Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels and cement will rise around 0.8% in 2024, reaching a record 37.4bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2), according to the 2024 Global Carbon Budget report by the Global Carbon Project.
This is 0.4GtCO2 higher than the previous record, set in 2023.
Total CO2 emissions – including both fossil and land-use emissions – will also set a new record at 41.6GtCO2, reflecting a growth of 2% over 2023 levels.
This is due, in part, to higher than usual land-use emissions driven by extreme wildfire activity in South America.
Despite the increase in 2024, total CO2 emissions have largely plateaued over the past decade, a sign that the world is making some modest progress tackling emissions.
But a flattening of emissions is far from what is needed to bring global emissions down to zero and stabilise global temperatures in-line with Paris Agreement goals.
The 19th edition of the Global Carbon Budget, which is published today, also reveals:
- Emissions emissions are projected to decrease significantly in the EU (down 3.8%) and slightly in the US (down 0.6%) in 2024. They are expected to increase slightly in China (up 0.2%), and increase significantly in India (up 4.6%) and the rest of the world (up 1.6%, including international shipping and aviation).
- Global emissions from coal increased by 0.2% in 2024 compared to 2023, while oil emissions increased 0.9% and gas emissions increased by 2.4%. Emissions from cement and other sources fell by 2.8%.
- Global land-use emissions clocked in at 4.2GtCO2 in 2024. This represents a 0.5GtCO2 increase over 2023 and was primarily driven by wildfire emissions linked to deforestation and forest degradation in South America. Overall, land-use emissions have decreased by around 28% since their peak in the late-1990s, with a particularly large drop in the past decade.
- While the land sink was quite weak in 2023 – leading to speculation that it may be on a path toward collapse – it appears to have largely recovered back to close to its average for the past decade.
- If global emissions remain at current levels, the remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5C (with a 50% chance) will be exhausted in the next six years. Carbon budgets to limit warming to 1.7C and 2C would similarly be used up in 15 and 27 years, respectively.
- The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is set to reach 422.5 parts per million (ppm) in 2024, 2.8ppm above 2023 and 52% above pre-industrial levels.
Both global fossil and total CO2 emissions at record levels
The 2024 Global Carbon Budget finds that CO2 emissions from fossil use are projected to rise 0.8% in 2024, reaching a record 37.4GtCO2 – 0.4GtCO2 higher than the previous record, set last year.
Total CO2 emissions, which include land-use change, are also expected to reach record highs at 41.6GtCO2, or 2.0% above the previous record set in 2023.
This large increase was driven both by consistent growth in fossil-fuel emissions and abnormally high land-use emissions in 2024 – due in part to wildfires in South America exacerbated by a strong El Niño event and high temperatures.
Each year the Global Carbon Budget is updated to include the latest data as well as improvements to modelling sources and sinks, resulting in some year-to-year revisions to the historical record.
The figure below shows the 2024 global CO2 emissions update (dark blue solid line) alongside 2023 (grey dotted) 2022 (yellow dotted), 2021 (bright blue dotted) and 2020 (red dotted). The shaded area indicates the uncertainty around the new 2024 budget.
The 2024 figures are generally quite similar to those in the 2023 Global Carbon Budget, though they show somewhat higher emissions prior to 1980 and slightly lower emissions over the past seven years. Revisions to the data mean that 2023 is no longer a hair below 2019 levels, as was reported by Carbon Brief last year, but rather exceeds them by nearly 0.5GtCO2.
Annual total global CO2 emissions – from fossil and land-use change – between 1959 and 2024 for the 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 versions of the Global Carbon Project’s Global Carbon Budget, in billions of tonnes of CO2 per year (GtCO2). Shaded area shows the estimated one-sigma uncertainty for the 2024 budget. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Total global CO2 emissions have notably plateaued in the past decade (2015-24), growing at only 0.2% per year compared to the 1.9% rate of growth over the previous decade (2005-214) and the longer-term average growth rate of 1.7% between 1959 and 2014.
This apparent flattening is due to declining land-use emissions compensating for continued increases in fossil CO2 emissions. Fossil emissions grew around 0.2GtCO2 per year over the past decade, while land-use emissions decreased by a comparable amount.
However, despite the emissions plateau, there is still no sign of the rapid and deep decrease in CO2 emissions needed to reach net-zero and stabilise global temperatures in-line with Paris Agreement goals.
If global emissions remain at current levels, the remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5C (with a 50% chance) will be exhausted in the next six years. Carbon budgets to limit warming to 1.7C and 2C would similarly be used up in 15 and 27 years, respectively.
