Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Shifting political players
EU LEADERSHIP: Ursula von der Leyen has secured another five years as president of the European Commission following a vote yesterday in which she won the backing of 401 MEPs – 40 more than needed, reported Bloomberg. In her reelection bid, von der Leyen committed to EU climate goals including the still-pending 90% emissions reduction by 2040 target and a new Clean Industrial Deal, Euractiv reported. However, the publication noted that her comments on nature protection were limited to “positive rhetoric” only.
PARIS PM: Elsewhere in Europe, veteran climate negotiator Laurence Tubiana has been proposed as the next French prime minister, with backing from the Socialist, Green and Communist parties in the current hung parliament, reported Climate Home News. Tubiana, who is currently CEO at the European Climate Foundation [which funds Carbon Brief], was one of the “architects” of the Paris Agreement in 2015, according to Bloomberg.
VANCE’S STANCE: In the US, Donald Trump’s newly selected running mate JD Vance has come under scrutiny for his climate scepticism. The Republican vice presidential candidate is “a staunch supporter of the oil and gas industry and an opponent of renewable energy”, according to the Independent, but has reportedly only held such views in recent years, a shift that coincides with his bid for Trump support. He also has investments in “green” technologies, reported E&E News, but the New York Times emphasised his public anti-climate sentiments and his sponsorship of green legislation repeals as a senator for Ohio.
AFRICAN COAL: In South Africa, a political ecologist wrote in the Conversation that the country’s newly appointed environment minister has shown support for continuing to use coal and said his government would not be “bullied” into transitioning away from fossil fuels too quickly. It comes as Agence France-Presse reported that the country’s president Cyril Ramaphosa has “reaffirmed the coal-dependent nation’s commitment to moving towards renewable energy, but insisted that communities and workers must not lose out”.
Labour must ‘make up lost ground’
KING’S SPEECH: The UK’s new Labour government has confirmed a legislative agenda with the environment “front and centre”, reported the Guardian. The king’s speech mentioned that the government will set up the publicly owned GB Energy to “own, manage and operate clean power projects” across the UK, reported BBC News. The company is set to be capitalised with an £8.3bn investment. Meanwhile, Politico reported that Labour is set to appoint a climate envoy, a role that has been empty for more than a year.
NEW ADVICE: The Climate Change Committee (CCC), which advises the UK government on its climate policies, released its annual progress report on Thursday, urging Labour to “make up lost ground” after a lack of sufficient action under the last Conservative government. Carbon Brief covered the recommendations in detail (more on this below). Elsewhere, the Times reported that Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of the industry group Energy UK, has been appointed “preferred candidate” for the next chief executive of the CCC.
Around the world
- ‘HELLISHLY HOT’: A heatwave across southern Europe and the Balkans has led governments to issue severe weather warnings, said France 24, with temperatures rising above 40C.
- CHINA ‘THIRD PLENUM’: A communique from China’s highly influential “third plenum” meeting called for a “coordinated approach to carbon cutting, pollution reduction, green development and economic growth”, as well as for the country to “actively respond to climate change”, according to state news agency Xinhua.
- CARIBBEAN VULNERABILITY: In the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, which killed at least a dozen people and destroyed infrastructure across the Caribbean, the Associated Press reported that officials are demanding more funding from “financial and development institutions” to rebuild and address climate change.
- PROTEST IN PERIL: Five UK climate activists from Just Stop Oil received record-length jail sentences of up to five years for a plan to block London’s M25 motorway, reported Reuters. Meanwhile, the right to peaceful protest in Australia is also “in peril”, the Guardian reported.
- GLOBAL FLOODS: Downpours and flooding have killed hundreds in South Asia, caused “emergency alerts” in China, left more than 50 people dead in Niger and caused damage in Toronto, Canada.
$8.4bn
The amount of debt eradicated through “debt-for-nature” swaps from 1987-2023.
$7.6tn
The total amount of debt service paid by low- and middle-income countries over the same timescale, illustrating how swap schemes are “far too small to have any impact”, experts told the Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- European “fire weather” – conditions favourable to the ignition and spread of wildfires – will become “more severe” due to climate change, showed a new study in Environmental Research Letters.
- Optimising the conversion of organic waste into biogas for energy has considerable decarbonisation potential in China, said new research in Nature Communications, which found that their proposed system could contribute 3.77% of the emissions reduction needed for the country’s 1.5C-aligned target.
