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Uncertainty persists over how COP31 will be managed, after Türkiye’s environment minister told journalists this week his country will have the final say at the UN climate conference despite a deal that gave Australia the role of chairing the negotiations in return for withdrawing its bid for the summit. At COP30, the two governments resolved […]
Janet Fleischman is an independent consultant with extensive experience in research, policy advocacy, and narrative storytelling. Jyotsna Uppal is a historian and narrative strategist, who supports individuals and organisations in change processes. Global climate progress sits at the centre of an acute crisis, as the multilateral order that structured international climate cooperation for three decades […]
In a bright, spacious factory on the outskirts of Lagos, young engineers in overalls work their way along the production line, carefully inspecting the shimmery blue solar cells that turn sunlight into electricity. Quality checks completed, the finished solar panels are loaded onto forklifts and taken to a warehouse – ready for delivery to buyers […]
Print article Share Wildfires currently burning large swathes of land in Indonesia are on track to produce emissions on a par with the country’s most-intense fire season this century, according to experts. Data from the Global Fire Emissions Database reveals that, as of 7 September, fires in Indonesia produced 76m tonnes of carbon (MtC) in […]
Print article Share Article Contents Expand menu Close Climate science Net-zero target Energy costs Oil and gas Impacts and adaptation Clean energy Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, has emerged as a major force in UK politics in recent years – pushing anti-net-zero policies, alongside vehement opposition to immigration. The hard-right populist party is currently […]
Print article Share More than 1,000 operations at NHS hospitals were cancelled due to heat during the UK’s record May and June heatwaves, Carbon Brief can reveal. This includes 167 orthopaedic surgeries, such as knee and hip replacements, as well as heart, eye and skin cancer operations. At least 10 emergency surgeries – those for […]
Extreme heat is one of the deadliest climate hazards, but no two heatwaves are the same. Heat extremes that happen outside of the peak summer months are often more dangerous because they can catch people off guard. Heatwaves that hit during the spring or the first heatwave of the summer are riskier because people’s bodies […]
The UK government has slashed its hopes for electric planes and “sustainable aviation fuels” (SAFs), ahead of giving the green light to a third runway at Heathrow. An “ambitious” rollout of new technologies and efficiency upgrades will only cut flight emissions by a quarter over the next two decades, according to forecasts quietly released in […]
In the wake of the recent flash flood that swept down from the Himalayas, Nepal is seeking immediate aid from a UN fund for climate loss and damage to help vulnerable families displaced by the disaster and rebuild destroyed schools and hospitals, the country’s foreign minister told Climate Home News. “This is exactly the kind […]
Amy Youngman is a legal and policy specialist at the campaigning group Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). The chair’s August Aid to Negotiations is being sold as a pragmatic way to rescue the global plastics treaty. However, the text is starting to resemble the architecture of a Paris Agreement-style framework: a patchwork of vague commitments, nationally […]
With June’s UN climate talks inching towards gridlock, a group of diplomats calling themselves “Friends of Science” issued a stark warning: climate science was under attack in Bonn. The coalition, spanning the world’s richest to its most vulnerable nations, pointed the finger primarily at those who think “science threatens their economic prospects” – a thinly-veiled […]
Print article Share Article Contents Expand menu Close What happened? How did bedrock collapse trigger the flash floods? How have temperatures risen in the affected region? How have rising temperatures affected mountain stability? How have glaciers retreated in the affected region? Can the event be attributed to climate change? On the morning of 26 August, […]
Carbon credit developers, corporate buyers and some leading conservation NGOs are challenging new proposed rules to stop UN carbon credits being wiped out by fire, drought or logging, in what critics have called a “coordinated lobbying campaign” to weaken the nascent market’s push for greater integrity. According to documents seen by Climate Home News – […]
Chinese industry is beginning to shift from fossil fuels to clean electricity, with wind, solar and batteries progressively displacing coal, oil and gas across the industrial sectors that made the country the world’s factory and largest carbon emitter, a new analysis shows. Clean electricity met all of China’s demand growth in 2025 and coal generation […]
A relatively ambitious deal to reduce the shipping industry’s 3% of global emissions now looks more likely after four days of closed-door talks in London, observers say. The International Maritime Organization (IMO), which oversees the negotiations, said there had been “constructive discussions” and “genuine willingness within the group to make concrete further progress”. Em Fenton, […]
At a key leaders’ summit in Palau, Pacific island nations burdened by worsening climate change impacts and costly fossil fuel imports called for November’s COP31 climate summit to deliver finance to help the region transition to renewable energy and build more resilient communities. Heads of government from the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) – which […]
