that climate change has evolved from primarily a scientific and technological challenge into one of governance, requiring governments such as Canada’s to mobilize finance, align market incentives and strengthen international institutions capable of accelerating the green transition at the scale and speed required to meet this challenge.

Climate Mobility, Rights and Resilience in Africa, Jegede et al., International Organization for Migration

This special collection brings together policy briefs examining recent developments in climate mobility research and governance across the continent. The collection reflects the diversity and complexity of climate mobility, covering themes including community resilience, mobility dynamics, food security and agroecological transitions, green sovereignty, governance, human rights and climate finance. Together, the briefs highlight the importance of understanding mobility not only as a consequence of environmental change, but also as a potential adaptation and development strategy. They examine persistent challenges, including data gaps, fragmented policy responses, limited implementation capacity and protection gaps, while identifying opportunities to strengthen evidence-based and inclusive approaches.

Distributed Capacity Procurement Framework. Addressing Grid Needs, Affordably and Reliably with Distributed Energy Resources, McDonnell et al., Solar Energy Industries Association

Utility regulators, grid operators, and energy policy leaders around the country broadly agree that distributed energy resources (DERs) like solar and storage are important for developing a reliable and affordable electric grid. The real question is: what’s the best way to procure and deploy DERs to maximize their benefits to utility customers and the grid? The authors provide a practical roadmap for regulators and policy leaders working to build a 21st-century grid that can meet the needs of the 21st-century economy. The authors outline three procurement pathways that can bolster available resources, respond to growing loads, and provide a faster, more cost-effective response to infrastructure needs.

Asleep at the Switch: How the ACC (Arizona Corporation Commission) is Letting Utilities Fleece Ratepayers, Sierra Club

It can be hard to imagine that a five-person commission can dictate the future of Arizona’s energy landscape, but that is exactly the case. The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) has the power to regulate public utilities, set rates for service, and ensure reliability. It’s an incredibly important job and one that affects every Arizonan in some way, despite how little its role is recognized. What Arizonans do notice, however, are the rising costs of their utility bills. Behind those increases is the Commission, whose job is to act as a check on monopoly utilities to protect customers. But over the past several years, the ACC has done the opposite, siding with utilities at the expense of ratepayers, and making decisions that result in significant rate increases and threaten our air, our drinking water, and Arizona families’ health. Rather than acting in the best interest of customers, the ACC has fast-tracked utility projects and side-stepped established processes in its effort to prioritize utility profits over people.

Disaster Divide. How climate chaos deepens inequality and enriches the few,, Lawson et al., Oxfam

Billionaires and the super-rich are burning carbon at an extraordinary rate — the richest 0.1%, or 8 million people, have more emissions than the bottom 3.5 billion. The carbon pollution of the richest 1% is directly contributing to increased climate disasters such as floods, fires, droughts and food crises. Their yearly emissions will cause an estimated 1.9 million excess deaths from heat. In turn, these climate disasters are not experienced equally. Climate disasters drive up inequality and are also far more lethal because of it. Deaths from flooding, for example, are seven times higher in more unequal countries. Rich people can insulate themselves, paying more for food or moving to safer places, whereas most people cannot. The super-rich are also actually cashing in on climate pain — making huge profits from sky-high food prices and profiting from disasters. Meanwhile, ordinary people, hit by successive climate shocks, struggle to recover. They are more exposed, more vulnerable, and have less savings to rebuild their lives.

Protecting Health in the Age of Climate Disinformation: Safeguarding information integrity in the context of climate change and health, Schran et al., WHO Civil Society Working Group on Climate and Health

The authors discuss how climate disinformation directly and indirectly harms human health around the world, from undermining emergency warnings and public-health guidance to delaying policies on air pollution, clean energy and fossil fuels. Case studies highlighted in the report show that climate disinformation interacts with existing inequalities and power structures. The case studies include wildfire misinformation in Canada and Maui, backlash against London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, cascading climate and information risks during floods in South Sudan, fossil fuel greenwashing, development narratives affecting Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia, and attacks on scientists, journalists and environmental defenders. Those trying to provide evidence can also become targets.

Off-Grid Solar Market Trends Report 2026, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank

Off-grid solar is reaching more people than ever. Off-grid solar is creating jobs and boosting incomes. The industry is consolidating and diversifying, while continuing to prioritize commercial sustainability. Scaling up the productive use of energy (PUE) has become a key priority for governments and development partners seeking to leverage energy access to achieve job creation and economic growth. Ensuring that access is sustained is also an emerging area of focus. Political recognition of off-grid solar continues to grow, and the challenge now is to convert it into stable, enabling policy environments and consistent delivery.

Energy Technology Supply Chains in Southeast Asia, Jaensch et al., International Energy Agency

The authors examine recent trends in clean energy technology manufacturing, trade and investment in Southeast Asia, building on analysis conducted for Energy Technology Perspectives 2026. The analysis draws on the latest information on energy, climate, trade and industrial policies – as well as manufacturing project announcements – to inform projections for clean energy technology manufacturing and trade in the region and put forward key considerations to guide effective industrial strategy design.

Reforming Federal Forest Management to Advance Fire Resilience, Eric Biber and Dave Owen, Social Science Research Network

Wildfire is simultaneously one of the largest air pollution sources in the United States, causes billions of dollars of property damage each year, and can produce significant ecological harm. Wildfire will only worsen because of climate change, the legacy of logging and fire suppression, and increased development in the wildland-urban interface. The authors provide a detailed proposal for addressing land management issues on national forests, a key to addressing the legacy of logging and fire suppression. Their detailed proposal builds on, and is a companion to, another article (Fixing Wildlife Law), in which they explain the policy problems that wildfire presents and provide a conceptual framework for a response that cuts across many legal areas implicated by wildfire, including land-use regulation in the wildland-urban interface, insurance law, air quality law, and forest management. The additional contribution of this paper is specificity; it takes the conceptual proposals from Fixing Wildlife Law and uses them to articulate the details of reforms for management of national forests. They propose the use of outside expert panels to synthesize the relevant science for forest management to reduce fire risk and empowering the Forest Service to rely on those syntheses to develop management strategies to reduce fire risk. Projects consistent with those management strategies would be exempt from most environmental review and consultation requirements.

Climate and Health in Oregon 2025 report, Carpenter et al., Oregon Health Authority

Accelerating climate change is directly affecting the health of people in Oregon, and those effects are not felt equally. Increasing instances of extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and water insecurity worsen public health across the state, while exacerbating existing health inequities. The authors summarize information about climate change hazards in the state in 2025 and recent decades. Moreover, they discuss related effects to people’s health, and actions of the public health system, partner agencies and local communities to protect everyone in the state from these risks no matter where and who they are.

The 2026 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: a decade of escalating health harms and a decisive moment for all, Romanello et al., Lancet

The authors found that health effects are escalating faster than climate action with experts calling for climate change to be declared a global health emergency. While progress has been made to deliver real health gains through clean energy investment, health system leadership and health-protecting legislation, these positive signs are not enough to offset the harm from the impacts of fossil-fuel driven climate change. The report represents the work of 146 experts from 71 collaborating institutions, monitoring progress across 54 indicators, including four new indicators introduced this year, providing the most comprehensive assessment yet of the links between climate change and health.

State of the UK Weather and Climate Sector 2026, Derek Swannick, Royal Meteorological Society

The meteorology sector remains strategically important to public safety, national resilience, economic productivity, environmental stewardship, defense, transport, energy, agriculture, and climate adaptation. As climate risk increases and societal dependence on weather and climate intelligence grows, meteorological expertise is becoming more important. The findings demonstrate a sector characterized by exceptionally high levels of professional commitment, strong scientific capability and deep public service motivation. This is reinforced by the survey data, with 93.3% of respondents rating their passion for the sector highly, and by qualitative responses describing meteorology as a vocation rather than simply employment. Respondents expressed strong pride in the sector’s societal importance, scientific standards, and its contribution to safety, resilience, climate adaptation and public wellbeing. However, this commitment sits alongside a significant strategic tension: nearly four in ten respondents had considered leaving the sector, and more than two in ten anticipate leaving the sector within 5 years, not primarily because of a lack of interest in the work, but because of the conditions surrounding it. Open-text responses linked this risk to a combination of workload, pay, progression, job security, shift-working pressures, recognition, management quality and workplace culture. Taken together, these findings point to a clear commitment–conditions gap, in which the sector’s greatest strength may also be masking longer-term risks to workforce sustainability and readiness for change. Technological transformation emerged as one of the defining themes of the research. Respondents were broadly optimistic about advances in data science, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-supported forecasting, Earth observation, automation and interdisciplinary collaboration, seeing significant opportunities to strengthen forecasting, analysis and decision support. At the same time, AI was identified as both one of the sector’s greatest future opportunities and one of its greatest uncertainties. About New Research

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With the COP31 climate summit in Turkey looming, all eyes are on China to see what the country will push for in the negotiations.

At COP30 last year, China helped to secure a “dialogue” on climate-related “unilateral trade measures”, as well as a two-year “work programme” concerning climate finance.

The nation also championed south-south cooperation throughout the conference and co-led a summit on methane, alongside Brazil and the UK.

In a recent press conference, China’s environment vice-minister Li Gao noted the need to “uphold multilateralism” and send a “clear political signal” that the global community is united around climate action. 

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Li also pledged to advocate for an “open and efficient” trade system that “facilitates” adoption of clean-energy technologies.

On the more traditional topics of mitigation and finance, Li highlighted the need to “address insufficient emission reduction efforts by developed countries and inadequate financial support” for developing countries.

Carbon Brief asked six leading experts on China what they believe China wants from COP31 and what signals they will be watching for. 

Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Article Contents Expand menu

• Kate Logan
• Ma Jun 
• Yao Zhe 
• Prof Ryna Cui 
• Dr Joseph Dellatte 
• Prof Jeremy Wallace 

Kate Logan

Director of the China climate hub and climate diplomacy, Asia Society Policy Institute

In an era where global climate cooperation is severely challenged, China’s top priority at COP31 will be upholding multilateralism. With most “big ticket” items under the Paris Agreement now complete and constrained expectations for major new breakthroughs at COP31, China may be satisfied with a conference that produces no major drama and little else.

Nevertheless, expect China’s vision for multilateralism to have a distinct flavor to it. Chinese officials may again leverage the COP stage to oppose unilateralism and promote an open and fair international trade system, reflecting Beijing’s persistent frustration with tariffs and other measures that have inhibited the global flow of Chinese clean technologies. One question is whether they will do this through existing spaces or push for a dedicated agenda item on trade, given that COP30’s trade outcomes, championed by China, mostly relegated discussions to mid-year technical meetings.

China may also seek clarity on implementation pathways for existing targets, including nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and the $300bn climate finance goal. Amid US withdrawal, officials remain anxious about additional pressure that Beijing may receive. After vice-premier Ding Xuexiang shared at COP29 that China has provided and mobilised over 177bn yuan ($26.5bn) in climate finance for developing countries since 2016, China has refrained from issuing further quantitative updates, while maintaining the imperative for developed countries to take the lead on climate finance. China may be happy to let other developing countries push this agenda while serving as a broker in the end game to ensure its own interests are protected.

Ma Jun 

Founder and director, Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs

I think China wants COP31 to reaffirm confidence in multilateral climate cooperation and translate commitments into action. With the risk of overshooting 1.5C almost unavoidable, I expect China to seek clearer delivery of climate finance for developing countries; encourage reductions in potent, short-lived greenhouse gases such as methane; support a just transition; and highlight trade barriers affecting clean technologies.

I will be watching whether negotiations produce credible plans for delivering finance, particularly for adaptation, as well as practical support for implementing national climate pledges. The climate-trade debate will also matter. Can countries address their differences while keeping renewable energy and other clean technologies affordable and accessible? It will be an important test of whether countries can achieve global energy-transition targets by 2030 and turn shared ambitions into measurable emissions reductions.

Yao Zhe 

Global policy advisor, Greenpeace East Asia

At COP31, I expect a continued push from China to integrate more trade perspectives into the climate negotiations. Beijing’s new five-year plan on climate action envisions a constructive leadership role in global climate governance, specifically calling for the proper handling of climate-trade issues and the free flow of low-carbon products. It will be critical to watch how this grand strategy plays out on the negotiation floor.

I will also be watching how China responds to the COP presidency’s electrification initiative. Beijing increasingly views climate diplomacy through the lens of clean-energy diplomacy – an approach that directly leverages its industrial strength on renewables, electric vehicles (EVs), batteries and grid infrastructure. While China should naturally welcome a global electrification initiative that will lead to larger overseas markets, it likely remains reluctant to link these targets to any commitments regarding transitioning away from fossil fuels.

Prof Ryna Cui 

Associate research professor and research director, University of Maryland Center for Global Sustainability

There isn’t much on the formal negotiation agenda for this year’s COP. The core theme will continue to focus on implementation and delivery, which I think China has strong interests in. This is because of both progress made domestically with the clean energy transition and the overseas economic opportunities to support other countries’ implementation with low-cost Chinese clean technologies. 

One thing exciting for me to watch is that, as China reaches its coal and oil peak, it may open up space for increased interests and leadership in the global “transitioning away from fossil fuels” agenda. This may not happen immediately through formal government negotiations, but more likely through broader bilateral and multilateral engagements. 

As the world navigates options and challenges for the 1.5C overshoot future, China can also contribute critically beyond the energy transition, especially on opportunities for rapid abatement of methane, industrial nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons and other non-CO2 gases as part of its 2035 all-sector, all-greenhouse gas NDC.

Dr Joseph Dellatte 

Resident fellow and head of energy and climate studies, Institut Montaigne

China will likely seek recognition as a climate leader while defending its position as the world’s cleantech manufacturing hub, amid growing trade tensions. I’ll watch whether it continues to frame the global transition primarily around access to Chinese technologies and open markets for its exports, or shows greater willingness to discuss cooperation that shares industrial benefits through local manufacturing, joint ventures and technology sharing. Its delegation and pavilion messaging will reveal how Beijing responds to partners seeking their own place in cleantech value chains.

In the negotiations, I’ll watch whether China accepts greater responsibility for climate ambition while maintaining its leadership role among developing countries, including through additional voluntary climate finance. Electrification will be another test. Will Beijing support commitments linking electrification to cleaner grids and use its influence to bring reluctant fossil-fuel producers on board?

Prof Jeremy Wallace 

A Doak Barnett professor of China studies, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies 

China seems to hold many cards in the notional game of global climate leadership. Its firms have innovated and scaled up production to make solar, batteries and EVs cost-competitive with or cheaper than fossil alternatives. It has led in deployment of these technologies. 

Yet, in preparation for COP31, China seems more interested in fighting battles abroad about “unfair” tariffs on these products than about demonstrating their effectiveness by accelerating adoption of the green-tech revolution at home. China’s renewables buildout has slowed dramatically in 2026, while new coal power and coal chemical facilities continue to be built. The Chinese government has restricted firms from taking their best manufacturing innovations out of the country when building factories abroad. 

Climate leadership is up for grabs. I’m watching to see if Beijing will play its cards and show that they are a winning hand.

Related Analysis: China’s clean-tech exports in 2026 to avoid as much CO2 as Brazil emits in a year 29.10.2026 China policy Chart: A record two-thirds of car sales in China are now electric vehicles 23.10.2026 China policy Interactive: What China’s dozens of ‘five-year plans’ say about climate and energy 24.09.2026 China policy Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions fall in Q2 2026 due to plummeting oil use 03.09.2026 Emissions

The post Experts: What China wants from the COP31 climate talks appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Article Contents Expand menu

• Clean-tech exports
• Solar exports are the biggest enabler
• Global South dominates avoided emissions
• Clean-tech exports span the globe
• Overseas clean energy projects double over three years
• China’s exports enable market growth
• Electrification export implications
• About the data

China’s exports in 2026 of clean-energy technologies, such as solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles, are on track to cut emissions beyond its borders by 2%, reveals new analysis.

This guest post is by:

Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and senior fellow at Asia Society Policy Institute

The impact of these Chinese exports on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions around the world grew by 26% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2026, having already risen by 36% in 2025.

The new analysis for Carbon Brief is based on detailed data for clean-tech product exports, the electricity system in destination countries and emissions during manufacturing in China.

If the latest trends continue for the rest of the year, then Chinese clean-tech exports in 2026 alone will avoid around 450m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) – roughly equivalent to Brazil’s annual emissions.

Other key findings from the analysis include:

• Electric car and heavy vehicle shipments grew by 61% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2026, wind-turbines by 45%, batteries 39%, solar 22% and electric two-wheelers by 21%.
• Over the lifetime of the equipment, exports in 2026 are on track to avoid 8,400MtCO2, equivalent to the annual emissions of the US and India combined.
• This lifetime avoided emissions total for exports in 2026 is up by a quarter from 6,800MtCO2 in 2025 and up by two-thirds from 5,000MtCO2 in 2024.
• Wind- and solar-equipment exports from China in 2026 will generate as much electricity each year as roughly 100 coal-fired power plants.
• While the majority of clean-tech exports by value went to the global north in the first three quarters of 2026, some 76% of lifetime avoided emissions were in the global south.
• This includes 52% of lifetime avoided emissions being in south and south-east Asia, reflecting solar shipments from China being installed onto high-carbon power grids.
• Chinese-owned clean-energy projects built in other countries doubled from 2022-25, but the amount of CO2 avoided remains small compared to equipment exports.

The analysis shows that most of China’s clean-energy exports have been built on new or expanded markets, enabling other producers to maintain their own sales volumes.

In addition, clean-energy sales within China are larger than exports for most technologies, but a domestic solar slowdown could exacerbate trade tensions, if it continues.

Clean-tech exports

China has become the pre-eminent producer of clean-energy technologies, from solar panels and wind turbines through to batteries and electric vehicles.

The majority of China’s clean-tech production is destined for the domestic market. But it has also become a major exporter – and these exports are avoiding significant amounts of CO2.

Previous analysis for Carbon Brief showed that these clean-energy exports in 2024 would cut emissions in countries outside China by around 1%.

The latest analysis shows that China’s clean-tech exports in 2026 are on track to avoid around 450MtCO2, as shown in the figure below, which is nearly 2% of global emissions outside China. It is also roughly equivalent to Brazil’s annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.

The estimate for the final quarter of 2026 is projected from the year-on-year growth rate in the first three quarters. CO2 emissions outside China from Energy Institute data. For further details see: About the data.

The analysis accounts for the impact of the clean-tech exports in the destination country, as well as the emissions due to manufacturing the products in China.

Looking at the full-year data for 2025, manufacturing clean-energy equipment resulted in emissions of around 170MtCO2 within China, while avoiding 370MtCO2 in other countries. This implies that, in aggregate, it takes six months for the exported goods to pay back the CO2 from manufacturing.

Solar exports are the biggest enabler

China’s solar-equipment exports continue to be the biggest enabler of decarbonisation in other countries, according to the analysis.

In the full-year data for 2025, China exported finished solar panels and intermediate products that correspond to a total generating capacity of 436 gigawatts (GW) once assembled and installed.

(Note that this is measured in gigawatts DC, which reflects the capacity of the panels, whereas capacity measured in AC refers to the size of the wire that connects them to the grid.)

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In addition, China exported 8GW of wind turbines. Together with the solar equipment, this will generate approximately 720 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year, based on the average output per unit of capacity for solar and wind in each destination country.

For 2026, China’s exports of wind and solar equipment are on track to generate approximately 800TWh of electricity, equivalent to the generation from around 100 coal-fired power plants.

Over their lifetimes, based on the power sources expected to be displaced in each destination country, the solar exports in 2025 will avoid an estimated 6,400MtCO2.

(For more details on the basis for these calculations, see: About the data.)

Solar is therefore the largest source of lifetime avoided CO2 emissions by far, with wind-turbine exports in second place displacing just 180MtCO2, as shown in the figure below.

Note the variable y-axes. Avoided emissions are net of manufacturing and assume lifetimes of 20 years for solar and wind, 10 years for cars and batteries or 5 years for two-wheelers. For further details see: About the data.

The 39m electric vehicles exported from China in 2025 included 36m two-wheelers, 2.2m battery electric cars, 160,000 plug-in hybrid cars, 15,000 buses and 30,000 trucks.

In addition, China exported batteries with a capacity of 305 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in 2025, enough to power another 5m battery electric cars once installed, based on typical battery sizes.

Based on typical driving distances and fuel consumption for corresponding fuel-burning vehicles, as well as the CO2 intensity of the electricity grid in destination countries, the EVs and batteries exported in 2025 will avoid an estimated 170MtCO2 over their lifetimes.

Given the sheer number of electric two-wheelers, the amount of oil and resulting CO2 they displace is a key uncertainty. Real–world e-bike studies support an assumption that roughly half of e-bike travel displaces the use of motor vehicles, either cars or motorbikes depending on location.

This suggests that, when taking into account the electricity grid in importing nations, China’s electric two-wheeler exports in 2025 will avoid an estimated 40MtCO2 over their lifetimes.

Global South dominates avoided emissions

In 2025, some 73% of the lifetime emissions avoided by China’s clean-tech exports were in global-south countries, which also accounted for 87% of the growth year-on-year.

In the first three quarters of 2026, global-south countries were responsible for almost all of the increase in avoided emissions compared with a year earlier, as shown in the figure below.

Final destinations for solar exports account for re-export, including post-tariff re-routing to the US via assembly or transit in third countries. For further details see: About the data.

The high share of the global south in avoided emissions reflects large export volumes and power grids that are more carbon-intensive on average, as well as better average solar conditions that result in larger avoided emissions for each gigawatt of solar exported.

Clean-tech exports span the globe

On the regional level, South Asia has the largest avoided emissions due to imports of Chinese clean-tech, with strong year-on-year growth both in 2025 and the first three quarters of 2026.

Other top regional destinations in 2026 to date, in terms of lifetime avoided emissions, include south-east Asia, North America, Europe and the Middle East.

However, the exports span the globe, as shown in the map below, avoiding billions of tonnes of CO2 across every continent and in nearly every country of the world.

Among countries, the US has the second-largest avoided emissions after India. It registered a further increase of 12% in 2026, despite increased tariffs, and exceeds the EU as a bloc. The US is followed by Thailand, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Australia.

The EU imports more of every clean energy technology than the US, but the US has higher avoided emissions. This is because average US solar output per unit of capacity is higher – as is the average CO2 intensity of power generation. As a result, every gigawatt of solar installed in the US results in three-times more avoided CO2 emissions than in the EU.

The resilience of Chinese clean-tech exports to the US indicates strong demand for the technology, despite the Trump administration’s steps to slow down deployment and discourage imports.

The data suggests that reducing reliance on technology supply from China – a policy aim of recent administrations from both parties – is likely to require scaling up of domestic and third-country manufacturing of the key technologies, in order to meet that resilient demand.

The largest change in the national rankings for avoided emissions from clean-tech exports in 2026, compared with the previous year, has been a fall in exports to the Gulf countries affected by the war in the region.

For electric cars and heavy vehicles, western Europe was the largest destination in the first three quarters of 2026, followed by Latin America and south-east Asia, both of which more than doubled, reflecting the impact of the oil crisis. Exports to the EU gained 39%.

Regional aggregation according to UN subregions, including “western Asia”, which encompasses Turkey, the Caucasus and the Middle East Final. Destinations for solar exports account for re-export, including post-tariff re-routing to the US via assembly or transit in third countries. For further details see: About the data.

When including batteries and electric two-wheelers, North America and Europe are the largest destinations for avoided emissions due to EV-related exports, followed by Latin America and south-east Asia.

Exports of Chinese solar equipment to the US rose 13% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2026, once re-routing through different channels is considered. This is a reversal of the dip early in the year, due to a sharp increase in tariffs in June 2025. Exports of EVs and batteries to the US also increased slightly, by 3% in the first three quarters of 2026.

Overseas clean energy projects double over three years

In addition to its clean-tech exports, China is also increasingly becoming directly involved in the development of overseas clean-energy projects.

This can be traced back to the 2021 pledge by Chinese president Xi Jinping, in which he said:

“China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.”

As of July 2026, some 69GW of China-linked renewable energy projects were in operation overseas. An additional 100GW are being built, with 280GW in planning but not yet under construction. This renewable energy capacity is supported by 3.5GW of China-linked energy storage projects in operation, with a further 21.4GW of storage in the pipeline. 

China has also financed and built six operating nuclear reactors overseas, with a total capacity of 3.3GW. These are all located in Pakistan and, in 2023, they had a total generation of 26TWh. China began construction on the 1.2GW Chashma-5 reactor in 2024, also in Pakistan, with the plant expected to be operational around 2030.

The expected electricity output of China’s newly operating overseas clean-power projects doubled from 2022 to 2025, with a further 6% year-on-year increase in the first seven months of 2026.

The countries with the largest estimated generation from China-linked clean-power capacity are Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Zimbabwe, Laos, Turkey and South Africa.

The list looks slightly different when considering the impact of operating, under construction or planned China-linked capacity on avoided CO2 emissions.

As shown in the figure below, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Indonesia and Pakistan are expected to see the largest avoided CO2, once under-construction projects are completed.

Based on renewable project data from DCore, nuclear data from World Nuclear Association and grid CO2 intensity data from Ember.

The increase in overseas clean-energy projects has changed China’s role in the power-sector development of other emerging countries. Having previously been the main financier of coal-power projects, it is now an important force in developing clean-power generation.

Nevertheless, there are gaps in the implementation of Xi’s pledge to end overseas coal-power development, which could be seen to affect its effectiveness and credibility. These gaps are particularly with respect to “captive” coal-power plants linked to industrial projects in Indonesia.

China’s overseas clean-energy project portfolio is growing, but remains small compared with the country’s equipment exports. For example in 2025, some 8.4GW of solar-power projects with Chinese financing or involvement entered operation and 18GW were newly announced. That year, China also exported 436GW of solar panels and intermediates.

This implies that financing, project development and construction using solar panels and other clean-tech from China is overwhelmingly carried out by local and other non-Chinese actors.

China’s exports enable market growth

A key concern in countries around the world is that Chinese industrial “overcapacity” is crowding out domestic industries, from automotive to steel or chemicals.

However, analysis of China’s clean-tech exports suggests that they have generally been additional, meaning they have not displaced exports by other producers. This could be a sign that China’s exports have either captured or enabled market growth for these clean-energy technologies.

For example, the value of EV exports from other countries has grown much more than those from China, as shown in the figure below. These EV exports have been led by the EU27 – particularly Germany – as well as Mexico, Japan, the UK and South Korea.

Similarly, there has been growth in the value of exports of heat pumps, solar inverters and electrolysers from both China and from other countries.

This pattern has not been universal. In the case of wind, China’s exports have grown while exports by other producers have declined, representing displacement on the global level.

However, on the level of importing countries, there has not been displacement. China’s wind-turbine exports have mostly headed to countries with growing markets, while incumbent producers have seen a decline in sales, in some of their previously important markets.

For some clean-tech, exports from other producers have displaced Chinese supply. For example, tariffs and restrictions on the use of Chinese components have seen other producers expanding into existing markets for solar panels, solar inverters and heat pumps.

At the same time, China’s exports of these technologies have been redirected into new markets, which previously imported little solar equipment.

Another indication of additionality is that Chinese clean-tech exports often target different market segments. For example, in the case of EVs, solar inverters and heat pumps, Chinese exports have much lower unit prices than equivalent exports from other producers.

Finally, it is worth noting that there has been much clearer displacement in the case of fuel-burning vehicles, where low-cost products from China have replaced exports from other suppliers.

Electrification export implications

China’s clean-tech exports have become a key enabler of the global clean-energy transition, driving down the cost, opening up new markets and responding to the rapid increase in demand.

