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After a five-year long legal battle, the Constitutional Court of South Africa has blocked Shell and local partner Impact Africa’s permit to explore for oil and gas off the country’s East Coast, in a landmark victory for local communities and civil society. “Today’s judgment makes me feel very happy and proud that the ocean is […]
Print article Share China has published a new five-year plan for coal, the latest in a slew of important policy documents for the country’s energy transition. The 15th five-year plan for the development of the coal industry was published by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA) on 10 […]
The world saw the lowest amount of new coal mine capacity brought online for at least 10 years in 2025, according to a new report, as clean energy displaces coal for electricity generation in East Asia. A report by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found that new coal mine capacity declined by nearly 40% from 2024, […]
Starting on Monday, about 10,000 government negotiators, scientists, journalists and campaigners will gather at a purpose-built venue in a national park in Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar to discuss how to stop land turning into desert as the world warms. Drought is currently sweeping much of the Northern hemisphere, leaving normally green urban parks looking like dry […]
Helen Phillips’ book, ‘Hum’, is set in a dystopian near future, in a city suffering the effects of climate breakdown and with dire air quality. Robots (the Hums) press advertising messages during conversations, meetings and even as they carry out medical procedures. The Hums are vehicles for these ads, which are often for products like […]
A new draft text to revive deadlocked UN plastics treaty talks does not include specific measures on managing runaway plastic production, a growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, drawing criticism from some countries and campaigners that ambition for the global pact is shrinking. After diplomats met in Nairobi early in July for the first time […]
Print article Share An upcoming UK government consultation on weakening targets for electric vehicles (EVs) could cost consumers as much as £3bn a year by 2030, according to Carbon Brief analysis. It could require the UK to import an extra 17m barrels of oil in 2030, raising expected net imports by 8%, as well as […]
Layers of red dust coat South Africa’s Saldanha Bay, a legacy of the one billion-plus tonnes of iron ore exported from what was once a quiet coastal fishing town in the 1970s. Now the government wants to turn this area into the “oil and gas hub of South Africa”, but opposition from local communities and […]
Steven Stone is acting director of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Office of Science In 1934, American economist Simon Kuznets presented a paper to Congress advocating for a new way of measuring economic performance. The United States was reeling from the Great Depression, and Kuznets – a future Novel prize winner – wanted to gauge just […]
El Niño, likely to be one of the strongest in modern history, has arrived on Caribbean shores. Drought is slowly creeping up on our islands. But unlike the fiery wildfires ravaging parts of Europe, there’s no smoke signalling the damage being done, no sirens to warn of the danger. Only announcements from public health officials […]
Print article Share China has released a five-year plan dedicated to addressing climate change. The 15th five-year plan for a national response to climate change is the latest in a series to outline in-depth climate and energy targets for the 2026-2030 period. These include five-year plans for “building a Beautiful China”, developing a “new-type energy […]
About a quarter of the countries signed up to the Paris Agreement are still breaching its rules by failing to submit a new national climate plan, 18 months after the February 2025 deadline. Forty-five nations had not submitted a plan known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC), according to the Paris Agreement Implementation and Compliance […]
China’s use of coal for electricity grew in the first half of 2026 as a record amount of wind and solar power was wasted through curtailment, new research has found. The world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter brought 30 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power capacity into operation in the six months to June and coal-fired […]
When heavy storms triggered a fault on a major power line in Indonesia’s Sumatra in late May, blackouts plunged homes and businesses across the island into darkness, leaving millions to cope without power in the humid heat for up to a day. Failed traffic lights caused chaos on the streets of Medan, one of the […]
Bemnet Agata is a communications officer at the Tax Justice Network, where Alison Schultz is a research fellow. We are entering an age of permanent volatility. Climate change is making extreme weather more destructive. Geopolitical tensions are disrupting energy markets and supply chains. Governments are expected not only to decarbonise their economies, but to protect […]
Leaders of the Santa Marta coalition – a group of governments, businesses and civil society organisations seeking to transition away from fossil fuels – hope it can withstand the loss of one of its founding members as a far-right, pro-fossil fuel government takes office in Colombia this week. In April, Colombia hosted 57 governments in […]
Benito Müller, Anju Sharma, Jen Allan, Matthias Roesti and Luis Gomez-Echeverri. Every November, tens of thousands of people descend on the world’s annual UN climate conference. Presidents and prime ministers, negotiators, business executives, campaigners, journalists, celebrities and lobbyists converge on one city for two frenetic weeks, all convinced they need to be there. Everyone with […]