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during the conflict that broke out in October 2023 has wrecked progress towards adapting the enclave to climate change and left two million Gazans vulnerable to heatwaves, drought and disease, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said in a new climate plan submitted to the United Nations. Palestine’s third nationally determined contribution (NDC), […]
Print article Share Farmers around Europe are dealing with the aftermath of a summer of extreme heat, drought and wildfires that were exacerbated by climate change. Human-caused climate change is increasing the severity and likelihood of many extreme weather events around the world, which is increasing volatility for food producers. This summer resulted in, for […]
Print article Share Solar power generation in the UK reached a new record over the summer of 2026, as temperatures across the nation soared, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief. Collectively over June, July and August, solar farms and rooftops generated 8.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in the UK*, as shown in the chart […]
As efforts to expand energy access across Africa grow, experts and policymakers have called this week for greater coordination and investment to power food production with renewables, arguing the sector has been treated separately from energy policy and therefore faces barriers in going green. Hailemariam Desalegn, former prime minister of Ethiopia, said energy is critical […]
Andy Burnham, the UK’s latest prime minister, has suggested reducing the amount the British government gives as climate finance grants and providing some of its climate finance through loans instead, in a move it anticipates will save £400 million. The government plans to use the savings to fund a cap on bus fares in the […]
China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the second quarter of 2026, as oil consumption plummeted amid the strait of Hormuz crisis. The country’s use of oil fell by 9% overall and by 16% for transport, after the disruptions to supply from the Gulf through the strait. This guest post is by: Lauri […]
After last week’s catastrophic flash flooding caused hundreds of deaths and an estimated $5 billion of destruction in Nepal, some board members of the UN’s new loss and damage fund board have called for an extraordinary meeting to allocate money to help the Himalayan country. Following a direct appeal for funding from Nepal’s government on […]
Could a new mechanism to help countries transition to a cleaner, safer and fairer world be one of the main deliverables from the COP31 climate summit in Türkiye this November? Civil society groups – which played a key role in winning last year’s agreement in Brazil to set up a mechanism – want to see […]
Laurence Tubiana is CEO of the European Climate Foundation and was formerly France’s Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for COP21 in Paris. The UN has released a report this week confirming what many people have feared: the world is going to pass 1.5C of warming. At current emissions, the remaining carbon budget will be […]
Governments must slash emissions further and faster, and keep every climate promise they have made for the planet to be able to return to 1.5C of warming by the end of the century after an inevitable overshoot, a group of prominent climate scientists has said. In a flagship new report sketching out a way not […]
Gill Einhorn is head of the Forest Future Alliance and Natalie Çilem is community lead of the Global Wildfire Leadership Network. Wildfires have devastated communities across the world this summer, claiming lives, displacing thousands of people and leaving billions in economic damage in their wake. In Europe alone, wildfires have already caused an estimated €19 […]
Print article Share Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and the second-largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide (CO2). Methane traps heat in the atmosphere more efficiently than CO2, but has a significantly shorter lifespan, fading after just a few decades. Therefore, reducing emissions of methane – a gas primarily produced by agriculture, fossil […]
Print article Share Every six to seven years, climate modelling groups around the world run a coordinated set of simulations that explore how the climate could change in the future. These simulations form a key line of evidence for future projections used in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports. They are built around […]
Anuradha Barua, Aakriti Wanchoo and Swapan Mehra are from Iora Ecological Solutions, a New Delhi-based company focused on nature-based solutions, climate action, conservation and environmental policy. When Rojo Neog’s village in northeast India was hit by a power cut in July, he headed out to buy candles. Three days later, his body was recovered – swept […]
The African continent’s hopes for a legally binding agreement to combat drought have been dashed again, as UN land restoration talks in Mongolia passed the issue onto the next set of talks in Egypt in two years’ time. For over a decade, Africa has pushed for a UN protocol on drought risk management that would […]
Burdened by rising fuel import costs and an “ocean crisis” of record-breaking heat, Pacific island nations are seeking to build support for a new regional fund ahead of COP31, intended to channel investment into renewable energy, community resilience and ocean protection, experts said. Leaders from the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), including Australia and New […]
Print article Share More than 40% of children under the age of 10 globally are already experiencing at least 20 additional “heat-stress days” due to climate change. This is according to a new attribution study, published in Science Advances, which combines climate models with demographic data to assess the age groups and regions that are […]