China’s role as a major supplier of electrification technologies could give it a reason to support a push by the COP31 presidency for a global electrification target.

The country also has a large and growing role in financing and building clean-energy projects in many emerging countries, although this remains much smaller in scale than its exports.

When analysed on the country level, China’s clean-tech exports have, by and large, not displaced exports by other producers in absolute terms. Rather, it has captured market growth and opened up clean-energy development in countries that previously did not import the technologies at all.

However, the sharp drop in clean-tech prices means that exporters that have only held their sales volumes steady have seen the value of their exports dwindle. They have also lost market share to China’s exports. To retain market share, other exporters would need to expand production capacity.

Clean-energy technology has also become a cornerstone of China’s economy, responsible for 16% of all net growth in total exports in the first half of 2026, although the share fell in the third quarter due to the broad surge in exports, even as cleantech growth accelerated as well.

More broadly, clean energy sectors contributed a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025. This means that the country has a clear economic self-interest in the success of the global energy transition.

EV and wind deployment has continued to grow also in China domestically, but for solar and battery energy storage, the domestic market has dived after record volumes in 2025.

China’s domestic clean-energy market is larger than the export market for most technologies. Only 43% of solar cells and panels, 13% EVs, 17% of batteries and 7% of wind turbines produced in China were exported in 2025, highlighting the importance of the home market for producers.

For solar, however, exports continue to expand and could outweigh China’s domestic deployment after a slowdown in the sector in 2026. This could exacerbate overseas concerns about “unfair” trade practices, unless the domestic market picks up again.

About the data

This analysis estimates the fossil fuel and CO2 emissions avoided outside China as a result of China’s exports of solar, wind, electric-vehicle and battery technology.

Each exported unit of generating capacity is assumed to displace electricity from the grid of its destination country. Similarly, each exported electric vehicle is assumed to displace fuel in an equivalent internal-combustion vehicle.

Export volumes: Solar exports include finished modules as well as intermediates (wafers and cells), each expressed by Ember as finished-panel-equivalent gigawatts, with data taken from Ember’s China solar exports tracker. Wind and battery export totals are taken from Chinese industry bodies the China Wind Energy Association (CWEA) and the China Automotive Battery Innovation Alliance (CABIA). They are distributed across destination countries and months using customs-value shares from Ember’s China clean-tech exports tracker. Electric-vehicle volumes use vehicle counts from China Customs. Exports to Hong Kong are excluded and replaced with Hong Kong’s onward re-exports, treated as Chinese exports.

Avoided emissions: For each technology, the analysis combines the destination country’s average capacity factor and grid CO2 intensity, both derived from Ember’s yearly electricity data. Missing or implausible values are filled with UN sub-regional and then global medians, while all EU destinations are assigned the EU-average grid to correct for re-export hubs such as the Netherlands. For vehicles and batteries, avoided oil and CO2 is estimated based on per-vehicle assumptions compiled from the literature, net of charging emissions at the destination grid. Electric two-wheelers are credited with displacing conventional two-wheeler use for 48% of their travel. Lifetime figures multiply annual avoided emissions by assumed operating lives of 20 years for solar and wind, 10 for vehicles and batteries, or five for two-wheelers. “Embodied” manufacturing emissions are subtracted from these totals. Manufacturing emissions are calculated using average Chinese emission intensities compiled from the literature. National emissions used for comparison are from the Energy Institute statistical review of world energy.

Attributing solar exports to final markets: Because customs data records only a shipment’s first destination, the analysis traces Chinese wafers, modules and cells to their final destination using UN Comtrade bilateral import data. It identifies countries that import large amounts of solar modules and intermediates from China and export them further, classifying these onward exports as exports of Chinese goods, as long as they do not exceed the volume each country imported from China. It converts customs values to capacity using Ember’s monthly module and cell prices. 

Experts: What China wants from the COP31 climate talks 29.10.2026 China policy Chart: A record two-thirds of car sales in China are now electric vehicles 23.10.2026 China policy Interactive: What China’s dozens of ‘five-year plans’ say about climate and energy 24.09.2026 China policy Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions fall in Q2 2026 due to plummeting oil use 03.09.2026 Emissions

The post Analysis: China’s clean-tech exports in 2026 to avoid as much CO2 as Brazil emits in a year appeared first on Carbon Brief.

After the state endured its hottest year-to-date period on record and a multi-million-dollar battering by Hurricane Marie in September and Hurricane Rachel in October, much greater destruction could be on the way this winter. El Niño is continuing to warm coastal waters, and because water expands as it heats, sea levels could rise to unprecedented heights during the coming king tides at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and late January. In concert with the rising seas will likely come a battering by record-wet atmospheric rivers when the jet stream assumes its usual California-centered configuration during the coming very strong ("super") El Niño winter. Atmospheric rivers, like rivers in the sky, carry moisture out of the tropics.

If it comes to pass, a disaster this winter in California would strain FEMA, which has been decimated under the Trump administration. Since 2025, “the agency has so far lost 17 percent of its staff, including one-third of full-time employees responsible for the agency’s day-to-day operations," according to the Brennan Center. And it's an open question how much the federal government would help: According to a March analysis by politico.com, President Donald Trump has approved just 23% of blue state requests for disaster aid, compared to 89% for red states.

Figure 1. Predicted precipitation from the October 1 run of the European seasonal model. A very wet winter is predicted for California. (Image credit: Daniel Swain)

An unusually high risk of a record-wet winter for California

In an October 12 post at weatherwest.com, climate scientist Daniel Swain shared alarming odds of a record-wet winter for California. He analyzed the winter forecasts from 10 different seasonal forecast models; eight of them gave at least 10% odds that one or more months from January through March 2027 would be the wettest on record in Southern California, Central California, or both.

"In a few locations along the Central Coast, the odds are depicted as being as high as 40-50%," Swain wrote. "Technically, a dry winter is still possible, though it is very unlikely (in my estimate, 5-10% or less)."

The latest run of the European Copernicus climate service (C3S) October 14 outlook, which combines 10 seasonal forecast models from nine weather agencies, concurred with Swain's analysis: About 13% of the 454 model ensemble members explicitly predicted California’s wettest winter on record; only 8% showed a drier-than-average December through February period statewide.

The Golden State has a long history of cataclysmic floods, which have occurred about every 200 to 400 years — most recently in the Great Flood of 1861-62, which swamped the 300-mile length of the Central Valley. And climate change has made these extreme floods more likely.

In fact, climate change has already doubled the risk of a megastorm, and more than tripled the risk of a trillion-dollar megaflood of the type that occurred in the 1860s, according to a 2022 study that Swain co-authored. The study authors found that the odds of a lesser megastorm costing tens of billions of dollars — less precipitation than in 1861-62, but more than in California’s recent wettest winters — were about 1% (26% over a 30-year period).

I asked Swain on Bluesky for the odds of such a lesser megastorm this winter. He replied, “It is reasonable to interpret that the risk is at least 10x baseline, and quite possibly higher.” That implies at least a 10% risk this winter of a California flood costing over $10 billion (2023 dollars), which would be the state’s costliest flood on record.

A separate 2022 study estimated that a 1% per year likelihood flood affecting only the Los Angeles area would likely inundate property worth about $56 billion containing a population of about 425,000 to a depth of a foot or more, with the risks disproportionately higher for non-Hispanic Black and other underresourced populations.

Figure 2. The 13 costliest California flood seasons (in 2023 USD), 1949-2025. This includes flooding from all causes. Of the eight seasons that exceeded $1.5 billion in statewide flood damage, only three were El Niño seasons: one very strong (1982) and two moderate (1994-95, 1968-69). (Image credit: Jan Null, ggweather.com)

Timing of the rains will be crucial

Despite their obvious power, strong El Niño events have historically been a mixed bag for severe flood impacts in California. San Francisco-based meteorologist Jan Null wrote by email that a very wet winter won’t necessarily bring destructive flooding if the storms are strung out over the winter.

For example, the strong El Niño winter of 1997-98 had more than double California’s average rainfall — the second-largest amount ever — but ranks only No. 13 for most destructive, because the rain was spread over almost twice the number of rainy days as usual. Conversely, the strong El Niño winter of 1982-83 had less rain but more significant damage (ranking No. 4), as multiple big storms occurred in a short period of time. And in the winter of 2015-16, predicted heavy rains from El Niño never materialized, despite much higher-than-usual odds.

Figure 3. Predicted departure of sea surface temperature from average from the ECMWF ensemble model average for November 2026-January 2027. Highly extreme sea surface temperature anomalies near or exceeding 10°F are predicted along the entire California coast and in the equatorial Pacific. (Image by Daniel Swain using ECMWF SEAS5.1 data)

Record sea surface temperatures will intensify

Sea surface temperatures along the California coast from San Francisco Bay southward are about 2-6 degrees Celsius (3.6-10.8°F) above average and are record-warm for this time of year along the stretch from San Francisco Bay to Los Angeles.

Why? Partially because California has experienced its hottest year-to-date period on record. In addition, an oceanic “Kelvin wave” has transported warm water from the tropics along the coast over the past few months. The Kelvin wave was generated by strong westerly winds from the intensifying super El Niño, which pushed record-warm waters from the western Pacific against the western coasts of North and South America. The Coriolis effect caused by the planet’s rotation then pinned the bulge of warm water against land, forcing it to spread along the Pacific coast. These warm waters will spread farther north and south later this autumn and into the winter.

Swain wrote that water temperatures along much of the California coast could average about 8-10°F above average this winter. "These are, again, pretty astonishing numbers, and would blow records from 1982-83, 1997-98, and 2015-16 right out of the water," he wrote. "In addition to (alas) potentially very serious marine ecosystem impacts, these extremely warm near-shore waters will likely add considerable additional moisture to incoming winter storms."

These warm waters will mean that much of the winter precipitation in the mountains of California will fall as rain, with snow restricted primarily to the highest elevations.

The unusual ocean warmth will also boost atmospheric instability this winter, increasing the risk of coastal thunderstorms, possibly bringing severe thunderstorms with flash flooding, damaging straight-line wind gusts, and a few isolated tornadoes. The unusually active jet stream expected this winter will contribute to this risk.

Record coastal flooding has already occurred and will worsen

Average water levels at Los Angeles were already running one to four inches above expected in the spring of 2026 and rose an additional 9.5 inches between May and September because of the arrival of the Kelvin wave. Water levels have ranged about one to two feet above expected levels so far in October. (An additional sea level rise of six to eight inches since pre-industrial times has already been factored into the “expected” water levels reported by NOAA.)

Figure 4. The top-10 water levels on record for three California cities with long-term periods of record. Data from NOAA Tides and Currents.

These high water levels contributed to millions of dollars of coastal damage as a result of the large swells from Hurricane Marie in September and Hurricane Rachel in October. Nearly the entire Balboa Peninsula near Los Angeles was inundated up to two to three feet by Hurricane Rachel’s waves in October.

Add in king tides

The highest tides of the year — the king tides — occur during the full moon of certain months. The king tides during July — which hit at the same time that a two- to three-foot swell from a Pacific storm arrived at the coast — brought San Diego its highest water levels since its tide gauge was installed in 1906.

More king tides are expected November 24-26, 2026, December 22-25, 2026, and January 20-23, 2027. These king tides are almost certain to cause coastal flooding, even on calm sunny days.

“Even a moderate storm could bring water levels higher still, and a strong storm would likely produce widespread damaging, and probably historic, coastal flooding,” Swain explained.

Figure 5. Forecast from NOAA of the percent probability of at least minor coastal flooding during the coming king tides of November, December, and January in California. The minor flood thresholds (in feet above high tide) are given at left beneath the city's name. (Image credit: Chris Gloninger)

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• ‘New course on energy’
• Energy bills
• Warm homes plan
• Fuel duty and EVs
• CCS and hydrogen
• Data centres
• Other announcements

Chancellor John Healey has announced a “new course on energy” for the UK, focused on keeping bills low amid the global crisis triggered by war in the Middle East.

As he laid out his first budget, Healey said the Labour government would still prioritise the expansion of clean power and remain “unshakably committed to net-zero”.

The budget sets out what the chancellor calls a “radical reform of energy”, including a longer-term effort to “break the grip of gas on bills”.

There are also a variety of short-term measures to curb energy bills, including a council-tax rebate and the removal of the gas “standing charge”, though these fell far short of pre-budget calls to tackle high prices.

Moreover, in order to fund defence spending, the government is cutting £1bn from its “warm homes plan” and £700m from hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects.

The budget also appears to cut up to another £4.7bn from the warm homes plan – as well as ending zero-rated VAT for solar panels and extending a “temporary” 5p cut in fuel duty.

Finally, the government set out plans to ensure new data centres meet strict environmental regulations, while leaving the door open to on-site fossil-fuel power generation.

Below, Carbon Brief runs through the key climate- and energy-focused announcements from the budget.

• ‘New course on energy’
• Energy bills
• Warm homes plan
• Fuel duty and EVs
• CCS and hydrogen
• Data centres
• Other announcements

‘New course on energy’

Conflict in the Middle East has driven up energy bills for people in the UK, as the global trade in oil and gas has been thrown into disarray.

In this context, the new budget sets out a “shift in the government’s approach to energy”, focusing on “cheaper energy” as the main priority.

At the same time, Healey was clear that fossil fuels were driving the price increases and that clean power would be essential for the government’s cost-cutting agenda.

In its accompanying analysis, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) notes that “fossil-fuel prices rose by 83% in the year to September 2026”.

In his speech, the chancellor announced a “radical reform of energy to reduce bills”, stating: 

“Today, I’m setting a new course on energy. To get UK energy costs down in line with Europe, from this point, our Labour government priority is first and foremost cheaper energy, with clean power key to achieving this. This is possible because of the progress we have made towards clean power over the last two years.”

Conservative and Reform politicians have argued that the UK should abandon its net-zero targets, including Labour’s “clean power by 2030” goal, in order to cut energy prices.

This is despite expensive gas driving most of the recent price increases and renewables saving the UK billions in gas imports since the start of the Hormuz crisis.

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The government has not explicitly rolled back any climate targets and Healey stressed in his speech that “this government remains unshakably committed to net-zero by 2050”.

Nevertheless, the budget document speaks of a “new energy pathway” on which the government’s upcoming “10 year plan” will build. It also states:

“Cheaper electricity will boost electrification, increasing the UK’s energy security and helping to decarbonise the whole economy.”

The budget mentions short- and long-term measures to bring costs down, including expansion of the electricity grid. (See sections below for more details.)

It says the government will “consult on market arrangements for gas”, potentially a nod to the idea of putting gas-power plants into a strategic reserve.

Healey also used his speech to welcome the recent approval of the controversial Jackdaw gasfield, which he framed as a “pragmatic” decision that would boost UK “energy security”.

The government is yet to make a decision on the Rosebank oilfield, but OBR forecasts released alongside the budget assume that it will be approved.

Energy bills

The budget offers short-term relief on household and industrial energy bills, as well as promising longer-term sectoral reform.

Nevertheless, it falls far short of proposals for cutting bills that had been set out by industry bodies, thinktanks, charities and energy companies ahead of the budget.

This has stoked expectations that the government may be forced to offer further support on energy bills after the price cap for January 2027 is announced later this year.

Forecasts suggest bills could rise by a quarter – some £470 – to around £2,200 a year.

The only substantive and immediate new bills measure in the budget is a £100 council-tax rebate for English households in bands A-D, which Healey said would cost £2.6bn.

Devolved governments will receive a share of the funding to provide their own support. Meanwhile, local authorities will receive an additional £100m to provide targeted support to households “acutely impacted” by rising energy bills.

In addition, Healey announced that the temporary removal of VAT from household electricity bills – worth around £45 per year – will be extended by three months, from April to July 2027. 

Healey also made a commitment that no new policy costs would be added to energy bills until a comprehensive “cost-control framework” is in place. This is expected at the spending review in 2027. The budget says:

“The government will introduce a new comprehensive cost control framework (CCF) at the spending review in 2027 that will set budgets for components of energy costs, including policy costs, to ensure government action drives bills down over the next 10 years.”

“As part of this, the budget specifies that going forward, the government will only procure new clean-power projects that lower bills and can easily connect to the grid. 

It specifically notes that the upcoming eighth “contracts for difference” (CfD) auction (AR8) “will lower bills, as well as deliver[ing] a good outcome for energy security and climate”.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, James Dyson, senior researcher at E3G says that an effective framework should “set out a specific, timebound commitment to remove the hidden costs from energy bills which have accumulated over the last two decades”, as well as providing oversight of system costs in the future.

A planned levy on gas bills – a long-term funding mechanism for the low-carbon hydrogen dubbed the “gas shipper obligation” – will be moved into general taxation, so that “government rather than consumers fund the costs of hydrogen projects”.

On the morning of the budget, the government announced that the “unfair and outdated” gas standing charge would be removed for around 23m homes in the UK. 

A standing charge is a fixed daily fee paid by households as part of their bill, regardless of how much gas they use. This costs around £108 a year for a typical household. 

The government says it will ask energy regulator Ofgem to move the cost of the standing charge onto gas unit rates in 2027, or as soon as possible. It says this will save 60% of households an average of around £45 a year on their gas bill

The change will disproportionately benefit the poorest households, according to analysis from thinktank Nesta shown in the figure below.

Nesta says the shift will reduce the “spark gap” – the ratio between electricity and gas prices – by around 0.3 points, from 3.3 under the current price cap to 3.0. This could help encourage a shift to electrified technologies, such as heat pumps and electric vehicles (EVs).

The budget also includes a commitment to “reform” standing charges on electricity bills, with further details to be published in 2027.

However, Jess Britton at UKERC tells Carbon Brief that “simply moving [electricity standing] charges on to unit costs risks disincentivising electrification”.

From next year, the government will introduce a new “energy debt circuit breaker”, which will save billpayers £30 by 2030, according to the budget.

This is designed to “tackle the scourge of energy debt”, which currently adds around £60 to typical household energy bills each year, according to Carbon Brief analysis. . 

The initiative follows warnings from trade association Energy UK that customer energy debt is on course to hit £7bn by the end of 2026, potentially adding another £10-15 to bills. 

The budget also confirmed additional support for business energy bills. It says the “British industrial competitiveness scheme” (BICS) will be expanded to provide a 20-25% electricity discount to 10,000 energy-intensive manufacturing firms from April 2027. This will include back-payments for 2026-27. 

According to the OBR, the treasury will indirectly cover the cost of expanding BICS by taking a portion of CfD levies off electricity bills for other consumers.

In the longer term, the budget includes a commitment to “breaking the grip of gas on bills”.

A consultation published alongside the budget fleshes out the options for a proposed “wholesale contracts for difference” (WCfD) scheme, initially outlined in April. This would offer fixed-price contracts to eligible renewable-energy generators.

The expansion of renewables is already helping to decouple gas and power prices, with gas setting wholesale electricity prices around 60% of the time in 2025, down from around 90% in the early 2020s.

Warm homes plan

Following speculation in the run-up to the budget, chancellor Healey confirmed a cut to the UK’s flagship energy efficiency programme. 

His budget cuts £1bn from the “warm homes plan” to help cover a shortfall in defence spending. 

The warm homes plan is supposed to provide up to 5m households with £15bn of grants and loans to support the installation of heat pumps, rooftop solar panels and insulation. 

The budget states that the “government remains committed to heat-pump deployment”.

It says it will continue to fund the “boiler upgrade scheme” (BUS) at current funding levels of £400m in 2027‑28, after which it will rise broadly in line with inflation.

However, this represents a significant cut in funding for heat-pump deployment of around £800m, relative to previously announced levels. Analysts tell Carbon Brief that this could lead to around 100,000 heat pumps not being installed over three years.

Andrew Sissons, director in sustainable future at Nesta tells Carbon Brief:

“The chancellor has announced that funding for future heat-pump subsidies will be reduced by nearly £800m over three years. This is a backward step at a time when Britain urgently needs to move away from using gas.”

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In an emailed statement, Yara van Ingen, lead buildings and heat analyst at BloombergNEF said the cut would make the government’s ambition to reach 450,000 heat-pump installations a year by 2030 “harder to achieve”.

In addition to the £1bn in lost grants for the warm-homes plan, the budget also suggests that significant additional funding for the scheme has been cut.

It says a new £4.7bn “your first home” scheme is being funded by reallocating “financial transactions” previously allocated to the energy and environment departments.

While the details of this shift remain sparse, this suggests funding for the warm homes plan could end up being reduced from the headline £15bn to as little as £9bn, analysts tell Carbon Brief.

E3G’s Dyson adds: 

“An unknown amount of funding has been cut from the ‘financial transactions’ pot, which is money that is used to loan to businesses and households. The cut is between £1.5bn and £5bn. 

“The government’s not even tried to spend this money, it only officially launched its [warm-homes] loan scheme today. Businesses and households need certainty to invest in decarbonising homes and this kind of reaction does not support it.”

Ben Westerman, director of policy and advocacy at campaign group Electrify Britain, tells Carbon Brief that “all in all, [the budget is] really disappointing for electrification”.

The budget comes the day after the government launched its “warm homes loan” scheme, which offers households no- and low-interest loans of between £7,500 and £35,000 for installing technologies such as solar panels, batteries and heat pumps. 

According to the government, households that install a heat pump, a battery and solar panels could save £550 a year on their energy bills. This could rise to £800 a year when combined with a time-of-use tariff. 

Fuel duty and EVs

The budget froze fuel duty once again – for the 16th year in a row. 

Chancellor Healey also confirmed the extension of the 5p per litre fuel-duty cut announced in 2022 under Conservative then-chancellor Rishi Sunak, in response to the energy crisis triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

The cumulative cost of these freezes has now reached £139bn since 2010-2011, according to the OBR. If fuel duty continues to be frozen until 2029-30, the OBR says that public-sector net borrowing will rise by £4.3bn.

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Alongside the budget, the government published an independent review of the cost of public EV charging. This includes plans to cut prices at local, lower-powered public chargers, saving drivers around £150 a year on average, according to the government. 

This will be funded through £100m of government money over two years from spring 2027.

Additionally, the government states that it is “laying the groundwork for a better system in the future” by taking forward a recommendation by the review to launch a “tariff porting” taskforce. This will explore ways to allow drivers to use cheaper domestic tariffs at certain public chargers.

However, the budget also specifies that “electricity supplied through publicly accessible and workplace electric-vehicle charging points is subject to 20% VAT and is not considered domestic use”. This definition will take effect from 1 November 2026, as part of legislation in the finance bill 2026-27. 

Industry bodies criticised this categorisation, with Shane Brennan, CEO of ChargeUK, writing in a statement on LinkedIn that it will “do serious damage to the EV transition”. He continues: 

“Instead of listening to the call of EV drivers for fairness on VAT, the government has slammed the door shut on ending a rank unfairness between at-home and out-of-home charging…[which] even the courts ruled to be illegal earlier this year.”

Within the budget, the government confirmed some changes to the electric-vehicle excise duty (eVED) pay-per-mile tax, announced in last year’s budget. This includes introducing a mileage estimate tool, developing an opt-in system for connectivity and other changes. 

The government will publish its response to the zero-emissions vehicle mandate review by the end of 2026, with a view to changes taking place in 2027. 

CCS and hydrogen

The government has confirmed a £200m cut in capital-grant funding for CCS and £500m for low-carbon hydrogen projects.

This is part of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) “reprioritising its budget” to contribute more to the UK’s defence spending.

There are four planned CCS “clusters” in the works across the UK – part of a government-backed effort to make the nation an “early leader” in the sector.

The budget says the government will “prioritise” the two “mature” clusters under development on Teesside, and on Merseyside and North Wales. These include “blue-hydrogen” production, gas power with CCS and industrial uses.

It also says the government will “maintain grant funding” for the Viking cluster in the Humber region.

The £200m in removed funding will therefore come from the Acorn cluster, which was planned for north-east Scotland.

At the same time, the government says it is “actively looking at how loan or equity investments can support the continued development of future CCS and hydrogen projects…including for the Acorn cluster”.

While the Labour government has stressed the importance of CCS for reaching the UK’s net-zero targets, the billions in public spending committed to these projects have drawn criticism from both climate activists and climate sceptics.

Details of the cuts remain limited, but Prof Rob Gross, director of the UK Energy Research Centre, tells Carbon Brief:

“The history of CCS investment in the UK is not a happy one and if the government wishes to retain investor confidence and the regional economic benefits that the clusters could bring then a repeat of the precipitous cuts made in 2015 must be avoided. It appears that the government is aware and treading carefully.”

Data centres

As part of efforts to boost the UK’s use of artificial intelligence (AI), the budget sets out a “data-centre covenant”, with “tests” that data centres must meet to gain approval.

These include a stipulation that developers must pay for “any energy costs they create”, while also “support[ing] grid resilience, flexibility and clean power”.

The “covenant” will also require data centres to “adhere to the highest environmental standards”, including protecting nature, curbing water use, publishing energy-use data and using waste heat to heat nearby buildings “wherever practical”.

In return, the government will use new planning powers to accelerate the grid connection of data centres, alongside other “strategically important” projects.

When grid connection is not immediately available, the government says it will set out a framework to allow on-site generation until a grid connection can be secured.  

The government stresses that on-site generation will be “tightly controlled” and “only…available for exceptionally strategic projects”.

Nevertheless, NGOs raised the likelihood that “on-site power” would come in the form of gas or diesel generation, rather than clean power, potentially threatening the UK’s climate goals.

Other announcements

There were various other climate- and energy-related announcements in the budget, including: 

• The government has not extended zero-rated VAT for “energy saving materials” – including solar panels – when installed on homes beyond the end of March 2027.
• The budget confirms the establishment of an “energy wealth fund”, which was recently announced as a way to invest revenues from North Sea oil and gas into low-carbon energy infrastructure.
• The government is legislating for the “oil and gas revenue levy” to replace the “energy profits levy” when that ends by April 2030 at the latest.
• It freezes the electricity main rates of the “climate-change levy” from April 2028, in order to “reduce electricity costs in real terms for businesses”.
• As part of the government’s efforts to promote housebuilding, it has introduced an exemption from “biodiversity net gain” requirements for residential brownfield developments on sites up to 1.5 hectares in England.

Related Analysis: How the UK spent more than £11.6bn on climate aid since 2021 28.10.2026 UK policy Revealed: UK relied on £2bn of ‘questionable accounting’ to hit its climate-aid goal 28.10.2026 UK policy Q&A: Why are UK energy bills so high – and how could they be lowered? 27.10.2026 Oil and gas Revealed: Expensive gas behind ‘nearly 90%’ of rise in UK electricity bills 21.10.2026 Oil and gas

The post UK budget 2026: Key climate and energy announcements appeared first on Carbon Brief.

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• ‘Moving the goalposts’
• ‘£1bn shortfall’
• Accounting changes
• Methodology

The UK has beaten its target to provide £11.6bn of climate aid to developing countries by 2026 – but only through “questionable accounting”. 

As part of its obligations under the Paris Agreement, the UK pledged to give at least £11.6bn in overseas “climate finance” between 2021 and 2026.

Now, Carbon Brief analysis reveals that around £2.1bn of the funds the UK counted towards this goal did not come from new spending.

Instead, the government relabelled existing funding for development banks, private-sector investment and aid for Afghanistan, Sudan and other war-torn nations as “climate finance”.

Without these changes, the UK would have fallen nearly £1bn short of its target.

Carbon Brief’s analysis is based on numerous FOI requests and reveals the otherwise-unpublished details of the UK’s climate-finance spending.

Experts and MPs say the use of “questionable” accounting shows the UK is “cutting corners” to hit its climate goals, while making unprecedented cuts to its foreign aid budget. 