- Nature-based solutions have “consistently proven to be a cost-effective approach” to address disaster risk, reported researchers in Science of the Total Environment.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
UK emissions have been falling steadily for years, largely driven by the phaseout of coal and the growth of renewable power. However, only one-third of the reductions required to achieve the UK’s goal under the Paris Agreement of cutting emissions 68% by 2030 are covered by plans the CCC deems to be “credible”, according to its latest progress report. There is an even larger credibility gap for the sixth carbon budget for 2033-2037, with only a quarter of the cuts needed covered by “credible” policies. This is illustrated in the chart above, which shows the emissions cuts needed to reach net-zero (red), compared to cuts expected from policies that the CCC deems “credible”.
Spotlight
The climate impact of generative AI
Carbon Brief investigates the climate implications of the accelerating use of generative AI tools.
Google’s latest environmental report indicated that its total emissions have increased by almost 50% since 2019 and 13% year-on-year – a change it puts down to the growth of its data centres and rising emissions in its supply chain.
The report added that rolling out artificial intelligence (AI) services might make it “challenging” to cut emissions due to the “increasing energy demands from the greater intensity of AI compute”.
Since March, Google has been integrating its generative AI tool Gemini into search functions, matching the exponential uptick in day-to-day AI use through Chat-GPT, Microsoft Copilot and other such tools. (“Generative AI” is AI that is capable of generating text, images, videos or other data from scratch in response to a prompt.)
But there’s a catch: when a query is sent to a generative AI model (a process known as inference), it uses a lot more energy than a traditional search, creating an expectation that the energy demand of data centres will shoot up as a result.
Soaring energy demand
A recent study, still awaiting peer review, found that a multipurpose AI system could use up to 33 times more energy than computers running task-specific software and that generating two images with AI uses as much energy as charging a smartphone.
Dr Sasha Luccioni, AI and climate lead at AI company Hugging Face and lead author of the study, explained to Carbon Brief that multipurpose models “tend to be larger in size” and are trained for several different outputs, “which makes them more computationally-intensive”.
Training AI models before they are available for use also takes large amounts of energy. OpenAI’s GPT-3 required 1,287MWh during training, enough electricity to power 120 average US households for one year.
Direct energy consumption is not the only factor to consider. Felippa Amanta, a PhD researcher of digital services at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, told Carbon Brief that “generative AI can have quite unpredictable indirect energy effects from how they’re being used by households”.
People are also using AI assistants for things they never needed it for before – a phenomenon Amanta explained as “induced demand”.
AI is changing our day-to-day behaviour, “from finding recipes, to writing emails, making CVs and the list goes on”, she said. It is this increase in user inference that can drive up data centre energy demands.
A report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), released today, said that the rise of AI was putting an increased focus on the energy use of data centres. (AI currently accounts for around 10% of data-centre electricity use.)
It said that electricity consumption from data centres as a whole accounted for a “limited” 1-1.3% share of global electricity demand in 2022. This could rise to between 1.5% and 3% by 2026, according to its projections. (By contrast, electric vehicles are expected to account for between less than 1.5% and 2% by 2026.)
The agency noted that expectations of future data centre energy demand growth were highly uncertain, depending on the uptake of AI services and the efficiency of the chips used to run them. (It noted that chipmaker Nvidia recently unveiled a new chip that was 25 times more energy efficient than previous models.)
As with any electricity-intensive technology, the climate impact of surging AI use will be determined by the extent to which renewables can meet the demand. In April, the Financial Times reported that fossil-fuel companies are hoping that surging energy demand from AI use will “usher in a golden era” for gas production.
Efficiency and regulation
On the flip side, AI has the potential to be a tool for climate action, chiefly by increasing energy efficiency. For example, AI could be used to improve the efficiency of power grids or daily commutes.
But as generative AI tools become integrated into our lives, there is a risk of a rebound effect, where the ease and ubiquity of AI solutions make us use services more, countering any efficiency savings, Amanta said.
Another issue facing the rapidly changing AI environment is a lack of transparency.
The climate impacts of AI models can potentially be mitigated by increasing their computational efficiency, powering data centres with clean energy, or using more task-specific models – but a lack of transparent data is slowing the development of legislation to regulate this shift, Dr Luccioni told Carbon Brief:
“The fact that we can’t get an accurate estimate of the energy usage or emissions of the many AI-enabled tools used by millions of people daily is problematic.”
