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China Briefing 21 March: New ‘trade-in’ policy; China ETS expands; ‘Two sessions’ geopolitical impact
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.
China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments China’s equipment ‘trade-in’ act could reduce emissionsEQUIPMENT UPGRADE: On 13 March, the State Council, China’s top administrative authority, released an action plan to “promote the large-scale renewal of equipment and the trading-in of consumer goods”, reported state news agency Xinhua. According to the official document, “the scale of equipment investment, in areas including industry, agriculture, construction, transportation, education, culture, tourism and medical care, is planned to increase by more than 25% by 2027 compared with last year”. The upgrade in “key industries” will also help “reduce emissions” and “increase efficiency”, the document said. Chinese financial outlet Yicai said that, under the plan, the government also aims to double the volume of scrapped cars being recycled and increase the recycling of household appliances by 30%.
DOMESTIC DEMAND: Bloomberg said that the equipment upgrade action plan was a “pillar” of the government’s plan for economic expansion: “The programme will get support from the central government budget alongside tax breaks and targeted lending from banks…The statements didn’t specify the amount of government funding for the programme, which was first mentioned by President Xi Jinping in February as a way of boosting demand for goods.” The outlet quoted one economist saying the plan would add 0.7 percentage points to GDP growth each year until 2027, with most of the boost coming from support for car purchases. It reported an economist that advises the Chinese government saying that “China needs to boost domestic demand and adjust its industrial policy to counter rising criticism from the US and Europe”.
New rules to boost renewablesGUARANTEED PURCHASE: China’s top economic planner the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) released measures to provide “fully-guaranteed purchase of renewable energy electricity” from 1 April, industry news outlet BJX News reported. The rules update an existing policy from 2007, according to an analysis published by Jiemian, to clarify the scope of the “fully guaranteed purchase” programme. The report added that the purchase mechanism was designed to allocate “purchase responsibilities” based on “market behaviour (need)”. An analysis republished on WeChat by BJX News said that the rules also clarify there might be legal “consequences” for both the renewable energy producer and grids that purchase the power, if they failed to meet their targets of production and purchase. For power purchasers, it is their “responsibility” to purchase a certain amount of renewable power under the purchase mechanism, added the outlet.
CURTAILMENT TOLERATED: Elsewhere, local media in China suggested that the country may soon “end its policy of limiting [renewable power] installations when power curtailments rise above 5% of installed capacity for a given source”, Bloomberg reported, adding that “solar manufacturers have seen their shares rebound in recent days as speculation mounts”. It noted that the local outlets did not provide a source for this information. However, Yu Qing, chief executive of an electricity company in Hangzhou, wrote in an analysis on social media platform WeChat that he was sceptical about the benefit for solar. He said that while easing curtailment rules would allow some previously restricted projects to connect to the grid, it was only a “planning method” and that market signals and other constraints would still cause problems for solar developers.
Carbon market expands to aluminium industryNEW JOINER: China’s national emissions trading scheme (ETS) is about to expand beyond the power sector to cover aluminium production, Chinese economic media outlet Caixin reported, but the details have not yet been finalised. Electrolytic aluminium production emits “the most carbon in the non-ferrous metals sector in China” and was responsible for 4.5% of the national total carbon emissions in 2020, added Caixin. (For more, see Carbon Brief’s Q&A on the ETS, China country profile and China Briefing of 8 February.)
WHAT TO EXPECT: Yan Qin, lead analyst at London Stock Exchange Group, told Carbon Brief that the consultation draft of the official document hinted the ETS will cover “indirect emissions from aluminium production”, related to the electricity used in the process. She added that, “as previously announced, industry sectors will only conduct ‘simulation trading’ at the beginning” of their entry into the ETS. The recently closed “two sessions” political gathering (see below) sent a signal that the ETS will involve more industries in the future, said an analysis published by the Chinese government-backed China clean development mechanism fund. Chinese media outlet Lintan-energy posted on its WeChat account that the cement industry is likely to be the third sector to join the ETS, after power and aluminium, and could enter the market by the end of this year.
Booming EV industry faces export difficulties‘INTENSIFYING’ MARKET: The number of newly registered companies selling electric vehicles (EVs) in 2023 was six times higher than in 2019, said Chinese outlet Science and Technology Daily, citing a report on trends in the country’s manufacturing industry. China’s technology giant Xiaomi will start EV sales this month, according to BBC News, which said the move “comes as a price war in China’s EV market has been intensifying”. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported on a “zombie” combustion-engine car factory in China – referring to unused production lines due to lack of demand – and said analysts were predicting hundreds more over the next decade “as buyers opt for EVs”. The head of Chinese EV giant BYD said “new energy vehicles” – including EVs and plug-in hybrids – made up 48% of new cars sales in China last week, Australian outlet the Driven reported, which quoted him saying that, “if it continues at this rate, I estimate that the penetration could cross 50% in the next three months”.
ROAD BUMPS: Despite the phenomenon of combustion car “zombie” factories, Volkswagen said it still believed the market for petrol-powered cars remains “lucrative” in smaller Chinese cities, said the Financial Times. The report added that poorer cities’ “lack of charging infrastructure” has frustrated EV industry growth. In related news Caixin, citing data from consultancy firm McKinsey China, reported that there was significant “disillusionment” among Chinese EV owners in 2023, with 22% stating they would not consider an EV for their next car, a sharp rise from 3% in 2022. It said the number of EV owners in small cities and rural areas regretting their purchase was at a “striking” 54%, due to inconvenient charging infrastructure.
EXPORT CONUNDRUM: Following investigations in the EU and US over the growth of Chinese EV exports, the UK is expected to launch its own probe, reported the Daily Telegraph, adding that transport secretary Mark Harper warned of “robust” trade sanctions to prevent what the newspaper called a “flood” of cheap Chinese EVs. Responding to the moves, He Yadong, spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Commerce, expressed “concerns” and added that China’s exports will not “damage” the EU market, reported BJX. Italy has already approached Chinese EV firms and setting up manufacturing in Italy would be “a big win for China’s auto industry”, which sees Italy as a “strategically positioned bridgehead” to get into European, African and Middle Eastern markets, reported Quartz.
Spotlight What does the economic signal from China’s ‘two sessions’ mean for global emissions, geopolitics and trade?Every spring, China’s top leaders use the annual political event lianghui (两会), which is also known as “two sessions”, to send signals to the world about how they would like to lead the country in the coming year.
As the “two sessions” drew to a close, experts, academics and foreign investors moved on to interpreting those signals and drafting strategies in response to them. In the previous issue of China Briefing, Carbon Brief analysed the “two sessions” domestic impact.
But, as the world’s second-largest economy and largest emitter, China’s influence does not stop there. This week, Carbon Brief looks into the bigger picture and asks leading experts to interpret how geopolitics, international trade and global emissions could be impacted. Their responses have been edited for clarity and length.
Dr Li Fang, China country director at World Resources Institute:
The most impressive takeaways from this year’s “two sessions”, for me, are the emphasis on how to vitalise development through internal-driven forces, how to improve its market allocation, and how to establish a more low-carbon, ecological and equitable business environment.
The discussion surrounding high-standard international economic and trade rules integrating considerations for climate, ecology and human welfare signals that China is exploring how to achieve a better combination of “effective government” and “efficient market”.
It is speeding up efforts to incorporate new production elements like carbon into its considerations. I believe there’s a growing inclination among China’s decision-makers to propose proactive strategies aligning economic development with addressing sustainability challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss. I believe there are emerging opportunities for markets and businesses to play more significant roles in China’s future transition.
Nis Grünberg, lead analyst at MERICS:
The “two sessions” did not offer anything surprising or substantively new, but confirmed the approach of the past months, prioritising energy security and economic stability before an accelerated, potentially disruptive, exit of fossil fuel. No new ambitions on emission cuts or coal consumption were announced.
On the positive side, officials plan to continue the massive buildup of renewable energy capacity and systematic support of clean-tech industries. In the short run, this means no quick departure from fossil fuel and large emissions, but, in the long run, the added renewables and China’s rapidly growing clean-tech sector will displace fossil fuel and bring down emissions.
The strong focus on technology apparent throughout the government work report means continuing the substantial political and economic investment in clean tech, which has become a key sector for growth. This also means there is no end in sight to trade conflicts over Chinese exports of electric vehicles (EVs), solar and batteries, which were singled out as success stories. China is signalling that it is not building its clean-tech industry for domestic consumption only, but seeks to double down and expand its export capacities.
Yao Zhe, policy analyst at Greenpeace East Asia:
At a time when China’s economy is in dire need of confidence, clean-energy industries offered a rare success story. At this year’s “two sessions”, renewable energy and EVs received the highest recognition for their contributions to economic growth and industrial upgrading. Where the low-carbon economy was once a catchy concept seeking political buy-in, it has now established itself. That signal is clear: China will not waste this potential. The global race for net-zero economies will only accelerate.
But while Chinese policymakers are eager to embrace the future, the past has proven tricky to discard. Coal power continues to receive special treatment, slotted as a safety net for China’s energy consumption, fueling concerns that China will miss its key 2025 climate targets. China’s carbon emissions may soon reach a tipping point. But this year’s “two sessions” did not reveal how or on what near-term timetable policymakers will navigate this historic change.
Ali Wyne, senior research and advocacy advisor on US-China relationship, International Crisis Group:
Chinese leaders emphasised cultivating “new productive forces“. [“Productive forces” is a central idea in Marxist theory referring to the combination of human labour with technology and infrastructure, explained a recent article in the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. It added that Chinese president Xi Jinping coined the phrase “new productive forces” last year and quoted him saying it means “advanced productivity freed from traditional economic growth models’, feature “high technology, high efficiency and high quality” and “align with the country’s new development philosophy”.]
With [leaders] emphasising the concept, the “two sessions” underscored China’s hope that investing in leading-edge industries including advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence and renewable energy will sustain its growth more reliably than investing in traditional drivers, such as real estate.
Domestic demand is unlikely to keep pace with the new capacity that this push generates, however, so economic frictions between China and advanced industrial democracies, especially in the West, are poised to intensify further.
Watch, read, listenWOMEN AND CLIMATE CHANGE: Chinese climate and investment consultancy firm 2060 Advisory produced a podcast on International Women’s Day about female entrepreneurship in the climate industry.
CLIMATE COOPERATION: The Legal Planet, a climate policy and environmental law blog, released a video recording of Joanna Lewis, writer of the book “Cooperating for the Climate”, giving a lecture on how to cooperate with China at UCLA’s Emmett Institute.
‘TWO SESSIONS’ AND JAPAN: UK thinkthank Chatham House recorded a podcast discussing China’s National People’s Congress – the legislative body that hosted the recent “two sessions” – and China’s relationship with its close neighbour Japan.
STEEL EMISSIONS: Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post published an article based on data from US thinktank Global Energy Monitor (GEM), which found China’s steel sector could cut carbon emissions by more than 10% in 2025 with a “faster shift to clean production”.
New scienceHealth cost impacts of extreme temperature on older adults based on city-level data from 28 provinces in China
Environmental Research Letters
New research into the impact of extreme temperatures on medical costs for “older adults” found that in western Chinese provinces, costs will more than triple by 2030, compared to a 2016-20 baseline. The authors found that under the very high emissions RCP8.5 scenario, older adults could cost 2.7tn Chinese yuan by 2050. However, costs can be reduced by 4.6% and 7.4% by limiting emissions in line with the medium-emissions RCP4.5 and low-emissions RCP2.6 scenarios, respectively.
Assessing the supply risks of critical metals in China’s low-carbon energy transition
Global Environmental Change
China has “grown increasingly susceptible to disruptions” in critical metal supplies as it transitions to low-carbon technologies, according to a new study. The nation is the largest consumer and importer of these metals, leaving it vulnerable to geopolitical shifts and volatile prices, the researchers say. They model supply risks for 30 metals and conclude that the risk facing China for nine metals – including copper and chromium – “exceeds that of other countries that consume large amounts of critical metals”.
China Briefing is researched and written by Wanyuan Song, Anika Patel and other contributors. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
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Climate change made west Africa’s ‘dangerous humid heatwave’ 10 times more likely
The “dangerous humid heat” that engulfed western Africa in mid-February was made 10 times more likely by human-caused climate change, a new rapid attribution study finds.
Throughout February, western Africa was hit by unusually intense heat. Temperatures exceeded 40C in some regions, prompting the Ghanaian and Nigerian meteorological services to issue heat warnings.
The World Weather Attribution (WWA) service have analysed the region’s “heat index” – a measure that incorporates both temperature and humidity, to reflect the physiological impacts of the extreme conditions.
While the average air temperatures in west Africa reached 36C over 11-15 February, the heat index for the same period was about 50C, according to the study.
The study authors find that climate change made the heatwave 10 times more likely and 4C hotter. They warn that if global warming reaches 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, “similar events will occur about once every two years and will become a further 1.2-3.4C hotter”.
There was “very limited” data available on the impacts of this heatwave across west Africa, the study notes. However, the authors told a press briefing that heat is a “silent killer” and that lack of reported impacts does not mean the heatwave was not dangerous.
The report says that “to reduce heat-related morbidity and mortality in southern west Africa, there is an urgent need for improved monitoring and research on the impacts and risks associated with heatwaves”.
Early heatwaveCountries across west Africa have been sweltering under unseasonably hot temperatures for weeks.
Wasiu Adeniyi Ibrahim is a meteorologist from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency and a co-author on the study. He told a press briefing that in west Africa, the most severe hot and humid weather of the year is usually recorded during March and April.
However, by February this year, the region was already reporting record-breaking temperatures. This intense heat was driven by an “anomalous high-pressure system over the Sahara region” which “carried hot air towards the coast”, Ibrahim explained.
On 7 February, the Ghanaian capital city of Accra recorded its hottest day in history when temperatures reached 38C.
The finals of the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament were played in Ivory Coast on 11 February. This year, for the first time, the Confederation of African Football included two-minute cooling breaks at the 30th and 75th minutes, with provisions for additional breaks under extreme heat.
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency issued a warning on 13 February after air temperatures hit 41C in the north of the country, stating that the heat could cause conditions including fainting, heat rash, “weakness of the body” and respiratory issues. The agency advised people to stay hydrated, seek shade and stay indoors as much as possible between midday and 4pm.
“Experts warn that the extreme temperatures, amid the epileptic power supply, could trigger diseases, threaten livestock, and lead to death,” the Nigerian newspaper Punch said, reporting on the heat warning.
The WWA adds that, across Nigeria, “doctors reported an increase in patients presenting for heat-related illness” and “people complained of poor sleep due to hot nights”.
The Ghanaian Meteorological Agency released an “urgent public service announcement” on 20 February, advising precautionary measures such as staying hydrated and avoiding direct sun exposure.
As the month progressed, hundreds of regional and national temperature records across the region were broken, including hottest February nights in Ghana, Benin and Togo.
‘Dangerous humid heat’Extreme heat is particularly dangerous when combined with high humidity. When it is hot, the human body produces sweat to cool itself down. However, as humidity increases, sweating becomes less effective.
To assess the severity of the hot and humid conditions, the study authors analysed the “heat index”. This measure “combines temperature and humidity to reflect how it feels to the human body”, Dr Izidine Pinto – a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and co-author on the study – explained to a press briefing.
The study says:
“While the average air temperature in west Africa was above 36C, the heat index for the same period was about 50C, reflecting how a combination of humidity and high temperatures caused dangerous conditions.”
The authors focus on a region of southern west Africa where the heat was the most extreme, including Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and small parts of Guinea and Cameroon.
The maps below show the five-day heat index over this region averaged over 11-15 February (left), where purple indicates hotter temperatures, and the difference compared to the 1991-2020 average (right), where red indicates hotter temperatures. The blue boxes in both maps indicate the study region.
Five-day average heat index over 11-15 February (left), and the difference compared to the 1991-2020 average (right), using ERA5 reanalysis data. The blue box shows the study region. Source: WWA (2024)Pinto told the press briefing that as there was no meteorological station data available for many of the countries in the study region, the researchers had to “wait for the gridded datasets to be updated and validated for the region” before conducting their analysis. This delayed the release of the study findings, he said.
To put the heatwave into its historical context and determine how unlikely it was, the authors analyse a timeseries of annual maximum five-day heat index over the study region, shown below. Higher bars with darker colours indicate a higher heat index.
Annual maximum five-day heat index over southern West Africa. Source: WWA (2024)The authors find that in today’s climate, this heatwave was a one-in-10 year event.
AttributionAttribution is a fast-growing field of climate science that aims to identify the “fingerprint” of climate change on extreme-weather events, such as heatwaves and droughts. To conduct attribution studies, scientists use models to compare the world as it is today to a “counterfactual” world without human-caused climate change.
They can also use these models to assess how much more intense or frequent the event would be in an even warmer world.
In this study, the authors investigate the impact of climate change on the maximum five-day heat index in southern west Africa.
They find that global warming made the west African heatwave 4C hotter. They add that if global warming reaches 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, similar events could become a further 1.3-3.4C hotter.
The authors also calculate that climate change made the heatwave 10 times more likely to occur, adding that similar events could occur every other year in a 2C world.
The graphic below illustrates these results. a pink dot indicates the number of years in every 100 that an event like the February heatwave over southern West Africa would be seen at different warming levels.
The square on the left shows a world without climate change, in which such a heatwave would happen less than once every 100 years. The middle square shows that in today’s climate, the heatwave is a one-in-10 year event. And the square on the right shows that in a 2C world, a heatwave of this severity could be expected every other year.
Expected frequency of the February 2024 west African drought at different warming levels. Source: WWA (2024).(These findings are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. However, the methods used in the analysis have been published in previous attribution studies.)
Under-reportedWest Africa was not the only region to experience record-breaking heat in February 2024.
February 2024 was the world’s hottest February on record, and countries across southern Africa – including Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe – saw temperatures of 4-5C above the February average.
Africa’s record-breaking heat continued into March.
In Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, many residents faced several weeks without water. “Authorities in Johannesburg, South Africa’s commercial hub, have blamed the ongoing heatwave for the lack of water in some parts of the city for several weeks,” Daily News reported on 13 March.
On 18 March, the health and education ministries of South Sudan closed its schools, after weather services projected an extreme two-week heatwave with temperatures of up to 45C. Parents were advised to keep all children indoors, and ministries warned that any school found open during the warning period would have its registration withdrawn.
BBC News added:
“Muslims, who make up around 6.2% of the country’s population, have been hit especially hard as many are observing Ramadan – a month of fasting. They are therefore not permitted to drink water or any other liquids to stay hydrated during the day.”
Over March 18-19, at least five countries in Africa, including South Africa and South Sudan, reported record-breaking temperatures.
However, the WWA study says that while the heatwave “potentially affected millions”, there is “very limited” data available about its impacts. As such, it says that very few heat-related impacts were reported by the media and government organisations.
“This, of course, does not mean there are no impacts,” said Maja Vahlberg from the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, who is a co-author on the study.
In fact, Vahlberg told a press briefing that early-season heatwaves are generally “more impactful than heatwaves in the hot season” because “the human body has to very rapidly adjust to extreme temperatures”.
Heatwaves are a “silent killer”, Pinto told the press briefing, warning that “you only see the impacts later”.
The lack of reporting on the impacts of the heatwave “reflects the need to improve awareness of dangerous heat and detection of heat impacts”, the study says.
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‘Drill, baby, drill’: The surprising history of Donald Trump’s fossil-fuel slogan
As Donald Trump prepares for this year’s US presidential election, he continues to summarise his energy policies with one simple slogan: “Drill, baby, drill.”
The Republican candidate has laid claim to the phrase, arguing that more drilling will allow him to cut inflation and flood the country with the “liquid gold” that is oil.
However, it was Michael Steele, the US politician who served as the first African-American lieutenant governor of Maryland and chair of the Republican National Committee, who came up with the slogan back in 2008.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Steele stresses that Trump had “nothing to do” with “drill, baby, drill” – a phrase he coined to promote US independence from Middle Eastern oil.
Expressing regret that it has been taken up by the Republican challenger for the White House, Steele says that, with the rise of electric cars, today the slogan could change to “plug, baby, plug”.
Here, Carbon Brief explores the history of “drill, baby, drill”, from the Black Panther-associated slogan “burn, baby, burn” through to its status as a rallying cry for pro-fossil fuel US conservatives.
‘Drill, baby, drill’In a recent interview with Fox News, Trump explained his plans for US fossil-fuel production if he wins November’s election, saying:
“We are going to – I used this expression, now everyone else is using it so I hate to use it, but – drill, baby, drill.”
It is a phrase that he has repeated at rallies across the nation in recent months, sticking with his preference for three-word campaign slogans.
Yet, despite Trump’s assertion, it was Steele who invented the phrase. While addressing the Republican National Convention in 2008, he told the crowd:
“Let’s reduce our dependency on foreign sources of oil, and promote oil-and-gas production at home. Let me make it very clear: Drill, baby, drill – and drill now.”
Steele tells Carbon Brief that the slogan came to him late at night, after a fit of “writer’s block”.
“Donald Trump…his BS aside, had nothing to do with ‘drill, baby drill’,” says Steele, who today is a staunch critic of the Republican presidential candidate.
Steele was met with rapturous applause at the 2008 convention. Chants of “drill, baby, drill” from the crowd even interrupted a speech by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Michael Steele speaks at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota on 3 September 2008. Credit: Ron Edmonds / Associated Press / Alamy Stock PhotoThis was during a period of soaring fuel prices in the US, linked to conflict in the Middle East. The government was under significant pressure to expand offshore drilling.
Later that year, the “drill, baby, drill” slogan was taken up by supporters throughout the campaign of Republican John McCain, in his unsuccessful presidential bid against Barack Obama.
It became particularly associated with Sarah Palin, the climate-sceptic Republican vice-presidential pick, who said in a debate with her Democratic challenger Joe Biden:
“The chant is ‘drill, baby, drill’. And that’s what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy.”
In the years that followed, the phrase was repeated endlessly by Republican politicians, as well as in comment articles and political analysis. (It did, however, see a dip in popularity following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, with Senate Republicans stating that they had never endorsed such a phrase.)
Since then, the slogan has spread and been applied to countries from Scotland to Guyana. In recent years, it has even been used to lobby for the expansion of gas in Africa.
‘Burn, baby, burn’Despite its runaway success, there was some initial bemusement from commentators at a slogan that appeared to have been derived from “burn, baby, burn”.
That phrase, which has since made its way into everything from disco songs to hot sauce, was originally associated with Black nationalist group the Black Panthers and particularly the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles.
It was chanted as buildings were set on fire, amid civil unrest sparked by police violence against an African-American man.
Writing shortly after the Republican National Convention in 2008, journalist Derrick Z Jackson alluded to this when he wrote in the Boston Globe:
“This 93% White gathering blithely stole from the race riots of the ’60s to lustily chant ‘drill, baby, drill’.”
‘Plug, baby, plug’For his part, Steele tells Carbon Brief that his intention was to use a colloquial expression to “connect it to something that was very real” – namely, cutting US reliance on Middle Eastern oil. He explains his thinking at the time:
“We should look at this from a very basic point of view, let’s not overthink it. We have the capacity, we have the means. Drill, baby, drill.”
However, he expresses frustration at its adoption by Trump:
“Unfortunately, a lot of people use it…in a way that they don’t fully appreciate what the point was, and the point was the self-sufficiency of the American spirit.”
Today, the US is no longer reliant on oil from the Middle East and is, in fact, the world’s largest oil producer.
A key focus of current US energy policy is achieving independence from Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturing through measures in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). However, Trump has pledged to scrap the IRA along with other environmental measures.
Steele, who has expressed climate-sceptic views himself in the past, says that his point in 2008 was not to override environmental commitments. He says:
“It’s not just ‘drill with abandon’, it’s also the idea of drilling responsibly and understanding the impacts that we do have environmentally.”
With the growth of electric cars and other technologies in the US, he adds:
“‘Drill, baby, drill’ may at some point in the future change to…‘plug, baby, plug’. Plugging your electric car into the port…It is the idea of self-sufficiency, independence, freedom, which again is an orientation that very much is in line – well, was in line – with the old Republican party. That seems to have given way to something very different today.”
Nevertheless, Steele accepts that while he will “always be there to remind [Trump]” of where the slogan came from, it is now out of his hands:
“My only regret is that I didn’t copyright it and put it on a T-shirt.”
A shorter version of this article was first published in DeBriefed, Carbon Brief’s weekly climate newsletter, on 15 March. Subscribe for free.
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Guest post: Climate adaptation becomes less effective as the world warms
From flooding in New Zealand and wildfires in Canada through to drought in the Middle East and extreme heat across the northern hemisphere, last year provided a powerful demonstration of the impacts of climate change.
With global temperatures over the past decade around 1.2C warmer than pre-industrial levels, the impacts already urgently demand adaptation investments to avoid mounting losses.
However, research suggests that existing limits and barriers to adaptation could take decades to overcome, particularly in vulnerable countries. And while adaptation measures are gradually being put in place, how might they be further affected by continued warming?
In our new study, published in One Earth, we investigate how the effectiveness of well-established adaptation options in relation to water changes as the world warms.
