The Trump administration is opening subsistence habitat critical to Alaska Native hunters to oil drilling. Indigenous groups say the move violates a previous agreement.
The wild swings between recent presidential administrations are especially dizzying on Alaska’s North Slope. The first Trump administration sought to expand oil drilling deeper into sensitive habitats. The Biden administration allowed some drilling paired with broader protections meant to last.
Climate Change
Analysis: Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began
The UK has avoided the need for gas imports worth £1.7bn since the start of the Iran war, as a result of record electricity generation from wind and solar, reveals Carbon Brief analysis.
The surge in wind and solar output is cutting the need for gas-fired generation, which has been nearly a third lower than last year and fell to record lows in both March and April 2026.
The figure below shows that wind and solar have generated a record 21 terawatt hours (TWh) on the island of Great Britain since the end of February 2026, when the US and Israel first attacked Iran.
Amid another fossil-fuel price crisis, the record wind and solar output since the start of the Iran war avoided the need to import 41TWh of gas – roughly 34 tankers of liquified natural gas (LNG).
Importing those 34 tankers of LNG would have cost around £1.7bn, given the high gas prices triggered by the conflict.
At the same time, record wind and solar helped to cut electricity generation from gas by around a third year-on-year to the lowest levels ever recorded for the months of March and April, as shown in the figure below.
Together, wind and solar have generated more than twice as much electricity as fossil fuels over the period since the Iran war began. The country’s electricity mix has now flipped: a decade ago, fossil fuels were generating more than four times as much electricity as wind and solar.
Indeed, wind and solar have generated more electricity than fossil fuels for a record 15 months in a row. As shown in the figure below, this included a full winter season for the first time in 2025-26.
This meant that gas was setting the price of electricity roughly 25% less often in both March 2026 and April 2026 than in the same month in 2022, when fossil-fuel prices spiked after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
April 2026 also marked a series of other records for the GB electricity system.
For half an hour between 15.30 and 16:00 on 22 April, a record 98.8% of the electricity feeding into the country’s main “transmission” grid came from zero-carbon sources, according to the National Energy System Operator (NESO).
In addition, solar generation hit a series of new record-highs, ultimately reaching 15.4 gigawatts (GW) on the afternoon of 23 April. Wind set a new record of 23.9GW on 25 March.
The post Analysis: Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began
Climate Change
DeBriefed 8 May 2026: EU eyes fossil-fuel exemptions | Wind and solar save UK ‘£1.7bn’ | Amazon ‘tipping point’
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
‘Leeway’ for fossil fuels
METHANE EXEMPTION: The European Commission is considering making changes to its flagship methane emissions regulation to give fossil-fuel companies “leeway to avoid penalties…in what would be a major win for the oil and gas sector”, reported Politico. According to new draft government guidelines seen by the outlet, “national authorities would be able to grant exemptions to companies on energy security grounds”. A separate Politico story said the move comes after the Trump administration “has intensified pressure on the regulation”.
GAS EXPANSION: The Guardian reported that the Norwegian government has been “heavily criticised for approving plans to reopen three North Sea gasfields nearly three decades after they were closed”, with the justification of helping to “fill the gap in energy supplies created by the Middle East war”. Oslo has also given its approval for oil and gas companies to explore 70 new locations in the North Sea, Barents Sea and Norwegian Sea, the newspaper added.
RENEWABLES INVESTMENT: The Financial Times reported that investors are “piling into clean-power funds at the fastest pace in five years as the Iran war accelerates a global push for energy security and alternatives to oil and gas, boosting a slew of stocks linked to the transition away from fossil fuels”. It added that more than £3bn has been invested in global funds linked to renewable energy in April, bringing their total net asset value up to $43bn.
Around the world
- SHIPPING TALKS: Nations are “back on track” to adopt a framework for curbing global shipping emissions, following the latest International Maritime Organization’s meeting in London, according to a Carbon Brief Q&A.
- SUPER El NIÑO: Global sea temperatures were the second highest on record for the month of April, “stoking concerns among scientists that an El Niño warming cycle is brewing that would intensify extreme weather”, reported the Financial Times.
- ROUND-THE-CLOCK: An International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) report found that “solar and wind power paired with battery storage systems are already delivering reliable, round-the-clock electricity at a lower cost than fossil fuel-dominated energy systems in a growing number of regions”, said BusinessGreen.
- KENYA FLOODS: At least 18 people have died in floods and landslides driven by heavy rain in Kenya, reported Al Jazeera.
0.15C
The average amount by which trees lower summer temperatures in cities globally, according to research in Nature Communications.