Without understanding the scope of the issue, it is difficult to regulate energy intensity or add constraints on companies, she added. The IEA’s report also called for more reliable data.
Amanta pointed to examples of policies being proposed in the US and Singapore that recognise the environmental impacts of AI’s growth and aim to regulate their efficiency and sources of energy. The EU’s AI Act, which came into force in June, includes environmental considerations.
Watch, read, listen
SEA LEVEL RISE: A coastal village in Myanmar is being eroded away due to rising sea levels and residents are struggling to access fresh groundwater, reported the Mekong Eye.
CLIMATE CONFLICT: Earthrise released a video exploring the intersectionality of climate change and conflict, speaking to Sudanese climate activist, Watan Mohamed.
FACTCHECKING TWISTERS: The new tornado disaster film gets a lot of things right about climate science, said experts in Nature.
Coming up
- 15 July-2 August: Second part of the 29th Session of the International Seabed Authority Assembly and Council, Kingston, Jamaica
- 22-26 July: 27th Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry, Rome
- 25-26 July: G20 3rd Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting, Rio de Janeiro
Pick of the jobs
- International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), senior communications officer, India energy programme | Salary: Unknown. Location: Delhi, India (remote)
- Environment America, climate solutions associate | Salary: $32,500. Location: Pennsylvania, US
- Climate Outreach, fundraising administrator | Salary: £23,000. Location: Oxford, UK (remote)
Climate Central, vice president for science | Salary: $140,000-$160,000. Location: Princeton, New Jersey, US (remote)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 19 July 2024: New political players in EU and US; UK govt urged to make up ‘lost ground’ on targets; AI’s climate impact appeared first on Carbon Brief.
The launch of the Africa Energy Bank (AEB) has been put back yet again, raising doubts about the institution’s future ability to finance fossil fuel projects – its main objective – as global lenders retreat from such investments over climate concerns, experts told Climate Home News.
The bank, which had been billed to launch in September after a series of delays, is now scheduled to begin operations in November, according to the head of the African Energy Chamber, an advocacy body for the continent’s oil and gas sector.
Even as the world aims to transition away from fossil fuels, many African leaders have made clear they want to continue exploring and extracting the continent’s large oil and gas deposits – estimated at around 125 billion barrels of crude and over 600 trillion cubic feet of gas – to boost economic development.
As a group, Africa sided with a number of powerful oil-and-gas producing nations in blocking progress on negotiations to craft a global roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels at last year’s UN COP30 climate talks, although some countries did individually support the proposal.
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Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks
Plans to build Africa’s second largest oil refinery in ecologically sensitive region criticised as “environmental recklessness” -
Tanzania pushed African nations to oppose fossil fuel transition at COP30
While chairing the African group at the summit, the gas-dependent nation advised the continent’s ministers to block language on transitioning away from fossil fuels
Meanwhile, major projects under development across the continent – including the 1,443-km East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and Dangote’s 700,000-barrel-per-day Kenyan refinery – show that African governments see oil and gas as playing a significant role in meeting their energy and economic needs for many years to come.
In 2022, at a gathering of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization (APPO) in oil-rich Angola, ministers from its member states adopted a resolution to create the Africa Energy Bank to finance projects for the production, use and trade of oil, gas and broader energy sources.
African control over energy resources
An article on the APPO website explains that the bank was conceived as a way to overcome “disenchantment” with fossil fuels among “the international community” which it said had crystallised around the “energy transition” concept.
“If Western countries, after having long taken advantage of the energy sources they now revile to develop, can afford the luxury of abandoning them, this is not the case in Africa,” it adds, noting that many of the continent’s economies are still largely dependent on oil and gas revenues.
A separate web page about the bank, also hosted on APPO’s website, says its objectives include financing the exploration, production and refining of oil and gas, as well as supporting member states in transitioning from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources “while ensuring energy security”.
Said Addi, a former executive with Shell and energy commodities trading house Gunvor, said the new bank was judged necessary because financing for hydrocarbons from many traditional international lenders has become constrained.
In trying to fill this financing gap, Africa is not simply setting up another fund to support oil and gas, he added. “It is also an attempt to give African countries greater control over how their energy resources and infrastructure are financed,” he explained.
Nigeria to host the AEB
The energy bank – a joint initiative of APPO and the African Export–Import Bank (Afreximbank) – has so far suffered several delays and is almost two years behind schedule. The initial plan was to start operations in January 2025, with Nigeria as the host country, but the bank’s opening was delayed to June of that year to allow Nigeria time to finalise the construction of the bank’s headquarters in Abuja.