Our findings show that the effectiveness of water-related adaptation declines markedly once warming passes 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – from a central estimate (median) of 90% to 69%, 62% and 46% at 2C, 3C and 4C, respectively.
With the implementation of adaptation already lagging behind what is needed, our findings show that warming beyond 1.5C needs to be avoided for effective adaptation to be possible.
Measuring the effectiveness of adaptationThe latest assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that current adaptation efforts are insufficient to cope with the increasing severity of warming-related impacts across the world.
This “adaptation gap” – the difference between what is needed to reduce impacts and what has been implemented – is growing, despite increasing adaptation efforts across all world regions.
Where adaptation has been documented, many benefits – such as economic gains, better educational outcomes or infrastructure improvements – have been observed. However, we still have very limited evidence and knowledge about how effective adaptation is in reducing climate risks – arguably the key purpose of adaptation.
This is, of course, an inherently difficult thing to measure, as it is not possible to calculate impacts that have been avoided because of adaptation.
Different ideas of how to measure adaptation effectiveness have been put forward. In a very narrow sense, the IPCC defines adaptation effectiveness as the extent to which an adaptation option is anticipated or observed to reduce climate-related risk, an approach we use in our study. More encompassing definitions of effectiveness include the multiple benefits adaptation can have on a broader set of outcomes, such as human well-being and equality.
A better understanding of the risk reduction potential of adaptation is crucial, as climate impacts will become more severe over the next decades. With limited resources to invest, it is essential that informed decisions can be made.
Adaptation as the world warmsIn our study, we look at a set of frequently used adaptation interventions in the water and agricultural sectors, which are central in current modelling approaches of future impacts.
We collated a set of published case studies distributed across all world regions. We grouped these options into nine different types of adaptation interventions – shown in the map below.
For example, adaptation measures under “changes in cropping patterns and crop systems” include approaches such as shifting planting dates or substituting different crops. Measures related to “water and soil moisture conservation” include approaches such as reduced tilling (turning of the soil) or introducing mulching (covering topsoil with plant material).
Map of adaptation intervention types and their distribution. Countries are shaded according to the regional grouping used for the analysis. Source: Lissner, T. K. et al. (2024)Each case study assesses in detail how a particular option could be implemented according to specific local conditions and provides results on its potential to reduce climate risks.
In many studies, different combinations of measures or different specifications of one measure – for example, shifting planting dates by 10, 20 or 30 days – are tested. Where this leads to different levels of effectiveness, we focus on those specifications that show to be most effective in reducing risk.
Declining effectivenessTo set these case study results into a global context and align them with important levels of warming, as in the IPCC reports, we translate all results into a representation of adaptation effectiveness at 1.5C, 2C, 3C and 4C. To represent effectiveness, we assess the proportion of projected risk that an adaptation option is able to avoid.
Our findings suggest a concerning picture: adaptation options are effective in reducing risks in most assessed settings up to 1.5C of warming, but with increased warming, effectiveness declines across all options and regions.
The central estimate (that is, the median) of adaptation effectiveness across all assessed measures at 1.5C is 90%. However, this declines to a median effectiveness of 69% at 2C and 62% at 3C – a level that current policies could still take warming close to.
At 4C, effectiveness declines even further to a median of 46%, indicating that less than half of projected impacts would be avoided under the adaptation measure.
The decline in effectiveness is most pronounced for adaptation options related to agriculture. For example, changes in cropping patterns and crop systems show high effectiveness at 1.5C, with more than 50% of data points in this category, but the share of highly effective adaptation decreases to 14% at 4C.
At the other end of the scale, we find that energy related adaptation (85%), flood risk reduction measures (78%) and urban water (78%) are the most likely categories to reduce 80% or more of projected risk across all warming levels.
As models do not account for adaptation limits and barriers, effectiveness in practice is likely to be lower than under idealised model conditions we assess in our study.
In many cases, adaptation in a 1.5C world comes with potential co-benefits, where the adaptation option improves conditions more widely, relative to the baseline of current conditions. For example, shifting from rain-fed agriculture to irrigation systems produces co-benefits in multiple cases.
Our findings for adaptation across Africa show that co-benefits could be substantial in closing existing adaptation gaps: 54% of assessed studies indicate potential co-benefits at 1.5C. However, this potential declines to 12% at 4C.
No-till farming, Arkansa, USA. Credit: Design Pics Inc / Alamy Stock PhotoSimilarly, in Asia the potential for co-benefits declines from around 56% at 1.5C to 16% at 4C. In Central and South America, our data also shows a shift towards less effective adaptation outcomes. There is no apparent shift in the level of co-benefits that could be achieved, though it must be noted that much fewer studies were available for this region.
In some situations, adaptation becomes not just ineffective in reducing risk, but it actually aggravates the situation, leading to “maladaptation”.
Africa shows the largest share of maladaptive outcomes at all levels of warming. For example, intensifying the cultivation of maize and sorghum in west Africa or earlier planting of maize in Uganda further decreases yields – in addition to climate impacts – rather than reducing projected risk, even at 1.5C warming.
Models often overestimate the potential for adaptationCurrently, adaptation is not well represented in quantitative models. Integrated assessment models provide information on energy system transition pathways to limit warming, but they do not account for climate impacts or costs and potentials for adaptation.
Climate impact models assess the sectoral effects of warming – for example, on agriculture or the water system. Sectoral climate impact models implement selected adaptation measures, such as irrigation in the agricultural sector, for example, but do not account for limitations such as water availability.
But, even more importantly, models do not account for other constraints and limits to adaptation, which have been documented in practice.
Beside financial barriers, which are a fundamental impediment to effective adaptation, there are also constraints and limits related to governance and institutions, availability of information, awareness, human capacity and socio-cultural constraints. Similarly, adaptive capacity plays an important role in the ability to implement effective adaptation.
Consequently, where models include adaptation, they likely overestimate its potential. This is also true for our own assessment: we assess adaptation in a modelled context, where ideal conditions for implementing the respective option are assumed. If additional adaptation constraints and adaptive capacities were considered, the extent to which adaptation can effectively reduce climate risks may be further reduced.
Climate-resilient development requires limiting warming to 1.5COur study focuses on a limited set of adaptation options, which are currently frequently used and have direct entry-points into the modelling space. It can be assumed that progress and learning unlock further innovation for adaptation in the future, increasing the options and approaches available to adapt and reduce risk.
However, we also know that additional limits and constraints are likely to affect effectiveness as compared to a modelling environment that does not consider such aspects.
Our findings show that effective adaptation is only truly possible if it occurs alongside ambitious mitigation action that limits warming to 1.5C. Our study also emphasises that adaptation is not an alternative to mitigation, nor can it be seen as a way to allow for a delay in mitigation efforts.
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DeBriefed 15 March 2024: Global methane surge; Europe faces ‘urgent’ climate risks; Surprising origin of Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
This week Methane on the riseNEAR-RECORD LEVELS: Methane emissions from the fossil-fuel industry rose to near-record levels of 120m tonnes last year, “despite technology available to curb this pollution at virtually no cost”, according to Agence France-Presse. Reuters added that the high levels of methane emissions were produced despite commitments by companies and governments to plug leaking fossil-fuel infrastructure, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) annual methane tracker report.
MORE METHANE: Separately, a new study in Nature concluded that US oil-and-gas infrastructure emits three times as much methane into the atmosphere as government estimates suggest, the Associated Press reported. According to New Scientist, the study was based on nearly one million aerial surveys of methane leaks, creating what one of the scientists described as “the largest such dataset that has ever been assembled”.
MAJOR SHOCKS: The European Environment Agency (EEA) has issued its first assessment of the “urgent” climate risks facing Europe, the Guardian reported. More action is needed to address half of the 36 significant climate risks, such as wildfires and other climate disasters, according to the report, the Guardian said. The Financial Times noted that, according to the EEA, the EU is at “higher and higher” risk of major financial shocks from climate change.
DECIMATED FARMING: Meanwhile, Politico reported that the European Commission is working on legislative proposals that would “severely weaken” environmental requirements for agricultural workers in the EU, amid ongoing farmers’ protests across the continent. This is despite advice by top EU scientists that agriculture “must become more sustainable or it will be decimated by climate change”, the article added.
- ZAMBIA DROUGHT: More than one million people face food shortages and malnutrition in Zambia due to crop failures triggered by drought, according to an Oxfam report covered by Down To Earth. Much of southern Africa continued to face record temperatures.
- TRANSITIONING AWAY?: The US Export-Import Bank, a federal institution that finances projects overseas, has voted to put $500m toward an oil-and-gas project in Bahrain, according to the New York Times. It noted that this was viewed by critics as “out of step” with US pledges to move away from fossil fuels.
- SHELL BACKTRACKS: Oil giant Shell has weakened its emissions target for 2030 and dropped its goal for 2035 entirely, in an update to its “energy transition strategy”, Bloomberg reported. Carbon Brief explained the changes with charts.
- YOUTH AT RISK: Young activists, including climate campaigners, must be better protected from online attacks, arrests and physical threats, according to a report by UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders Mary Lawlor, covered by the Guardian.
- GAS BOOST: UK energy secretary Claire Coutinho announced plans to support new gas power plants, claiming that without them the country could face “blackouts”, the Press Association reported. Ministers later confirmed that unabated gas would still only meet around 1% of demand in 2035.
- ELECTRIC SWAP: Mexico’s parliament has agreed to amend the nation’s General Law on Climate Change to support programmes that facilitate the replacement of combustion-engine cars with electric and hybrid vehicles, according to Excélsior.
The amount that India has asked developed countries to provide in climate finance each year from 2025 as a minimum to help developing countries deal with climate change, according to the Times of India.
Latest climate research- New research in Nature estimated that global economic losses from heat stress could reach 0.6-4.6% by 2060. Major losses came from health impacts, lower labour productivity and disruptions to supply chains, the study found.
- Fears about Covid-19 reinforced climate change concerns rather than providing a distraction from the crisis, according to a new survey of 28 European countries published in Climate Risk Management.
- Newcastle University in the UK is asking members of the public to participate in a survey into “uncertainty distress” in relation to climate change.
New Carbon Brief analysis based on provisional government data showed that UK emissions fell to just 383m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2023. This marked the first time emissions have fallen below 400MtCO2e since Victorian times. However, this drop was mostly unrelated to deliberate climate action by the government. Instead, much of it came about due to a drop in gas demand, driven by factors such as higher electricity imports from French nuclear plants and warmer temperatures. The analysis was covered by the Times and was the focus of an editorial.
Spotlight ‘Drill, baby, drill’: The history of Trump’s favourite sloganCarbon Brief explores the history of a slogan claimed by Donald Trump, but with roots stretching back to Sarah Palin and, prior to this, the Black Panthers.
The senior Republican who first used the phrase tells Carbon Brief that he is critical of Trump and those who want to “drill with abandon” today.
In a recent interview with Fox News, former president Donald Trump summarised his plans for US fossil-fuel production if he wins the election this year, by saying:
“We are going to – I used this expression, now everyone else is using it so I hate to use it, but – drill, baby, drill.”
Despite Trump’s assertion, it was Michael Steele, the US politician who was the first African-American lieutenant governor of Maryland and chair of the Republican National Committee, who came up with the slogan
Addressing the 2008 Republican National Convention, he told the crowd:
“Let’s reduce our dependency on foreign sources of oil, and promote oil-and-gas production at home. Let me make it very clear: Drill, baby, drill, and drill now.”
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Steele said that the slogan came to him late at night, after a fit of “writer’s block”.
“Donald Trump…his BS aside, had nothing to do with ‘drill, baby drill’,” stressed Steele, who today is a staunch critic of the Republican presidential candidate.
The phrase was used by supporters throughout the campaign of Republican John McCain in his unsuccessful presidential bid against Barack Obama.
It became particularly associated with Sarah Palin, the climate-sceptic Republican vice-presidential pick, who said in a debate with her Democratic challenger Joe Biden:
“The chant is ‘drill, baby, drill’. And that’s what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy.”
In the years that followed, the phrase was repeated endlessly by Republican politicians, as well as in comment articles and political analysis. (It did, however, see a dip in popularity following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.)
There was some bemusement at a slogan that appeared to have been derived from “burn, baby, burn”.
That phrase, which has since made its way into everything from disco songs to hot sauce, was originally associated with Black nationalist group the Black Panthers and particularly the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles. It was chanted as buildings were set on fire, amid civil unrest sparked by police violence against an African-American man.
Writing shortly after the Republican National Convention in 2008, journalist Derrick Z Jackson alluded to this when he wrote in the Boston Globe:
“This 93% White gathering blithely stole from the race riots of the ’60s to lustily chant ‘drill, baby, drill’.”
For his part, Steele told Carbon Brief that his intention was to use a colloquial expression to “connect it to something that was very real” – namely, cutting US reliance on Middle Eastern oil. He said:
“Unfortunately, a lot of people use it…in a way that they don’t fully appreciate what the point was, and the point was the self-sufficiency of the American spirit.”
He added that “it’s not just ‘drill with abandon’, it’s also the idea of drilling responsibly”, noting that, with the growth of electric cars and other technologies in the US:
“‘Drill, baby, drill’ may at some point in the future change to…‘plug, baby, plug’.”
Nevertheless, Steele accepted that while he will “always be there to remind [Trump]” of where the slogan came from, it is out of his hands now:
“My only regret is that I didn’t copyright it and put it on a T-shirt.”
Watch, read, listen‘OIL COLONIALISM’: The latest episode of the Drilled podcast explored how Nigerians are “resisting oil colonialism” after Shell announced at the end of 2023 that it was shutting down its onshore operations in the country.
CLIMATE PLOTTERS: An article in Sierra examined what it called a “conspiracy to take down wind and solar power” across the US, made up of “climate-science deniers, right-wing think tanks and fossil fuel shills”.
KYOTO ON STAGE: The Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, is putting on a production of Kyoto, a play that dramatises the UN climate summit in 1997 that gave rise to the Kyoto Protocol.
Coming up- 15-17 March: Russian presidential election
- 18-21 March: Global Methane Forum, Geneva, Switzerland
- 21-22 March: Copenhagen Climate Ministerial, Denmark
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DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org
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Shell abandons 2035 emissions target and weakens 2030 goal
Shell has abandoned a key climate target for 2035 and weakened another goal for 2030, according to its latest “energy transition strategy”.
The oil major has “updated” its target to cut the total “net carbon intensity” of all the energy products it sells to customers – the emissions per unit of energy – by 20% between 2016 and 2030. The reduction is now set at between 15-20%.
Within Shell’s strategy, chief executive, Wael Sawan, writes that this change reflects “a strategic shift” to focus less on selling electricity, including renewable power.
Instead, the company says investment in oil and gas “will be needed” due to sustained demand for fossil fuels. It emphasises the importance of liquified natural gas (LNG) as “critical” for the energy transition and says it will grow its LNG business by up to 30% by 2030.
This amounts to a bet against the world meeting its climate goals, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) and others concluding no new oil-and-gas investment is needed on a pathway to 1.5C – and warning against the risk of “overinvestment”.
Elsewhere in the report, Shell notes that it has “chosen to retire [its] 2035 target of a 45% reduction in net carbon intensity” due to “uncertainty in the pace of change in the energy transition”.
Both goals were intended as stepping stones on the company’s journey towards net-zero emissions by 2050, a goal set by the previous chief executive, Ben van Beurden, in 2020.
The weakening of climate goals from Shell, the world’s second-largest investor-owned oil-and-gas company, comes after BP scaled back its ambitions last year.
Weaker targetsThe new report marks the first three-year review of Shell’s “energy transition plan”, after it was adopted in 2021.
Rather than setting a target for cutting its entire “scope 3” emissions – those generated by the use of Shell’s fossil fuels and other energy products by consumers – the company set itself “net carbon intensity” targets on its path to net-zero.
This allows Shell to bring down its carbon intensity and hit its targets through means other than cutting its oil-and-gas production, such as selling more low-carbon products, including renewable electricity.
Shell initially said the carbon intensity of the energy it sells would fall 20% by 2030, from a baseline of 2016, and then 45% by 2035.
This amounted to a cut from 79g of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule of energy (gCO2e/MJ) to 63gCO2e/MJ by 2030 and 43gCO2e/MJ by 2035.
As the chart below shows, these targets have now been weakened. The 2030 target has been changed to a range of 15-20% and the 2035 target has been “retired”, according to a footnote in the review.
Targets to reduce the net carbon intensity of Shell’s energy product sales, % below 2016 levels, including old targets (blue) and new ones (red). Targets given as a range are indicated by pale colours. Source: Shell energy transition strategies.Shell attributes these changes to a shift in its business priorities.
The firm says that when it comes to selling electricity, including renewable power, it will focus on “value over volume”. For example, it will target “commercial customers more than retail customers”.
The company points to its withdrawal from supplying energy to European homes, having closed its utilities arms in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany in 2023.
Nevertheless, the company also says the “biggest driver for reducing our net carbon intensity is increasing the sales of and demand for low-carbon energy”, rather than cuts in fossil-fuels production. The report states that:
“Investment in oil and gas will be needed because demand for oil and gas is expected to drop at a slower rate than the natural decline rate of the world’s oil and gas fields, which is 4-5% a year.”
This amounts to a bet against the world meeting its carbon targets. If the world were to get on track to limiting warming to 1.5C, there would be no need for investments in new oil and gas production, according to the IEA.
In its 2023 World Energy Outlook, the IEA said that warnings from oil and gas producers that the world was “underinvesting” in new supplies were no longer valid. It said:
“[T]he fears expressed by some large resource-holders and certain oil and gas companies that the world is underinvesting in oil and gas supply are no longer based on the latest technology and market trends.”
The agency added that risks were “weighted more towards overinvestment”.
LNG over oilShell has also introduced a new target for cutting emissions from customer use of its oil products, such as petrol and diesel used in cars, within its energy transition strategy review.
This goal amounts to a 40% reduction in absolute emissions by 2030, compared to 2016 – a level the European company says is compatible with the EU’s climate targets for transport. Shell says it will “gradually reduc[e] exposure to oil products used for transport”, by shifting its sales away from this area.
Alongside this, Shell announced a renewed focus on LNG in the strategy, which it says will play a “critical role” in the energy transition, even as people embrace electric cars and therefore reduce their reliance on oil.
The company expects global demand for LNG to continue growing “at least through the 2030s”, and says it will grow its LNG business by 20-30% by 2030.
This marks a continuation of Shell’s focus on LNG from its 2021 strategy, when it said it would “extend leadership” in this area.
Shell’s internal outlook for the growth of global LNG demand is markedly more optimistic than the IEA’s, which suggests that there is already enough capacity built or under construction to meet demand for the next two decades.
According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), Shell’s LNG outlook “underestimates barriers” to demand growth. IEEFA says:
“[Shell] is pinning its hopes on rapid demand growth in emerging markets and China’s industrial sector, which may never materialise.”
Despite its plans to expand its LNG business, Shell’s report overall emphasises a “balanced and orderly transition away from fossil fuels”.
Wider trendsShell states that it has so far met its climate targets and points to its success reducing emissions from its own operations, such as those from oil rigs and offices.
It argues in the small print at the bottom of the report that, despite its targets for consumer carbon intensity, “Shell only controls its own emissions”.
(Shell has long maintained this line, that it is merely meeting the demand of customers to buy fossil fuels. Exxon chief executive Darren Woods recently made a similar argument.)
The report also stresses that its plans for net-zero are dependent on society as a whole and “if society is not net-zero in 2050… there would be significant risk that Shell may not meet this target”. This is familiar language from the oil major, which frequently explains that it is consumers, not Shell itself, that influence fossil-fuel use.
Shell’s review follows the global energy crisis that has unfolded over recent years, driven by spiralling gas prices. In response to the changing energy landscape this has brought about, there has been a shift in tone from the oil majors regarding climate commitments.
It also follows a period in which companies such as Shell have made record profits due to rising fossil-fuel prices.
After taking over from Van Beurden, Shell chief executive Sawan stated that “cutting oil and gas production is not healthy”, emphasising the “fragility of the energy system”. In his introduction to the new strategy, Sawan writes:
“Our ability to raise and invest capital depends on delivering strong returns to shareholders, shaping the role that Shell can play on the journey to net-zero. We believe this focus makes it more, not less, likely that we will achieve our climate targets and ambitions.”
BP, Europe’s second largest oil major, weakened its climate targets last year. The change in its goals, which unlike Shell’s are based on full scope 3 emissions, can be seen in the chart below.
Reduction targets for total scope 3 CO2 emissions produced by BP products (million tonnes of CO2 – MtCO2). The old target is indicated by a blue line and the range of new targets is indicated by the red area. Source: BP net-zero progress update.Shell’s “strategic shift” in its operational focus comes amid a wider effort to cut operating costs.
This has seen the company announce plans to reduce staff numbers, in particular in low-carbon sectors of the company such as hydrogen.
The company’s profits have fallen now fossil-fuel costs have returned to more normal levels, but have remained high. In February, the company announced an annual profit for 2023 of more than £22bn ($28bn), one of its most profitable years on record.
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Q&A: What does China’s ‘two sessions’ mean for climate policy in 2024?
China’s annual lianghui (两会) – also known as the “two sessions” – ended on 11 March, drawing the curtain on a key political event that saw limited climate targets set for 2024.
The “two sessions” political gathering, which usually takes place every March, gives an indication of China’s broad policy direction for the year, covering topics from the economy to industrial strategy to environmental protection.
In this article, Carbon Brief outlines the key signals from the 2024 “two sessions” on China’s plans for meeting climate targets, developing coal power, exporting clean-energy technology and more.
The article also assesses the impact of China’s goal of reducing energy intensity by 2.5% this year – described by analysts as “very soft-ball” – on its broader targets for reducing energy intensity and carbon intensity by 2025.
This is an update of Carbon Brief’s 7 March China Briefing newsletter, expanded with additional key points the government made about its approach to climate policy, as well as interpreting political signals sent throughout the “two sessions”.
- Why is the “two sessions” important?
- Does this year’s ‘government work report’ include hard climate targets?
- Is the report ambitious on climate?
- Will China continue to boost ‘green’ innovation?
- How will China manage geopolitical tensions around climate?
- What were other high-ranking policymakers saying about climate and energy policy at the “two sessions”?
- What next?
The “two sessions” is the annual gathering of two bodies: China’s top legislative body, known as the National People’s Congress (NPC), and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body similar to the House of Lords in the UK, but without any voting rights on legislation.
The gathering usually lasts for several days in Beijing and is attended by Chinese communist party members, as well as members of other political parties, academics, independent politicians and other prominent figures.
The “nearly 3,000” delegates represent the “democracy of China” and are given space to advance their own ideas. A select number of ministers are also given the opportunity to highlight their priorities in “minister’s corridor” press conferences.
Its centrepiece is the annual “government work report”, a speech traditionally delivered by the premier, who is the second most powerful leader in China. This speech underscores successes from the previous year and outlines priorities for the year ahead. It is also traditionally when China’s GDP growth target for the year is announced.
Alongside the government work report, China’s top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), also announces more detailed plans for meeting the coming year’s other development targets.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) and Premier Li Qiang (right) during China’s annual ‘two sessions’ in Beijing, China. Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo Does this year’s ‘government work report’ include hard climate targets?One of the few quantitative climate targets China set in this year’s government work report is to reduce energy intensity – its energy consumption per unit of GDP – by 2.5% over the coming year, a target that Bloomberg described as “modest”. The target was lower than analysts’ expectations of 4%, the outlet added.
Previous analysis for Carbon Brief found that China would need to reduce its energy intensity by 6% per year to meet its 2025 target of a 13.5% drop, with energy demand needing to fall in absolute terms.
The NDRC report says that the 2.5% target was set “after considering energy consumption in economic development, renewable energy substitution, and the need to make a green and low-carbon transition”. It also said that the goal reflects the fact that energy consumption will increase this year.
It acknowledges shortcomings in efforts to meet energy and carbon intensity targets in 2023, adding that this was due to “rapid growth of industrial and civilian energy consumption”.
The NDRC also significantly altered the energy intensity target, which will now “exclud[e] non-fossil fuels and coal, petroleum and natural gas consumed as raw materials”.
This shift means the government has “redefined” the energy intensity target to mean “fossil fuel intensity”, Lauri Myllyvirta, senior research fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), tells Carbon Brief, making the 2025 target “very soft-ball”.
Li Qiang during the opening session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing, China. Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock PhotoMyllyvirta states that the report does not address the bigger problem – accelerating growth in energy intensive sectors to support China’s economy during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This growth – particularly in the exports, heavy manufacturing and construction sectors – would need to be “reversed” to make gains in energy intensity, he says, “but that’s not what they’re talking about [in the report]”.
By his estimate, if China’s energy intensity – under the new calculation – does fall by 2.5%, this would translate to “at best” a 3% fall in carbon intensity – the emissions per unit of GDP. This would be “very far from the 7% [fall] they need”, per his recent Carbon Brief analysis, to meet the 2025 target of an 18% reduction in carbon intensity.
Is the report ambitious on climate?The government work report makes no significant changes to China’s direction of travel on climate and energy policy. Instead, the language around these policies continues to balance tensions inherent to China’s energy transition.
