You are here
Climate Change News
Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks
Dozens of countries have called out growing “coordinated attacks” by fossil fuel interests aimed at undermining the role of climate science in the UN negotiations at the mid-year talks in Bonn.
Under the banner of ‘Friends of Science’, in an overflowing press conference room lined with negotiators and civil society supporters, diplomats from Fiji, Nepal, the European Union, Switzerland, Sierra Leone and Panama vowed to ensure that decision-making in the UN climate process remains based on the “best available science”. That includes reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s climate science body, they said.
While steering clear of singling out any specific country, they said efforts to cast doubt on established scientific concepts, such as the 1.5 global warming limit, are led by “the usual suspects” and those who think “science threatens their economic prospects”.
Saudi Arabia and India have opposed calls in draft texts to encourage scientific work on scenarios that would minimise the magnitude and duration of any overshoot of 1.5C, according to one negotiator in the room and summaries of closed-door discussions published by a reporting service.
UN chief António Guterres conceded last year that a temporary breach of the key warming limit is inevitable, while urging countries to redouble efforts to bring temperatures back down.
‘Polluted narrative’Scientists have long established that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of man-made climate change and a rapid shift away from oil, coal and gas is essential to curb global warming.
Saudi Arabia is dependent on oil and gas exports, while India largely relies on coal to power its economic development.
One negotiator said that research on how climate action can be equitable for developing countries, produced by Indian universities, had been published too late to be incorporated into the last IPCC assessment report in 2023. This incident led the Indian government to try and discredit the IPCC, they said. Some Indian scientists have argued that the IPCC’s scenarios are unfair on developing countries.
Saudi Arabia and India have played down the importance of making sure that the latest IPCC assessments – regarded as the gold standard of climate science – are available for the next global stocktake, the UN scorecard of climate action around the world.
“Anyone that is blocking references to science – they are not our friends,” Sivendra Michael, lead negotiator for Fiji, told a press conference, highlighting the rise of a “polluted narrative” both inside and outside the negotiating rooms.
1.5C is a ‘hard limit’Speaking for the AILAC coalition of Latin American countries, Panama’s Ana Aguilar said they went to Bonn to negotiate positions, not to negotiate the facts laid out by science.
“We see coordinated efforts to cast doubt on the best available science driven by a narrow set of interests, not by the needs of our people,” she added. “We have seen this playbook before… manufacture doubt, delay the response and let the vulnerable people pay this bill.”
Negotiators, researchers and civil society activists attend a press conference on defending science in the UN climate process in Bonn, Germany on June 17, 2026. (Photo: Teo Ormond-Skeaping) Negotiators, researchers and civil society activists attend a press conference on defending science in the UN climate process in Bonn, Germany on June 17, 2026. (Photo: Teo Ormond-Skeaping)The ‘Friends of Science’ coalition stressed that the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement cannot be negotiated, as the survival of the most climate vulnerable communities is at stake if it is permanently breached.
“Science tells us that 1.5C is a hard limit for many countries, including the small island developing states and least developed countries,” said Manjeet Dhakal, a negotiator for Nepal. “We still have a chance to keep 1.5 degrees in reach and minimise the overshoot if we act fast and drastically.”
Long-running IPCC standoffWhile diplomats claimed attacks on science are broadening, one long-standing issue of contention is whether the latest assessment reports of the IPCC will be ready in time for the next UN global stocktake due to start this November and end in 2028.
This matters because, as some experts have pointed out, previous IPCC findings played a key role in the first such exercise, which culminated at COP28 in Dubai in the landmark agreement on transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems.
The UN climate process needs ambition – the law demands it
Since the start of the latest IPCC assessment cycle, known as AR7, a battle over the timing has dragged on for over two years at successive IPCC meetings, with governments repeatedly failing to find a breakthrough.
A large majority of nations have been pushing for an accelerated timeline that would ensure the AR7 reports can be fed into the UN’s global stocktake. But a group of countries, including Saudi Arabia, India, China, Russia and Kenya, have said at previous IPCC meetings they want a longer process, arguing a fast-tracked assessment would put a burden on developing countries with limited resources.
Science and the stocktakeThat fight has now bled into the Bonn talks where governments began discussing the arrangements for the next stocktake. At a session earlier this week, most developed countries, Latin American and small island states, and the world’s poorest nations emphasised the assessment of collective climate action must be guided by the “best available science” – code for the findings of the IPCC reports.
The Maldives, speaking for small island states, said IPCC science remains “essential to the integrity, credibility and usefulness” of the stocktake. AILAC said that starting the process “on the right footing” requires a political decision on the timeline to deliver the AR7 reports in time. Switzerland said IPCC reports “ask more than is politically comfortable, but that is precisely why they must guide every decision we make”.
Saudi Arabia, however, said no particular scientific input – and in particular what comes out of the IPCC – should be prioritised. Similarly, India warned against creating “some kind of preferred hierarchy” in the role that any specific source of information should play in the process.
Ghana’s Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, who chairs the African Group, told a press conference on Tuesday that some countries think rushing to get IPCC inputs into the global stocktake could “undermine or compromise the IPCC process”. “Africa is for science,” he said, without saying where the continent stands on the IPCC timeline.
Crunch talks in OctoberAt the “Friends of Science” press conference, Dhakal pushed back on the idea that science would have to be rushed to be incorporated. He said the IPCC leadership has “perfectly made it clear” that they can deliver the report before the global stocktake. “It is the scientists who are saying they can deliver it on time,” he said.
The “Friends of Science” press conference at UN climate talks in Bonn on June 17, 2026. Photo: Marie Jacquemine/Greenpeace) The “Friends of Science” press conference at UN climate talks in Bonn on June 17, 2026. Photo: Marie Jacquemine/Greenpeace)The discussion will be picked up again at the next IPCC session in October, where its boss Jim Skea is hoping to reach an agreement. “As a scientist myself, I cannot overstate the importance of this decision,” he told governments in Bonn last week.
Andreas Sieber, head of political strategy at campaigning group 350.org, told Climate Home News that the debate may sound procedural, “but it is anything but”. “Science is the backbone of the Paris Agreement ambition cycle, and the evidence assessed through AR7 will help determine not only the emissions pathways countries pursue, but also how the world responds to mounting climate losses and who receives support,” he said in Bonn.
The post Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.
The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI
On quiet streets across the Californian city of Monterey Park, green-and-white “YES on Measure NDC” signs stood on front-yard lawns as volunteers walked door-to-door, drumming up support among residents to vote in favor of a ban on new data centers in their area.
They clarified the ballot wording in English, Spanish and Chinese, while distributing multilingual flyers warning about the rise in electricity demand, industrial infrastructure and environmental impacts associated with AI-related data center development.
Less than a month later, on June 2, Monterey Park voters overwhelmingly approved the ban in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles, with 86.4% voting in favor and 13.6% opposed, according to county election results.
Social opposition to data centers is on the rise, especially in the US, as artificial intelligence (AI) and the technology hubs needed to support it stoke competition for electricity, water and land in communities where they are based. Industry advocates say data centers bring economic benefits and do not always result in higher power prices for households.
A front-yard sign encourages Monterey Park residents to vote “YES on Measure NDC” (No Data Centers) in the San Gabriel Valley, LA County on May 9, 2026 (Photo: Kristen Mayol) A front-yard sign encourages Monterey Park residents to vote “YES on Measure NDC” (No Data Centers) in the San Gabriel Valley, LA County on May 9, 2026 (Photo: Kristen Mayol)The result in Monterey Park made it the first city in the United States to enact a citywide prohibition on data centers through a voter-approved ballot measure.
“This week our city has been celebrating the landslide results from Measure NDC,” Monterey Park Mayor Elizabeth Yang said in a phone interview.
On social media, Yang described the city’s response as the result of sustained resident organizing and civic engagement. “We want to fulfill our duty of listening to residents,” Yang told Climate Home News.
A community campaign takes shapeThe vote came after months of public testimony, neighborhood outreach and organizing surrounding a proposed data center project on Saturn Street in Monterey Park. Here, developers planned to replace an existing commercial office building with a nearly 50-megawatt data center intended to serve growing demand for AI computing.
Supporters of Measure NDC (Measure No Data Centers) argued that keeping this, and other such centers, out of their community would help protect air quality, drinking water resources, public health and local infrastructure.
According to CoStar News, a real estate information platform, the backers of the Saturn Street project – Digico Infrastructure REIT and HMC Capital’s StratCap – had already withdrawn their planning application on April 3 amid growing local opposition and regulatory uncertainty, including the city’s decision to place a data center ban before voters.
Subsequently, on April 20, the Monterey Park City Council adopted an ordinance prohibiting all data centers within the city limits.
Explainer: Will AI data centres make or break the energy transition?
Company representatives later said they would explore future “productive land uses … supported by the broader community”. Potential alternatives discussed publicly have included housing, although no formal proposal has been submitted.
Reuters reported in May that DigiCo Infrastructure, an Australian company, was exploring “monetisation options” for its two Los Angeles sites after rowing back on the Monterey Park proposal. DigiCo is also selling its Chicago data center for $750 million to pay down debt and fund the development of another site in Sydney.
DigiCo and HMC Capital did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
Potential local benefits of data centersIndustry lobby groups argue that data centers can provide economic benefits to host communities. According to the US-based Data Center Coalition, which represents major operators and developers, data centers generate tax revenue, support construction and technical jobs, and provide infrastructure needed for cloud computing, scientific research and AI development.
The industry has also challenged claims that data centers necessarily raise electricity costs for households. A recent report by energy consulting firm Energy + Environmental Economics (E3), commissioned by the coalition, found no historical evidence that data centers had driven up residential electricity rates under existing utility pricing structures. It argued that factors including inflation, grid modernization costs, natural gas price volatility and investments in wildfire resilience have played a bigger role in rising electricity bills.
According to E3, large users can, under certain regulatory frameworks, reduce prices for other customers by contributing more revenue to utilities than they cost to serve. In a previous analysis of Amazon data centers, the consultancy found that payments from the facilities exceeded the incremental costs incurred by utilities. The report also noted that regulators across the US have increasingly adopted specialized pricing structures as data center demand has expanded.
An aerial photo shows the Alibaba Zhejiang Cloud Computing Renhe Data Center in Hangzhou, China, on April 11, 2024. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto) An aerial photo shows the Alibaba Zhejiang Cloud Computing Renhe Data Center in Hangzhou, China, on April 11, 2024. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto) Hefty carbon, water and land footprintsThe concerns raised in Monterey Park mirror debates over the environmental and infrastructure demands of AI being heard in many countries around the world, from Europe to North America and Asia.
This month, a UN report estimated that the data centers required for AI globally could consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 – roughly twice France’s 2025 power consumption.
This, it calculated, would have a carbon footprint needing some 6.7 billion trees grown over 10 years to offset, a water footprint equal to the annual domestic needs of 1.3 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a land footprint of more than 14,500 square kilometers, roughly twice the Jakarta metropolitan area.
In a 2026 report, Key Questions on Energy and AI, the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that electricity consumption from AI-focused data centers grew by approximately 50% in 2025 alone.
It warned that “social acceptability is also a growing issue, as communities push back against data center projects”, citing concerns about environmental sustainability, electricity affordability, infrastructure strain and democratic participation in land-use decisions.
Global data center electricity consumption by sensitivity case, 2020-2035
Left axis shows terawatt hours. (IEA: Licence CC BY 4.0) Left axis shows terawatt hours. (IEA: Licence CC BY 4.0)AI-focused facilities consume substantially more electricity than traditional data centers and often require extensive supporting infrastructure, including cooling systems, industrial electrical equipment, backup generators running on diesel and large-scale energy storage systems.
The IEA also noted that operators are increasingly exploring onsite natural gas generation and battery infrastructure to maintain electrical reliability as AI workloads intensify.
Local concern over industrial infrastructureSamuel Brown Vazquez, an East San Gabriel Valley community organizer, said doubts about the proposed data center in Monterey Park were informed by broader debates over industrial development in the area.
Brown cited community opposition to proposals that could bring battery energy storage facilities – and potentially data centers – to the former Puente Hills Mall site in the City of Industry, where residents have raised concerns about pollution, fire risks, and the impacts of new industrial infrastructure on nearby residential neighborhoods and schools.
Many viewed the campaign as part of a larger conversation about how communities should respond to the rapid expansion of AI-related infrastructure across Southern California.
Power-hungry AI data centres seen driving demand for fossil fuels
According to nonprofit Data Center Watch, around $64 billion-worth of data center projects nationwide were delayed or blocked between May 2024 and March 2025 amid increasing local opposition.
Mayor Yang wants Monterey Park’s experience to encourage other communities to take a more active role in decisions about AI-related infrastructure. “We’re hoping other cities can follow similarly in banning data centers with proposed ballot measures,” she said, adding that whether such efforts succeed elsewhere will depend in part on how local officials respond to residents’ concerns.
Materials for the “Yes on Measure NDC” campaign, May, 2026 (Photos: Kristen Mayol) Materials for the “Yes on Measure NDC” campaign, May, 2026 (Photos: Kristen Mayol)The new UN report this month called on governments and companies to address AI’s environmental impacts proactively to ensure that the technology develops sustainably and its benefits are shared fairly.
Kaveh Madani, director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, who led the investigation team for the report, said AI “is a technological transformation that is improving the lives of billions of people around the world”. But, he added, it must be used “responsibly”.
“We have a narrow window to ensure that the backbone of the technological revolution of our era develops within planetary limits, and that the communities who provide the critical minerals for advancing AI and the ones that host its infrastructure and e-waste are also among those who benefit from it,” he said.
This story was developed, reported and produced under the Covering Climate Now (CCNow) Climate Journalism Student Mentorship, which connects USC student journalists with professional newsrooms in CCNow’s global network. Participants receive training, editorial mentorship, and the opportunity to report and publish original climate stories with partner outlets while being paid professional freelance rates.
The post The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI appeared first on Climate Home News.
Bonn Bulletin: Adaptation Fund stalemate puts people at risk, says head
Dark clouds are gathering over adaptation finance. The US has all but stopped providing it and European countries are slashing their aid budgets to spend more on their militaries. Much of what is flowing comes in the form of loans and doesn’t reach the most vulnerable, as we’ve reported.