‘Moving the goalposts’

The UK and other developed countries are obliged under UN climate treaties to provide “new and additional” climate finance to help developing countries tackle climate change. 

They also have specific targets to “mobilise” $100bn of climate finance per year through to 2025 and “at least” $300bn by 2035.

As the UK’s contribution to international climate finance, in 2019 the Conservative government pledged to provide £11.6bn between the financial years 2021-22 and 2025-26. This amounted to “doubling” its previous five-year target.

Since then, successive governments have slashed the amount of money going towards foreign aid, citing economic strain and a need for more defence spending. This has placed great pressure on the £11.6bn target, which comes from the UK aid budget. 

In order to retain the target while cutting aid, the Conservative government decided in 2023 to loosen the criteria for what it defined as “climate” spending.

This enabled the UK to remain committed to the £11.6bn goal, without spending more on new climate projects, by simply relabelling existing funds. The current Labour government has opted to maintain this approach, while pledging to cut aid spending even further.

The move has been strongly criticised by campaigners, MPs and even the UK’s official aid watchdog, who have described it as “creative accounting” and “moving the goalposts”.

‘£1bn shortfall’

The UK government has announced that it met the £11.6bn target, but has not released the full details of how it did so – or even the total amount provided by 2025-26.

FOI data obtained by Carbon Brief over the course of several months reveals that, in fact, total climate finance over the past five years reached £12.8bn – with a record £4bn in the past year alone.

However, Carbon Brief analysis of government data also shows that around £2.1bn – nearly a fifth of the total – comes from the government’s accounting changes.

Without these changes, as the chart below shows, cumulative UK climate finance would only have reached around £10.7bn by 2026, leaving a shortfall of £924m.

This final figure of £2.1bn is higher than forecast by the UK Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), which estimated in 2024 that the total amount of “reclassified” climate finance would reach £1.7bn.

The government has stressed that its accounting changes are “consistent” with “internationally agreed ways of calculating ICF”, used by other major donors.

(Experts have noted that, traditionally, the UK was viewed as taking a more rigorous approach to climate-finance accounting, which is notoriously unregulated and opaque.)

A recent International Development Committee (IDC) report noted that developed countries have committed to providing “new and additional” climate finance to developing countries, which is generally interpreted as extra funds on top of existing aid. 

Evidence gathered by the IDC concluded that, alongside aid cuts, the UK’s accounting changes have “eroded” the “additionality and credibility” of its climate finance.

Responding to Carbon Brief’s findings, IDC chair Sarah Champion said the data “shines a new light” on the committee’s findings:

“The picture is not getting any better. If questionable accounting has been used to get around a £1bn shortfall on ICF spend between 2021-22 and 2025-26, this only underlines my concerns that the government has been cutting corners to maintain headline climate-spending commitments, rather than working to deliver genuine climate and nature outcomes.”

These accounting changes remain relevant as the UK begins its next phase of international climate finance, while cutting the aid budget further. 

The government has pledged £6bn of foreign aid for climate projects over the next three years. This makes the UK one of the only major donor countries to set out a new climate-finance target for the period after 2025, despite a global pledge to scale up support.

Nevertheless, the new UK goal amounts to a halving from £4bn in the financial year 2025-26 to £2bn a year, on average. Previous Carbon Brief analysis also shows that the continued use of “questionable  accounting” is likely to make up around a third of the new target.

Responding to Carbon Brief’s analysis, a UK government spokesperson says: 

“We are proud to have both hit, and exceeded, our third international climate-finance target – and will continue to work hard on protecting climate and nature. 

“Climate change and nature loss pose a real and significant threat to global security and prosperity. That is why the UK is leading action on climate and nature, and prioritising climate finance in its aid budget.”

Accounting changes

The UK’s accounting changes break down into three major components, which are behind most of its upward revision in climate-finance spending.

The first is counting a share of “core” funding for multilateral development banks (MDBs) as climate finance. 

This refers to un-earmarked contributions that governments provide to support these banks in their work, which includes providing loans and grants to developing countries.

Counting this spending as “climate finance” adds £1.1bn to the total of £12.8bn, split mainly between the World Bank and the African Development Bank.

As the chart below shows, this is by far the largest chunk of extra climate finance resulting from the UK’s accounting changes.

A spreadsheet with details of these accounting changes can be viewed here.

This revision has been justified on the grounds that the World Bank and other banks have clear targets for funding climate-relevant projects, using their core funding.

However, MDBs have also faced criticism for their lack of transparency around climate finance and their reliance on loans, rather than grants. (In contrast, nearly all of the UK’s climate finance so far has been grant-based.)

Moreover, the US has been pressuring MDBs to drop their climate plans altogether. Indeed, the Trump administration has already forced the World Bank to abandon its overall target to put 45% of its funds towards climate finance. 

Jon Sward, environment project manager at the Bretton Woods Project NGO, tells Carbon Brief:

“One thing removing the overall [World Bank] target definitely does is it adds…a lack of predictability of the flows going forward.”

The second-largest UK accounting change – contributing nearly £600m – comes from automatically counting 30% of humanitarian aid as climate finance, if it is going to one of the countries judged most vulnerable to climate change.

This includes some of the most war-torn and low-income nations in the world, such as Afghanistan, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Crucially, this means projects are counted even if they have no discernible link to climate change, such as helping “conflict-affected” people in Yemen and orphans in Zimbabwe.

The Center for Global Development (CGD) has described this revision as “arbitrary”, given every aid project is already screened for any climate-relevant components.

The third significant portion comes from counting more of the government’s private-sector investments via British International Investment (BII) as climate finance. BII is a publicly owned, for-profit company that invests in developing-country businesses and is partially funded with injections of UK aid money.

The UK government decided to start calculating the climate share of its BII spending based on real-world BII investments, rather than a default, fixed share of 30%.

Data obtained by Carbon Brief via FOI suggests that £133m of extra BII funding was labelled as climate finance over the first four years of the £11.6bn target. 

However, government records of BII climate finance have been inconsistent, making it difficult to estimate the total impact of accounting changes. Therefore, Carbon Brief has used an earlier internal government forecast that estimated this change would add a total of £266m over the five-year target period.

BII has increasingly turned its attention to investing in clean power in recent years, reaching more than £1bn in “climate investments” in 2025.

However, the company has faced criticism for investments that “conflict” with UK priorities – including legacy fossil-fuel investments – as well as channelling aid money to “billionaires”.

There was also some extra spending that the government decided to count as climate aid – notably, £99m of “spending on COP26”, from when the UK hosted the climate summit. 

Shruti Agarwal, senior climate finance adviser at Save the Children UK, tells Carbon Brief the reduction in overall “financial effort” by the UK is a “concerning pattern that must cease”. She adds:

“[The UK should] strengthen transparency by publishing timely, detailed data on international climate spending and stop classifying expenditure as climate finance retrospectively, as seen with COP26 expenses.”

Methodology

Carbon Brief obtained the full datasets of international climate-finance spending via FOI, covering the five-year period 2021-22 to 2025-26. For more details and to access the full dataset, see Carbon Brief’s analysis of the £12.8bn in spending over this period.

In addition, Carbon Brief requested details from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of what climate-finance spending would have been prior to the 2023 accounting changes, for the period 2021-22 to 2024-25.

Carbon Brief then used this information to calculate the impact of accounting changes in 2025-26, combining the figures to work out the full impact.

A spreadsheet with the full details of the accounting changes can be viewed here.

UK climate-finance figures have been subject to regular revisions. While this analysis is based on final figures provided via FOI requests in recent months, it is possible that departments will still change the figures in future releases.

Related UK budget 2026: Key climate and energy announcements 28.10.2026 UK policy Analysis: How the UK spent more than £11.6bn on climate aid since 2021 28.10.2026 UK policy Q&A: Why are UK energy bills so high – and how could they be lowered? 27.10.2026 Oil and gas Revealed: Expensive gas behind ‘nearly 90%’ of rise in UK electricity bills 21.10.2026 Oil and gas

The post Revealed: UK relied on £2bn of ‘questionable accounting’ to hit its climate-aid goal appeared first on Carbon Brief.

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• The UK has supported around 500 climate projects since 2021
• UK climate aid has reached record levels – but is set to drop
• Afghanistan received more bilateral climate aid than any other country
• Development banks and private-sector funders are among the biggest beneficiaries
• Methodology

The UK has spent £12.8bn on climate aid for developing countries since 2021, according to official figures obtained by Carbon Brief.

Freedom-of-information (FOI) requests reveal how the UK has used its “climate finance” to support everything from solar projects in Mozambique to carbon offsets in the Amazon.

UK climate funding, which reached a record £4bn this year, has supported roughly 500 aid projects, climate funds and private-investment initiatives over the past five years.

With this spending, the UK has surpassed its £11.6bn climate-finance target for this period, although Carbon Brief analysis shows that it has partly relied on “questionable accounting”.

This target is part of the UK’s ongoing responsibility under UN climate treaties to financially support developing countries in their efforts to tackle climate change.

Despite being central to its international climate policy, the UK government does not routinely release data on progress towards its climate-finance goals.

Here, Carbon Brief has published the data in full for the first time and pulled out key trends since 2021. 

The UK has supported around 500 climate projects since 2021

According to the FOI data obtained by Carbon Brief, at least 493 projects, funds and institutions received UK climate finance between 2021-22 and 2025-26.

These included £45m to help Ukraine curb its reliance on fossil fuels, £40m in cash transfers for Kenyans affected by drought and £30m to provide flood resilience in Nepal.

Larger sums were provided to projects spread across multiple countries, often with the stated goal of “mobilising” additional finance from the private sector.

For example, the UK channelled £198m into a World Bank-backed project to help Colombia, Cambodia and others create and sell “high-integrity” carbon offsets.

The UK also provided £229m to a group that uses foreign aid to attract private capital for projects in predominantly low-income nations, such as a solar farm in Uganda and a “sustainable aviation fuel” project in Pakistan.

All of the funded projects can be viewed in the interactive table below. 

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The UK has been criticised by campaigners and MPs for its lack of transparency around climate finance data. 

In line with its international obligations, the government routinely releases its climate-finance figures to the UN – albeit with a two-year delay. 

However, it does not publish this data broken down by financial year, making it impossible to accurately gauge progress towards the £11.6bn goal. 

The data gathered by Carbon Brief is therefore the most comprehensive attempt to track this information to date. Carbon Brief has been periodically tracking this data since 2017.

UK climate aid has reached record levels – but is set to drop

The UK government committed in 2019 to spending £11.6bn of the nation’s aid budget on “climate finance”, between 2021-22 and 2025-26.

This is the nation’s contribution to an international goal to mobilise $100bn of climate finance a year between 2020 and 2025.

Developed countries are obliged under UN climate treaties to financially support developing countries, assisting their efforts to cut emissions and adapt to climate change.

However, alongside other major donors, such as the US, the UK has dramatically cut its aid budget, placing significant strain on the nation’s climate finance.

Despite this, FOI data shows that UK climate finance reached a record £4bn in 2025-26, as shown in the chart below.

Not accounting for inflation, this amounts to a tenfold increase from 2011-12, when the UK started providing climate finance.

The £11.6bn target was met comfortably, with £12.8bn provided over the five-year period. 

However, as separate Carbon Brief analysis shows, the target was only met due to the government reclassifying £2.2bn of existing foreign aid as climate finance, without spending any more.

Rather than setting a new five-year goal, in March 2026 the Labour government committed to spending “around £6bn” of UK aid as climate finance over the next three years. On average, this would mean £2bn in climate aid annually – roughly half the level achieved in the financial year 2025-26.

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This amounts to a significant reduction from the £11.6bn pledge, especially once accounting changes and inflation are factored in, as Carbon Brief analysis shows.

Alongside the £6bn in climate aid, the government has also pledged to invest £6.7bn from outside the aid budget to “drive climate and nature outcomes”. 

Rather than grant funding, this support will include private investments, export credit and guarantees to development banks. The UK already provides such finance, but has not previously counted it towards its climate-finance targets.

Afghanistan received more bilateral climate aid than any other country

The vast majority of UK climate finance was delivered “multilaterally”, meaning it supports large funds or institutions working in multiple countries. 

More than 80% of the funding since 2021 is therefore listed as helping “developing countries” in general, or whole regions such as “Africa”.

Of the £2.1bn (17%) that was delivered “bilaterally”, with the UK directly supporting climate projects in specific countries, the biggest beneficiaries are nations in east Africa and south Asia. Around two-thirds of this funding goes to nations classified as “least developed”.

For many years, Ethiopia has been the top recipient of bilateral UK climate finance, largely due to long-running projects supporting ecosystem restoration and drought resilience.

However, Afghanistan overtook Ethiopia over the £11.6bn period, with £256m of its aid labelled as climate-related, compared to Ethiopia’s £226m. (The UK does not provide aid via the Taliban, instead channelling it through partners, such as UN agencies.)

Afghanistan is struggling with floods and low electricity access. However, the UK’s apparent surge in support for the nation is not, in fact, due to new climate-related initiatives.

Instead, it is the result of the UK automatically labelling 30% of aid for all humanitarian projects in this country as “climate finance”, following a controversial accounting change.

This shift affected other climate-vulnerable and war-torn nations, meaning Somalia (£139m), Sudan (£136m) and Yemen (£130m) were also among the top recipients of “climate aid”.

Where the UK has provided large sums of climate finance to projects in middle-income nations, they are typically aimed at “mobilising” private-sector investment, rather than achieving humanitarian goals.

Examples include £83m to support Brazil’s Amazon Fund – a carbon offsetting initiative – and £43m to boost UK investment in India’s low-carbon infrastructure.

Development banks and private-sector funders are among the biggest beneficiaries

The largest chunks of UK climate finance are channelled via international climate funds and other bodies, which in turn use that funding to support climate projects in developing countries.

Despite recently cutting its 2024-27 support for the Green Climate Fund, the UK still provided £1.5bn to this flagship UN fund – more than any other initiative.

British International Investment (BII), a publicly owned, for-profit company that invests in developing-country businesses and is partially supported with UK aid money, received almost £1.4bn.

The UK has increasingly been relying on BII to meet its climate-finance goals, partly reflecting the body’s decision to prioritise clean-energy investments, rather than fossil fuels.

Other major recipients of UK climate finance are multilateral development banks, particularly the various arms of the World Bank and the African Development Bank. This reflects the UK’s decision to start counting “core” funding for these banks as climate finance.

The government’s accounting changes – which have boosted the significance of BII and MDBs in UK climate finance – have faced criticism from experts, MPs and the UK’s aid watchdog. For more, see Carbon Brief’s full analysis of these changes.

Methodology

All of the international climate-finance data used in this piece was obtained via FOI requests. Carbon Brief has compiled the data into a spreadsheet, which can be accessed here.

UK climate finance comes from the aid budgets of four departments, with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) providing three-quarters of the total.

The remainder comes predominantly from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), with much smaller sums from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST). 

BIST has also released a dataset detailing the hundreds of climate-science projects in developing countries – or benefiting those countries – that have been supported with UK climate funds.

UK climate-finance figures have been subject to regular revisions. While this analysis is based on final figures provided via FOI requests in recent months, it is possible that departments will still change the figures in future releases.

Related COP17: Key outcomes agreed at the UN biodiversity conference in Yerevan 31.10.2026 COP17 Yerevan Experts: What China wants from the COP31 climate talks 29.10.2026 China policy Analysis: China’s clean-tech exports in 2026 to avoid as much CO2 as Brazil emits in a year 29.10.2026 China policy UK budget 2026: Key climate and energy announcements 28.10.2026 UK policy

The post Analysis: How the UK spent more than £11.6bn on climate aid since 2021 appeared first on Carbon Brief.

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• What is driving high energy bills?
• What has been done to limit bills so far?
• What options are there for bringing down bills?
• Is there a ‘cheap power’ alternative if the UK slows down?
• Can electrification of homes and businesses help cut bills?

Energy bills in the UK have continued to soar in 2026, with intense debate raging about how to bring them down. 

In October 2026, the cap on household energy bills reached its highest level in three years, rising by £60 amid high gas prices driven by the Iran war.

The cap is forecast to jump by as much as another quarter in January 2027, pushing annual energy bills towards £2,200.

Energy bills have not been that high since 2022 when, in the fallout of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UK government spent more than £60bn on supporting consumers through the crisis.

While expensive gas is behind the lion’s share of the rise in bills since 2020, policy costs and investment in the gas and electricity grids are also putting some pressure on prices.

This has sparked conflicting calls to continue the clean-energy transition to get off the “fossil-fuel rollercoaster”, to move more slowly – or to abandon climate goals in favour of more gas.

Below, Carbon Brief looks at the real drivers of high energy bills in the UK, what has been done to address them to date and what options are available to cut them going forward.

These include taking more policy costs off electricity bills, boosting flexibility or shifting to more efficient technologies with lower running costs, such as heat pumps and electric vehicles (EVs).

• What is driving high energy bills?
• What has been done to limit bills so far?
• What options are there for bringing down bills?
• Is there a ‘cheap power’ alternative if the UK slows down?
• Can electrification of homes and businesses help cut bills?

What is driving high energy bills?

In October 2026, UK household energy bills reached their highest levels since 2022, with the price cap for typical homes hitting £1,723 per year, up 47% in real terms since October 2020.

Industrial energy users also face high costs, particularly for their electricity.

For households, another sharp increase is now all but guaranteed under the price cap for January 2027, which is forecast to rise by around 25% from current levels.

Wholesale costs for electricity and gas make up 44% of the current cap of £1,723 per year, according to Carbon Brief analysis of figures from thinktank Nesta, shown in the figure below.

The wholesale cost of both electricity and gas is tied to gas prices, due to the marginal pricing system used in power markets in the UK and most other countries.

Network charges make up a further 24% of bills and operating costs are another 17%, whereas policy costs only account for 7% of the total.

There has been increasing interest in the so-called “non-commodity costs” – those not related to wholesale energy – that now make up a significant portion of bills, as shown in the figure above.

Yet while these costs have been increasing – particularly those related to investing in energy networks – they are not the reason why energy bills have soared once again in recent months.

Indeed, Nesta analysis recently published by Carbon Brief shows that, contrary to widespread UK media and political narratives, a surge in wholesale costs driven by expensive gas is responsible for more than 80% of the rise in dual-fuel household energy bills since 2020, as shown below.

The second-largest driver of the rise in costs since 2020 is due to the cost of operating, maintaining and expanding gas and electricity networks, as shown in the figure above.

At the end of 2025, energy regulator Ofgem approved £29bn of upfront investment into the national gas and electricity grids, as well as the gas distribution network that connects to homes and businesses. This is part of a wider package of up to around £90bn of investment out to 2031.

As a result of these investment plans, network charges are expected to increase by around 50% between 2025 and 2030, from £222 a year to £330 for a typical dual-fuel household.

(This figure covers gas and electricity transmission and gas distribution, but not electricity distribution. A further package of increased investment in the electricity distribution network, for the period from 2028-2033, is due to be approved by Ofgem by the end of 2027.)

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The increase in network costs is often attributed to the need to connect increasing levels of geographically dispersed renewable energy sources, particularly wind power.

However, a significant proportion of these increases relate to the need to update ageing infrastructure after decades of under-investment.

This package of investment represents a “once-in-a-generation renewal of our energy infrastructure”, Ofgem head Tim Jarvis told a recent conference attended by Carbon Brief.

Ofgem says some three-fifths of the £108 per household per year rise in network charges to 2030 is due to “business-as-usual” costs such as ongoing maintenance of the gas and electricity networks. It says only £30 is due to investing in expanding the electricity transmission grid.

Similarly, according to the Energy Networks Association, up to 80% of the investment in electricity grids is required to maintain existing assets, with the remainder going towards expansion.

Another point of contention is “constraint costs”, where windfarms are switched off if the network lacks the capacity to transmit their power – and gas plants are switched on to meet demand.

These costs sit within network balancing charges and – despite rising steeply in recent years, partly due to high gas prices – these still make up just £35, or 4% of typical annual electricity bills.

Today, rising constraint costs are partly a reflection of the decision in the 2010s to postpone network investments under a policy known as “connect and manage”. Ofgem says the investments it has now approved in the electricity grid would help limit constraints in the future.

Trade association RenewableUK’s head of policy Steven Agnew points to a recent review by the National Audit Office and says investment in the grid is “critical to avoid large rises in consumers’ bills as more of the country’s electricity is generated from clean sources”. He adds: 

“The current crunch is the result of inaction by successive previous governments to tackle this issue. Consumers are losing out on some of the benefits because low-cost wind has to be turned down and expensive gas turned up elsewhere.”

Projections from the National Energy System Operator (Neso) illustrate how constraint costs depend on the relative pace of expansion in new generating capacity and the electricity network.

It says balancing costs could rise from £2bn to £8bn by 2030, if the grid faces delays. However, its central projection is £3-4bn, with a range of options available to limit this increase.

Finally, following years of elevated energy bills, the cost of “bad debt” has increased. This is where unpaid bills are recovered by energy companies through a charge on all households.

These charges add around £60 to typical bills, according to Carbon Brief analysis of Ofgem data. This is an increase of around £40 since 2020 – more than half of the rise in “operating costs”. Trade association Energy UK says rising debt could add another £10-15 to bills by next year.

What has been done to limit bills so far?

The Labour government was elected in 2024 on a manifesto that pledged to cut bills by £300 per year by 2030, relative to levels in late 2023.

The government has taken a number of steps in this direction.

At the 2025 budget, it closed the “energy company obligation” (ECO) efficiency scheme and moved 75% of the “renewables obligation” support scheme for legacy renewables into general taxation.

Collectively, these two changes were expected to save a typical household £134 per year, or £154 when including households that use electric heating. (These savings only apply to households.)

Many groups, from industry to politicians, had long called for policy costs to be taken off electricity bills in an effort to bring down prices, but this had previously been resisted by the Treasury.

In addition, new prime minister Andy Burnham announced in July that his government would remove VAT from electricity bills for six months from 1 October, cutting bills by around £45.

Yet despite these efforts, bills have continued to increase.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Dr Richard Carmichael, a researcher at the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) and research fellow at Imperial College London, says the impact of reducing policy costs and VAT has been “masked” by rising wholesale energy prices.

As a result, there are calls for the government to go even further in its efforts to reduce policy costs – or to take more radical steps to cut bills. (See: What are the options to bring down bills?)

One factor that is less well-appreciated is the impact that clean-power sources have already had on energy bills. Commentators tend to focus narrowly on the cost of support schemes for these projects, without considering the impact they have on the total cost of running the energy system.

Nesta research suggests that electricity bills are rising “much more slowly” than gas this year, despite the impact of the Hormuz crisis, due to the expansion of clean power. It says this is an early sign of electricity prices starting to “decouple” from gas prices.

In April, the government announced reforms that it hopes will help “break [the] link between gas and electricity prices, but analysts told Carbon Brief the impact was likely to be “modest”.

Nevertheless, the link between the two will continue to weaken as more wind and solar gets built, including projects supported by a record “contracts for difference” (CfD) auction earlier this year.

Since the start of the Iran war, the UK has avoided the need to import gas worth around £5.9bn as a result of record wind and solar output, according to previous Carbon Brief analysis.

RenewableUK’s Agnew tells Carbon Brief: “Put simply, every wind turbine we build is gas we don’t need to buy.”

In addition to directly displacing gas, the windfarms on the system cut wholesale power prices by around a third in 2025, according to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).

This is due to the “merit-order effect”, whereby windfarms push the most expensive gas plants off the system, reducing the average wholesale power price.

According to separate research published by University College London, UK wind energy cut consumer costs by a total of £104bn over 2010-2023, net of subsidy costs, through a combination of the merit-order effect and reduced gas demand, which lowered gas prices.

What options are there for bringing down bills?

With household and industrial prices remaining elevated for more than five years, countless ideas have been presented for bringing down the cost of energy.

These span from immediate but more modest tweaks that could have a rapid impact, through to longer-term changes in the energy system, the design of energy markets or retail tariffs.

Moreover, amid a collapse in the UK consensus, some politicians want climate goals to be abandoned in the name of cheaper energy. (See: Is there a ‘cheap power’ alternative if the UK slows down?)

Ahead of the budget on 28 October, the most widely shared request is for the chancellor to take more policy costs off electricity bills, either for households only, or for all energy users.

A September letter to the government from more than 120 trade bodies, businesses and charities calls for “hidden taxes” to be taken off energy bills for both businesses and households.

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It argues that a series of levies should be paid out of general taxation, in addition to the existing decision to take 75% of renewables obligation costs off household electricity bills.

This would include a levy supporting the Sizewell C new nuclear plant, the cost of the warm home discount scheme for fuel-poor households and feed-in tariffs for small-scale legacy renewables.

The group says that removing these additional policy costs from bills would “bring the total average domestic energy bill reduction achieved by this government to as much as £250 a year”.

It adds that this would bring down inflation, boost manufacturing and incentivise investment in the electrification of the economy, helping to “fully realise [the UK’s] economic potential”.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, energy consultant Kate Mulvany says bringing policy costs and bad debt into general taxation is “in all likelihood the fastest route” to reducing bills.

The main barrier to removing further policy and debt costs from bills is that the money would have to come from somewhere else – most likely the Treasury, which has resisted this in the past.

The decision to take 75% of the renewables obligation off household bills is seen as a breakthrough, with Energy UK head Dhara Vyas saying the Treasury should go a “step further”.

Alternatively, a report from parliament’s Energy Security and Net Zero Committee calls for policy costs to be moved from electricity onto gas bills.

This would help “rebalance” the cost of electricity relative to gas, encouraging consumers to switch to more efficient electric technologies, such as heat pumps and electric cars.

This is because it would reduce the “spark gap”, the ratio between electricity and gas prices. This ratio stood at 4.3 in the UK as of April 2026, although it has dropped to 3.3 under the latest price cap and could fall again to 3.0 in January 2027, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

Further options to bring down costs for consumers have been suggested by groups including Nesta, the “electricity bills taskforce” and many others.

Ideas include the government paying off household energy debt, instead of recovering it through bills, a permanent removal of VAT on electricity prices and boosting electricity system “flexibility” so as to maximise the use of existing network assets.

Carmichael tells Carbon Brief:

“Flexibility is a fairly obvious one that…would deliver bill reductions for people who can participate in flexibility, but it would also reduce system costs for everyone.”

Ashutosh Padelkar, research lead at Aurora, agrees that there is “more work to be done on improving network efficiency”. In addition to boosting flexibility, he points to innovations such as “dynamic line ratings”, where cables can be “overloaded a bit for a small amount of time”.

With bills set to leap by around a quarter at the start of 2027, there have also been calls for specific measures to offer households relief at the budget.

Many argue that this support should be targeted to limit costs, for example through extending the “warm homes discount”. However, Mulvany warns that this could increase costs for other households if it is paid for via energy bills, as is currently the case for the warm homes discount.

Another option is to introduce a “social tariff” for fuel-poor households. Dr Carmichael notes that while this has some positives, it also has “potential for a sort of a cliff edge where people are just missing out on it”. This can make them challenging to put together in an equitable way. 

Meanwhile, the New Economics Foundation thinktank – where energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh used to work – suggests a “rising block tariff”, where consumers pay lower rates for a set amount of “essential” energy use. However, there are fears this could discourage electrification.

Ahead of the budget, Burnham has asked ministers to look at developing a plan to remove standing charges from gas bills. The idea was put forward by Nesta, which says it would save typical households £27 per year, while helping encourage the shift to heat pumps and EVs.

Finally, separate proposals from thinktank Common Wealth and consultancy Stonehaven with Greenpeace, call for more radical changes that would see gas-fired power stations taken into a strategic reserve, in order to more completely break the link between gas and power prices.

Is there a ‘cheap power’ alternative if the UK slows down?