It signals that China will continue to manage the relative prioritisation of “both high-quality development and greater security”. It also asks policymakers to balance “actively” and “prudently” reach climate targets.
Efforts will be made to reduce carbon emissions and pollution, as well as to develop large-scale wind and solar bases and distributed energy, the government work report says.
China will also develop methods to measure carbon emissions and a “carbon footprint management system”; push the “green transformation” of industry, energy, transport and construction; and expand the scope of the national emissions trading market.
But, at the same time, the report also doubles down on the commitment to fossil fuels. Coal will continue to play a “crucial role in ensuring energy supply”, it says, while China increases development of oil, gas and strategic minerals in the name of security.
“You could almost see the government struggling with the language”, Li Shuo, director of ASPI’s China climate hub, tells Carbon Brief. He adds that there “seems to be an increasing lack of consistency” both in the report and in other policy papers.
He attributes this to the increasingly challenging economic situation facing the government and competing interests within the political system.
In addition, the lack of targets around air pollution, forestry and other environmental issues, could be interpreted as a “deprioritisation” of climate issues, he adds, or “as a reflection that the government has been distracted by some of the other competing issues, in particular economic challenges”.
“We’re getting very concerned” about China’s ability to meet its wider climate goals, Li says. Based on the recent surge in energy consumption, “it is going to be very challenging for China to hit [its energy and carbon intensity] targets. They certainly will not be able to meet those targets if they stick to…2.5% [annual] energy intensity reduction.”
Will China continue to boost ‘green’ innovation?The government work report trumpets China’s clean-energy development in 2023, including growing installations of renewable energy, its contributions to the global energy transition and the 30% growth in exports of the “new three” industries of lithium-ion batteries, solar panels and electric vehicles (EVs).
(Previous analysis for Carbon Brief found that clean technologies – particularly the new three – were the top driver of China’s economic growth last year.)
Research and development of gas turbines and “generation IV” nuclear power units are also singled out as areas in which China has seen “substantial progress”.
Going forward, China will “consolidate and enhance [its] leading position” in industries such as electric vehicles and hydrogen, and “create new ways of storing energy”, the report says. This was the first time either energy storage or hydrogen have been mentioned in an annual government work report at the “two sessions”.
“I [can’t] think of a[nother] country where the economic agenda and the climate agenda are so aligned,” Li tells Carbon Brief. “The challenge for China is when and how and how fast will the positive[s]” lead to the “phasing down or the phasing out of the dirtier [aspects]”.
Press conference of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing, China. Credit: Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo How will China manage geopolitical tensions around climate?The greater emphasis placed on clean-tech exports comes as tensions with western countries grow around China’s dominance in solar and electric vehicle (EV) supply chains.
The European Commission recently required that imported China-made EVs register with customs, which could signal an intention to apply retroactive tariffs if they are believed to have received unfair subsidies.
The UK is planning a similar probe into Chinese EV subsidies. The US is deciding whether to increase tariffs on Chinese EVs, with commerce secretary Gina Raimondo arguing they could also pose data security risks.
More broadly, language in the government work report around foreign policy is notably assertive. It underscores that “protectionism and unilateralism were on the rise” in 2023, adding that these tensions “exerted a more adverse impact on China’s development”.
It also states that China will “oppos[e] all hegemonic, high-handed and bullying acts” in 2024 – words that did not appear in the government work report either last year or in 2022.
At the same time, China also pledges to continue to “implement…‘small and beautiful’ projects” in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partner countries, the majority of which are located in the global south.
The Panda Paw Dragon Claw newsletter, says that the government work report “covered much of the language we would expect” in terms of the BRI. It adds, however, that “less prominent individuals in the [CPPCC] offered slightly more nuanced perspectives”.
What were other high-ranking policymakers saying about climate and energy policy at the “two sessions”?This year is the first time in decades that China cancelled its most-widely followed press conference at the “two sessions”, usually held by the premier and offering a rare opportunity for the media to interact directly with top leaders in China.
While the spotlight on 5 March was still on premier Li’s government work report, the domestic media gave more attention to the president, Xi Jinping.
One of the few meetings at the “two sessions” to be publicly announced was Xi’s meeting with the “group of environment and resources”, a new sub-group within the advisory CPPCC. It currently has 85 members, including party and government leaders, scientists, and industry leaders, according to analysis by China Energy Net.
Xi gave a speech at the meeting, in which he said group members “should make new contributions to strengthening ecological environmental protection, and support high-level protection alongside high-quality development”.
One member of the new group is Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) head Huang Runqiu, who gave a speech on behalf of the members on 9 March. Huang argued that the “construction of a ‘Beautiful China’ is a long-term task” and that the construction of a ‘Beautiful China’ zone, balancing high-level protection and high-quality development, is a priority piece of work.
Huang also participated in a “minister’s corridor” press conference, during which he said that China will “synergistically push forward carbon reduction, pollution reduction, green expansion and growth”.
He added that focus areas for the MEE include: fighting “the battle against pollution”; promoting the construction of “Beautiful China” zones; encouraging green, low-carbon and high-quality development; and “supervising” ecosystem protection and restoration.
Chinese Minister of Ecology and Environment, Huang Runqiu, during the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing, China. Credit: Xinhua / Alamy Stock PhotoMeanwhile, National Energy Administration (NEA) director Zhang Jianhua submitted a proposal at the “two sessions” on how to “improve” the way China communicates its position on climate change with the outside world.
His proposal argues that China needs to address “injustices in global carbon reduction [efforts]” and “promote global fair and just carbon reduction”, and better communicate the “effectiveness of China’s [energy] transformation”.
The proposal is notable because, traditionally, the MEE leads on climate diplomacy in conjunction with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), while the NEA focuses on domestic policy. Nevertheless, the NEA has commented in the past on geopolitics in relation to energy security concerns and participated in bilateral energy dialogues.
Zheng Shanjie, director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), also spoke at a press conference, choosing to highlight that “China’s ‘new three’ exports…[demonstrated] China’s strength in its manufacturing exports”.
However, China’s leadership also warned against “unfettered” industrial development at the “two sessions”, while top solar company Longi called on the government to “crack down on low prices and ensure panel quality”.
Xi said at the meeting with delegates from Jiangsu province that China “must prevent local rush and oppose irrational, blind investments that create bubbles”.
Xi did not link his comments to China’s clean energy industries explicitly but, as well as being politically important, Jiangsu province is “known for its exports, advanced manufacturing [and] clusters of new industries including solar and new energy vehicles”, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post added.
What next?The government work report merely sets the framework for the year and functions as a signal for the general public, especially for industries, investors and corporations.
In the closely watched report, premier Li expressed concern that “achieving this year’s targets will not be easy, so we need to maintain policy focus, work harder, and mobilise the concerted efforts of all sides”.
An article in the Wall Street Journal said the speech “doesn’t show [a] clear path to recovery” and the Economist said China’s “confidence crisis goes unfixed”.
Following the central-level gathering, ministries and local governments must now develop concrete policies to meet its goals and encourage investors and industries to follow its lead.
Whether and how China progresses towards its “dual carbon” goals and other targets will depend on how this implementation proceeds.
Analysis: Record drop in China’s CO2 emissions needed to meet 2025 target
China energy
|The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Pan Jiahua
China Policy
|The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Zou Ji
China energy
|China Briefing
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Cropped 13 March 2024: Drought hits food supplies; ‘Mass bleaching’ of coral reefs; Industrialising African ag
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s Cropped.
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments Drought hits food suppliesBLOW TO AFRICA: “The driest February in decades” swept across a swathe of southern Africa, wiping out crops and jeopardising energy supplies, Bloomberg reported. It cited preliminary data suggesting that large parts of Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe had record-low February rainfall last month. The outlet noted that 45% of planted areas in Zambia “have been destroyed” and the president has declared a national disaster. The crop failures have “threatened to send already high food prices surging further”, Bloomberg wrote, noting that in both Zambia and Zimbabwe, prices have risen by about 75% compared to last February. In addition, “dangerously low” water levels in reservoirs in several countries could force the governments to ration power supplies.
‘DIRE NEED OF FOOD’: In the Federated States of Micronesia, in Oceania, thousands of people have been affected by drier-than-normal conditions recorded since December last year, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reported. The news site interviewed Cromwell Bacareza, UNICEF’s Micronesia field office chief, who said that around 16,000 people – 40% of whom are children – “are in dire need of food”. Bacareza told the outlet: “It’s not an isolated incident, but rather a grim reminder for everyone of the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities, particularly the small island states.” RNZ cited the US National Weather Service, which has projected that the current El Niño would continue to worsen weather conditions.
SICILY’S ‘SEVERE DROUGHT’: The southern Italian island of Sicily is also under a “severe drought” due to a lack of winter rains, which has forced dozens of towns to ration water for both agriculture and residential consumption, Reuters reported. The newswire added that the risk to agriculture in Sicily was considered a “particular concern” by the EU’s crop monitoring service. Meanwhile, in the Po valley in northern Italy, rice farmers are still dealing with the impacts of a persistent drought that began in 2022 and devastated 7,500 hectares of rice fields last year alone, according to the Guardian. The outlet noted that Italy accounts for about 50% of the rice produced in the EU, and most of it comes from the Po Valley, where arborio and carnaroli rice – used in risotto – is harvested. The Guardian added that farmers have sought to diversify their crops in response to climate change.
Indigenous peoples driving conservationINDIGENOUS VOICE: El Mostrador reported that the Chilean government has announced that it will involve Indigenous peoples in developing the country’s adaptation plan for its water sector. It added that “citizen participation” workshops will take place during March and April with the 11 Indigenous peoples legally recognised by Chile. El Mostrador quoted Cristian Núñez Riveros, the director general for water in Chile’s public-works ministry: “This will make it possible to recognise [Indigenous peoples’] interrelationship with water, considering their environment, ways of life and productive activities. It will shed light on the impacts of climate change from their voices, considering their practices and contributions to sustainable water management.”
LEADING CONSERVATION: Indigenous and coastal minority women are at the forefront of efforts to conserve Kenya’s “blue forests”, Inter Press Service reported. The women are restoring mangroves and fish ponds near Tsunza, a southern Kenyan coastal village, after fish disappeared from the area following several oil spills between 2003 and 2006, the newswire reported. Elsewhere, the Indigenous Achuar people in the Ecuadorian Amazon, who fought for more than 40 years to stop oil development in the area, now have solar panels in 12 of their villages, the Washington Post reported. The community had previously had little electricity coverage, but a new project has brought solar electricity to schools and homes and even allowed a switch from petrol boats to solar-powered boats.
‘THE SOLUTION’: Nearly 200 representatives of peasant and Indigenous organisations met at the end of February in south-eastern Mexico to address issues that affect them, including climate change, violence and food sovereignty, EFE Verde reported. The meeting organisers told the news agency that the meeting sought to establish actions to defend their rights in the run-up to the Mexican general elections on 2 June. In an interview with the outlet, Jesús Andrade, a member of a group of farmers’ organisations, said “the solution is peasant agroecology, which can cool the planet”. EFE Verde added that activists, NGOs and communities condemned the murder, disappearance and forced displacement of Indigenous communities by organised crime groups.
Spotlight Dutch farm visitIn this spotlight, Carbon Brief speaks to John Arink, a Dutch organic farmer, on a media trip organised by Clean Energy Wire.
“When I look at the agricultural system at this moment, we have big problems. It is due to the system that the water is polluted…so we have to change the system.”
Amid ongoing farmer protests across the EU, one farmer in the Netherlands recently showcased the less-intensive future he wants for the agriculture sector.
John Arink, an organic farmer, spoke to Carbon Brief and other media outlets on his farm near the village of Lievelde in the east of the Netherlands, around two hours from Amsterdam.
Arink and his family run a small organic farm, shop, hotel and restaurant. He is a small producer by Dutch standards – the average dairy farm in the country has more than 100 cows. Arink has 50, alongside three pigs and 100 chickens.
Walking around the farm, a rooster crowed in an outdoor enclosure with a solar-powered coop, horned cows looked out from their pen and a group of piglets huddled around their feed.
Arink started out as a more conventional, intensive farmer in the mid-1980s. Then he visited a smaller organic farm and saw how animals could be raised with limited use of chemical fertilisers and antibiotics. He said:
“On my way back home, I thought, well, that’s the direction I want to go with my farm. In the 30 years after that, that’s what we did here.”
The Netherlands – a country around one-third the size of England – is the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural goods, behind the US. Overall in the Netherlands, average farm sizes are getting bigger, but the number of farms is shrinking.
In recent years, the Dutch government had to develop plans to substantially reduce nitrogen emissions from, among other things, manure and chemical fertilisers on farms.
In 2022, the government set targets to cut nitrogen pollution by as much as 70% in some areas by the end of this decade. A voluntary “buy out” scheme for farms is among the measures aimed to reach this goal.
Protests kicked off in 2019 in response to the nitrogen crisis and demonstrations continued over the past few years.
On these protests and the wider farmer outcry across Europe this year, Arink believes that many farmers “cannot look over the hill” to a possible future producing less meat and more plants. He added:
“In Holland, we have some kind of a mantra that says the intensive way of producing milk and meat is very efficient. But it is not when you calculate all of the indirect dues of materials and energy.
“Maybe from the financial point of view, it can be efficient, but we have to look at it in the ecological way. And from that point of view, it’s very inefficient.”
Government formation talks remain ongoing in the Netherlands, months after the country’s general election last November. The next government will be tasked with enforcing the nitrogen reduction measures in the coming years. Arink said:
“That [nitrogen] problem is not to be solved only by farmers, but the whole society.”
News and viewsREEF RIFT: Coral reefs around the world are on the brink of a fourth mass bleaching event, which “could see wide swathes of tropical reefs die”, Reuters reported. This follows “months of record-breaking ocean heat fuelled by climate change and the El Niño climate pattern”, the newswire added. Bleaching is triggered by heat stress and “can be devastating for the ocean ecosystem”, Reuters said. Dr Derek Manzello, the coordinator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s coral reef monitoring authority, told the outlet: “We are literally sitting on the cusp of the worst bleaching event in the history of the planet.” Australia’s Great Barrier Reef “lost nearly a third of its corals” during the last global bleaching between 2014 and 2017, the newswire noted.
RISK FACTOR: The EU is planning to delay its deforestation-risk rating system for countries, which was due to take effect at the end of this year, according to the Financial Times. The law aims to prevent the sale of products that have been produced on deforested land. The rules would categorise countries as posing either a low, standard or high risk for deforestation. Three EU officials told the FT that all countries will be listed as “standard risk, to give them more time to adapt”. The newspaper said that the change came after “several governments in Asia, Africa and Latin America complained that the rules would be burdensome, unfair and scare off investors”. The European Commission declined to comment, the FT said. (Read Carbon Brief’s Q&A on the law for more.)
NIGERIA’S ‘BLUE CARBON’: A mangrove-restoration carbon credit project received an early green light in an “oil-rich Nigerian state”, Bloomberg reported. A UK-based company, Serendib Capital, was granted the rights “to restore the mangroves and seagrass beds” on about 9% of land in Delta State, in southern Nigeria. The outlet said that the project developer claimed this “could potentially sequester, or store away, 5.32m tons of carbon each year”. Huge oil companies “have been blamed for much of the damage that’s historically destroyed the area’s wetlands and farms”, Bloomberg added, noting that “they, in turn, could now become some of the biggest buyers of carbon offsets”. Parts of the carbon offset market have “cooled recently amid increasingly sharp criticism from scientists and experts”, the outlet said.
FARMERS RALLY ON: “Thousands of angry farmers” threw smoke bombs and lit fires near parliament buildings in Warsaw as EU farmer protests continued, Al Jazeera said. Polish farmers demonstrated against EU rules and “cheap Ukraine imports”, according to the outlet, adding that there were also “tractor blockades on roads across the country”. The country’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, “failed to reach an agreement with Polish farmers to end protests”, Euronews reported. Separately, ITV News said that farmers in Wales lined “thousands of wellies…on the steps of the Senedd [parliament] in protest against the Welsh government’s new farming plans”.
AFRICAN AGRI: A report from civil-society groups criticised a $61bn plan to “industrialise African food systems”, saying it would pose a “significant threat to small-scale farmers”, Mongabay reported. The African Development Bank (AfDB) recently released “agricultural development plans” for 40 African countries, aiming to improve food security and productivity. The groups said the initiative’s “emphasis on principal commodity crops, mechanised farming tools and standardised land tenure systems” push towards agro-industrialisation, Mongabay said. The outlet added that the groups believe this would “increase dependency on multinational corporations for seeds and agrochemicals, and lead to the loss of land and biodiversity”. The AfDB did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment.
COASTAL VILLAGE THREAT: Coastal villages in the east of India that were “hit hard by a super-cyclone” 25 years ago have since experienced “a rise in soil and water salinity and subsequent loss of agricultural land, livelihoods and marriage prospects”, according to the Migration Story. The outlet spoke to residents in the villages of Udaykani and Tandahar about the continuing impacts of the super-cyclone that “lashed” the state of Odisha in 1999, which was the “most intense ever recorded in the northern Indian Ocean”. One villager, Vaidehi Kardi, told the outlet: “When the soil turned salty, our crops shrivelled…Gradually, the water, too, turned salty and our lives withered.”
Watch, read, listenGREEN BURIALS: In a podcast, National Public Radio examined sustainable burials and how costly they can be for your wallet and the planet.
AN OPTION FOR BELIZE: Inside Climate News looked at a “fevered push” from conservationists to “save what’s left” of the tropical rainforest in Belize through carbon offsets.
‘ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES’: The Diplomat interviewed Prof John McManus, a professor at the University of Miami, to talk about environmental damage in the South China Sea.
‘GREEN GOLD’: In a Financial Times long read, the newspaper’s Brazil bureau chief Bryan Harris explored the agriculture and agribusiness “boomtowns” in the central-west parts of Brazil.
New scienceAustralia’s Tinderbox Drought: An extreme natural event likely worsened by human-caused climate change
Science Advances
Climate change made low rainfall levels during an “extreme and impactful” drought in Australia from 2017-19 “around six times more likely”, compared to pre-industrial times, new research suggested. This drought “helped create favourable conditions for the most intense and widespread outbreak of forest fires ever recorded in south-east Australia”, the study said. The researchers looked at the characteristics and causes of the “tinderbox drought” in south-east Australia and used modelling to assess how unusual the drought was compared to “natural climate variability”. They found multiple ways in which human-caused climate change may have worsened the drought, but said that other aspects of the drought were “unexpected”.
Bornean tropical forests recovering from logging at risk of regeneration failure
Global Change Biology
When logged forests are restored, they have higher seedling mortality compared to unlogged forests, new research has found. Over a year and a half, researchers examined the diversity, survival and characteristics of more than 5,000 seedlings of 15 species in northern Borneo. Some of the seeds germinated in unlogged forests and some in forests that were logged 30-35 years ago and were subsequently restored either naturally or with restoration techniques such as tree planting. They found that both restoration types had lower species richness and evenness than unlogged forests five-to-six months after the trees began to produce stems.
Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in the UK: carbon storage potential and growth rates
Royal Society Open Science
A new study revealed that giant sequoias planted in the UK can absorb carbon between 2.5 and 20 times faster than other tree species commonly planted on plantations. The researchers used laser scanning to calculate the above-ground biomass and annual biomass accumulation rates of individual giant sequoia trees at three different sites. They found that the UK trees grew at similar rates as those in the US, “varying with climate, management and age”. The study said that giant sequoias are one of the country’s largest tree species and have “undoubted public appeal”. It added that they “represent a small but potentially important addition to the UK’s carbon sequestration efforts”.
In the diary- 15 March: Third meeting of the informal advisory group on benefit-sharing from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources | Online
- 11-13 March: 11th annual World Ocean Summit and Expo | Lisbon
- 18-29 March: First part of the 29th session of the International Seabed Authority | Kingston, Jamaica
- 21 March: International Day of Forests
- 22 March: World Water Day
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
Cropped 28 February 2024: Chocolate crisis; Tree-planting scrutinised; EU restoration law
Cropped
|Cropped
|Cropped 31 January 2024: French farmers and the far right; Amazon affairs; EU offsetting ban
Cropped
|Cropped 17 January 2024: Norway’s deep-sea disquiet; Panama drought; New species discovered
Cropped
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Loggers have ‘grabbed’ around 1m hectares of Indigenous land in DRC
Logging companies have “acquired” roughly 1m hectares of Indigenous peoples’ territory in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2000, according to a new study.
This is part of a wider trend in which companies and governments take advantage of weak or unclear land rights to lease out swathes of communal land in the global south.
Many of these deals involve foreign companies using the land for logging, intensive agriculture, fossil-fuel extraction and mining. Increasingly, firms are also seeking land that they can use to sell carbon offsets.
The research, published in Land Use Policy, identifies around 18m hectares of land in Cambodia, Colombia and the DRC that have been acquired in large-scale deals.
Overall, around 6% of the acquired land overlaps with areas that are either legally recognised as belonging to local and Indigenous communities or, in the case of the DRC, are traditionally managed by Indigenous groups.
‘Vast land resources’Large swathes of land in the global south have traditionally been managed by local communities and Indigenous people. However, their claims to these areas – their land tenure rights – have long been under threat.
Between the 15th and 20th centuries, European powers seized territory from many Indigenous people across the global south. During decolonisation, many of these “land grabs” were never reversed and much of the formerly communal land passed straight into the hands of newly created countries, particularly in parts of Africa and Asia.
There has been growing recognition of traditional ownership in recent years. Over 2015-20, 103m hectares of communal lands in 73 countries were given legal status, according to analysis by the Rights and Resources Initiative, a global coalition of groups that advocates for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
This brings the legal recognition of traditional ownership to around 1,265m hectares, or 19% of land in the countries assessed, as of 2020.
However, this legal recognition has frequently not stopped companies from entering these regions to harvest or extract a range of commodities, from palm oil and timber to copper and gold. The study authors say communal land is often viewed as an untapped resource, writing:
“The lack of private ownership and intensive production systems probably led to the notion that countries in the global south still harbour vast land resources suitable for commercial production.”
Officials in global-south nations lease out “vast tracts of land” to these companies – many of which are based overseas – without seeking communities’ consent or guaranteeing them benefits, the authors say. These rental agreements can last for several decades.
Study co-author Dr Christoph Kubitza, a research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, says that even in nations where communal lands are legally recognised, such claims are sometimes poorly enforced by central governments. He tells Carbon Brief:
“You have some element in [national] legislation that speaks to communal lands, but implementation just does not work.”
In order to understand the scale of conflict between communal land rights and the transfer of land to companies, Kubitza and his colleagues merged data on the location of “large-scale land acquisitions” from the Land Matrix monitoring initiative with maps of communal land ownership assembled by LandMark and Open Development Cambodia.
(The definition of “large-scale land acquisition” varies, but Land Matrix broadly defines it as an attempt to buy, lease or otherwise acquire an area of land that is 200 hectares or more in size.)
They used data covering the period 2000-22 from Colombia, Cambodia and the DRC – three rainforest nations where governments provide varying levels of protection for communal lands.
‘Alarming’The researchers identified 18.1m hectares of land that have been targeted for large-scale acquisitions in Cambodia, Colombia and the DRC since 2000.
The vast majority of this land – 14.2m hectares – is in the DRC, amounting to roughly 6% of the nation’s surface area.
In Cambodia, 2.3m hectares – roughly 13% of its land – has been involved in these deals, whereas in Colombia the figure is around 1.6m hectares, which is around 1% of its area. In total, most of the acquisitions in these three nations were by international companies.
The researchers also found that the DRC has the largest amount of communal lands under threat.
Of the 14.2m hectares targeted for large land acquisitions in the DRC, they estimate that roughly 1m hectares – 7% of the total – is land managed by Indigenous groups in the north and west of the country. These lands have predominantly been infringed by logging companies, with around 75% of these deals being struck with international entities.
The blue areas in the map below indicate Indigenous peoples’ lands and the green areas show the locations of large-scale land acquisitions in the DRC. Red indicates the areas where there is a risk of overlap between the two.
Map of large-scale land acquisitions (green) and lands inhabited by Indigenous people (blue) in the DRC, with the overlapping areas shown in red. Source: Rincón Barajas et al. (2024)In Colombia and Cambodia, where there are more legal protections in place, the areas of communal land infringed upon are lower – 53,369 hectares and 43,150 hectares, respectively, the study says. This equates to 3% of the leased land in Colombia and 2% in Cambodia.
The authors highlight the situation in the DRC as particularly “alarming”.
However, they note that their finding of 1m hectares of overlap is only an estimate, based on the presence of Indigenous people in certain regions and extrapolations of total communal land use from detailed mapping in a smaller area. (For Colombia and Cambodia, the figures are based on legally defined communal lands.)
This is due to the lack of firm definitions of communal land in the DRC, as Kubitza explains:
“You don’t have exact numbers because if you don’t have any progressive legislation, you also don’t have a lot of mapping being done – so you have to rely on estimates.”
