Published

2 years ago

July 10, 2024

Alice Rush

Following a “landslide” Labour win in the UK general election, attention is turning to the new government’s next steps.

Climate and energy were key parts of Labour’s election campaign and manifesto, with a range of policies it will now look to enact. This ranges from zero-carbon power by 2030 and reforming the planning system, through to decarbonising heat and developing adaptation policy.

Carbon Brief has asked a range of policy experts, academics and campaigners what they think is the incoming government’s top priority for meeting UK climate targets.

These are their responses, first as sample quotes, then, below, in full (some entries have been edited for length and clarity):

Charles Oglivie: “To tackle the myriad of…challenges facing the UK, No 10 will have to make some quick, difficult choices about how to manage Whitehall.”
Adam Bell: “Delivering at the pace required involves spending the kind of political capital that only a landslide win can offer.”
Jan Rosenow: “We now need to tackle the other 80% of our energy use and focus on decarbonising heating and transport.”
Juliet Phillips: “Labour will need to hit the ground running to fulfil its clean power mission.”
Federica Genovese: “The top political priority in the first six months is to credibly form the coalitions of supporters willing to shift gears on the energy transition.”
Rachel Solomon Williams: “There is very little time in which to transform the economy.”
Bethan Laughlin: “Adaptation must be integrated into all government policy decision-making processes.”
Dr Nina Skorupska CBE: “We need delivery forces not more task forces.”

Jenny Bird: “Deliver an adaptation programme that is fit for purpose.”
Andrew Sissons: “The UK is a long way behind where it needs to be on heating and it will be very hard to meet future carbon budgets without a rapid turnaround.”
Caterina Brandmayr: “The UK should help raise ambition globally by submitting an ambitious and credible 2035 NDC.”
Tessa Khan: The government “needs to stop locking in our dependency on fossil fuels by rejecting any new oil and gas projects”.
Rebecca Williams: “The priority should be unblocking investment in offshore wind.”
Linda Kalcher: “The clean power by 2030 goal is ambitious, but a smart economic and security choice.”
Sam Hall: “Crucially, the new government must urgently rebalance levies from electricity to gas.”
Ben Nelmes: “The UK needs a motoring taxation that is fit for the day when 100% of the cars on the roads are fully electric.”

Charles Ogilvie

Former strategy director of COP26 and senior strategic counsel to COP28; former Conservative special advisor on energy and climate policy

To tackle the myriad of linked domestic and international challenges facing the UK, No 10 will have to make some quick, difficult choices about how to manage Whitehall.

Their top priority on day one should be establishing an integrated, programmatic approach to delivering on the climate mission; to ensure that DESNZ (the Department of Energy Security and Net-Zero) is not held up by cross Whitehall logjams – especially around domestic planning, land use, and industrial strategy; and that the Treasury and FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) are integrated into a strategic approach that leverages UK domestic leadership and investments to effectively shift the world faster, whilst generating co-benefits in trade, development and influence.

Time is of the essence as many of the manifesto promises will be tough to deliver in a single parliament. No 10 will have to think hard about what to prioritise early on, in order to prove to the country that the inevitable compromises needed in the short term will deliver the promised wins.

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Adam Bell

Director of policy, Stonehaven

Labour’s first priority must be getting the structures they need to deliver their 2030 power decarbonisation ambition in place before anything else. Delivering at the pace required involves spending the kind of political capital that only a landslide win can offer.

Carving out exemptions from the planning system for energy infrastructure – which their target will require – must be a key first step.

Setting up a cross-government committee to deliver, chaired by the prime minister, should happen within the first few weeks. And getting the necessary outline of legislation into the king’s speech before parliament rises is essential.

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Jan Rosenow

Director at Regulatory Assistance Project

The UK has made great strides with decarbonising its electricity. We now need to tackle the other 80% of our energy use and focus on decarbonising heating and transport.

The new government can do this by rebalancing energy prices making electrification an attractive proposition to people and industry. We also need clarity on the role of hydrogen and an ambitious plan for rolling out heat pumps.

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Juliet Phillips

Programme lead, UK energy team, E3G

Labour will need to hit the ground running to fulfil its clean power mission – quickly making decisions on the scale of the next renewables auction round, taking actions to unclog the planning system and setting up GB Energy.

