This year’s record-breaking typhoon season in the Philippines – which saw six consecutive storm systems hit the country in under a month – was “supercharged” by climate change, according to a rapid attribution study.
The Philippines is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to extreme weather. Between late October and mid November 2024, the country was hit by a barrage of storms, starting with severe Tropical Storm Trami on 22 October, and ending with Tropical Storm Man-Yi which made landfall on 16 November.
“Typhoon” is the term used to describe a tropical cyclone – a tropical storm with wind speeds of at least 33 metres per second – that forms in the north-west Pacific. (If a tropical cyclone forms in the Atlantic Ocean or north-eastern Pacific Ocean, it is called a hurricane.)
Even for a disaster-prone country, such rapid “clustering” of typhoons was “unprecedented”, one Filipino expert told a press briefing.
By the end of November 200,000 individuals were displaced across six regions – many of whom had been forced from their homes multiple times in just one month.
The World Weather Attribution (WWA) service finds that climate change has exacerbated the conditions that enabled these powerful storms to form in the Philippine Sea, such as warm seas and high humidity.
Of the six major storms that hit the Philippines between the end of October and middle of November this year, three made landfall as “major typhoons” with wind speeds above 50 metres per second (112 miles per hour). This is 25% more likely to happen in today’s climate than it would have been in a pre-industrial world without human-caused warming, the study finds.
The typhoons “highlight the challenges of adapting to back-to-back extreme weather events”, the study says. The authors add that “repeated storms have created a constant state of insecurity, worsening the region’s vulnerability and exposure”.
‘Unprecedented’ typhoon season
On 22 October 2024, severe Tropical Storm Trami made landfall on the Filipino island of Luzon – the country’s largest and populous island. The storm rapidly dumped one month’s worth of rain over parts of the island, with floods sweeping the country.
However, the residents were given little time to recover. Just days after Storm Trami subsided, the Philippines was hit by Super Typhoon Kong-Rey. More than nine million people were affected by the two storms and almost 300,000 displaced.
As the weeks progressed, the Philippines was hit by Typhoon Yinxing, Typhoon Toraji and Typhoon Usagi. Finally, Tropical Storm Man-Yi made landfall on 16 November, marking the end of the record-breaking month.
Afrhill Rances works at the Asia-Pacific regional office of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and is an author on the WWA study. She told a press briefing that, even for a disaster-prone country, the rapid “clustering” of typhoons in 2024 was “unprecedented”.
Dr Claire Barnes – a research associate at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute and an author on the study – added that in the Philippines, “in November we would expect to see only three named storms in the entire basin at any point, with only one of those reaching super typhoon status”. A super typhoon is defined as any typhoon with winds above 58 metres per second (130 miles per hour).
The back-to-back storms formed so rapidly that November saw four named storms forming in the Pacific basin simultaneously. Japan’s meteorological agency said this was the first time in seven years – and the first November in recorded history – where four named storms have formed in the Pacific at the same time.
Typhoon intensity
Typhoons are complex events, which can be intensified by climate change in many different ways, including their rainfall intensity, storm surge height and wind speed.
The authors of this study focus on a metric called “potential intensity”, which looks at temperature, humidity levels and sea level pressure over the Philippine Sea where the typhoons formed.
Ben Clarke, a study author from the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, told the press briefing that potential intensity indicates the “theoretical maximum intensity for a tropical cyclone”. He explains that the metric is “based on the conditions in the atmosphere and the ocean which are crucial for cyclone development”.
The map below shows the average potential intensity of the Philippine Sea between September and November 2024, where red indicates high potential intensity and blue indicates low potential intensity.
The dotted lines show the tracks of different storms. The black square indicates the study area. Potential intensity is calculated as the potential wind speed of the typhoon in metres per second.
To put this year’s record-breaking typhoon season into its historical context, the authors analysed a time series of average potential intensity in the Philippine Sea, using an observational reanalysis dataset stretching back to the year 1940.