Global fossil CO2 emissions also grew more slowly in the past decade (0.7% per year) compared to the previous decade (2.1%). This was driven by the continued decarbonisation of energy systems – including a shift from burning coal to gas and replacing fossil fuels with renewables – as well as slightly weaker global economic growth during the past decade.
The figure below breaks down global emissions (dark blue line) in the 2024 budget into fossil (mid blue) and land-use (light blue) components. Fossil CO2 emissions represent the bulk of total global emissions in recent years, accounting for approximately 90% of emissions in 2024 (compared to 10% for land use). This represents a large change from the first half of the 20th century, when land-use emissions were approximately the same as fossil emissions.
Global fossil emissions include CO2 emitted from burning coal, oil and gas, as well as the production of cement. However, the Global Carbon Budget also subtracts the cement carbonation sink – CO2 slowly absorbed by cement once it is exposed to the air – from fossil emissions in each year to determine total fossil emissions.
Global CO2 emissions separated out into fossil and land-use change components between 1959 and 2024 from the 2024 Global Carbon Budget. Note that fossil CO2 emissions are inclusive of the cement carbonation sink. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Global emissions can also be expressed on a per-capita basis, as shown in the figure below. While it is ultimately total global emissions that matter for the Earth’s climate – and a global per-capita figure glosses over a lot of variation among and within countries it is noteworthy that global per-capita emissions peaked in 2012 and have been slightly declining in the years since.
Global per-capita CO2 emissions between 1959 and 2024. Note that fossil CO2 emissions are inclusive of the cement carbonation sink. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Land-use emissions trending downward
Global land-use emissions stem from deforestation, degradation, loss of peatlands and harvesting trees for wood. They averaged 4GtCO2 over the past decade (2015-24) and the Global Carbon Budget provides an initial projection for 2024 of 4.2GtCO2.
This represents a 0.5GtCO2 increase over land-use emissions in 2023. This was primarily driven by wildfire emissions linked to deforestation and forest degradation in South America. Drought conditions associated with this year’s El Niño event contributed to the severity of the fires.
Overall, land-use emissions have decreased by around 28% since their peak in the late-1990s, with a particularly large drop in the past decade.
This decline is statistically significant and is due both to decreasing deforestation and increasing levels of reforestation and afforestation globally (though rates of reforestation and afforestation have largely stagnated over the past decade).
This year’s Global Carbon Budget features a number of important improvements to land-use change emissions estimates, including updated estimates of cropland and pasture area in major countries.
Four countries – Brazil, Indonesia, China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – collectively contribute approximately 60% of the global land-use emissions.
The figure below shows changes in emissions over time in these countries, as well as land-use emissions in the rest of the world (grey). Note that Chinese land-use emissions are negative in recent years.
Annual CO2 emissions from land-use change by major emitting countries and the rest of world over 1959-2023. Note that country-level land-use change emissions are not yet available for 2024. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Fossil CO2 in major emitting countries
Global emissions of fossil CO2 – including coal, oil, gas and cement – increased by around 0.8% in 2024, relative to 2023, with an uncertainty range of -0.3% to 1.9%. This represents a new record high and is 2.6% above the 2019 pre-Covid levels.
The figure below shows global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, divided into emissions from major emitting countries including China (dark blue shading), India (mid blue), the US (light blue), EU (pale blue) and the remainder of the world (grey).
Annual fossil CO2 emissions by major countries and the rest of the world over 1959-2024, excluding the cement carbonation sink as national-level values are not available. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
For this year, China represents 32% of global CO2 emissions. Their emissions in 2024 are projected to increase by a relatively small 0.2% (with an uncertainty range of -1.6% to +2%), driven by a small rise in emissions from coal (0.3%) and a large rise in natural gas emissions (8%). Emissions from oil are expected to decrease modestly (-0.8%), while emissions from cement are expected to fall sharply (-8.1%).
The Global Carbon Budget report suggests that Chinese oil emissions have probably already peaked, reflecting the acceleration of vehicle electrification.
India represents 8% of global emissions. In 2024, Indian emissions are projected to increase by 4.6% (with a range from 3.0% to 6.1%), with a 4.5% increase in emissions from coal, a 3.6% increase in emissions from oil, a 11.8% increase in emissions from natural gas and a 4% increase in emissions from cement.
While renewable energy is expanding quickly in India, it remains far slower than the rate of power demand growth as the economy rapidly expands.