Dr Raymond Achu Samndong, a monitoring, evaluation and learning manager at the International Land and Forest Tenure Facility, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the 1m hectare figure could be an underestimate, given the size of the country and the problems it faces.
“Land grabbing is a growing phenomenon in the DRC,” he says, pointing to communities with whom he has worked where the government has allocated large tracts of land for concessions and the affected communities were not informed.
He adds that that the country’s inaccessibility makes monitoring and enforcing land rights difficult:
“You have statutory and customary law that conflicts in some areas where the government has limited access and control.”
In areas where customary local chiefs are essentially the land owners, they have also been known to participate in and profit from “land grabbing”, Samndong says.
UnderestimatesThe study highlights how the recognition of collective land ownership can help to insulate communities from “land grabs”. However, the researchers also acknowledge the limitations of such recognition.
As in much of Latin America, Colombia has provided clear recognition of communal rights, with roughly one-third of the nation’s land falling under Indigenous and Afro-Colombian control. Yet estimates suggest that up to 9.43m hectares of the nation’s communal lands are still not legally recognised.
In Cambodia, too, the study authors accept that their assessments of communal lands being encroached upon by business interests are likely to be underestimates.
Logging road, Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia. Credit: bokehcambodia / Alamy Stock PhotoA UN report in 2020 found that despite Cambodia being home to 455 Indigenous communities, only 30 Indigenous land titles had been handed out by the government.
Luciana Téllez Chávez, an environment researcher at Human Rights Watch who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that while the legislation exists to recognise communal ownership in Cambodia, “the implementation of that legislation is lagging and the process is onerous”. She adds:
“Any study that is only assessing overlap between formally recognised Indigenous territories and land acquisitions would be missing most of the picture, as most territories have not been formally recognised.”
The new paper notes this shortcoming. The researchers also use data on officially recognised Cambodian Indigenous groups and find that around one-third of them are based within the sites of large land acquisitions.
They note that while “more extensive and detailed data are missing”, the impact of land acquisitions on communal areas could be larger than their initial results suggest.
Kubitza and his colleagues highlight that frameworks for states and companies to guide their use of land already exist. They stress that global supply chain regulation – of the kind being rolled out for forest products in the EU – could help to protect communities from land grabs if properly enforced.
In the DRC, Samndong says there have been “baby steps” towards progress from the central government, with the development of a community forest law and a new land law in the works.
Carbon offsetsThe study also highlights the mounting pressure placed on communal lands by foreign governments and companies seeking to meet their climate goals by purchasing carbon offsets from overseas.
Carbon offsetting involves an entity paying for emissions to be reduced somewhere else, for example by preserving trees that can absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), while it continues to produce its own emissions.
The researchers point to specific carbon-offsetting projects in Cambodia and the DRC that have infringed on forest communities. These communities often have little understanding of the projects and derive few, if any, benefits, the researchers say.
Téllez Chávez, whose own work has identified human-rights violations at a forest offsetting project in Cambodia, says the research is “right to note carbon-offsetting projects as a potentially important driver of large-scale land acquisitions”. The Cambodian government plans to expand offsetting projects across much of the country’s protected areas.
Kubitza says this trend does not sit well with a vision of a global “just transition”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“It cannot be that people who conserve forests for centuries don’t receive anything and investors just come in and make money with these kinds of business models.”
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|Cropped 28 February 2024: Chocolate crisis; Tree-planting scrutinised; EU restoration law
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Analysis: UK emissions in 2023 fell to lowest level since 1879
The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions fell by 5.7% in 2023 to their lowest level since 1879, according to new Carbon Brief analysis.
The last time UK emissions were this low, Queen Victoria was on the throne, Benjamin Disraeli was prime minister, Mosley Street in Newcastle became the first road in the world with electric lighting and 59 people died in the Tay Bridge disaster in Dundee.
Carbon Brief’s analysis, based on preliminary government energy data, shows emissions fell to just 383m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2023. This is the first time they have dropped below 400MtCO2e since Victorian times.
Other key findings from the analysis include:
- The UK’s emissions are now 53% below 1990 levels, while GDP has grown by 82%.
- The drop in emissions in 2023 was largely due to an 11% fall in gas demand. This was due to higher electricity imports after the French nuclear fleet recovered, above-average temperatures and weak underlying demand driven by high prices.
- Gas demand would have fallen even faster, but for a 15% fall in UK nuclear output.
- Coal use fell by 23% in 2023 to its lowest level since the 1730s, as all but one of the UK’s remaining coal-fired power stations closed down.
- Transport was the single-largest sector in terms of emissions, followed by buildings industry, agriculture and electricity generation. The electricity sector likely dropped below agriculture for the first time.
While the 23MtCO2e reduction in 2023 was faster than the 14MtCO2e per year average needed to reach net-zero by 2050, it was mostly unrelated to deliberate climate action. The UK will need to address emissions from buildings, transport, industry and agriculture to reach its 2050 target.
The analysis is the latest in a long-running series of annual estimates from Carbon Brief, covering emissions during 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014.
Lowest since 1879The UK’s territorial greenhouse gas emissions – those that occur within the country’s borders – have now fallen in 25 of the 34 years since 1990.
(Consumption-based emissions, including CO2 embedded in imported goods and services, were increasing until 2007, but have since fallen at a similar rate to territorial emissions.)
Apart from brief rebounds after the global financial crisis and the Covid-19 lockdowns, UK emissions have fallen during every year for the past two decades.
The latest 23MtCO2e (5.7%) reduction in 2023 takes UK emissions down to 383MtCO2e, according to Carbon Brief’s new analysis.
This is the lowest since 1879 – outside the 1926 general strike – as shown in the figure below.
UK territorial greenhouse gas emissions, MtCO2e, 1850-2023. Note the impact of general strikes in 1921 and 1926; the miner’s strike of 1984 had a smaller impact. Source: Jones et al. (2023) and Carbon Brief analysis of figures from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).Having dropped to a then-record low for the modern era of 404MtCO2e during the height of Covid in 2020, UK emissions bounced back in 2021 as the economy reopened.
While emissions declined in 2022, they remained above 2020 levels. In 2023, however, emissions fell below the lows seen during Covid lockdowns, to levels not seen since Victorian times.
Accidental actionThe biggest contributor to the drop in UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 was an 11% reduction in gas demand, which accounted for around two-thirds of last year’s overall decline. This took the UK’s gas demand to its lowest level since the 1980s.
However, the drop in 2023 was not primarily due to deliberate climate action.
The figure below shows the estimated actual drop in emissions in red, followed by contributions from a series of factors that decreased emissions, in blue, and other factors in grey.
The most significant factor was the UK returning to its long-term position as a net electricity importer in 2023, reducing demand for domestically generated power from gas by more than 20%.
This followed an anomalous year in 2022, when the UK was a net exporter for the first time ever, as a result of widespread outages in the French nuclear fleet.
Lower demand for gas power accounted for more than two-thirds of the fall in gas use overall.
Next, above-average temperatures reduced the need for heating, while continuing very high prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused weak underlying demand for gas.
Reflecting both of these factors, there was a 6% drop in domestic demand in 2023, accounting for a fifth of the overall decline in gas consumption. A similar 7% drop in commercial demand for gas accounted for another tenth of the total, with a 5% drop in industrial demand the remainder.
Finally, the figure shows that there was a small reduction in gas demand and associated CO2 emissions as a result of increased wind and solar generation.
The impact of rising wind and solar capacity in 2023 was muted by average windspeeds being below average and the average number of sun hours falling sharply compared with 2022.
Contributions to emissions changes in 2023, MtCO2e. Left to right: Actual emissions reduction in 2023; Reduction due to higher electricity imports; Reduction due to above-average temperatures; Reduction due to lower gas demand; Reduction due to growth in wind and solar; Reduction due to other factors. Source: Carbon Brief analysis.The UK’s emissions would have fallen even further in 2023 if not for a 15% decline in the output of the nation’s nuclear fleet. This followed the closure in 2022, of the Hunterston B station in Scotland and the Hinkley Point B plant in Somerset, as well as maintenance outages.
The decline in 2023 means UK nuclear output fell to the lowest level since the early 1980s. Following the site closures in 2022, the UK only has five operational nuclear power plants remaining, all but one of which – Sizewell B in Suffolk – are due to close this decade.
Out of coalAfter gas, the next-largest driver of falling UK emissions in 2023 was coal, accounting for around 14% of the overall drop in emissions.
The decline of coal use in the UK – for homes, railways, factories and power stations – is a major part of the long-term reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over the past 30 years.
Factors in this long-term decline include controls on domestic coal burning to limit air pollution, the end of steam railways, the shift from coal-based “town gas” to “natural” gas from the North Sea, the deindustrialisation of the 1970s and the “dash for gas” of the 1990s.
More recently, coal demand has dropped precipitously as the rapid build-out of renewable sources of electricity has combined with falling demand and carbon pricing that favours gas.
The figure below shows how UK coal demand surged during the industrial revolution before levelling off through the 20th century, barring general strikes in 1921 and 1926.
Coal demand has been falling steadily since the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1956, in response to London’s “great smog” of 1952. In 2023, UK coal demand fell by another 23% to the lowest level since the 1730s, when George II was on the throne and Robert Walpole was prime minister.
Annual demand for coal in the UK 1560-2022, millions of tonnes. Note the impact of general strikes in 1921 and 1926, as well as the miner’s strike of 1984. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of data from DESNZ and Paul Warde.The recent reduction of coal demand is largely down to the demise of coal power, which made up around 40% of the UK’s electricity generation as recently as 2012. Coal power output has fallen by 97% over the past decade, accounting for 87% of the fall in UK coal demand overall.
In 2023, only 1% of the UK’s electricity came from coal, with three coal-fired plants closing down: the coal units at Drax in Yorkshire; Kilroot in Northern Ireland; and West Burton A in Lincolnshire.
As of the start of October 2023, only one coal plant remains – the Ratcliffe-on-Soar site in Nottinghamshire. Operator Uniper plans to close Ratcliffe in September 2024, ahead of the government’s deadline to end coal power by October 2024.
Sectoral shiftsThe reductions in gas use for power and building heat, as well as the fall in coal use for power, further cemented the transport sector as the largest contributor to UK emissions in 2023.
This is shown in the figure below, which highlights how transport emissions have barely changed over the past several decades as more efficient cars have been offset by increased traffic.
The power sector was the largest contributor to the UK’s emissions until 2014. In 2023, it was likely only the fifth-largest below transport, buildings, industry and – for the first time – also agriculture.
Estimated UK territorial emissions by sector, MtCO2e, 1990-2023. Only the top five sectors are shown. The remaining sectors, making up a combined 45MtCO2e per year, are fuel production, waste and land use, land use change and forestry. Note that sectoral estimates for 2023 are based on limited information including the use of proxies such as fuel duty receipts. Where no relevant proxy information was available, such as for agriculture, emissions are assumed to remain at 2022 levels. As such, there is greater uncertainty attached to these figures than for the other estimates in this analysis. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of figures from DESNZ and HMRC.As of 2023, transport emissions were only around 10% below 1990 levels and made up nearly a third of the UK’s overall total. There are now more than a million electric vehicles (EVs) on the UK’s road, which will have avoided around 2MtCO2e of annual emissions.
However, the government has also frozen or cut fuel duty every year since 2010, rather than increasing it in line with inflation, adding up to around 20MtCO2e to the UK’s total.
Emissions from buildings – chiefly for heating and cooling – are the second-largest contributor to the UK’s emissions, accounting for around a fifth of the total.
They were around one-third lower than 1990 levels in 2023, with improved insulation and boiler regulations making the UK’s buildings more efficient to heat.
Efficiency improvements dried up around a decade ago and the fall in building emissions since 2021 has been driven by high prices suppressing demand, rather than deliberate policy choices.
Industrial emissions made up an estimated tenth of the UK’s total in 2023, having fallen by two-thirds since 1990 and by a quarter in the past decade.
In common with many other developed economies, the UK shifted from heavy industry towards advanced manufacturing and services from the 1970s onwards. However, industrial energy efficiency improvements and a shift to lower-carbon fuels are also part of the picture.
Agricultural emissions have barely changed for decades, making up just over a tenth of the UK’s total in 2023 and having fallen just 12% since 1990 as livestock herds have shrunk.
There was a small decrease in farm emissions in 2022 as the energy crisis filtered through into surging prices for fertilisers. For the figure above, Carbon Brief assumes the reduced fertiliser use in 2022 continued in 2023, as fertiliser prices only eased in summer 2023.
Decoupling emissionsThe drop in UK emissions in 2023 came as the economy flatlined, growing by just 0.4% on 2022 levels. The UK’s emissions are now 53% below 1990 levels while the economy has grown 82%.
This “decoupling” of emissions from economic growth is shown in the figure below. As noted above, this analysis is based on territorial emissions within the UK’s borders.
Consumption-based emissions including imported goods and services were climbing in the early part of this century. However, emissions cuts over the past two decades have been very largely driven by sectors that cannot easily be “outsourced”, particularly power and building heat.
Change since 1990, %, in UK greenhouse gas emissions (red) and GDP adjusted for inflation (blue). Source: Carbon Brief analysis of figures from DESNZ, the Office for National Statistics and the World Bank.The UK is now in a mild recession and the economy is only expected to grow by around 1% in 2024. Recent trends in the “emissions intensity” of the UK economy – the emissions per unit of GDP – and weak economic growth suggests that emissions could continue to fall in 2024.
On the other hand, gas and oil prices are easing to pre-crisis levels, while above-average temperatures may not continue for another year. Petrol demand rose by nearly 5% in 2023 as traffic continued to rebound from the pandemic – and jet fuel use similarly climbed by 16%.
Moreover, the one-off impact of the UK returning to net electricity imports has now unwound. As such, further emissions cuts in 2024 are far from guaranteed.
Target practiseWhile the UK has made rapid progress in cutting its territorial emissions since 1990, it remains only around halfway to reaching its net-zero target for 2050, as the chart figure shows.
Emissions fell by 23MtCO2e in 2023, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis. This is faster than the 14MtCO2e reduction needed every year for the next quarter-century to reach net-zero by 2050.
Annual UK greenhouse gas emissions, MtCO2e, 1990-2050. Historical and estimated emissions are shown by the solid blue line and a steady path to net-zero in 2050 is shown by the red dashed line. Source: DESNZ and Carbon Brief analysis.However, with only one coal-fired power station remaining and the power sector overall now likely only the fifth-largest contributor to UK emissions, the country will need to start cutting into gas power and looking to other sectors, if it is to continue making progress towards its targets.
This will mean expanding wind and solar capacity to reduce gas use, while retaining gas-fired power stations for periods of low wind and starting to build low-carbon alternatives, such as gas with carbon capture and storage, long-term energy storage or hydrogen-fired turbines.
Emissions from road transport and buildings will be key areas if the UK is to progress, which is why changes to government plans around electric vehicles and heat pumps could be problematic.
Similarly, a government decision to “carry forward” the “surplus” emissions cuts from earlier years – largely due to external events such as Covid – would severely weaken UK targets at a time when continued ambition is needed, to stay on track for medium- and long-term climate goals.
MethodologyThe starting point for Carbon Brief’s analysis of UK greenhouse gas emissions is preliminary government estimates of energy use by fuel. These are published quarterly, with the final quarter of each year appearing in figures published at the end of the following February. The same approach has accurately estimated year-to-year changes in emissions in previous years (see table, below).
One large source of uncertainty is the provisional energy use data, which is revised at the end of March each year and often again later on. Emissions data is also subject to revision in light of improvements in data collection and the methodology used, with major revisions in 2021.
The table above applies Carbon Brief’s emissions calculations to the comparable energy use and emissions figures, which may differ from those published previously.
Another source of uncertainty is the fact that Carbon Brief’s approach to estimating the annual change in emissions differs from the methodology used for the government’s own provisional estimates. The government has access to more granular data not available for public use.
Carbon Brief’s analysis takes figures on the amount of energy sourced from coal, oil and gas reported in Energy Trends 1.2. These figures are combined with conversion factors for the CO2 emissions per unit of energy, published annually by the UK government. Conversion factors are available for each fuel type, for example, petrol, diesel, gas, coal for electricity generation.
For oil, the analysis also draws on Energy Trends 3.13, which further breaks down demand according to the subtype of oil, for example, petrol, jet fuel and so on. Similarly, for coal, the analysis draws on Energy Trends 2.6, which breaks down solid fuel use by subtype.
Emissions from each fuel are then estimated from the energy use multiplied by the conversion factor, weighted by the relative proportions for each fuel subtype.
For example, the UK uses roughly 50m tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in the form of oil products, around half of which is from road diesel. So half the total energy use from oil is combined with the conversion factor for road diesel, another one-fifth for petrol and so on.
Energy use from each fossil fuel subtype is mapped onto the appropriate emissions conversion factor. In some cases, there is no direct read-across, in which case the nearest appropriate substitute is used. For example, energy use listed as “bitumen” is mapped to “processed fuel oils – residual oil”. Similarly, solid fuel used by “other conversion industries” is mapped to “petroleum coke”, and “other” solid fuel use is mapped to “coal (domestic)”.
The energy use figures are calculated on an inland consumption basis, meaning they include bunkers consumed in the UK for international transport by air and sea. In contrast, national emissions inventories exclude international aviation and shipping.
The analysis, therefore, estimates and removes the part of oil use that is due to the UK’s share of international aviation. It draws on the UK’s final greenhouse gas emissions inventory, which breaks emissions down by sector and reports the total for domestic aviation.
This domestic emissions figure is compared with the estimated emissions due to jet fuel use overall, based on the appropriate conversion factor. The analysis assumes that domestic aviation’s share of emissions is equivalent to its share of jet fuel energy use.
In addition to estimating CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use, Carbon Brief assumes that CO2 emissions from non-fuel sources, such as land-use change and forestry, are the same as a year earlier. Remaining greenhouse gas emissions are assumed to change in line with the latest government energy and emissions projections.
These assumptions are based on the UK government’s own methodology for preliminary greenhouse gas emissions estimates, published in 2019.
Note that the figures in this article are for emissions within the UK measured according to international guidelines. This means they exclude emissions associated with imported goods, including imported biomass, as well as the UK’s share of international aviation and shipping.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published detailed comparisons between various different approaches to calculating UK emissions, on a territorial, consumption, environmental accounts or international accounting basis.
The UK’s consumption-based CO2 emissions increased between 1990 and 2007. Since then, however, they have fallen by a similar number of tonnes as emissions within the UK.
Bioenergy is a significant source of renewable energy in the UK and its climate benefits are disputed. Contrary to public perception, however, only around one quarter of bioenergy is imported.
International aviation is considered part of the UK’s carbon budgets and faces the prospect of tighter limits on its CO2 emissions. The international shipping sector has a target to at least halve its emissions by 2050, relative to 2008 levels.
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DeBriefed 8 March 2024: Climate cost of a Trump victory calculated; ‘Weird’ winter heat; China’s pivotal ‘two sessions’ meeting; Young female activist interview
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
This week Long hot winter‘WORLD’S WARMEST’: Record heat has affected “everywhere from northern Siberia and central and north-west America to parts of South America, Africa and Australia” this winter, reported the Financial Times. BBC News reported that last month was the world’s warmest February “in modern times”, the ninth month in a row to be the hottest on record since June 2023. This puts the world temporarily above the 1.5C threshold, noted the Guardian.
‘WEIRD’ WINTER HEAT: The New York Times reported that the “fingerprints of climate change” were detectable on the “weird” winter heat, including in Iran’s capital city Tehran, which was 4.2C warmer than average during the winter months. Morocco experienced the hottest January since measurements began, the country’s meteorological department told Agence France-Presse, at 3.8C above normal.
SMOKEHOUSE SCAR: Record winter heat continued to fan the flames of the “largest wildfire on record” in Texas, reported Axios. It added the blazes had left “a burn scar so large it is clearly visible from space”. Known as the Smokehouse Creek fire, it has burned more than 1.2m acres and “killed two people and thousands of cattle”, reported BBC Future. The publication explained that the fire has a “complex link” with climate change.
China’s pivotal ‘two sessions’ meetingWHAT, WHEN, WHERE: China’s “two sessions” meeting, which sees the annual parliamentary gathering of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, is currently underway in Beijing, Carbon Brief’s China Briefing newsletter reported. Its centrepiece is the “government work report”, a speech traditionally delivered by the premier that outlines priorities for the year ahead.
CLIMATE TARGETS: One of the few quantitative climate targets China set in the report is to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 2.5% over the coming year, a goal that Bloomberg described as “modest”. The target was lower than analysts’ expectations of 4%, the outlet added.
FOSSIL FUELS REMAIN: The work report also restated a commitment to boosting fossil fuels in the name of “energy security”, Reuters reported. The newswire noted that China also aims to step up exploration of “strategic minerals”.
Around the world- SURPRISE SNOW: Pakistan experienced unusual snowfall and heavy rains, resulting in the death of at least 35 people, including 22 children, reported BBC News.
- CORAL BLEACH: The world is on the brink of a fourth global mass coral bleaching event, which could see many tropical reefs killed by extreme ocean temperatures, reported Reuters. The Guardian reported that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is facing its fifth mass coral bleaching event in eight years.
- FUNDING THREAT: Individuals from global south climate groups that depend on finance from the German government “feel unable to criticise Israel’s military action in Gaza” due to pressure from their German-funded employers, Climate Home News reported.
- MISSING MONEY: A UN official said that “Africa will be $2.5tn short of the finance it needs to cope with climate change by 2030”, noted Reuters, despite the continent producing the lowest emissions and experiencing the worst effects.
- NEW ZEALAND LAWSUIT: An elder of the Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Kahu tribes “won the right to sue seven New Zealand-based corporate entities”, including fuel, coal and gas companies and dairy exporters, for their contribution to climate change, noted the Guardian.
- NOTHING TO SEE HERE: The UK’s spring budget announcement was one of the “least green budgets in recent years” experts told the Guardian, with disappointment around electric vehicles and North Sea oil and gas. Carbon Brief had all the details.
The amount of land in hectares that has been degraded by human activity over the past 500 years, reported Bloomberg.
Latest climate research- A Nature Climate Change study found that, while climate change drives population growth in lizards “when trees are present”, deforestation could reverse this effect and even exacerbate the negative impacts of climate change.
- Under an additional 1C of warming, around 800 million people in the tropics will live in areas where “heavy work should be limited for over half of the hours in the year” due to the heat, a One Earth review paper found.
- The severe “Tinderbox drought” in southeast Australia, which preceded the country’s largest wildfires on record from 2019-20, was intensified by human-caused climate change, according to a Science study.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
CapturedA victory for Donald Trump (red line) in November’s US presidential election could lead to an additional 4bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared with Joe Biden’s plans (blue line), new Carbon Brief analysis revealed. It is based on an aggregation of modelling by various US research groups. For context, 4bn tonnes of greenhouse gases is equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the EU and Japan, or the combined annual total of the world’s 140 lowest-emitting countries. “Regardless of the precise impact, a second Trump term that successfully dismantles Biden’s climate legacy would likely end any global hopes of keeping global warming below 1.5C,” the analysis added.
Spotlight Female climate activist Angel AruturaOn International Women’s Day, Carbon Brief speaks to Angel Arutura, a social and climate justice activist in Northern Ireland passionate about “connecting people and the planet” through social media.
Carbon Brief: How long has environmental activism been part of your life?
Angel Arutura: I’ve always been interested in the world around me, but it goes back to school, where geography was a subject that grabbed me. My teacher made lessons engaging and I became interested in how different parts of the world are affected by issues. I think my mixed-race heritage also helped. I have a multifaceted identity so, naturally, it made sense for me to think about how actions from the global north affected communities in the global south. I’m half Irish, half Zimbabwean, so I’ve been able to see that not just from an academic standpoint, but an emotional standpoint. Since then, I’ve been committed to connecting people to our true nature of love and protection and harbouring that loving connection for the people and the world around us.
CB: How has your identity as a woman shaped your activism, particularly your identity as a Black woman?
AA: I really started being vocal with my activism around the time of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, where the conversation was heavily on social justice. Growing up in a 98% White country, I experienced a lot of racism and my experience as a Black woman living in Ireland has been overwhelmingly negative. I rejected my Zimbabwean culture, my heritage, for so long. I went through a transformation at 17 where I started to connect with my heritage and it was through those years of self-reflection that I was able to speak at the protests. That’s when I found my voice. But, I thought to myself, hold on. Why are we just talking about social justice here? From then, I talked about the intersectionality of climate and social justice. As a Black woman, the driving power behind this was, in a weird way, finding that self-love.
CB: Why is it important to lift up the voices of women, particularly women of colour, when it comes to climate change?
AA: The majority of the time, when people talk about climate change and sustainability, they only talk about the exploitation of the planet. Think about fast fashion and women’s rights violations, and how those brands do sustainability initiatives and all this greenwashing. But how can you talk about the exploitation of the planet and not also the exploitation of women in the global south? The climate crisis, social justice, women’s rights, it’s all interconnected. An intersectional approach is the only one we need to take when it comes to climate change. It’s imperative if we want to create real, sustainable change. One of the best ways we can do this is through storytelling, in particular, elevating and uplifting the voices of the most vulnerable, especially those from the global south. And, unfortunately, that is women.