The study says:
“Our best estimate is that the observed potential intensity has become about 7 times more likely and the maximum intensity of a potential typhoon has increased by about 4 metres per second.”
The authors also carried out attribution analysis to assess whether the increase in potential intensity can be linked to human-caused climate change.
Attribution is a fast-growing field of climate science that aims to identify the “fingerprint” of climate change on extreme-weather events, such as heatwaves and droughts. To conduct attribution studies, scientists use models to compare the world as it is today to a “counterfactual” world without human-caused climate change.
The authors find that the potential intensity in the Philippine Sea in 2024 was 1.7 times higher than it would have been in a world without climate change. They add that the maximum potential intensity of a typhoon has increased by about 2 metres per second due to climate change.
(These findings are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. However, the methods used in the analysis have been published in previous attribution studies.)
Landfall
Climate change is exacerbating the conditions needed for tropical cyclones to form. However, tropical cyclones are still fairly infrequent and there is a “short period of reliable observations” of tropical cyclones that make landfall, according to the study.
This can make it challenging for scientists to assess the impact of climate change on the frequency of tropical cyclones using traditional methods.
To address this problem, researchers from Imperial College London developed a “synthetic tropical cyclone dataset” called IRIS earlier this year. This dataset uses observations from 42 years of observed tropical cyclones to create a “10,000-year synthetic dataset of wind speed”.
The database includes millions of synthetic tropical cyclone tracks. Each track maps the wind speed of the tropical cyclone from its formation to its landfall, to describe how its power changes throughout its lifetime.
The team has already used this method to attribute the extreme winds of Typhoon Geami and Hurricane Beryl, which hit China and Jamaica, respectively, earlier this year.
Of the six major storms that affected the Philippines in the month-long period, three made landfall as “major typhoons”, according to the WWA. The authors define a major typhoon as a category three or above, indicating sustained wind speeds above 50 metres per second.
Using the IRIS dataset, the authors assessed how likely it is for three typhoons to make landfall in the Philippines in a single year under different warming levels. They find that in today’s climate – which has already warmed by 1.3C as a result of climate change – the Philippines could expect three major typhoons to make landfall in a single month roughly once every 15 years. This is 25% more frequent than in a world without climate change.
They add that if the planet warms to 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, “we expect at least three major typhoons hitting in a single year every 12 years”.
‘Supermarket of disasters’
The Philippines is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to extreme weather events and natural disasters, and is already facing deadly impacts from climate change.
The country’s location in the Pacific ocean makes it highly vulnerable to typhoons, volcanoes and earthquakes. The WWA study adds that the country “is experiencing sea level rise more than three times faster than the global average”. And the Philippines is facing deadly heatwaves, which have been made more intense as a result of climate change.
Rances told the press briefing:
“In the Red Cross we call the Philippines a ‘supermarket of disasters’, because you name it – we have it.”
The Philippines is struck by more typhoons every year than almost any other country in the world. It has “gradually shifted its approach from reactive to proactive risk management with a significant focus on preparedness and resilience building”, according to the World Bank.
For example, warning and pre-emptive evacuation orders were sent out ahead of many of the typhoons this year. Schools, ports and airports were closed in many regions. And disaster response teams were mobilised.
However, the unrelenting barrage of typhoons this year overwhelmed many of the country’s disaster preparedness systems, exhausting supplies and overstretching emergency responders. It also left communities with little time between storms to recover and prepare.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that, at the end of November 2024, more than 200,000 individuals were displaced across six regions, hundreds of fatalities and injuries had been reported and more than 250,000 homes had been damaged. The damage to livestock, agriculture and infrastructure was estimated to be around $47m at the end of November.
The Filipino government spent more than $17m on food and other aid for the hundreds of thousands of storm victims. It has also sought help from neighbouring countries, the US and the United Nations.
The consecutive typhoons “highlight the challenges of adapting to back-to-back extreme weather events”, the study says. It adds:
“With 13 million people impacted and some areas hit at least three times, repeated storms have created a constant state of insecurity, worsening the region’s vulnerability and exposure.”