The US represents 13% of global emissions this year – though is responsible for a much larger portion of historical emissions and associated atmospheric accumulation of CO2.
US emissions are projected to decrease by 0.6% in 2024 (ranging from -2.9% to +1.7%). This is being driven by a modest decrease in coal emissions (falling 3.5%). Oil emissions are expected to decline by a slight 0.7%, reflecting the rise of electric vehicles, while emissions from gas are expected to increase by 1%.
The EU represents 7% of global emissions. EU emissions are expected to decrease by 3.8% in 2024, driven by a 15.8% decline in coal emissions, a 1.3% decline in natural gas emissions, and a 3.5% decline in cement emissions. EU oil emissions are expected to increase slightly, by 0.2%.
The EU’s overall emissions decline is being driven by a combination of rapid clean energy adoption as well as relatively weak economic growth and high energy prices.
International aviation and shipping (included in the “rest of world” in the figure above) are responsible for 3% of global emissions. They are projected to increase by
7.8% in 2024, but remain below their 2019 pre-pandemic level by 3.5%.
The rest of the world (excluding aviation) represents 38% of global emissions. Emissions are expected to grow by 1.1% in 2024 (ranging from -1.0% to +3.3%), with increases in emissions from coal (0.5%), oil (0.5%), natural gas (2.2%) and cement (2%).
Overall, emissions are projected to decrease in the EU and US in 2024, increase slightly in China, and increase significantly in India and the rest of the world.
The total emissions for each year between 2021 and 2024, as well as the countries and regions that were responsible for the changes in absolute emissions, are shown in the figure below.
Annual emissions for 2021, 2022, 2023 and estimates for 2024 are shown by the navy blue bars. The smaller bars show the change in emissions between each set of years, broken down by country or region – the US (dark blue), EU (mid blue), China (light blue), India (pale blue) and the rest of the world (grey). Negative values show reductions in emissions, while positive values reflect emission increases.
Annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels (navy blue bars) and drivers of changes between years by country (smaller bars), excluding the cement carbonation sink as national-level values are not available. Negative values indicate reductions in emissions. Note that the y-axis does not start at zero. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
The Global Carbon Project notes that emissions have declined over the past decade (2014-23) in 22 nations – up from 18 countries during the decade prior to that (2004-13). This decrease comes despite continued domestic economic growth and represents a long-term decoupling of CO2 emissions and the economy.
CO2 emissions decreased in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries by 1.4% per year over the past decade, compared to a decrease of 0.9% per year in the decade prior. Non-OECD countries saw their emissions grow more slowly (1.8%) over the last decade than the prior one (4.9%).
Growth in emissions from coal, oil, and gas
Global fossil-fuel emissions primarily result from the combustion of coal, oil and natural gas. Coal is responsible for more emissions than any other fossil fuel, representing approximately 41% of global fossil CO2 emissions in 2024. Oil is the second largest contributor at 33% of fossil CO2, while gas rounds out the pack at 22%.
These percentages reflect both the amount of each fossil fuel consumed globally, but also differences in CO2 intensities. Coal results in the most CO2 emitted per unit of heat or energy produced, followed by oil and natural gas.
The figure below shows global CO2 emissions from different fuels over time, covering coal (dark blue shading), oil (mid blue) and gas (light blue), as well as cement production (pale blue) and other sources (grey).
While coal emissions increased rapidly in the mid-2000s, it has largely plateaued since 2013. However, coal use increased significantly in 2021 and then slightly in the subsequent three years.
Annual CO2 emissions by fossil fuel over 1959-2024, excluding the cement carbonation sink. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Global emissions from coal increased by 0.2% in 2024 compared to 2023, while oil emissions increased 0.9% and gas emissions increased by 2.4%. Emissions from cement and other sources fell by 3%.
Despite setting a new record this year, global coal use is only 3% above 2013 levels – a full 12 years ago. By contrast, during the 2000s, global coal use grew at a rate of around 4% every single year.
The total emissions for each year between 2021 and 2024 (navy blue bars), as well as the absolute change in emissions for each fuel between years, are shown in the figure below.
Annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels (navy blue bars) and drivers of changes between years by fuel, excluding the cement carbonation sink. Negative values indicate reductions in emissions. Note that the y-axis does not start at zero. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Even though they have been increasing over the past four years, global CO2 emissions from oil remain very slightly (0.8%) below the pre-pandemic highs of 2019.