Some groups argue that the UK needs a fundamental shift in its energy strategy in order to tackle high bills. Such calls are often based on the idea that the government is “rushing” to meet its target for clean power by 2030 – and that slowing down would cut costs.

For example, a September 2026 report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) states that “continuing to push for rapid decarbonisation does risk increasing costs”.

Its argument rests on NESO modelling, published in 2024, which suggests it could be slightly cheaper to rely on more gas in 2030 than planned under the clean-power 2030 target.

Peter Levell, IFS deputy research director, tells Carbon Brief that gas prices have “risen significantly” since the NESO modelling was published, which “other things equal” would make it relatively cheaper to push for more renewables instead of relying on more gas power.

However, he adds that capital costs have also risen, arguing that this makes renewables relatively more expensive. (The cost of gas-fired power plants has risen even more steeply.) Levell adds that it is unclear how long the current disruption causing high gas prices will last.

Another prominent – and repeated – voice for slowing down the government’s push for clean power has come from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI).

In a February 2026 report, for example, the TBI argues that the government should set an objective of “cheaper power by 2030” instead of “clean power 2030”. It says this could be done “while maintaining a clear decarbonisation trajectory”.

In earlier versions of this argument, the TBI called for a slower expansion of renewables, in favour of greater reliance on nuclear power and carbon-capture and storage.

However, perhaps implicitly acknowledging that these are not cheap technologies, its latest report focuses more on calls for flexibility, optimised grid expansion and a push for electrification.

Perhaps the strongest push to abandon the government’s current approach has come from the opposition Conservative party, which now lobbies hard against clean power 2030, in addition to calling for the UK to scrap all of its climate targets and the legislation that underpins them. 

The party backed a report by thinktank Onward, which claimed that the UK could save “over £320bn” with a push for “cheap power” instead of “clean power”. However, a Carbon Brief factcheck found it relied on a series of questionable assumptions.

Ultimately, the report built its conclusions in from the start by assuming that gas and nuclear power would be cheap. As Tom Glover, head of energy firm RWE UK, put it at the time:

“There’s a difference between a useful scenario and a plan you’d build a system around. This report is the former presented as the latter. If you accept its assumptions, the results follow logically. The problem is the assumptions…built on a stack of optimistic inputs.”

Similarly, Johnny Gowdy, a director at thinktank Regen, argues in a paper responding to the Onward report that its gas-price assumptions are “very optimistic – and potentially reckless”.

Following the start of the Iran war, UK wholesale gas prices – which were already roughly three-times higher than before the Ukraine crisis – have more than doubled again.

According to RenewableUK, the UK is currently experiencing its ninth gas-price “spike” of the past decade. Mulvany tells Carbon Brief that such spikes are “normal”. She adds:

“Wars are fought over energy and resources – and this is the way things have always been…[T]his isn’t a blip. If you look historically, this is normal.”

(The total cost to the UK economy of higher energy prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amounts to £183bn over four years, according to the ECIU.)

NESO notes that under pathways with a larger role for gas plants, the nation’s energy system would remain “more exposed to volatile international gas prices”.

As such, the UK’s transition is about finding the right balance between the up-front cost of investment in clean-energy alternatives and the ongoing risk of exposure to volatile gas prices.

The IFS also notes that there are additional positives from moving away from fossil fuels, including improved local air quality, less price volatility and potentially greater security of energy supply.

Citing Carbon Brief analysis published in 2024, RenewableUK’s Agnew argues that the government should learn from past “mistakes”.

He points to the then-Conservative government decision from 2015 to “cut the green crap”, which ultimately added £22bn to bills by leaving the UK “more exposed to volatile fossil-fuel prices”.

UKERC’s Carmichael echoes these points, telling Carbon Brief: 

“If we’re not transitioning to clean power, which for the UK would mean more independence and more energy sovereignty, I don’t think there is an alternative…[and] if we don’t do it, then we’re still going to be vulnerable to volatility and fossil-fuel prices.”

Finally, many of the arguments against the clean power 2030 target are based on the idea that it will be extremely difficult to meet and that closing the gap would be costly.

Indeed, recent analysis by consultancy LCP Delta suggests that by 2030, the UK will only reach 83% clean power, with the 95% target unlikely to be hit until 2035.

Yet this reality is implicitly acknowledged by the government, which has said that it will not contract for more clean power towards the 2030 target unless it delivers lower bills.

Speaking at the Energy UK conference in October, Fahnbulleh said:

“We all know that one of the reasons we are seeing rising prices is because we are uniquely exposed to global fossil-fuel markets…There will be people that will say you should slow down…But I believe that we must seize the opportunity of this moment.”

Can electrification of homes and businesses help cut bills?

While there is political disagreement over the best mix of power supplies, there is far greater agreement on the need to expand the use electric technologies such as EVs and heat pumps.

For example, while the Conservative party opposes the government’s clean power plan, it argues that the UK needs to electrify its economy to ensure both “prosperity and a better environment”.

At the Energy UK conference in October, delegates listed “electrification” and “affordability” as the top-two energy related priorities for the government.

There is significant overlap between these two goals.

At present, most households pay separate bills for heating, power and transport. This means they are paying to run three separate energy systems for gas, electricity and petrol.

If the UK largely electrifies its economy, households will instead rely on a single system that heats and powers their homes, as well as fuelling their cars. By boosting consumption, electrification also spreads the fixed costs of upgrading the network across a larger base of demand.

Padelkar tells Carbon Brief that there “isn’t enough electrification in the system” at the moment:

“A significant amount of heating demand is gas-fired…[I]f that demand were to sit on the electricity side instead, it would allow for costs to be shared more fairly across a greater base of consumers.”

According to energy firm SSE, the shift from three “parallel” energy systems to a single one based on electricity would reduce consumer costs over time, as shown in the figure below.

Credit: SSE

In this context, the usual focus on “dual-fuel” household gas and electricity bills, in isolation, misses the potential for savings due to consolidating not only heat and power, but also car use.

Indeed, electric cars are currently up to nine times cheaper to run than petrol cars in the UK, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

The savings from electrification are partly a result of the far greater efficiency of EVs and heat pumps, relative to combustion cars and gas boilers. Reduced fossil-fuel imports also play a role.

Very similar arguments have been put forward by the UK government’s advisory Climate Change Committee (CCC), the International Energy Agency and others.

A recent CCC report, for example, said that faster electrification “would cut UK household bills”.

It outlined how electrification would not only reduce the cost of the UK energy system in the future, but is already able to cut household costs today, as shown in the figure below. Crucially, its analysis included the higher upfront costs of investing in electric technologies, such as heat pumps.

Household energy costs for heat, power and transport, £ per year. The upfront costs of purchasing cars, heating systems, chargers and solar panels are annualised. Source: CCC progress report 2026.

The government also supports this argument, having set out a £13bn “warm homes plan” that it said could cut household bills by up to £600 per year through investment in energy efficiency measures and clean technologies, such as heat pumps, solar panels and batteries.

Vyas told the Energy UK conference earlier this month: 

“The industry is clear that a system largely supplied by clean power and an electrified economy represents the way forward. This is not driven by ideology but by evidence.”

Related UK budget 2026: Key climate and energy announcements 28.10.2026 UK policy Analysis: How the UK spent more than £11.6bn on climate aid since 2021 28.10.2026 UK policy Revealed: UK relied on £2bn of ‘questionable accounting’ to hit its climate-aid goal 28.10.2026 UK policy Revealed: Expensive gas behind ‘nearly 90%’ of rise in UK electricity bills 21.10.2026 Oil and gas

The post Q&A: Why are UK energy bills so high – and how could they be lowered? appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.

Do nearby wind turbines decrease home values by an average of 75%?

Research has found much smaller effects on nearby home prices, and those effects fade with time and distance from turbines.

One 2024 study analyzing data from 1997 to 2020 found that visible turbines were associated with an average sale price decrease of about 1.1%, largely affecting urban areas. The effect disappeared within 10 years of installation and was not statistically significant for installations after 2017, indicating that the 1.1% average likely overstates future wind project impacts.

Another 2023 study examining half a million transactions across 34 states found that announcing a project within one mile could initially reduce nearby home values by up to 11% compared with homes 3-5 miles away. However, values recovered to within 2% of pre-announcement levels in 5 years of operation.

These effects have declined in recent years, which researchers suggest may reflect greater familiarity with turbines; responsible siting and community involvement can further reduce impacts.

Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact

This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as this one.

Sources

U.S. Department of Energy Do Wind Turbines Lower Property Values?

PNAS The visual effect of wind turbines on property values is small and diminishing in space and time

Energy Policy Commercial wind turbines and residential home values: New evidence from the universe of land-based wind projects in the United States

American Clean Power Land-based Wind Turbines do not Affect Property Values

Center for Rural Affairs Wind energy and property values

Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles

Please use this form to provide feedback about this fact brief. This will help us to better gauge its impact and usability. Thank you!

About fact briefs published on Gigafact

Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer "yes/no" answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all of our published fact briefs here.

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• Surface mass balance
• Total mass balance
• Surface melt
• Snowfall
• Iceberg calving 
• The impact of global weather
• Three decades of decline
• Greenland in the global sea level picture

This guest post is by:

Dr Martin Stendel, climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), part of the Polar Portal 

Prof Ruth Mottram, climate scientist at DMI and honorary professor at Aarhus University

Greenland has now marked the 30th consecutive year where it lost more ice than it gained. 

Over the 12-month period to August 2026, the world’s second-largest ice sheet lost around 135bn tonnes of ice. 

This major ice loss came as the region experienced a relatively cool start to summer and less surface melt than in previous years. 

In other words, it was not an “extreme” year for weather in Greenland – and, yet, the ice sheet ended firmly in the red.

Three decades of continuous ice loss in Greenland is significant, given that scientists typically need 30 years of data to separate the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change from natural variations in the climate. 

In Greenland, the direction of travel has been the same – downward – every single year for 30 years.

These latest figures come as a new report highlights that ice melting processes seen for decades in Greenland are increasingly being replicated in Antarctica.

Greenland, therefore, is not only the largest present-day source of ice-driven sea level rise – but offers a preview of what is in store for the world’s largest ice sheet. 

(For our previous analyses of Greenland’s ice cover, see coverage in 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015.)

Surface mass balance

One way that scientists track the health of the Greenland ice sheet is by tracking changes to its “surface mass balance”.

This is the difference between ice gains from snowfall and losses from melt at the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet.

Greenland’s annual ice cycle runs from 1 September through to the end of August. The surface mass balance at the end of this period has, to date, always been positive, because the surface accumulates more snow than it loses from melting ice.  

The ice sheet typically gains mass during the colder months of autumn, winter and spring. Then, as temperatures increase from around mid-June, the ice sheet begins to lose more ice through surface melt than it gains from snow. 

(Greenland also loses ice when icebergs break off – or “calve” – into the sea, as well when the front of glaciers melt when they meet warm sea water. These losses are included in the “total mass balance” – see below.)

Greenland ended 2025-26 with an overall surface mass balance of 519bn tonnes.

This is the sixth highest in a dataset stretching back 46 years and about 178bn tonnes above the 1981-2010 average of roughly 350bn tonnes.

The map below shows the difference between the surface mass balance in 2025-26 and the 1981-2010 average, where blue shows ice gain and red shows ice loss.

Map showing the difference between the annual SMB in 2025-26 and the 1981-2010 period in mm of ice melt. Blue shows ice gain compared to average and red shows ice loss. Credit: Polar Portal.

The blue lines in the charts below show the surface mass balance throughout 2025-26 for individual days (top) and cumulatively throughout the year (bottom). They highlight how Greenland gained ice between September 2025 and May 2026, before starting to lose ice from June onwards.

Daily (upper) and cumulative (lower) surface mass balance (SMB) of the Greenland ice sheet, in billions of tonnes. Blue lines show the 2025-26 surface mass balance year; grey lines and shading show the 1981-2010 average and variability. Red line shows the record-low year of 2011-12. Credit: Polar Portal.
Total mass balance

Another way scientists measure the health of the Greenland ice sheet is by looking at its “total mass balance”.

This calculation accounts for ice loss at the surface, as well as the calving of icebergs and the melting of glacier fronts where they meet warm seawater. The latter two components are known as the “marine mass balance”.

It also accounts for a small amount of ice melt at the underside of the ice sheet. This is known as the “basal mass balance”.

In recent decades, Greenland’s total mass balance at the end of the ice cycle year has been negative.

The 12 months to August 2026 were no different. Once all these factors are considered, Greenland lost around 135bn tonnes of ice.

We reached this figure using the same method featured in previous Carbon Brief analyses of Greenland ice cover. This approach is based on an average of three climate models. 

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However, for the first time, this year’s update includes a separate estimate for Greenland ice loss, based on data from one climate model and automatic weather stations, satellites, GPS data and observations from planes.

This approach estimates that the ice sheet lost an even greater 173bn tonnes of ice over 2025-26.

(Scientific estimates for ice loss in Greenland vary because there is incomplete information about how thick the ice sheet is, how fast it is moving as well as the rate at which it is melting at the surface. Scientists use different approaches for accounting for these uncertainties.)

The chart below shows how Greenland’s total mass balance has changed since 1985, featuring the higher 173bn estimate for the last ice cycle year. 

It shows how 2025-26 was the 30th consecutive year of ice loss in Greenland, with 1996 the last year that saw an annual net gain of ice.

Labels on the x-axis denote the period 1 September to 31 August, where 1987 covers 1 September 1986 to 31 August 1987.

The chart below shows how Greenland’s surface mass balance, marine mass balance and basal mass balance have changed since 1985. All of these components are combined to calculate the ice sheet’s total mass balance (red). 

Labels on the x-axis denote the period 1 September to 31 August, where 1987 covers 1 September 1986 to 31 August 1987.
Surface melt

Winter and early spring in 2025-26 were unusually dry in the southern half of Greenland, leaving around 40bn tonnes less snow on the ice sheet than normal. 

Dry winters typically mean high ice melt rates later on, given that heavier winter snowfall often acts as a protective shield that prevents ice loss in the early part of summer.

However, the relatively dry winter was followed by a relatively cool start of summer. Frequent snowfall and extensive cloud cover limited the sun’s ability to warm the surface at the time of year when solar radiation is typically strongest. 

The onset of the melt season – the first of at least three consecutive days with melting over more than 5% of the ice sheet – occurred on 5 June, nine days later than the 1981-2010 average.

From the end of June, the weather in Greenland changed markedly, as warm, sunny conditions took hold. 

During the first 20 days of July, melting was well above the 1981-2020 average. At its peak on 22 July, melting covered 74.9% of the ice sheet. 

(For comparison, July 2025 holds the record for melt area in Greenland, when 81.2% of the continent was melting simultaneously.) 

However, the early season fresh snow in June helped to form a cold and bright buffer, reducing the subsequent summer ice melt and runoff.

The map below shows how roughly three-quarters of Greenland’s ice sheet – shaded in red – was experiencing surface melt on 22 July. The chart shows how surface melt on that date (blue line) outpaced the 1981-2010 average (grey line and shading).

Map showing areas of Greenland undergoing surface melt (shaded red) on 22 July 2026. Chart shows percentage of ice sheet area which saw surface melt on 22 July 2026 (blue) compared to the 1981-2010 average (grey). Credit: Polar Portal.
Snowfall

As mentioned above, snowfall is the only way for the ice sheet to gain mass.

Because the dry 2025-26 winter did not provide the usual thick layer of snow to act as a protective buffer, the ice sheet started the summer already “behind” on ice levels.

However, even though there was above-average melting during summer, the surface mass balance remained almost constant from mid-June to mid-July. It was only slightly smaller by the end of August.

This was because much of the melt trickled into the snow below and refroze.

South-east Greenland is typically the wettest part of the ice sheet and this year was no exception. Unlike other years though, there was also significant snowfall on the west coast north of Nuussuaq. 

Summer snowfall helps to preserve the ice sheet, as fresh snow is brighter than old glacier ice and reflects more of the sun’s energy back to space. 

Increases in both snowfall and melt are in line with what scientists expect in a warming climate. Warmer air holds more water vapour, bringing more snow and rain, while higher temperatures drive more ice melt. 

Iceberg calving 

The most dramatic ice loss of 2025-26 happened at Greenland’s edges.

On 4 August, a vast tabular iceberg – an “ice island” with nearly vertical sides and a flat top – broke away from the floating ice tongue of Petermann glacier in north-west Greenland. 

Sentinel-1 image sequence of the Petermann ice island, before and after the 4 August 2026 calving. Credit: ESA/Copernicus.

More than 76 square kilometres (km2) in size, with an estimated thickness of 150 metres, the amount of water frozen in this iceberg would be enough to submerge the entirety of greater London to a depth of 6.65m. 

This was the largest loss of floating ice at the Petermann glacier since 2012 and the biggest calving event by any Arctic glacier since 2020. 

Similar breakoffs occurred in 2010 and 2012 and the current one had long been expected, given growing cracks in the glacier for several years. 

Scientists anticipate more calving events at the Petermann glacier. Two further ice islands, with estimated areas of roughly 94 and 84km2, are expected to detach as existing rifts continue to cut across the ice tongue. 

Together, the three would remove about 22% of Petermann’s remaining floating ice.

Because the ice tongue is already floating, this calving does not directly raise sea levels. But Petermann is one of Greenland’s largest marine-terminating glaciers, acting as a brake on ice flowing from the interior to the ocean. 

The recent breakaway is a reminder that calving and glacier retreat continue apace in Greenland, even in years when the surface mass budget is unremarkable. (To date, calving and glacier retreat have driven roughly two-thirds of total ice loss on the continent.)

The impact of global weather

Greenland’s relatively high surface mass balance in 2025-26 can be explained, in part, by the hot summer in Europe.

Multiple heatwaves were observed across southern Europe and North America over the summer of 2026, with temperature records recorded in multiple countries.  

When high-pressure systems that cause heatwaves become blocked in place, the jet stream – fast-moving winds that blow from west to east high in the atmosphere – is shaped like the Greek capital letter Omega (Ω). This is the pattern that dominated this year.

Warm conditions settle near the cores of high-pressure systems, while cool, wet conditions can be found at the “feet” of the Omega. 

This year, Greenland was on the right side of the Omega-shaped jet stream and thus experienced cooler conditions. 

If the Omega pattern had been displaced by half a wavelength, Greenland would have likely seen warm temperatures that brought record levels of melt – and a lower surface mass balance. 

Three decades of decline

So, why does the milestone of 30 years of ice mass decline in Greenland matter? 

A single year, however dramatic, can be strongly influenced by the weather. An extreme melt summer – or an unusually cold, snowy one – says little on its own about the region’s  long-term trajectory. 

This is why climate scientists typically look at 30-year periods when distinguishing a change in climate from natural variability.

Thirty years of data shows that the annual ice budget in Greenland has ended in the red, without exception, since 1996. This applies to warm years, cold years and snowy years.

The largest single-year loss remains 2012, when around 458bn tonnes of ice disappeared from the ice sheet. 

The past two years have been moderate by comparison – yet even these “quiet” years produced losses of more than 100bn tonnes each.

Thirty years of data on ice mass decline means that scientists now can confidently say that Greenland mass loss is due to climate change. 

Greenland in the global sea level picture

A new assessment highlights how Greenland’s losses are the largest single contribution from the ice sheets to global sea level rise. 

The Ice Sheet Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise (IMBIE) combines 42 independent estimates of ice sheet mass change from satellite gravimetry, altimetry and the input-output method – including the Danish Meteorological Institute’s surface mass balance estimates detailed in this article – all into a single record.

The latest assessment, published in the journal Scientific Data in September, shows that Greenland and Antarctica together lost 11,309bn tonnes of ice between 1979 and 2023, raising global sea levels by around 32mm. 

The two ice sheets now account for almost one-quarter of observed global sea level rise.

Greenland dominates that record. It lost 6,215bn tonnes of ice between 1972 and 2023 – an average of 119bn tonnes per year. Two-thirds of the loss was driven by increased ice discharge and one-third by reduced surface mass balance due to increased melt. 

Annual losses from ice melt accelerated from around 60bn tonnes in the 1980s to 264bn tonnes in the 2010s.

In contrast, Antarctica lost 4,780bn tonnes over the same period, raising sea levels by around 13mm. 

All of Antarctica’s losses are due to discharge from the ice sheet, concentrated in west Antarctica. East Antarctica, on the other hand, has so far remained relatively stable, with record snowfall in recent years even producing a small mass gain. 

This division in sea-level contribution is expected to change. Greenland’s losses to date amount to only a few centimetres of sea level rise, but Antarctica’s ice sheet is roughly 10 times larger and therefore could lead to significantly more sea level rise in the future. 

The IMBIE assessment notes that Antarctica’s losses are dominated by marine-terminating glaciers whose stability is hardest to predict.

The processes now increasingly observed in Antarctica – increasing surface melt, shrinking sea ice, loss of ice shelves and seasonal patterns of retreat of outlet glaciers – have been seen in Greenland for decades. We call this the “Greenlandification” of Antarctica. 

Greenland, in other words, is not just the largest present-day source of ice-driven sea level rise – it is also a preview of what may come from the far larger ice sheet at the other end of the planet.

Related Q&A: How Trump is threatening climate science in Earth’s polar regions 20.02.2026 Antarctica Guest post: The challenges in projecting future global sea levels 17.02.2026 Greenland State of the climate: 2025 in top-three hottest years on record as ocean heat surges 14.01.2026 Climate modelling Guest post: How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2025 15.12.2025 Greenland

The post Guest post: Greenland ice sheet shrinks for 30th year in a row appeared first on Carbon Brief.

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink

Whether global warming has accelerated (and how much it has accelerated) is one of the livelier debates in climate science at the moment. The physical case for it is fairly strong: cooling aerosol pollution has fallen substantially over the past two decades while greenhouse gas emissions remain near record highs. The observed rate of warming over the past decade is roughly double what it was over the prior four decades. But showing that this speed-up is statistically distinguishable from the normal year-to-year wiggles of the climate has proven surprisingly hard.

A new paper by Jin and Pu in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science argues that the data through 2025 now show a statistically significant doubling of the warming rate. I broadly agree with them that warming has sped up. But the method they use is problematic, and would find a significant acceleration in many simulated worlds where none exists.

To start with, let’s look at the data. The figure below fits a single continuous trend line to annual global temperatures since 1970, allowing the slope to change at whichever year fits the data best (2012, in this case). The rate of warming between 1970 and 2012 was 0.18C per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.15C to 0.20C), while warming between 2012 and 2025 was 0.35C per decade (0.26C to 0.45C).1

Annual global surface temperatures from 1970 to 2025 relative to 1850–1900 (black dots), with a continuous trend line whose slope changes in 2012, the best-fitting year (blue and orange). Teal dots show the same data with the estimated effects of El Niño, volcanic eruptions and solar variability removed, for reference. Observations are the average of HadCRUT5, GISTEMP, NOAA GlobalTemp, Berkeley Earth, ERA5 and JRA-3Q datasets.

Whether that change is “statistically significant” depends on how you test it. Beaulieu et al. (2024) used a demanding test that allows the change to happen in any year, and found that a surge in warming was “not detectable yet” with data through 2023. Foster and Rahmstorf (2026) applied the same test to data through 2024 and also found no significant acceleration in the raw data, but argued that acceleration was detectable (with 98% confidence) after removing the estimated effects of El Niño, volcanic eruptions and solar variability. Running their test on the raw data through 2025, I get a p-value of 0.06 for the average of six global temperature datasets (just shy of the conventional 0.05 threshold). Across the individual datasets I’ve used in this analysis it ranges from 0.02 (NOAA) to 0.13 (JRA-3Q), with only NOAA and NASA’s GISTEMP below 0.05. If El Niño, volcanoes and solar are included in the same statistical model, it drops below 0.001.

What Jin and Pu did

Jin and Pu report warming of 0.40C per decade over 2011-2025 compared to 0.20C per decade over 1971-2025, and find the difference statistically significant in all five datasets they examine.2 If you fit a separate trend line to 2011-2025 you do get a number close to theirs (0.41C per decade on the six-dataset average I use here).

The problem lies in how the comparison is constructed. Back in 2017, Rahmstorf, Foster and Cahill described “two important but underappreciated pitfalls waiting to trap those testing for a change in the trend of global temperature time series.” These are “the multiple testing problem, and failure to account for the additional degree of freedom when one uses a model with a jump discontinuity (a broken trend).” At the time that paper was published, these pitfalls were producing claims of a significant slowdown in warming (during the so-called “hiatus” period from 1998-2012). A decade later Jin and Pu’s approach runs into both of these problems, albeit in search of an acceleration rather than a slowdown.

The first is the broken trend. Jin and Pu fit two independent lines, one to 1971-2010 and another to 2011-2025, with nothing forcing the second line to start where the first left off. In the figure below the recent line starts 0.11C below where the earlier trend ended, which steepens it. A single continuous line with a change in slope at 2010 gives 0.32C per decade since then, still well above the 0.18C per decade of earlier decades but not as high as their approach would imply.

Annual global surface temperatures from 1971 to 2025 with separate Theil–Sen trend lines for 1971–2010 (blue) and 2011–2025 (orange), as in Jin and Pu (2026), compared to a single continuous trend line with a change in slope at 2010 (dashed). Same six-dataset average as Figure 1.

The second is how the split year was chosen. Jin and Pu tried every dividing year from 1980 to 2015 and found that “the largest and most statistically significant contrast in warming rates occurs when the dividing year is near 2010–2011. Accordingly, 2011 is adopted as the start of the recent warming period.” As far as the paper describes, the significance test at 2011 makes no adjustment for having searched across all those split years. Beaulieu and colleagues warned about exactly this: if the year of the change is “selected visually among the many possibilities where it can occur without accounting for this, statistical mistakes can ensue.”

Testing the approach on synthetic data

One way to see how much this matters is to apply the same procedure to simulated temperature records where we know there is no acceleration. To do this, I generated 5,000 synthetic records that each warm at a steady 0.20C per decade from 1971 to 2025. Each has year-to-year noise with the same size and persistence as the real temperature record. For each one I tried every split year from 1980 to 2015, kept the one with the biggest contrast between the before and after trends, and tested whether the recent trend was significantly faster using the standard 95% threshold.3

The figure below walks through the process. The first three panels show one of these synthetic worlds that the procedure flagged. Its true trend is a constant 0.20C per decade, but splitting at 2012 gives 0.19C per decade before and 0.36C after, a “doubling” that looks almost exactly like the real record. Across all 5,000 worlds, 22% to 34% are flagged as having a significant acceleration, depending on exactly how the two trends are compared. A test for significance at the 95% level should do this at most 5% of the time.

The separate-trend approach applied to 5,000 simulated temperature records that warm at a steady 0.20°C per decade with year-to-year noise like the real record. Panels 1–3 follow one simulated record that the procedure flags; panel 4 shows the biggest contrast found in each record, with those counted as significant in orange.

By contrast, the changepoint test used by Beaulieu et al. and by Foster and Rahmstorf, which builds the search over break years into its significance threshold, only shows a false positive rate of 5%. That extra rigor is why it is so much harder for that test to reach significance, and why its result through 2025 is just shy of the threshold despite a near doubling of the warming rate.

So what are the takeaways here?

A decade ago the same two shortcuts (broken trend lines and a split year chosen after looking at the data) made a temporary slowdown in warming look like a significant “pause.” The statistical tools developed in response to that debate (many of them by the same researchers now finding acceleration) are a big part of why a later review of the pause literature found “little or no statistical evidence” for a slowdown, while describing broken trends as a “common (but questionable) practice.” Applying them consistently means accepting that they will be slow to confirm an acceleration too.