They mustn’t forget the less sexy, but equally important, cleantech solutions that will be needed to get the UK off fossil gas, including demand side flexibility, long-duration energy storage and green hydrogen.

Labour will also need to quickly get to grips with how they can turn around the sluggish delivery of retrofit schemes. The locally-led retrofit schemes are currently massively under-delivering, returning vast sums of unspent money back to the Treasury. Labour will need to listen to installers and local authorities to understand where the current pinch-points are and how these can be quickly addressed.

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Federica Genovese

Professor of political science at University of Oxford

In my opinion – and recall that I am a political scientist – the top priority is not focusing on single climate targets. The top political priority in the first six months is to credibly form the coalitions of supporters willing to shift gears on the energy transition, which of course will come with adjustment costs.

Bad news: there are *many* actors that need to be brought into this coalition, most of which have already suffered from unjust energy transitions of the past (eg polluting industry workers) or that fear the costs of any adjustment (fossil fuel companies). Convincing these actors will require building trust and, simply put, money.

Good news: we will have a new government with both a broad initial support and more technocratic takes (less populism at the top). The new government needs to capitalise on these circumstances and make climate targets an embedded product or the new economic growth model it wishes to forge.

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Rachel Solomon Williams

Executive director, Aldersgate Group

Focus on delivery and stability – there is very little time in which to transform the economy.

It’s vital that the new government focuses on delivery, rather than on crafting new policies. Policy work is well advanced on a range of important climate issues, such as green finance, emissions trading and power market reform. In these areas (and others), what’s needed now is clear prioritisation, decision-making and resourcing rather than extensive further consultation.

This should all be supported by a clear governance structure, which combines central leadership with mature collaboration with businesses, regional and local government and civil society.

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Bethan Laughlin

Senior policy specialist, Zoological Society of London

Urgent action is required to prioritise climate adaptation and resilience to protect citizens, property, food systems, health and the environment from growing climate shocks. Adaptation must be integrated into all government policy decision-making processes with effective, ambitious, implementable and well-funded strategies.

Appointing a climate adaptation and resilience minister to sit across Defra (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) and DESNZ is crucial for ensuring political attention, budget allocation and civil service resources.

Investment in nature-based adaptation approaches also offers cost-effective, high-impact action, providing adaptation and mitigation benefits alongside a wide range of societal and economic co-benefits.

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Dr Nina Skorupska CBE

Managing director of the Renewable Energy Association

Unblock the infrastructure and planning requirements for the renewable energy national, regional and local developments by establishing the NESO (National Energy Systems Operator) as quickly as possible and bang the energy and environmental regulators heads together to make sure their purposes and responsibilities are aligned and resources to regulate properly; we need delivery forces, not more task forces.

There are enough “recommendations” out there that make good common energy and net-zero sense, including accelerating the REMA (review of electricity market arrangements) solutions. All done by mid 2025 to have a fighting chance for net-zero by 2030.

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Jenny Bird

Campaign manager, Grantham Institute, Imperial College London

Deliver an adaptation programme that is fit for purpose.

Climate change is already making UK extreme weather events more likely and more intense; the 2022 heatwave and winter storms earlier this year being two examples.

The third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) “falls far short of what is needed” according to the Climate Change Committee. Strengthening adaptation action should be a top priority for a government that is seeking to deliver security and stability for people, communities and the economy.

We need to see a greater level of ambition, combined with a more strategic approach to managing complex climate risks, interdependencies between different sectors and our exposure to impacts elsewhere in the world (through global supply chains and other means).

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Andrew Sissons

Deputy director, Nesta

A lot of attention will be focused on decarbonising electricity, but the real challenge will be on buildings. The UK is a long way behind where it needs to be on heating and it will be very hard to meet future carbon budgets without a rapid turnaround.

The government needs a new approach. It needs to quickly rule out hydrogen for heat and clarify its plans on phase-out dates. It must make heat pumps more affordable, aiming for lifetime cost parity with boilers and rebalancing electricity levies. And it needs to build new state delivery capacity, with a new national heating agency and stronger local institutions.

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Caterina Brandmayr

Director of policy and translation, Grantham Institute

With countries due to submit new nationally determined contributions (NDCs) ahead of COP30, it is vital to scale up action to put the world on track to deliver on the Paris Agreement’s goals.