The global carbon budget
Every year, the Global Carbon Project provides an estimate of the overall “global carbon budget”. This is based on estimates of the release of CO2 through human activity and its uptake by the oceans and land, with the remainder adding to atmospheric concentrations of the gas.
(This differs from the commonly used term “remaining carbon budget”, which refers to the amount of CO2 that can be released while keeping warming below global limits of 1.5 or 2C.)
The most recent budget, including estimated values for 2024, is shown in the figure below. Values above zero represent sources of CO2 – from fossil fuels and industry (dark blue shading) and land use (mid blue) – while values below zero represent “carbon sinks” that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Any CO2 emissions that are not absorbed by the oceans (light grey) or land vegetation (mid grey) accumulate in the atmosphere (dark grey).
Annual global carbon budget of sources and sinks over 1959-2024. Fossil CO2 emissions include the cement carbonation sink. Note that the budget does not fully balance every year due to remaining uncertainties, particularly in sinks. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Over the past decade (2015-24), the world’s oceans have taken up approximately 26.5% of total human emissions, or around 10.6GtCO2 per year. The ocean CO2 sink has been relatively flat since 2016 after growing rapidly over the prior decades, reflecting the plateauing of global emissions during that period.
The land sink takes up around 29% of global emissions, or 11.5GtCO2 per year on average. While the land sink was quite weak in 2023 – leading some to speculate that it may be on a path toward collapse – it appears to have largely recovered back to close to its average level over the past decade in 2024 as El Niño conditions have faded.
Global CO2 emissions from fires were quite high in 2024, around 7GtCO2 over the first 10 months of the year and similar to the above average values in 2023.
This was driven by large emissions in North and South America, particularly in Canada and Brazil. (It is not possible to make a direct comparison between reported fire CO2 emissions and other components of the global carbon budget as they already show up in both parts of the land sink and land-use emissions.)
Overall, the impact of the ongoing emissions from human activity is that atmospheric CO2 continues to increase.
The growth rate of atmospheric CO2 in 2024 is expected to be around 2.76ppm, which is above average compared to the rate of 2.46% over the past decade (2014-23).
The 2024 rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration was the fifth largest over the 1959-2024 period, closely following 2023, 2015, 2016 and 1998 – most of which were strong El Niño years.
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are set to reach an annual average of 422.5ppm in 2024, representing an increase of 52% above pre-industrial levels of 280ppm.
The post Analysis: Global CO2 emissions will reach new high in 2024 despite slower growth appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Global CO2 emissions will reach new high in 2024 despite slower growth
The African continent’s hopes for a legally binding agreement to combat drought have been dashed again, as UN land restoration talks in Mongolia passed the issue onto the next set of talks in Egypt in two years’ time.
For over a decade, Africa has pushed for a UN protocol on drought risk management that would acknowledge drought as an issue requiring a regional and global – not just a national – response, potentially paving the way for more finance to help ensure water is available when drought hits.
A formal protocol would enable countries to transition from reacting to drought once it hits to “a proactive enabling mechanism to address drought and its effects such as migration”, said a Tunisian negotiator on behalf of the African Group of countries last week. Once land is regularly too dry and infertile to grow crops or graze animals, people often leave to seek a living elsewhere.
But this effort to adopt a protocol, led by Africa, has been resisted at successive land restoration COPs under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), mainly by developed countries, which argue that a legally weaker alternative – a framework – would be faster and cheaper to set up.
Governments at the previous COP in Saudi Arabia in 2024 failed to reach agreement despite talks running past midnight, while this year’s saw African officials coordinate a walkout from negotiating rooms on Wednesday morning, according to two sources at the talks.
Drought deal delayed until 2028
The IISD’s Earth Negotiations Bulletin, a non-governmental organisation which unlike the media is allowed to watch and report on closed-door talks, said a call to suspend negotiations on Wednesday showed negotiations had reached “boiling point” and “made some jaws drop”.
Negotiations resumed after a lunchtime meeting with the Mongolian COP presidency although governments were only eventually able to agree that they could not find consensus in Ulaanbaatar and should resume talks on an instrument to deal with drought in 2028.
Christine Colvin, WWF’s head of freshwater policy, told Climate Home News that, with droughts hitting from Honduras to the English region of Hampshire, something concrete – whether a protocol or a framework – is needed urgently “rather than the can being kicked down the road for another two years as will now happen with the protocol procrastination”.
But, in a closing press conference on Friday, the Mongolian minister presiding over talks celebrated that governments had reached consensus on several “contentious” issues and that agenda items blocked at this year’s COP17 would be put on the agenda for COP18 in Egypt.