But as I’ve noted, there is a consilience of evidence that leads us to conclude that this time acceleration is likely real, even if it remains just short of statistically significant in surface temperature records. Today the physics and the data point in the same direction, and the raw record is now sitting right at the edge of formal detection with the strictest available test.4 With 2026 on track to be among the warmest years on record, that may not remain the case for long. I’ll return to this question early next year once the full 2026 data are in.

1 These rates are for a continuous trend line fitted with an allowance for year-to-year persistence in the noise. Allowing for uncertainty in which year the change occurred widens the post-2012 range to 0.22C to 0.65C per decade. For comparison, our recent Indicators of Global Climate Change 2025 report puts the rate of human-induced warming at 0.27C per decade (0.2C to 0.4C) over 2016-2025.

2 The datasets they examine differ from ours in that they exclude reanalysis (JRA-3Q and ERA5) and include the Chinese CMST3 dataset. Running the Beaulieu et al. / Foster and Rahmstorf continuous trend approach on the average of the five datasets does barely find significant acceleration (p= 0.047), as the reanalysis datasets tend to have a bit more year-to-year variability and thus a higher threshold for detecting acceleration.

3 Jin and Pu used Theil-Sen trends with a rank-based correction for autocorrelation and describe the two trends as “statistically distinguishable at the 95% confidence level.” My version uses ordinary least squares trends with a similar correction. Requiring the 95% ranges of the two trends not to overlap leads to a false positive rate of 22%. Testing the difference between the trends against 1.96 standard errors results in a rate of 34%. Both count only falsely-detected acceleration, so counting slowdowns as well would raise both numbers.

4 It's worth remembering that there is nothing particularly significant about significance levels. A false-positive rate of <5% (1-in-20) is a useful test to avoid being mislead, but we should also not dismiss out of hand results that fall close to that level. The ~94% chance of acceleration that we see in surface records today remains a strong signal, and another year of data should make it even stronger.

by David Spratt

I want to explore why climate policymaking has reached a “zero point”. 

This term comes from Slavoj Zizek’s 2025 essay of the same name, in which he asks how we distinguish defeat from disaster, and confront despair without collapsing into it. He describes the “zero point” as the ground level, rock bottom, the place to which one retreats and where one regroups, a concept taken from Lenin.

Climate policy-making has failed in its core task, which was to stop dangerous climate change. The evidence, the destruction, is accumulating around us, at a pace that has shocked scientists. We have arrived at the rock bottom, though most policymakers seem loath to accept this proposition. 

Climate advocacy is dominated by the politics of the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change, where petrostates have the power of veto, and nominally science-based outcomes are politically mediated and scientifically reticent, underestimating the pace and scale of the transformative action required. 

Key components and outcomes such as the Paris Agreement, “net zero by 2050”, carbon budget overshoot and similar constructions are an artifice of poor approaches to risk, rather than a reflection of Earth System conditions. 

This hegemonic denial of existential climate risk and the proximity of collapse has brought us to this “zero point”. And collapse is not too strong a term. In their 2024 State of the Climate Report, 14 leading researchers warned that: 

We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperilled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis… We are witnessing the grim reality of the forecasts as climate impacts escalate, bringing forth scenes of unprecedented disasters around the world and human and nonhuman suffering. We find ourselves amid an abrupt climate upheaval, a dire situation never before encountered in the annals of human existence. We have now brought the planet into climatic conditions never witnessed by us or our prehistoric relatives within our genus, Homo.

Avoiding civilisational collapse requires governments and nations to make climate the first priority of economics and politics, especially for  the world’s largest and high-polluting economies. For a moment during Europe’s fire season from hell, there was a glimpse of recognition. The Spanish prime minister said the wildfire crisis must become a turning point for climate action and called for a nationwide pact to confront the "climate emergency".  The French President said the wildfire fight was the “toughest since World War Two”. 

Translating those sentiments into sustained action would mean making human security, not national security, the focus of geopolitics. It would mean the rich providing the capacity for developing nations to make a fast transition and adapt.

It would recognise that disruption is inevitable, dislocation is necessary and this is not a period for business and politics-as-usual. 

The action required to protect human civilisation is now without precedent. So why should we assume the existing system — in which climate policymaking is embedded — is capable of achieving the task? 

Let me start with some physical realities.

Global annual greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow. So far, renewables have added to energy supply, but are not displacing fossil fuels and other emissions in toto as energy demand grows. The data centre frenzy deepens the problem.

The fossil fuel industry is on the front foot.  Both oil and gas industries plan expanded production to 2050.  Big banks and big business are abandoning previous climate commitments. The political focus on, and mainstream media coverage of, climate are at a low point; climate disinformation is a growing force; and more right-wing political parties are denying climate change. 

The rate of warming has accelerated and almost doubled over the last two decades. Warming has reached 1.5°C, with the imminent El Nino likely to produce an astounding 1.75°C in 2026-27. Earth’s Energy Imbalance, an indicator of future warming, has doubled in the last 15 years and continues to increase, suggesting a warming trend of 2°C before 2040 is likely. 

Even global warming of 1°C, a threshold already passed, risks triggering some tipping points.  One study shows that at 1.5°C, six out of 10 studied climate subsystems already show large-scale abrupt shifts across multiple models. 

Beyond 2°C, says Johan Rockström of the Potsdam Institute:

“It’s very likely that we have caused so many tipping points that you have probably added another degree just through self-reinforcing changes… The moment that the Earth system flips over from being self-cooling — which it still is — to self-warming, that is the moment that we lose control”.

On the current emission path, warming will likely exceed 3°C. A plausible worst-case scenario is 4°C or more of warming by 2100.

Many impacts are occurring faster than forecast. Extreme events and their impacts have been underestimated in climate models, including the severity of heatwaves, wildfires and flooding. Tipping points have passed for some large Earth systems —  polar ice sheets, coral reefs — and others are close at hand, such as the Atlantic circulation and the Amazon. The recent Himalayan glacial collapse illustrates what abrupt change looks like. 

Scientists are now warning that the Atlantic circulation is on the edge of tipping, with a collapse of the transport of warm tropical waters northward. That would result in agriculture in north-west Europe becoming non-viable, and perhaps some countries, too. The government of Iceland has designated this potential collapse as a national security concern and an existential threat.

The current level of greenhouse gases is sufficient to produce levels of warming — and sea-level rises of tens of metres in the longer term — that would contribute to widespread social collapse and the end of the human project as we have known it. 

Sir David King, the former UK Chief Scientist, says that on our current path, civilisation as we presently know it will disappear: “If we meet current commitments only – net zero by 2050 – perhaps some form of humanity will survive, managing the challenges of continued extreme weather events, ice loss, and sea-level and temperature rises”.  

It is possible, but not probable, that climate action has been “too little, too late”, in the sense that political inertia means that the radical actions now necessary to arrest accelerated warming and prevent abrupt change are not remotely on the agenda.  And on present political trends, they are unlikely to be in the relevant time frame. 

Scientists describe climate as an existential risk, a circumstance in which the reaction time to an alert — the time it would take to correct the situation — may be greater than the intervention time, which is the time actually available to do it. The Titanic is a good example: the ship was too close to the iceberg to be able to turn in time. 

Once triggered, many changes in the Earth System cannot be reversed on timescales relevant to human survival and development. Above 1.5°C, there is also a physical “point of no return” risk, after which “it may be impossible to stabilise the climate close to conditions that we are able to adapt to”. Where this “point of no return” lies is not certain, but waiting to find out is suicidal. 

And an immediate challenge is derailment risk: society being too distracted by escalating crises and resources diverted to adaptation to address the root causes of climate change by reducing emissions and other actions. This dilemma would produce a feedback loop that if left unchecked, “could render societies incapable of undergoing a sustainable transition, leading to runaway climate change and nature loss.” 

Actions

At this moment, the climate zero point, there are two starting points in ascending the mountain.

Firstly, government leadership must be founded on a strategy of “acknowledgment rather than denial of a crisis’s reality; acceptance of responsibility to take action; and honest self-appraisal”, in the words of Jarod Diamond. 

Thus the assessment of climate risks should be carried out in line with risk-management best practices, taking into account the full range of outcomes, including tipping points and the risk of ruin. This must not be based only on historic experience, which may well be irrelevant to the future state, and must incorporate methods to understand unprecedented climate impacts. Only emergency precautionary action will address the level and speed of change required. Climate risk analysis must give particular attention to the high-end possibilities because that is where the greatest damage and disruption lies. This is the issue the Nordic Council is coming to grips with right now.

The second starting point is to establish normative goals, including identifying events that should be avoided at all cost, including crossing Earth system tipping points, the breakdown of critical ecosystems; and climate-driven forced displacement, conflict and mass death.

Current climate policymaking and advocacy goals are outdated and unsafe, and represent a political compromise, not a scientifically sound normative goal. Sir David King had collaborated with the small-island states in the lead-up to the 2015 Paris conference, arguing successfully that global temperature should not go above a 1.5°C rise for safety. But in 2021, The Independent journalist Donnachadh McCarthy reported that King “astounded me by saying he now realised this was wrong, and believes the passing of the Arctic tipping point has been reached... He said the 1.1°C rise that we already have is too dangerous — and candidly admitted he believed US climate professor James Hansen had been right after all in 1988, when he warned the US Congress that we should not pass 350 parts per million of atmospheric carbon dioxide.” 

More recently Hansen has said that: “We will need to return to a global climate no warmer than the middle of the 20th century, and likely somewhat cooler, for the sake of maintaining global shorelines.“  That is a goal of less than half a degree of warming. 

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director-General of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, has said that: “Our survival would very much depend on how well we were able to draw down carbon dioxide to 280 parts per million”, that is, the pre-industrial level. 

And in 2022, a group of Australian scientists suggested that, from a geologic perspective: “In the long-term, the best target global temperature for the planet might be something akin to a pre-industrial climate.”

It is only on this ethical basis can we build actions commensurate with the scale of the problem. And the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Responsibilities of States in regard to climate change confirms that international law requires states to prevent significant harm to the climate, and failure to do so can trigger legal responsibility.

The key actions to mitigate climate impacts are well known: moving rapidly to reduce methane and other short-lived climate forcers, halting deforestation, and supercharging the energy transition on the path to zero emissions.
But due to the decreasing aerosol impacts, weakening carbon stores in nature, reducing planetary reflection and the delayed impact of past emissions, even a sharp reduction in carbon emissions will have little discernable impact on the rate of warming for the following two decades. 

This means that mitigation of emissions is not a sufficient strategy. 

Because a safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is the pre-industrial level, working with nature to enhance large-scale carbon dioxide removal or drawdown is imperative, but it is a slow process that by itself is insufficient for the climate system to avoid catastrophic and abrupt change. 

Together with fast mitigation and drawdown, there is a need to establish a safe means of active cooling for the planet as a necessary action to avoid collapse, what might be thought of as an emergency brake. 

A range of potential solar reflection solutions exist to rapidly reduce Earth’s energy imbalance, reduce warming and mitigate the risk of tipping points. Climate interventions such as solar radiation management, are now the least-worst option in the short term, but most climate advocates and policymakers are either opposed, or silent on the issue.
There are valid concerns about the implications and potential unintended consequences of some of these methodologies; more research and testing is urgently needed to more fully understand these options, as well as efficacious governance and international cooperation which simply does not exist today. 

All this cries out for government policy and research funding, and global coordination. 

But climate policymaking has been built on two foundational pillars: a bedrock assumption that change should be slow and incremental in a manner that does not disrupt growth or inhibit the market, or leave capital stranded; and that levers for change should be market-focused. Hence the emphasis on such mechanisms as carbon prices, tradeable offsets, tax credits, new markets for carbon capture and storage with or without bioenergy, and even commodifying nature. This has failed and driven us to the edge of the precipice. 

With courageous state leadership, a fast transition is possible. Renewable stationary energy generation and batteries are now cheaper than fossil energy. In China, renewables have overtaken coal as a stationary energy source. More than half the cars sold in China are now electric. Most investment growth in China is in these sectors.  China is becoming the world’s first “electrostate” and now has the upper hand in its strategic and economic conflict with the USA. 

The richest one per cent emit as much planet-heating pollution as two-thirds of humanity. Rapid emissions reduction requires recognition that the most affluent 10% of the global population are responsible for 50% of emissions.

Dragging the consumption level of that 10% back to the European average would by itself reduce global emissions by one-third. That is, the transition requires, amongst other things, a deep reduction in aggregate energy demand and the curtailment of hyper-consumption. This, of course, is anathema to the market. 

The UK Institute and Faculty of Actuaries has shown how the climate crisis qualifies as an existential emergency because it presents irreversible, existential risks to planetary systems; it undermines the foundations of national and human security; it exceeds the scope of conventional risk management; and it exceeds the capacity of governments working in incrementalist modes which ignore the most damaging, high-end risks. 

The transition is not impossible, but requires a level of political commitment and economic mobilisation comparable to an emergency or a large-scale war effort. Emergency mobilisation is not about panic but about priority and activating all available capacities toward a common goal, removing bottlenecks and bypassing market failure. Emergency mode is a shift in governance, mindset, and tempo. It replaces fragmented reform with coordinated transformation. 

It should not be assumed that strong state intervention requires an autocratic government. If, as a society, we are to engage in a rapid change, it will require the active democratic participation of the population, rather than its passivity. The tools exist and the capacity exists; what has been missing is the decision to act.

In 2011, Paul Gilding’s The Great Disruption concluded that it was an illusion to think the contradictions can be resolved within the current economic frame and that disruption and chaos was now inevitable as system failure occurs. It laid out the reasons to “address the emergency with the commitment of our response to WWII and begin a real transformation to a sustainable economy.”

There is no longer any prospect of an orderly, market-driven transition. The physical changes in the climate system are often non-linear and hence difficult to project, but markets crave stability and fear disruption. Climate damages are deeply uncertain — that is, basically, unquantifiable — so that cost-benefit analysis, which is a basic tool of private-sector risk management,  breaks down. The risk cannot be priced and traditional risk calculations fail. 

It is now clear that, as bankers and economists such as Nicholas Stern and Mark Carney have recognised, the inability of risk and financial markets to respond adequately to the threat of climate collapse is the greatest market failure in history. Only governments can lead in correcting this huge market distortion. 

This requires explicit recognition of the leading role of the state in strategising, guiding and regulating the transition, as in any emergency mobilisation. This in turn requires a (further) turning away from the globalization/neo-liberal agenda. In the present economic circumstances — low growth, stagflation, disruption — the material needs of decarbonisation cannot be absorbed by growth, but only by reallocation of financial and physical resources.   

There is now a new opportunity for governments to assert the right, and necessity, of their leading role in defending humanity’s future by courageous leadership and incisive interventions, before it is too late. 

By abandoning failed global mechanisms and globalised coercive controls, there is a chance for nations to forge bilateral and regional agreements on climate action and other issues that reflect higher ambition, rather than lowest-common-demoninator compromises.  And to recognise that a crisis of civilisation-threatening proportions requires a government in emergency mode, and all that entails. 

This is our “zero point”. Now is the moment to set forth on the Long March in response to the climate emergency.

Note: This article is the text of  a keynote speech at the CLIMATEXLAW Conference,  Reconceptualising Legal Paradigms for Climate Change, held  at the University of Ljubljana on 10-11 September 2026

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, October 18, 2026 thru Sat, October 24, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Change Impacts (6 items)

• Warming oceans hit the battlefield Marine radar signal propagation is highly sensitive to fine-scale vertical changes in water vapour. Now research shows that long-term increases in sea surface temperatures are strengthening the frequency and intensity of the features that allow radar signals to travel further than expected. Nature Climate Change, David D. Flagg, Oct 15, 2026.
• Climate change affects the quality of one of the world's most important staple foods Phys.org, Technical University Munich, Oct 18, 2026.
• Latest Climate Report Warns of Major Upheaval to California Way of Life The dire projections come from the state’s Climate Change Assessment, which analyzes the impacts of changing weather patterns on the nation’s most-populous state. NYT, Soumya Karlamangla, Oct 19, 2026.
• US extreme weather survivors are a growing group - now they want to be a political force At a gathering in Texas, near where floods killed 136 people last year, survivors are united on the need for urgent action The Guardian, Oliver Milman, Oct 21, 2026.
• Europe’s killer heat this summer claims 50,000 lives. Climate change blamed for two-thirds of deaths. AP News, Seth Borenstein, Oct 22, 2026.
• Most of the World`s Shallow Coral Reefs Could Collapse in the Next 50 Years If ocean temperatures continue to rise, experts warn these precious ecosystems may no longer be able to sustain marine life or the people who depend on them. Inside Climate News, Teresa Tomassoni, Oct 23, 2026.

Climate Education and Communication (5 items)

• Climate Trunk - Daily Life Summary post of John Lang's Climate Trunk visuals in the "Daily Life" ring Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, Sept 20, 2026.
• `Weather under Fire`: The climate change film we`ve been waiting for Documentary chronicles how a broadcast meteorologist and his family encountered a life-changing onslaught of death threats for telling his audience some basic facts of physics. Yale Climate Connections, Jeff Masters, Oct 15, 2026.
• Who will pay for climate reporting? Against the backdrop of a steep drop in newsroom jobs, 38 climate and environment reporters gathered for two days of in-depth talks about to cover clmate change in an environment of increasing scarcity, with representation including big metro dailies, national print and radio outlets, and nonprofit pioneers. Circle of Blue, Brett Walton, Oct 18, 2026.
• How candidates are (quietly) talking about climate change - 3 election strategies you`ll see across the US The Conversation, Geoffrey Henderson and Nathaniel Geiger, Oct 19, 2026.
• `Voting is medicine`: These health professionals want you to vote in the midterms Physician Cynthia Mahoney says voting is a powerful prescription for health. Yale Climate Connections, Neha Pathak, Oct 23, 2026.

Climate Science and Research (5 items)

• The Ambiguous Costs of Climate Change To put a price tag on climate change, some approaches focus on whether it made an event more likely, whereas others focus on whether it made an event more severe and damaging. A new study examines the validity of both approaches. Eos, Rebecca Owen, Oct 16, 2026.
• A 24-year study uncovers a surprising climate benefit beneath forests In a surprising twist, warming temperatures and drier conditions are helping some forests absorb more methane, challenging scientists' expectations about climate change. ScienceDaily, University of Göttingen PR, Oct 17, 2026.
• Nepal’s disaster is an urgent wake-up call Record-breaking avalanches and floods are signs of things to come. Scientists must evaluate and respond to growing risks in mountain regions. Nature, Christian Huggel, Simon K. Allen, Emily Mark, Dan H. Shugar, Jakob Steiner & Kavita Upadhyay, Oct 20, 2026.
• How to study a swiftly melting climate disaster Scientists strive to assess the future of Arctic permafrost and how Arctic greening will balance against massive releases of carbon as permafrost warms and melts. MIT Technology Review, James Temple, Oct 20, 2026.
• Skeptical Science New Research for Week #43 2026 New information on the ''carbon bomb'' lurking within Artic permafrost features heavily in this week's collection, which includes 161 newly published academic papers and government/NGO reports. Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Oct 22, 2026.

Climate Law and Justice (3 items)

• Charting Climate Litigation in Asia: Emerging Cases, Strategies, and Frontiers Climate litigation has become a global phenomenon, but its future direction will increasingly be shaped by regions where comparatively little litigation has been documented, such as Asia. Climate Law Blog, Maria Antonia Tigre, Manasa Venkatachalam, Masako Ichihara and Moumita Das Gupta, Oct 19, 2026.
• Climate scientists face deluge of public-records requests about fossil-fuel studies A Nature investigation identified more than 30 requests since 2024 to US universities in a campaign questioning climate attribution science. Nature, James Dinneen, Oct 19, 2026.
• A Landmark Youth Climate Trial Against the Canadian Government Is About to Begin The trial, which starts Monday, comes as Canada rolls back climate policies. A new government report warns the country could experience 5 degrees Celsius of warming under current emissions trajectories. Inside Climate News, Dana Drugmand, Oct 23, 2026.

Climate Policy and Politics (3 items)

• The Cynicism of Trump`s Climate Policy The EPA’s latest emissions guidance is nihilistic—and also wrong. The Atlantic, Richard L. Revesz, Oct 20, 2026.
• Why have countries been pushing for a vital global climate report to be delayed? Saudi Arabia, Russia and China among those claiming developed countries have skewed findings of IPCC review. The Guardian, Fiona Harvey, Oct 20, 2026.
• Yes, There Is Some Global Action on Phasing Out Fossil Fuels Fifty-seven countries joined a “coalition of the willing” to create a roadmap for winding down fossil fuels, and there’s good reason to think the number could grow. Inside Climate News, Interview by Paloma Beltran, Oct 24, 2026.

Miscellaneous (2 items)

• 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, October 11, 2026 thru Sat, October 17, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom, Oct 18, 2026.
• The hidden history of how Big Oil invented the American Dream From the family car to the dream kitchen, fossil fuel companies sold a vision of prosperity that depended on their own products. Grist, Kate Yoder, Oct 22, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (2 items)

• Spinning Renewable Success Into a Climate Conspiracy: Co-opting the climate science story of RCP8.5 Indepth analysis by CAAD about the disinformation regarding RCP8.5 Climate Action Against Disinformation, CAAD, Oct 8, 2026.
• Oil Industry Consultant Joins Climate Denial Group Run by Tory Peer Kathryn Porter, an “independent” energy expert, has become a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. DeSmog, Adam Barnett, Oct 21, 2026.

Geoengineering (1 item)

• Desperate climate times call for desperate climate measures Ella Gilbert does a deep dive about geo-engineering Dr Gilbz on Youtube, Ella Gilbert, Oct 16, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Solutions (1 item)

• Why smart people believe the myth that natural gas is clean How the gas industry turned a half-truth into one of the most successful PR campaigns in fossil fuel history. HEATED, Emily Atkin, Oct 22, 2026.

If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!

How to build the integrated plan we never had

The UN officially noted in September 2026 that “exceedance of the 1.5°C global warming target is unavoidable” and we are now in era of overshoot and managing its consequences.

In some ways this was inevitable, as we had no detailed plan to achieve the target.

But we’ve started at the end of this part of the story.

So let’s back up ten years to COP 21 in Paris 2015, where the warming target was agreed amongst almost all the countries in the world.

Now, any serious multi-billion-dollar project normally has an objective, design, costs and schedules and controls. Even a house extension has these basics in place before a brick is laid, or money spent.

So Paris gave us the objective. But the rest could not yet be specified – no formal “design”, no working overall cost and schedule toward the objective, and little in the way of formal project controls.

But ten years of execution have now produced enough evidence to construct a working integrated plan, even if the original 1.5°C stretch pathway without material overshoot has been lost

The Climate Project Baseline Emerges

By a baseline I mean the current working project plan against which actual progress is measured: the objective, design, major milestones, cost estimates and critical dependencies such as technology developments.

What it is not – It is not a prediction of what might happen in various scenarios, and it is not a model to get us to a temperature destination eg 2 or 2.7°C.

What it is is the baseline plan we manage against until evidence requires a controlled change.

For the climate project, the objective baseline remains Paris.

The climate effort had fragmented baseline elements — the Paris goals, country plans (Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs), analytical pathways, scenarios, milestones,— but no single integrated delivery baseline.

So a key act now is to simultaneously reconcile those original commitments and attempt the first integrated working baseline.

In project language –

The objective baseline — held (Paris, < 2°C)
The delivery baseline — developing and needing project controls

The Paris Agreement has in effect created a climate mega-project, but an odd one.

Take the climate “mega-project” compared to conventional project delivery systems:

Set a completion criterion (2°C, stretch 1.5°C)

→ Began executing thousands of uncoordinated work packages (solar, wind, CCS, nuclear, hydrogen, batteries, EVs, geo-thermal, low-carbon fuels…)

→ Discover the effective / ineffective design through deployment

→ And now – perhaps – gather enough information to contemplate an integrated design basis.

Most project plans would start with a clear design, and then the detailed engineering plans first and work to execute and construct them: this one executes various engineering concepts and then discovers the grand design and plan in retrospect.

This is not unknown – large IT projects, even the internet can be described this way.

But so far this activity still does not offer a design concept for the climate project, and how well we are doing in delivering it.

No agreed answer yet to how the temperature control outcome is produced: is it through solar and wind, through nuclear, through carbon capture, through behaviour change and efficiency, through some combination of these or a technology X not yet specified?

And it still has no explicit cost and schedule, beyond various estimates, scenarios and outlooks.

It also has no project organisation with the authority to own project progress, costs and milestones, check against them and hold anyone to account.

In project terms, Paris set an objective without constituting an integrated plan.

This is not a criticism of the early diplomatic and analytical efforts.

But it is a description of the climate project delivery problem.

When the key project objective requires cooperation between nearly two hundred sovereign states, each with its own politics, its own capital constraints and its own veto, you do not get a project schedule.

You at best get an accord.

That is what was achievable.

But an accord is not a plan: the problem is though, by having an explicit project objective that is well publicised, we have spent a decade treating it as one.

The consequence is now visible.

We have almost certainly breached the stretch target of 1.5°C.

Emissions are not falling fast enough, if at all, although it is likely a high-level plateau has been achieved. And this acts also as a major project signal, as it links closely to the objective.

There is a robust near-linear relationship between cumulative CO₂ emissions and warming, allowing a solid carbon budget to be estimated: in 2018 we calculated we had about 580 billion tonnes of CO2 we could emit and stay below 1.5degC, with a 50% chance.

In project terms that is known as a contingency – in normal projects this is usually expressed as the amount of money or time we have added to the plan estimate – as a buffer against events and errors. We used carbon emitted as a best alternative measure.

By early 2026 we had used up all but around170 billion tonnes of this carbon contingency, meaning that at our current rate of emissions, 42 billion tonnes per year (5 tonnes per human), we have about four years left before it is all gone, end 2029.

So – breaching the stretch target should be no surprise.

We had the clear warning signal for over a decade.

In that sense the temperature violation is a lagging project indicator – it confirms what we expected.

Emissions are more a current variable – telling us today what the status is.

And deployment of technologies or policies against a plan to reduce them are leading indicators – suggesting what should now be prioritised or reprioritised.

In sum – we need to re-baseline the project – we need to create a new plan.

Meanwhile, the energy transition carries on

And yet. Here is the thing.

In lock-step with the climate objectives is an underlying energy transition: staying with fossil fuel combustion which creates CO2 as waste and pollution, would leave us fully exposed to the volatilities of unchecked global temperature rise.

Hence the pivot over the past few decades to alternatives: zero or low-carbon energy sources as a substitute, to lower climate risk as fast as possible.

And here there is a better story – the energy transition on several major fronts is accelerating, some even ahead of “plan” or expectations at least — solar power, wind power, large scale storage batteries, electric vehicles and other electrification industries are becoming an economically preferred system, not merely an environmentally desirable one.

In project parlance, whilst the emissions / temperature levels are a negative variance to plan (ie behind expectations) wind, solar, batteries and electrotech such as EVs, are a positive variance to plan (ie doing better than imagined).

Both things (temperature target breached with emissions at a high plateau, but new technologies arriving more quickly) can be true at once.

The contradiction is not a failure of the original idea.

It is what happens when a project runs without an integrated project plan or dedicated programme control function.

The red signal of emissions persisting should have caused a resultant activity in the plan to address the negative variation: a shift in capital allocation, or a prioritisation of effective technologies the key examples.

The Climate Project Re-baseline

The useful move now is not to abandon the target climate objective, but also not to pretend it is still on schedule.

It is to do what any competent project does when reality overtakes the original plan:

– recognise the reality,

– preserve the objective,

– change the execution plan using new knowledge gained in the project

A re-baseline, in project phrasing.

But a re-baseline is legitimate only if it records rather than conceals the original variance.