Over the years, one bright spark has been the Adaptation Fund and its grants to developing countries for pioneering work in communities. It has allocated $1.6 billion to 226 projects, benefiting 90 million people, its website says. And, while rich nations are failing to give the fund all the money it needs to finance its growing pipeline, new revenues are supposed to come in from the Paris Agreement’s new carbon market, known as Article 6.4.
Back at COP26 in Glasgow, governments agreed that the Adaptation Fund should get 5% of the proceeds from all Article 6.4 carbon credits – other than those based in small islands and least developed countries.
How much money that will amount to is uncertain. It depends on how many projects there are and the price of their credits.
The fund got over $200 million from a similar share of proceeds under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), although the price of those credits collapsed.
While $200 million was a disappointment as ten times that was expected, the Adaptation Fund head Mikko Ollikainen told Climate Home News in Bonn that the sum was “not insignificant”. By comparison, the fund has been seeking $300 million per year from donor governments in recent years.
Hopes are that the CDM’s successor will yield bigger sums for adaptation. But for the fund to get its hands on the share of cash it is expecting from Article 6.4 projects , governments need to agree to transition the fund to “exclusively” serve the Paris Agreement. They are hoping to wrap up those talks in Bonn this week, so that they can rubber-stamp the decision early at COP31.
It has not been plain-sailing. As small islands’ lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen told a press conference on Tuesday, this transition “is being blocked, frustrating efforts to replenish the fund and ensure that the crucial adaptation finance can flow to those that need it the most”.
This issue, along with other finance complaints, leads small islands “to question whether the implementation of the NCQG [the 2035 finance goal agreed at COP29] is dead on arrival”, she added.
The problem is related to who is considered a developed country at UN climate talks, with the responsibilities for providing climate finance that designation implies.
Traditional donor countries, which have been pushing for years for some wealthier developing countries like Saudi Arabia and China to contribute to climate finance as well, want the Adaptation Fund’s board seats to be split between “developed” and “developing” countries.
They argue that these are the categories referred to in the Paris Agreement and so are appropriate for a fund that exclusively serves that accord.
Developing countries – which have long opposed any of their members being considered developed – argue that the board seats should continue to be split between “Annex 1” and “non-Annex 1” countries.
These categories, based on lists of nations drawn up in 1992, are more rigid than “developed” and “developing”. While development status can change over time, you’re either on the Annex 1 list or you’re not.
Ollikainen said a delay in agreement beyond COP31 – a risk if the issue is not resolved here in Bonn – would harm people in the real world where adaptation needs are rising sharply while the money to protect them from worsening climate impacts is not.
“If we don’t address adaptation,” the fund’s head told Climate Home News, “that will lead to loss and damage and that’s going to be even more costlier than adaptation – and the cost will be borne by people who have done least to cause this problem who typically don’t have social safety networks to support them.”
The post Bonn Bulletin: Adaptation Fund stalemate puts people at risk, says head appeared first on Climate Home News.
Coral reefs are not doomed – but policy must catch up with the science
Dr. Stacy Jupiter is the Executive Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Global Marine Program. Melissa Wright is Bloomberg Ocean Initiative Lead at Bloomberg Philanthropies.
For years, the dominant story on coral reefs has been one of inevitable loss, with news headlines focusing on mass bleaching, ecosystem collapse, and catastrophic tipping points. As ocean temperatures continue to rise, many people have come to see the decline of the world’s reefs as unavoidable.
The threats are real and urgent, but new evidence points to a more complicated and useful conclusion: some reefs still have a meaningful chance to survive and recover, provided they are protected.
A major new analysis, published today with the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, identifies more than 165,000 square kilometers of coral reefs, across 71 countries and 100 territories and jurisdictions, with the strongest potential to withstand and recover from climate impacts.
Drawing on more than 45,000 coral surveys, along with decades of climate and ocean data, the research finds that three times more reefs may be capable of surviving the climate crisis than previously understood. That has major implications for reef-dependent communities, food security, coastal protection, fisheries, tourism, and national economies.
Essential natural infrastructure for communitiesThe findings make clear that reefs will not all respond to climate impacts in the same way. Some are located in rare underwater cool spots that can help shield them from extreme heat. Some show greater resistance to bleaching and other climate-related stress. Others recover more quickly after severe disturbances. These differences matter because they show where protection can have the greatest long-term impact.
More than 500 million people depend on reefs for food, livelihoods, and coastal protection. For those communities, climate-resilient reefs are not an abstract conservation priority. They are essential natural infrastructure. They help protect coastlines, sustain fisheries, support local economies, and reduce climate risk. Because ocean currents move coral larvae and marine life between reef systems, some of these reefs may also help regenerate wider reef ecosystems after climate shocks.
This should change how governments, funders, and conservation partners prioritize action.
Comment: The ocean, our planet’s forgotten hero, deserves a formal place in UN climate talks
Climate change remains the greatest long-term threat to coral reefs. At the same time, many of the pressures pushing reefs closer to collapse are immediate and local. Sewage pollution, deforestation, agricultural runoff, destructive fishing practices, and poorly managed coastal development continue to damage reefs that are already under stress. Recent research shows that water pollution and fishing pressure are now among the leading local threats affecting nearly two-thirds of the world’s coral reefs.
These pressures can be reduced. Governments and local partners are already working to improve reef management, cut pollution, strengthen enforcement, and protect critical ecosystems. Those efforts need to move faster, alongside much stronger action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Prioritising climate-resilient reefsThe new maps of climate-resilient reefs give governments, communities, and reef managers a clearer basis for action. They show where reefs have the strongest potential to persist over time, and where protection can deliver the greatest benefits for people, coastlines, and economies.
Right now, only around 28 percent of the identified climate-resilient reefs fall within protected or conserved areas. If these reefs are among the most capable of surviving climate impacts and helping regenerate broader reef systems, they should be prioritized for protection, management, and investment.
The case for action is practical as well as ecological. Healthy reefs can reduce wave energy by up to 97 percent, helping protect coastlines from storms, flooding, and erosion. They support fisheries that feed millions of people, sustain tourism jobs and local economies, and help reduce climate risk for vulnerable coastal communities.
For many families, a healthy reef means food, income, and protection when storms hit. For Indigenous Peoples and coastal communities, reefs are also tied to culture, heritage, identity, and traditional knowledge systems.
Ocean conservation must catch upGovernments are beginning to recognize the urgency of protecting climate-resilient reefs. At last year’s UN Ocean Conference in Nice, 11 countries signed a declaration committing to stronger protection of these reefs, including action to address destructive fishing, pollution, and unsustainable coastal development.
As leaders meet in Kenya this week to discuss the challenges facing the world’s ocean, more governments should join the declaration and help build a broader coalition committed to safeguarding these critical ecosystems.
As coral reefs pass tipping point, ocean protection rises up political agenda
Some countries are already showing what this leadership can look like. Brazil has included corals in its national climate plans. The Bahamas is embedding reef protection into national policy and local stewardship systems. The declaration offers a way to build on these efforts and scale them globally.
But commitments will not be enough. Success will depend on implementation. That means stronger protection and management, reduced local pressures, increased investment, and meaningful support for the Indigenous Peoples and local communities stewarding these ecosystems.
The science is clear. Many reefs still have the capacity to persist and recover. The question is whether policy and investment will move quickly enough to protect them, so they can continue sustaining communities, economies, and coastlines for generations to come.
The post Coral reefs are not doomed – but policy must catch up with the science appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN’s first Paris Agreement carbon credits face human rights and climate concerns
Civil society groups have called for an investigation into the first carbon credits approved under a new UN mechanism, alleging the project is linked to Myanmar’s military junta – which the UN says is guilty of human rights abuses – and has “massively” overstated its climate impact.
The programme, which aims to cut emissions by distributing efficient cookstoves across Myanmar, received approval to issue around 650,000 carbon credits from the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body in February, in a landmark moment for the Paris Agreement’s carbon market. Only two projects have been given the green light by the mechanism’s regulator so far.
But two reports published last week, led by the Global Forest Coalition and Brussels-based NGO Carbon Market Watch, raised serious concerns about the project’s implementation in conflict zones where civilians have faced airstrikes and mass displacement as well as its emission-reduction calculations.
Project continued after military coupMyanmar has been ravaged by a brutal civil war since the country’s military overthrew the democratically elected government in a coup d’état in February 2021. The military regime has attacked civilian populations, persecuted ethnic minorities and committed widespread sexual violence, among other serious human rights violations, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar said in April.
The cookstove programme started in 2018 under the previous UN-run carbon offsetting scheme – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – as a partnership between Myanmar’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC) and the Climate Change Center (CCC), a South Korean NGO, with investment from private South Korean firms.
The project continued operating after the coup. For most of the period between 2021 and 2022 in which the issued credits were generated, MONREC was led by Colonel Khin Maung Yi, who was sanctioned by the European Union in 2021 for supporting the military regime, the Global Forest Coalition report said.
CCC acknowledged engaging with government authorities after the coup but said this “should not be interpreted as political endorsement” of the junta. The South Korean NGO added that abandoning the programme when political circumstances changed “would not necessarily have been the most responsible outcome for the households involved”.
Conflict prevents on the ground verificationThe Global Forest Coalition report raised particular concerns about the project’s implementation in Myanmar’s central Dry Zone, including Sagaing Region, an anti-junta resistance stronghold that has been most heavily affected by the conflict and routinely targeted by airstrikes and violent attacks. The region accounts for more than a third of Myanmar’s 3.8 million internally displaced people.
The NGOs said that, in addition to ethical concerns about carbon credits being produced by the military government in an area actively affected by its attacks, this raises questions over the ability to effectively verify the climate integrity of the projects.
TAK, THAILAND – JANUARY 01: Internally displaced people (IDP) from Myanmar carrying bags of donated supplies from Thailand while crossing the Moei river as seen from behind a fence with razor wire on the river bank in Mae Sot, a district at the Thai-Myanmar border on new year on January 1, 2022 in Tak, Thailand. (Photo by Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Getty Images) TAK, THAILAND – JANUARY 01: Internally displaced people (IDP) from Myanmar carrying bags of donated supplies from Thailand while crossing the Moei river as seen from behind a fence with razor wire on the river bank in Mae Sot, a district at the Thai-Myanmar border on new year on January 1, 2022 in Tak, Thailand. (Photo by Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Getty Images)Before carbon credits are issued, external auditors need to validate the claims made by project developers and confirm that the emission reductions claimed are correct. This process usually includes site visits to a representative sample of households to check how the improved cookstoves are being used.
But, because of the “volatile political situation” in Myanmar, the auditing team was not able to leave the capital Yangon and could only speak to project participants remotely via Zoom, project documents show.
“Due to ongoing armed conflict on the ground, the data currently used to justify carbon credit issuance in Sagaing by the Burmese military junta is unverifiable and highly likely fraudulent,” said Zaw Tuseng, founder and president of the Myanmar Policy Institute, which contributed to the report, in a written statement. “This demands an immediate suspension of credit transfers until a neutral, conflict-sensitive audit can be conducted.”
“Exceptional circumstances”CCC told Climate Home News that, although it recognises that on-site verification is “generally preferable, particularly in complex operating environments”, the decision to opt for remote controls was not taken “as a discretionary shortcut, but as an approved alternative under exceptional circumstances”.
The South Korean NGO added that it reviewed the feasibility of the project at community level “on an ongoing basis” and it “did not identify conflict-related incidents that directly affected project implementation activities in participating communities during the monitoring period”.
A spokesperson for the UN climate change body told Climate Home News that, when site access is not possible, the UN carbon credit mechanism allows for “alternative verification approaches while still maintaining conservative assumptions and environmental integrity safeguards”. “These provisions ensure that crediting can only proceed where evidence is reliable,” they added.
Contested methodologyCarbon markets are seen as an important channel to raise money to help low-income communities in developing countries switch to less polluting cooking methods, both reducing CO2 emissions and improving air quality. But several cookstove offsetting projects have faced criticism from researchers and campaigners who argue that climate benefits are often exaggerated and weak monitoring can undermine claims of real emission reductions.
The project in Myanmar uses a contested methodology developed under the earlier Kyoto Protocol that was rejected last year by The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), a watchdog that issues quality labels to carbon credit types, because it found it “insufficiently rigorous”.
EU carbon credits could supercharge world’s clean cooking push, France says
After transitioning from the CDM to the new mechanism, the project was required to apply “more conservative” assumptions to calculate emission reductions, which resulted in 40% fewer credits being issued, according to the UN climate change body.
“The result is consistent with environmental integrity requirements and ensures that each credited tonne genuinely represents a tonne reduced and contributes to the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body, which oversees the mechanism, said in February.
Too many credits issuedBut Carbon Market Watch claimed in a second report last week that, despite the adjustment, the project is still likely to issue seven times more credits than its real climate impact justifies, comparing its calculations with values from peer-reviewed scientific literature.
The biggest driver of the credit inflation, the group said, is the failure to account for “stacking” – the widespread practice of households using multiple stoves at the same time, including more polluting ones the project does not monitor.
Peer-reviewed science considers a stacking rate of 68% a conservative assumption, but the methodology used by the Myanmar programme makes no allowance for it at all, the report said.
CCC disputed those findings. In a written response to Climate Home News, it said the project was developed under methodologies approved within the UN climate framework and that external recalculations by researchers are not “determinative of the level of crediting achieved”.
The credits are expected to be used primarily by major South Korean polluters to meet obligations under the country’s emissions trading system – a move that will also enable the government to count those units toward emissions reduction targets in its nationally determined contribution (NDC), the UN climate body told Climate Home News.
Myanmar will use the remaining credits to achieve in part the goals of its own national climate plan under the Paris Agreement.
“Over-crediting, at any magnitude, cannot be compatible with the climate ambition of a world striving to limit global warming to 1.5ºC,” said Isa Mulder, an expert at Carbon Market Watch.
The post UN’s first Paris Agreement carbon credits face human rights and climate concerns appeared first on Climate Home News.
Bonn Bulletin: Ministry divisions complicate Brazil’s roadmap away from fossil fuels
In a packed room last Friday, the COP30 Presidency presented preliminary elements of the work on the global roadmap for the transition away from fossil fuels and some European and small island governments argued the roadmap should be integrated into the formal negotiation process. But besides the global work, how is Brazil’s national roadmap coming along?