Latest climate research
- Airborne microplastics and nanoplastics have the potential to contribute to warming by absorbing sunlight | Nature Climate Change
- A mega tsunami in Alaska in 2025 was “preconditioned by glacial retreat caused by climate change” | Science
- “Net-zero global power systems meeting universal electricity needs for decent living standards are technically feasible” | Nature Energy
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The UK has avoided the need for gas imports worth £1.7bn since the start of the Iran war, as a result of record electricity generation from wind and solar, according to Carbon Brief analysis. The chart above shows that wind and solar have generated a record 21 terawatt hours (TWh) on the island of Great Britain since the end of February 2026, when the US and Israel first attacked Iran. The record wind and solar output avoided the need to import 41TWh of gas – roughly 34 tankers of liquified natural gas (LNG). Importing those 34 tankers of LNG would have cost around £1.7bn, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Spotlight
Tipping troubles
New research published this week shows how even small increases in global temperature, when combined with deforestation, could push the Amazon rainforest past a “tipping point”.
Crossing this threshold would trigger the gradual transition of vast swathes of the lush rainforest into dry savannah.
On the sidelines of the European Geosciences Uniongeneral assemblyin Vienna, Carbon Brief speaks to lead author Prof Nico Wunderlingfrom Goethe University Frankfurt and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Carbon Brief: Why does the Amazon rainforest have a tipping point?
Prof Nico Wunderling: All tipping elements have important feedback mechanisms that once a threshold – the tipping point – is crossed, kick in and a change in the system is self-amplified. For the Amazon rainforest, this important feedback mechanism is the atmospheric moisture recycling – meaning that the rainforest generates much of its own rainfall.
For eastern parts of the rainforest, moisture mostly comes from the Atlantic. The rainfall it receives then evaporates and is transported towards the west. And, just to give you a sense of how large this feedback can be, for parts of the rainforest, more than 50% of its rainfall is generated by the forest itself.
CB: How do global warming and deforestation both play a role in a potential tipping point?
NW: Both global warming and deforestation undermine this atmospheric moisture recycling. The direct way is deforestation – we cut down the forest, we lose major parts of the evapotranspiration, so you have less rainfall for the downwind forest. Also, global warming impacts the rainforest – it increases the number and intensity of droughts, which decreases the overall available rainfall and, therefore, can decrease the stability of the rainforest, which also leads to an undermining of the atmospheric moisture recycling.
Around 17% of the Amazon rainforest has already been lost. The critical threshold in our study is in the order of 22-28% of deforestation.
CB: Would such a transition be Amazon-wide? Or would it happen in pockets or regions?
NW: That actually depends on the other pressures that we expose the rainforest to. What we found is that, under climate change only [with no deforestation], the threshold kicks in at around 3.7-4C of warming. If that is crossed, then we find that around one-third of the Amazon rainforest is at risk of transitioning to a degraded ecosystem.
Then, if deforestation is also included [at 22-28%], this threshold comes down to well within the Paris Agreement limits – 1.5-1.9C of global warming. At the same time, the area at risk of transition increases from around one-third to around two-thirds to three-quarters.
CB: In your paper, you say that crossing a tipping point is “not inevitable” – can you elaborate?
NW: In a way, for the Amazon rainforest, we’re in a better situation than with other tipping elements, because we have multiple options for improving our situation. One is we can stop global warming – we can stop emitting and curb emissions before we reach the 2C target. That’s important for the Amazon rainforest. But crucial for the Amazon rainforest is that deforestation levels are halted below 22-28%.
And, indeed, current trends across the Amazon rainforest show that efforts to decrease deforestation are in place and they seem to work. If these trends continue, then I’m mildly optimistic that we will not reach 22-28%. But, if you would have asked me the same question five years ago, I might have said that, well, by mid-century, these values could be reached.
Watch, read, listen
AFRICA RENEWABLES: A CNBC Africa TV report examined the continent’s “renewables rise” and the “shift from climate policy to energy security”.
‘CLIMATE MONSTER’: New York Times writer David Wallace-Wells has a long read on the approach of “perhaps the most fearsome El Niño since before scientists even began modeling them”.
SANTA MARTA SUMMIT: For the Conversation, two political researchers lay out “four dynamics to watch” to determine whether the first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia “becomes more than rhetoric”.
Coming up
- 8-9 May: Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders summit, Cebu, Philippines
- 10-14 May: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III second lead author meeting for the seventh assessment report, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- 11-12 May: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ministerial council meeting, Paris
- 11-15 May: 21st session of the UN forum on forests, New York
- 12 May: Bahamas election
Pick of the jobs
- Carbon Brief, journalism internship | Salary: £14.80 per hour (London Living Wage). Location: London/hybrid
- Secure Energy Project, campaign director | Salary: $50,000. Location: Brazil (remote)
- Commonwealth Secretariat, adviser on climate change | Salary: £80,672. Location: London
- Politico, deputy editor, Congress (energy and environmental policy) | Salary: Unknown. Location: Arlington, Virginia
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 8 May 2026: EU eyes fossil-fuel exemptions | Wind and solar save UK ‘£1.7bn’ | Amazon ‘tipping point’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
For several years, the UK car industry has been claiming that demand is not high enough to meet the government’s targets for sales of “zero emissions vehicles” (ZEVs).
To date, however, the car industry has actually beaten the targets under the government’s “ZEV mandate”.