US blocks agenda items
Other agenda items that divided countries were on measuring land degradation’s effects on women, enhancing the involvement of civil society and women in land COPs, and the UNCCD working more closely and effectively with the UN’s climate and nature conventions.
On the COP’s opening day two weeks ago, the US representative said the Trump government objects to these agenda items “on their premise and no amount of negotiation will allow us to join consensus on these items. As such we request that they be struck from the agenda at which time we will then be able to approve it, saving us valuable negotiating time.”
A US State Department spokesperson later told Climate Home News that the US wants the UN “to get back to basics by refocusing on its core mandate, eliminating overlap, and reducing competition for scarce resources”.
The spokesperson added, “that means prioritising the concrete work member states created [the UN] to do – rather than diverting limited time, attention, and resources toward social and political agendas, including gender-related initiatives.”
On COP’s first day, the European Union and Brazil pushed back against the blocking of these agenda items, with a Brazilian negotiator saying his country attaches “great importance” to them. But the Mongolian presidency directed governments to adopt the rest of the agenda without the controversial items, which were discussed privately with countries throughout the two weeks.
An EU statement, read out later by Irish minister Timmy Dooley, accused “some parties” (meaning national governments) of having adopted a “less constructive approach” and preventing “discussions on important matters from even commencing”.
The agenda items the US refused to engage with were never discussed and were only placed onto the agenda for the next COP on the last day. Those talks will take place in Egypt in two years’ time, with Donald Trump due then to be in his last year as US president.
No restoration without women
The blocking of the gender agenda item has stymied attempts, agreed on by governments at the last COP, to develop gender-specific indicators for the UNCCD’s next overall framework and to facilitate more women delegates at COPs. Women made up only about a quarter of delegates to COP15 in 2022, UNCCD analysis with the latest data shows
Criticising the move to keep gender off the agenda, the EU said in a statement that it welcomes “the attention being given at COP17 to women pastoralists and herders, recognising their contribution to sustainable land management and resilient rural livelihoods”.
The head of the UNCCD, former Egyptian environment minister Yasmine Fouad, said on Friday that “regardless that the agenda item was blocked”, she was proud that she and COP17 President Batmunkh Battsetseg had led the COP as women and attended the gender caucus (a meeting of groups supporting women at the talks).
“Without the women,” she told the closing press conference on Friday, “we will not be able to restore land, restore hope, restore life or restore even our children and grandchildren. And we will keep on pushing that agenda.”
The civil society agenda item aimed to allow NGOs to attend land COP negotiations, as they do at climate COPs, and included terms of reference for an Indigenous Peoples Caucus.
A representative of Indigenous Peoples told the COP’s closing plenary meeting that the group had “deep disappointment that the agenda of this COP has removed the dedicated space for indigenous peoples”. “We cannot restore the land while removing the voices of those who care for it,” she said.
On Tuesday, the UNCCD’s deputy head Andrea Meza was asked about Indigenous Peoples’ participation. She said that the blocking of “one agenda item” is “generating uncertainty in the progress” towards creating caucuses for Indigenous Peoples and for Local Communities within the talks.
Because of the “complex geopolitical situation” making it hard to obtain consensus, coalitions of the willing have become more important, she added.
Mining out, money in
Outside the formal negotiations, the summit was marked by a focus on the strongly Mongolian issues of the role played by pastoralists and rangelands like grasslands, as well as mining, in both degrading and restoring land.
Part of the conference was sponsored by Australian mining company Rio Tinto and its local partner Oyu Tolgoi. Their presence was protested by campaigners wearing T-shirts calling on the companies to “stop wasting drinking water” and to “get out of Mongolia”.
The UNCDD and others praised the success of the summit in raising more finance for land restoration. The COP saw institutions like the Asian Development Bank and Global Environment Facility pledge money to combat land degradation, with the UNCCD estimating that $645 million of new commitments were made.
An estimated $355 billion a year is needed through 2030 to meet global land restoration commitments, compared with around $77 billion currently invested. Private finance accounts for only around 6% of global investment, according to the UNCCD.
UNCCD chief scientist Baron Orr told a press conference that many of the announcements were public-private partnerships that use government money to “even the playing field” for companies that want to protect land, in a bid to ensure they are not disadvantaged compared with those that do not.
Such partnerships are a “huge opportunity”, he said, especially as “we’re not in a moment of public finance – public finance is tight in every country.”
The post Despite African walkout, fractious land COP ends without drought deal appeared first on Climate Home News.