“The presidential order [by Lula at COP30] was that the ministries of environment, finance and energy should work together,” Flávia Bellaguarda, extraordinary advisor to Brazil’s environment ministry, told Climate Home News in Bonn.
“We do have different points of view about what the roadmap means. We have to face our contradictions and bring them to the table because the roadmap is about energy security, economic security, social security,” she said, adding that “we have reached a common place of the guidelines of what must be addressed on the roadmap”.
Those guidelines—that Bellaguarda couldn’t share yet—are now under revision by the Brazilian presidency and then will be analysed by the National Energy Policy Council (CNPE). After those revisions, the three ministries will begin working on the roadmap itself and its governance. That work will include consultations with different stakeholders, including representatives of the energy sector and civil society organisations.
The Brazilian government still prefers not to give dates for these next steps because “they do not expect it to be something quick,” but rather to respect the steps and time that the process requires.
Roadmaps to transition away from fossil fuels are, at least for now, voluntary for each country. “There is no right and wrong on how to do the roadmap. Countries know what is best for each reality,” said Bellaguarda, encouraging countries to advance on their national roadmaps alongside the global one. “It’s not easy to address the issue nationally, but it’s totally necessary.”
The post Bonn Bulletin: Ministry divisions complicate Brazil’s roadmap away from fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.
European, island states seek clear future for global roadmap to cut fossil fuels
The global roadmap on transitioning away from fossil fuels now being developed should be a “continuing conversation” which is part of UN climate talks, not just a one-off report, several governments told the Brazilian COP30 Presidency on Friday in Bonn.
During a 90-minute exchange of views at the annual mid-year climate talks in Germany, several European governments and the Marshall Islands said the roadmap that Brazil is due to finish by November should be incorporated into the official negotiations.
Any such push is likely to be resisted by nations whose economies are reliant on fossil fuel production. While Russia did not speak on Friday, it has said in earlier written submissions that the roadmap should not be referenced in any document approved by governments at UN climate talks.
At COP30 last year, Brazil tried to get governments to agree to produce a roadmap on how to transition away from fossil fuels but the proposal did not win consensus, with major nations like Saudi Arabia and Russia opposed.
Feedback in BonnTo save the day, Brazil’s COP30 president André Aranha Corrêa do Lago promised at the closing plenary in Belem to draw up a voluntary roadmap in consultation with interested governments. Over 20 countries have officially submitted their opinions on this roadmap and, in Bonn on Friday, Corrêa do Lago sought their views – and those of civil society – in person after the presidency presented its findings so far.
The roadmap will also incorporate outcomes from the first global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels held in Santa Marta, Colombia, in April and attended by around 60 countries.
A negotiator for the Marshall Islands told Friday’s meeting that at COP31 this year all governments should “welcome the collaborative effort behind the roadmap and the Santa Marta conference and for this work to be taken on to COP32 and beyond”.
A spokesperson for Switzerland said on behalf of a group of nations which includes South Korea and Mexico that the roadmap must be a “sustained process, not a one-off report” and “we would welcome an ongoing platform for dialogue, for learning and cooperation including among fossil-fuel production countries”.
“We expect more than a document, rather a process whereby we come together to develop concrete steps, recommendations and tools to prepare for the transitions,” she said, calling on the COP31 co-presidents Australia and Turkiye and COP32 host Ethiopia to “take up the leadership” for implementing the roadmap”.
Global stocktake responseFrance’s negotiator said the roadmap “is a process and we will need continuing discussions” as “implementation needs time”, while the UK called for a “continuing conversation, including as we head towards the second [global stocktake]”.
The global stocktake (GST) is an official five-yearly report into how the world’s governments are doing on their Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The second stocktake will be published in 2028 and governments are likely to negotiate a response to it, which could include new commitments to reduce emissions, at COP33 that year. The response to the first global stocktake included the landmark COP28 commitment to transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems.
Activists and Indigenous people take part in a Stop EACOP campaign protest against fossil fuels during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belem, Brazil, November 13, 2025. REUTERS/Adriano Machado Activists and Indigenous people take part in a Stop EACOP campaign protest against fossil fuels during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belem, Brazil, November 13, 2025. REUTERS/Adriano Machado“Even though it’s not a formal part of the negotiation agenda, the roadmap can be a key input for the entire information-gathering phase of the second GST,” Enrique Maurtua Konstantinidis, an independent climate policy consultant, explained to Climate Home News.
“The key is for countries not to focus the discussion on defending the roadmap itself, but rather on its content, which is what truly matters,” he added.
At the Bonn event, civil society organisations also supported continuing the roadmap inside the formal climate process.
Natalie Jones, policy adviser for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, told Climate Home News the roadmap should be “an ongoing dialogue where countries can exchange their experiences, best practices and continue implementing the [transitioning away from fossil fuels] consensus”.
Russian resistanceBut economies reliant on fossil fuel production are likely to oppose incorporating the roadmap into negotiations in Bonn and at COP summits. Russia’s written submission to Brazil’s consultation says the roadmap was not agreed by governments at COP30.
It says such work should therefore take place on the margins of the UNFCCC process, adding that “ the inclusion of any references to the “Roadmap” in the agenda or in official or informal documents” at Bonn or COP “would constitute a deviation from previously agreed consensus outcomes”.
Other major oil and gas producers like Saudi Arabia have not made written or spoken submissions and the US, as it has left the Paris Agreement, is not involved in discussions. But countries other than Russia are likely to resist incorporating the roadmap into official talks.
The UN climate process needs ambition – the law demands it
The submission by Japan, which is not a major producer of fossil fuels but consumes them from overseas, suggests nervousness about the roadmap. It asks Brazil for clarity on how the roadmap is “envisaged to be utilised” and argues that as many countries continue to rely on fossil fuels for electricity, a full and fast shift to “full decarbonisation” is “challenging.
After Friday’s event, Corrêa do Lago told Climate Home News that “the suggestions and the key milestones of the roadmap are not clear yet”. He added that the next step for the COP30 presidency will be to “sit down in July and August to really prepare” the content.
The veteran Brazilian diplomat added that the roadmap will have a section on the challenges of the transition and another section on solutions.
National fossil fuel roadmapsBrazil, as COP30 president, is drawing up the global roadmap but its leader Lula da Silva has also ordered his officials to draw up a national roadmap.
In April, France became the first and so far only nation to produce a roadmap, which amalgamated different existing energy and decarbonisation plans and targets. Colombia is reportedly drawing up a roadmap too, based on a draft document by academics.
On Friday, a coalition of nearly 100 civil society organisations called on the COP31 co-presidents Australia and Türkiye to both come up with national roadmaps in order to “lead by example”. Türkiye produces about a third of its electricity from coal, while Australia is the world’s third-largest fossil fuel exporter, the NGOs said.
But in the Brazil-led consultation meeting, a Norwegian negotiator downplayed the importance of separate national roadmaps for transitioning away from fossil fuels.
While they can “have a supporting role”, the official said countries’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs) “must remain the primary vehicle for driving global climate transition.”
NDCs are climate plans, usually containing emissions reduction targets, which the Paris Agreement states governments must update with higher ambition every five years.
The post European, island states seek clear future for global roadmap to cut fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.
Climate adaptation helps African nations tackle rising conflict over resources
Somali farmers and herders battered by droughts, floods and decades of conflict are starting to get help in the form of climate-smart crops and animals, new wells and restoration of barren landscapes to boost their resilience in a warming world.
Some of this support is being provided under Ugbaad, the Somali name for a new project meaning “fresh sprouting pasture”. Backed by an $80-million grant from the UN’s Green Climate Fund, it is enabling farmers to earn a more reliable living as climate shocks intensify. The project is also reducing conflict tensions among communities, according to a government representative.
Abdiaziz Ibrahim Aden, adaptation and resilience lead at Somalia’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, said farmers who lost their land to floods and erosion have been able to rehabilitate it and plant crops like banana and sesame for export. “Their productivity is increasing now,” he told Climate Home News.
He said the project, which aims to benefit over 2 million people in total, has made young people less vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups. Beyond improved water access for pastoralists, the initiative also includes ways to disseminate timely climate information to communities and build government capacity to keep land and ecosystems in better shape.
Nonetheless, Somalia remains one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, with millions of its people facing food insecurity, displacement and recurring climate disasters.
People queue to fill containers with water near displacement camps for people impacted by severe drought on September 3, 2022 in Baidoa, Somalia. (Photo: Ed Ram/Getty Images) People queue to fill containers with water near displacement camps for people impacted by severe drought on September 3, 2022 in Baidoa, Somalia. (Photo: Ed Ram/Getty Images)Poor rains and major aid shortfalls have forced critical food and nutrition programmes to close, worsening hunger. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global system used to measure hunger crises, has warned that nearly 2 million Somali children could face acute malnutrition this year.
Climate change – a threat multiplierSomalia’s economy hinges on agriculture and repeated climate shocks continue to inflame tensions related to farming and food production. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), every two in three conflicts in the country stems from competition over natural resources.
During drought periods, disputes often flare up among neighbouring communities over scarce water sources as herders move with their livestock in search of boreholes, Haji said.
Clashes can quickly escalate in Somalia where many herders carry guns for protection, he added. “If two people meet at the water borehole and they fight over that area, then the war prolongs and extends from that zone to other zones,” he explained.
Aid agencies grapple with climate adaptation in fragile states
Somalia is not alone. Across conflict-affected parts of Africa, climate change is fast becoming more than just an environmental challenge. From the shrinking of Lake Chad in the Sahel region to devastating floods in South Sudan and prolonged droughts across the Horn of Africa, stronger climate impacts are intensifying competition to maintain livelihoods in regions already struggling with weak governance, displacement and insecurity.
Alec Crawford, director of nature for resilience at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), described climate change as a “threat multiplier” that worsens already existing social and economic tensions. “It is a contributing factor to violence and instability and conflict, but it’s not the sole driver,” he emphasised.
Fragile states coordinate peacebuilding and adaptationThe growing overlap between climate vulnerability and insecurity is forcing governments and development agencies to rethink adaptation efforts. This was evident at a recent conference in Nigeria that brought together conflict-affected African countries including Burkina Faso, Somalia, Mali, South Sudan, Cameroon, Central African Republic and Chad.
At the event, governments explored how peacebuilding can be integrated with their national climate adaptation plans, helping prevent conflict in communities facing mounting pressure over fertile land, water and other natural resources.
For many of these countries, none of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals will be achieved until peace and security are in place, Crawford said. They are currently trapped in a vicious cycle. “Some of these climate impacts are potentially worsening the conflict dynamics, while at the same time conflict is really getting in the way of reducing vulnerabilities and adapting to climate change,” he explained.
Politically fragile countries are increasingly looking for solutions to reduce the tensions within their borders that are preventing them from tackling climate change impacts. At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai in 2023, governments and aid agencies issued a joint call for “bolder collective action to build climate resilience at the scale and speed required in highly vulnerable countries and communities”.
Crawford said many fragile states are overstretched and under-resourced because of conflict. He pointed to South Sudan as an example of a country simultaneously trying to house displaced people, rebuild schools and clinics, and restore basic infrastructure after war, making climate adaptation difficult to prioritise. However, ignoring climate risks could undermine any progress such countries manage to make, he warned.
UN adaptation metrics exclude conflictAnother thorny problem is finding ways to track progress on climate adaptation in conflict-affected states. A set of indicators to measure how countries are doing in their efforts to implement the Paris Agreement’s Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), finally agreed 10 years later at COP30 in Brazil, deliberately left out metrics relating to peace and conflict.
Katharina Schmidt, policy advisor at the NAP Global Network, a global initiative coordinated by IISD to help developing countries advance their climate adaptation planning, pointed to longstanding reluctance to formally integrate peace and conflict issues into core UN climate frameworks. This, she said, is partly because some countries want climate finance to stay separate from funding for peacebuilding and development.
However, Schmidt said the absence of specific indicators in the GGA framework does not mean adaptation in fragile and conflict-affected states is being ignored. “Everybody agrees that there needs to be adaptation in [these] states,” she said, even if it is “often not reflected prominently in these negotiation documents”.
New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance
This is why the NAP Global Network, which organised the recent conference in Abuja, is trying to strengthen coordination and peer learning among conflict-affected countries, helping them overcome some of the barriers that make adaptation planning difficult.
Many lack the climate data and infrastructure needed to understand and respond to climate risks, in some cases because conflicts destroy weather stations and disrupt climate monitoring systems, Crawford said. To fill these gaps, the network is helping countries tap into existing global systems and open-source data platforms.
Bridging the gap through the NAP processFor over a decade, the process for putting together National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), established under the UN climate framework in 2010, has helped countries identify climate vulnerabilities, integrate adaptation into long-term development planning and strengthen resilience to climate impacts.
Crawford, who also works with the NAP Global Network, said one core pillar is to strengthen governments’ capacity to plan and implement adaptation measures across ministries.
As part of its NAP process, Somalia conducted vulnerability assessments in several states and regions, helping the government understand how climate impacts, risks and adaptation needs vary across the country, according to government official Aden. This also revealed previously undocumented challenges facing different communities, from drought and water scarcity to coastal threats and land degradation.
“The NAP project helped Somalia identify some cases that were not known before,” he said, adding that it allowed the government to plan its budget to meet differing regional needs.
In May 2026, Nigeria brought together African government representatives for a dialogue on strengthening national responses to their unique climate change vulnerabilities and risks, and identifying adaptation measures that reduce conflict and actively promote peace. (Photos: Jeremiah Ekpo) In May 2026, Nigeria brought together African government representatives for a dialogue on strengthening national responses to their unique climate change vulnerabilities and risks, and identifying adaptation measures that reduce conflict and actively promote peace. (Photos: Jeremiah Ekpo)More than 6,000 kilometres away, the Liberian government, through its NAP process, is also identifying potential sources of tension around land rights, tenure and resource distribution, particularly as people fleeing conflict in Burkina Faso cross into Liberia through Ivory Coast.
Arthur Becker, Liberia’s NAP coordinator, said Liberia’s ongoing NAP review process will incorporate peacebuilding considerations that were largely absent from its current 2020-2030 adaptation plan.
The NAP process aims to help countries move beyond short-term responses to climate disasters, Crawford said.