The authors warn that “major investment is needed to help the Philippines adapt to extreme weather”.
The post Record-breaking Philippines typhoon season was ‘supercharged’ by climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Record-breaking Philippines typhoon season was ‘supercharged’ by climate change
Al-Karim Govindji is the global head of public affairs for energy systems at DNV, an independent assurance and risk management provider, operating in more than 100 countries.
Optimism that this year may be less eventful than those that have preceded it have already been dealt a big blow – and we’re just weeks into 2026. Events in Venezuela, protests in Iran and a potential diplomatic crisis over Greenland all spell a continuation of the unpredictability that has now become the norm.
As is so often the case, it is impossible to separate energy and the industry that provides it from the geopolitical incidents shaping the future. Increasingly we hear the phrase ‘the past is a foreign country’, but for those working in oil and gas, offshore wind, and everything in between, this sentiment rings truer every day. More than 10 years on from the signing of the Paris Agreement, the sector and the world around it is unrecognisable.
The decade has, to date, been defined by a gritty reality – geopolitical friction, trade barriers and shifting domestic priorities – and amidst policy reversals in major economies, it is tempting to conclude that the transition is stalling.
Truth, however, is so often found in the numbers – and DNV’s Energy Transition Outlook 2025 should act as a tonic for those feeling downhearted about the state of play.
While the transition is becoming more fragmented and slower than required, it is being propelled by a new, powerful logic found at the intersection between national energy security and unbeatable renewable economics.
A diverging global trajectory
The transition is no longer a single, uniform movement; rather, we are seeing a widening “execution gap” between mature technologies and those still finding their feet. Driven by China’s massive industrial scaling, solar PV, onshore wind and battery storage have reached a price point where they are virtually unstoppable.
These variable renewables are projected to account for 32% of global power by 2030, surging to over half of the world’s electricity by 2040. This shift signals the end of coal and gas dominance, with the fossil fuel share of the power sector expected to collapse from 59% today to just 4% by 2060.
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Conversely, technologies that require heavy subsidies or consistent long-term policy, the likes of hydrogen derivatives (ammonia and methanol), floating wind and carbon capture, are struggling to gain traction.
Our forecast for hydrogen’s share in the 2050 energy mix has been downgraded from 4.8% to 3.5% over the last three years, as large-scale commercialisation for these “hard-to-abate” solutions is pushed back into the 2040s.
Regional friction and the security paradigm
Policy volatility remains a significant risk to transition timelines across the globe, most notably in North America. Recently we have seen the US pivot its policy to favour fossil fuel promotion, something that is only likely to increase under the current administration.
Invariably this creates measurable drag, with our research suggesting the region will emit 500-1,000 Mt more CO₂ annually through 2050 than previously projected.
China, conversely, continues to shatter energy transition records, installing over half of the world’s solar and 60% of its wind capacity.
In Europe and Asia, energy policy is increasingly viewed through the lens of sovereignty; renewables are no longer just ‘green’, they are ‘domestic’, ‘indigenous’, ‘homegrown’. They offer a way to reduce reliance on volatile international fuel markets and protect industrial competitiveness.
Grids and the AI variable
As we move toward a future where electricity’s share of energy demand doubles to 43% by 2060, we are hitting a physical wall, namely the power grid.
In Europe, this ‘gridlock’ is already a much-discussed issue and without faster infrastructure expansion, wind and solar deployment will be constrained by 8% and 16% respectively by 2035.
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This pressure is compounded by the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). While AI will represent only 3% of global electricity use by 2040, its concentration in North American data centres means it will consume a staggering 12% of the region’s power demand.
This localized hunger for power threatens to slow the retirement of fossil fuel plants as utilities struggle to meet surging base-load requirements.
The offshore resurgence
Despite recent headlines regarding supply chain inflation and project cancellations, the long-term outlook for offshore energy remains robust.
