The next round of “nationally determined contributions” (NDC) to the Paris Agreement, outlining countries’ climate goals to 2035, are due by February 2025.
They are also set to be an important agenda item at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan later this month.
China, as the world’s current largest emitter, has not yet confirmed when it will publish its next NDC. Its current NDC formalised the country’s “dual-carbon” targets of peaking emissions by 2030 and reaching carbon neutrality by 2060 – a pledge that has formed the cornerstone of China’s climate strategy since it was announced in 2020.
Despite the country already achieving some of its existing NDC targets early, such as wind and solar capacity reaching 1,200 gigawatts (GW), it is not on track to meet others.
In addition, China’s recent stimulus package to “promote economic recovery” may lead to energy-intensive growth, exacerbating its “lagging behind” on current energy intensity and carbon-intensity targets.
Several groups, including Climate Action Tracker, the International Energy Agency and the Centre for Research on Energy and Air, have set out what it would take to align China’s targets with the 1.5C limit or its existing national goals.
Below, Carbon Brief asks nine leading experts what they expect to see in China’s 2035 NDC.
These are their responses, first as sample quotes, then, below, in full. They have been edited for clarity and length:
- Todd Stern: “If the Chinese come in with a 5-10% target, it will be very bad.”
- Yao Zhe: “Stronger climate action and more ambitious targets are unmistakably an economic boon for China.”
- Anders Hove: “China’s past NDCs have tended to reflect trends underway…rather than adopting ambitious new goals.”
- Byford Tsang: “Policy signals…suggest that China’s upcoming climate target is going to be conservative.”
- Li Shuo: “Some experts believe that China will adopt its emissions peak as the base year for its 2035 target.”
- Niklas Höhne and Bill Hare: “China needs to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030 and by 66% by 2035 from 2023 levels.”
- Hu Min and Chen Meian: “China’s new NDC is expected to reflect heightened domestic momentum for decarbonisation, as well as subnational and sector-specific initiatives.”
- Lauri Myllyvirta: “China needs to reduce emissions by at least 30% from 2023 to 2035…It seems more likely that the decision-makers will target a reduction that is a fraction of this.”
- Lu Lunyan: “We hope China will consider setting clear and ambitious targets for total greenhouse gas emissions, including non-CO2 gases such as methane.”
Todd Stern
Senior fellow (former US special envoy for climate change and Barack Obama’s chief climate negotiator), in response to Carbon Brief at a Chatham House event
The Brookings Institution
There was an agreement back at the time of Paris that countries would put their [NDC] proposals in early enough in the year, and this was actually our [the US’s] idea, so there would be enough time for the press, other countries, analysts to criticise [targets] – and countries, knowing that they would be criticised, would do their best. That was the theory.
The new NDC targets are supposed to be put in February…It is going to be tremendously important that those [represent] a big step forward because…what happens in these upcoming targets is enormously important for the mid-century goals [net-zero emissions by 2050]…If the NDCs announced in 2025 to last until 2035 come up really short, if they’re effectively pretty weak, then you’ve just killed your chance to get anything done that you needed to get done by 2050 because you’re only 15 years away by 2035…
[China is] the most important country in the world right now, with respect to their target. I think that other major players – the US, EU, Japan, Canada, Korea, Australia – are…going to put in pretty ambitious, pretty strong targets of the kind that you want to see. China now [accounts for] 30% of global emissions, and China is basically peaking [carbon emissions] about now…if not this year then next year. At 30% of emissions, people [at the Asia Society and elsewhere] have done analysis…basically saying that in order to be where we need to be we need to see something like a 30% reduction from China [by 2035]. I am sure [this] is certainly not what the Chinese are thinking of at the moment, but we’ll see how much of a chance there is to move. If the Chinese come in with a 5-10% target, it will be very bad.
Yao Zhe
Global policy advisor
Greenpeace East Asia
I think it’s time for a mindset shift in designing the new NDC. So far, Chinese policy makers have taken a cautious approach, obviously constrained by the challenges in the domestic economy. But, in fact, stronger climate action and more ambitious targets are unmistakably an economic boon for China.
The cleantech industry is emerging as a new economic driver in China, and companies are continuing to invest and expand their production capacity in anticipation of strong future demand. The conventional “under-promise, over-deliver” style of target-setting is not enough for the industry.