The original objective remains visible; assumptions are changed because reality has changed.

Otherwise re-baselining is simply moving the goalposts.

A re-baseline is not an admission of failure. It is a normal, disciplined project act.

Every large programme does it, usually more than once.

Recognise reality.

The original baseline has moved. 1.5°C is no longer the planning case; the new planning case is overshoot.

And overshoot is no longer a scenario, it is the observed trajectory.

Recognition means writing down what has actually happened, not what we hoped would happen.

Much climate reporting still measures progress against the old plan as though nothing has changed — announcing record solar additions in the same breath as record emissions, without reconciling the two.

Many scenarios still record emissions targets for 1.5degC that involve almost impossible technical deployments aligned with a sudden collective policy consensus.

That is not a realistic plan being executed.

It is a disconnected series of desired outcomes.

Second, preserve the objective. This is where a re-baseline differs from abandonment.

The goal — limiting warming, minimising peak temperature, shortening the duration of overshoot — remains and is expressed in the UN report.

Every tenth of a degree still matters, and every single year spent above 1.5°C still adds major long-term risk.

What changes is not the destination.

What changes is the route and the pace required to reach it.

Third, change the execution plan and unearth the critical path. This is the part almost nobody is doing.

Without an integrated plan, the climate project has no “critical path”.

The critical path of any major project is a sequence of critical tasks – if any task on this path is delayed by even one day, the final completion date of the whole project slips by one day too.

An integrated plan needs to make that critical path clear and transparent.

While we have likely missed the original stretch target, we have still learned an enormous amount via the active pursuit of it.

If the old plan assumed a certain mix of technologies would deploy at a certain speed, and they have not, then the plan should be rewritten — not the target.

If solar and batteries have outperformed while grids and permitting have underperformed, then capital, policy attention and institutional effort must move accordingly.

That is what a re-baseline does: it learns from project actions – and then reallocates scarce resources against the actual critical path such as electric grids – not the one assumed previously such as renewable supply capacity.

In that example – if we are ahead on renewable capacity an integrated plan reallocates spare capital to the grid.

Conversely, with no integrated plan the climate project cannot see its critical path – it is guessing what is on it. Perhaps spending excess capital on solar deployment when grid capacity would better retain the cost and schedule.

And it is rare that an integrated plan retains “all of the above” for energy technologies and policies and generates multiple often contradictory scenarios. It is forced to select among them to keep to cost and schedule.

But we know the Climate Project is an odd one – so as we analyse it we should expect no single stable critical path: it is likely to move round at global and country level,

China may have a very different critical path eg less EV / electrotech investment vs more coal retirement compared to the path for the EU or US – where investment in electrotech remains behind plan.

Project Controls and the Design Concept

If the climate project can never have a project manager, it can still have project controls.

Absent a project manager it can still determine a baseline, a critical path (or paths) and a cost and schedule to monitor progress.

A project manager holds executive authority.

But – project controls hold the baseline, measure variance, and report what is actually happening — without owning the work.

In a normal project programme the two – Project Manager and Projects Control Lead – sit together.

In the not-so-normal climate project, only the second, integrated project controls function, is available. But it may be enough.

The project control function asks fundamental questions, constantly:

It asks:

• What was the plan?
• What is the dominant design concept?
• Where are we now?
• What are the key critical paths and what is now on them globally and by country
• What changed in the past 6 months?
• What is late?
• What is outperforming?
• What has become implausible?
• What corrective action follows?

It communicates the answers against the original and new baseline — for example the NDCs, the 2030 and 2035 milestones, the Net Zero dates — and lets the gaps speak for themselves.

This is deliberately unromantic work.

It does not advocate for solar over nuclear, or mitigation over adaptation, or ambition over realism.

It also has to deal with the fact that a single “design concept” is likely only going to be delivered or conceived in retrospect – eg “we achieved the climate target via the combination of ….”

It simply holds the best overall plan we have against reality and reports the delta.

That is precisely what makes it useful.

Climate debate under a target missed, under stress, seems to bifurcate into two positions (this is a rough summary, but it does condense a lot of latest commentary):

1.5°C is still achievable, keep saying it,

or

1.5°C has gone, pivot to adaptation.

Either way – both are more political, not project-based positions.

And neither answers the delivery question.

A project controls function dissolves the binary by refusing to take either side, and instead produces a more objective assessment: here is where the project actually stands against its baseline.

Three things make this function credible.

Independence — it cannot sit inside a negotiating body, or it becomes a party.

Evidence — it works from hard data, not relying on scenarios, and reports against physical progress measures: gigawatts connected, gigawatts approved – not gigawatts in a given scenario.

Consistency — it uses the same baseline every time, so that variance is measurable across time. Without that consistency, re-baselining becomes a habit of moving the goalposts. With it, it becomes a discipline.

None of this requires global governance reform, a new treaty, or anyone’s permission.

It requires a competent institution or globally agreed framework willing to hold the baseline and publish the differences —in public, and without advocating for anyone’s preferred outcome.

We’ll discuss this in more detail in Part 2

Writing the Plan We Couldn’t Write in 2015

There is a forgiveness that has to be said out loud.

We set the climate objective before we knew the design to deliver it; but pursuing the objective helped us discover it.

In 2015, the plan could not have been written. Not by diplomats, not by engineers, likely not by anyone.

The technologies were too immature to select.

The costs were unknowable.

The learning rates did not exist yet, because the deployment had not yet happened.

Asking the world to produce a design concept, a cost estimate and a schedule for “avoiding dangerous warming” was asking for something no institution on earth could have delivered.

What was achievable was a target.

That is what we got.

It was not a failure of will. It was a condition then of the world.

A decade later, the condition of the world has changed. Its knowledge and its climate situation have altered.

A design concept has started to emerge – and now we can perhaps create a continuing design that we can better define, allowing better execution.

The design was not declared at a conference, or frozen via internal expert analysis.

It was selected somewhat in the wild by cost curves and manufacturing scale.

Solar, wind, batteries, electric vehicles, electrification – not because anyone declared them the winner, but because repeated deployment has increasingly demonstrated their efficiency, economics and scalability

That is not the standard concept selection process. But it is likely the climate project will never look like a standard phased project from concept to operation.

A schedule has emerged too.

Peak emissions. Peak coal. Peak oil demand.

These are climate plan milestones whether anyone calls them that.

They sit in the data, in the global technical reviews, in the observed trend lines.

A schedule is simply a sequence of dates against which progress can be measured.

Ten years of deployment bought us the numbers that ten years of negotiation could not. The cost we could not devise in 2015 is more priceable now.

This is the odd shape of the climate project.

It was a de facto networked programme in which the design is still being discovered during execution rather than fixed before sanction.

That inversion is why it has always felt unmanageable.

It is not that the world failed to plan. It is that the plan could only be written after the attempt had started.

Which means the first task of project control is not to impose a plan.

It is to notice the one that has quietly begun assembling itself, so now hold it against the original objective, and write it down.

Deriving the climate project concept, cost and schedule retrospectively after creating its ultimate target is not just tidying up.

It is the act that converts a target into something that can be delivered, measured, and corrected.

Then governance remains the genuine gap.

We could not write this plan in 2015. We can draft it now.

The megaproject disciplines reveal what the climate effort is missing.

The analogy does not tell us that climate can be managed like a project.

It tells us which project disciplines now become valuable.

Coda, and Part 2

In Part 2 we change gears and propose a practical Action Plan.

And our plan will not start with primary energy consumed, but with the useful energy services delivered, and work backwards.

That is what we have learned.

The post The Climate Project After 1.5°C appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.

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• NEV record
• Impact of Hormuz
• NEV demand down 
• Exports surge

For the first time, new-energy vehicles (NEVs) made up 67% of new car sales in China in September, according to the latest data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

The figures show that NEVs, which include battery electric cars and plug-in hybrids, captured a record share of sales, even though fewer were sold than last year.

This is because sales of combustion-engine cars are falling steeply, a trend that the CPCA has attributed to rising petrol prices following the start of the Hormuz crisis.

Indeed, sales of fuel-only cars were down 31% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2026, with plug-in hybrid sales down 26% – whereas battery EV sales were only down 4%.

One analyst tells Carbon Brief that China’s rapidly growing EV fleet has offset demand for 143m barrels of oil since the start of the Hormuz crisis.

Another says that the crisis is “reinforcing China’s electrification of road transport”.

Meanwhile, amid slowing domestic sales, Chinese carmakers’ exports of NEVs more than doubled [in 2026 to date / in September] from a year earlier.

NEV record

A record two out of every three cars sold in September in China were NEVs, according to CPCA data, as shown in the figure below.

(NEVs predominantly include battery electric vehicles – BEVs – and plug-in hybrids  – PHEVs. BEVs only run on electricity, whereas PHEVs also have a combustion engine.)

This marks a rapid rise for NEVs from just 6% of new car sales in 2020 up to 58% in 2026 to date – and a record 67% in the month of September.

This year, NEVs’ share of sales has also bounced back from a low of 39% in January, after the full purchase tax exemption that had been in place for more than a decade came to an end in December 2025.

The gain in NEV share in 2026 has come amid a slowdown across the wider domestic passenger-car market, which has hit sales of combustion-engine vehicles particularly hard. 

This September, passenger-car retail sales across all categories declined, with overall sales volumes falling 28% year-on-year.

The contraction was led by combustion-engine vehicles, which saw sales fall 43% year-on-year in September and 31% in 2026 to date.

However, sales of PHEVs also fell by 36% year-on-year in September and by 26% in 2026 to date. By comparison, BEVs performed better, although sales still declined 8.5% from a year earlier in September and 4% in 2026 to date.

As a result, NEV sales overall fell by 17% in September and 13% in 2026 to date.

While the market changes in 2026 to date were particularly dramatic, they reflect a broad continuation of trends seen over the past decade.

Indeed, sales of combustion-engine cars in China peaked in 2017 and they have been declining ever since, shown in the figure below.

Impact of Hormuz

Part of the reason for the advance of NEVs in 2026, said Chinese technology news outlet OFweek, was petrol cars “giving up market share” as they were outperformed by electric alternatives.

Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the CPCA, cited higher petrol prices as an explanation for September’s weak combustion-car sales, in comments to financial news outlet National Business Daily. 

Imports of oil into China in January-September have fallen 15% compared to 2025, equivalent to 470m barrels, as ongoing conflict tightened supply and drove up prices. 

China’s passenger-car NEV fleet has displaced 143m barrels of oil so far during the strait of Hormuz crisis, Euan Graham, senior energy analyst at thinktank Ember, tells Carbon Brief.

EVs “accounted for 12% of the decrease in China’s oil use post-Hormuz”, according to an estimate provided to thinktank the Brookings Institute by an unnamed analyst.

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Erica Downs, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, tells Carbon Brief that the strait of Hormuz crisis and higher oil prices are “reinforcing China’s electrification of road transport”. 

She says the “world’s largest oil supply disruption” vindicates China’s early bet on EVs, which was partly driven by concerns about oil-supply security.

NEV demand down 

Nevertheless, NEV sales have fallen year-on-year, albeit at a slower rate than overall car sales. The growth in NEV market share has also been decelerating.

Zhang Yichao, a partner at consulting firm AlixPartners, tells Carbon Brief that NEVs benefit from government trade-in policies and a “strong pipeline” of new models, particularly those involving innovation. 

He says these factors help explain why NEVs sales have fallen at a slower rate to their combustion-car counterparts.

Cui told the state-run China National Radio that the fall for NEVs and for cars overall in September 2026, is also due to a high baseline of sales from the same month in 2025, as well as changes to trade-in policies and disruptions from the holiday period. 

Other factors, says consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, are the weakened demand due to “demand pull-forward” in 2025 caused by the end of subsidies, as well as “tighter financing conditions”.

Zhang tells Carbon Brief he does not “see much more room ahead” for further growth in NEVs’ market share.

He adds that, in his view, their share in China is unlikely to exceed 80%, as some premium-market segments and specific use cases will continue to require combustion-engine vehicles.

Exports surge

Meanwhile, while domestic NEV retail sales fell 17% in September 2026, exports more than doubled, increasing 164% year-on-year, according to the CPCA.

This extends the decline in domestic sales and very strong growth in exports seen across 2026 to date, as shown in the figure below.

In September, 1,084,000 NEVs were sold domestically in China, while 558,000 NEVs were exported.

Exports are becoming increasingly important to Chinese carmakers, in the face of weaker domestic demand and cut-throat industrial competition.

The CPCA says exports have become “a core priority” for some carmakers.

However, the surge in exports from China has created concern in the EU, which has placed tariffs on imports of EVs from China and recently agreed plans to cut imports of hybrids.

Countries including Mexico and Turkey have also placed tariffs on Chinese EV imports. 

At the same time, the Chinese government is putting policies in place that might be expected to disincentivise exports, such as cutting VAT export rebates.

Analysts differ on what impact this policy shift will have, with some saying it will be limited, while others believe it could cause the price of exported cars to rise. 

Related Experts: What China wants from the COP31 climate talks 29.10.2026 China policy Analysis: China’s clean-tech exports in 2026 to avoid as much CO2 as Brazil emits in a year 29.10.2026 China policy Interactive: What China’s dozens of ‘five-year plans’ say about climate and energy 24.09.2026 China policy Q&A: What does China’s 15th five-year plan for coal mean for climate action? 14.08.2026 China policy

The post Chart: A record two-thirds of car sales in China are now electric vehicles appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Open access notables

Rapid Increase in Geogenic CO2 Emissions from Antarctic Permafrost, Ruggiero et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles

Antarctic permafrost and ice-free soils are generally assumed to make only a minor contribution to the global carbon cycle. This study shows that this assumption is incomplete. Using repeated field measurements and carbon isotope analyses, we document a marked multi-year increase in carbon dioxide emissions from Antarctic permafrost terrain and identify a substantial contribution from deep geologic carbon rather than modern microbial activity alone. Our results show that Antarctic permafrost can act as a pathway for the release of ancient carbon. This previously unrecognized process has implications for high-latitude carbon budgets and highlights the need to evaluate Antarctica in Earth system and climate assessments.

Experimental evidence of threshold-driven gas breakthrough in thawing permafrost, Shang et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science

Gas breakthrough is an important but poorly constrained mechanism for abrupt methane release during permafrost warming. This study presents an experimental investigation of gas breakthrough in saturated permafrost analogue soils subjected to controlled freezing and progressive thawing. A silty sand collected from Alaska’s North Slope was tested using an integrated program comprising unfrozen water content measurements, direct tensile tests, constant-volume gas breakthrough experiments, and stress-controlled breakthrough tests under confining pressures representative of shallow to deep permafrost. Unfrozen Water Content (UWC) measurements revealed a sharp, nonlinear reduction below 0 °C, with residual unfrozen water persisting at low temperatures and minor thermal hysteresis between freezing and thawing paths. Tensile strength increased nonlinearly with decreasing temperature, transitioning from ductile behavior near −2 °C to brittle failure at lower temperatures, while tensile resistance near −1 °C was negligible. Gas breakthrough occurred only when gas pressure exceeded thresholds governed by temperature-dependent unfrozen water content, tensile resistance, and confinement. Under high confinement, breakthrough pressures substantially exceeded unconfined tensile strength and occurred primarily during thawing near −1 °C. These results demonstrate that permafrost thawing significantly increases susceptibility to gas breakthrough and provide experimental constraints for assessing methane release from degrading permafrost.

Palaeoclimate constraints narrow uncertainty in future Arctic winter sea ice projections, Fu et al., Nature Geoscience

Arctic sea ice decline has been observed across all seasons and is projected to continue in the future. Relative to historical observations, climate models show their largest biases and uncertainties during winter, when ice cover strongly regulates air–sea heat exchange, ocean mixing and atmospheric circulation. Palaeoclimate records offer opportunities to evaluate model performance beyond the historical period, but applications have remained largely qualitative. Here we compile an Arctic-wide database of mid-Holocene (5–7 thousand years ago) biomarkers to assess sea ice simulations of this past warm period. Using a recently developed proxy system model, we present a Bayesian palaeoclimate model weighting scheme that refines the multi-model mean winter sea ice extent through fully quantitative proxy-model comparisons, accounting for model interdependence and non-stationary proxy seasonality. We demonstrate that, by adjusting the contribution of each model to the ensemble mean based on proxy evidence, model weights can eliminate biases and reduce uncertainties by 85%, to the level of interannual variability. Weighted projections using the same climate models indicate that future winter sea ice extent may be nearly 1 million km2 lower than prior estimates across forthcoming decades and possible emissions scenarios, with broad implications for Arctic ecosystems, mid-latitude weather, and cryosphere stability.

Resolving short-term meteorological variability amplifies projected glacier loss and sea-level rise, Tricht et al., Nature Communications

Global glacier models typically rely on temperature-index mass balance calculations forced with aggregated meteorological data, limiting their ability to resolve short-term variability. Here, we develop a daily-resolution version of the Global Glacier Evolution Model (GloGEM), which we apply globally and compare against the monthly configuration. Our results show that the daily model more closely reproduces mass balance observations and provides a more detailed representation of glacier runoff. Accounting for short-term meteorological variability leads to systematically greater projected mass loss, with up to 25% greater loss in Svalbard. These differences arise from extreme melt days, precipitation-phase transitions, and surface-type feedbacks not fully represented at monthly resolution. Globally, the daily model yields ice volume losses of 26 ± 10% under low-emission and 47 ± 17% under high-emission scenarios over 2025-2100 (ensemble mean ± 1 StD), resulting in an additional 5-10% mass loss (20-33 mm of global mean sea-level rise) relative to the monthly implementation. Resolving high-frequency forcing, or accounting for its effects through parameterisations, is therefore essential for robust glacier projections, while its omission may systematically underestimate future glacier loss.

From this week's government/NGO section:

The Myth of “Baseload” Power in Modern Power Grids, Jennifer Danis and Christoph Graf, Institute for Policy Integrity

the authors the term “baseload” power, together with other reliability-related energy concepts that are often used interchangeably, or in various combinations, to describe the resources’ role in electricity markets and regarding grid reliability. They also discuss why, despite the rhetoric indicating that electric grid reliability is at risk because of retiring “baseload,” “dispatchable,” or “firm” resources, these terms have distinct meanings for reliability in a diversely resourced grid.

Sounding the Alarm, Inside Track

The authors are deeply concerned that the level of physical climate and environmental risk they are seeing is increasing at a dangerous rate. The frequency, severity, and unpredictability of hazards are broadly increasing, as are the exposure and vulnerability of many parts of society to these hazards. They are worried that the risk levels we are seeing either are not being communicated to or are not being properly internalized by government. Without intervention these physical risks will translate into major economic risk. The undermining of the mortgage market drove the Global Financial Crisis – they are worried a major increase in uninsured, high-risk properties could manifest in a similar way as climate effects intensify.

Emissions Gap Report 2026: The point of return – Urgent emissions cuts needed to come back from overshoot of 1.5°C, Olhoff et al., United Nations Environment Programme

The authors detail the cuts to emissions needed by 2030, 2035 and 2040 to get on a return pathway — finding that the cuts needed are far above what current Nationally Determined Contributions deliver. However, the authors find that it is possible to close this emissions gap — pointing to many successful climate policies that have already delivered real-world emissions cuts and could be scaled up globally to accelerate action. 138 articles in 57 journals by 932 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Enhanced Efficacy Contributes to Tropical Cyclone Intensification in Warmer Climates via Stronger Storm-Scale Radiative Feedbacks, Zhang et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0570.1

Estimating the Maximum Mean Precipitation in Hothouse Climates, Bonan & Schneider, Journal of Climate pdf 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0593.1

Heatwave intensification and associated driving mechanisms across High Mountain Asia, Zhao et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.10.004

Improved Estimates of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity From Non-Equilibrated Climate Simulations, He et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2026jd046855

Increased southward swings of the South Indian convergence zone under greenhouse warming, Wang et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02767-x

Interdecadal Changes in the ENSO-Induced Summertime Anomalous Western North Pacific Anticyclone, Wu et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-26-0211.1

Local and Cross-Basin Driving Mechanisms for Marine Heatwaves in the Kuroshio Extension Region, Cao et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026jc024634

Modulation of Global-Scale Warming of the Atmosphere and Subsurface Ocean by Diathermal Heat Transport in the Equatorial Pacific Cold Tongue, Iyer & Moum, Journal of Physical Oceanography 10.1175/jpo-d-26-0100.1

Why the midlatitude ocean is warming faster in summer than in winter, Vimont et al., npj Climate and Atmospheric Science Open Access 10.1038/s41612-026-01567-6

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Adjustments to Climate Perturbations—Mechanisms, Implications, Observational Constraints, AGU Advances, 10.1029/2023av001144 16 cites.

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Observations of climate change, effects

Changes in precipitation seasonality over the Indochina Peninsula during 1981–2020: observational evidence and attribution of anthropogenic forcing, Zhang et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2026.1937024

Heatwave intensification and associated driving mechanisms across High Mountain Asia, Zhao et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.10.004

Multidecadal Changes in Atmospheric Dryness Over East Asia Dominated by Internal Climate Variability, Wang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl125508

Rapid Increase in Geogenic CO2 Emissions from Antarctic Permafrost, Ruggiero et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gb009134

Significant Acceleration of Wintertime Current in South China Sea Western Boundary Region During Satellite-Observed Time, Wang & Lan, Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans 10.1029/2026jc024895

Threefold Land-Use Forcing Intensifies Twofold Warming of Urban Europe, Swain et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2026jd046541

Warming-driven lower-tropospheric stratification intensifies ducting over global oceans, Zhao et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-026-02774-y

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Global rise in forest fire emissions linked to climate change in the extratropics, Science, 10.1126/science.adl5889 199 cites.

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Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

Evaluating space-based methane detection through a one-year blind test, Reuland et al., Nature 10.1038/s41586-026-11115-0

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Dheed: an ERA5 based global database of compound dry and hot extreme events from 1950 to 2023, Earth system science data, 10.5194/essd-17-6621-2025 9 cites.

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Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

An ensemble of regional CMIP3/CMIP5 wind wave scenarios for the North Sea and the Baltic Sea: a revisit, Groll & Grabemann, Ocean science Open Access pdf 10.5194/os-22-3185-2026

Anthropogenic attribution and constrained projections of summer wet-bulb globe temperature over global land areas, Li et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105737

Changing patterns of compound coastal flooding along the Pacific coast of North America: precipitation-surge interactions under climate change, Fereshtehpour et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100963

Declining Surface Solar Radiation Resources in Polar Regions Under Global Warming, Huang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl125763

Evaluating the Coupled GEOS-AOGCM for Climate Research: Response to an Abrupt Quadrupling of CO2 Forcing, Li et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2025jd044986

Intensification of East Asian summer extreme precipitation under a net-zero anthropogenic CO2 emission scenario, Paik et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aec9366

Millennial-Scale Climate States Alter Atlantic Multidecadal Variability Mechanisms in a Climate Model, Kjellsson & Park, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl123473

NUKLEUS—A First Convection-Permitting Multimodel Ensemble for Germany: Assessment of Future Changes in Temperature and Precipitation Extremes, Beier et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0613.1

Probabilistic constraints on the zero emissions commitment, Hohn et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1877157

Reversible Atlantic overturning despite continued Greenland ice sheet melt, Guo et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aee5373

Significant Spatiotemporal Asymmetry in Future Global Rainstorm Flood Risk, Zhao et al., Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025ef007148

The 2023 North Atlantic marine heatwave could have evolved into a far more extreme event, Gregory et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-78863-5

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Projected changes in mean climate and extremes from downscaled high-resolution CMIP6 simulations in Australia, Weather and Climate Extremes, 10.1016/j.wace.2024.100733 25 cites.

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Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

The Sensitivity of a Coupled Climate Model to Numerical Mixing in Its Ocean Component, Megann et al., Journal of Climate Open Access 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0661.1

Tropical Ocean Evaporation-Temperature Sensitivity to Surface Radiative Property Perturbations in Fully Coupled CESM2, Wei et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026jd048440

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Implications of a Pervasive Climate Model Bias for Low-Cloud Feedback, Geophysical Research Letters, 10.1029/2024gl110525 30 cites.

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Cryosphere & climate change

Abrupt permafrost thaw overwhelms vegetation-driven erosion reduction in sediment export on the Tibetan Plateau, Ma et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04125-3

Alaskan Glaciers in a Warming Climate, Wells et al., Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026ef009035

Antarctic marine-based ice destabilized when warming outpaces solid-Earth feedbacks, Swierczek-Jereczek et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access 10.1038/s41561-026-02117-8

Palaeoclimate constraints narrow uncertainty in future Arctic winter sea ice projections, Fu et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-026-02123-w

Resolving short-term meteorological variability amplifies projected glacier loss and sea-level rise, Tricht et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-78260-y

Seasonal surface melt onset and firn freeze-up across the central Wrangell and St. Elias Mountains, Kindstedt et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-5941-2026

Sudden collapse of ice mélange under increasing submarine melt at tidewater glaciers, Summers et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-78423-x

Tuvaijuittuq: The Last Refuge of Multiyear Ice (MYI) Is Becoming Increasingly Open, Pu?ko et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023023

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Seasonal changes in black carbon footprint on the Antarctic Peninsula due to rising shipborne tourism and forest fires, Science Advances, 10.1126/sciadv.adp1682 7 cites.

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Sea level & climate change

Changing patterns of compound coastal flooding along the Pacific coast of North America: precipitation-surge interactions under climate change, Fereshtehpour et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100963

Global ice loss drives source-independent amplification of sea-level rise at Pacific and Indian Ocean Small Island Developing States, Powell et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04132-4

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: The rate of global sea level rise doubled during the past three decades, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01761-5 153 cites.

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Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry

Constraints on Past CO2 and Climate Sensitivity From Global Temperature and Sea Level Reconstructions Across the Plio-Pleistocene, Köhler & Clark, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl120608

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Expanded subsurface ocean anoxia in the Atlantic during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-53423-x 15 cites.

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Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Climate Change Experienced by Life on Earth—Drivers and Mechanisms of Future Trends in Microclimates, Wolters et al., BioScience 10.1641/0006-3568(2000)050[1089:eogcoa]2.0.co;2

Coordinated Leaf Trait Acclimation Reduces Simulated Global Photosynthesis Sensitivity to Elevated CO2 in a Land Surface Model, Bian et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences 10.1029/2026jg010127

Detecting long-term canopy change and vegetation shifts in northern peatlands using LAI and climate data, Burdun et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-7289-2026

Dispersal Limitations Restrict Predicted Climate-Driven Biodiversity Dynamics Across North America, Meng et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography Open Access pdf 10.1111/geb.70321

Drought tolerance and mortality risk of European beech, Walthert et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111541

Effects of climate change on marine biodiversity on the western Atlantic coast, Oliveira et al., Conservation Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/cobi.70399

Escalating competition in changing seas: baleen whales exploit killer whale prey herding, Jourdain et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1098/rstb.2025.0197

Explainable artificial intelligence reveals spatially divergent effects of global change on mammals, Song et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-78677-5

Global grassland productivity and carbon storage benefit from functional diversity under climate change, Wirth et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2528067123

Hemispheric asymmetry in predicted range shifts of anti-tropical fish under future climate change, Zhang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-78577-8

No Net Increase in Ecosystem Water Limitation Under Greenhouse Warming, Xu et al., Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026ef008222

Norway spruce shows stronger growth sensitivity and weaker intrinsic water-use efficiency response than Scots pine under increasing water limitation in southern Finland, Szejner et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-7223-2026

Persistent effects of experimental heatwave duration on population dynamics, Gruntz & Grainger, Biology Letters Open Access 10.1098/rsbl.2026.0444

Regime Shifts During Compound Drought-Heatwave Events Amplify Ecosystem and Heat Stress Risks, Yang & Tang, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl125653

Spatio-temporal dynamics of ringed seal density and habitat use in the Arctic's Last Ice Area, MacLean et al., Ecography Open Access 10.1002/ecog.08562

Thermal Generalism Shapes Tolerance to Extreme Heatwaves in Estuarine Fishes, Mitchell et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.71143

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Global exposure risk of frogs to increasing environmental dryness, Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-024-02167-z 46 cites.