This interview was edited for length.
Watch, read, listenSOUND WAVES: A three-part Sky documentary narrated by David Attenborough, revealed – amid glunking elk, popping grouse and laughing insects – how harnessing the sound of fish could be a vital tool to help save coral reefs.
‘FOLKLORIST’: Grist spoke to a “folklorist” about how community, culture and tradition are vulnerable to, but may also hold solutions for, climate change.
REPORTING FOR DUTY: In the face of extreme heat, “chief heat officers” in Sierra Leone and Mexico explain what this rare role entails in BBC World Service’s The Climate Question podcast.
Coming up- 5-11 March: China’s “two sessions” meeting
- 10 March: Portugal general elections
- 11-12 March: G20 second research and innovation working group meeting, Brasília, Brazil
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DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org
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China Briefing 7 March: ‘Two sessions’ readout; BYD’s EV megaships; Power upgrade
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.
China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments New plan to upgrade China’s power systemGRID IMPROVEMENTS: The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and National Energy Administration (NEA), China’s top economic planner and top energy regulator, respectively, released guidance on improving the grid’s ability to meet electricity demand as more renewable projects come online. The guidance outlines key tasks for local governments and grid companies to strengthen peaking capacity, increase energy storage capacity and develop smart grids, reported energy news outlet IN-EN.com.
PEAKING CAPACITY: In an interview with BJX News, a “responsible” official at the NDRC said that the key goals of the regulation included “commissioning more than 80 gigawatts (GW) of pumped storage power stations, seeing demand-side response capacity exceed 5% of the maximum load and reaching a proportion of more than 20% of new energy power generation in the national energy mix” by 2027. It also requires all coal-fired plants to be retrofitted to become more flexible, if it is possible for them to do so, the outlet added. As part of this, regions that have relatively high proportions of renewable energy, but insufficient peaking capacity, must ensure their coal-fired power plants can run at “below 30% of the[ir] rated load”, David Fishman, senior manager at the Lantau Group, said on Twitter. He added that regions that have reliable access to affordable sources of gas are also permitted to develop gas-fired peaking plants and that nuclear peaking should be explored.
ENERGY STORAGE: In comments attributed to an “official”, China Energy Net said that priorities in developing energy storage capacity included: developing pumped storage, constructing “new energy storage” – predominantly batteries – on the power supply side and developing storage on the user side; optimising the scale and layout of new energy storage for power transmission and distribution; and developing new technologies.
BYD car carriers arrive in EuropeARRIVAL: BYD’s first roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) ship arrived in Germany, bringing a challenge “directly to Europe’s auto-making powerhouse”, Agence France-Presse reported. German newspaper Die Welt also covered the news, saying that “around 3,000 [electric vehicles (EVs) were] brought ashore”, adding that the “200-metre-long ship had previously docked in…the Netherlands”.
PUSHING PRICES DOWN: A comment piece in the Daily Mail argued that the RoRo ship’s arrival heralded Europe being “deluged with Chinese EVs”, which will “act to depress inflation rates that are already falling” as China “export[s]” its own deflation to the rest of the world. Robinson Meyer, the executive editor of Heatmap, wrote in the New York Times: “Chinese carmakers are the first real competition that the global car industry has faced in decades, and American companies must be exposed to some of that threat, for their own good.” Elsewhere, the Wall Street Journal reported that increasingly affordable BYD EVs will be a “nightmare for foreign competitors – not just for their EV businesses but their legacy gas-powered ones, too”.
UK INVESTIGATION?: According to Politico, the UK government is thinking about “whether to investigate Chinese state subsidies for EV makers”, although plans are currently “nascent”. The Daily Telegraph also said that the UK is considering placing tariffs on the “flood” of cheap Chinese EVs. Meanwhile, the US commerce department will “investigate potential data and cybersecurity risks posed by Chinese electric vehicles”, Bloomberg reported, with one official saying the Biden administration “isn’t yet calling for a ban of Chinese EVs but could impose some limitations on imports of the vehicles or parts”. The EU, meanwhile, has required China-made EVs to be “registered with customs authorities…as the bloc looks to apply retroactive tariffs” in the face of subsidies given to the industry, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.
China issues ‘first’ climate change lawCLIMATE LAW: China’s Ministry of Environment and Ecology (MEE) recently held a press briefing on new regulations governing the country’s national emissions trading scheme (ETS), which are effective from 1 May. The law will ensure “quality emission data” and will have “legal teeth to deter illegal activities” that will help impose a fine of not less than five times but not more than 10 times any illegal income, MEE vice minister Zhao Yingmin (who also led the China delegation to COP28) told the press conference, according to a transcript published by China Electric Power News. Once the regulation comes into force, no new local carbon markets will be established and industries that are currently participating in the national scheme will be prevented from joining local-level emission trading pilots, which will help avoid “duplication” of data, said BJX News. Meanwhile, Zhao also raised objections to the EU’s carbon border tax because it unilaterally imposes “additional costs” on poor countries, Bloomberg said, adding that he called collaborating on a global carbon market a “better option”.
CHINA’S FIRST: The carbon trading regulations are China’s “first dedicated legislation” to be issued to address climate change, according to the state-supporting newspaper Global Times. It said they are the first “administrative regulation” to outline the carbon emission trading system, providing a “legal basis for the operation and management of the national carbon market”. The regulation is a “landmark” decision that is of “great significance to the realisation of China’s dual carbon goals”, said Zhao in a recording broadcasted by state news agency Xinhua. Industry outlet China Energy Net reported that the emissions trading system was previously governed by a series of lower-tier “departmental regulations”. It quoted an academic at Renmin University of China saying that the new regulations lay out comparatively “clearer management requirements”.
Emissions targets for manufacturing and mining‘GREEN’ MANUFACTURING: In early March, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released the “guiding opinions on accelerating green development of the manufacturing industry”, which plan, among other things, to increase the share of “green” factories in the manufacturing sector to 40% of the sector’s total output by 2030, reported Xinhua. The opinions also set a target that by 2030, the “green and low-carbon transformation” of the industry will “produce a marked effect”, and “the proportion of green and low-carbon energy use [in the sector] will be significantly increased”, while, by 2035, the industry’s “carbon emissions will decrease steadily after reaching the peak [in 2030]” and “green development will become the universal form of new industrialisation”, Jiemian reported. Xin Guobin, MIIT vice minister, said that “energy-saving supervision” of more than 4,300 industrial enterprises will be carried out and energy-saving diagnostic services will be provided to more than 1,800 enterprises to meet the target, reported China News.
EMISSIONS STRATEGY: The opinions aim to address “bottlenecks and shortcomings” that restrict decarbonisation of traditional as well as emerging industries, such as information technology, data centres, chips and other technology-related sectors, reported BJX News. China will develop a “market-oriented green and low-carbon computing power application system” to meet the 2030 green manufacturing target, it added. The aerospace sector will “actively develop” so-called “new energy” aircraft, such as electric aircraft, while the maritime industry will accelerate the development of ships powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG), methanol, ammonia or batteries, and launch a pilot project for ship electrification, reported Jiemian.
INDUSTRY CATALOGUE: At the same time, China’s NDRC and other departments issued the 2024 edition of a catalogue defining industries that are considered to be part of China’s energy transition, reported IN-EN.com. The outlet noted that the category “clean and low-carbon transition of traditional energy [industries]” included “clean coal production”, “clean and highly-efficient use of coal” and extraction and use of coalbed methane. Another IN-EN.com article said that, in addition to energy production, services such as demand-side management and “green” power trading were also included in the catalogue.
Spotlight What does the 2024 government ‘work report’ say about climate and energy?In this issue, Carbon Brief analyses what the government “work report”, delivered at the “two sessions”, means for climate and energy policy in 2024.
Why is the lianghui important?The lianghui – widely known as the “two sessions” – is the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing, for several days of parliamentary meetings.
Its centrepiece is the “government work report”, a speech traditionally delivered by the premier that underscores successes from the previous year and outlines priorities for the year ahead.
It is also traditionally when China announces its GDP growth target. Alongside the work report, China also releases a report by its top economic planner, the NDRC, and its central and local budget report.
Does the work report include hard climate targets?One of the few quantitative climate targets China set in the report is to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 2.5% over the coming year, a target that Bloomberg described as “modest”. The target was lower than analysts’ expectations of 4%, the outlet added.
Previous analysis for Carbon Brief found that China would need to reduce its energy intensity by 6% per year to meet its 2025 target of a 13.5% drop in energy intensity, with energy demand falling in absolute terms.
However, the NDRC report said that the 2.5% target reflects the fact that energy consumption will increase this year. Instead, it said that the energy intensity target will now “exclud[e] non-fossil fuels and coal, petroleum and natural gas consumed as raw materials”.
This shift means the government has “redefined” the energy intensity target to mean “fossil fuel intensity”, Lauri Myllyvirta, senior research fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), told Carbon Brief, making the 2025 target “very soft-ball”.
Myllyvirta stated that the report does not address the bigger problem – accelerating growth in energy-intensive sectors to support China’s economy during the Covid-19 pandemic.
By his estimate, if China’s energy intensity – under the new calculation – does fall by 2.5%, this would translate to “at best” a 3% fall in carbon intensity, which is “very far from the 7% [fall] they need”, per his recent Carbon Brief analysis, to meet the 2025 target of an 18% reduction in carbon intensity.
Is the report ambitious on climate?The work report makes no significant changes to China’s direction of travel on climate and energy policy. Instead, the language around these policies continued to balance tensions inherent to China’s energy transition.
The report signalled that China will continue to manage the relative prioritisation of “both high-quality development and greater security”. It also asked policymakers to “actively” and “prudently” make efforts to reach China’s dual carbon goals.
Efforts will be made to reduce carbon emissions and pollution, as well as to develop large-scale wind and solar bases and distributed energy, it said. But, at the same time, the report also doubled down on the commitment to fossil fuels.
Coal will continue to play a “crucial role in ensuring energy supply”, it said, while China increases development of oil, gas and strategic minerals in the name of security.
“You could almost see the government struggling with the language,” Li Shuo, director of ASPI’s China climate hub, told Carbon Brief. He added that there “seems to be an increasing lack of consistency” both in the report and in other policy papers.
He attributed this to the increasingly challenging situation facing the government and competing interests within the political system.
“We’re getting very concerned” about China’s ability to meet its wider climate goals, Li said. Based on the recent surge in energy consumption, “it is going to be very challenging for China to hit [its energy and carbon intensity] targets. They certainly will not be able to meet those targets if they stick to…2.5% [annual] energy intensity reduction.”
Will China continue to boost ‘green’ innovation?The government work report trumpeted China’s clean-energy development in 2023, including growing installations of renewable energy, its contributions to the global energy transition and the 30% growth in exports of the “new three” industries.
(Previous analysis for Carbon Brief found that clean technologies – particularly the “new three” – were the top driver of China’s economic growth last year.)
Going forward, China will “consolidate and enhance [its] leading position” in industries such as electric vehicles and hydrogen, and “create new ways of storing energy”, the report said.
It also pledged to “implement…‘small and beautiful’ projects” in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partner countries.
“I [can’t] think of a[nother] country where the economic agenda and the climate agenda are so aligned,” Li tells Carbon Brief. “The challenge for China is when and how and how fast will the positive[s]” lead to the “phasing down or the phasing out of the dirtier [aspects].”
What next?The government work report merely sets the framework for the year. Ministries and local governments must now develop concrete policies to meet its goals.
Whether and how China progresses towards its dual carbon goals depends on how they interpret and implement the report’s signals.
220The maximum amount of solar capacity, in gigawatts (GW), that China could add in 2024, according to a presentation by China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) honorary chairman Wang Bohua. (Total solar capacity in the EU stood at 200GW at the end of 2022.)
Watch, read, listenCRITICAL MINERALS: Trivium China analysed which critical minerals – important for the manufacturing of many clean-energy technologies – are at greater risk of having export controls placed on them by China.
EXIT INTERVIEW: Outgoing US climate envoy John Kerry told the New Yorker that “China is teeing up to be in a position to surprise the world” with its ability to meet its climate commitments.
ENVIRONMENTAL MULTILATERALISM: China Daily interviewed Gu Shuzhong, a senior research fellow from the Institute of Resource and Environmental Policy under the Chinese government thinktank the Development Research Center, about a new environmental policy group and US-China climate cooperation.
MEGABASES: On the Switched On podcast, BloombergNEF analysts Tianyi Zhao and Xiangyu Chen explained the role of renewable energy “megabases” in China’s clean energy transition.
New scienceScience of the Total Environment
New research found that “differences in thermal comfort, outdoor activity duration and social vulnerability” meant that women faced a higher heat risk than men in China between 1991 and 2020. This was less prevalent in southern regions than the “severe” disparity in northern regions, it said. The study added that male overheating risk was “mainly attributed to population clustering associated with prolonged outdoor activity time and skewed social resource allocation”, whereas female overheating risk was “primarily affected by social inequalities”.
No more coal abroad! Unpacking the drivers of China’s green shift in overseas energy finance
Energy Research and Social Science
Through a new analytical framework as well as elite interviews, policy documents and media reports, a study determined that the decision by China’s leadership to stop funding overseas coal power projects was due to “the combined outcome of three mechanisms: issue linkages in intergovernmental bargaining, lobbying of transnational alliances and influence of domestic interest groups seeking policy change”.
Using machine learning to analyse the changes in extreme precipitation in Southern China
Atmospheric Research
Researchers applied a “convolutional neural network” – a type of machine learning algorithm – to correctly identify 96% of extreme precipitation events in southern China. A certain circulation pattern identified by the algorithm to be an “extreme precipitation circulation pattern”, was found to be linked to extreme precipitation events, as a decline in the frequency of the circulation pattern indicated a decrease in extreme precipitation events.
China Briefing is compiled by Anika Patel and edited by Wanyuan Song and Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
China Briefing
|China Briefing 8 February: Xi’s ‘green’ call; Renewables to top coal; No new EU solar support
China Briefing
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UK spring budget 2024: Key climate and energy announcements
UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt failed to mention the term “climate change” at all when setting out the government’s spring budget – the first since it was confirmed that 2023 was Earth’s hottest year on record.
As expected, Hunt used his budget speech to announce that the government is freezing fuel duty on petrol and diesel for the 14th year in a row.
As of 2023, this policy had added up to 7% to UK emissions, according to previous Carbon Brief analysis.
The chancellor also announced a year-long extension to the windfall tax on oil-and-gas companies, but failed to commit to spending the money raised on new climate investments.
Hunt did not offer any new policies to help boost the rollout of key low-carbon technologies, such as electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps.
He also pledged no further changes to the government’s long-term regime of maximising oil and gas production.
Overall, despite some confirmation of further funding for supply chains, analysts described the budget as a “missed opportunity” for boosting low-carbon industries and accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels in the UK.
Alongside the budget, the government also confirmed key details of its sixth auction round for new renewable energy projects, including a pot worth just over £1bn.
With a UK general election on the horizon – and Labour enjoying a substantial lead in the polls – this budget is likely to be Hunt’s last as chancellor.
Below, Carbon Brief runs through the key announcements.
Fuel dutyThe government has frozen fuel duty on petrol and diesel for the 14th year in a row.
This persistent policy amounts to a significant tax cut, as fuel duty has dropped considerably in real terms over the years rather than rising with inflation.
The freeze makes it cheaper to drive a car and reduces the incentive to use more fuel-efficient models. As of 2023, Carbon Brief calculated that fuel duty freezes had increased UK carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by up to 7%.
Hunt has also opted to retain an extra 5p cut in duty, which was first introduced in 2022 to address rising fuel costs. This reduced the rate on petrol and diesel from 57.95p per litre to 52.95p.
In the 2022 spring statement, it was described as a temporary measure. The government stated the 5p cut would end on 23 March 2024 “as part of the government’s commitment to fiscal responsibility and ensuring trust and confidence in our national finances”.
However, Hunt announced that it will remain in place for another year. This is despite fuel prices now being comfortably lower than they were during the energy crisis.
These two measures have been a major drain on public finances.
Together, they will cost the Treasury £3.1bn in 2024-25, with a cumulative cost of around £90bn since 2010, according to official figures released by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Analysis performed by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) in the run up to the spring budget places the cumulative figure far higher, at £130bn.
The thinktank adds that the cost of maintaining fuel duty freezes would rise to more than £200bn by 2030 – “enough to fund the entire NHS for a year”.
With the government under pressure from the right of the Conservative party and the right-leaning press to cut taxes, the fuel-duty freeze was trailed in the Times ahead of the budget as one of the “two main tax cuts” planned by the chancellor, along with a reduction in national insurance.
The Sun claimed responsibility for Hunt’s continued fuel duty freeze, due to the newspaper’s long-standing “Keep It Down” campaign, which it runs with the climate-sceptic lobbyist and Reform Party London mayoral candidate Howard Cox. A recent Sun editorial stated:
“Seven Tory chancellors have cursed us for it. To them it has ‘cost’ £90bn in tax they would love to have spent.”
Instead, the Sun points to the benefits for “British motorists”. Pro-motoring lobbyists have argued that a fuel-duty cut is a necessary bulwark against the “war on motorists” taking place in the UK. The government has absorbed this message, with prime minister Rishi Sunak announcing last year he was “slamming the brakes on the war on motorists”.
The government describes its fuel duty freeze as part of its efforts to “support people with the cost of living”.
The opposition Labour Party has also backed the fuel-duty freeze on these grounds. Last year, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves threw her weight behind it to help the “many families and businesses reliant on their cars”.
Yet analysis by the SMF shows that, despite rhetoric that emphasises benefits for ordinary, hard-working people, fuel-duty cuts disproportionately benefit wealthier people. This is because they are more likely to own cars and the cars they own are more likely to be less fuel-efficient models, such as SUVs.
As a result, the thinktank says maintaining the 2022 fuel-duty cut will save the UK’s richest people around three times as much money as the nation’s poorest.
Moreover, analysis by the RAC Foundation at the end of 2023 found that the government’s cuts to fuel prices had not all been passed onto consumers. Instead, it concluded that fossil-fuel retailers had kept savings from lower wholesale costs for themselves, leaving drivers “paying 10p [per litre] more than they should be”.
Meanwhile, the cost of bus and coach fares has risen far more than the cost of running a car, as rail fares in England and Wales increased by 5% this year.
The SMF has proposed that investment in public transport would be a more effective way to save households money.
Others have suggested that such investments could also be a major driver of economic growth. For example, government advisors at the National Infrastructure Commission argued last year that the UK should invest £22bn in mass transit schemes outside London in the coming years.
Instead, the most significant public-transport policy the government has introduced in recent months has been cancelling the northern leg of the HS2 train line.
Air passenger dutyHunt also announced an increase in air passenger duty on “non-economy” passengers as a revenue-raising measure to help pay for tax cuts elsewhere.
As a result, those flying business class, premium economy, first class or in private jets will pay a higher price for plane tickets.
This policy will raise between £110m and £140m annually from 2025 through to 2029, according to government figures.
The budget document explains that this is a measure to bring air passenger duty in line with high inflation and maintain its value in real terms.
Nevertheless, it emphasises that for the 70% of passengers flying economy, or on short-haul flights, “rates will remain frozen” in order to “keep the cost of flying down”.
In fact, in 2021 when Sunak was chancellor, the government cut air passenger duty in half for domestic flights, making air travel cheaper within the UK. Reversing this change would bring in an extra £69m to the Treasury, according to the Campaign for Better Transport.
Campaigners have proposed a more expansive “frequent flyer levy” in order to actively discourage flying and cut emissions from aviation, which accounts for around 3% of UK emissions.
According to New Economics Foundation modelling, this could have raised £4bn in revenues in 2022.
As it stands, the government has no explicit plans to reduce demand for air travel in the UK. This is despite such plans being flagged repeatedly by government climate advisors the Climate Change Committee (CCC) as a missing part of the UK’s strategy to reach net-zero.
Windfall taxHunt used his budget to extend the windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas companies by another year, bringing its scheduled end date to March 2029.
This was despite opposition from Scottish Conservatives, according to BBC News – and the energy secretary Claire Coutinho, according to Politico.
He told parliament this extension would raise £1.5bn. However, he did not say what this additional money would be spent on.
He added that the “energy profits levy”, as the windfall tax is known, would be abolished “should market prices fall to their historic norm for a sustained period of time”.
In a statement, Kate Mulvany, principal consultant at consultancy Cornwall Insight, said that the move “could be seen as positive for decarbonisation if the resulting profits are used to deliver the UK’s net-zero plan”, but added:
“Yet, without a solid transition strategy away from the UK’s oil and gas dependence and no assurance that tax revenues will directly support decarbonisation initiatives, the potential upheaval in investment could outweigh the benefits.”
Ahead of the budget, both the Times and Bloomberg reported that the tax extension was being described as one of the measures that could help fund Hunt’s 2p cut in national insurance.
Labour has also proposed extending the tax by a year, if elected to power, Politico reported. Additionally, Labour intends to raise the levy on oil-and-gas company profits from 75% to 78%. It has pledged to spend the money raised on low-carbon investments.
Oil-and-gas trade group Offshore Energies UK has called the Labour proposal “alarming” and claimed that it could lead to job losses in the sector. (See Carbon Brief’s factcheck of misleading claims surrounding North Sea oil and gas.)
Elsewhere in his budget speech, Hunt did not commit to any other changes on fossil-fuel investment policies.
This was to the dismay of many environmental groups and energy experts, who had urged the chancellor to commit to new measures to end reliance on oil and gas. In a statement, Esin Serin, policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said:
“The chancellor should be making more of the tax system to drive the transition away from fossil fuels.”
Clean technologyHunt announced that the government is buying two nuclear sites from Hitachi for £160m, in a move reportedly aimed at quickly delivering nuclear expansion plans.
The sites are at Wylfa in Anglesey, Wales and Oldbury-on-Severn in South Gloucestershire. The decision follows a period of uncertainty for Wylfa, after the closure of the previous nuclear power plant at the site in 2015.
Hitachi had planned to build a new 2.9 gigawatt (GW) nuclear plant on the site for a reported £20bn. However, the Japanese conglomerate announced it was shelving the plans in 2019.
Additionally, Hunt announced that the government has moved onto the next stage in its competition to build “small modular reactors” (SMRs). There are now six companies that have been invited to submit their initial tender responses by June.
The chancellor confirmed a £120m increase in funding for the “green industries growth accelerator” (GIGA), a fund designed to support the expansion of ”strong and sustainable clean energy supply chains” in the UK. The increase was announced earlier this week.
This will bring the total amount in the fund to £1.1bn, according to the budget documents, up from £960m announced in the autumn statement in November.
GIGA is designed to support carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS), engineered greenhouse gas removals (GGRs) and hydrogen, offshore wind and electricity networks, as well as civil nuclear power.
The fund will be split between these sectors, with around £390m earmarked for electricity networks and offshore wind supply chains, and around £390m earmarked for CCUS and hydrogen, the treasury’s note stated.
In January, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero announced £300m will be used to fund the production of a type of nuclear fuel known as “high-assay low-enriched uranium” (HALEU). Currently, Russia is the only producer of HALEU, so the domestic production plan is designed to help end “Russia’s reign”, the government states, as well as to support the UK’s wider plans to deliver “up to” 24GW of nuclear power by 2050.
In a statement, trade association RenewableUK’s chief executive Dan McGrail said:
“The increase in GIGA funding to secure further private investment in green manufacturing jobs will enable us to supply more goods and services to projects here and abroad. It’s also good to see that nearly £400m of that funding will be used specifically to grow our offshore wind supply chain and electricity networks.”
Additionally, earlier this week the government trailed £360m for manufacturing projects and for research and development. This includes almost £73m in combined government and industry investment in the development of electric vehicle (EV) technology.
This will be supported by more than £36m of government funding awarded through the UK’s “advanced propulsion centre”, the Treasury notes, including four projects that are developing technologies for battery EVs.
Renewable auction budgetAlongside the budget, the government also confirmed key details of its sixth auction (AR6) round for new renewable energy projects, including a pot worth just over £1bn.
This follows last year’s fifth auction round, which failed to secure any new offshore wind projects for the first time.
The budget documents said the £1bn budget for AR6 is the “largest ever” and includes £800m specifically for offshore wind.
If winning projects bid at the maximum price for offshore wind announced last year of £73 per megawatt hour (MWh) in 2012 prices, then the £800m budget would only be sufficient to secure just 3GW of new capacity, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
However, consultancy LCP Delta said it could be sufficient to secure 4-6GW of new capacity, implying that it assumes winning projects will bid at prices around £50-60/MWh. In a statement, it added:
“This is certainly a welcome development given last year’s failed auction. However, it may not be enough to get the UK back on track with time running out to build the additional 23GW needed [to meet its 50GW target] by 2030.”
Similarly, trade association Energy UK says the auction pot could secure 3-5GW of new offshore wind, depending where project bid prices sit in a range of £55-£70/MWh.
The government has a target of building 50GW of offshore wind by 2030. There is currently around 15GW in operation and another 14GW either under construction, awarded a contract or having already taken a final investment decision, notes Energy UK.