An update of the renewable energy target is expected in China’s new NDC. A stronger target for the next 5-10 years will help expand the domestic market and give industry and investors the confidence they need. It will also lay the groundwork for an ambitious NDC, which will include an absolute emissions target for the first time, and its successful implementation.
However, China’s clean energy potential can only be fully realised with clearer plans to move away from fossil fuels. The continued expansion of the coal fleet is at odds with the historic development of renewables. The new NDC should address this contradiction by committing to no new coal power.
Anders Hove
Senior research fellow
Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
China’s past NDCs have tended to reflect trends underway, and highlighted concrete targets that are already on track to be met, rather than adopting ambitious new goals. The “dual-carbon” targets represented an exception – albeit a critically important one – where China saw a benefit to taking a global leadership position and going beyond existing domestic policy.
A modest NDC would likely highlight targets related to renewable energy as a share of electricity production, continued steady growth in wind and solar capacity, and possibly electric vehicle adoption. Renewable capacity and electric vehicles are fields where China can showcase its success, scale and leadership without breaking new ground. China will almost certainly emphasise its steady roll-out of carbon trading to new sectors.
At times of economic softness, China’s leaders may see little benefit to setting ambitious public targets for reducing carbon emissions, especially if they also perceive other countries backing away from aggressive initiatives. A major transition to decreasing carbon emissions is more likely to require testing and experimentation domestically, as a first step.
Byford Tsang
Senior policy fellow
European Council on Foreign Relations
A reading of policy signals from the recent past suggest that China’s upcoming climate target is going to be conservative: coal plant approvals spiked in the years following a pledge to “strictly limit” coal power; official data showing that China is on track to miss its own 2025 carbon intensity targets; and the country’s top energy agency has proposed an annual installation target that would slow down clean-energy deployment. However, these developments contrast with the significant progress made in China’s energy transition, as the addition of renewable power capacity is on track to meet its annual increase in power demand.
The extent to which Beijing addresses this misalignment is both a climate policy decision and an economic one. The quest to find new growth drivers after the recent real estate slump is top priority for the government. How Beijing decides to rebalance its economy to drive growth, [and which] sectors it prioritises in the tried-and-tested approach to channel investment in infrastructure and manufacturing, will dictate China’s emission trajectory for years to come. Decisions that limit Beijing’s options – such as an emissions target that would constrain the sectors economic planners can leverage as drivers of growth, is likely to be a challenging argument to win in Zhongnanhai.
Li Shuo
Director of the China Climate Hub
Asia Society Policy Institute
China is developing its 2035 NDC under exceptional circumstances. China’s economic slowdown, its 2035 targets being its first post-2030-peaking international commitment and the transition from intensity-based targets to absolute emission targets bring both tremendous challenges and opportunities for ambition. One Chinese expert I spoke to recently reflected: “I wish China’s NDC setting was as simple as pinning down a midpoint in a straight line.”
At least three variables will determine the quality of China’s headline commitment. The first is the quantum [the minimum amount] of emissions reduction. The second is the base year from which emissions will be reduced. The third is the sectoral and greenhouse gas coverage of China’s target. Depending on political will, Chinese decision-makers could plant ambiguities in any, none, or all these variables. Commitment could, therefore, be as vague as “by 2035, China’s emissions will have peaked and seen a steady decline”, or as clear as “by 2035, China’s greenhouse gas emissions covering all economic sectors will be reduced by X% based on Y year”.
Some experts believe that China will adopt its emissions peak as the base year for its 2035 target. For example, [they could say]: “By 2035, China emissions will be reduced by X% based on emissions peak.” This formulation could see China not specifying when and at what level its emissions will peak, extending the ambiguity in its updated 2030 NDC – to peak CO2 emission before 2030 – to 2035. If such a formulation is chosen, it will make the question of when, and based on what conditions, Beijing will confirm its emission peak ever more important. Currently, Beijing’s policymakers do not believe China’s emissions have peaked.
Citing poor baseline data, experts also believe that it is hard to expect gas-specific targets for non-CO2 gases in China’s upcoming NDC. This risks perpetuating a “chicken-and-egg” question, namely: should China wait until it has enough data to start cutting emissions, or should it impose reduction targets so as to accelerate better data gathering?