This pattern of claiming demand is not high enough is being repeated in a regular cycle, following the publication of monthly statistics on new UK car sales by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
Each month, this messaging is amplified by large sections of the media, which have published dozens of articles stating – incorrectly – that car companies are missing their ZEV targets.
Meanwhile, the car industry is lobbying for an “urgent review” of the targets, on the basis that “natural demand is still well below the level demanded by the [ZEV] mandate”.
UK car market has ‘over-complied’ with its targets
In 2021, the UK’s then Conservative government developed the idea of a “ZEV mandate” as a way to drive sales of electric vehicles (EVs).
The idea, inspired by a similar scheme in California, is to set a rising target for the share of new car and van sales that must be “zero-emissions vehicles” (ZEVs) each year.
For cars, these targets started at 22% of sales 2024, increasing gradually each year to 80% by 2030.
Towards the end of the first year of the scheme, in November 2024, the SMMT warned that the industry was “likely to fall short”, with EVs making up “just…18.7%” of sales. It said:
“The industry looks likely to fall short of the 22% EV market share demanded, potentially creating a £1.8bn bill for compliance.”
(If manufacturers fall short of their target, they can still avoid having to pay a “bill for compliance” by trading “credits” with other firms, or “borrowing” allowances from future years.)
But, contrary to the industry messaging on the headline 22% goal, the car market actually “over-complied” in 2024, according to official figures published in early 2026.
As such, all carmakers in the UK avoided fines for failing to meet their ZEV-mandate targets.
This was despite only 19.8% of new sales being EVs in 2024 – a final tally that was notably more than one percentage point higher than the industry estimate from November of that year.
The industry was able to “over-comply” with the ZEV mandate because the regime has a series of “flexibilities”, which have been created and added to after lobbying by carmakers.
These “flexibilities” allow individual firms to reduce their targets for ZEV sales by selling combustion-engine cars with lower emissions, such as hybrids or plug-in EVs.
When these “flexibilities” are considered, the car market met the equivalent of a 24.5% target, according to the government, with the surplus of 2.5% being “banked” for use in future years. This is shown in the figure below.
In May 2026, the SMMT again told Carbon Brief that EV sales in 2024 had been below the headline target.
When asked by Carbon Brief to confirm that – per the official figures – the UK car market had, nevertheless, “over-complied” with the ZEV mandate in 2024, it did not respond.
Car industry continues to lobby for weaker rules
In a January 2026 release on car sales for the previous year, the SMMT said the “gap between demand [for EVs] and ambition [in the ZEV mandate] is increasing rather than diminishing”.
At the time, Carbon Brief asked the SMMT if it recognised independent estimates from thinktanks and NGOs, showing that – on the contrary – the car industry had also met its ZEV-mandate targets for 2025.
In response, the SMMT sent Carbon Brief a quote from SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes saying that “no one will know” if the industry complied with the 2025 target until official figures come out in 2027.
While this is technically true, the official figures for 2024 showed that the thinktanks and NGOs behind the independent estimates for 2025 had been accurate with their previous forecasts of compliance.
The car industry continues to repeat similar messaging.
The SMMT stated in May 2026 that there is a “persistent gap of around six percentage points against the mandate target” of 33% in 2026 and 38% in 2027. Chief executive Mike Hawes said in the statement that “natural demand is still well below the level demanded by the mandate”.
The gap that the SMMT is referring to is between the headline ZEV targets and the expected level of EV sales, which the body says will reach 27% of all new cars this year and 33% in 2027.
The car industry continues to use these figures to call for a review of the ZEV mandate.
In its latest news release, it says the UK “needs an urgent review” and quotes Hawes saying this should be used to “align policy with market realities”.
These comments are reflected in media coverage, with the Independent, for example, running a misleading headline that says the car market is “still missing government EV targets”. The article adds:
“[T]he industry is still warning that EV demand is not growing quickly enough to meet government targets.”
What neither the SMMT press release nor much of the media coverage mentions is the existing “flexibilities” under the ZEV mandate, which were already expanded last year.
This means the headline 33% goal for 2026 can be met, even if EVs only make up around 25% of sales, according to an estimate of the “real” target published by thinktank New Automotive.
Again, the SMMT expects EVs to make up around 27% of sales this year, which would be comfortably ahead of the “real” target once flexibilities are taken into account.
The government has already pledged to review the ZEV mandate, with the results due to be published in “early 2027”.
In April, car sales platform Autotrader announced that new EVs are now cheaper to buy than petrol cars on average, “for the first time”. EVs were already significantly cheaper to own.
The post Factcheck: What the UK car industry is not saying about EV targets appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Factcheck: What the UK car industry is not saying about EV targets
Analysis: Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began
DeBriefed 8 May 2026: EU eyes fossil-fuel exemptions | Wind and solar save UK ‘£1.7bn’ | Amazon ‘tipping point’
Factcheck: What the UK car industry is not saying about EV targets
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