The UK should help raise ambition globally by submitting an ambitious and credible 2035 NDC, alongside a strengthened 2030 NDC – setting out clear policies to deliver on the COP28 commitment of “transitioning away from fossil fuels”, stronger plans on adaptation, aligned with the new framework for the Global Goal on Adaptation and an ambitious climate finance contribution.

The UK should also champion ambitious, evidence-based climate policy at fora such as the G7, G20, the UN general assembly and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and it should be at the forefront of global efforts to scale up finance for climate action.

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Tessa Khan

Executive director, Uplift

The UK government must ensure that we accelerate our transition away from fossil fuels and that the transition is fundamentally fair, including through more affordable energy and good jobs.

As a first step, it needs to stop locking in our dependency on fossil fuels by rejecting any new oil and gas projects, building on its commitment to reject new licensing. Further, it needs to introduce processes, policies and investment so that the workforce and communities that have strong ties to the oil and gas sector benefit from the transition away from oil and gas production.

Lowering bills will take time, but short-term steps can be taken to help struggling households. This includes protecting vulnerable households by extending the warm homes discount, reducing energy debt and reforming standing charges.

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Rebecca Williams

Chief strategy officer, Offshore Wind, Global Wind Energy Council

It’s exciting to see the Labour party elected with a clear mandate to accelerate climate action and renewable energy. The priority should be unblocking investment in offshore wind.

Sending this strong signal on renewables will help the UK regain its position on international climate leadership, which is now focused on how to deliver the global tripling of renewables by 2030. The UK has been underperforming against its peers in this arena for quite some time, failing to make the most of its huge advantage when it comes to offshore wind.

The Global Wind Energy Council is looking forward to working with Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband to see the UK retake its climate leadership crown.

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Linda Kalcher

Executive director, Strategic Perspectives

The UK can reinforce its international leadership on power decarbonisation again and return as “best in the class” among the G7. The clean power by 2030 goal is ambitious, but a smart economic and security choice. It can lower the energy bills for households and businesses, as well as reduce the UK’s import dependence.

Electrification has untapped potential – in the transport, heating and industry sectors. Only fossil-free power can enable these sectors to actually decarbonise. Renewables are the cheapest and fastest clean power source to build domestically. There is untapped potential ranging from community energy to offshore wind parks.

With the G7 struggling to wean itself off fossil fuels, the time is right for the UK to step up and show how a clean power sector can be achieved by 2030.

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Sam Hall

Director, Conservative Environment Network

Labour’s stated top priority is power sector decarbonisation by 2030 through accelerated planning decisions. But the biggest climate policy gap in Labour’s manifesto was on how to decarbonise home heating. If we’re going to get on track to meeting our climate goals, wean ourselves off imported gas and deliver permanently lower energy bills, this arguably should be the top priority.

The previous government’s enhanced boiler upgrade scheme (BUS) has helped to drive the uptake of heat pumps in recent months and is an essential part of the policy mix. But confirmation of the clean heat market mechanism, extensions to permitted development rights for heat pumps, an extension of BUS funding in the spending review, and new mechanisms to unlock more private investment in retrofit and reforms to the retail energy market will also be needed.

Crucially, the new government must urgently rebalance levies from electricity to gas, to end the penalty on lower-carbon electricity and to encourage electrification, while protecting lower-income households reliant on gas boilers.

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Ben Nelmes

Chief executive, New AutoMotive

The top climate priority for this government to maintain momentum on UK emissions reductions will be to start seeing reductions from road transport emissions. Carbon emissions from road transport have been stubbornly flat in recent years, but significant reductions are required to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets, 2023-27 and 2028-32 respectively.

Labour went into the election promising to restore the 2030 phase-out date for petrol and diesel vehicles, which had been the last government’s approach until September 2023. Between 2030 and 2035, new cars and vans can be sold if they have significant zero emission capability, which was envisaged to permit the sale of some plug-in and full hybrids during that time. Clarifying exactly what hybrids may be sold during this time is necessary to provide the car industry with clarity around the government’s plans.

Restoring certainty about cross-channel trade in electric vehicles is vital to the automotive industry transition in the UK, and must be an urgent priority for the UK government.

The government should take the experience with EU exports as a salutary lesson in the risk of having our EV exports hit by tariffs, and be very cautious about following Brussels and introducing tariffs on Chinese EVs.