Part of the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) and NewClimate Institute &
Co-founder and CEO, Climate Analytics, and part of CAT
In order to align with 1.5C, China would need to increase the ambition of its 2030 NDC as well as putting forward a 1.5C aligned 2035 set of targets. Alignment of a countries’ NDC with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C goal was an agreed outcome of the global stocktake last year.
In terms of total greenhouse gases emissions, excluding LULUCF (land use, land-use change and forestry), China’s emissions…reached a record high in 2023. According to CAT projections, emissions could peak before 2025, with the possibility that 2023 marked the peak. However, without additional commitments, emissions may rise again before 2030. Amid discussions on China setting a percentage reduction target from peak emission levels, CAT recommends basing the 2035 NDC on a historical baseline. The uncertainties surrounding peak emissions make it challenging to evaluate the level of ambition in future targets.
China, like all countries, must also raise the ambition of its 2030 target. CAT’s modelled domestic pathways indicate that China needs to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030 and by 66% by 2035 from 2023 levels (excl. LULUCF) to align with the Paris Agreement. A minimum 28% reduction in total GHG emissions (excl. LULUCF) from 2023 levels by 2035 is crucial for China to stay on track for its 2060 domestic net-zero target, assuming a linear decline in emissions from the peak to 2060.
China is on track to meet its previous NDC target of a 25% share of non-fossil fuels in total primary energy consumption by 2030: CAT’s modelled domestic pathways suggest that China should increase its non-fossil energy share to 73-84% by 2030 and 76-91% by 2035 to align with the Paris Agreement.
Hu Min and Chen Meian
Director and co-founder, Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress (iGDP) & Senior program director and senior analyst, iGDP
Regardless of its performance in various sectoral targets set in its current NDC, China is on track to fulfil its economy-wide overarching commitment of peaking CO2 emissions before 2030.
China’s new NDC is expected to reflect heightened domestic momentum for decarbonisation, as well as subnational and sector-specific initiatives, which have advanced the country’s specific climate targets beyond its initial international commitments, especially in renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs).
The new NDC might also reflect ongoing domestic adjustments to the mitigation indicator system evaluating mitigation progress, such as by including a carbon budget system. This would be an encouraging move to address absolute carbon mitigation instead of the intensity target.
Incorporating mitigation measures for non-CO2 gas emissions could bridge the nation’s short-term CO2 peaking target for 2030 with its 2060 long-term carbon neutrality ambitions. China’s newly issued policies addressing methane and other non-CO2 emissions across agriculture, waste, and industry demonstrate China’s broadened climate strategy beyond CO2. This comprehensive approach enhances its ability to meet multi-gas mitigation goals, reinforcing the strength of its NDC as a commitment to tackling climate change across all greenhouse gases.
The new NDC would need to take into account the huge diversity of regional and subnational mitigation pathways and the desire to achieve a just-transition goal within China. Furthermore, international collaboration will have to balance the challenges posed by geopolitical shifts.
Lauri Myllyvirta
Lead analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA)
and senior fellow at Asia Society Policy Institute
China is in the unique position of being able to single-handedly scupper the goals of the Paris Agreement, if it allows emissions to grow until just before 2030 and pursues slow and gradual emission reductions thereafter. In this scenario, China alone would use up almost the entire global carbon budget for 1.5C.
China’s emissions are stabilising at the moment, and if the rapid rate of clean energy additions is maintained, it will begin pushing the country’s emissions down.
However, recent policies and statements from China’s top policymakers show that they are still expecting emissions to keep rising until just before 2030 and to then fall very gradually. As long as the policymakers think in terms of a late 2020s peak, there is also little time to reduce emissions from that peak by 2035.
While China needs to reduce emissions by at least 30% from 2023 to 2035, and such reductions are achievable building on current positive trends, it seems more likely that the decision-makers will target a reduction that is a fraction of this, also falling short of the rate of reductions needed to get to carbon neutrality before 2060.
In addition to the 2035 headline target, updating 2030 targets is important. China is severely off track to some of the country’s key 2030 commitments…Reinforcing these targets in the new NDC is essential.