Print article Share Heatwaves are becoming more likely and more intense due to climate change, impacting sources of power generation around the world as they work to meet increased demand. When temperatures soared past 40C in parts of Europe in June and July 2026, nuclear reactors shuttered, gas plants’ efficiency fell, wind speeds dropped and […]
As governments at the UN seek ways to prevent the US from unilaterally mining the deep ocean floor for critical minerals, the latest UN seabed talks launched “long” processes that would seek to challenge Washington’s approach. The International Seabed Authority (ISA), the UN body regulating the deep ocean floor, held annual three-week talks ending on […]
Print article Share When carbon dioxide (CO2) is released from a factory or power plant, the gas can be captured and permanently stored underground, preventing it from driving climate change. This is the idea underpinning carbon capture and storage (CCS), a technology that is at the heart of many nations’ net-zero plans. Influential organisations, including […]
After the US-Iran war caused energy prices to soar, ballooning Egypt’s energy import bill, the government has doubled down on plans to boost renewable energy in the country’s power mix – part of its broader plan to become a clean energy export hub for the region. With abundant sunshine, swathes of unused desert land and […]
The United Nations Secretary-General and foreign ministers from the UK, France and Spain have blamed the deadly wildfires engulfing Europe on climate change, using the disaster to renew calls for faster cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. António Guterres told journalists on Friday that the “climate crisis is in overdrive”, adding that global heat seen so […]
Anne Jellema is executive director of 350.org and David Hillman is director of Stamp Out Poverty. This coming week, as record-breaking heat has morphed into killer wildfires, major oil and gas companies will report their second-quarter earnings and are widely expected to announce profits that have doubled or even quadrupled in the last three months. […]
A UN effort to keep the threatened 1.5C warming limit alive is exposing deep divisions over the future of fossil fuels, pitting climate-vulnerable nations seeking a faster move away from coal, oil and gas against major emerging economies and producers that oppose targeting particular energy sources. As countries weigh in on the “Belém Mission to […]
Newly-released internal documents from Shell suggest that a desire to avoid incurring the costs of shutting down its oil pipelines and cleaning up spills from them was part of the energy giant’s motivation in selling off its onshore oil assets in the Niger Delta. The company has been accused by campaigners of cutting and running […]
The spiking price of oil helped increase global sales of electric cars in the second quarter of 2026 despite total car sales falling, a new International Energy Agency (IEA) report shows. The IEA’s latest update on the market for electric cars said sales increased by 4% in the second quarter, after the war between the […]
Print article Share In recent days, prominent climate sceptics and rightwing commentators have shared charts on social media incorrectly implying that Europe is having its “quietest” year for wildfires in 2026. These include Dr Matthew Wielicki, a former University of Alabama geochemist and self-described “professor in exile”, who was recently appointed by the Trump administration […]
Print article Share The general public often underestimate support for climate action, while overestimating the real-world actions taken by other people to address the problem, according to new research. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, explores the differences between people’s support for climate change, their behaviour and their assumptions about other people’s behaviour. It […]
Print article Share Rising temperatures are redistributing the risk of childhood malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in areas of “new risk” in the east and south of the continent, but also “relief hotspots” in western Africa. This is according to a new study, published in Nature, which provides the “most comprehensive look to date at […]
Print article Share The global goal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 “will not be achieved” unless action by countries “accelerates rapidly”, says a draft UN report. Countries are falling short on 22 of the 23 targets for 2030 they set under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature”. […]
China has released its “15th five-year plan for the development of renewable energy”, outlining key targets and policies for the sector in 2026-2030. A key focus of the plan is boosting renewable generation and consumption as a share of China’s overall energy mix. It calls for continued capacity additions of wind and solar – albeit […]
Most countries failed to meet a 2025 target to identify all of their subsidies that could be “harmful” to biodiversity, according to Carbon Brief analysis. The findings also reveal that 32 countries spend an estimated $270bn on biodiversity-harming subsidies and other incentives each year. This is the “tip of the iceberg”, one expert notes, with […]
More of Germany’s electricity came from wind and solar power than fossil fuels for the first time ever in 2025. Together, wind and solar power generated 225 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity – accounting for 44% of the total in 2025 – with just 217TWh (43%) coming from fossil fuels. Solar and onshore wind have […]