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GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

Bedrock erodibility governs transient erosion and CO2 release in alpine landscapes, Marder et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aei9275

Characterizing Point-Source Carbon Emissions by Combining TROPOMI CO and OCO CO2 Data, Leguijt et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2025jd044636

Climate Warming Impaired the CO2 Sink Capacity and Efficiency in a Suaeda salsa-Dominated Salt Marsh, Wei et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71151

Cross-Network Synergies Fundamental to Sustained Global Ocean Carbon Observing, Sutton et al., Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026ef008722

Disentangling the drivers of soil CO2 ventilation in a Mediterranean dryland using in situ and remote sensing techniques, Abril-Gago et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-2569-2026

Divergent Spatial and Temporal Sensitivities of Forest Biomass to Climate Challenge Space-For-Time Assumptions and Models, Yang & Anderegg, Ecology Letters Open Access 10.1111/ele.70466

Drivers and implications of declining fossil fuel CO2 concentrations in Chinese cities revealed by radiocarbon measurements, Li et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-26-5085-2026

Drivers of long-term grassland CO2 fluxes: effects of management and meteorological conditions during regrowth periods, Wang et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-1625-2026

Eastern Arabian Sea Is a Perennial Source of CO2 With High Coastal Fluxes: Quantifying Key Drivers, Sherin & Gupta, Global Biogeochemical Cycles 10.1029/2024gb008368

Effects of disturbance on seasonal CO2 dynamics in two boreal forest sites underlain by permafrost, Vas et al., cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-20-2017-2026

Experimental Determination of the Global Warming Potential of Carbonyl Fluoride (COF2), Kim et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-2707-2026

Experimental evidence of threshold-driven gas breakthrough in thawing permafrost, Shang et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1820261

Flash drought promotes decoupling of soil CO2 emissions and CH4 uptake in seasonal subtropical wetlands: A case study in Dongting Lake, Youxin et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111542

Global Anthropogenic Methane Emissions: Bottom-Up Simulations of Current Trends and Scope for Future Mitigation, Höglund-Isaksson et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access 10.1029/2026gb009471

Global mapping of disaggregated international trade-linked transportation CO2 emissions, Luo et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.adz1670

Interpretable Machine Learning Reveals Global Nonlinear Responses of Soil Respiration to Climate, Laffitte et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl124051

Linking sea–air and benthic methane fluxes across seasons in a tropical seagrass meadow of Taiwan, Tseng et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-7309-2026

Methane Uptake by Inland Waters: Fact or Fiction?, Peacock & Webb, Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gb009212

Microbially Mediated Soil Carbon Sequestration Under Long-Term Increased Snow Cover: Divergent Mechanisms Between Topsoil and Subsoil in a Temperate Grassland, Ma et al., Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025ef007819

Net CO2 Emissions From Dry Inland Waters Persist in the Presence of Vegetation, Sharma et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access 10.1029/2025gb008801

Rapid Increase in Geogenic CO2 Emissions from Antarctic Permafrost, Ruggiero et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gb009134

Respiration-Induced Weakening of Land Sink Contributed to the Largest CO2 Increase in 2024, Dang et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70831

Soil Invertebrate Body Size Groups and Effect Magnitude Jointly Influence Global Soil CO2 Emissions, Liu et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70770

Symbiotic nitrogen fixation sustains carbon sinks under warming Tibetan permafrost region, Xu-Ri et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04085-8

UEx-L-Eddies: decadal and global long-lived mesoscale eddy trajectories with coincident air–sea CO2 fluxes and environmental conditions, Ford et al., Earth system science data Open Access pdf 10.5194/essd-18-969-2026

Wetland Expansion Reduces CO2-Equivalent Emissions and Strengthens the Congo Basin's Role as a Net Carbon Sink, Byrne et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70746

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: The restoration of karst rocky desertification has enhanced the carbon sequestration capacity of the ecosystem in southern China, Global and Planetary Change, 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2024.104602 70 cites.

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CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

A Two-Phase Layered Model for Simulating Leakage Along Faults Considering the Blocking Effect of CO2 Exsolution, Jixing et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.2384

Development and Application of a Simplified Method for Preliminary Assessment of Enhanced Oil Recovery and CO2 Geological Storage in Petroleum Reservoirs, Oliveira et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology Open Access pdf 10.1002/ghg.70009

Electrified release of pure CO2 from postcapture liquid: A two-stage system lowers the total energy cost, Jung et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2528655123

Experimental and Numerical Investigation on Gas–Liquid Two-Phase Breakthrough Behavior of Wellbore Micro-Annuli in CO2 Geological Storage, Zhang et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.70049

Impact of Wettability on CO2 Mineral Trapping in Carbonate Saline Aquifers: A Reactive Transport Simulation Study, Khoramian et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.2387

It depends on the question: How survey format shapes the measurement of public attitudes to carbon capture and storage in Norway, Andersen et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.105032

Optimization of CaO–Ni Blends for Enhanced CO2 Adsorption: Aspen Plus Simulation Study, Sarmad et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology Open Access pdf 10.1002/ghg.2385

Reductions in Climate Zone Changes Under Stratospheric Aerosol Injection Compared to Unabated Warming, Brunelli & Diamond, Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026ef008937

Salt Precipitation-Driven Rock Failure Mode Transition During Geological CO2 Sequestration, An et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl120303

Simulation of CO2 Storage in a Low-Pressure Depleted Gas Reservoir and Economic Assessment of Multiphase CO2 Injection Strategies under Two Business Models of Storage Services, Ilham et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.70027

Temporary carbon storage can mitigate slow-responding climate changes, Dickau & Matthews, Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-78620-8

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: A global assessment of mangrove soil organic carbon sources and implications for blue carbon credit, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-53413-z 101 cites.

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Decarbonization

A multi-model analysis of hydrogen uptake in a climate-neutral Europe, Fattahi et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-78681-9

Enviro-Economic Cement Production With Minimal CO2 Emissions: Implications to Net Zero Emissions, Rashid et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.70013

Impact of proposed wind turbines on seismic monitoring stations at the Xiaolangdi Reservoir, Wei et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-75011-3

Market Integration Pathways for Enhanced Geothermal Systems in Europe, Franken et al., Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.21778393

Revealing the Synergistic Drivers of Air Pollutants and CO2 Emissions Reduction in China's Resource-Based Industries, Sun et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology Open Access pdf 10.1002/ghg.70014

Targeting high-value uses to unlock the mitigation potential of clean hydrogen, [authors did not process], Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02766-y

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Impacts of renewable energy resources on the weather vulnerability of power systems, Nature Energy, 10.1038/s41560-024-01652-1 111 cites.

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Geoengineering climate

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Early life stages of fish under ocean alkalinity enhancement in coastal plankton communities, Biogeosciences, 10.5194/bg-21-4521-2024 23 cites.

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Aerosols

Forcing closure suggests stronger aerosol forcing and higher climate sensitivity than the consensus, Yuan et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aeh6401

Climate change communications & cognition

Climate change worry and generalized anxiety among high school students in a rural district of Türkiye: a cross-sectional study, Sa?lam, BMC Public Health Open Access 10.1186/s12889-026-29987-2

Local voices for a global cause – youth in climate movements in Poland, Gorczyca et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2026.2748877

Political affiliation impacts climate attention and choice beyond extreme weather exposure, Wyss et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-026-02765-z

Re-examining the prevalence of Self-focused Value Profiles and Their Relation to Climate Change Outcomes: Findings from the European Social Survey, Ward et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103245

Reciprocal Associations Between Immigration Attitudes and Climate Change Concern: An 11-Year Longitudinal Study, Zong et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103252

Risk in the eye of the beholder: Climate-risk perception and livelihood heterogeneity among indigenous Maya households, Gonzalez & López-Feldman, Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100899

Risk perception and decision-making during multiple climate hazards, Heimbach et al., Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Open Access pdf 10.1002/etc.3631

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Climate emotions, thoughts, and plans among US adolescents and young adults: a cross-sectional descriptive survey and analysis by political party identification and self-reported exposure to severe weather events, The Lancet Planetary Health, 10.1016/s2542-5196(24)00229-8 85 cites.

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Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

Behavioral Readiness for Climate-Smart Agriculture Adoption Among Smallholder Farmers in Southwest Ethiopia, Gafaro et al., Climate Resilience and Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1002/cli2.70071

Developing a Climate Impact Indicator Framework for the UK Agri-Food Sector: A Literature Review and Stakeholder Co-Production Approach, Mollard et al., Climate Resilience and Sustainability Open Access 10.1002/cli2.70068

Editorial: Impact of climate change on plantation crops, Tsai et al., Tree Physiology Open Access pdf 10.1093/treephys/tpy026

Explaining Climatic Drivers of Yield Anomalies in Global Crop Models Through Metamodel-Based Attribution, Oberleitner et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007457

Multi-scale feedback mechanism and synergistic governance of carbon emissions and fragmentation in cultivated land, Liu et al., Environment Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-026-08233-0

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Carbon farming in India: are the existing projects inclusive, additional, and permanent?, Climate Policy, 10.1080/14693062.2024.2416497 23 cites.

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Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

Changes in Flood Frequency and Seasonality Across Midwestern U.S. Watersheds Under a Warming Climate: Insights From Convection-Permitting Climate Simulations and Physics-Based Hydrologic Models, Abbasian et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl124622

Changes in precipitation seasonality over the Indochina Peninsula during 1981–2020: observational evidence and attribution of anthropogenic forcing, Zhang et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2026.1937024

Extreme discharge asymmetry over the Tibetan Plateau under a changing climate, XIE et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.10.001

Flood Responses to Climate Warming on Tribal Lands Using High-Resolution Hydrodynamic Modeling, Pu et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl124766

Intensification of East Asian summer extreme precipitation under a net-zero anthropogenic CO2 emission scenario, Paik et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aec9366

Long-term changes in extreme precipitation and their non-stationary teleconnections with ENSO and PDO over Vietnam (1981–2024), Thien, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1899944

Projected intensification of soil salinization in global drylands under future aridity increase, Yu et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-78622-6

Significant Spatiotemporal Asymmetry in Future Global Rainstorm Flood Risk, Zhao et al., Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025ef007148

Topology-aware and constraint-guided deep reinforcement learning for climate-resilient control of urban stormwater systems, Jing et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1963502

Variability and Attribution of the Surface Water Budget Under the Background of Warming and Wetting in Northwest China, Yang et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.70599

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Climate change impacts on hydrology and water resources in East Africa considering CMIP3, CMIP5, and CMIP6, Frontiers in Climate, 10.3389/fclim.2024.1453726 18 cites.

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Climate change and the circular economy

Material circularity implications of battery degradation in shared electric mobility, Yang et al., Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-026-01969-7

Climate change mitigation public policy research

Assessment of Brazilian household consumption patterns and their associated CO2 emissions, Santos et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2025.2509069

Combining climate policy instruments for a just transition to a climate-neutral economy, [authors did not process], Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02757-z

Translating EU renewable energy community policy under geopolitical constraint: An actor-network analysis of Cyprus, Kalemis et al., Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115666

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: The key role of sufficiency for low demand-based carbon neutrality and energy security across Europe, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-53393-0 65 cites.

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Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

Adaptation Potential of Local Water Management Practices to Glacier Loss, Jésus et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008697

Diminishing cooling returns of urban greening amid a warming climate, Leng et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2616535123

Intensifying Tropical Cyclones and Expanding Renewable Energy Call for Climate-Resilient Planning in China, Zhang et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef009261

Schools in a warming world: how climate change reveals institutional vulnerability, Draelants, Environmental Sociology 10.1080/23251042.2026.2750356

Supporting climate change adaptation worldwide: a web application for exploring uncertain future changes in water resources, Döll et al., Geoscience Communication Open Access pdf 10.5194/gc-9-473-2026

Synthesizing lessons from European adaptation pathways projects for climate resilience, Zorita et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104525

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: An analytical framework for assessing heat vulnerability in urban thermal environmental planning, Urban Climate, 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.102145 14 cites.

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Climate change impacts on human health

Impact of climate change on malaria incidence in Senegal and Nigeria: a machine learning approach, Diouf et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1877760

Intensifying summer-monsoon human thermal stress across eastern China's major urban agglomerations, Iqbal et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103195

Projected climate extremes and health burden in Kenya to 2050: a scenario-based analysis under SSP245 and SSP585 pathways, Muchangi et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1890697

Rare diseases are an overlooked dimension in climate–health adaptation, Sasongko, Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02770-2

When climate risk enters the household: Climate disasters and intimate partner emotional violence, Chang et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100898

[Comment] Early career insights on boundary crossing for planetary health and a just future, Kennedy et al., The Lancet Planetary Health Open Access 10.1016/j.lanplh.2026.101507

Climate change & geopolitics

Quantifying assets for the geopolitics of climate change mitigation, Pan et al., Nature Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41893-026-01971-z

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Measuring the climate security nexus: The Integrated Climate Security Framework, PLOS Climate, 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000280 13 cites.

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Other

Rebels in a changing climate: insurgent perspectives on disasters and the rise or fall of rebellion, Ide et al., Global Environmental Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103250

The Cold Fresh Pulse in the Northwest Atlantic in 2023/2024, Gawarkiewicz et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2026jc024883

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: On the fidelity of high-resolution numerical weather forecasts of contrail-favorable conditions, Atmospheric Research, 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107663 13 cites.

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Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

Global emissions slow — but world hurtles towards 2 °C of warming, Dinneen, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-03355-x

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Over-reliance on land for carbon dioxide removal in net-zero climate pledges, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-53466-0 51 cites.

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

World Energy Transition Outlook 2026: 1.5°C Pathway, Collier et al., International Renewable Energy Agency

The global energy transition has entered a decisive new phase. Renewable energy deployment continues to break records, technology costs have fallen significantly and electrification is advancing across transport, buildings and industry. However, the authors found that this progress remains too slow and uneven. The central challenge is increasingly one of accelerating implementation: scaling renewable energy, electrification, energy efficiency, grids, storage and flexibility together, while maintaining energy security, affordability and public acceptance. Under IRENA’s revised 1.5°C Scenario, electricity’s share of global final energy consumption would rise from around 23% today to 35% by 2035 and more than 50% by 2050, supported by around 18.4 terawatts (TW) of renewable power capacity by 2035 and 38.2 TW by 2050. By 2050, electricity would account for around 77% of final energy use in buildings, 47% in transport and 42% in industry, with sustainable bioenergy, renewable hydrogen and other sustainable fuels complementing direct electrification in hard-to-abate contexts. Delivering this transformation would also require a major expansion of grids, storage and flexibility, alongside more than USD 256 trillion in cumulative investment and expenditure between 2026 and 2050 (i.e. around 10.3 trillion/year).

Dominion-NextEra merger plan may slow clean energy transition, Dennis Wamsted, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis

September’s revised merger agreement between Dominion Energy and NextEra includes clues about future resource decisions in Virginia that should concern state regulators, political leaders, and renewable energy proponents. Despite the success of the utility’s current offshore wind projects and promises of consumer fuel cost savings related to the renewable technology, the merger agreement fails to mention offshore wind at all. Prior to the merger announcement, developing additional offshore wind was clearly a consideration for Dominion, but NextEra largely dismisses offshore wind—meaning the merger could challenge the state’s renewable energy transition. NextEra is looking out for its shareholders first and foremost, and not Virginia ratepayers. Politicians, regulators, and energy advocates in the commonwealth need to keep that point front and center as they consider the massive merger proposal in the months ahead.

Risk Factors and Failure Statistics of Lithium Ion BESS, Srinivasan et al., Electric Power Research Institute

Lithium ion battery energy storage system (BESS) deployment has increased exponentially in the past few years. Failure incidents are rare, but understanding their risks is important to support continued improvements in BESS safety. The authors calculated the likelihood of failures and quantify failure consequences. The risk of BESS failures is compared with risk of failure of other energy infrastructure such as transformers. Several BESS design factors, including site architecture and chemistry, are analyzed to understand the effects to risk.

Sounding the Alarm, Inside Track

The authors are deeply concerned that the level of physical climate and environmental risk they are seeing is increasing at a dangerous rate. The frequency, severity, and unpredictability of hazards are broadly increasing, as are the exposure and vulnerability of many parts of society to these hazards. They are worried that the risk levels we are seeing either are not being communicated to or are not being properly internalized by government. Without intervention these physical risks will translate into major economic risk. The undermining of the mortgage market drove the Global Financial Crisis – they are worried a major increase in uninsured, high-risk properties could manifest in a similar way as climate effects intensify.

Headwaters Counties: A Water Economy (Colorado), Harvey Economics, Northwest Colorado Council of Governments

This study is an update to a 2012 Report that explores the relationship between water and economic activity in a portion of western Colorado where the interaction of precipitation, elevation, and location produces water for the Headwaters Region, much of Colorado, and the western United States. The current study focuses on what has changed in the intervening 15 years for the Headwaters Counties, documenting the relationship between water and the Headwaters Counties’ economies due to new and evolving influences. One of these influences includes increased Understanding of climate change and its' effects on Headwaters Counties’ water users.

30X30 Global Assessment 2026, Campaign for Nature, Campaign for Nature and Together for the Ocean

The authors assess where global progress toward 30x30 stands today, what current trajectories imply for 2030, why implementation is not on track, and which priorities can accelerate delivery. Under the 2022 Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted Target 3, commonly known as 30x30: the effective protection and conservation of at least 30 percent of land, inland waters, marine and coastal areas by 2030 through protected areas, Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs), recognizing Indigenous and Traditional Territories where applicable, while respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

Ocean Protection Gap Report 2026, Chia et al., Together for the Ocean

In 2026, the world passed an important milestone: more than 10% of the ocean is now reported as protected or conserved, up from 8.6% in 2025. However, progress remains far off track from the global target to protect and conserve at least 30% of the ocean by 2030 (30x30). At the recent historical pace, global coverage would reach only around 15% by 2030, halfway to the target. The expansion of marine protected and conserved areas is also not yet matched by the conditions needed to deliver effective implementation. Only 3.5% of the ocean is assessed and deemed to be effectively protected. While protection of key marine habitats is relatively high on paper, only a small share is assessed as being effectively protected: 33% of mangroves are reported as protected, but just 0.3% are fully or highly protected; for seagrass the figures are 34% and 1.1%, respectively; and while 47% of warm-water corals fall within protected areas, less than 10% are fully or highly protected.

The Affordability Advantage: How Virtual Power Plants Can Alleviate Household Electricity Bill Pressure, Volume I: Summary Report, Ryan Hledik and Kailin Graham, Brattle Group

Over the past five years, electricity prices have risen faster than an already elevated rate of inflation, increasing household electricity bills and putting renewed pressure on utilities, regulators, and policymakers to address affordability. The authors evaluate how aggregating flexible household technologies—including smart thermostats, electric vehicles, and behind-the-meter batteries—could reduce system costs and translate those savings into lower electricity bills for customers.

Clean Jobs America Initial Findings: Nearly 37,000 Clean Energy Jobs Lost in 2025, Timberlake et al., E2

The U.S. clean energy workforce fell by nearly 37,000 jobs last year to 3.52 million. It was the first annual job loss in the U.S. clean economy since the pandemic-driven economic crisis, ending four consecutive years of strong growth. The reversal coincided with the sharp increase in clean energy project cancellations since the Trump administration and Congress began ending and rolling back federal support for clean energy and electric vehicles beginning in January 2025.

Emergency Management Organizational Structures, Staffing, and Capacity Finding Study, National Preparedness Analytics Center, Argonne National Laboratory

The study is the most comprehensive effort to capture foundational data about public sector emergency management (EM) agencies to date. It includes quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis examining what EM agencies look like nationwide, the challenges they face, their directors’ strategic and tactical aspirations, and the relationship between agency characteristics and successful outcomes.

The Myth of “Baseload” Power in Modern Power Grids, Jennifer Danis and Christoph Graf, Institute for Policy Integrity

the authors the term “baseload” power, together with other reliability-related energy concepts that are often used interchangeably, or in various combinations, to describe the resources’ role in electricity markets and regarding grid reliability. They also discuss why, despite the rhetoric indicating that electric grid reliability is at risk because of retiring “baseload,” “dispatchable,” or “firm” resources, these terms have distinct meanings for reliability in a diversely resourced grid.

Global Hunger Index. No Security Without Food Security, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe, Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict and Helvetas

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) measures and compares the extent of various hunger indicators such as undernourishment and child mortality each year—worldwide, across regions, and in individual countries. Welthungerhilfe (WHH) releases the index annually with global, regional, and national figures. It aims to draw greater attention to the commitment to end hunger, to show in which regions of the world additional resources are most urgently needed, and to provide recommendations for action to eradicate hunger. Lower GHI scores indicate less hunger. Higher scores indicate more.

Global Estimate of Marine Oil Pollution, Skytruth

Marine oil pollution is a chronic and widespread global problem. Based on new model estimates, approximately 1.58 million km² of the world's ocean are covered in oil slicks each year from vessels and offshore platforms. Despite their protected status, many sensitive areas show some level of oil pollution. Oil pollution is occurring in many marine protected areas (MPAs), despite their designation. This can occur when slicks drift in from vessels and platforms operating outside the borders of protected areas. Certain sensitive areas are heavily impacted by oil pollution. Three of the most polluted Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMA) occur in the Mediterranean Sea. Pollution is largely caused by vessel traffic and concentrated in specific fleets. Vessels are associated with about 81% of the estimated annual oil slick area that can be attributed to a source, including both AIS-tracked vessels and dark vessels, while offshore oil infrastructure is associated with about 18%. Tankers and cargo vessels are the dominant types of polluting vessels.

The Climate-Exposed Workforce: Expectations, Responsibility and Trust at Work, Anthony Langlois and Astghik Mavisakalyan, The Curtin Centre for Applied Ethics

What do Australian employees expect of their employers in a time of disruptive climate change? Drawing on a national survey of 2,048 working Australians, the authors examine what employees expect of business, how far they trust corporate climate claims, and what they are prepared to do about it.

2026 Healthy NDC Scorecard. A global assessment of how comprehensively health is integrated into national climate plans (NDCs), Global Climate and Health Alliance

The 2026 Healthy NDC Scorecards assess the extent to which governments’ national climate commitments recognise and respond to the abundant linkages with health. Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, are climate action plans that countries submit every five years under the Paris Agreement. Using a point-based method, 117 NDCs detailing the climate plans of 132 countries were evaluated based on how frequently, where, and how effectively they include health-related issues across eight key categories: health impacts; air pollution; health sector action; health co-benefits; just transition; integrated governance; economics and finance; and, monitoring and implementation.

Hidden assets. The economic and health case for climate and clean air action, Dietz et al., United Nations Environment Program

Climate change and air pollution share many of the same sources, yet are almost always assessed separately. This Assessment corrects that. The authors evaluate 25 proven solutions across energy, industry, transport, agriculture, cooking and waste, and finds that integrated action delivers more than acting on either alone. Every dollar invested returns around 15 dollars, an internal rate of return of 60 per cent, with market returns exceeding costs within ten years. By 2050 the solutions could avoid 144 million premature deaths and hundreds of millions of cases of chronic disease. The chief obstacles are often neither technical nor economic, but institutional. Investment in enabling conditions can bring full implementation forward by up to a decade, worth up to US$10 trillion in savings by 2040. Every region benefits. Benefit-cost ratios range from three in high-income regions to 26 in Southern Africa. Every year of delay forgoes more than US$1.5 trillion.

Impact of Climate and Environmental Change on Brain Health, Matonte et al., NeuroClimate Working Group

Excessive heat impairs cognition, neurological function, mental wellbeing, and sleep, raises the risk of neurological diseases and self-harm, and is associated with an increase in emergency department visits for numerous psychiatric disorders. Extreme weather events bring injury, trauma, displacement, disrupted care, and chronic stress, with neurological and psychological consequences outlasting disasters years after they arrive. Air pollution increases the risk of stroke, neurodevelopmental disorders, neurodegeneration, and cognitive decline, and is estimated to contribute to roughly one in four dementia deaths worldwide. Food insecurity impairs brain development, cognition, and mental well-being, with the most severe impacts occurring in the critical first 1,000 days of life, perhaps the most important neurodevelopmental period. Soil and water contamination raise exposure to arsenic, pesticides, plastics, and heavy metals like lead and mercury: all neurotoxicants that act on neurological development and function across the lifespan.

An Inflection Point for the U.S. Power Sector, Tom Taylor and Rachel Reolfi, Atlas Public Policy and the Environmental Defense Fund

The authors found that America’s power pipeline is shifting sharply toward fossil fuels after years of clean power growth. Clean energy still dominates new power coming online today, reflecting projects planned and developed over several years. finding that America’s power pipeline is shifting sharply toward fossil fuels after years of clean power growth. Clean energy still dominates new power coming online today, reflecting projects planned and developed over several years. Fossil power development is accelerating as clean power faces growing headwinds. Aging coal plants are staying online longer. A fossil-heavy buildout could significantly raise electricity costs.

Oregon Data Center Advisory Committee: Preliminary Learnings and Questions Document, Oregon Data Center Advisory Committee

This document does not contain the Committee’s final recommendations. Instead, it provides a foundation for continued discussion and public comment. Following review of additional information and public input, the Committee expects to submit final recommendations to the Governor before the end of 2026. The Committee has reached the collective understanding that Oregon must consider the individual effects of data centers at the local level, the cumulative effects of multiple facilities operating in the same community, airshed, basin, or energy system, and the industry’s role in Oregon.

Financing the AI Buildout, Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 2026

The author combines three elements. First, he quantifies the physical and financial scale of the AI infrastructure buildout and compares it with earlier U.S. infrastructure booms. Second, he describes the emerging capital stack, including the growing roles of third-party ownership, leases, project finance, private credit, and structured-finance vehicles, and uses Meta’s Hyperion transaction to illustrate these arrangements in detail. Third, he analyzes how this financial architecture allocates and potentially amplifies technological, operating, and demand risk, with particular attention to asset-level leverage, contingent obligations, and the visibility of exposures outside hyperscaler balance sheets.

Statewide Summary: California’s Fifth Climate Change Assessment, Becker Lowe et al., California Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation

The Statewide Summary provides a high-level overview of key findings from across the Fifth Assessment’s research and data, and other relevant sources. It serves as an entry point to understanding the breadth of climate effects across California, and potential paths to build resilience based on the best available science and information. California will experience rising temperatures across the century. California will experience greater precipitation variability and more “climate whiplash.” California’s snowpack will decline substantially, affecting downstream water systems, local economies, and ecosystems. Climate change is reshaping California’s seasons, altering the timing, duration, and intensity of seasonal conditions. Wildfire smoke exposure and associated health risks are increasing. Extreme heat events are growing longer and more frequent. Climate risks are not distributed equally across California communities.

Geostationary Weather Satellites: Next Generation Program Challenges Put Vital Observations at Risk, Walsh et al., Government Accountability Office

Geostationary weather satellites provide critical information on atmospheric conditions, including severe storms and hurricanes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is working on acquiring the next generation of these satellites, called GeoXO. Starting in 2025, NOAA restructured the GeoXO program. It reduced the number of satellites and cut costs from $19.6 billion to $13 billion. But this program needs to document its new cost estimates. It also needs to fully incorporate lessons learned from prior programs—including contingency planning to address gaps in satellite weather data.