Despite African walkout, fractious land COP ends without drought deal
Burdened by rising fuel import costs and an “ocean crisis” of record-breaking heat, Pacific island nations are seeking to build support for a new regional fund ahead of COP31, intended to channel investment into renewable energy, community resilience and ocean protection, experts said.
Leaders from the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), including Australia and New Zealand, are expected to issue a call for global pledges to the Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF) at a high-level meeting this coming week in Palau, seeking to build a new model for financing climate action.
The new regional fund was formally launched in May this year and is meant to “serve communities at a community level”, swiftly channelling investments for their projects on the ground, according to Fiji’s assistant minister for foreign affairs, Lenora Qereqeretabua.
“We are expecting pledges for the PRF, and these funds will go to communities that apply,” she told journalists at an online briefing. “We have organised it in such a way that it makes our application processes much, much easier than applying for global funding.”
Qereqeretabua added that she expects that PRF funds will be “utilised by communities to protect themselves from climate change and the effects of climate change.”
The Pacific Islands Forum meeting is expected to shape the region’s priorities ahead of this year’s pre-COP, hosted by Fiji and Tuvalu, and COP31, which will be co-led by Australia and Türkiye.
At COP31, a dedicated session on the climate finance needs of small island states will seek to drive pledges into the PRF. The fund has so far received about $172 million in capital – with about $67 million coming from Australia – and aims to close the year with $500 million.
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Ocean heat and fossil fuel shocks
Leaders from the Pacific will meet in Palau from Sunday amid an “ocean crisis” of record-breaking ocean heat caused by this year’s “super El Niño”, according to Kevin Chand, Pacific ocean policy director at National Geographic’s Pristine Seas conservation project.
Leaders at the PIF are expected to put forward commitments towards new marine protected areas, which will be key for shielding ecosystems from future climate extremes, Chand said. The forum is expected to issue a statement on the need for ocean action at COP31, and announce commitments towards reaching the global goal of protecting 30% of the planet’s land and sea ecosystems by 2030.
Rising ocean heat could lead to food insecurity and lost government earnings in the region, as key fish stocks like tuna start migrating away from their coastline in search of colder waters, said Coral Pasisi, director of climate change and sustainability at the Pacific Community (SPC).
Climate shocks are deepening existing economic pressures, as Pacific nations have spent up to a quarter of their GDP on fossil fuel imports due to the war in Iran, according to a recent report by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia.
Wesley Morgan, one of the study’s authors, told journalists that partner nations “ought to be putting their money where their mouth is”, and should support the energy transition in the Pacific by covering the upfront costs of switching from polluting diesel to solar power, batteries and electricity grid upgrades.
China keeps Indonesia’s battery dream afloat but future less certain
Given the increase in climate-related shocks and sea-level rise, the PIF should also mention the need to phase out fossil fuel extraction and consumption, said Sindra Sharma, international policy lead at the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN).
Last year’s COP30 failed to deliver a global roadmap on transitioning away from fossil fuels, which led to a group of countries – including several Pacific island nations – pursuing their own fossil fuel phase-out summit in Santa Marta, Colombia. Next year’s conference will be hosted by Tuvalu and co-chaired by Ireland, which should also receive backing from the PIF, Sharma said.
Both the chairs of the Santa Marta coalition and the Australian COP31 co-presidency have vowed to continue a push for this topic to be discussed at COP31.
New fund to test allies
As local communities in the Pacific struggle to access global climate funds, the PRF’s planned model for quick, direct disbursements has “very solid and good” intentions, Sharma said, but it will need political and financial backing from donor countries.
“The proof is going to be when the fund actually starts operating and delivering to communities,” she added. “If there is too much bureaucracy in being able to access the funds, for example. These things will have to be scrutinised.”
The facility aims to deliver funds in two categories: one for climate adaptation and “disaster resilience”, and another for social and community resilience that includes areas like community capacity-building, education, data analytics and financial management, among others. It will launch its first call for proposals at the PIF.
Morgan added that Australia will need to “leverage global interests” so that funding is directed to the Pacific Resilience Facility “or else the Pacific won’t be able to trust Australia as a partner”. The country ratified the PRF treaty in May, triggering its entry into force.
“The perception [of Australia] in the region is genuinely divided, and it’s worth being honest about it,” Sharma said, adding that the pre-COP31 in Fiji, which is usually limited to a technical space for negotiations, will determine how meaningful Australia’s advocacy for the Pacific can be.