This means another 21GW of new capacity would be needed to hit the 50GW by 2030 target, implying a need for at least 10GW in each of the next two auction rounds, according to the industry body.
New analysis produced by the body following the budget suggests that the AR6 parameters make it unlikely the auction will hit the level of capacity required, leaving a shortfall of at least 16GW, which would be “extremely difficult” to fill in AR7 alone.
In addition to the £800m pot for offshore wind, the government has confirmed the upcoming auction will include up to £105m for “pot two” technologies including onshore wind, solar, energy from waste with combined heat and power and others, as well as £120m for “pot three” technologies including floating offshore wind, geothermal, tidal stream, wave and others.
Within the CfD announcement and the spring budget, the government notes that it is “making progress” on the network reforms announced at last year’s autumn statement.
This includes publishing a consultation on a new accelerated planning service for commercial grid applications, which has come as a result of a previous consultation on operational reforms to the nationally significant infrastructure project regime. The government has also updated its national networks national policy statement.
Additionally, since the autumn statement last November, over 40GW of energy projects have been offered earlier grid connection dates, the budget states. This accelerates up to £40bn in investment.
To further aid grid connections, National Grid Electricity System Operator is inserting delivery milestones into over 1,000 connection contracts, in an effort to remove stalled projects from the grid connection queue from this coming autumn, the budget notes.
Susanna Elks, E3G senior policy Advisor for the UK electricity transition at thinktank E3G said the reforms to electricity networks and “beefed-up budget” for the CfD suggests the Conservatives “can’t ignore that low-cost renewables are the growth engine of the future”. She adds:
“While today’s announcement is welcome, the UK still lacks an overarching plan to create a clean low-cost electricity system– with a failure to provide support for hydrogen-to-power, long-term storage and demand side flexibility. These are key technologies which could help end our addiction to expensive polluting gas, while reducing bills for consumers.”
Electric carsAhead of the budget, an open letter by the motoring lobby group FairCharge called on the chancellor to end the higher rates of VAT on public electric car charging, when compared to home charging.
People who charge their EVs at home only pay 5% VAT on their bills, but the 38% of the population without driveways who would have to use public chargers pay the full VAT rate of 20%, presenting a “charging injustice”, the group told the Daily Mirror.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders also called for VAT on public EV charging points to be cut, to be in line with the VAT on home charging points.
Speaking to the Times, Mike Hawes, chief executive of the group, said that high VAT rates on public charging points were part of a “triple tax barrier” to more private ownership of EVs.
He also urged the chancellor to reverse proposed excise duty changes that treat upmarket electric cars as luxuries rather than essentials, increasing car taxes by up to £2,000, and to cut the 20% VAT that new car buyers have to pay on new EVs.
However, during the budget, Hunt did not mention any new measures to boost EVs.
Analysis: UK emissions in 2023 fell to lowest level since 1879
Coal
|UK emissions could rise by 15% if government uses ‘surplus’ to weaken climate goal, CCC warns
Policy
|The Carbon Brief Interview: Chris Skidmore
In Focus
|Analysis: Surge in heat pumps and solar drives record for UK homes in 2023
Energy
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DeBriefed 1 March 2024: EU’s ‘flagship’ nature law approved; Glaciers losing their climate ‘memory’; UN environment assembly resolutions
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
This week EU passes nature lawNATURE LAW: On Tuesday, the European parliament approved its “flagship” law to restore nature, reported Reuters, despite a backlash “ignited” by protests from farmers across Europe in recent weeks. The long-awaited “nature restoration” law commits countries to restoring nature on a fifth of their land and sea by 2030, the newswire said, and it includes specific targets such as restoring peatlands “so they can absorb CO2 emissions”. Carbon Brief published a Q&A unpacking the law and the challenges it has faced.
‘POPULISM AND FEAR-MONGERING’: The vote was subject to a “last-ditch attempt from rightwing parties” that “threatened to sink the deal”, reported the Guardian. The law – which now needs final approval from the EU council – was adopted with 329 votes in favour, 275 against and 24 abstentions, reported Deutsche Welle.
‘MANURE, BURNING TYRES AND TEARGAS’: The vote came amid a backdrop of continuing demonstrations by farmers across Europe, protesting against “the EU’s green policies, price pressures and import competition”, reported Politico. On Monday, farmers “locked down” the European quarter in Brussels and were “assaulting police barricades”, the outlet said. Elsewhere, Reuters reported that farmers “blocked a border crossing between Poland and Germany”.
UN environment assembly resolutionsTRANSITIONAL METALS: At the UN environment assembly in Nairobi, which comes to a close today, African leaders called for better controls on demands for the minerals and metals needed for a clean energy transition, the Guardian reported. A resolution supported by mainly African countries including Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Chad would “promote equitable benefit-sharing” and attempt to avoid the “injustices” associated with fossil fuel extraction, the outlet explained. A UN press release confirmed that the resolution text was adopted.
SRM NO-GO: Also at the meeting, governments failed to agree on a resolution led by Switzerland to set up a UN expert panel on solar geoengineering, reported Climate Home News. After going through six revisions over the two-week meeting, the resolution was withdrawn on Thursday, said Reuters. The Earth Negotiations Bulletin reported earlier in the week that the resolution “was moving from the realm of the achievable”.
‘BALANCE’ WITH NATURE: At an event during the assembly, leading Islamic scholars published a “groundbreaking” document described as a “Muslim sibling” to Pope Francis’ 2015 Papal Encyclical, reported EarthBeat. The text, titled “Al-Mizan: a covenant for the Earth”, urges Islamic countries and corporations “to transition swiftly from fossil fuels” toward renewable energy in response to climate change, the outlet said.
Around the world- WINTER WORRY: A “historic” winter heatwave across the central US “demolished” temperature records and contributed to “massive wildfires” in Texas, the Washington Post reported. One of the fires is now the second-largest wildfire in US history, noted BBC News.
- ‘SERIOUS CONCERNS’: The UK’s aid spending watchdog has warned that the government will struggle to meet its commitment to spend £11.6bn over five years up to 2025-26 helping poorer countries deal with climate change, according to the Press Association.
- INDIAN INSTALLATIONS: India’s solar and wind deployment is set to increase by more than 30% in 2024, reported Bloomberg, but this pace is “still not fast enough to meet its clean energy goal of 500 gigawatts by the end of this decade”.
- US ENERGY ACCESS: The US government announced a $366m plan to fund 17 projects to expand access to renewable energy on Native American reservations and in other rural areas, said the Associated Press.
- ‘SUSPECTED SABOTAGE’: Denmark is closing its inquiry into the blasts that “tore apart” two Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in 2022, BBC News reported. The investigation concluded that the pipelines had been “sabotaged”, but there was “no basis for pursuing a criminal case”.
The amount of wood from old-growth forests in Canada burned by North Yorkshire’s Drax power station in 2023, according to a BBC News Panorama investigation. Drax responded by denying it takes wood from primary forests.
Latest climate research- A four-year farm trial has shown how using “enhanced weathering” in the corn belt of the US could draw down carbon dioxide and raise crop yields, reported a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- A Plos Climate study of apes across 363 sites in Africa warned that they “are and will be increasingly exposed to climate change impacts”.
- A Journal of Climate study identified a “remarkable” increase over six decades in Europe’s summer wet-bulb temperature – a “useful indicator” for heat stress.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
CapturedThis week, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) – the UK’s official advisor – issued “unequivocal” advice to the government that the “surplus” from previous carbon budgets should not be carried forward, reported Carbon Brief. The UK overachieved on its carbon budget for 2018-22, leaving it with an emissions “surplus” – but this was largely down to external factors such as the Covid-19 pandemic rather than policies, the CCC said. It warned that carrying the emissions surplus over could allow the UK’s emissions to rise by 15% (red line on the chart) during the fourth carbon budget period of 2023-27.
Spotlight Guest post: The climate ‘memory loss’ of melting glaciersDr Andrea Spolaor from the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy, explains how rapidly melting glaciers are washing away crucial evidence of the world’s past climates.
Ice cores, extracted from glaciers and polar ice sheets, hold vital clues to Earth’s climate history.
These cylindrical samples provide a timeline of past temperatures and ancient atmospheres. Analysing the chemical composition, gas concentrations and other markers within the ice layers enables scientists to uncover how Earth and its climate has changed over millions of years.
As a result, ice cores are essential for understanding natural climate variability and human-induced changes, as well as helping predict future trends. They contribute crucial data to climate models and efforts to address climate change.
However, as the world warms, glaciers are retreating at an unprecedented pace, leading to the loss of the crucial information they hold.
In a recent study, published in the Cryosphere, my colleagues and I found that this memory loss extends to the glaciers of the Svalbard archipelago, located in the Arctic Circle.
Our study investigated the impact of rising temperatures on the “signal” of a changing climate contained within the glaciers of the Holtedahlfonna ice field.
The direct consequence of warming has been an increase in summer melt and more meltwater percolating through the ice. This meltwater can wash chemical constituents throughout the layers of ice, potentially disrupting the climate signal they preserve. Eventually, this can compromise the complete preservation of climatic information within the ice cores.
Our study revealed a worrying trend – the climate signal stored in the ice had deteriorated. In just seven years, the markers that allowed us to separate out the different seasons in a core extracted in 2012 had completely vanished in a core from 2019.
Despite the loss of the seasonal signal, the overall imprint of atmospheric warming still persists in the ice. This suggests that the site remains suitable for reconstructing past climates over an extended period. However, with the current pace of warming in the Svalbard archipelago, Holtedahlfonna and other ice fields at similar altitudes may not provide reliable records of past climatic conditions for much longer.
The Svalbard archipelago is particularly sensitive to climate changes due to the relatively low altitude of its main ice caps and the rapid warming of the Arctic region. Nonetheless, similar losses have also been observed in other parts of the world.
To preserve these archives, researchers involved in the Ice Memory and Sentinel projects concluded a complex ice drilling campaign in 2023 on the Holthedalfonna glacier, successfully extracting three deep ice cores. We hope that these samples still contain climatic information representative of the region.
Our research has emphasised the need to preserve these glacial archives and the crucial climatic insights they contain.
Watch, read, listenENVOYS WILL BE ENVOYS: The Diplomat profiled the new climate envoys for the US and China and what the reshuffle means for climate engagement between the two countries.
CLEANEST, CHEAPEST OR FAIREST?: Climate Home News explored the tricky question of “who should get to drill, pump and sell” the world’s final supplies of oil and gas.
‘THE OTHER IRA’: A BBC Radio 4 programme looked at how the US Inflation Reduction Act will impact global trade and the economy – and the prospects for a similar bill in the UK.
Coming up- 1 March: Parliamentary and assembly of experts elections in Iran
- 4-5 March: 1st G20 global mobilization against climate change task force meeting, Vila Do Conde, Brazil
- 6 March: UK 2024 spring budget, London, UK
- UN Environment Programme, regional sub-programme coordinator (climate action) | Salary: Unknown. Location: Nairobi, Kenya
- ODI, research officer and senior research officer (climate and sustainability) | Salary: £31,000-39,000 and £37,000-47,000, respectively. Location: London (hybrid)
- Climate & Development Knowledge Network, gender and social inclusion lead | Salary: Unknown. Location: Cape Town, South Africa
- Church of England, net-zero carbon programme officer | Salary: £46,577. Location: Home-based (with regular meetings in London)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org
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Cropped 28 February 2024: Chocolate crisis; Tree-planting scrutinised; EU restoration law
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s Cropped.
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments Tree-planting under scrutinyTREE BLACKOUT: Almost a third of the climate benefits derived from planting trees in order to remove more CO2 from the atmosphere could be offset by changes to atmospheric chemistry and the amount of sunlight reflected back into space, according to a new Science study which was widely covered by the world’s media. Increasing tree cover can alter the reflectiveness, or “albedo”, of the land, making it darker and more absorbent of heat. This albedo effect, combined with changes to atmospheric composition, is responsible for tree-planting having a smaller climate benefit than previously suggested, according to the paper. Writing in the Conversation, the researchers said that “tackling climate change by planting trees has an intuitive appeal”, but, in reality, “could affect the climate in complex ways”.
AFRICAN RISK: Elsewhere in Science, researchers published a policy commentary article arguing that the push for tree-planting across Africa could endanger biodiverse and carbon-rich grassland ecosystems. The researchers examined the likely impact of pledges made under the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, which seeks to restore 100m hectares of degraded land – an area the size of Egypt – by 2030. The initiative is backed by the German government, the World Bank and the non-profit World Resources Institute, according to the Financial Times. The newspaper said that the researchers estimated that half of the land earmarked for regeneration by the project is in grassy savannahs or other non-woodland areas. The Guardian added that, according to the findings, “an area the size of France is threatened by forest restoration initiatives that are taking place in inappropriate landscapes”.
‘ERAS FORESTS’: A debate about the environmental impact of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour – the highest-grossing music tour in history, which will see the singer travel by private jet to perform in 151 locations across five continents from March 2023 to December 2024 – further highlighted the limits of tree-planting to counter emissions. For Forbes, two environmental scientists suggested that Swift could help to offset her private-jet emissions and set a good example by investing heavily in an “Eras forests” carbon-offsetting scheme to replant trees in each location that she has performed in. However, writing on LinkedIn, Richard Reiss, a founder of a climate change educational game, argued that offsetting all of the emissions associated with the Eras tour would require “increasingly unrealistic, or literally impossible, amounts of carbon capture”.
EU passes ‘landmark’ law for nature restoration‘LANDMARK’ LAW: On Tuesday, the European parliament passed a “landmark” nature restoration law, aiming to “reverse the decline of Europe’s natural habitats” with an EU-wide target of restoring 20% of degraded land and sea areas by 2030, Deutsche Welle reported. The passage of the law occurred despite opposition from farming unions and the European People’s Party – the largest party in parliament. However, the EU council still needs to give the legislation final approval before it can enter into force. Deutsche Welle wrote: “While such a green light would normally be a formality, it is not guaranteed and some recent EU policies have faced blockages and delays because of domestic pushback.” Carbon Brief has just published a piece explaining the new law and its scientific foundation.
‘POLITICAL STORM’: Euronews noted that the margin of the bill’s passage – 329 votes in favour and 275 against, with 24 abstaining – was “a margin larger than initially expected”. Politico reported that the passage of the law “mark[ed] the end of a months-long campaign to kill the legislation” from right-wing groups. However, it added that the “final text was significantly weakened during negotiations”. The “weakened” legislation gives member states more flexibility on how they will implement its guidance, the outlet added. Euronews also reported that “the eruption in January of Europe-wide farmer protests reinvigorated the backlash against the Green Deal”, with the nature restoration law “once again thrust to the centre of the political storm”.
CHAOS IN THE CAPITAL: Meanwhile, farmer protests have continued across the bloc. Reuters reported that “about 900 tractors jammed parts” of Brussels and “riot police fired water cannon at protesters throwing bottles and eggs” while agricultural ministers were meeting in the Belgian capital this week. The Associated Press reported that protesters “spray[ed] Brussels police with liquid manure” in what the newswire described as a “fresh show of force”. It added: “The ministers were keen to show that they were listening, and a group of farmers’ representatives were allowed in for talks”. According to Politico, “the stench of manure, burning tires and teargas pervaded downtown Brussels on Monday” amidst “chaotic scenes”.
Chocolate ‘meltdown’SHRINKING SWEETS: The price of chocolate surged to an all-time high of just over $6,500 per tonne on the New York and London stock exchanges this week, the trade publication Confectionery Production reported. Bloomberg columnist Javier Blas boldly claimed that “the meltdown in chocolate is coming”, with bars and boxes expected to shrink as prices reach unprecedented levels. According to Blas, four countries – Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria – produce nearly 75% of the world’s cocoa. It is unusual for a major global commodity in that it is mostly grown by poor smallholder farmers, he said.
DWINDLING SUPPLIES: Prices have risen as fierce demand for cocoa has outstripped production by west African small producers, Blas said. Earlier on in February, BBC News reported that farmers have been experiencing poor harvests as a result of the El Niño weather phenomenon, which has been causing drier weather in Ghana and Ivory Coast. In December, Bloomberg reported that, before the dry weather, farmers in Ghana and Ivory Coast also faced a deluge of rainfall at a “crucial time for harvests”. It added: “Puddle-filled drives are bogging down transportation, and the soggy conditions allow diseases like black pod to run rampant, causing beans to rot on trees.”
CLIMATE INFLUENCE: West Africa has seen an increase in agricultural droughts because of climate change, according to the most recent assessment of the continent by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report also found that human-caused climate change has already contributed to an increase in heavy rainfall and flooding across nearly all parts of Africa. Back in October, Dr Izidine Pinto, a climate scientist from Mozambique currently working at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, told Carbon Brief that the impacts of climate change had combined with El Niño to cause “very unusual” weather across the continent.
News and viewsBRAZIL BEEF: Three of the world’s largest meatpacking companies sourced beef from ranches responsible for clearing an area of forest the size of Chicago (60,000 hectares) in the Cerrado savannah, a biodiversity hotspot in Brazil, alleged a new investigation by Global Witness covered by BBC News. The investigation said that deforestation linked to Brazil’s three biggest meatpackers – JBS, Marfrig and Minerva – was nearly five times greater in the Cerrado area of Mato Grosso than in the neighbouring Amazon rainforest, where the companies have legal agreements for monitoring their supplies. All three companies dispute Global Witness’s findings and said they are compliant with Brazilian law on deforestation and have their own individual supply chain agreements with Brazilian authorities.
ELEPHANT FATALITIES: Seven people in Malawi have been killed by elephants after the animals were moved as part of a conservation project overseen by two wildlife organisations, including one that was headed by Prince Harry, the Guardian reported. More than 250 elephants were moved from Liwonde national park in southern Malawi to the country’s second-largest protected area, Kasungu, in 2022, the outlet said. After the move, local communities warned that sections of electric fence designed to keep elephants and humans separate were incomplete, the newspaper added. The fatalities reportedly occurred when elephants came into contact with people outside of their protected area, it explained. In a statement seen by the Guardian, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, one of the groups involved in the project, apologised and pledged to finish installing the fence in 2024.
CALI CONFERENCE: Santiago de Cali, or Cali, will host the COP16 biodiversity summit in October, Colombian president Gustavo Petro announced last week. Cali is the country’s third-most-populous city and is the capital of the Colombian Pacific – the “most biodiverse region of Colombia”, Petro said in his remarks. According to a press release from the Colombian environment ministry, the Pacific region contains more than 200 protected areas and nearly 1,300 species of fauna. Colombia One, citing sources within the government, wrote: “The ethnic and cultural diversity of the region has played an important role in this decision.”
DRAX INVESTIGATION: The Panorama investigations team at BBC News has found evidence that the Drax biomass power station in North Yorkshire is still “burning wood from some of the world’s most precious forests”. It said: “Papers obtained by Panorama show Drax took timber from rare forests in Canada it had claimed were ‘no go areas’.” Drax told Panorama that its wood pellets are “sustainable and legally harvested”. Elsewhere, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak caused a stir by attending a farmers’ protest against the Welsh Labour government alongside a group that “has posted conspiracy theories about climate change and which campaigns against net-zero”, the Observer reported.
‘SATURATION POINT’: A 3,378-hectare Australian farm that had been “held up by the red meat sector as a vision of the future” has not been able to offset its own emissions since around 2017, according to a new report covered by the Guardian. The farm had initially planted hundreds of thousands of trees to sequester carbon. However, the outlet added: “[T]hose trees have now matured and passed peak sequestration…and the soil is so carbon rich it can’t sequester any additional CO2 from the atmosphere.” One of the farm’s owners, Mark Wootton, told the Guardian that their “regenerative approach to farming” is still beneficial, even if the farm is no longer carbon-neutral.
‘MEATY’ RICE: Scientists in South Korea have invented “meaty” rice, a hybrid food which they argue could provide an affordable and climate-friendly source of protein, BBC News reported. It explained: “The porous grains are packed with beef muscle and fat cells, grown in the lab. The rice was first coated in fish gelatine to help the beef cells latch on, and the grains were left in a petri dish to culture for up to 11 days.” The scientists, whose research was published in the journal Matter, told BBC News that the food may serve as “relief for famine, military ration or even space food” in the future.
Watch, read, listenGRAN CHACO: Diálogo Chino reported on how livestock farmers in Argentina’s Gran Chaco are searching for more sustainable farming methods.
FAIR FOR FARMERS: A grassroots farmers’ advocacy non-profit in Florida was behind the “strongest set of workplace heat protections in the US”, the Washington Post wrote.
INDIGENOUS SPOTLIGHT: For the New York Times, law professor Robert Williams argued that “kicking native people off their land is a horrible way to save the planet”.
RAIN ON YOUR PARADE: Rain in the Arctic – increasingly common in a warmer world – is bringing a “cascade of troubling changes”, Yale Environment 360 wrote.
New scienceBiodiversity footprints of 151 popular dishes from around the world
Plos One
A new study estimated the biodiversity footprints of 151 popular local dishes from around the world when globally and locally produced. It found that the dishes with the highest biodiversity impacts tend to be those made up of ingredients grown in biodiversity hotspots where agriculture pressures are high, such as fraldinha, a beef dish originating from Brazil, and chana masala, a chickpea curry popular in India. To come up with the results, the researchers considered popular dishes and a range of biodiversity indicators associated with the ingredients of each. The researchers added: “Regardless of assuming locally or globally produced, feedlot or pasture livestock production, vegan and vegetarian dishes presented lower biodiversity footprints than dishes containing meat.”
Rapid sea level rise causes loss of seagrass meadows
Communications Earth & Environment
“Unprecedented” and “rapid” sea level rise drove two common seagrass species out of nearly one-quarter of the sites monitored in the western Gulf of Mexico, according to new research. Scientists used data from long-term ecological monitoring sites, gulf-wide measurements of sea level rise and models of future sea level rise to determine how rising waters might affect seagrass meadows in the future. At one station, they found that two “ubiquitous” species “vanished altogether in just five years”. In modelling future risk, they found 14,000 square kilometres of seagrass habitat could be at risk of disappearing completely by 2050.
Arctic sea ice retreat fuels boreal forest advance
Science
New research found that changes in the Arctic sea ice extent influence the northward spread of the boreal forest, as well as the size of trees there. By combining data from field sites in northern Alaska with satellite data and previously published data from around the Arctic, researchers found a causal link between the advance of the forest and the retreat of the sea ice. They discovered that around the Arctic, “proportionally more tree lines have advanced” in regions of ongoing ice loss. The scientists concluded that “warming and reduced habitat for tundra organisms due to boreal forest advance will critically affect resource availability for Arctic-dwelling people”.
In the diary- 26 February-1 March: Sixth session of the UN environment assembly | Nairobi
- 29 February: Power Shift Africa event on navigating adaptation post COP28 | Online
- 1 March: 36th meeting of the IPCC Task Force Bureau | Brisbane
- 10 March: Portugal parliamentary elections
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 28 February 2024: Chocolate crisis; Tree-planting scrutinised; EU restoration law appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What does the EU ‘nature restoration’ law mean for climate and biodiversity?
The EU’s law to restore nature was given the green light by the European parliament this week.
The long-awaited “nature restoration” law aims to repair the EU’s damaged ecosystems over the next few decades.
The final vote on the law came amid farmer protests across the EU and, in response, rollbacks of some of the bloc’s other environmental plans.
The law became a focal point for misinformation in recent months and saw strong levels of opposition from different groups.
It passed through a final parliament vote on 27 February, with 329 votes in favour, 275 against and 24 abstentions – a larger margin of approval than a knife-edge vote last summer.
It now needs to be approved by the council of the EU before it can take effect.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief explains the aims of the nature restoration law, the challenges it faced, its scientific backing and what it will mean for climate change and biodiversity loss in the EU.
- What is the EU nature restoration law?
- Will the law help the EU meet its climate and biodiversity goals?
- What is the scientific backing behind the law?
- What are the most contentious parts of the nature restoration law?
- What has been the reaction to the EU’s nature restoration law?
Proposed in June 2022, the nature restoration law is seen by the European Commission as a key part of meeting the EU’s climate and biodiversity goals.
It aims to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030.
Within this wider goal, countries need to restore 30% of habitats covered by the new law (including forests, rivers and wetlands) that are already degraded by 2030. This increases to 60% by 2040 and at least 90% by 2050.
Sabien Leemans, a senior biodiversity policy officer at WWF EU, says the law is a “very big opportunity” for nature – and a rare one in terms of EU policy. She tells Carbon Brief:
“It is comparable to the habitats directive that was adopted in the early 90s – more than 30 years ago. It’s not like in the climate sphere that you have legislation coming up every year or every couple of years.
“For nature, with a proposal that would really impact how we use land and sea in Europe, I think this is really historic and [it is] not happening even every decade.”
The law is intended to work alongside other environmental policies on a range of issues, including birds, habitats, water and invasive alien species. Its goals also align with the new EU 2030 forest strategy, which intends to protect and restore forests across the bloc.