After the government announced the completion of the offices in late November 2025, a new launch date was set for January 2026, which was moved back to April, June and then September. Now it has shifted again to November, raising concerns that the institution may be losing momentum.
Former Shell executive Addi said that if the capital is eventually paid in, the bank becomes operational and its first projects are commercially credible, then the delays will be regarded as normal teething troubles in setting up a multilateral institution. But, he added, scepticism will be justified if it continues to stall.
Uganda may see lower oil revenues than expected as costs rise and demand falls
Baron Lamarré, an oil and gas expert and former Petronas oil trader, said that missing “three deadlines in a row is not normal”, and warned that if the timeline slips again, “the story flips from ‘ambitious institution finding its footing’ to ‘good idea that lost momentum before it found any’.”
The Nigerian government, APPO and Afreximbank did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
The funding challenge
The Africa Energy Bank is targeting base capital of $5 billion, with plans to scale up to $120 billion within five years by mobilising private-sector funds. However, it is expected to start operations with initial seed capital of $500 million.
The funding plan is to have the 18 member countries of the APPO contribute $83 million each to the bank as equity for a combined $1.5 billion. Afreximbank, other non-APPO African countries and investors outside the continent are expected to provide the remaining $3.5 billion.
But even the initial $500 million has not been easy to mobilise. In May, APPO Secretary-General Farid Ghezali called on members to deliver on their pledges towards the startup goal before the end of June. But the delays suggest this may not have been met, with experts saying Africa may be finding it difficult to self-fund its oil and gas projects in the absence of international capital.
Lamarré said every extension of the deadline points to the fact that “raising fossil fuel capital in Africa without the majors and their financing networks is brutally hard”.
Why the global electrification agenda misses the point on Africa’s energy crisis
Since 2020, Western lenders, export credit agencies and insurers have been in steady retreat from African hydrocarbons, he said, while oil majors are divesting their African assets, handing over fields to smaller local operators whose credit ratings are not high enough to borrow cheaply.
Even capital from China and the Gulf, which has partially filled the gap, cannot match the volume, tenor or pricing that Western investors once offered, Lamarré argued.
“If mobilising the first $500 million of seed capital [for the AEB] has taken this long, that’s the clearest signal yet of how steep the climb to $120 billion looks,” he said, noting that the continent’s energy financing gap is as large as $30 billion-$45 billion per year.
Africa’s investment landscape, meanwhile, has been shifting. While foreign direct investment dropped from a 2024 peak, inflows remained roughly one-third above the continent’s long-term average in 2025, according to the 2026 World Investment Report from UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD). They are concentrated in a few sectors including critical minerals needed for renewable energy technologies, battery manufacturing and advanced industrial production.
At the same time, data on global energy investment from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that fossil fuel investment in Africa has declined over the last decade.
“Trojan horse” for fossil fuels
While the Africa Energy Bank struggles to get off the ground, climate campaigners have criticised its primary aim of financing oil and gas on the continent at a time when the world is starting to move away from high-carbon fuels to cleaner alternatives.
Bhekumuzi Dean Bhebhe, founder of Africa Change Lab, described the bank as a “Trojan horse”, arguing that its focus on fossil fuel financing runs counter to the global energy transition and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 goals of sustainable development and inclusive growth.
The energy bank, he warned, “risks locking Africa into a new cycle of debt, dependency and fossil fuel entrenchment”, adding that its financing blueprint does not pave the way for a climate-resilient future. “In truth, it is to deepen the same extractive, carbon-heavy pathways that the continent should be moving away from,” he added.
Ugandan farmers use British court to try to stop East Africa oil pipeline
Kenya-based climate and energy expert Joab Okanda said the AEB’s plan to finance oil and gas is “a misplaced priority” and it should instead back clean energy in line with the policies of some of Africa’s major export markets like Europe.
In addition, the new bank could struggle to mobilise enough resources to advance large-scale oil and gas projects, he added, noting that its proposed $5-billion initial capital is equivalent to the cost of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline alone.
The AEB’s aim of backing more fossil fuels should be flipped “to support countries that are oil-dependent to start working on their transition plans”, Okanda said.
The post Launch of Africa Energy Bank delayed again in blow to oil and gas hopes appeared first on Climate Home News.
Launch of Africa Energy Bank delayed again in blow to oil and gas hopes