“It’s really about looking to the medium and long term and saying, this is how the climate is changing within our country, this is going to have fundamental impacts on our development trajectory – how do we put adaptation to climate change at the heart of that development trajectory?”
Nigeria addresses conflict and climate risks togetherNigeria, which is already grappling with multiple security challenges linked to resource competition and environmental pressures, is also integrating peacebuilding into its NAP.
A climate risk and vulnerability assessment found that factors such as drought and desertification across northern Nigeria have made food less available and encouraged criminality and banditry. Down south, sea level rise, coastal erosion and flooding are destroying livelihoods and property and displacing people. Those impacts are increasingly fuelling tensions between communities and driving protests over environmental injustice.
Nigeria’s deadly flood exposes urgent need for climate adaptation plan
Kayode Aboyeji, Nigeria’s NAP coordinator, said it was in the course of the NAP process that “we realised that some of the conflicts in Nigeria are not just politically driven but that environmental issues, demand for natural resources, [and the] threat of climate change are some of the triggers.”
He said Nigeria has now integrated conflict sensitivity and peacebuilding into its NAP – which has yet to be formally approved and published – recognising the need for climate responses that do not worsen existing tensions. It is also raising awareness among key actors, including the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, around the importance of adopting conflict-sensitive approaches to climate adaptation.
In addition, Nigeria has developed adaptation strategies tailored to each of its geopolitical zones, which local authorities can use to better address climate-related challenges in their regions.
Finance a major barrier to implementationWhile countries are increasingly integrating peacebuilding into their climate adaptation planning, financing such work on the ground remains a major challenge, especially for fragile African states already grappling with insecurity, debt and weak public finances.
Nigeria’s Aboyeji said the country’s NAP requires resources to roll it out across the country. While the government is looking to development bodies, philanthropies and the private sector for support, it is also exploring domestic financing mechanisms such as green bonds and budget appropriations to help fund implementation.
For countries like South Sudan – where ongoing instability continues to undermine the government’s ability to finance adaptation measures – the struggle is even more pronounced. Peter Jonglei Kureng, acting deputy director for its Budget Policy Directorate, said the government tries to include adaptation in national budgets, but implementation often stalls because the promised funds are never released.
“We can budget for it, but when it’s time for execution, there is no money,” he said.
Can climate funders overcome fear to tread in conflict zones?
Liberia faces similar constraints. Becker said adaptation interventions are expensive, and the country is committing domestic resources to climate action even while expecting the bulk of financing to come from international partners.
The financing gap remains one of the biggest hurdles to adaptation efforts. New OECD data shows that wealthy nations are likely to have missed their 2025 goal of doubling adaptation finance for developing countries, with funding reaching just under $35 billion in 2024 – far below estimated needs.
While international support remains non-negotiable and should be increased, especially for fragile countries, Crawford said they cannot rely solely on external funding, especially as many donors are cutting their overseas development assistance.
Governments will also need to explore how to harness more domestic resources, while recognising the role private-sector actors can play, he added.
“Advocating for more of that financing flowing into adaptation is going to be crucial, because after all the work that goes into NAPs, it’s essential that they turn into concrete measures and don’t just gather dust on a shelf,” he said.
The post Climate adaptation helps African nations tackle rising conflict over resources appeared first on Climate Home News.
Fewer journalists register for Bonn talks, as cuts to climate reporting bite
The number of journalists registered to attend the annual climate negotiations in Bonn has declined this year, as climate reporters have been let go and media coverage of climate issues falls around the world.
Data from UN Climate Change, which runs the two weeks of talks, shows that just 135 media representatives have signed up to attend. Climate Home News analysis of previous data shows this is the lowest figure since 2021, when COVID-19 restrictions limited travel and the Bonn talks were held in a hybrid format to enable online participation.
The number of journalists that actually attend the talks will not be known until later this month but is typically significantly less than are registered. Press conferences, held back-to-back each day by campaign groups, have been sparsely attended in the first few days and often filled mainly with climate campaigners and researchers rather than journalists.
Alexandra Endres, a reporter for German-language website Table Briefings, told Climate Home News in Bonn there are fewer German journalists covering the conference in-person. “I think it is important to have more journalists covering the negotiations because when the climate coverage increases, the interest of the public grows,” she said.
Media outlets that have registered fewer journalists than previous years, or no journalists, include global heavyweights like Reuters, Bloomberg and the BBC, as well as German outlets like Deutsche Welle and ZDF television, and specialist publications like business information service Argus and climate broadcaster We Don’t Have Time.
Activist Harjeet Singh, who is in Bonn advising the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, said that “the empty press seats here in Bonn are a warning signal. While the world’s gaze is often fixed on the annual COP summits, the real-world consequences of the climate crisis—from financing the fossil fuel transition to protecting vulnerable populations—are being shaped, or ignored, in these mid-year negotiations right now.”
“Journalists are the essential eyes and ears of the public,” he said. “We need them to shine a light on these rooms: hold negotiators accountable, defend the principles of equity and historical responsibility, and ensure that ‘technical’ negotiations do not become an excuse for delay.”
UN Climate Change said they could not comment on the situation at this point in the Bonn talks.
Climate coverage is fallingOutside of Bonn and the official UN climate negotiations, coverage of climate change is falling to lows not seen since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to analysis of newspapers and television reporting conducted by the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MECCO).
MECCO’s head Max Boykoff told Climate Home News that climate coverage in the first five months of 2025 was 35% down on the same period of 2025 and 41% less than in 2021. New analysis by the Yale Programme on Climate Change Communication found a similar fall in climate coverage in 2026.
Boykoff said media attention has been drawn away from climate change to issues like the Iran war and now the World Cup getting underway in North America.
While both stories have climate implications, he said, the media have “failed to connect the dots” on the conflict in the Middle East, with coverage focusing on the politics, air strikes and violence of the war. “Reporters have been pulling up short,” he said.
He added that since 2025 there have been cuts to climate teams at US outlets like the Washington Post, CBS, National Public Radio and the Los Angeles Times. On top of this, the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Context website has been shut down and Politico recently folded specialist environmental outlet E&E News into its broader energy coverage.
Mark Hertsgaard, head of global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now, also said that fewer reporters at Bonn is “part of a larger pattern”. He said no US television network sent reporters to the recent Santa Marta conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels “and as a result they missed covering what turned out to be a landmark development in the climate story”.
“No one can know if the Bonn talks will yield something similar until the [they] actually take place and conclude. But the fewer journalists that are on the scene, the less the world’s people and policymakers will know about that. And that’s a problem,” he said.
Media may also have been put off from attending by a new registration system which is more complicated, especially for freelance journalists. In addition, the rise in jet fuel prices has made travelling by plane to Bonn much more expensive than last year and reporters from many developing countries continue to face hurdles getting visas to enter the Schengen area, of which Germany is part.
Diego Arguedas Ortiz, who led the Oxford Climate Journalism Network from 2022 until it was shut down by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in 2025, said journalists can’t cover the talks so well remotely.
While press conferences, plenaries and open negotiating sessions are broadcast for the public to watch on the UNFCCC’s website, Ortiz said relying solely on this means “you miss the interviews in the hall”.
“You can´t catch scientists and ministers as they leave the rooms. And the audience is back home suffering. Because audiences are relying on reporters and editors to explain how these seemingly abstract negotiations have daily implications for them,” he explained.
The post Fewer journalists register for Bonn talks, as cuts to climate reporting bite appeared first on Climate Home News.
WHO issues new guidance on heat-health action plans, as El Niño sets in
The World Health Organization (WHO) has unveiled new guidance for governments seeking to protect people from extreme heat, a growing priority as climate change pushes temperatures higher worldwide and intensifies heatwaves and related health risks.
The launch came as the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday that El Niño has developed in the tropical Pacific. The climate phenomenon – which occurs naturally every few years – is predicted to intensify to a moderate or strong level this autumn, the service said.
Scientists have warned that a strong El Niño weather pattern could fuel “unprecedented” weather extremes in the coming months, including severe fires and droughts, and may make 2027 the next record-breaking hot year as it supercharges human-driven warming.
Scientists warn El Niño could intensify climate extremes in 2026
Unveiling updated recommendations for “Heat-Health Action Plans”, which are tailored for Europe but can be adapted globally, Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, said that over the past four years, heat has claimed more than 200,000 lives across 32 European countries.
He added that most of those deaths were “entirely preventable” and are “just the tip of the iceberg”, with millions more people being affected physically and mentally by the effects of extreme heat. Scientists have said Europe is the fastest-warming continent.
“Individual action, such as keeping out of the heat, keeping our homes cool and keeping our bodies hydrated, can make a big difference in protecting us, but it is not enough to fight a systemic crisis,” Kluge said in a statement. “We need a coordinated, powerful and institutional response.”
The new guidance focuses on the importance of providing early warning and alerts, targeting help for vulnerable groups and putting in place longer-term prevention measures across households and buildings, especially in cities, which are often hotter than rural areas. It also offers practical advice on how to do those things.
Who’s most vulnerable to heat?Heat can trigger exhaustion and heat stroke, and exacerbate existing medical conditions, including diabetes and cardiovascular, respiratory and cerebrovascular diseases, as well as disrupting sleep and aggravating mental health conditions.
In a fact-sheet, the WHO warned that rising global temperatures, more people living in cities and demographic aging are increasing exposure to heat and vulnerability to its impacts. Some of the most at-risk groups include older people, children, outdoor workers, athletes and sports players, those attending mass public gatherings and poorer social groups, it said.
Employers need plans to protect workers from rising heat stress, UN says
The WHO emphasised, however, that it does not just propose wider use of air-conditioning (AC) as the solution because it is not sustainable, is often unaffordable for those with low incomes and increases energy demand.
“It contributes to both the urban heat island effect and climate change, thus worsening heat exposures in the medium and long term,” the fact-sheet said.
Europe’s intense May heatwaveOn Wednesday, Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced that May 2026 was the second warmest May on record globally across land and sea.
Across Europe, the month saw a rapid transition from much cooler-than-average conditions to one of the most intense heatwaves ever observed this early in the year in western Europe, C3S said. Numerous temperature records were broken for May with France, the UK, Ireland and Portugal enduring particularly severe conditions, it added.
C3S noted that the quick flip to a period of extreme heat “likely increased impacts on populations, leaving little time for people – or crops and ecosystems during growing season – to acclimatise to much higher temperatures”.
“Prepare for rougher times”In a foreword to the new WHO heat plan guidance, Wopke Hoekstra, European Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth, wrote that extreme heat is responsible for some 95% of all climate-related deaths in Europe, undermines labour productivity and risks overwhelming hospitals.
He noted that investing in emission reductions is far cheaper than paying for climate damage.
“Yet, while we push for emission reductions, we must also prepare for rougher times. Strengthening Europe’s climate resilience, protecting both well-being and economies, is non-negotiable,” he added.
By the end of this year, the European Union plans to adopt a new framework for climate resilience across all sectors, including health.
A woman cools herself with an electric portable fan during a heatwave, in London, Britain, August 12, 2025. (Photo: REUTERS/Jack Taylor) A woman cools herself with an electric portable fan during a heatwave, in London, Britain, August 12, 2025. (Photo: REUTERS/Jack Taylor)In the UK, the independent Climate Change Committee warned last month that, in a projected scenario of 2C of global warming by 2050, recent record hot summers will become the “new normal” in the usually temperate country, putting regular stress on domestic agricultural production.
Heatwaves lasting at least a week will be common and could regularly exceed 40C in the south, the committee’s report on adaptation said, posing challenges for keeping vulnerable people sufficiently cool.
It recommended that cooling will be needed in hospitals, prisons, schools and care homes, while regulation should set maximum temperature limits for workplaces.
Berlin’s Heat-Health Action PlanOn Thursday, the WHO said that since the publication of the first edition of its heat and health guidance in 2008, far more scientific evidence and practical experience have been gained. Many countries have since established Heat-Health Action Plans, but their adoption and implementation have been uneven, it said.
Comment: Early warnings for heatwaves can save lives – and we need them now
In Germany, where local authorities are primarily responsible for heat protection, the Berlin Senate adopted a state-wide heat–health action plan in 2025. It contains 72 measures to improve heat protection for residents, including informing them every summer of the risks via traditional and digital media.
A heat protection portal offers access to Berlin’s heat–health action plan, and a map of cool places in the city, as well as behavioural advice.
Berlin Senator Ina Czyborra said the city is also working on the long-term maintenance and expansion of parks, green spaces and water bodies, which can all help alleviate the effects of heat.
“One thing is clear: protection from heat is a cross-cutting task that can only be tackled through a joint effort by all administrative departments and levels, and with the involvement of civil society actors,” she added in a statement.
The post WHO issues new guidance on heat-health action plans, as El Niño sets in appeared first on Climate Home News.
The Pacific made history in the courts – now we must do it in the negotiations
Vishal Prasad is director of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change.
When the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its advisory opinion on climate change last year, it marked a turning point not just for the Pacific, but for international climate law.
The court was unambiguous: states have legal obligations to protect the environment from greenhouse gas emissions, and they face accountability when they fail. For those of us who carried this campaign from a classroom in Vanuatu to Europe and New York, it was a moment of profound validation.
World’s top court opens door to compensation from countries responsible for climate crisis
But we have always said that the advisory opinion was a tool, not an endpoint. The ICJ affirmed what many in the Pacific have been saying for some time. Now we have a legal blueprint, we must carry this momentum from the courtrooms to the negotiating rooms.
Potential to shape climate politicsThe advisory opinion has already begun to reshape the climate landscape. At COP30 in Belém, we saw countries that had supported the campaign citing the opinion in their interventions, while those blocking progress were clearly concerned of its implications. Its potential to shape climate politics and policy is significant.
This year we have arrived at the mid-year climate negotiations in Bonn not only with the advisory opinion, but with a UN General Assembly resolution endorsing it. Despite a fierce campaign from the usual suspects, just eight countries, including the USA, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran voted against. That is a victory for multilateralism at a moment when multilateralism is under strain.
UN General Assembly backs “climate obligations” set by world’s top court
But we know that advisory opinions alone are not enough. Legal clarity will not automatically translate into reduced emissions, increased finance flows or stronger national climate plans. That translation requires political will in the negotiating rooms, both here in Bonn and all the way through Fiji and finally in Antalya this November.