This time, Pacific nations want to use the pre-COP in early October as an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges their largely low-lying islands face and to advocate for their political priorities, including a renewed global effort to limit global warming to 1.5C by cutting emissions faster and deeper. World leaders are due to visit Tuvalu to experience the frontline of rising sea levels, although Australia and Fiji have yet to confirm who will attend.
“In Bonn, Australia was largely missing on the negotiated outcomes that we so urgently need to see. It’s not enough to get Pacific priorities on the agenda. Agenda placement is not delivery,” Sharma added.
The post Pacific islands seek backing for new regional fund ahead of COP31 appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pacific islands seek backing for new regional fund ahead of COP31
Climate Change
Climate change exposes 580 million children to 20 extra ‘heat-stress days’ every year
More than 40% of children under the age of 10 globally are already experiencing at least 20 additional “heat-stress days” due to climate change.
This is according to a new attribution study, published in Science Advances, which combines climate models with demographic data to assess the age groups and regions that are exposed to the most hot, humid days.
The study finds that children up to the age of nine already face more additional heat-stress days globally as a result of climate change than any other age group.
It adds that south Asia and west Africa are recording the greatest childhood exposure to dangerous levels of humid heat – largely because these regions have a rapidly growing population with the highest proportion of young children.
As the climate warms, children will continue to be more exposed to heat stress than any other age group, the paper warns.
The lead author of the study tells Carbon Brief that the findings should inform discussions about climate justice, noting that children in developing countries “have contributed the least to historical greenhouse gas emissions”.
Humid heat
High temperatures can be deadly. For example, the heatwaves that swept across Europe in the summer of 2026 have been linked to tens of thousands of “excess deaths”.
A prominent 2021 study found that children born in the 21st century will be exposed to more extreme weather events in their lifetimes than their parents and grandparents.
Four years later, a study conducted by scientists from the same team found that more than half of children born in 2020 – around 62 million people – will experience “unprecedented lifetime exposure” to heatwaves, even if warming is limited to 1.5C.
Now, the latest research from the same team finds that children already face greater exposure to dangerous levels of humid heat than adults as a result of human-caused climate change.
Extreme heat is particularly dangerous when combined with high humidity. In hot weather, the human body produces sweat to cool itself down. However, as humidity increases, sweating becomes less effective.
The study uses wet-bulb globe temperature – a measure of temperature that takes humidity and wind into account – to calculate heat stress. It defines a “heat-stress day” as any day with a wet-bulb globe temperature above 28C, as this is considered the threshold for “moderate heat stress”
The authors then use climate models to simulate global temperature patterns in the present-day climate. (The authors use the climate of 2023, in which human activity has caused 1.3C of warming, to represent the “present-day”.)
They then count the number of heat-stress days that each country records on average, per year. The authors then repeat this exercise, simulating a pre-industrial climate without human-caused warming.
By comparing the number of heat-stress days in the present-day climate with the number in a pre-industrial climate, the authors can determine how many extra heat-stress days were driven by climate change. They refer to these as “extra” or “attributable” heat-stress days.
The authors find that “low-latitude” countries, located in the tropics, record the most extra heat-stress days.
For example, the paper finds that people living in Côte d’Ivoire currently face 112 heat-stress days every year. It adds that around half of these are due to human-caused climate change.
In contrast, Germany sees only 0.1 heat-stress days per year in today’s climate on average, which is largely attributable to human-caused climate change.
Rosa Pietroiusti, a PhD student at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and lead author on the study, explains why this number may seem lower than expected.
She tells Carbon Brief that the paper “really focuses on humid heat, at levels that are relatively rarely felt in Europe”. She adds:
“Our data also doesn’t capture the urban heat island effect, due to the resolution of the data we use, which also would lead to underestimations of heat stress locally, and lead to a mismatch with what people are experiencing at local scales, particularly in cities.”
Inequality
Extreme heat affects some people more severely than others. Children, people over 65 and those with pre-existing medical conditions or certain disabilities are among the most vulnerable. This is because their bodies are less able to regulate their temperature.
The authors use gridded demographic data to determine the age structure of each country. From this, they calculate how many people from each age cohort are exposed to extra heat days as a result of climate change.
The research finds that globally, 583 million children under the age of 10 already live through at least 20 attributable heat days every year. This accounts for 44% of all children in this age bracket.
In comparison, 190 million people aged 60-69 face at least 20 attributable heat days per year, accounting for 30% of this age cohort.
The authors find that children face the greatest exposure to humid heat for two main reasons.