Since the target for wind and solar capacity was already, and entirely predictably, met, this leaves an obvious placeholder for a new target. Maintaining current rates of wind and solar additions would take total capacity to 3,000GW by 2030, and would align with the global goal of tripling renewable energy capacity. Current discussions reference numbers below 2,500GW, however, so it will be important to set an “at least” target or a range. [Such] expansionary targets…could also have more traction amid concerns about the economy.
There is a long list of other sectoral targets that could be included [to] shore up ambition, such as targets for [uptake of] EVs, rail freight and electric steelmaking and for the share of buildings retrofitted to meet energy efficiency standards.
Lu Lunyan
CEO
WWF China
A robust NDC is critical not only for achieving China’s climate goals but also for solidifying its role as a global leader in sustainability. While China has achieved notable progress, including advancing clean technologies and exceeding renewable energy targets ahead of schedule, challenges remain in reducing carbon intensity, transition away from coal, and fully meeting all NDC commitments.
Looking forward to the 2035 NDC, we hope China will consider setting clear and ambitious targets for total greenhouse gas emissions, including non-CO2 gases such as methane, alongside increasing the share of non-fossil fuels, and aligning with the Paris Agreement on the path to net-zero. In addition, sector-specific decarbonisation strategies, particularly for heavy industries, transportation and power generation, will be crucial to achieving meaningful emission reduction.
We also want to encourage stronger alignment between climate and biodiversity agendas by proposing the establishment of a climate and nature workstream within the UNFCCC/Paris Agreement negotiations, aligned with the Global Biodiversity Framework. This initiative could be advanced through the coordinated national plans required by both the climate and biodiversity conventions, fostering synergies between the two agendas. By integrating these efforts, the effectiveness of climate action can be enhanced while safeguarding ecosystems. We encourage China to initiate the discussion as the COP15 presidency.
The post Experts: What to expect in China’s climate pledge for 2035 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Absolute State of the Union
‘DRILL, BABY’: US president Donald Trump “doubled down on his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda” in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, said the Los Angeles Times. He “tout[ed] his support of the fossil-fuel industry and renew[ed] his focus on electricity affordability”, reported the Financial Times. Trump also attacked the “green new scam”, noted Carbon Brief’s SOTU tracker.
COAL REPRIEVE: Earlier in the week, the Trump administration had watered down limits on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, reported the Financial Times. It remains “unclear” if this will be enough to prevent the decline of coal power, said Bloomberg, in the face of lower-cost gas and renewables. Reuters noted that US coal plants are “ageing”.
OIL STAY: The US Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments brought by the oil industry in a “major lawsuit”, reported the New York Times. The newspaper said the firms are attempting to head off dozens of other lawsuits at state level, relating to their role in global warming.
SHIP-SHILLING: The Trump administration is working to “kill” a global carbon levy on shipping “permanently”, reported Politico, after succeeding in delaying the measure late last year. The Guardian said US “bullying” could be “paying off”, after Panama signalled it was reversing its support for the levy in a proposal submitted to the UN shipping body.
Around the world
- RARE EARTHS: The governments of Brazil and India signed a deal on rare earths, said the Times of India, as well as agreeing to collaborate on renewable energy.
- HEAT ROLLBACK: German homes will be allowed to continue installing gas and oil heating, under watered-down government plans covered by Clean Energy Wire.
- BRAZIL FLOODS: At least 53 people died in floods in the state of Minas Gerais, after some areas saw 170mm of rain in a few hours, reported CNN Brasil.
- ITALY’S ATTACK: Italy is calling for the EU to “suspend” its emissions trading system (ETS) ahead of a review later this year, said Politico.
- COOKSTOVE CREDITS: The first-ever carbon credits under the Paris Agreement have been issued to a cookstove project in Myanmar, said Climate Home News.
- SAUDI SOLAR: Turkey has signed a “major” solar deal that will see Saudi firm ACWA building 2 gigawatts in the country, according to Agence France-Presse.
$467 billion
The profits made by five major oil firms since prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago, according to a report by Global Witness covered by BusinessGreen.