What the Pacific needs from this negotiating yearThe Pacific put significant political capital into the joint Australia-Pacific bid for COP31. It is fair to say that the compromise of Australia holding the role of president of negotiations while the COP is held and presided over by Türkiye is not what we imagined.
But we in the Pacific are used to looking for silver linings. Both Australia and Türkiye have acknowledged the important role the Pacific will have at COP31, through the appointment of Pacific champions and the hosting of a Pacific Pre-COP in Fiji with a leaders event in Tuvalu. These are genuine opportunities to bring the world to our shores and ensure that Pacific issues are front and centre going into the final negotiations.
But we are not naive. Envoy positions and meeting locations are just the architecture of goodwill. We need to see that goodwill converted into concrete negotiating outcomes and finance.
COP31 leaders unveil global targets, with spotlight on electrification
The Pacific helped put Australia’s climate minister Chris Bowen in this important position, so we expect to see Australia advocate not only for us, but to turn a mirror towards itself as one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel exporters.
At Bonn, and then in Antalya, we need ambition on mitigation that reflects the ICJ’s clarity on state obligations and the science. That means action on fossil fuels.
We need climate finance that is new, additional and accessible to the countries that need it most. In the Pacific we have already demonstrated what that looks like.
The Pacific Resilience Facility is the first climate finance facility designed, governed and managed by Pacific people, built specifically to reach the grassroots and community initiatives that larger funds routinely bypass. We need the international community to meet that ambition with contributions that reflect climate justice, starting with pledges to meet the $500-million capitalisation goal.
And we need the oceans – which are the lifeblood of the Pacific and a critical part of the global climate system – treated as a central element of the negotiations rather than a thematic aside.
Energy crisis driven by imported fossil fuelsThe days of speaking about climate and fossil fuels purely as a moral issue are long gone. Pacific ministers recently adopted the Tassiriki Call for a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific, in the context of a deepening energy crisis that has triggered states of emergency in several Pacific nations. Our dependence on imported fossil fuels is both a climate and an economic vulnerability.
Conflict in the Middle East is pushing our region into an energy crisis. We are dependent on imported fossil fuels for 80% of our energy needs. My home country of Fiji could see an increased fuel bill of nearly three times our annual healthcare budget.
Comment: COP31 must persuade countries to make fossil fuel transition plans
We need the technical and financial support to transition to 100% renewable energy. Not only because it is what the world owes us for decades of carbon pollution that continue to render parts of our home uninhabitable, damaging ecosystems and culture. But because we must be part of that transition. Fossil fuels have proven to be the greatest source of damage to our climate, and with their volatility, to our sovereignty as well.
What next?The demands have not changed. Greater action on mitigation, adaptation, finance, loss and damage: these remain the substance of what the Pacific requires from the international community. What has changed is the legal foundation beneath them.
The ICJ has affirmed that these are not requests. They are obligations. The task this year is to make the negotiations reflect that.
The post The Pacific made history in the courts – now we must do it in the negotiations appeared first on Climate Home News.
Brazil jostles for rare earths share as US-China rivalry heats up
Brazil is rushing to regulate its critical minerals industry and unlock its vast untapped reserves of rare earths, aiming to position itself as a strategic producer with Chinese and US companies competing for fresh supplies.
Despite opposition from some environmental and Indigenous rights groups, lawmakers in Brazil’s lower house of Congress passed the government’s critical minerals policy bill last month, and backers now hope to secure final Senate approval before October’s presidential election.
Already a major mining nation with large reserves of graphite and copper, Brazil has the world’s second-largest reserves of rare earth elements after China, with the difference that Brazilian reserves are largely untapped. This group of 17 minerals is used in permanent magnets for electric motors vital for clean technologies such as electric vehicles (EVs) and wind turbines.
As Chinese and US companies compete to secure supplies, Brazil hopes to serve them both.
“We don’t have any preferences. Whoever wishes to participate with us to help with the mining, processing, and production of the wealth that these rare earths can bring is welcome to invest in Brazil,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told journalists after meeting President Donald Trump in Washington in May.
Value-added miningThe draft legislation, which is backed by industry groups, creates a $380-million Guarantee Fund for Mineral Activity meant to provide financial support for mining projects, grants priority status for permitting strategic mining projects, and requires companies to dedicate a share of their revenue for domestic research and development on mineral extraction and processing – part of the policy’s effort to maximise the benefits of mining.
To select strategic projects and support their environmental licensing, the bill envisions establishing a Committee for Strategic and Critical Minerals, which includes representatives from different government agencies, state and local governments, industry and civil society.
Mining Minister Alexandre Silveira said the government’s bill “aligns mineral exploration with national interests”, and he has pledged to work closely with the Senate to pass it in the coming months.
“Brazil … doesn’t intend to be a mere exporter of unprocessed raw materials, but to expand its industrial and technological capacity, too,” Silveira said last month.
The Brazilian government says the country presents an “unparalleled” opportunity for refining “green minerals”, given that around half of its electricity comes from hydropower.
At the other end of the supply chain, several Chinese companies have vast plans to assemble EVs in Brazil. EV manufacturing giant BYD opened a massive production facility in the state of Bahia last October – the company’s largest EV factory outside China. BYD’s top executive in Brazil told Reuters it is aiming to produce and source 50% of its vehicle components in the country by the end of the year. BYD’s subsidiaries in Brazil directly own mineral rights in the country’s “lithium valley”.
Brazil’s Congress defies Lula to push through “devastation bill” on COP30’s heels
Some pro-government lawmakers had proposed the creation of a state-owned agency that would hold a monopoly over mining projects, but that was eventually rejected after the federal government decided that no additional state intervention was needed in the sector.
Mônica Sodré, CEO of the think tank Meridiana and senior fellow at the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI), said the country’s mining rules were created when minerals were mainly seen as “commodities for export”. Today, they are “central to economic security, industrial policy and geopolitics,” she said.
The proposed legislation, she added, is “an important first step, not a final solution” to position the country as a major mineral producer, and developing projects will require continued efforts through the newly-created committee.
Soft on safeguards?But despite the government’s pledges to develop a critical minerals sector that benefits the national interest, some environmental groups have opposed the critical minerals policy bill, saying it does not create enough safeguards for the protection of affected communities.
Adriana Pinheiro, public policy advisor with Observatório do Clima, a network representing 130 environmental nonprofits, told Climate Home News that the bill “lacks explicit provisions on free, prior and informed consultation”.
The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib) said in a note to Congress that the bill has the “potential to significantly impact indigenous territories without adequately incorporating mechanisms for protection and participation”.
Sodré said the concerns are valid, but that the draft bill is not the place to address them. Instead, she said, indigenous rights and participation should be considered on a project-by-project basis and that safeguards exist under Brazil’s “extensive” environmental permitting legislation.
“Precaution is essential in mining policy, but it should not lead to inaction. Blocking investments or delaying projects without clear evidence of unacceptable risks can result in significant social and economic costs,” she said.
Pinheiro, of the Observatório do Clima, added that while the bill encourages domestic processing of critical minerals, it does not create mandatory quotas. Countries such as Indonesia and Zimbabwe have banned raw exports, forcing investors to set up processing plants in the country.
“This regulation is only positive if it combines industrial strategy with strong safeguards,” Pinheiro said.
Geological advantageChina extracts about 70% of the world’s rare earths and controls around 90% of the processing – creating a potential chokepoint that has alarmed Western countries at a time of heightened geopolitical tension. The US and China have opted to stockpile key minerals in case trade restrictions are enacted against them.
Brazil, which has strong trade and diplomatic ties with both Beijing and Washington, views the intensifying competition for rare earth supplies as an opportunity for it to develop a new mining sector. Brazil’s National Mining Agency has reported about 2,700 rare earths projects under consideration, according to local news outlet Folha de Sao Paulo.
The country’s rare earths reserves also have a geological advantage, as they are predominantly contained in ionic clay rather than hard rock. These deposits contain sought-after “heavy rare earths” and require less processing to extract.
Workers of Sigma Lithium Corp SGML.V are seen at the Grota do Cirilo mine in Itinga, in Minas Gerais state, Brazil April 18, 2023. REUTERS/Washington Alves Workers of Sigma Lithium Corp SGML.V are seen at the Grota do Cirilo mine in Itinga, in Minas Gerais state, Brazil April 18, 2023. REUTERS/Washington AlvesBacked by $2.7 billion in financial support from US government agencies, American mining firm USA Rare Earths acquired Brazil’s Serra Verde group, which owns the high-grade Pela Ema mine. The ionic clay mine is the only one outside Asia capable of supplying all the four major rare earths at scale, according to the company’s CEO Barbara Humpton.
Other major firms have followed, with Canada’s Aclara conducting studies in the $680-million Carina mine and Australian companies Meteoric and Viridis also seeking to develop ionic clay mines for European and American buyers.
Despite growing Western investments, China remains Brazil’s largest trade partner and the country’s imports from Brazil have already tripled between 2024 and 2025, according to data by the Brazil-China Business Council.
The draft bill does not guarantee that Brazil will be able to compete with Chinese rare earths on the international market, Sodré noted. A “more realistic benchmark” is how effectively the country can position itself as major supplier of critical minerals for the energy transition, she added.
Pinheiro said clearer regulation may help shape investments into the country, but foreign companies will not necessarily wait for Brazil’s critical minerals policy.
“The central question is whether Brazil will use this moment to build domestic value chains, ensure socio-environmental safeguards and protect affected communities,” she said.
This article was edited to correct Mônica Sodré’s job title
The post Brazil jostles for rare earths share as US-China rivalry heats up appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP31 leaders unveil global targets, with spotlight on electrification
The two countries set to lead this year’s COP31 have unveiled three headline goals for November’s UN climate summit – on electrification, waste and buildings – following six months of consultations with governments.
At mid-year climate talks in Bonn, Turkish COP31 President-Designate Murat Kurum and the talks’ chief negotiator, Australia’s Chris Bowen, billed the targets as a blueprint for climate action, with electrification emerging as the top priority.
Bowen said he wanted this year’s COP negotiations in the Turkish city of Antalya to “take inspiration” from the targets, adding that he would push in particular for a “strong outcome” on switching from fossil fuels to electricity to run vehicles, industry and buildings.
“35 by 35” goalThe electrification target – dubbed the “35 by 35” goal and based on analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) – would strive to ramp up the share of final energy consumption provided by electricity to 35% by 2035 from about 20% today.
That would be achieved by accelerating the switch to technologies such as heat pumps, electric vehicles (EVs) and electric cookers.
Murat Kurum (centre-right) and Chris Bowen (far-right) speak at a press conference in Bonn on June 9, 2026 (Photo: UN Climate Change/Lucia Vasquez)Bowen said he wants to lead a push focused on “electrifying everything that can be electrified and making sure as much of that electricity as possible is renewable”.
He said electrification is “the key to transitioning away from fossil fuels”, urging negotiators to keep in mind that 2035 is just nine years away.
Bonn Bulletin: Tackling climate crisis is “hardest” challenge ever, Stiell says
Kurum said the COP presidency would work to forge “a strong global coalition that is ready and determined to act”, promising to facilitate access to technical assistance, particularly to developing countries.
Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which will produce a special report to map out pathways to achieving the target, said the world was already electrifying because of the current global oil shock and the growth of electricity-using sectors such as air conditioning, EVs and AI data centres.
Previous COPs have seen similar goals on boosting renewables, energy efficiency, nuclear, biofuels, grids and other technologies. Some of these have been agreed by all governments as part of a negotiated COP decision, while others have remained as goals that only some countries have put their names to.
Bowen told reporters in Bonn there was strong interest around the world in electrification as he continues his talks with governments, saying the COP presidency wanted “to seize that for the negotiations”.
Climate campaigners generally welcomed the announcement. Duygu Kutluay, a campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels, said elevating electrification to a flagship priority was a “positive step”.
But she cautioned that “electrification can only deliver meaningful climate benefits if the power comes from renewables, not fossil fuels”.
Berkan Ozyer, director of Greenpeace Türkiye, said the electrification goal was “vital”, noting however that Türkiye has 37 active coal power plants and was “leaving the door open” for more.
Smoke rises from Yatagan thermal power plant near southwestern town of Yatagan in Mugla province, Turkey, February 24, 2021. REUTERS/Umit Bektas Last-minute change on buildingsAt the same time, the COP presidency quietly overhauled its goal for reducing energy use in buildings.
An initial press statement on Monday set out a target “to achieve at least a 25% increase in energy efficiency in buildings by 2035”. But in “a small update” issued on Tuesday, that was replaced with a different goal to “reduce energy consumption intensity in the building sector by at least 25% by 2035”.
No reason was given for the change and Kurum did not directly address a question from Climate Home News about the decision to remove the energy efficiency target, a step that experts said raised potential questions about ambition and implementation.
“Energy efficiency improvement and energy intensity reduction are complementary metrics: efficiency targets drive the deep physical upgrades that lock in long-term performance and, crucially, higher resilience, while intensity targets keep operators accountable for real-world outcomes. What matters is that both remain in the frame,” Roxana Dela Fiamor, global policy lead at the U.S. Green Building Council, told Climate Home News.
“Only looking at energy intensity is really delaying the crucial role that buildings can play in the energy transition,” she added.
Focusing only on energy intensity risks delaying deeper structural changes, she warned, as it can be achieved through short-term measures like switching off lights or optimising usage, rather than investing in retrofits.
“Energy efficiency requires a lot of investments and structural measures, energy intensity is easier to achieve. But energy intensity is not sufficient,” she said. “It doesn’t tackle the systemic changes needed, it doesn’t look at all the different components that drive energy consumption in buildings.”
Missing details on waste targetThe COP31 presidency has set a goal to halve the growth in global waste by 2035, but key details about the goal are still missing.
Announcing the target, Kurum said waste was “one of the areas where the fastest results can be achieved” in climate action, but he did not specify the baseline for the target, or what types of waste it covered. A COP31 spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for clarification.
Türkiye prioritises cleaning up garbage emissions in COP31 ‘action agenda’
Mariel Vilella, climate director at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, said it was “encouraging” to see waste getting more attention, but warned that the target “remains difficult to assess without clarity on the baseline, scope and implementation pathway”.