First, there are more young people alive today than older people, with 1.3 billion children aged under 10 in the world, compared to 0.6 billion people aged 60-69.
Second, they find that countries in Africa and Asia typically have rapidly growing populations with more young children. In contrast, many countries in the northern hemisphere – which are typically cooler – have older populations.
The map below shows how many extra stress heat days each country currently faces as a result of human-caused climate change. Darker reds indicate a higher number of attributable heat days. The blue circles show the percentage of the population under the age of 10, with larger circles indicating a higher percentage.
Warming world
The authors also repeat their analysis for a 1.5C and 2C warmer world. They use population estimates from the SSP2 scenario, which projects that the world’s population will peak at more than nine billion in the second half of the 21st century, with most growth occurring in low-latitude regions – especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
The research finds that, in today’s climate, 11% of all under 10s currently experience 100 or more extra heat-stress days per year due to climate change. In worlds warmed by 1.5C and 2C, the percentage rises to 13% and 23%, respectively.
In contrast, only 6% of all people aged 60-69 currently face 100 or more extra heat-stress days each year due to climate change. This number rises to 9% and 17% for 1.5C and 2C worlds, respectively.
These results are shown in the plot below. The three rows represent the climates of 2023 (top), a 1.5C world (middle) and a 2C world (bottom). The columns show different age cohorts, from the oldest on the left to the youngest on the right.
Each circle contains 100 coloured dots, with each dot representing 1% of the age cohort.
The colour of the dot represents exposure to annual heat-stress day, with darker dots indicating more heat-stress days. Grey dots mean that people experience fewer than one extra heat-stress day per year due to human-caused climate change, while black dots mean more than 150 extra heat-stress days due to climate change.
The figure shows that higher warming levels expose more people to heat stress and that younger cohorts tend to be worst affected.
For example, the top-right circle represents heat stress for under 10s in the present-day climate. Three of these dots are coloured black, indicating that 3% faced at least 150 attributable heat-stress days in 2023.
Pietroiusti tells Carbon Brief the study uses wet-bulb temperature because it is a “well-established heat stress metric”. However, she notes that it was not “explicitly defined to focus on children”. She continues:
“A really important step forward in the research community would be to link up climate science and health science experts to do research on what metrics are really most representative of, for example, health impacts and educational impacts that children will be suffering.”
Vulnerability
Dr Qinqin Kong, a postdoctoral researcher at the departments of medicine and health policy at Stanford University, who was not involved in the study, praises its “robust” methodology.
He tells Carbon Brief that the research provides “a timely quantitative evidence for discussions of climate justice, children’s rights and intergenerational equity”.
However, Kong suggests that the paper “may overstate the contrast between children and the elderly and underestimate the relative burden of older adults”.
He says:
“The elderly may also be more vulnerable due to their social circumstances. Children often benefit from parental supervision and caregiving, whereas many older adults live alone, have limited mobility and face barriers to accessing cooling or emergency assistance during heat events.”
Kong also notes that “people and societies in the mid-latitudes [for example, across much of Europe and North America] are less adapted to heat”, which may make them vulnerable to its impacts.
For example, he says that Europe “shows substantially stronger relative risk of heat mortality likely due to less heat-acclimatised populations, lower air conditioning prevalence and urban designs that don’t favour heat dissipation”.
Similarly, Dr Daniel Vecellio – a researcher at the University of Nebraska, who was not involved in the study – tells Carbon Brief that children are an “understudied cohort”.
However, he says there is “reason for hope” because “children are typically pretty good behavioural adapters to extreme heat” and because people who are “chronically exposed to extreme heat” will “have a better chance at better acclimatisation”.
Pietroiusti tells Carbon Brief that global reporting on heatwaves is often skewed towards wealthier nations.
For example, she notes that large-scale databases of disasters, such as EM-DAT, often underrepresent heatwaves in Africa, due in part to a lack of news coverage and formal reporting. She adds:
“Studies like this, which start from the climate data, can start to fill some of these gaps.”
She adds that the paper should inform discussions about climate justice, noting that children in developing countries, who are most severely affected by the increase in heat-stress days, “have contributed the least to historical greenhouse gas emissions”.
Pietroiusti, R. et al. (2026) Age-specific exposure to human-induced increases in humid heat, Science Advances, doi:10.1126/sciadv.aeb3232
The post Climate change exposes 580 million children to 20 extra ‘heat-stress days’ every year appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate change exposes 580 million children to 20 extra ‘heat-stress days’ every year
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