The US is expected to resume its attempt to sink measures for a greener global shipping sector at closed-door talks between governments at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in early September. The US and oil-producing allies like Saudi Arabia want to weaken a proposed plan for cleaner fuels that aims to reduce planet-heating emissions from […]
Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara is the Executive Director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), an Indonesia-based economic think tank. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is the Director of the China-Indonesia desk at CELIOS. Indonesia produces around 60% of the world’s nickel, a metal used to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) – more than any other country in […]
New Zealand’s parliament has adopted a controversial new law blocking a whole avenue of climate litigation and shutting down its most advanced corporate lawsuit, which has been blamed by the government for shaking business confidence and investment. The Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill, expected to take effect in the coming days after it […]
Inger Andersen is Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme When you live on the edge, you become acutely aware of balance. As a young woman straight out of university in 1982, I had the privilege of teaching English at a Sudanese girls’ high school. After a couple of years, I landed a job […]
Print article Share Article Contents Expand menu Close The plan would increase UK emissions The plan would slow electrification Gas prices are unlikely to remain low and stable The plan assumes gas plants are cheap to build Nuclear faces high costs and delivery challenges The report’s high network cost estimates do not ‘add up’ The […]
With record-breaking ocean temperatures weakening the world’s largest carbon sink, a group of countries is pushing for the UN COP31 summit to deliver meaningful commitments to protect marine ecosystems. Yet this effort could be hobbled by a shrinking pool of climate finance, experts warn. While discussions on oceans at UN climate talks have so far […]
When a South Korean firm pulled the plug on a multibillion-dollar investment last year, it was a major blow to Indonesia’s plans to build an integrated battery-manufacturing ecosystem – until a group of Chinese companies stepped into the breach. Project Titan aims to tap Indonesia’s vast nickel reserves in East Halmahera – the epicentre for […]
Phalkun Out is manager of energy policy and government relations at EnergyLab Asia. Cambodia has made impressive strides in transitioning from dirty coal and imported electricity to homegrown renewable energy that now accounts for nearly half of the electricity mix. The kingdom has a target to source 70% of its total power capacity from renewables […]
Print article Share The UK is pioneering the use of “super batteries” that can store energy for long periods, smoothing the output from wind and solar power as the country moves towards net-zero. It is aiming to build “long-duration energy storage” (LDES) that fills up when supplies are plentiful, to help cover the gaps when […]
Claver Gatete is Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa. Jason Veysey is Energy Modeling Program Director and Senior Scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute. Lisa Sachs is Director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment at Columbia University. The case for global energy transition has rarely been clearer. The closure of the […]
Print article Share The second-largest reservoir in the US reached a record-low water height on Saturday – just days after the country’s largest reservoir broke its own record. Both Lake Mead and Lake Powell are located on the Colorado River. They provide water for populations across seven US states in the south-western US, with around […]
As tech giants race to build out AI and the sprawling infrastructure it depends on, climate concerns have tended to focus on one thing: power-hungry data centres. Their electricity use is growing so fast that by 2030, it’s projected to be nearly three times more than the combined annual consumption of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria. […]
Print article Share Emissions from land-use change – including deforestation, loss of peatland and forest degradation – have been falling over the course of the 21st century. The latest Global Carbon Budget report, formally published in May in the journal Earth System Science Data, notes a “statistically significant decrease” in land-use change emissions since the […]
The first two projects, both related to cookstoves, approved for use under the UN’s carbon market massively overestimate their climate impact, despite efforts to rein in overcrediting. In April of last year, Carbon Market Watch published an analysis demonstrating that the first Clean Development Mechanism project (known as Programme of Activities, or PoA, 10415) in […]
The European Commission planted a carbon bomb in its proposal to reform the supply control mechanism within the EU’s carbon pricing scheme for road transport and buildings. EU decisionmakers meeting on June 10 must mitigate the damage of the proposal and take the chance to increase earmarked funding for vulnerable households in the energy transition. […]
Contrary to what airlines claim, extending the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) to long-haul flights leaving the European Economic Area (EEA) would have only a minor impact on ticket prices and demand, an upcoming study finds. Extending the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to all flights departing the European Economic Area (EEA) would have […]
To sate their voracious appetite for greenwashing offsets, major fossil fuel companies have invested considerable resources and effort to lobby, both directly and indirectly, to weaken carbon market federal regulations in the United States and state regulations in California, concludes a new Carbon Market Watch investigation. Out today, 17 June 2026, the new CMW report, […]