The UK needs a motoring taxation that is fit for the day when 100% of the cars on the roads are fully electric, and the best time to act is now while there is a relatively small number of BEV cars around. Rather than seeking to find ways to simply replace revenue, the government should start by deciding what its transport strategy is for the UK, the role of vehicles in our economy and society, and a weighing exercise taking into account private and public costs and benefits.

The new Labour government has inherited a commitment without a plan: the UK needs to find a way to phase-out sales of fossil fuelled HGVs by 2035, yet there is no emissions standard or ZEV mandate to make this ambition a reality. The UK risks falling behind the EU, which has a new scheme for HGVs.

Misinformation and myths about electric vehicles are still deterring some consumers from considering the technology, despite the growing number of electric cars and vans on UK roads. The last government closed down the Go UltraLow campaign, which was supported by the automotive industry, and which sought to give consumers information about electric and low-emission cars on offer. The government should consider steps to make more factual and impartial information available to consumers about making the switch to electric vehicles.

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The post Experts: What is the Labour government’s top priority for meeting UK climate targets? appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Experts: What is the Labour government’s top priority for meeting UK climate targets?

Climate Change

Night Skies and Shifting Stars: How Indigenous Celestial Knowledge Tracks a Changing Climate

Published

10 hours ago

April 28, 2026

Alice Rush

When the land no longer answers the stars the way it once did, Indigenous peoples are among the first to notice — and the first to ask why.

A Sky Full of Knowledge

Look up on a clear night on Turtle Island and you’re seeing a sky that has guided human life for thousands of years. Across Indigenous nations in Canada, detailed systems of celestial knowledge developed not as abstract science but as living, practical guides —telling people when to plant, when to harvest, when herds would move, and when ice would come. This astronomical knowledge was woven into language, ceremony, and everyday life, passed down through generations with remarkable precision.

The Mi’kmaq and the Celestial Bear

Among the Mi’kmaq of Atlantic Canada, star stories are ecological calendars, precise and functional. The story of Muin and the Seven Bird Hunters connects the annual movement of what Western astronomy calls Ursa Major to the seasonal cycle of hunting and harvest: the bear rises in spring, is hunted through summer, and falls to earth in autumn. This knowledge was brought to broader public attention in 2009 during the International Year of Astronomy, when Mi’kmaq Elders Lillian Marshall of Potlotek First Nation and Murdena Marshall of Eskasoni First Nation shared the story through an animated film produced at Cape Breton University narrated in English, French, and Mi’kmaq.¹ The story encodes specific observations about when and where to hunt, and which species to expect at which time of year. It is science in narrative form.

The Anishinaabe and the Seasonal Star Map

Among the Anishinaabe peoples of the Great Lakes and northern Ontario, celestial knowledge forms part of a comprehensive seasonal understanding. Knowledge keepers like Michael Wassegijig Price of Wikwemikong First Nation have described how Anishinaabe constellations quite different from those of Western astronomy connect the movement of the heavens to naming ceremonies, seasonal gatherings, and land practices.² The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada now offers planispheres featuring Indigenous constellations from Cree, Ojibwe, and Dakota sky traditions, recognizing their value as both cultural heritage and ecological knowledge systems.³

When the Stars and the Land Fall Out of Rhythm

Here’s the challenge that climate change has introduced: the stars still move on their ancient, reliable schedule. But the land no longer always responds as expected. Migratory birds that once arrived when certain constellations appeared are now showing up earlier or later. Ice that once formed in predictable windows is forming weeks late, or not at all. Berry harvests, fish runs, animal migrations, all once timed by celestial cues accumulated over millennia are shifting. Indigenous knowledge holders across Canada describe this as a kind of dissonance: the sky remains faithful, but the land has changed.⁴

Long-Baseline Ecological Records

Far from being historical curiosity, Indigenous celestial knowledge systems are now being recognized by researchers as long-baseline ecological calendars —records of how nature behaved over centuries, encoded in story and ceremony. When an Elder observes that a particular star rising no longer predicts the arrival of certain geese, that observation represents a departure from a pattern that may have held true for hundreds of years. The Climate Atlas of Canada integrates Indigenous knowledge observations alongside western climate data, recognizing that both contribute meaningfully to understanding ecological change.⁵

Keeping the Knowledge Alive

Language revitalization and land-based education programs are helping ensure this knowledge reaches the future. From youth astronomy nights on-reserve to the integration of Indigenous sky stories in school curricula, there is growing recognition that these knowledge systems belong to what comes next, not only what came before. As Canada grapples with accelerating ecological change, the quiet precision of thousands of years of skyward observation offers something no satellite can fully replicate: a continuous record of the relationship between the cosmos and a living land.