Emissions Gap Report 2026: The point of return – Urgent emissions cuts needed to come back from overshoot of 1.5°C, Olhoff et al., United Nations Environment Programme

The authors detail the cuts to emissions needed by 2030, 2035 and 2040 to get on a return pathway — finding that the cuts needed are far above what current Nationally Determined Contributions deliver. However, the authors find that it is possible to close this emissions gap — pointing to many successful climate policies that have already delivered real-world emissions cuts and could be scaled up globally to accelerate action. About New Research

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is developing at a rapid pace and is increasingly being used by scientists to better understand climate change.

AI is perhaps best-known for its use in “large language models”, such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.

However, the field is vast. 

From weather forecasting to analysing satellite images, climate scientists are using various types of AI to develop faster and more efficient ways to study the warming planet. 

However, the technology comes with no shortage of risks and challenges, including overreliance on unverified results, intensive energy use and exacerbating existing inequalities in climate science.

Carbon Brief spoke to 10 experts working across a range of climate-related fields – from developing climate forecasts to analysing changes in the energy grid – about how AI is being used.

Their answers are set out below, grouped by theme.

• What are the benefits and challenges of using AI in weather and climate forecasting?
• What are some other current uses of AI in climate science research?
• How is AI being used to advance climate policy and action?
• How could AI be used in climate research over the coming years?
• Are there any misconceptions about the use of AI in climate science?
• Could AI improve or exacerbate inequalities in climate research?
• What are some other risks and challenges of AI in climate change research?

Article Contents Expand menu

• What are the benefits and challenges of using AI in weather and climate forecasting?
• What are some other current uses of AI in climate science research?
• How is AI being used to advance climate policy and action?
• How could AI be used in climate research over the coming years?
• Are there any misconceptions about the use of AI in climate science?
• Could AI improve or exacerbate inequalities in climate research?
• What are some other risks and challenges of AI in climate change research?

What are the benefits and challenges of using AI in weather and climate forecasting?

Dr Doug McNeall, science lead in data-driven climate modelling at the UK Met Office:

One of the most significant recent developments has been the success of AI weather-prediction models, which learn from large volumes of weather data to predict the next few hours ahead and then repeatedly feed those predictions back into themselves to generate forecasts up to two weeks into the future.

These models have demonstrated that AI can provide accurate predictions while requiring far less computing power than existing numerical models [which rely on mathematical equations to simulate the climate].

One of the main challenges is that AI weather-prediction models have been developed for relatively short timescales, where large amounts of observational data [for example, temperature, rainfall or sea ice extent data] is available and model performance can be evaluated quickly and rigorously.

Climate prediction is fundamentally different. To provide useful climate information, we need to make projections for future climates that lie outside the observational record.

One promising route forward is, therefore, to use AI to emulate or accelerate these existing models, rather than relying solely on purely data-driven approaches. This blended approach could make climate risk information far more accessible and affordable to produce, while retaining the physical understanding [based on mathematical and scientific principles] that underpins confidence in climate projections.

Prof William Collins, professor of AI for climate science at the University of East Anglia:

We’re seeing a really exciting renaissance in both weather and climate science…Machine learning [a subset of AI that uses algorithms to let computers learn from data and make predictions without being explicitly programmed] has had an enormous impact on numerical weather prediction.

So, for example, the European Center for Mid-Range Weather Forecasts is now deploying an AI forecast system as part of their official communication of weather predictions to the European community, alongside the traditional forecast system. AI systems have become good enough that they’re absolutely competitive with the world’s leading numerical weather prediction…So that’s been quite remarkable.

Much of machine learning and AI involves learning from data and climate represents a future for which we do not have data. We’re literally trying to predict the future. We don’t have observations of it. So, where does the data come from to inform the models? That is, at the moment, the central challenge that the climate community is attempting to overcome.

Dr Amirpasha Mozaffari, researcher in Earth artificial intelligence at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre:

AI forecast models do well on typical weather, but underperform physics-based models on record-breaking and unprecedented extremes – precisely the events that matter most for adaptation [to climate change].

Solving that – whether through hybrid models [which combine AI with traditional models], physical constraints [in which rules are implemented based on the laws of physics to help the models make realistic forecasts] or new ways of evaluating models on what they have not seen – is the central open problem for the field.

What are some other current uses of AI in climate science research?

Dr Stefano Materia, researcher in climate variability and change at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre:

Besides the climate modelling and prediction framework, the proliferation of Earth-observation satellites has created a massive influx of geospatial data (for example, images showing deforestation or sea ice melt). AI is used to translate raw pixel data into actionable climate intelligence.

Methane tracking and ecosystem monitoring are two examples of this kind of application. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, but leaks are largely invisible and hard to track. AI algorithms now automatically scan hyperspectral imagery [which uses data from across the electromagnetic spectrum] from satellites to pinpoint specific industrial methane leaks globally, alerting operators in near real-time.

At the same time, machine-learning models process thousands of satellite images daily to detect illegal logging, track land-use changes and monitor glacier retreat long before humans could manually review the footage.

Satellite image showing deforestation in Para, Brazil. Credit: Universal Images Group North America LLC / Alamy Stock Photo

Dr Clare Eayrs, polar research scientist at the Environmental Fluid Dynamics Lab at New York University:

In sea ice research, machine learning is now used across the sea ice modelling workflow…The most mature application is extracting more information from observations, for example, mapping fine-scale sea ice deformation from ship radar and classifying snow layers in micropenetrometer profiles [which measure the hardness or softness of different layers of snow].

Forecasting is the most visible application in this field. Ice Net [a sea ice forecasting system] was an early demonstration that a deep-learning system [which uses models inspired by the layers of a human brain to process information] could outperform a leading physical model in seasonal Arctic forecasts. Machine-learning systems are now used to predict [climate] variables such as sea ice concentration, thickness and drift.

Prof Cristiana Stan, vice-chair of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP):

AI now appears across all major parts of the WCRP. [For example,]…the ”weather prediction model intercomparison project” [an initiative to create a centralised database of physics- based, machine-learning and hybrid model forecasts] includes physics-based numerical weather prediction models, hybrid [models] and AI weather prediction models. Because it is focused on operational models, the project offers a direct comparison between state-of-the art systems. [It] is intended to accelerate the deployment of the next generation of operational models and contributes to development of metrics needed to assess relative strengths and weaknesses of models.

Downscaling is another area that is harnessing AI power to refine the coarse-resolution model output into high-resolution.

Dr William Collins:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is performing its seventh assessment report (AR7)…This time, for the very first time, there’s a model intercomparison project just for models using AI [for weather and climate forecasting]. So that is a real milestone…It’s a very exciting proof of principle or proof of concept and, I think, the harbinger of many more developments of this kind to come. 

[For more on how model intercomparison will inform IPCC AR7, see Carbon Brief’s recent guest post.]

Dr Amirpasha Mozaffari:

A few years ago, it took two or three years for a new architecture to make its way from the machine-learning community into weather and climate work. Today it is a matter of months: diffusion models, foundation models and generative ensembles have all arrived in our field almost as soon as they appeared elsewhere. That speed opens up things that were previously out of reach.

And the cost of running a global forecast has dropped by orders of magnitude…which, in principle, changes who can produce weather and climate information at all. 

How is AI being used to advance climate policy and action?

Prof Priya Donti, assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-founder of Climate Change AI:

As we introduce more solar, wind and other renewable energy into the power grid, we need to rethink how we actually manage the various sources on the power grid… 

AI is used in a few different ways here. One of them is just trying to get better predictions of solar and wind power production in order to reduce that uncertainty and allow us to plan with a little more foresight.

Wind turbines and solar panels in California. Credit: Tom Grundy / Alamy Stock Photo

Another big one is helping to actually optimise and control the various components we have on power grids – the power generators, the batteries, flexible loads like industrial loads or the batteries in your electric vehicles or heating and cooling systems.

Dr Carlos Rodriguez-Pardo, postdoctoral researcher at Politecnico di Milano, affiliated scientist at the European Institute on Economics and the Environment and at the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change:

AI is already useful at every stage of the climate policy cycle. 

The first stage is measurement: understanding what is happening, what has been tried and who is exposed. Machine learning helps us process satellite imagery to estimate emissions, improve air quality monitoring, harmonise fragmented policy databases and map a scientific literature that has grown far beyond what any human team could read.

The second stage is modelling futures. The models we use to explore climate and economic scenarios are computationally very expensive, so AI-based emulators [simple models that can be used to represent more complex mathematical models] that reproduce their behaviour at a small fraction of the cost are transforming what we can do. Instead of a handful of scenarios, we can explore thousands and quantify uncertainties that were previously out of reach.

Reinforcement learning [a type of AI in which a computer programme learns to make decisions through a process of trial and error] is also allowing us to study how multiple actors, such as countries or electricity producers, compete and cooperate under different policy designs. This can reveal strategies that classical analysis misses. 

The third stage is evaluation, where causal machine learning is extending the toolkit we use to answer whether a policy actually worked. That is a different – and much harder – question than predicting what will happen next.

How could AI be used in climate research over the coming years?

Prof Cristiana Stan:

The WCRP has established a task team to address this very question. The focus areas considered by the task team include modelling and projections, data and observations [and AI] impacts and services, engagement with the private sector supporting development and integration of AI and machine learning into climate research and applications and the scientific rigour and trustworthiness of AI and machine learning methods.

Dr William Collins:

I think the IPCC’s eighth assessment [likely due in the late 2020s] may itself largely be written using large language models. Basically, the job of the people writing the IPCC report is to synthesise…One could certainly argue whether or not that needs to be done by people. AI should be telling us the known unknowns, not the known knowns… The thing that’s value-added [by AI] as part of that assessment process is to tell us what isn’t certain, what isn’t known well. Because then that tells you where the science should be heading.

[In September 2026, the IPCC established an “informal group” on AI to “provide timely guidance on the responsible use of AI and emerging digital technologies in IPCC processes”.]

AI will also be an integral part of the eighth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, with machine-learning codes running alongside traditional climate models.

Dr Stefano Materia:

The inclusion of AI in climate and land-vegetation modelling represents a paradigm shift. Rather than replacing physical models entirely, hybrid modelling merges the mathematical rigour and physical consistency of traditional process-based Earth system models [advanced computer models that combine physical, chemical and biological processes to simulate the climate] with the pattern-recognition power and speed of machine learning.

This new approach will be able to overcome computational bottlenecks, replace unresolved subgrid processes [which are too small to be captured by the grid cells of a computer model], improve the terrestrial biosphere – finally narrowing down the uncertainties on the terrestrial carbon sink and accurately pinpointing emergent constraints and non-linear tipping points.

Dr Clare Eayrs:

Much of what we know about Antarctic sea ice comes from the satellite era, which begins in 1979. That is a short record for a system with strong decadal variability. A great deal of information about earlier conditions is contained in ship logs, whaling records, expedition photographs and early aerial and pre-1979 satellite imagery. Machine learning is well suited to extracting it. Lengthening the observational record would improve almost everything else we do, including training and testing AI systems.

“The Bear” whaling ship getting free from the ice pack. Credit: New Bedford Whaling Museum Are there any misconceptions about the use of AI in climate science?

Dr David Rolnick:

AI is frequently thought of as large generative models, like [those] developed by large tech companies. But that is not mostly what is useful in AI for tackling climate change.

People talk a lot about energy usage of AI and negative impacts on society, including on the climate, as a result of that energy usage and associated negative impacts like water usage. These are very real worries. However, it is worth noting that the massive energy and other requirements of AI systems are referring to those large-scale generative and agentic systems. They’re not mostly about the kinds of AI systems that are actually used to fight climate change.

Prof Priya Donti:

I think the general public thinks of AI as this one specific thing…often large language models, chatbots, etc…People who are making allocation decisions for who funds scientists might have a mismatched understanding of what needs to happen, which means the right science doesn’t necessarily get funded.

Could AI improve or exacerbate inequalities in climate research?

Dr Amirpasha Mozzafari: 

Frontier models [which are at the cutting edge of AI research] are built almost exclusively in the global north, trained on data that is densest where observations are richest and validated against benchmarks that reflect the same regions. 

Cheap inference [in which a trained AI model applies its learned patterns to new, unseen data] does not fix that on its own: being able to run someone else’s model is not the same as having a say in what it is trained on, how it is evaluated, or whether it serves your decisions. 

Without deliberate effort to share data infrastructure, evaluation metrics that centre on people’s wellbeing and genuine co-production of knowledge, AI risks automating and amplifying the existing divide in the global climate information system rather than closing it.

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Dr Carlos Rodriguez-Pardo:

If done well, [developing AI-based Earth system models] could dramatically lower barriers to entry. A small research group, or an agency in a data-poor region, could adapt a pre-trained model on modest hardware rather than building bespoke systems from scratch. That matters because [the] data is thinnest and the resolution gap is largest exactly where vulnerability to climate [change] is highest.

Dr David Rolnick, associate professor in the school of computer science at McGill University and cofounder of Climate Change AI:

Climate action should fundamentally be about democratisation of action and equitable response to climate change, both in terms of mitigation and in terms of adaptation. The consolidation of large-scale AI can often work counter to those goals by consolidating power in certain geographies and stakeholders, and by defining action based upon the goals of those stakeholders. 

When you build technology in specific institutions, they do not necessarily understand the needs of the majority of the world’s population or local stakeholders from other geographies and other entities. 

What are some other risks and challenges of AI in climate change research?

Dr Clare Eayrs:

The biggest challenge is trust…Good performance is necessary, but it is not enough. We also need independent evaluation, physical credibility, process-based validation, robustness and some degree of interpretability.

The risk I worry about most is that the apparent success of these systems could be read as a reason to invest less on observations. AI is not a substitute for observation, physical understanding or careful evaluation. Especially for Antarctic sea ice, where observations of sea ice and snow thickness remain sparse and understanding of snow-ice processes remains limited, we need more, targeted observations, not fewer. It also makes the case for documenting them – and their uncertainties – far better than we do now.

Dr William Collins:

The challenge is always making sure that you’re getting the right answer for the right reason and the risk is getting a plausible answer that is “truthy”, but not the truth…Ask a computer for an answer and it will give you one. And it’s very good. It will always obey. It will always give you an answer. The question is whether or not that answer is valid or not.

Dr David Rolnick:

The first and foremost risk is AI diverging attention from other forms of climate action. AI is not a silver bullet. It is not an answer in itself. And where it is useful, it is only one part of the solution.

Prof Detlef van Vuuren, a senior researcher at the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency [in a 2026 Carbon Brief interview]:

There are now many more proposals being submitted than in the past, as people can use AI tools. So our science discipline has to start learning how to deal with this, both in terms of what we feel is allowed in creating [scientific] articles – what is allowed in reviewing [and] what is allowed in proposal writing. This is something that we have to learn.

Dr William Collins:

The partnership between academia, the data centres and private industry is going to be integral to our success going forward. And I think the challenge is going to be navigating that relationship in a way that respects open science, uses open source code, etc…

You do not want to be in a situation where we have something like a large language model where it’s not open source…[We need] fairness, accountability, transparency and explainability. 

Dr Carlos Rodriguez-Pardo:

High-resolution outputs can look exact when they are not; uncertainties compound in invisible ways and predictions that feed into policy need honest, well-calibrated uncertainty estimates, communicated in decision-relevant terms.

Like any other technology, AI should augment human judgement in climate decisions, not replace it. As researchers, it is our responsibility to ensure the field serves as a force for social progress.

Related Explainer: The CMIP7 emissions scenarios – and how they explore future climate change 01.09.2026 Climate modelling Guest post: How CMIP7 will shape the next wave of climate science 22.05.2026 Climate modelling Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts 29.04.2026 Climate modelling Limiting global warming to 2C would not ‘rule out’ extreme impacts 25.03.2026 Climate modelling

The post Experts: How are climate scientists using artificial intelligence? appeared first on Carbon Brief.

This article by Nicolas Scibelli first appeared on Yale Climate Connections and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

[Haz clic aquí para leer en español]

A single stream nourishes the cattle of Ismael “Jim” Solis’ ranch on Panama’s Azuero Peninsula, which juts out into the Pacific Ocean.

Solis has raised cattle through countless droughts and dry spells over the years, weathering them with little concern.

But as El Niño builds strength ahead of Panama’s coming dry season, he worries that for the first time, his stream may run dry. 

"We hope it keeps flowing, but we need more rain so it will last when the dry season comes,” he said. 

Solis has spent his life raising cattle on the Azuero since his family arrived decades ago in the small town of Los Asientos on the southern part of the peninsula. His ranch is one of many that dominate the region, checkering the landscape in a matrix of rolling pasture dotted with trees, the last reminders of the expansive forest that once blanketed the surrounding hillsides. 

Extreme drought has caused the artificial reservoir on Cecibet Peralta's ranch to run dry. (Image credit: Nicolas Scibelli)

Across the Azuero Peninsula, extreme drought is stretching water resources thin. To counter it, some are switching to a more sustainable system of cattle ranching known as silvopasture, a method that incorporates trees into the landscape and helps preserve water. Those who have made the switch say the increased tree cover has proven vital in maintaining water supply and grass yield while neighboring farms feel the effects.

Still, with forecasts of a historically strong El Niño building in the coming months, a difficult dry season lies ahead for silvopasture and conventional ranchers alike.

Feeling the heat

The Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology of Panama declared an El Niño alert in May, warning of drier conditions on the Azuero Peninsula and a 10-20% reduction in rainfall during the region’s typically wet season. As the months drag on, ranchers are seeing the effects. 

“In the past, it wouldn't have been as hard as it is this year,” said Edwin Carrasco, a silvopastoral rancher in Herrera province. 

Edwin Carrasco, a silvopasture rancher in Herrera province, Panama. (Image credit: Nicolas Scibelli)

The stream on Carrasco’s property has run dry, requiring him to pump water from a well on site. The ranch remains in a precarious position as drought lingers. 

"I'm frightened, because we don't know what we're going to do with the animals if it doesn't keep raining,” Carrasco said. 

In the nearby Los Santos province, Cecibet Peralta is another rancher dealing with water shortages. Peralta uses a large artificial reservoir on her ranch to water her cattle, though it historically has not always lasted through the dry season. Peralta recently expanded the reservoir’s capacity hoping it would provide year-round water, but with this year’s El Niño-charged drought, even the expansion has not been enough. 

The dry reservoir has forced Peralta to move her cattle to a neighboring farm with more stable water resources. She’s now looking to expand the reservoir again in an attempt to stay ahead of the rapidly changing climate.

Living fences separate fields on a silvopasture ranch just outside of Los Asientos on the southern part of Panama's Azuero Peninsula. (Nicolas Scibelli)

“Every year the summers are stronger,” she said. “The intense heat causes the water to be used up more quickly.”

With a seasonal dry climate, the Azuero is projected to experience higher temperatures and increasingly irregular rainfall patterns in the coming decades. As climate change potentially drives stronger El Niño events, prolonged droughts are likely to occur again in the future. 

Nature’s original solution

For years now, some on the Azuero have been planting trees on their farms and using a less intensive, mixed-rotation system known as silvopasture. Those who have established these systems say they are seeing the results as drought rages on. 

“Nowadays, we have a greater abundance of water because of the way it has been managed,” said Manuel Cedeño, a silvopastoral rancher from the small community of Los Asientos. "Better water quality, better forage for the animals; more biodiversity.”

In contrast to conventional systems that clear the land entirely for pasture, silvopasture incorporates planted and naturally regenerated trees into pastures for grazing. It also uses mixed-rotation cycles that reduce overgrazing and preserve soil health. 

A cow walking to pasture on a silvopasture ranch in Veraguas province, Panama. (Image credit: Nicolas Scibelli)

The conventional wisdom that trees are detrimental to cattle production is unfounded, according to Jake Slusser, a tropical forester working with Yale’s Environmental Training and Leadership Initiative. Slusser is not affiliated with Yale Climate Connections.

“Trees offer everything from shade, forage, fodder, fruit,” Slusser said. “Some trees fix nitrogen so that the pasture grass that they're eating has a lot higher nutritional content, especially in terms of protein.”

Silvopastoral systems are also crucial for preserving water levels and water quality. Most systems use pumps to transport water directly to cattle, reducing the need for cattle to travel directly to water sources while limiting pollution. Increased vegetation along riparian areas also improves shade cover, reducing evaporation.

“These are just in general much more resilient farms during El Niño years when you have these long-term droughts, because you're conserving and utilizing the water you have on [the] farm in a very efficient way,” Slusser said.

The Yale initiative has been working with ranchers on the Azuero since 2009, having helped many farmers make the change to silvopastoral systems. Thousands of hectares of land on the peninsula have been deforested or degraded since ranchers began clearing the region in the 1940s, the majority of which are still actively used for cattle grazing today. Slusser said silvopasture presents an opportunity to improve environmental outcomes in actively farmed areas.

“That's where the most degraded landscapes are,” he said. “It allows the biggest potential because you're not replacing people's traditional livelihoods; you're enhancing them by doing silvopasture.”

A solar-powered well on a silvopasture ranch outside of Los Asientos. The pump provides water for the ranch's cattle and protects water quality. (Image credit: Nicolas Scibelli)

The transition to silvopasture is not seamless, as significant upfront financial and technical investments are required. Silvopasture also does not entirely reduce the negative environmental impacts of cattle ranching, with substantial climate-warming methane emissions still caused by the practice.

Still, the positive effects are clear to ranchers in water-stressed areas like the Azuero. For those like Solis who have not yet made the transition to silvopasture, this year’s drought is making a compelling case to do so. 

"If you don't reforest, the water disappears more quickly,” he said.

Looking ahead to a drier future

This year’s extreme drought has been a reason for many to begin examining the future of their farms more closely. The dry season still looms on the horizon, and water resources on many ranches have already been stretched thin. With extreme weather events becoming increasingly common throughout Latin America, some believe silvopasture offers a potential solution moving forward. 

“This is one of the ways we can mitigate climate change and help the planet benefit," Cedeño said. 

Cows grazing in a mixed-rotation pasture outside of Los Asientos. (Image credit: Nicolas Scibelli)

For Cedeño, the change to silvopasture has been a worthy investment. Although the drought is providing new challenges on his ranch, he nonetheless feels secure that his cattle will have water throughout the coming year. Cedeño has already helped several other ranchers in Los Asientos make the change to silvopastoral systems and is looking to expand his own operation even further. 

He hopes that in the future, farms like his will be the norm.

"The culture of the farmers in this Azuero area had always been to cut down the trees, plant pasture, and raise cattle,” he said. “If we could change that mindset, I think we could accomplish much more.”

//

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A surge in wholesale costs driven by expensive gas is responsible for nearly 90% of the rise in UK household electricity bills since 2020, reveals new analysis.

The figures, shared with Carbon Brief by thinktank Nesta, show that wholesale gas costs are also behind the vast majority (77%) of the increase in household gas bills.

The analysis firmly contradicts the idea, which has become embedded in UK media and political narratives, that the UK’s net-zero target is to blame for high energy bills.

Andrew Sissons, director for sustainable future at Nesta, tells Carbon Brief that net-zero is, in fact, “helping to shelter Britain from the impact of expensive gas”. He adds: 

“Rising gas prices, not net-zero, have driven most of the recent surge in Britain’s energy bills. Britain is particularly exposed, with over 80% of households connected to gas mains, while our electricity system still relies too much on gas as the marginal unit.”

The analysis comes after the UK government gave its approval for the Jackdaw gas field to be developed in the North Sea, despite stating that it “would not…affect prices”.

Another gas crisis

In January 2026, Carbon Brief reported that two-thirds of the rise in electricity bills since before the 2022 global energy crisis was due to high gas prices.

Now, amid ongoing conflict in the Middle East, wholesale gas prices are at their highest levels since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Indeed, as of 19 October, UK wholesale gas prices stood at 220p per therm (£75 per megawatt hour, MWh), above the average for 2022 of 210p/therm (£72/MWh).

The figure below shows that, after accounting for inflation, typical UK annual household electricity bills had risen £180 by the fourth quarter of 2026, relative to the same period in 2020.

Some 90% of this increase (£161) is due to wholesale costs, driven by the price of gas.

In contrast – and contrary to widespread perceptions – renewable “contracts for difference” (CfDs) are reducing electricity bills by £17 under the current price cap, according to the Nesta analysis.

In addition, the government has cut policy costs for electricity by moving 75% of legacy renewable support onto general taxation, ending the “ECO” efficiency scheme and temporarily removing VAT.

Network costs have added £72 to typical bills since 2020, according to Nesta. Most of this (£46) is for investment in the electricity transmission network, known as the “motorways” of the grid.

Only £21 of the rise in network costs relates to balancing the system, including “constraint payments” for turning off windfarms – and turning on gas plants – due to insufficient grid capacity.

Wind constraint payments regularly receive extensive news coverage, despite balancing costs – in total – making up just £35 (4%) of a typical £858 annual household electricity bill.

The Nesta figures show energy supplier operating costs have gone up by £46 since 2020. These costs are not broken down in the underlying Ofgem figures, but the increase is thought to be driven by the cost of rising household energy debt. Supplier profits are capped at 2.5% of bills.

Breaking the link

Notably, household electricity prices have increased far less rapidly since the Hormuz crisis than gas bills, with higher clean-energy generation helping break the link between the two.

Since 2020, household gas bills have increased by £368 in real terms, according to Nesta’s analysis. Some 77% of this (£283) is due to wholesale gas costs.

After accounting for inflation, total dual-fuel bills for a typical household have increased from £1,175 per year in October 2020 to £1,723 per year in October 2026, a rise of 47%.

The rise in wholesale costs driven by high gas prices accounts for £444 (81%) of this increase in real terms, as shown in the figure below.

The £127 real-terms rise in network costs includes £72 for electricity transmission, distribution and balancing, as well as £55 for investment in the gas grid.

(According to the Energy Networks Association, up to 80% of the investment in electricity grids is required to maintain existing assets, with the remainder going towards expansion for net-zero.)

In total, the cost of government social and climate policies made up £183 (16%) of typical dual-fuel bills in October 2020. This had fallen to £114 (7%) as of the current October 2026 price cap.

Wholesale costs make up the largest share of the current cap, at £757 (44%). Network costs are the second-largest component of bills, at £417 (24%), followed by operating costs at £291 (17%).

Sissons tells Carbon Brief:

“Upgrading the grid is not cost-neutral, but that price tag is dwarfed by the impact of rising gas prices. In fact, net-zero is helping to shelter Britain from the impact of expensive gas. Since the start of the Iran war, electricity bills have begun to decouple from gas bills, thanks to the UK’s increased renewable power and support from contracts for difference.”

“Going further will require British households to have clean electricity, electric vehicles and heat pumps over fossil-fuel cars and boilers. By focusing on growing electricity demand, the government can spread upgrade costs more widely. This can lock in the consistent investment in electrification that is Britain’s best path to stop global turmoil showing up on winter energy bills.”

Media reports suggest the chancellor may take steps to help households and businesses cope with rising energy bills at the upcoming budget on 28 October.

Bills are expected to rise sharply under the January 2027 price cap – potentially by as much as a quarter – in light on ongoing high gas prices.

Related UK budget 2026: Key climate and energy announcements 28.10.2026 UK policy Analysis: How the UK spent more than £11.6bn on climate aid since 2021 28.10.2026 UK policy Q&A: Why are UK energy bills so high – and how could they be lowered? 27.10.2026 Oil and gas Factcheck: UK Conservatives double the ‘cost of net-zero’ after spreadsheet blunder 09.10.2026 UK policy

The post Revealed: Expensive gas behind ‘nearly 90%’ of rise in UK electricity bills appeared first on Carbon Brief.