We anticipate a strong resurgence post-2030 as costs stabilise and supply chains mature, positioning offshore wind as a central pillar of energy-secure systems.
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A new trend is also emerging in behind-the-meter offshore power, where hybrid floating platforms that combine wind and solar will power subsea operations and maritime hubs, effectively bypassing grid bottlenecks while decarbonising oil and gas infrastructure.
2.2C – a reality check
Global CO₂ emissions are finally expected to have peaked in 2025, but the descent will be gradual.
On our current path, the 1.5C carbon budget will be exhausted by 2029, leading the world toward 2.2C of warming by the end of the century.
Still, the transition is not failing – but it is changing shape, moving away from a policy-led “green dream” toward a market-led “industrial reality”.
For the ocean and energy sectors, the strategy for the next decade is clear. Scale the technologies that are winning today, aggressively unblock the infrastructure bottlenecks of tomorrow, and plan for a future that will, once again, look wholly different.
The post For proof of the energy transition’s resilience, look at what it’s up against appeared first on Climate Home News.
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A new MIT Global Change Outlook finds current climate policies and economic indicators put the world on track for dangerous warming.
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The head of the United Nations body governing the global shipping industry has said that greenhouse gases from the global shipping industry will fall, whether or not the sector’s “Net Zero Framework” to cut emissions is adopted in October.
Arsenio Dominguez, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization, told a new year’s press conference in London on Friday that, even if governments don’t sign up to the framework later this year as planned, the clean-up of the industry responsible for 3% of global emissions will continue.
“I reiterate my call to industry that the decarbonisation has started. There’s lots of research and development that is ongoing. There’s new plans on alternative fuels like methanol and ammonia that continue to evolve,” he told journalists.
He said he has not heard any government dispute a set of decarbonisation goals agreed in 2023. These include targets to reduce emissions 20-30% on 2008 levels by 2030 and then to reach net zero emissions “by or around, i.e. close to 2050”.
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Dominguez said the 2030 emissions reduction target could be reached, although a goal for shipping to use at least 5% clean fuels by 2030 would be difficult to meet because their cost will remain high until at least the 2030s. The goals agreed in 2023 also included cutting emissions by 70-80% by 2040.
In October 2025, a decision on a proposed framework of practical measures to achieve the goals, which aims to incentivise shipowners to go green by taxing polluting ships and subsidising cleaner ones, was postponed by a year after a narrow vote by governments.
Ahead of that vote, the US threatened governments and their officials with sanctions, tariffs and visa restrictions – and President Donald Trump called the framework a “Green New Scam Tax on Shipping”.
Dominguez said at Friday’s press conference that he had not received any official complaints about the US’s behaviour at last October’s meeting but – without naming names – he called on nations to be “more respectful” at the IMO. He added that he did not think the US would leave the IMO, saying Washington had engaged constructively on the organisation’s budget and plans.
EU urged to clarify ETS position
The European Union – along with Brazil and Pacific island nations – pushed hard for the framework to be adopted in October. Some developing countries were concerned that the EU would retain its charges for polluting ships under its emissions trading scheme (ETS), even if the Net Zero Framework was passed, leading to ships travelling to and from the EU being charged twice.
This was an uncertainty that the US and Saudi Arabia exploited at the meeting to try and win over wavering developing countries. Most African, Asian and Caribbean nations voted for a delay.
On Friday, Dominguez called on the EU “to clarify their position on the review of the ETS, in order that as we move forward, we actually don’t have two systems that are going to be basically looking for the same the same goal, the same objective.”
He said he would continue to speak to EU member states, “to maintain the conversations in here, rather than move forward into fragmentation, because that will have a very detrimental effect in shipping”. “That would really create difficulties for operators, that would increase the cost, and everybody’s going to suffer from it,” he added.
The IMO’s marine environment protection committee, in which governments discuss climate strategy, will meet in April although the Net Zero Framework is not scheduled to be officially discussed until October.
The post IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay appeared first on Climate Home News.
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