She said success should be judged not by a headline figure alone, but by whether it drives real change – including waste prevention, methane cuts, lower plastic production and protections for waste workers.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that municipal waste could rise from 2.1 billion tonnes today to 3.8 billion tonnes by 2050 without significant action.
Cutting waste generation would curb planet-heating emissions, protect ecosystems and improve human health, the UN says.
An Ideal Heating heat pump is seen in front of a cottage in Newbiggin-on-Lune, Britain, February 18, 2024. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett An Ideal Heating heat pump is seen in front of a cottage in Newbiggin-on-Lune, Britain, February 18, 2024. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett New initiative on climate finance?The COP31 joint presidency has also floated a new climate finance initiative – the so-called Climate Implementation Bridge (CIB) – to help countries make progress on the three proposed targets.
Kurum said the initiative would not involve creating a new fund or financial mechanism, describing it as “a complementary initiative that supports climate finance and strengthens partnerships among countries”.
While few further details were immediately available on how it would work or fit into the existing climate finance landscape, Rebecca Thissen of CAN International said adding new processes without simplifying existing systems risked causing confusion and proving counterproductive.
The post COP31 leaders unveil global targets, with spotlight on electrification appeared first on Climate Home News.
The UN climate process needs ambition – the law demands it
Bill Hare is the CEO of Climate Analytics, a global climate science and policy institute working to accelerate climate action.
The word ‘implementation’ has featured long and loud recently in discussions about the UN climate process.
The host government of last year’s COP30 summit, Brazil, argued that it should be an “implementation COP”. And if you talk regularly to influential participants in the UN process, you’d be surprised how many will tell you that in the current political climate, it’s all about implementing the pledges and targets governments have already made, rather than aiming to raise them.
This interpretation of ‘implementation’ is dangerously wrong. You can see that it is wrong by simply going back to the Paris Agreement. Article 4 states that Parties (countries) “shall prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions” (NDCs), and that each new NDC “will represent a progression” beyond the Party’s previous one and “reflect its highest possible ambition”.
In other words, regularly increasing ambition is a central element of implementing the Paris Agreement. Governments pledged to increase ambition regularly, and the community of people who care about climate change needs to hold them to that pledge.
Raised expectationsEven a cursory look at the current state of emissions shows that without increased ambition, the other central pillars of the Paris Agreement will not be realised. The global emissions peak will not come “as soon as possible”, net zero will not be reached in the second half of this century, and global warming will race beyond the 1.5°C limit, with catastrophic impacts beginning in the most vulnerable countries and risks increasing for everyone.
Since the Paris summit in 2015, expectations and obligations on governments to step up on decarbonising their economies have increased. In 2021 and 2022, governments declared via the UN Human Rights Council and UN General Assembly that the right to a healthy environment is a universal human right. An environment of dangerous climate change is not a healthy one, so the obligation to cut emissions further and faster is clear.
Last year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that 1.5°C is the primary limit of the Paris Agreement and constitutes a legally binding target. It clarified that states have obligations, not only under the UN climate convention, but under customary international law, human rights law and the Law of the Sea.
It also reaffirmed that governments’ NDCs must reflect their highest possible ambition. Last month, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution endorsing the ICJ ruling, with governments voting 141 for, and only eight against.
Failing on ambitionNonetheless, most governments are not showing the ambition required by their international obligations. Fifty-two countries have not submitted their third NDC with emission-cutting targets for 2035, which they were supposed to do more than a year ago.
Many submitted NDCs fall well short of what is required, with Indonesia, Russia and Saudi Arabia among countries whose level of ambition, if reflected globally, would usher in at least 4°C of global warming.
We know from our own analysis that if countries just implemented their present level of ambition through 2035, the world would warm by 2.6°C above preindustrial levels by 2100, a catastrophic scenario.
A member of the Bolivian Armed Forces helps people cross the Pirai River following the collapse of bridges connecting different communities following floods triggered by an overflowing river that isolated several communities in the eastern Santa Cruz region, in El Torno, Bolivia, December 17, 2025. REUTERS/Claudia Morales A member of the Bolivian Armed Forces helps people cross the Pirai River following the collapse of bridges connecting different communities following floods triggered by an overflowing river that isolated several communities in the eastern Santa Cruz region, in El Torno, Bolivia, December 17, 2025. REUTERS/Claudia MoralesBut we also know that if countries implemented policies consistent with their highest possible ambition, we can limit overshoot of 1.5°C to about 0.2°C, halt global warming within 25 years, and bring it down to about 1.2°C by the end of the century. Other analyses paint a similar picture.
Make no mistake: this level of overshoot will have serious adverse consequences. But two things are very clear: we can get warming back below 1.5°C before 2100, and countries can be far more ambitious than they are now.
Meanwhile real-world events are demonstrating more clearly than ever that moving quickly and decisively to an economy powered by clean electricity bolsters energy security, reduces energy costs and avoids the geopolitical blackmail and bullying associated with dependence on a continuous supply of fossil fuel imports.
Back the collective processBecause the various UN declarations and decisions outlined above are taken collectively by governments, we can make an interesting deduction: most governments themselves recognise that they need to show more ambition. There are many reasons why each of them doesn’t do so on its own; and one of the key aspects of the UN climate process is that it allows and encourages them to do so with some degree of collectivity.
What all of this speaks to is the need to increase the focus on raising ambition, to continue to use the UN climate process as the key convening forum, and to use COPs as the place where governments are held accountable at a high political level every year. There is no other forum that does that and no other place in which vulnerable countries are at the table on equal terms with the biggest emitters.
What to expect from the Bonn climate talks
Right now, the geopolitical going is tough; and the tough need to get going towards the trouble, not run away from it.
Yes, delivery of existing pledges is absolutely necessary. If governments use this decade to honour the Global Stocktake outcomes from 2024 – if they triple renewable energy capacity, double the rate of energy efficiency improvements and make deep cuts in methane emissions – that will go a long way to keeping global warming below 2°C. Most are not on track – so yes, full implementation of what countries have already agreed is sorely needed.
But ambition must also be strengthened, urgently. It’s not an either-or: ‘implementation’ has to include ‘increasing ambition’. Climate science, international law, climate justice and the needs of the world’s most climate-impacted societies demand nothing less.
The post The UN climate process needs ambition – the law demands it appeared first on Climate Home News.
Bonn Bulletin: Tackling climate crisis is “hardest” challenge ever, Stiell says
Kicking off proceedings at the mid-year climate talks in Bonn amid fraught global geopolitics, UN climate chief Simon Stiell told delegates that tackling the global climate crisis is “the hardest, but most important, thing humanity has ever tried to do together”.
Perhaps hoping to forestall the usual diplomatic wrangling that routinely bogs down the talks, he warned governments that there is no time to “re-open past debates or renegotiate commitments already made”.
Instead, he added, there is an imperative to accelerate real-world action as deadly heat intensifies and the fossil-fuel cost crisis sparked by the Iran war strangles economies, “taking a wrecking ball to lives and prosperity”.
That message seemed to sink in with the negotiators in Bonn, where the opening session kicked off only an hour late and was not marred by agenda rows, which delayed the start of the talks by a day last year.
On bridging the gap between the negotiations and the real economy, Stiell called for elevating the Global Climate Action Agenda, a goal long promised but never fully delivered.
But, he added, Türkiye – working with Australia – is now building on the efforts by last year’s COP30 presidency to streamline this process into six thematic areas, including boosting energy and food security, curbing methane and strengthening the resilience of cities.
What to expect from the Bonn climate talks
Stiell was also keen to stress that the formal negotiations remain central to driving implementation of the Paris Agreement. He urged governments in Bonn to advance key issues including the Global Goal on Adaptation, the delivery of the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake and the development of a new just transition mechanism.
The first Global Stocktake was an assessment of countries’ collective progress in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, which led to a 2023 agreement to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems and a 2030 goal to triple renewable energy, among other things.
Hinting at upcoming reforms to the UN climate regime – which has often been accused of failing to keep pace with advancements in the real world – Stiell said all institutions must continuously evolve and improve. The UN climate secretariat has heard countries’ calls to work more efficiently, support access to climate finance and reduce the reporting burden on governments, he added.
Türkiye to outline targets for Action AgendaWhile Australia will run the negotiations at COP31, for co-host Türkiye – which is organising the talks in Antalya – the focus is on the so-called Global Climate Action Agenda. This is a sprawling smorgasbord of around 500 voluntary initiatives bringing together governments, businesses, investors, cities and civil society. It covers everything from strengthening power grids for clean energy, to restoring degraded forests and land, and reducing emissions from buildings.
COP31 President-Designate Murat Kurum told the opening session of the Bonn talks his team will present the “main framework” of the Action Agenda on Tuesday, adding it will be “based on concrete and tangible targets”. He also said Türkiye will announce a roadmap for translating what happens in the negotiations into the real world, which will ”point to a science-based process with highly clear and defined outcomes” and steps for getting there.
“In the second decade of the Paris Agreement, the COP31 Action Agenda will bring the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake to life, and we will make a strong start to the second decade,” Kurum said.
In a joint letter issued in May, the two host nations said COP31 will be shaped as an “Implementation COP” and a “COP of the Future,” aimed at translating commitments into tangible and trackable progress. They outlined priority areas – to be achieved through the six axes of the Action Agenda defined ahead of COP30 – including electrification, zero waste, resilient cities, sustainable agriculture, green industrial transformation and climate finance.
Electrification emerges as COP31 priority
Chiming with this, Australia’s Chris Bowen, the COP31 president of negotiations, made the global energy transition the centerpiece of his opening intervention in Bonn.
This year’s climate summit, he said, must send investors and corporations the message that countries are “collectively committed” to building up renewable energy and reducing fossil fuel reliance. Fossil fuels were not directly mentioned in the main outcome at COP30 last year after countries failed to agree on developing a global transition roadmap, which Brazil is now putting together outside of formal negotiations.
Bowen, Australia’s minister of climate change and energy, said that, while energy crises like the one the world is going through now will become more frequent and more unpredictable, accelerating the shift to cleaner sources will “ease shocks to our energy systems”.
He identified progress on electrification as a priority for COP31, pointing to an assessment by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that electricity’s share of final energy consumption needs to reach 35% by 2035 to keep the 1.5C temperature goal in sight.
“In a world of geopolitical uncertainty and energy disruption, the transition is not a risk,” Bowen added, “it is the solution and an immense opportunity”.
The opening plenary at the June Climate Meetings in Bonn, June 8, 2026. (Photo: UN Climate Change/Lara Murillo) The opening plenary at the June Climate Meetings in Bonn, June 8, 2026. (Photo: UN Climate Change/Lara Murillo) Tensions around trade and climate surface againOver the weekend, it became clear that discussions on trade and climate would once again become a source of contention between countries – if not as explosively as they did at the start of the talks a year ago.
As agreed in the COP30 Global Mutirão decision, a series of dialogues on trade and climate will be held in Bonn yearly from 2026 to 2028. Climate Home News understands that the G77 + China has expressed discontent about the organisation of the first dialogue that will take place on June 13, because it plans to incorporate contributions from a range of organisations rather than just governments.
In a statement at the opening plenary, Uruguay, on behalf of the G77 group of developing nations, “encouraged Parties [countries] to engage constructively in the dialogue in a robust and structured manner”. Many in the Global South are concerned that international trade measures to make products greener, such as the European Union’s carbon levy on imports, could end up discriminating against them.
Russia warned during its opening statement that the new dialogue should not be used to create trade barriers.
Comment: Indonesia’s failing Just Energy Transition Partnership is a cautionary tale
Avantika Goswami, climate change and green economy programme manager at the India-based Centre for Science and Environment, told Climate Home News that the UN climate secretariat has been unclear and untransparent about what will be discussed at the dialogue. “We don’t know if observers and civil society are going to be able to contribute,” she added.
After the three mid-year dialogues, in 2028 there will be a high-level event for countries to exchange their views and experiences, and the officials in charge will have to present a report summarising these discussions.
At Monday’s opening session, Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, the Ghanian chair of the African Group of Negotiators, said it would be “important to provide clarity on how they intend to present the report” and suggested that the co-chairs of the Bonn talks should consult with countries on how best to do that.
Differences persist on finance between richer and poorer countriesOn Monday afternoon, discussions focused on finance and specifically on the details of the climate finance work programme that countries agreed to set up at COP30.
While it has yet to be decided when the two-year work programme will start, Monday’s workshop was tasked with hammering out its scope and format.
“We are not in the position to accept these discussions,” Vositha Wijenayake, G77 + China finance coordinator, said at the beginning of the event. Climate Home News can confirm that the group of developing countries sent a letter to the organisers over the weekend insisting that the work programme must be driven by governments, produce concrete outcomes, and be included as an agenda item at COP31.
Both during the opening plenary and the workshop in Bonn, they reaffirmed the need for implementation of Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, which enshrines the obligation of wealthy nations to mobilise public finance for climate action in developing countries. On Monday, many Global South countries flagged concerns about declining levels of international funding at a time when needs are rising.
Campaigners demonstrate at the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, calling for public funding for climate action, on November 14, 2024. (Photo: UN Climate Change – Kamran Guliyev) Campaigners demonstrate at the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, calling for public funding for climate action, on November 14, 2024. (Photo: UN Climate Change – Kamran Guliyev)Outi Honkatukia, the European Union’s lead climate finance negotiator, said Article 9.1 “is an important part of finance”, but called for a “broader discussion on climate finance” that encompasses the whole of Article 9.
As happened with the discussions before the new climate finance goal (NCQG) was agreed at COP29, developed countries want the work programme to focus not only on their responsibility for mobilising financial resources, but also on the role of other potential contributors, like China and the private sector. Switzerland told the event it would like to see a discussion on widening the donor base.
This was the first of three sessions on the topic that will take place in Bonn in the coming fortnight, with some observers saying a new proposal may be needed to move the work plan forward.
The post Bonn Bulletin: Tackling climate crisis is “hardest” challenge ever, Stiell says appeared first on Climate Home News.
Offshore oil and gas expansion threatens key marine ecosystems, report warns
Ocean and coastal creatures are being put at risk by the spills, noise, dredging and shipping associated with new offshore oil and gas infrastructure, says a new report by a group of environmental NGOs.