Latest climate research
- Claims about the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change, made in a recent US Department of Energy report, are “factually incorrect” | AGU Advances
- Large lakes in the Congo Basin are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from “immense ancient stores” | Nature Geoscience
- Shared Socioeconomic Pathways – scenarios used regularly in climate modelling – underrepresent “narratives explicitly centring on democratic principles such as participation, accountability and justice” | npj Climate Action
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The constituency of Richard Tice MP, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of Reform UK, is the second-largest recipient of flood defence spending in England, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Overall, the funding is disproportionately targeted at coastal and urban areas, many of which have Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs.
Spotlight
Is there really a UK ‘greenlash’?
This week, after a historic Green Party byelection win, Carbon Brief looks at whether there really is a “greenlash” against climate policy in the UK.
Over the past year, the UK’s political consensus on climate change has been shattered.
Yet despite a sharp turn against climate action among right-wing politicians and right-leaning media outlets, UK public support for climate action remains strong.
Prof Federica Genovese, who studies climate politics at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief:
“The current ‘war’ on green policy is mostly driven by media and political elites, not by the public.”
Indeed, there is still a greater than two-to-one majority among the UK public in favour of the country’s legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, as shown below.
Steve Akehurst, director of public-opinion research initiative Persuasion UK, also noted the growing divide between the public and “elites”. He told Carbon Brief:
“The biggest movement is, without doubt, in media and elite opinion. There is a bit more polarisation and opposition [to climate action] among voters, but it’s typically no more than 20-25% and mostly confined within core Reform voters.”
Conservative gear shift
For decades, the UK had enjoyed strong, cross-party political support for climate action.
Lord Deben, the Conservative peer and former chair of the Climate Change Committee, told Carbon Brief that the UK’s landmark 2008 Climate Change Act had been born of this cross-party consensus, saying “all parties supported it”.
Since their landslide loss at the 2024 election, however, the Conservatives have turned against the UK’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050, which they legislated for in 2019.
Curiously, while opposition to net-zero has surged among Conservative MPs, there is majority support for the target among those that plan to vote for the party, as shown below.
Dr Adam Corner, advisor to the Climate Barometer initiative that tracks public opinion on climate change, told Carbon Brief that those who currently plan to vote Reform are the only segment who “tend to be more opposed to net-zero goals”. He said:
“Despite the rise in hostile media coverage and the collapse of the political consensus, we find that public support for the net-zero by 2050 target is plateauing – not plummeting.”
Reform, which rejects the scientific evidence on global warming and campaigns against net-zero, has been leading the polls for a year. (However, it was comfortably beaten by the Greens in yesterday’s Gorton and Denton byelection.)
Corner acknowledged that “some of the anti-net zero noise…[is] showing up in our data”, adding:
“We see rising concerns about the near-term costs of policies and an uptick in people [falsely] attributing high energy bills to climate initiatives.”
But Akehurst said that, rather than a big fall in public support, there had been a drop in the “salience” of climate action:
“So many other issues [are] competing for their attention.”
UK newspapers published more editorials opposing climate action than supporting it for the first time on record in 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Global ‘greenlash’?
All of this sits against a challenging global backdrop, in which US president Donald Trump has been repeating climate-sceptic talking points and rolling back related policy.
At the same time, prominent figures have been calling for a change in climate strategy, sold variously as a “reset”, a “pivot”, as “realism”, or as “pragmatism”.
Genovese said that “far-right leaders have succeeded in the past 10 years in capturing net-zero as a poster child of things they are ‘fighting against’”.
She added that “much of this is fodder for conservative media and this whole ecosystem is essentially driving what we call the ‘greenlash’”.
Corner said the “disconnect” between elite views and the wider public “can create problems” – for example, “MPs consistently underestimate support for renewables”. He added:
“There is clearly a risk that the public starts to disengage too, if not enough positive voices are countering the negative ones.”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP’S ‘PETROSTATE’: The US is becoming a “petrostate” that will be “sicker and poorer”, wrote Financial Times associate editor Rana Forohaar.
RHETORIC VS REALITY: Despite a “political mood [that] has darkened”, there is “more green stuff being installed than ever”, said New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells.
CHINA’S ‘REVOLUTION’: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast reported from China on the “green energy revolution” taking place in the country.