—Screens 50,000 farms By Dayo Johnson Akure Agribusiness and manufacturing company, Johnvents Group, has published its inaugural Sustainability Report as part of efforts to strengthen responsible business practices across its operations. The report outlines the company’s policy framework for environmental stewardship, social responsibility and corporate governance, and aligns its operations with globally recognised Environmental, Social […]
Print article Share The European Commission has put forward new plans to cut emissions under the EU carbon market more slowly, from 2031 onwards. On 17 July, the commission presented its long-awaited proposal for reform of the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS). It recommended a number of changes, including giving companies free allowances to cover […]
This summer has seen Europe suffer through a series of record-breaking heatwaves. Amid widespread media coverage of the number of deaths and the influence of climate change, the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported on new research with the incorrect headline: “Heatwaves caused by fall in pollution.” The article was shared on social media by Richard Tice […]
As 2026 passes its halfway point, the world is watching one of the most rapidly intensifying El Niño events in the modern record take shape in the tropical Pacific. The developing El Niño is boosting expectations for global temperatures, both this year and next. El Niño is the warm phase of a recurring climate pattern […]
Empowering women through greater access to finance could “strengthen” households’ resilience to “climate shocks”, according to a new study. Published in Climate Risk Management, it analyses the impact of financial access on “women-headed households” in sub-Saharan Africa. The study finds that where women had formal financial access – such as through owning a bank account […]
Print article Share The UK’s new prime minister Andy Burnham remained tight-lipped on his views on climate change during his leadership campaign. When asked his views on allowing new North Sea drilling in June – a move that the oil-and-gas industry and right-wing media have pushed for in recent months – he said he had […]
Britain’s new prime minister announced in his first week that he will cut the cost of public transport and electricity, making lower-emission technologies like bus travel, electric vehicles and heat pumps more affordable for voters. But some of the funding for those policies will come from the budget for international climate finance, the government has […]
Reports of human rights and environmental abuses linked to Chinese companies’ overseas investments in the mining and refining of minerals needed for the clean energy transition are on the rise, research by a monitoring group has found. The number of recorded allegations of harm at projects tied to Chinese firms have increased every year since […]
Candidates are being nominated to take over as the UN secretary general, when António Guterres steps down after nearly a decade in the role at the end of 2026. Since becoming the ninth secretary general on 1 January 2017, Guterres has been a strong advocate for climate action, saying in January 2026: “We have been […]
The World Bank has abandoned a target for 45% of the funding it gives developing countries to be “climate finance”, following months of pressure from the Trump administration in the US. However, a concerted effort by developed- and developing-country shareholders has seen the bank hold onto its “action plan” for tackling climate change. The multilateral […]
Recent weeks have seen a flurry of reports from public health authorities and scientists that estimate the deaths caused by Europe’s record-breaking summer heatwaves. In France, the national public health agency reported 2,025 excess deaths over the week where the heatwave peaked in June. Authorities in Germany and Netherlands put the excess death toll during […]
Andreas Sieber is head of political strategy at 350.0g. Cat Abreu is director of the International Climate Politics Hub. From the US abduction of Venezuela’s president at the start of this year to the Iran war which rumbles on, disruption is the new normal for global geopolitics, more often than not linked to conflict over […]
Low-income Indian workers, many of them migrants from rural areas hit by climate change, are paying for worsening extreme heat through lost working days and health complications, with the cost equivalent to 2% of national GDP per year, new research shows. The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), a London-based think-tank, worked with local […]
A United Nations investigation into deep-sea mining firms will continue after the world’s top maritime court rejected their bid to suspend the inquiry triggered by a US-backed push to extract critical minerals from the ocean floor. In two orders issued on Saturday, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) declined to halt […]
The European Commission has put forward new plans to cut emissions under the EU carbon market more slowly, from 2031 onwards. On 17 July, the commission presented its long-awaited proposal for reform of the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS). It recommended a number of changes, including giving companies free allowances to cover their emissions for […]
Scientists have found that the deadly floods across parts of West Africa in recent weeks were made more likely and intense by human-driven climate change, while the expansion of cities into flood-prone areas amplified the devastation, raising the thorny problem of how to better protect poorer urban communities. A report from the World Weather Attribution […]
Perrine Fournier is a trade, mining, and forest campaigner at Fern. The threat that mining critical raw materials poses to some of the planet’s most important ecosystems is beyond dispute. To prevent it, some places on Earth must be declared off-limits for mining under any circumstances. Work has already began to identify them. A global power struggle to secure […]