The report by 12 environmental groups analysed planned new offshore oil and gas blocks covering 430,000 square kilometres – an area the size of Sweden – in 11 countries.
Blocks in countries such as Kenya, Indonesia and Australia overlap with some of the planet’s hotspots for marine biodiversity, home to mangroves, coral reefs, sea turtles, sharks and whales.
Oil and gas expansion is advancing in spite of the legal protections already in place, the report says, with a third of the area being licensed overlapping with marine and coastal protected areas.
“It is alarming to see the research findings and the sheer scale of fossil fuel expansion trajectories threatening the health and future of our shared ocean,” said Tyson Miller, executive director of Earth Insight, one of the environmental NGOs involved in the report.
At the first conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, around 60 countries floated the idea of creating “fossil fuel-free zones”, which would seek to place limits on coal, oil and gas in areas where development would lead to severe social and environmental harm.
As part of the landmark Kunming-Montreal biodiversity deal, governments have also pledged to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and marine ecosystems by 2030. This could be used as an opportunity to limit oil and gas expansion in sensitive areas, Miller said.
The report says the findings “reinforce the need for governments, financial institutions and companies to stop funding and supporting offshore oil and gas expansion”, and calls for the creation of fossil fuel-free zones in “high-value marine and coastal areas”.
Oil bidding in biodiversity hotspotsAs one of the case studies, Kenya — which is set to host the Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa later this month — has opened 50 offshore oil and gas blocks for bidding in the Lamu Basin, one of East Africa’s marine biodiversity hotspots.
These blocks overlap with all the region’s mangroves and coral reefs, the report says, which provide nursery habitats for fish, sea turtles and the vulnerable dugong.
These ecosystems are already under severe stress from climate change-related ocean heating and increased water acidity and could now face seismic surveys, offshore drilling, dredging, increased shipping traffic, oil spills, chemical discharge and underwater noise pollution.
The government estimates that oil production will start by 2026, aligning with “global best practices”, and has said the Lamu basin has vast “untapped potential”. The country is expected to open bidding for the first 10 blocks by September.
Muturi wa Kamau, network coordinator for the Kenya Oil and Gas Working Group, said in a statement that the country “is preparing to open ecologically sensitive areas for fossil fuel exploration” while positioning itself as a leader in ocean diplomacy.
“The question is: at what cost are we willing to risk these fragile ecosystems and the livelihoods of coastal communities who have depended on them for generations?” Kamau said.
Australia’s Otway BasinAfter a four-year pause, Australia — which will act as co-president of the COP31 climate summit — resumed offshore exploration in the Otway Basin last year, with American energy firm ConocoPhillips among the operators approved for exploratory drilling off the country’s southern coast.
The sites under exploration are as close as one kilometre to a series of marine reserves known as sanctuaries for pygmy blue whales, who travel thousands of kilometres to reproduce in those waters. Orange roughy, a deep-sea fish that can live for over 140 years, may also be harmed.
In total, the report analysed new LNG export projects in Argentina, Alaska, Mexico and Tanzania, as well as expanded offshore oil and gas licensing in Australia, Cameroon, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Norway and Trinidad and Tobago.
The post Offshore oil and gas expansion threatens key marine ecosystems, report warns appeared first on Climate Home News.
The scramble to stockpile critical minerals could drive up energy transition costs
As competition for minerals needed to produce clean energy technologies intensifies, a growing number of countries have resorted to an age-old mechanism to cope with the threat of scarcity: stockpiling.
The world’s biggest economies are racing to shore up reserves of cobalt, lithium, graphite and rare earths, which are needed to produce batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines and electric systems to wean the global economy off fossil fuels. The same minerals are also increasingly sought after to manufacture military hardware and chips for AI, adding further pressure on supplies.
But the cutthroat scramble to build up reserves threatens to drive up the costs of the energy transition by intensifying competition and pushing up prices of key materials needed to produce clean energy technologies, research published today has found.
“If you undermine the financial viability of [clean energy] projects through higher raw material costs, you’re going to delay their roll-out,” co-author Hugh Miller, the critical minerals lead at the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told Climate Home News.
Stockpiling “is happening, whether we like it or not”, said Miller. “But if we’re going to do it, we need to have it in a coordinated manner that means we don’t have massive market volatility and adverse implications from every country trying to go at it alone,” he added.
The rise of stockpilesA growing number of governments have adopted national stockpiling programmes in response to heightened geopolitical tensions around mineral supply chains.
Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump announced the establishment of a critical mineral reserve known as “Project Vault” to protect American businesses from shortages after China imposed export restrictions on rare earth supplies.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers opening remarks at the Critical Minerals Ministerial in Washington DC (Credit: Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett)Beijing suspended the measures until November as part of a trade truce with Washington but the episode spooked Western governments and exposed how strategic materials can be weaponised to achieve geopolitical objectives.
Australia, China, the EU and India have also announced measures to create strategic mineral reserves. Japan and South Korea already have long-standing mineral stockpiling programmes.
“Legitimate concerns”“There are legitimate concerns with regards to potential global shortages of these minerals,” said Miller, citing rapidly rising and concurrent mineral demand for the energy transition, AI, data centres, and military technologies, combined with underinvestment in new supplies for some minerals, such as copper.
While stockpiling can serve as an emergency response mechanism during acute shortages, it does nothing to address the underlying concentration risks in mineral supply chains. The Democratic Republic of Congo holds around 70% of the world’s cobalt reserves, for example, while China dominates the processing of 19 out of 20 minerals deemed critical by a large number of nations.
Uncoordinated stockpiling programmes risk heightening the price volatility they are designed to hedge against, according to the report.
Researchers found that if Australia, China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea and the US simultaneously built reserves of minerals to cover six months of imports, the aggregate stockpile demand could represent up to 34% of global annual cobalt supply and over 10% of global lithium, graphite and copper supply. That could cause a shock to the market, triggering the shortages and price spikes they are trying to avoid.
Miller said it was unlikely that every country would stockpile at that rate, but aggregate stockpiling demand of just 5% of global mineral supply would have an impact on prices.
Coordinating stockpiles: a role for the IEA?Researchers found that avoiding the negative impacts of stockpiling requires global coordination over how mineral stocks are accumulated and released – a mechanism which already exists for other commodities, including oil.
Coordination should include agreed rules for countries to build up their stocks over a slow and staggered timeline and pre-agreed conditions for releasing reserves to provide market predictability and reduce the risk of price spikes.
The International Energy Agency (IEA), which was established after the 1970s oil crisis to coordinate emergency oil stock releases among member countries, is best placed to oversee such a mechanism, they say.
Earlier this year, IEA member countries called on the agency to strengthen its work on critical minerals, including by providing support to countries “that choose to establish and expand critical minerals stockpiling systems”.
But Miller and his co-author Pau Morandi, a policy fellow at the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise, argue that members should go one step further and mandate the IEA to coordinate the security of supplies, rather than only helping individual governments.
The IEA has been contacted for comment.
A call to action for the G7Miller said he hoped the research could be picked up by the G7 group of wealthy countries, which could lead on mandating the IEA to take on this coordination role.
France, which is presiding over the group this year and is hosting leaders in Evian on the shores of Lake Geneva in mid-June, has made strengthening the resilience of critical minerals value chains a priority.
In a communique last month, finance ministers agreed to “deepen and expand our cooperation among G7 members and with like-minded partners” to strengthen and diversify critical mineral supply chains and to continue discussions “on how to best organise analytical cooperation”.
Sebastien Treyer, executive director of the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), said he hoped the G7 leaders’ summit can help move the discussion on critical minerals towards greater international cooperation to secure the resources the world needs to build a clean economy.
From inclusive and mutually beneficial partnerships to mine resources to stockpiling minerals, “we need to coordinate more like a trade organisation than something that is about securing supply,” he said.
The post The scramble to stockpile critical minerals could drive up energy transition costs appeared first on Climate Home News.
What to expect from the Bonn climate talks
Most media outlets won’t be in Bonn, but we will. Sending our reporters to cover these international negotiations is expensive, but at a time when many newsrooms are cutting their climate coverage, it’s more important than ever. If you value our reporting, you can support our work and access all our exclusive coverage by becoming a subscriber today.
The annual June climate talks in Bonn are taking place this year against the backdrop of an oil and gas supply crisis tied to the Iran war and deadly heatwaves in Europe, India and the Middle East. Can they produce anything substantial to ease the squeeze on economies and communities around the world?
Watchers of the negotiations say the UN climate process is under pressure to prove its worth at a time when climate action and clean energy offer an increasingly attractive alternative to the global economic and political instability brought by fossil fuel dependency.
Kaysie Brown, associate director of climate diplomacy and geopolitics at think-tank E3G, said the June 8-18 meetings “must show that the multilateral system can make a durable and politically resilient shift to support delivery [of climate action] at scale”. She added that it “will act as a key health check for the climate regime at a time of a rapidly shifting global order”.
There are hopes for significant progress on issues ranging from a new mechanism to support a just transition away from fossil fuels, to funding and measuring adaptation to worsening climate impacts.
Bonn will also see the launch of dialogues on trade and climate change, on how to implement what was promised in the first stocktake of national climate plans in 2023, and on ways to shift global finance flows to support a low-carbon and climate-resilient world.
Climate Home News doesn’t have a crystal ball, but we have done our homework. Here’s what experts expect to top the agenda at the World Conference Center by the River Rhine:
COP31 prioritiesBonn is where we will get a sense of what the joint COP31 hosts – Türkiye and Australia – want from their presidency. Signs are that they will push for a global goal on the share of final energy consumption that will come from electricity, which may be based on a target proposed by the International Renewable Energy Agency of 35% by 2035.
Watch back: Webinar – From Santa Marta to Bon, where next for the fossil fuel transition?
Other priorities already identified include energy storage, energy security and clean cooking. Türkiye has stressed reducing emissions from landfills as a priority for the “Action Agenda” strand of COP31, which encompasses government and business initiatives outside the formal discussions. Türkiye will lead on the Action Agenda, while Australia handles the negotiations.
Just transition mechanismThe Bonn negotiations are tasked with producing a draft decision on how to set up a new just transition mechanism that can facilitate a fair and orderly shift from a high-carbon world to a greener future. This decision will be forwarded for approval by countries at COP31.
Governments agreed at COP30 in Brazil to set up what civil society has dubbed the “Belém-Antalya Mechanism” (BAM) but the details have yet to be worked out. Climate Action Network International, which has advocated strongly for the global mechanism, said it should be designed to provide decent jobs, social protection, public investment, energy access and support for affected workers and communities.
How Belém launched the Just Transition mechanism
“If governments move decisively, the [BAM] could become one of the most significant developments in the climate regime since the Paris Agreement – helping connect climate action with economic transformation and tangible improvements in people’s daily lives,” the coalition of hundreds of green groups said in a statement ahead of Bonn.
Let’s talk tradeAt COP30, after two years of trying, emerging economies finally got the overlap between trade and climate policy onto the UN climate talks agenda. Governments agreed to hold dialogues on trade at the June Bonn talks in 2026, 2027 and 2028 before a summary of these dialogues is presented at a “high-level event” in 2028.
What aspects of trade are to be discussed at the first such dialogue on Saturday June 13 is undecided. Developing-country heavyweights like China and India will likely be keen to criticise the European Union’s new carbon border adjustment mechanism, which they regard as protectionist and burdensome for their exporters. Representatives of the World Trade Organization and other trade bodies will make presentations, which governments and civil society will be allowed to comment upon.
Brazil’s call for COP trade forum gets lukewarm response
On Sunday June 14, a separate meeting of the fledgling Integrated Forum on Climate Change and Trade – an initiative launched by the Brazilian COP30 Presidency – will take place in a grand hilltop hotel overlooking Bonn and the Rhine. The meeting is not part of the official UN climate process or the official Bonn talks and will be more informal than the previous day’s dialogue.
Topics that will be discussed are trade and climate adaptation, how to create a level playing field for low-carbon products, how to trade particularly polluting products and how to bridge climate and trade tools. An expert panel chaired by South Africa’s Faizel Ismail and New Zealand’s Jo Tyndall has been appointed to advise the forum.
Aligning on adaptationAt COP30, talks on finalising a list of indicators to measure progress on adapting to climate change ended in recriminations, with several Latin American governments complaining that the decision was adopted by the Brazilian presidency without their consent.
The indicators, which were developed by experts in a two-year process, were stripped down by the Brazilians on the last night of COP30 and presented to governments at the last minute as a done deal.
New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance
Several governments and some of the technical experts have argued that many of the adopted indicators are unworkable, as they lack definitions or explanations of how they will be measured. Many indicators for important areas – like poverty reduction, ecosystems, infrastructure and food production – are missing or inadequate, they say.
Government negotiators and experts now have two years to fix the mess, through a “policy alignment process” due to end at COP32 in Ethiopia. At the Bonn talks, governments will try to agree on who will make up a new taskforce of experts to help countries put the indicators into practice and how it will operate.
Our most in-depth Bonn coverage — including most of our Bonn Bulletins from the negotiating floor — will be available exclusively to paid subscribers. Sign up today to ensure you don’t miss out.
Mission to 1.5 and Global Implementation AcceleratorAfter pressure from small island nations, governments at COP30 agreed to set up the Belém Mission to 1.5 and the Global Implementation Accelerator (GIA) to speed up the implementation of countries’ emissions-cutting and adaptation plans.
For the Mission to 1.5, several past and current COP presidencies are drawing up a report – scheduled to be published before COP31 – which will identify several especially impactful solutions to climate change. On June 12 in Bonn, governments and civil society will weigh in on what they want included.
Also in Bonn, governments will input into the GIA. The Brazilian COP30 Presidency’s vision is that it should drive forward the strongest climate solutions. According to COP30 CEO Ana Toni, an independent panel of experts will pre-select 10-15 solutions and a council will narrow this down to three to five each year which the GIA would then aim to speed up.
The GIA’s “added value is that it will focus exclusively on solutions with the potential to scale and generate cascading effects through high-impact exponential technologies”, she said last month.