Coming up
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean, Brasília
- 3 March: UK spring statement
- 4-11 March: China’s “two sessions”
- 5 March: Nepal elections
Pick of the jobs
- The Guardian, senior reporter, climate justice | Salary: $123,000-$135,000. Location: New York or Washington DC
- China-Global South Project, non-resident fellow, climate change | Salary: Up to $1,000 a month. Location: Remote
- University of East Anglia, PhD in mobilising community-based climate action through co-designed sports and wellbeing interventions | Salary: Stipend (unknown amount). Location: Norwich, UK
- TABLE and the University of São Paulo, Brazil, postdoctoral researcher in food system narratives | Salary: Unknown. Location: Pirassununga, Brazil
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Greenhouse Gases
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
The Lincolnshire constituency held by Richard Tice, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of the hard-right Reform party, has been pledged at least £55m in government funding for flood defences since 2024.
This investment in Boston and Skegness is the second-largest sum for a single constituency from a £1.4bn flood-defence fund for England, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
Flooding is becoming more likely and more extreme in the UK due to climate change.
Yet, for years, governments have failed to spend enough on flood defences to protect people, properties and infrastructure.
The £1.4bn fund is part of the current Labour government’s wider pledge to invest a “record” £7.9bn over a decade on protecting hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from flooding.
As MP for one of England’s most flood-prone regions, Tice has called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
He is also one of Reform’s most vocal opponents of climate action and what he calls “net stupid zero”. He denies the scientific consensus on climate change and has claimed, falsely and without evidence, that scientists are “lying”.
Flood defences
Last year, the government said it would invest £2.65bn on flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) schemes in England between April 2024 and March 2026.
This money was intended to protect 66,500 properties from flooding. It is part of a decade-long Labour government plan to spend more than £7.9bn on flood defences.
There has been a consistent shortfall in maintaining England’s flood defences, with the Environment Agency expecting to protect fewer properties by 2027 than it had initially planned.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has attributed this to rising costs, backlogs from previous governments and a lack of capacity. It also points to the strain from “more frequent and severe” weather events, such as storms in recent years that have been amplified by climate change.
However, the CCC also said last year that, if the 2024-26 spending programme is delivered, it would be “slightly closer to the track” of the Environment Agency targets out to 2027.
The government has released constituency-level data on which schemes in England it plans to fund, covering £1.4bn of the 2024-26 investment. The other half of the FCERM spending covers additional measures, from repairing existing defences to advising local authorities.
The map below shows the distribution of spending on FCERM schemes in England over the past two years, highlighting the constituency of Richard Tice.
By far the largest sum of money – £85.6m in total – has been committed to a tidal barrier and various other defences in the Somerset constituency of Bridgwater, the seat of Conservative MP Ashley Fox.
Over the first months of 2026, the south-west region has faced significant flooding and Fox has called for more support from the government, citing “climate patterns shifting and rainfall intensifying”.
He has also backed his party’s position that “the 2050 net-zero target is impossible” and called for more fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea.
Tice’s east-coast constituency of Boston and Skegness, which is highly vulnerable to flooding from both rivers and the sea, is set to receive £55m. Among the supported projects are beach defences from Saltfleet to Gibraltar Point and upgrades to pumping stations.
Overall, Boston and Skegness has the second-largest portion of flood-defence funding, as the chart below shows. Constituencies with Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs occupied the other top positions.
Overall, despite Labour MPs occupying 347 out of England’s 543 constituencies – nearly two-thirds of the total – more than half of the flood-defence funding was distributed to constituencies with non-Labour MPs. This reflects the flood risk in coastal and rural areas that are not traditional Labour strongholds.
Reform funding
While Reform has just eight MPs, representing 1% of the population, its constituencies have been assigned 4% of the flood-defence funding for England.
Nearly all of this money was for Tice’s constituency, although party leader Nigel Farage’s coastal Clacton seat in Kent received £2m.
Reform UK is committed to “scrapping net-zero” and its leadership has expressed firmly climate-sceptic views.
Much has been made of the disconnect between the party’s climate policies and the threat climate change poses to its voters. Various analyses have shown the flood risk in Reform-dominated areas, particularly Lincolnshire.
Tice has rejected climate science, advocated for fossil-fuel production and criticised Environment Agency flood-defence activities. Yet, he has also called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
This may reflect Tice’s broader approach to climate change. In a 2024 interview with LBC, he said:
“Where you’ve got concerns about sea level defences and sea level rise, guess what? A bit of steel, a bit of cement, some aggregate…and you build some concrete sea level defences. That’s how you deal with rising sea levels.”