Blog by Rye Karonhiowanen Barberstock

Image Credit: Dustin Bowdige, Unsplash

References

[1] Marshall, L., Marshall, M., Harris, P., & Bartlett, C. (2010). Muin and the Seven Bird Hunters: A Mi’kmaw Night Sky Story. Cape Breton University Press. See also: Integrative Science, CBU. (2009). Background on the Making of the Muin Video for IYA2009. http://www.integrativescience.ca/uploads/activities/BACKGROUND-making-video-Muin-Seven-Bird-Hunters-IYA-binder.pdf

[2] Price, M.W. (Various). Anishinaabe celestial knowledge. Wikwemikong First Nation. Referenced in: Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Indigenous Astronomy resources.

[3] Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. (2020). Indigenous Skies planisphere series. RASC. https://www.rasc.ca/indigenous-skies

[4] Neilson, H. (2022, December 11). The night sky over Mi’kmaki: A Q&A with astronomer Hilding Neilson. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/hilding-neilson-indigenizing-astronomy-1.6679072

[5] Climate Atlas of Canada. (2024). Prairie Climate Centre, University of Winnipeg. https://climateatlas.ca/

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Climate Change

World ‘will not see significant return to coal’ in 2026 – despite Iran crisis

Published

16 hours ago

April 28, 2026

Alice Rush

A much-discussed “return to coal” by some countries in the wake of the Iran war is likely to be far more limited than thought, amounting to a global rise of no more than 1.8% in coal power output this year.

The new analysis by thinktank Ember, shared exclusively with Carbon Brief, is a “worst-case” scenario and the reality could be even lower.

Separate data shows that, to date, there has been no “return to coal” in 2026.

While some countries, such as Japan, Pakistan and the Philippines, have responded to disrupted gas supplies with plans to increase their coal use, the new analysis shows that these actions will likely result in a “small rise” at most.

In fact, the decline of coal power in some countries and the potential for global electricity demand growth to slow down could mean coal generation continues falling this year.

Experts tell Carbon Brief that “the big story isn’t about a coal comeback” and any increase in coal use is “merely masking a longer-term structural decline”.

Instead, they say clean-energy projects are emerging as more appealing investments during the fossil-fuel driven energy crisis.

‘Return to coal’

The conflict following the US-Israeli attacks on Iran has disrupted global gas supplies, particularly after Iran blocked the strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint in the Persian Gulf.

A fifth of the world’s liquified natural gas (LNG) is normally shipped through this region, mainly supplying Asian countries. The blockage in this supply route means there is now less gas available and the remaining supplies are more expensive.

(Note that while the strait usually carries a fifth of LNG trade, this amounts to a much smaller share of global gas supplies overall, with most gas being moved via pipelines.)

With gas supplies constrained and prices remaining well above pre-conflict levels, at least eight countries in Asia and Europe have announced plans to increase their coal-fired electricity generation, or to review or delay plans to phase out coal power.

These nations include Japan, South Korea, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, Germany and Italy. Many of these nations are major users of coal power.

Such announcements have triggered a wave of reporting by global media outlets and analysts about a “return to coal”. Some have lamented a trend that is “incompatible with climate imperatives”, while others have even framed this as a positive development that illustrates coal’s return “from the dead”.

This mirrors a trend seen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which many commentators said would lead to a surge in European coal use, due to disrupted gas supplies from Russia.

In fact, despite a spike in 2022, EU coal use has returned to its “terminal decline” and reached a historic low in 2025.

Gas to coal

So far, the evidence suggests that there has been no return to coal in 2026.

Analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air found that, in March, coal power generation remained flat globally and a fall in gas-fired generation was “offset by large increases in solar and wind power, rather than coal”.

However, as some governments only announced their coal plans towards the end of March, these figures may not capture their impact.

To get a sense of what that impact could be, Ember assessed the impact of coal policy changes and market responses across 16 countries, plus the 27 member states of the EU, which together accounted for 95% of total coal power generation in 2025.

For each country, the analysis considers a maximum “worst-case” scenario for switching from gas to coal power in the face of high gas prices.

It also considers the potential for any out-of-service coal power plants to return and for there to be delays in previously expected closures as a result of the response to the energy crisis.