A person points at a stack of trays holding treated limestone, used to absorb CO2 from the air, at Heirloom’s new plant, in Tracy, California, November 9, 2023. (Heirloom Carbon/Handout via REUTERS) A person points at a stack of trays holding treated limestone, used to absorb CO2 from the air, at Heirloom’s new plant, in Tracy, California, November 9, 2023. (Heirloom Carbon/Handout via REUTERS)Whether Mission to 1.5 and the GIA will identify the same shortlist of solutions – and how they work together – is unclear. But the GIA could become a permanent body working on the real-world “Action Agenda” of COPs.
Ruenna Haynes is the deputy lead negotiator for the small islands group (AOSIS) which pushed for these two initiatives, but she is now worried about what the COP presidencies might make of them.
She told a recent briefing, “the last thing we want to do is to set up a process that is nothing more than a talking shop that doesn’t deliver and doesn’t go anywhere”. To avoid that, the reports of the GIA and Mission 1.5 must be linked to the wider UN climate talks process and at least discussed by governments, she emphasised.
Finance roadmap and dialogueCOP30 left a bitter taste regarding what was expected to be one of its main outcomes: progress on how to increase climate finance through the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to $1.3 trillion”. The initiative, included in the new finance goal agreed in Baku – the NCQG – was an effort to top up the 2035 target of $300 billion a year in public finance which fell short of what developing countries wanted and an independent panel of experts estimated would be needed.
The high expectations surrounding this roadmap began to fade during 2025 as the process lacked transparency, clarity, participation and ambition. The result was a report abundant in general recommendations of actions to be taken but lacking clear commitments. Most of the suggestions mentioned are targeted at institutions outside the UN climate process, such as multilateral development banks.
The COP30 decision merely “took note of” that report. So was it the end of the road for this particular roadmap? Not yet.
From Baku to Belém and beyond: How we turn a climate finance roadmap into reality
In Bonn, an “implementation” meeting will be held to “listen to the Parties and observers on the updated work being carried out,” as a member of the COP30 Presidency team told Climate Home News. The challenge is how to ensure the roadmap doesn’t remain fine words in a document and is put into practice. It will also serve either as a good or bad example for the other two voluntary roadmaps (on deforestation and fossil fuels) that the Brazilian presidency is putting together ahead of COP31.
Also in Bonn, the Veredas Dialogue will address the opportunities and obstacles to implementing Article 2.1.c of the Paris Agreement – on making finance flows consistent with low-carbon development – and its complementarity with Article 9 on the responsibility of developed countries to provide financial resources. The limitations of the Baku to Belém Roadmap could shift the divisions between developed and developing nations to this dialogue, especially considering that 2026 is the first year for mobilising finance under the NCQG.
More roadmaps on fossil fuels and forestsAt COP30, a group of 80 countries led a failed push to kickstart a process for a global roadmap to guide the transition away from fossil fuels (TAFF). As an alternative, the Brazilian presidency proposed to draft two voluntary roadmaps: one on phasing out fossil fuels and another to end deforestation by 2030, both commitments endorsed by all countries in the COP28 deal.
In the lead-up to Bonn and after months of consultations with countries, Brazil presented an outline for the forest roadmap – which will invite countries to submit their own voluntary national roadmaps to halt forest loss.
It will also include a menu of options to bridge the $216-billion forest funding gap. One of the key initiatives to achieve this is the new rainforest fund, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which is still rallying investors for seed funding. Brazil convened an investor meeting in Rotterdam last week, with participation from over 50 financial institutions – including BlackRock, Bank of America and Barclays – and 30 government representatives.
COP30 rainforest fund unlikely to make first payments until 2028
While not on the formal negotiating agenda In Bonn, Brazil will continue consultations on the forest roadmap at an event with governments on June 8. The final document is expected to be published later in September.
As for the TAFF roadmap, Brazil will hold an open event on June 12 after receiving suggestions from 120 countries. It is expected to be informed by the first global fossil fuel phase-out summit held in Santa Marta in April.
COP30 advisor Flávia Bellaguarda told an online briefing that the informal sessions in Bonn are meant to open a “space for dialogue” on both roadmaps, and that the more countries engage, the more international relevance the process gains.
“We managed to get the elephant into the room. Now, it needs to stay there. For that, we need to give him plenty of food so he can’t fit through the door and leave. We achieve that with dialogue and creating space for genuine exchange,” the Brazilian advisor said.
The post What to expect from the Bonn climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.
China’s carbon emissions rise again as more clean power is wasted
China’s carbon emissions bounced back up in early 2026 as “inflexible” grid management caused the country to waste vast quantities of clean power and burn more fossil fuels instead, new analysis shows.
After recording a first full-year decline in 2025, China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy and industry grew by 2% in the first quarter of 2026, according to analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for Carbon Brief.
China burned more coal and gas to generate electricity than in the same period a year earlier, despite building record wind and solar capacity. Instead of being integrated into the network and used, clean power equivalent to more than France’s entire electricity output for the quarter was discarded.
Coal power plants protectedLauri Myllyvirta, CREA’s lead analyst, said the paradox was primarily caused by China’s inflexible operation of coal and gas power plants, which supply electricity through long-term contracts that remove any incentive to reduce output when cheaper solar and wind power is available.
Electricity trading between Chinese provinces, also based on annual contracts, prevents surplus renewable energy from flowing to other areas in real time, the analysis found.
Santa Marta process can confront trade protection for fossil fuels, experts say
Myllyvirta said all operators should be required to sell electricity in real time so that coal power plants would face competition from very low prices during hours of strong renewables output and have an economic incentive to cut down generation. “But that has not made a lot of progress in China,” he added.
Curtailment rates risingThe intentional reduction of renewable energy generation, a process known as curtailment, saw a significant increase in China at the start of 2026, reaching 9.2% for solar and 8.5% for wind respectively, according to Bloomberg.
Myllyvirta noted that real curtailment rates are likely to be even higher than those reported in official statistics. He added that, until tracking improves, there won’t be enough political pressure to fix the issue.
The findings highlight Beijing’s failure to make full use of its record renewables build-out to accelerate the country’s transition away from fossil fuels.
If curtailments had not risen, increased capacity means wind and solar could have generated an extra 170 terawatt hours of electricity (TWh) in the first quarter, more than satisfying the growth in power demand, CREA’s analysis found. But, instead, clean power generation rose by just 60 TWh, with wind showing almost no growth.
Electricity generation from solar (left) and wind power (right) in China, terawatt hours per 12-month period. Red: Electricity actually fed into the grid. Yellow: Generation before reported levels of “curtailment”, where some electricity is discarded due to grid congestion. Blue: Generation if the rate of curtailment had stayed constant. Source: China Electricity Council monthly data on installed capacity and utilisation; National New Energy Consumption Monitoring and Early Warning Center data on curtailment Electricity generation from solar (left) and wind power (right) in China, terawatt hours per 12-month period. Red: Electricity actually fed into the grid. Yellow: Generation before reported levels of “curtailment”, where some electricity is discarded due to grid congestion. Blue: Generation if the rate of curtailment had stayed constant. Source: China Electricity Council monthly data on installed capacity and utilisation; National New Energy Consumption Monitoring and Early Warning Center data on curtailment Global problemChina is not alone in under-utilising its full renewable energy potential. Curtailments have risen in countries including the UK, Australia, India, Chile and Brazil, primarily as a result of bottlenecks in national transmission systems unable to accommodate additional clean power output.
After failing to keep up with the installation of renewable generation capacity, annual investments in updating grids need to increase by around 50% by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. The watchdog said that, if power networks fail to prevent high levels of curtailments, clean energy operators risk facing significant revenue losses, threatening the investment case for renewables.
One of South America’s largest clean power generators said on Wednesday that it was putting plans for $1 billion in new renewables investment in Brazil on hold as the country’s grid operator rejected up to 25% of the power its existing projects could produce, Reuters reported.
The post China’s carbon emissions rise again as more clean power is wasted appeared first on Climate Home News.
Investor climate group closes down, blaming “limits” of shareholder activism
In 2021, amidst a wave of corporate net-zero targets, a campaign group called Investors for Paris Compliance was set up in British Columbia, aiming to use investor pressure to hold Canadian companies to account on their climate promises.
In the five years since, the group has notched up several wins: pressuring National Bank into providing $20 billion of finance to renewable energy, getting Royal Bank of Canada to improve its green finance labels and persuading 20-25% of investors to regularly back climate proposals at annual general meetings (AGMs) for shareholders.
But last month, the group’s then executive director Matt Price put out a statement saying it was shutting down. Despite some progress, Price explained, his organisation had concluded that “investor accountability has reached its limits”.
Companies and their investors often understand that climate change threatens the economic system, Price said. But, he added, they do not respond adequately because they are worried that, if they do, their competitors will not put in as much effort and could therefore gain a financial advantage.
This “tragedy of the commons” situation cannot be fixed by shareholder advocacy, Price said, but instead needs litigation, regulatory action and accountability mechanisms. “Some of our team will take those things on in new initiatives,” he said.
Price’s words echo the findings of a London School of Economics (LSE) report published last month, based on workshops with asset owners and managers in New York, Amsterdam, London and Singapore.
Government policy keyThe LSE report noted that “action by investors on climate change is severely constrained by their duties, the limited tools at their disposal and the pathways of technology development”. To be effective, pressure from climate-conscious investors must be coupled with government policy that incentivises green investment and technological innovation, the authors concluded.
An investigation by the Guardian recently found that, despite overwhelming shareholder support for its climate action plan, Australian mining company BHP has carried on buying polluting diesel trucks instead of electric ones. The Australian government subsidises diesel, saving BHP hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
As EU acts to stop greenwash, funds drop climate claims from their names
Lindsey Stewart, director of institutional insights for investment research firm Morningstar, told Climate Home News that investor activism does work but it “doesn’t do everything that people expected it to do towards the beginning of the 2020s”.
“There is a limit to what can be achieved by minority shareholders exercising their votes and engaging with companies. Quite a lot, it does seem, is reliant on the legal and regulatory framework,” he said, adding that the closure of Investors for Paris Compliance shows this “realisation is sinking in a lot more than perhaps it was in 2020, 2021, 2022”.
Decline of investor activismStewart said that in the early 2020s, investor activists were pushing companies for “things that were sort of already on the regulatory conveyor belt anyway”, like companies setting targets for their operational (Scope 1 and 2) emissions, disclosing their carbon footprints, and assessing their exposure to risk from climate change.
With this low-hanging fruit picked, green-minded investors have moved on to make demands that are more controversial and have received less support from other investors, he said. He gave examples of just transition reporting, green capital expenditure financing ratios for banks and disclosing emissions from the use of products a company sells, known as Scope 3 emissions.
On top of this, Stewart said, there has been pressure from the “right-wing political establishment in the US” against investors taking climate change into consideration. BlackRock, which manages $9.5 trillion of assets, has walked back its climate commitments after pressure from US Republicans.
More fundamentally, Stewart described the idea that fossil fuel majors would dismantle their oil and gas business and transform into renewables companies as a “pipe dream on the part of environmentalists”. “Why would they have the skill or capability, or even the stakeholder backing, to completely transform a business of that size?” he asked.
Shareholder activism is only possible at privately owned and listed companies, while most investment in oil and gas is now coming from state-owned companies, like Saudi Arabia’s Aramco. In 2025, less than a quarter of investment was from oil majors like BP and Shell.
Business backlash shows powerYet despite the uphill climb, Mark van Baal defends shareholder activism. He runs an Amsterdam-based campaign group called Follow This, which has tried to get investors to vote for pro-climate resolutions at the AGMs of oil and gas multinationals.
He accepts that success peaked around 2021, but says the effort oil and gas firms are now putting into winning over shareholders and discouraging pro-climate resolutions – which he characterised as “the Empire Strikes Back” – shows the power of shareholder activism, which was previously underestimated.
Mark van Baal is the head of Follow This (Photo: Follow This)In January 2024, ExxonMobil sued Follow This, aiming to block the group’s climate resolution. Fearing the case would end up in the Supreme Court, where conservative judges could set an anti-climate precedent, Follow This withdrew the resolution.
But, said van Baal, although the legal battle created a “chilling effect among investors”, it is a “proof point that shareholder pressure works and that they’re really afraid of the shareholders”.
Vote, don’t sellStewart and van Baal both agreed that selling, or threatening to sell off shares is not an effective way to change a company’s behaviour.
It allows less climate-conscious investors to buy the shares, they said, adding that there is no evidence that threats to sell shares and therefore lower the valuation over climate concerns have influenced company management.
Van Baal said the share price is set by short-term traders, not long-term shareholders like the pension funds he works with.
How Shell is still benefiting from offloaded Niger Delta oil assets
Nonetheless, investors’ engagement should be forceful, van Baal insisted – and not just within their comfort zone of talking to management about sustainability behind closed doors without voting for it at AGMs. “Shareholder democracy is the only democracy where voting is called escalation,” he said.
The Follow This website says that only investors can stop fossil fuel companies destroying the planet. “Marches didn’t change their minds. Lawsuits didn’t stop them. But shareholders can,” it trumpets.
But van Baal told Climate Home News this wording is “too strong” and may have to be revised, adding that shareholder activism just “fits me more than gluing myself to roads” and is a tactic he “stumbled on” 11 years ago.
Legal, political and investor activism can reinforce each other, he added. When Friends of the Earth sued Shell alleging inadequate climate action, for example, the green group’s lawyers cited the company’s rejection of a Follow This resolution as evidence. “The pressure needs to come from all sides,” van Baal said.
The post Investor climate group closes down, blaming “limits” of shareholder activism appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pages
The Fine Print I:
Disclaimer: The views expressed on this site are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) unless otherwise indicated and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s, nor should it be assumed that any of these authors automatically support the IWW or endorse any of its positions.
Further: the inclusion of a link on our site (other than the link to the main IWW site) does not imply endorsement by or an alliance with the IWW. These sites have been chosen by our members due to their perceived relevance to the IWW EUC and are included here for informational purposes only. If you have any suggestions or comments on any of the links included (or not included) above, please contact us.
The Fine Print II:
Fair Use Notice: The material on this site is provided for educational and informational purposes. It may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in an effort to advance the understanding of scientific, environmental, economic, social justice and human rights issues etc.
It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have an interest in using the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The information on this site does not constitute legal or technical advice.
This site is not the official webpage of the Industrial Workers of the World.