While climate adaptation is viewed as vital in a warming world, there are limits on how much societies can adapt and adaptation costs will continue to increase as emissions rise.
The post Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
Greenhouse Gases
Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.
Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Food inflation on the rise
DELUGE STRIKES FOOD: Extreme rainfall and flooding across the Mediterranean and north Africa has “battered the winter growing regions that feed Europe…threatening food price rises”, reported the Financial Times. Western France has “endured more than 36 days of continuous rain”, while farmers’ associations in Spain’s Andalusia estimate that “20% of all production has been lost”, it added. Policy expert David Barmes told the paper that the “latest storms were part of a wider pattern of climate shocks feeding into food price inflation”.
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NO BEEF: The UK’s beef farmers, meanwhile, “face a double blow” from climate change as “relentless rain forces them to keep cows indoors”, while last summer’s drought hit hay supplies, said another Financial Times article. At the same time, indoor growers in south England described a 60% increase in electricity standing charges as a “ticking timebomb” that could “force them to raise their prices or stop production, which will further fuel food price inflation”, wrote the Guardian.
‘TINDERBOX’ AND TARIFFS: A study, covered by the Guardian, warned that major extreme weather and other “shocks” could “spark social unrest and even food riots in the UK”. Experts cited “chronic” vulnerabilities, including climate change, low incomes, poor farming policy and “fragile” supply chains that have made the UK’s food system a “tinderbox”. A New York Times explainer noted that while trade could once guard against food supply shocks, barriers such as tariffs and export controls – which are being “increasingly” used by politicians – “can shut off that safety valve”.
El Niño looms
NEW ENSO INDEX: Researchers have developed a new index for calculating El Niño, the large-scale climate pattern that influences global weather and causes “billions in damages by bringing floods to some regions and drought to others”, reported CNN. It added that climate change is making it more difficult for scientists to observe El Niño patterns by warming up the entire ocean. The outlet said that with the new metric, “scientists can now see it earlier and our long-range weather forecasts will be improved for it.”
WARMING WARNING: Meanwhile, the US Climate Prediction Center announced that there is a 60% chance of the current La Niña conditions shifting towards a neutral state over the next few months, with an El Niño likely to follow in late spring, according to Reuters. The Vibes, a Malaysian news outlet, quoted a climate scientist saying: “If the El Niño does materialise, it could possibly push 2026 or 2027 as the warmest year on record, replacing 2024.”
CROP IMPACTS: Reuters noted that neutral conditions lead to “more stable weather and potentially better crop yields”. However, the newswire added, an El Niño state would mean “worsening drought conditions and issues for the next growing season” to Australia. El Niño also “typically brings a poor south-west monsoon to India, including droughts”, reported the Hindu’s Business Line. A 2024 guest post for Carbon Brief explained that El Niño is linked to crop failure in south-eastern Africa and south-east Asia.
News and views
- DAM-AG-ES: Several South Korean farmers filed a lawsuit against the country’s state-owned utility company, “seek[ing] financial compensation for climate-related agricultural damages”, reported United Press International. Meanwhile, a national climate change assessment for the Philippines found that the country “lost up to $219bn in agricultural damages from typhoons, floods and droughts” over 2000-10, according to Eco-Business.
- SCORCHED GRASS: South Africa’s Western Cape province is experiencing “one of the worst droughts in living memory”, which is “scorching grass and killing livestock”, said Reuters. The newswire wrote: “In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.”
- NOUVELLE VEG: New guidelines published under France’s national food, nutrition and climate strategy “urged” citizens to “limit” their meat consumption, reported Euronews. The delayed strategy comes a month after the US government “upended decades of recommendations by touting consumption of red meat and full-fat dairy”, it noted.
- COURTING DISASTER: India’s top green court accepted the findings of a committee that “found no flaws” in greenlighting the Great Nicobar project that “will lead to the felling of a million trees” and translocating corals, reported Mongabay. The court found “no good ground to interfere”, despite “threats to a globally unique biodiversity hotspot” and Indigenous tribes at risk of displacement by the project, wrote Frontline.