Ember concludes that these factors could increase coal use by 175 terawatt hours (TWh), or 1.8%, in 2026 compared to 2025.

(This increase is measured relative to what would have happened without the energy crisis and does not account for wider trends in electricity generation from coal, which could see demand decline overall. Last year, coal power dropped by 63TWh, or 0.6%.)

Roughly three-quarters of the global effect in the Ember analysis is from potential gas-to-coal switching in China and the EU.

Other notable increases could come from switching in India and Indonesia and – to a lesser extent – from coal-policy shifts in South Korea, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

However, widely reported policy changes by Japan, Thailand and the Philippines are estimated to have very little, if any, impact on coal-power generation in 2026. The table below briefly summarises the potential for and reasoning behind the estimated increases in coal generation in each country in 2026.

Dave Jones, chief analyst at Ember, stresses that the 1.8% figure is an upper estimate, telling Carbon Brief:

“This would only happen if gas prices remained very high for the rest of the year and if there were sufficient coal stocks at power plants. The real risk of higher coal burn in 2026 comes not from coal units returning…but rather from pockets of gas-to-coal switching by existing power plants, primarily in China and the EU.”

Moreover, Jones says there is a real chance that global coal power could continue falling over the course of this year, partly driven by the energy crisis. He explains:

“If the energy crisis starts to dent electricity demand growth, coal generation – as well as gas generation – might actually be lower than before the crisis.”

‘Structural decline’

Energy experts tell Carbon Brief that Ember’s analysis aligns with their own assessments of the state of coal power.

Coal already had lower operation costs than gas before the energy crisis. This means that coal power plants were already being run at high levels in coal-dependent Asian economies that also use imported LNG to generate electricity. As such, they have limited potential to cut their need for LNG by further increasing coal generation.

Christine Shearer, who manages the global coal plant tracker at Global Energy Monitor, tells Carbon Brief that, in the EU, there is a shrinking pool of countries where gas-to-coal switching is possible:

“In Europe, coal fleets are smaller, older and increasingly uneconomic, while wind, solar and storage are becoming more competitive and widespread.”

In the context of the energy crisis, Italy has announced plans to delay its coal phaseout from 2025 to 2038. This plan, dismissed by the ECCO thinktank as “ineffective and costly”, would have minimal impact given coal only provides around 1% of the country’s power.

Notably, experts say that there is no evidence of the kind of structural “return to coal” that would spark concerns about countries’ climate goals. There have been no new coal plants announced in recent weeks.

Suzie Marshall, a policy advisor working on the “coal-to-clean transition” at E3G, tells Carbon Brief:

“We’re seeing possible delayed retirements and higher utilisation [of existing coal plants], as understandable emergency measures to keep the lights on, but not investment in new coal projects…Any short-term increase in coal consumption that we may see in response to this ongoing energy crisis is merely masking a longer-term structural decline.”

With cost-competitive solar, wind and batteries given a boost over fossil fuels by the energy crisis, there have been numerous announcements about new renewable energy projects since the start of war, including from India, Japan and Indonesia.

Shearer says that, rather than a “sustained coal comeback” in 2026, the Iran war “strengthens the case for renewables”. She says:

“If anything, a second gas shock in less than five years strengthens the case for renewables as the more secure long-term path.”

Jones says that Ember expects “little change in overall fossil generation, but with a small rise in coal and a fall in gas” in 2026. He adds:

“This would maximise gas-to-coal switching globally outside of the US, leaving no possibility for further switching in future years. Therefore, the big story isn’t about a coal comeback. It’s about how the relative economics of renewables, compared to fossil fuels, have been given a superboost by the crisis.”

The post World ‘will not see significant return to coal’ in 2026 – despite Iran crisis appeared first on Carbon Brief.

World ‘will not see significant return to coal’ in 2026 – despite Iran crisis

Climate Change

Disaster Declarations Ripple Through South Texas Amid Water Crisis

Published

16 hours ago

April 28, 2026

Alice Rush

Small towns around Corpus Christi worry where they’ll fall on the pecking order if the region’s water runs out.

By Dylan Baddour, Neena Satija of KUT, and Emily Salazar of KEDT

At least six small cities and towns in the Coastal Bend region of Texas issued disaster declarations in the last two weeks, begging not to be forgotten amid a spiraling water crisis.