Views over Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park, a protected area in Catalonia, Spain. Credit: Tolo Balaguer / Alamy Stock PhotoThe law states that EU countries should, “as appropriate”, prioritise restoring habitats that are “not in good condition” and also located in Natura 2000 sites – an EU network of protected areas containing at-risk species and ecosystems – until 2030.
These areas are “essential” for nature conservation, the law says, and there is an existing EU obligation to ensure that Natura 2000 areas are covered by long-term restoration measures.
EU countries will need to submit national restoration plans to the commission to show how they plan to deliver on key targets, with requirements for monitoring and reporting on their progress towards those goals. Leemans tells Carbon Brief:
“The member states will choose where they will restore, what they will restore, how they will restore. And together the national restoration plans need to add up to the targets.”
More than 110,000 people and organisations responded to an online public consultation on the proposal in early 2021. The results showed “overwhelming support” for legally binding targets, with 97% of respondents in favour of general EU restoration targets across all ecosystems, the commission said.
The law scraped through a parliament vote in July 2023, which saw elements of the text “watered down”. (See: What are the most contentious parts of the nature restoration law?)
After further negotiations, the commission, parliament and council of the EU provisionally agreed the terms of the new law in November 2023. This passed through the final parliament vote on 27 February 2024.
Press conference by César Luena, rapporteur on EU Nature Restoration Law, on 27 February 2024, to present the adoption of the law. Credit: European parliamentThere was a “last-ditch attempt from rightwing parties” to reject the law in this vote, the Guardian reported. The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political group in the parliament, voted against the law alongside “far-right lawmakers”, the newspaper said.
Civil society organisations such as the European Environmental Bureau and Friends of the Earth Europe celebrated the EU parliament passed the law “despite EPP & far-right’s attempts to block the text”.
Politico noted that the proposal’s “narrow survival underscored broader trends likely to hamper green lawmaking” after the upcoming European parliament elections in June.
The law still has to be adopted by the council of the EU before it can take effect. This is usually a formality, but Deutsche Welle reported that “it is not guaranteed and some recent EU policies have faced blockages and delays because of domestic pushback”.
The parliament’s lead negotiator on the proposal, César Luena, said the EU can now “move from protecting and conserving nature to restoring it”.
Will the law help the EU meet its climate and biodiversity goals?The commission’s original proposal for the law said that “more decisive action” is needed to achieve the EU’s climate and biodiversity goals, adding that the bloc “has so far failed to halt the loss of biodiversity”. It said:
“The outlook for biodiversity and ecosystems is bleak and shows that the current approach is not working.”
Global and national targets are in place around the world to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. But, currently, greenhouse gas emissions are still rising and biodiversity is declining at a level described by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as “unprecedented”.
Despite the fact that many elements have been weakened since the first proposal, the law is intended to be one part of several solutions needed to bridge this gap between goals and action. Leemans tells Carbon Brief:
“It’s quite clear from all reports that we are still losing nature. More than 80% of the natural habitats in Europe that are listed on the habitats directive are not in a good condition. So there is really a lot of work to do.
“It’s really important to protect nature…But it’s not enough – you also need to start restoring nature where it has been lost and bring it back.”
The EU’s 2030 biodiversity strategy sets out the bloc’s plans to protect nature and improve ecosystems.
Healthier ecosystems would have a range of wider benefits, including being more resilient to climate change, reducing the impact of extreme weather and helping to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, 26% of the EU’s land and 12% of marine areas are protected.
Romina Pourmokhtari, the Swedish climate and environment minister, says the nature restoration law will hopefully help the EU “rebuild a healthy level of biodiversity, fight climate change and meet our international commitments under the Kunming-Montreal agreement”.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is a set of goals and targets aiming to “halt and reverse” biodiversity loss by the end of this decade. It includes a target to conserve 30% of the world’s land and 30% of the ocean by 2030. (See Carbon Brief’s recent Q&A on progress one year since the framework was agreed.)
The map below, taken from a 2023 study, shows the existing European network of protected areas under strict protection (light blue), not-strict protection (yellow) and new protected area corridors (dark blue). EU countries are shown in dark grey. The level of the protection is based on categories from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The areas under the strictest protection have minimal presence of humans.
The geographical spread of the European network of protected areas. EU countries are coloured in dark grey, non-EU countries are light grey. Strictly protected areas are noted in light blue, less strictly protected areas are noted in yellow and new protected area corridors are noted in dark blue. Source: Staccione et al. (2023) (CC BY 4.0 DEED)According to an impact assessment study published by the commission earlier this year, the economic benefits of restoring a number of different EU ecosystems – including peatlands, forests and lakes – by 2050 range at around €1.86tn, compared to the estimated €154bn cost of these actions.
The report added that, in a number of ways, the “climate mitigation benefits alone outweighed the cost of restoration action required”.
What is the scientific backing behind the law?The scientific rationale for the EU’s nature restoration law is laid out in the commission’s impact assessment study, which considers both ecosystem restoration needs and the financing needed to implement such targets in the EU.
About 80% of habitats in the EU have “bad” or “poor” conservation status, and only 15% are in “good” condition, according to the European Environment Agency’s (EEA) 2020 “state of nature in the EU” report.
More than half of peatlands – including bogs, mires and fens – and half of dune habitats are in bad condition, the report says. Coastal habitats have the smallest area remaining in good condition.
The chart below, taken from the report, shows the percentage of habitat in good (green), unknown (grey), poor (yellow) and bad (red) condition.
Conservation status per habitat, with green indicating good condition and grey, yellow and red indicating unknown, poor and bad condition, respectively. The number in parentheses next to each habitat type is the number of assessments made for each type of habitat in the report, with a total of 818 assessments. Source: EEA (2020)As a result of the degradation of habitats, many species across the EU are in decline.
For example, pollinators are crucial for food production, but one in three bee and butterfly species are in decline, according to the council. It points out that €5bn of the EU’s annual agricultural output “can be directly attributed” to those species, but about half of the areas where pollinator-dependent crops are grown “do not provide suitable conditions for pollinators”.
The EEA assessment provides a map of the conservation status in the EU habitats, shown below. Regions in red have “bad” conservation status, regions in yellow are classified as “poor” conservation status and green areas have a “good” conservation status.
Distribution of the conservation status around the EU and UK, with green indicating good condition and yellow and red indicating poor and bad condition, respectively. Source: EEA (2020)During a webinar hosted by the European Geosciences Union at the end of last year, Damien Thomson, a political advisor working within the European parliament, said the law is “largely scientifically based, but there’s room for improvement”.
In the webinar, Thomson emphasised that the commission considered the scientific merit of the legislation, but said that the scientific evidence did not hold equal weight to the political voices in the parliament.
The EU set its first nature restoration target in 2010, as part of the EU biodiversity strategy to 2020. That strategy contained a target aimed to restore “at least 15% of degraded ecosystems” by 2020.
However, the bloc did not achieve any of the six targets set out in that strategy, the impact assessment found. It stated that the restoration target was hindered by several issues, such as the lack of legally binding targets and the “ambiguity” as to which ecosystems and restoration activities it was referring to.
The new restoration law stems from the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, which aims to establish legally binding targets to restore “significant areas of degraded and carbon-rich ecosystems by 2030”.
The strategy aims to legally protect a minimum of 30% of the land, including inland waters, and 30% of the sea in the EU by 2030. It additionally set a target to ensure that 30% of EU species and habitats reach “a favourable conservation status” and to restore at least 25,000 kilometres of free-flowing rivers by that date.
It adds that the commission and the EEA will guide countries to “select and prioritise the species and habitats for restoration measures”.
The restoration law also acknowledges that the GBF requires that at least 30% of degraded ecosystems worldwide – including terrestrial, inland water and marine and coastal ecosystems – should be “under effective restoration” by 2030.
However, the law ultimately required restoration of 20% of the EU’s lands and seas by 2030.
In a joint statement after the final vote, BirdLife Europe, ClientEarth, the European Environmental Bureau and WWF EU said they were “relieved that MEPs listened to facts and science, and did not give in to populism and fear-mongering”. The statement added:
“Now, we urge member states to follow suit and deliver this much-needed law to bring back nature in Europe.”
What are the most contentious parts of the nature restoration law?One of the main objections against the new law was around restoration requirements for drained peatlands used for agriculture and came from political and farming groups.
Specifically, member states are required to establish measures to restore organic soil in 30% of agricultural lands lying in drained peatlands by 2030.
This can be achieved by a range of actions, which include converting cropland to permanent grassland, establishing peat-forming vegetation or fully rewetting drained peatlands to allow padiculture – sowing of crops on peatlands or on rewetted peats.
The initial proposal was intended to reach 50% of such areas by 2040 and 70% by 2050; however, the final regulation slashed those percentages to 40% and 50%, respectively.
This target faced political resistance from conservative parties, who argued that the law would threaten the livelihoods of farmers and fishers, decrease food production and push up prices. These groups raised a “relentless campaign to bring down the text”, Euronews reported.
The European People’s Party (EPP) also sought “to drastically reduce the scope of [the] plans for” peatland restoration and was “against the conversion of agricultural land for other uses”, including restoring peatlands, Deutsche Welle reported.
In response to these concerns, member states “added flexibility” to targets linked to the rewetting of peatlands and green urban spaces into their proposal, according to Euronews.
The outlet reported that Pourmokhtari, the Swedish minister, said the country’s presidency of the council had “listened carefully to all member states who had different concerns and remarks on the proposal”.
Stacks of peat drying after being extracted from a bog in Ireland. Credit: Matthijs Wetterauw / Alamy Stock PhotoAnother target that spurred strong political objection was the restoration of forest ecosystems.
The final law mandates member states to “achieve an increasing trend at national level of at least six out of seven” forest indicators, which include traits such as the amount of non-living woody biomass in standing and lying deadwood, organic carbon stocks, forest connectivity and tree species diversity.
By June 2031, EU countries need to inform the commission about their progress on restoring nature between when the law takes effect and 2030.
After this, countries need to report progress at least every six years. The first draft of the law had proposed assessments every three years.
Countries also must, by June 2028, report other information to the commission, including details around which areas will be restored.
The law says that when considering forest and other ecosystem restoration actions, countries “shall aim to contribute” to the EU’s existing goal to plant at least 3bn trees across the bloc by 2030, prioritising native tree species and adapted species.
Nordic countries “had previously pushed back against previous forestry-related targets” and were expected to oppose the nature restoration law, a parliamentary representative told Euractiv.
Sweden, for example, was “believed to be opposed” to the targets of forest management contained in the law, Euronews reported.
Opposition parties accused Finland’s government of a “failure to protect national interests” and pointed out that the law would be costly, the Helsinki Times reported in November. Riikka Purra, chairperson of the right-wing populist Finns Party, said:
“We won’t stand by pillaging Finnish forests a lot, but also not for pillaging them a bit less.”
In response, Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, said her country would accept the proposal if it included amendments and met “Finland’s overall interests”, the outlet said. It added that the government was pushing for the restoration measures to be “voluntary for land owners”, since forest policy “falls strictly” within national policy.
Following negotiations by the EU parliament, commission and council last year, a statement from WWF said the law had been “watered down”, with “disappointing” exemptions and “excessive flexibility” on some requirements.
Despite this, Leemans believes the law will lead to improvements for European ecosystems. But, she adds:
“The key will be the implementation.”
What has been the reaction to the EU’s nature restoration law?Since the law was first proposed in 2022, it has received support from a range of groups, including wind energy and solar power associations, hundreds of scientists, dozens of major companies, an EU organic farming representative group and NGOs such as WWF, BirdLife International and Greenpeace.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature called on the EU to adopt the law and Wetlands International Europe, a non-governmental group of wetland preservation organisations, said the law will help to “secure the future of our vital wetlands”.
Protesters demonstrating in Brussels on 1 June 2023. Credit: Belga News Agency / Alamy Stock PhotoSwedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was among a group of climate activists calling for a strong nature restoration law outside the European parliament building in Strasbourg last July.
There were two key opponents to the proposed law – the major agricultural lobby group Copa-Cogeca and the EPP.
The EPP made a number of debunked remarks about the law, including that it would “turn the entire city of Rovaniemi” – the alleged “hometown” of Santa Claus – into a forest.
The party also claimed that the targets will lead to a “global famine” alongside higher food prices and increased imports of “unsafe food that does not meet EU standards”. These claims have been rebutted by a number of experts.
An open letter signed by 3,000 scientists in June last year pushed back on claims that the law will harm farmers and threaten food security. The letter says that these kinds of claims “not only lack scientific evidence, but even contradict it”, Reuters reported.
“Green-minded” lawmakers, scientists and environmental groups said the EPP was opposing nature and climate policies to “score political points in rural constituencies” in the upcoming parliament elections, Politico reported last November.
In a correspondence to the scientific journal Nature, Dr Kris Decleer, a researcher at Belgium’s Research Institute for Nature and Forest, and Prof An Cliquet, a researcher at Ghent University, wrote that opponents to the law were “influenced by lobbyists in favour of intensive agriculture, fisheries and the forestry industry, who say that the law would cut jobs and undermine food and energy security”.
Many farmers will be directly impacted by the nature restoration law and it featured among the concerns of farmers protesting across the EU in recent months (see Carbon Brief’s analysis of how these protests relate to climate change).
The commission’s impact assessment for the law said that the farming, forestry and fishery sectors are likely to be most impacted through, for example, lost income from less intensive extractive management in forestry. However, it also said that these sectors stand to benefit in the long-term, as they will be more resilient to extreme weather and reduce the risks of pest outbreaks as a result.
There are also farm-related exemptions in the law, including an option to halt certain targets for agricultural ecosystems in case of any “unforeseeable and exceptional events outside of the EU’s control and with severe EU-wide consequences for food security”. This was added to the text in November last year. (See: What are the most contentious parts of the nature restoration law?)
The law includes further leeway for countries to potentially set lower restoration targets for certain ecosystems in specific circumstances.
Leemans, from WWF EU, tells Carbon Brief that criticisms from the EPP and others were “mainly misinformation, and really on an unprecedented scale”. She says:
“We’ve never seen such an aggressive campaign against a legal proposal coming from the commission. It was really putting the [EU] Green Deal in jeopardy because the nature restoration law is the biodiversity pillar of the Green Deal, and it’s really a very important piece of the puzzle.”
She adds that while the EPP may claim it is “protecting or defending the farmers’ concerns”, she believes “they are doing the opposite”. She says:
“All science tells you the same – it’s healthy ecosystems that need to be in place to ensure food security. Agriculture needs healthy soils, needs water retention, needs flooding and drought prevention, pollination and all this depends on healthy ecosystems.
“It’s very cynical to tell people that you’re defending farmers and actually blocking one of the solutions for farmers.”
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UK emissions could rise by 15% if government uses ‘surplus’ to weaken climate goal, CCC warns
The UK would be able to increase its emissions while still meeting its next legally binding climate goal if the government uses a “surplus” to weaken the target, official advisers warn.
The government has asked the Climate Change Committee (CCC) if it should carry over “surplus” emissions, after the UK overachieved the third “carbon budget” for 2018-2022.
This surplus is equivalent to an extra year’s worth of emissions, so carrying it forward would increase the size of the fourth carbon budget for 2023-2027 by a fifth.
Doing so would make it far easier for the next government to meet that budget, allowing emissions to rise by around 15% from current levels – instead of falling towards net-zero.
In a letter, published today, the CCC says its “unequivocal” advice is that doing this would place the UK’s future climate goals at “very serious risk” and would make the 2050 net-zero target “more expensive and harder to achieve”.
The letter says that the surplus is largely the result of a sluggish economy and the impact of Covid-19. The committee emphasises that the UK’s emissions cuts need to accelerate to stay on course for long-term goals, rather than slow down.
‘Surplus’ emissions cutsUnder the Climate Change Act, the UK must hit legally binding interim emissions targets, known as carbon budgets, that get gradually lower on a pathway to net-zero emissions by 2050.
Earlier this month, the government published final greenhouse gas emissions figures showing that the UK overachieved in its third carbon budget. Total net emissions were 2,153m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) between 2018 and 2022, the figures show, against a target of 2,544MtCO2e.
This means the UK came in 391MtCO2e – or 15% – below the budget for this five-year period. This “overachievement”, largely due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and other external factors (see below), is equivalent to around one year of UK emissions.
Earlier this month, UK climate minister Graham Stuart asked the CCC for its view on “carrying forward” the emissions “surplus” to the next carbon budget.
Under section 17 of the Climate Change Act, the government is legally entitled to do this if it wishes, but must first seek and take into account the CCC’s advice.
Carrying forward some or all of the surplus effectively weakens the UK’s next carbon budget, by an equivalent amount. Nevertheless, the flexibility was included in the Climate Change Act in order to encourage – and reward – early action to cut emissions.
Five years ago, the CCC issued a similar warning that the UK should not carry forward the surplus from the second carbon budget to the third period, because that overachievement was also largely due to external factors rather than genuine early action.
However, the government ignored the CCC’s advice – the first time it had done so – and carried forward 88MtCO2e into the third carbon budget.
Today, the CCC has once again written to the government warning it not to weaken the fourth carbon budget by making use of surplus emissions.
Indeed, as the chart below shows, making full use of the third budget surplus would allow the UK to legally increase its emissions in the current fourth carbon budget period 2024-2027, rather than cutting them in line with its longer-term goals.
Historical and projected UK greenhouse gas emissions, excluding international aviation and shipping (IAS) and including adjustments for the UK’s share of the EU Emissions Trading System cap between 2008-2020, in millions of tonnes of CO2 equivalent. The red line indicates the maximum emissions that could legally be allowed if the “surplus” emissions from the third carbon budget are carried forward into the fourth budget period. The “delivery pathway” is an indicative pathway from the CCC based on the government’s carbon budget delivery plan, showing the path the government intends to take to meet the target of net-zero by 2050. Projected shares of emissions from international aviation and shipping (IAS) have been removed from the delivery pathway, to bring it in line with the historical emissions figures. Unlike earlier carbon budgets, the sixth carbon budget includes IAS emissions. Source: CCC, DESNZ, Carbon Brief analysis.With the third carbon budget surplus of 391MtCO2e being equivalent to a whole extra year of emissions in the UK, the country could emit around 20% more over the five-year budget than the amount officially legislated.
Adding this amount to the fourth carbon budget would enable the UK to emit 200MtCO2e more between 2023-27 than it did over the course of its third carbon budget, following decades of relatively consistent cuts.
This would amount to a 9% increase in emissions between budgets and an increase of as much as 15% from 2022 levels, across the fourth budget period.
It would also push the UK far off course from the government’s own carbon budget delivery plan for meeting near- and long-term targets, which it set out last year.
If the government decides to carry over the surplus and emissions are allowed to rise to their maximum level under a looser fourth carbon budget, getting back on track for the fifth carbon budget would require a “huge and impractical” total emissions reduction of 1,036MtCO2e over the following five years, according to the CCC.
This is twice as fast as anticipated in the government’s plan – and 40% quicker than the most ambitious scenario devised by the CCC.
‘Very serious risk’In light of these potential outcomes, interim CCC chair Prof Piers Forster writes in his response to Stuart’s request that the surplus should not be used:
“The committee’s unequivocal advice is that surplus emissions from the third carbon budget should not be carried forward.”
The committee warns against “setting conditions that allow for a legally compliant slowdown in progress” when the focus “should be on accelerating and broadening emissions reductions”.
It concludes that both the UK’s domestic goal of the sixth carbon budget for 2033-37 and its 2030 international climate target under the Paris Agreement would be placed at “very serious risk” if the carryover is allowed.
The fourth carbon budget was set when the UK’s 2050 emissions goal was an 80% reduction rather than 100%. This means that the government should be overachieving, rather than underachieving, on the budget’s target emissions reductions in order to stay on a “sensible” track for its future goals, according to the CCC.
The CCC’s response reiterates its previous recommendations to Stuart’s predecessors about carrying forward surplus from the first and second carbon budgets.
Moreover, the committee points out that “most” of the surplus emissions cuts in recent years have not been the result of the government’s climate policies.
According to the committee, roughly half of them resulted from a “tighter than expected” EU ETS cap. This meant “less was required” of government policy in areas outside of the ETS, such as transport and heating buildings.
Most of the remaining surplus is accounted for by “lower-than-expected GDP” and less travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the CCC adds.
The CCC emphasises the need for continued incentives and pressure to make emissions cuts across all sectors, concluding:
“The Climate Change Act and the carbon budgets provide a clear, longrun signal to investors and businesses on the UK’s decarbonisation trajectory. Carrying forward the third carbon budget surplus would weaken this message, causing uncertainty, and could ultimately result in net-zero being more expensive and harder to achieve.”
.shadeBg{ background: rgba(0,0,0,0.4); }Q&A: What does the EU ‘nature restoration’ law mean for climate and biodiversity?
EU policy
|Analysis: Record drop in China’s CO2 emissions needed to meet 2025 target
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|The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Pan Jiahua
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|Q&A: European Commission calls for 90% cut in EU emissions by 2040
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DeBriefed 23 February 2024: Extreme heat from Asia to Africa; China risks missing 2025 CO2 targets; Why climate change matters for the pandemic treaty
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
This week Extreme heat across the globeSUPERLATIVE EXTREMES: Much of the world is experiencing extreme heat, with temperature records being broken on several continents but little western news coverage. Axios reported that temperatures in Japan are being “broken by rare margins”. The outlet added that Maximiliano Herrera, an independent climatologist who tracks weather records, “has been increasingly struggling to come up with new superlatives to describe” the extreme heat.
AFRICAN HEAT: Late last week, the Nigerian weather agency “predicted a prolonged heatwave across the country”, with temperatures forecast to rise above 40C, according to the Cable. In Kenya, the current “excess heat” could “persist till March”, the Standard reported. And “scorching” temperatures in parts of South Africa led to warnings for residents to stay indoors, the Witness said.
ASIAN EARLY BLOOMER: According to the Weather Channel, Japan’s iconic cherry blossoms are blooming early amid record heat there. The Thaiger reported that Thailand “is bracing for a severe heatwave”, while Cambodia’s meteorological ministry issued several advisories this week that maximum average temperatures could reach 37C, according to the Khmer Times.
AUSTRALIA ‘SWELTERING’: The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that “parts of Western Australia have sweltered through their hottest night on record” this week. “Extreme fire danger” led to school closures in the state, another article said.
Around the world- US REGULATIONS: US president Joe Biden is reportedly planning to “slow” the roll-out of tailpipe-emissions regulations – one of his administration’s “most ambitious strategies to combat climate change”, according to the New York Times. Meanwhile, US agencies are “scrambl[ing] to finish” environmental regulations “to ensure that a Republican Congress and White House can’t erase them next year”, Politico reported.
- CLIMATE COCKTAIL: A deadly cholera outbreak in southern Africa “was likely triggered by a cocktail of issues”, Al Jazeera wrote, including “more severe flooding linked to climate change”. Heavy rainfall in the Amazon also triggered an alert for oropouche fever in the Brazilian city of Manaus, according to Folha de S. Paolo.
- BACK-BURNER?: European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is pursuing a second term, Politico reported, with “little appetite for expanding the Green Deal” amid concerns over “competitiveness, migration and defence”. However, a later Politico story quoted the draft manifesto of her party saying: “We want to further develop the Green Deal.” The Financial Times quoted von der Leyen saying: “We must achieve the climate targets…with the people and with the business sector.”
- SOLAR SOARS: “‘World-leading’ electricity production” in China’s north-western deserts is being “fuelled by forces of nature”, with wind and solar making up more than half of the nearly 500 gigawatt capacity, according to the South China Morning Post.
- EXTREMES AND ADAPTATION: Bangladesh was hit by 185 extreme weather events between 2000-19, according to a report covered by DownToEarth, which added that “adaptation policies and local initiatives have saved many lives”.
- HIGH COURT CLAIMS: Three environmental groups are seeking legal action against the UK government over its decision to approve its “carbon budget delivery plan” in March 2023 without fully considering the risks, the Press Association wrote.
The profits of the “big five” oil majors – Shell, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies – since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the campaign group Global Witness.
Latest climate research- New research by World Weather Attribution, covered by Carbon Brief, found that climate change had no significant impact on Chile’s recent deadly wildfires.
- Climate change is affecting the feeding and migration patterns of bowhead whales, which could lead to more collisions with ships in the future, according to a new study in Geophysical Research Letters.
- A paper in Environmental Research Letters found that increasing population density could raise the carbon emissions from mangrove forest degradation by 50,000% by the end of the century.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured China will need ‘record drop’ in emissions to meet targetAmid rapid growth of electricity demand, China’s energy emissions will now need to fall by a record 4-6% by 2025 in order to meet the government’s “carbon intensity” target – its CO2 emissions per unit of economic output. New analysis for Carbon Brief found that China is “at risk of missing” its other key climate targets for next year, but most of these can still be achieved if the country returns to pre-2020 levels of energy demand growth while maintaining last year’s “acceleration of clean energy deployment”. The analysis was covered by publications including the Straits Times, the South China Morning Post, Reuters, the Guardian and Bloomberg.
Spotlight Guest post: Why climate change matters for the pandemic treatyIn this spotlight, Dr Colin Carlson, a climate epidemiologist at Georgetown University, explains the connections between climate change and the proposed global pandemic treaty, as it enters the final stages of negotiations.