- FISH FALLING: A new study found that fish biomass is “falling by 7.2% from as little as 0.1C of warming per decade”, noted the Guardian. While experts also pointed to the role of overfishing in marine life loss, marine ecologist and study lead author Dr Shahar Chaikin told the outlet: “Our research proves exactly what that biological cost [of warming] looks like underwater.”
- TOO HOT FOR COFFEE: According to new analysis by Climate Central, countries where coffee beans are grown “are becoming too hot to cultivate them”, reported the Guardian. The world’s top five coffee-growing countries faced “57 additional days of coffee-harming heat” annually because of climate change, it added.
Spotlight
Nature talks inch forward
This week, Carbon Brief covers the latest round of negotiations under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which occurred in Rome over 16-19 February.
The penultimate set of biodiversity negotiations before October’s Conference of the Parties ended in Rome last week, leaving plenty of unfinished business.
The CBD’s subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) met in the Italian capital for four days to discuss a range of issues, including biodiversity finance and reviewing progress towards the nature targets agreed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
However, many of the major sticking points – particularly around finance – will have to wait until later this summer, leaving some observers worried about the capacity for delegates to get through a packed agenda at COP17.
The SBI, along with the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA) will both meet in Nairobi, Kenya, later this summer for a final round of talks before COP17 kicks off in Yerevan, Armenia, on 19 October.
Money talks
Finance for nature has long been a sticking point at negotiations under the CBD.
Discussions on a new fund for biodiversity derailed biodiversity talks in Cali, Colombia, in autumn 2024, requiring resumed talks a few months later.
Despite this, finance was barely on the agenda at the SBI meetings in Rome. Delegates discussed three studies on the relationship between debt sustainability and implementation of nature plans, but the more substantive talks are set to take place at the next SBI meeting in Nairobi.
Several parties “highlighted concerns with the imbalance of work” on finance between these SBI talks and the next ones, reported Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB).
Lim Li Ching, senior researcher at Third World Network, noted that tensions around finance permeated every aspect of the talks. She told Carbon Brief:
“If you’re talking about the gender plan of action – if there’s little or no financial resources provided to actually put it into practice and implement it, then it’s [just] paper, right? Same with the reporting requirements and obligations.”
Monitoring and reporting
Closely linked to the issue of finance is the obligations of parties to report on their progress towards the goals and targets of the GBF.
Parties do so through the submission of national reports.
Several parties at the talks pointed to a lack of timely funding for driving delays in their reporting, according to ENB.
A note released by the CBD Secretariat in December said that no parties had submitted their national reports yet; by the time of the SBI meetings, only the EU had. It further noted that just 58 parties had submitted their national biodiversity plans, which were initially meant to be published by COP16, in October 2024.
Linda Krueger, director of biodiversity and infrastructure policy at the environmental not-for-profit Nature Conservancy, told Carbon Brief that despite the sparse submissions, parties are “very focused on the national report preparation”. She added:
“Everybody wants to be able to show that we’re on the path and that there still is a pathway to getting to 2030 that’s positive and largely in the right direction.”
Watch, read, listen
NET LOSS: Nigeria’s marine life is being “threatened” by “ghost gear” – nets and other fishing equipment discarded in the ocean – said Dialogue Earth.
COMEBACK CAUSALITY: A Vox long-read looked at whether Costa Rica’s “payments for ecosystem services” programme helped the country turn a corner on deforestation.
HOMEGROWN GOALS: A Straits Times podcast discussed whether import-dependent Singapore can afford to shelve its goal to produce 30% of its food locally by 2030.
‘RUSTING’ RIVERS: The Financial Times took a closer look at a “strange new force blighting the [Arctic] landscape”: rivers turning rust-orange due to global warming.
New science
- Lakes in the Congo Basin’s peatlands are releasing carbon that is thousands of years old | Nature Geoscience
- Natural non-forest ecosystems – such as grasslands and marshlands – were converted for agriculture at four times the rate of land with tree cover between 2005 and 2020 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Around one-quarter of global tree-cover loss over 2001-22 was driven by cropland expansion, pastures and forest plantations for commodity production | Nature Food
In the diary
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean | Brasília
- 5 March: Nepal general elections
- 9-20 March: First part of the thirty-first session of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) | Kingston, Jamaica
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz.
Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
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