For more than a year, World Health Organization (WHO) member states have been working towards a new treaty that would formalise the lessons learned during the Covid-19 response.
On 19 February, delegates met at the WHO headquarters in Geneva to begin the eighth and penultimate session of negotiations. If countries can agree on final language, the Pandemic Agreement could then be adopted at the World Health Assembly in May.
The climate community has not paid much attention to these negotiations – nor has climate change featured heavily in the negotiations.
In the latest draft of the treaty, climate change is only mentioned once: the WHO and its member states are trying to move towards a “One Health” approach that protects human health, animal health and the environment, including “taking action on climate change”.
Scientists have demanded more of a focus on preventing disease emergence, but for the most part, other drivers – such as wildlife trade and deforestation – have upstaged climate.
But scientists are also starting to see connections between pandemics and climate change.
Animals are on the move, and bringing their viruses to new places. Rising temperatures make another pandemic of Zika virus or another mosquito-borne disease more likely – and next time, the risks to the US and Europe will be far greater. Hotter temperatures also mean more antibiotic resistant bacteria – which will make the next flu or coronavirus pandemic more deadly.
Investment and surveillanceIn that light, climate change makes the Pandemic Agreement all the more urgent.
It could mean countries spend more on surveillance, helping scientists spot new diseases as they show up.
Investments in clean water, sanitation and primary healthcare would also reduce the burden of climate-sensitive diseases such as cholera and malaria, while more investments in veterinary workforce would help to protect animal health from emerging diseases such as avian influenza.
Most importantly, the proposed Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) System would create a new framework for scientists around the world to share pathogen genomic sequence data with each other.
Pharmaceutical companies that access those data to design vaccines and therapeutics would then have to share some percent of their vaccines to the WHO, ensuring that low- and middle-income countries will have access to life-saving medicines – a massive step towards solving vaccine inequity and reducing disease risk in regions that are projected to see the largest increases in exposure because of climate change.
But first, the treaty has to survive the next three months. Since negotiations started, the PABS System has been flagged as a potential deal-breaker for high-income countries.
If the treaty falls through, health could become a much bigger problem for climate policy than it already is – after four million climate change-related deaths and counting.
Watch, read, listenDEEP-SEA SECRETS: The rediscovery of a 1970s-era deep-sea mining test site may shed light on the method’s lasting environmental impacts, the Post and Courier wrote.
ENERGY EQUITY: On the New Books Network podcast, two researchers discussed equitable clean energy and a just transition in north Africa and the Middle East.
MEKONG’S MANGROVES: The Mekong Eye explored how Vietnam’s mangrove forests have been felled in the name of economic growth – and how they might be saved.
Coming up- 19 February to 1 March: Sixth UN environment assembly, Nairobi, Kenya
- 25 February: Belarus parliamentary elections
- 26 February: UN Plastics Treaty: Reuse – a climate and plastic solution, Nairobi, Kenya
- 27-28 February: G20 disaster risk reduction working group meeting, Vila Do Conde, Brazil
- Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, strategic communications lead | Salary: Unknown. Location: remote, anywhere in the world
- Climate Risk Lab at the University of Cape Town, postdoctoral research fellow (four opportunities) | Salary: ZAR 410,000-475,000. Location: Cape Town, South Africa strongly preferred
- Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, country programme manager | Salary: £41,593-£44,651. Location: Monrovia, Liberia
- Stockholm Environment Institute, water programme research associate | Salary: unknown. Location: Bogotá, Colombia
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org
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China Briefing 22 February: Interview with Chinese govt climate advisor; missing emissions targets; the cost of excluding China
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.
Carbon Brief handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments China needs record drop in CO2 emissions to meet 2025 targetRECORD FALL NEEDED: New analysis for Carbon Brief revealed that China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions increased by 12% between 2020 and 2023, due to a “highly energy- and carbon-intensive response” to the economic slowdown during the Covid-19 pandemic. Total energy consumption grew 5.7% in 2023, “the first time since at least 2005 that energy demand has grown faster than GDP”, while CO2 emissions grew “at an average of 3.8% per year in 2021-23, up from 0.9% a year in 2016-20”, despite slowing economic growth. As a result, China’s carbon intensity – its emissions per unit of GDP – “has only fallen 5% in the 14th five-year plan period”, and CO2 emissions “would need to fall by 4-6% by 2025” to meet the carbon intensity target of 18% set in the 14th five-year plan.
OFF-TARGET: China is also “at risk” of failing to meet other key climate goals. Despite pledges to “strictly limit” coal demand growth and “strictly control” new coal power capacity, both “coal consumption and new coal power projects” accelerated “sharply” from 2020 to 2023. The share of China’s energy demand met by non-fossil sources “has increased by 1.8 percentage points from 2020 to 2023, against a target of 4.1 points by 2025”. The analysis concluded that government pressure to hit these targets – many of which are included in China’s most recent international climate pledge – means it is “more likely that China’s CO2 emissions will peak before 2025”.
OFFICIAL STATS: The head of the national energy administration (NEA), Zhang Jianhua, recently wrote in an article posted on the NEA’s official WeChat account that China’s annual growth of energy consumption between 2021 and 2023 was 1.8 times higher than annual energy consumption growth from 2016 to 2020 – and equalled the total annual energy consumption of the UK. He added that “solid growth” is expected for the foreseeable future, which will make it “more difficult to coordinate energy security guarantees and the low-carbon transformation”.
China plans ‘comprehensive green transformation’‘GREEN TRANSFORMATION’: State news agency Xinhua reported that President Xi Jinping hosted a meeting of the central commission for deepening reform (CCDR, see below), during which policymakers passed the “opinions on promoting comprehensive green transformation of socioeconomic development”. The full text of the opinions has not yet been released. Xi also stated at the meeting that achieving this transformation “is the foundational policy to resolve problems around resources, the environment and ecology”, the outlet said. An Anhui News editorial republished by the state-run China Daily shortly after the meeting said that China should “incorporate the concept of green development into all aspects of economic and social development”.
POLITICAL HEAVYWEIGHT: The meeting of the CCDR, on the first day after the lunar new year holiday, underscores the importance of the legislation included. The CCDR, which was formed in 2013 and subsequently chaired by Xi, is the “primary mechanism for top-level policymaking and advancing reform and opening-up”, according to the state-supporting Global Times. The thinktank MERICS described it as a “supra-ministry used to accelerate priority reforms of the Xi leadership” that is the foremost of the existing leading small groups. According to MERICS, “policies passed by the CCDR are regarded as taking immediate effect [by ministries]”.
Climate policy momentum to pick up in 2024?2024 GOALS: In the latter half of 2023, a “number of important environmental and energy policies have either set tighter and more specific targets or called out the need for faster progress towards existing goals”, a new paper by the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES) said. The reemergence of language to “cut carbon emissions, reduce pollution, expand green development and pursue economic growth” suggests that “these priorities have risen” for 2024, it added.
TURF WAR: While top-level directives favour bolder action on environmental policy, the picture is “complicated” by “bureaucratic fragmentation”, the report said. This is illustrated by the delays in operationalising China’s carbon markets due to frictions between the ministry of environment and ecology (MEE) and the national development and reform commission (NDRC) and national energy administration (NEA), in addition to “a sharp policy dispute” between the NEA and the MEE on transitioning from a policy of “dual control” of energy to dual control of carbon, it added.
LOCAL POLITICS: Meanwhile, despite the signals coming from central leadership, local governments may not be incentivised to similarly prioritise environmental protection, the OIES said. Instead, local officials may be “keen to boost investment in large infrastructure projects to support economic activity and maintain tax revenues, which can work against environmental goals”.
Reducing ‘dependency’ on China ‘could add 20%’ to transition costsPRICE WAR: It could cost $6tn – an “additional 20% of the original energy transition bill” – to reduce “critical dependencies on China” for clean technology products, reported Quartz, citing new analysis from consultancy Wood Mackenzie. Industry players are “openly talking about” convincing consumers to pay more for non-Chinese minerals needed for powering electric vehicles, it added. In response to western countries seeking “greater diversity in supply amid a glut of Chinese imports” of clean-energy technologies, the vice-president of the world’s top solar panel manufacturer, Longi Green Energy Technology, warned that restrictions on Chinese companies would slow decarbonisation of European and US economies, in an interview given to the Financial Times. Dennis She stated that solar panels produced in the US without Chinese involvement would cost “double” and that EU protectionism would “kill most of the jobs [in] the [solar industry] downstream”.
SPLITS IN EUROPE: Meanwhile, another Financial Times article reported that a new Chinese solar panel factory being built in Ohio, US, by Longi is facing pushback by local residents suspicious of China’s “involvement”. The Financial Times – in an article carried on the frontpage of its international edition – also quoted senior US treasury officials as saying that “the US and its allies will take action if China tries to ease its industrial overcapacity problem by dumping goods on international markets”, with particular concerns around clean-energy sectors. EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra warned of the bloc’s “problematic” dependence on China for clean-energy technology, reported Euractiv. European clients have asked battery suppliers in China to “to start producing in Europe as soon as possible”, according to Yicai, due to a new EU regulation “imposing significant obligations on battery manufacturers, importers and distributors”. Meanwhile, “splits” among EU countries are emerging on China, with France and Germany at odds on “everything” from solar energy and electric vehicles to trade deals and supply chains, reported the South China Morning Post. France is typically in favour of restricting Chinese imports of clean-energy technology, the outlet added, while Germany “strongly opposes such measures”. The UK’s Trade Remedies Authority announced that it is ready to “follow” Brussels on the issue of launching an investigation into Chinese electric vehicles, which have “flooded” the global market, reported the Guardian.
Spotlight The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Pan JiahuaAt COP28 in Dubai, Carbon Brief’s Anika Patel spoke with Prof Pan Jiahua, vice-chair of the national expert panel on climate change of China, about his ideas for how to move to a zero-carbon future.
China’s national expert committee on climate change, of which Prof Pan is vice-chair, is an advisory body under the national leaders group on climate change, energy-saving and emissions reduction.
He is also a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and director of its Research Center for Sustainable Development, as well as director of Beijing University of Technology’s Institute of Eco-Civilization Studies.
Below are highlights from the wide-ranging conversation, which covered coal phaseout, the usefulness of a global “loss-and-damage fund”, and prospects for distributed solar and power market reform in China. The full interview can be found on the Carbon Brief website.
New modes of thinking about climateOn the philosophy of ‘ecological civilisation’: “Human beings, for their own benefit – they ignored the benefit of nature. The welfare of nature. We expose nature, we deplete our natural resources…[Under ecological civilisation] the basic idea [is] that [if we can achieve] harmony with nature [and] harmony among our nations, then we can go long into the future.”
On the success of UN climate summits: “COP is the only thing that [has lasted] over 30 years…We have different views, different arguments, different interests but, all in all, we’ve come a long way…We agreed the Paris targets – in 1990 nobody would believe that [was possible].”
On the COP28 summitOn the ‘loss-and-damage fund’: “Losses and damages should be compensated, but not in a way that we divert our energy and resources for [the sake of] compensation. We should use all our energy, resources, spirits – everything – for the zero-carbon transition.”
On the ‘climate paradox’: “If you divert the limited resources for compensating losses and damages, then the zero-carbon transition would be delayed. And if you delay such a transition, there will be more and more losses and damages. I call this the climate paradox.”
On tripling renewable energy: “Tripling renewable energy is not enough. Why are we only tripling? Why not more and more, the more the better. Because look at China – [we] doubled and doubled and doubled [our renewable energy] all the time. This year we doubled installed capacity over the last year. Why shouldn’t we do more than just tripling?”
On western suspicion: “Why did China suddenly become number one in zero-carbon renewables? It’s simply because the United States and Europe used anti-dumping subsidies and section 301 investigations in 2010. Then the Chinese competitive products, solar panels, were not able to go to the world market, so we thought we should…install everything inside of China and immediately China became number one in the world. Now you see the United States and Europe again say ‘no, it’s [a question of] supply chain security’. Right? This is really self-conflicting. On one hand they say ‘climate security’, on the other they say their ‘own security’.”
Investing in renewable energyOn replacing energy infrastructure: “Renewables would not require a huge amount of investment in infrastructure. Fossil fuels, coal electricity generation – the investment is very capital intensive…right? Waste of money.”
On subsidies and industrial policy: “Like a plant – in the very beginning when it’s a seed then you need to take care of it. But when it grows and becomes mature, then it can stand on its own and be competitive.”
Accelerating the energy transition through ‘prosumerism’On an alternative to a centralised electricity grid: “I use the term ‘prosumerism’. Production, consumption and storage all in one, right? You do not require a very capital intensive power grid…And also, this is consumer sovereignty – when you have your own system, you have a say and then…you are not totally reliant on the power grid.”
On the future of fossil fuels: “Fossil fuels are fossils. They are a thing of the past.”
On phasing out fossil fuels: “We want to have everything competitive enough to phase out fossil fuels, through the market process. Not command and control.”
On abating fossil fuels: “I think that abated fossil fuels is a false statement. Because abated is not compatible, they have no competitiveness. When you abate it, it is more expensive. You think the consumers are silly? They will simply vote for competitive[ly priced] electricity.”
On the challenges of power market reform: “Only the monopoly people will [call for] ‘reform’, and through reform they gain more power, they gain more monopoly. The prosumerism system will destroy such monopolies.”
On the urgency of ‘global boiling’: “Global warming is not global warming, it’s global boiling…Renewables are good for welfare, for wellbeing, for growing the economy, for a better environment. It’s for everybody and for the future. Fossil fuels are not for the future.”
Watch, read, listen‘GREENING’ ASEAN: A new paper by the Grantham Research Institute found that China plays a positive role in the “development of supply chains for renewable energy technology” in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region.
CAPACITY VS GENERATION: Our World In Data deputy editor Hannah Ritchie wrote in her Sustainability by Numbers newsletter that, although China is building more coal-fired power plants, their “capacity factor…has been dropping over the last 15 years”.
ESG: The Environment China podcast discussed research on corporate climate disclosures in China, with authors Erica Downs, Ned Downie and Lou Yushan.
UN SPEECH: State broadcaster CCTV published a recording of Chinese UN permanent representative Zhang Jun’s speech that, to improve climate resilience and food security, the world must avoid “unilateral sanctions, decoupling and technological blockades”.
New scienceExploring phase-out path of China’s coal power plants with its dynamic impact on electricity balance
Energy Policy
New research into the impact of phasing out coal-fired power plants in China on electricity shortages identified the potential for electricity shortfalls of 6-12 terawatt-hours (TWh) per month before 2027 “if China phases out coal plants at their 30-years technical lifespan”. Instead, it said, under an accelerated phase-out pathway, China could “decrease its electricity consumption per GDP by at least 5%” through greater energy efficiency to avoid electricity shortages, or follow a flexible phase-out pathway to both reduce CO2 emissions and “significantly reduce the electricity shortage risk”.
Optimal carbon emission reduction path of the building sector: Evidence from China
Science of The Total Environment
Modelling of China’s building sector found that “in a business-as-usual scenario, building carbon emissions will peak at 6,393m tonnes of CO2 in 2041, missing the 2030 carbon peaking target”. Decarbonisation technologies will make the 2030 carbon peaking target “attainable, though at a considerably high cost”, the researchers said, with emissions “forecasted to peak in 2030 at 5,139m tons of CO2” in an “optimal” scenario.
China Briefing is compiled by Anika Patel and edited by Wanyuan Song and Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
China Briefing 8 February: Xi’s ‘green’ call; Renewables to top coal; No new EU solar support
China Briefing
|China Briefing
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|China Briefing 14 December: COP28 special edition
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No ‘statistically significant’ link between climate change and Chile’s wildfires
Climate change did not have a statistically significant impact on the wildfires that hit Chile earlier this month, according to a new rapid attribution study by the World Weather Attribution service (WWA).
In early February, a series of wildfires broke out across the coast of Chile. Within just days, they burned more than 29,000 hectares of land, destroying more than 7,000 homes and killing more than 130 people.
“The wildfires were the world’s deadliest since the 2009 Australia bushfires,” according to the WWA.
The authors warn that “global warming will likely increase the risk of fire conditions in central Chile” if temperatures rise by 2C above pre-industrial temperatures. Moreover, it is already making the country hotter and drier – both risk factors for wildfires.
The study finds that climate change had made the observed fire conditions more likely, but this result was not statistically significant, meaning it could have occurred by chance.
The findings are also subject to fairly wide uncertainty. One reason is that coastal Chile is seeing a slight local cooling effect, the researchers say, due to shifting weather patterns.
In addition, the study notes that changes in land use – such as the growth of informal settlements in forest zones and widespread conversion towards non-native species and monoculture plantations – are making many regions of Chile “significantly more vulnerable” to wildfires.
’Perfect storm’Forest fires in the Valparaíso region in central Chile started on 2 February. They then “spread rapidly through mountainous forests near Viña del Mar, Quilpué and Villa Alemana… [and] moved extremely quickly into the outskirts of cities”, WWA says in a press release, leaving more than 29,000 hectares burned since 4 February.
Chilean president Gabriel Boric described the fires as “the biggest tragedy we have experienced as a country since the earthquake of 27 February 2010”, according to La Tercera.
The most up-to-date death toll remains at 132, Chile’s La Tercera reported, while El Mercurio reported on the mental health impacts of the fires, with affected people suffering from anxiety and stress.
According to Diálogo Chino, Boric said that evacuating people had been made difficult by the speed at which the fires were spreading – in some areas at more than 10km per hour, faster than most people can walk.
The map below, taken from the attribution study, shows the burned area across the Viña del Mar-Valparaíso sector, highlighted in red. The yellow circles show active fires on 2 February.
The extent of the wildfires is shown in red and non-affected vegetation in green. Active fires on 2 February 2024 are indicated by yellow circles. The map also displays the urban limits, main roads and meteorological conditions. Source: WWA (2024)In an article by the NASA Earth Observatory, NASA research scientist Dr Elizabeth Wiggins suggested the wildfires “were the product of a perfect storm of conditions”, adding that “they occurred during a heatwave, drought and high-wind event borne from a combination of El Niño and climate change”.
Hot, dry and windyThe attribution study assesses the role of climate change on Chile’s fires between 31 January and 4 February, as these were the “highest fire intensity” days, when most of the impacts occurred, according to the study authors.
The intensity of a wildfire is influenced by a wide range of factors, such as atmospheric moisture, wind speed and fuel availability. The authors of this study focus on the “hot dry windy index” (HDWI) – a measure which combines maximum temperature, relative humidity and wind speed.
The study notes that this index does not take into account factors – such as the build-up of fuel – as other more “complex” indices do. However, the authors say the index is “an effective hazard metric for estimating threat to communities and difficulty of containment”.
The map below shows the maximum of average four-day HDWI between 31 January and 4 February 2024. Darker red indicates a higher HDWI, signifying hotter, windier and less humid conditions. The blue box indicates the study area.
The maximum of average four-day HDWI that occurred between 31 January 31 and 4 February 2024, using the ERA5-Land reanalysis dataset. The blue box indicates the study area. Source: WWA (2024).To put the wildfire into its historical context and determine how unlikely it was, the authors analyse a timeseries of HDWI. They find that the hot, dry and windy conditions that drove the wildfires of February 2024 are a one-in-30 year event in today’s climate.
To assess the role that climate change played in creating these weather conditions, the scientists use climate models to compare HDWI in this coastal region of Chile in the world as it is today, with a “counterfactual” world without human-caused climate change.
This is one approach to attribution, the fast-growing field of climate science that aims to identify the “fingerprint” of climate change on extreme-weather events.
The study finds a “small increase” in the HDWI due to climate change, but says that the trend is not “statistically significant”. (A statistically significant result would mean that an HWDI index as high as that seen during the wildfires in Chile is unlikely to be explained by chance.)
The authors also assess the individual components of the HDWI – maximum temperature, relative humidity and wind speed – but again find no “significant” trend due to climate change.
The study also uses two different indices to assess the extent whether the natural climate phenomenon El Niño had any impact on the dangerous fire weather conditions, but again finds “no significant influence”.
Finally, using the same models, the authors assess whether the fire would be more likely in a warmer world. Although the impact of climate change on fire weather in this year’s Chilean wildfires is “not yet significant”, they find that “global warming will likely increase the risk of fire conditions in central Chile if warming reaches 2C” above pre-industrial temperatures.
(These findings are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. However, the methods used in the analysis have been published in previous attribution studies.)
Coastal coolingIt is “not surprising” that climate change did not have a statistically significant impact on Chile’s wildfires, the study says.
The authors explain that the coast of Chile is one of the few places in the world where climate change is causing a slight local cooling effect, due to a high-pressure year-round weather system in the south-east Pacific Ocean called the “South Pacific High”.
The study explains:
“Climate change is causing the South Pacific High to move southwards, leading to stronger southerly winds that are pushing deep, cold water to the coast of Chile. These cold waters replace warm, superficial water in a process called ‘upwelling’, which causes low temperatures along the coast, unlike inland Chile and the rest of South America.”
Tomás Carrasco Escaff, a researcher at the University of Chile’s Climate and Resilience Research Center (CR2) and author on the study, told a press briefing that this shift in the South Pacific High results in “coastal cooling”, which drives down HDWI. However, he adds that it also causes “competing” effects of “greater dryness” and “intensification of wind”, both of which act to increase HDWI.
Coastal cooling is also tricky for climate models to capture accurately – especially as the fires broke out on the “transition between the coast, which is cooling, and the inland part of the country which has a warming trend”, explained Dr Joyce Kimutai, a research associate at Imperial College London.
This, combined with the limited observational data available, means that there is a “relatively large degree of uncertainty” in the results of the study.
Contributing factorsLocal media has also reported on the potential drivers of the fires. Citing a recent study, La Tercera said that climate change and El Niño have made the country more prone to “megafires” – those spanning more than 200 hectares.
The research noted that megafires – such as the ones registered in the summer of 2017 and 2023 – were influenced by both the high temperatures driven by El Niño and more frequent and intense heatwaves. It also showed that the central regions from El Maule to Araucanía – to the south of the Valparaíso region – have been the most affected by megafires between 2014 and 2023.
Diálogo Chino cited a 2020 study from CR2, which found that “since 2010, forest fires in south-central Chile have increased in terms of occurrences and area burned, compared to the previous three decades, while the average duration of the fire season has also become longer”.
The article noted that the “fire-affected south-central zone of Chile has been transformed by vast forest plantations of exotic species, especially pine and eucalyptus, introduced for timber and pulp production”. The CR2 study found that “exotic plants can modify the dynamics of forest fires, increasing the speed of spread, as well as their extent, frequency, intensity and seasonality”, the article said.
Diálogo Chino also said that infrastructure in Valparaíso “is another factor explaining the scale of the fires”. It added:
“Some of the burned areas are densely populated, with their expansion having often taken place without planning permission. Additionally, many houses there are informal dwellings that may have been constructed with flammable materials such as wood.”
This aligns with the findings of the attribution study, which notes:
“Fire risk is increasing notably due to current land management practices, such as the expansion of Wildland-Urban Interface areas (including the growth of informal settlements in forest zones) and widespread conversion from native to foreign and monoculture plantations.”
In addition, Diálogo Chino reported that Chile’s minister of the interior and public security Carolina Tohá claimed at least some of the recent fires may have been started intentionally.
Analysis Chile’s National Forest Corporation (CONAF) found that the main cause of 64% of fires in Chile from August 2023 to January 2024 is “negligence”, followed by intentional and accidental fires, and then 0.5% directly started by lightning. Negligence is driven by agricultural burning, which contributed the most to the fires, forestry work and the poor condition of power lines, the analysis found.
New draft lawThe fires caused widespread destruction, with BioBioChile reporting that 7,000 houses had been damaged or destroyed. The government has estimated the reconstruction cost at up to $1bn, the outlet noted. Of those homes, 70% were in informal settlements, the attribution study notes.
BioBioChile also reported on the deaths of wildlife – including owls, thrushes, foxes, partridge and chinchilla mice – as a result of the fires.
Pedro Álvarez, forest engineer and forest chair at Reforestemos, a Chilean civil society organisation that implements forest restoration and fire prevention projects, travelled to the affected area. He tells Carbon Brief that some of the ecosystems harmed were native forests – home to native species such as the Chilean palm – and sclerophyllous forests, which are composed of shrubs and trees.
Native Chilean palms, Jubaea chilensis, at La Campana National Park, Chile. Credit: Chris Gomersall / Alamy Stock PhotoDue to the scale of the fires, a new bill is being discussed in Chile’s congress, and – according to a CONAF press release – the minister of agriculture, Esteban Valenzuela, has urged that this is finalised by April this year.
The draft law aims to prevent forest and rural fires – for example, by implementing spatial planning instruments to set up “measures to manage landscape” and creating preventative management plans on forest land, such as fuel-cutting belts and clearance of combustible material.
Álvarez tells Carbon Brief that the biggest challenge facing Chileans and the state right now is rebuilding the area. He suggests that public policies should focus on preventing fires, enhancing spatial planning and restoring key regions for ecosystem services and biodiversity.
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