Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
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This week
Offshore wind off track
EMPIRE WIND 2: Energy majors BP and Equinor have terminated their power agreement with the state of New York to build a 1.26 gigawatt offshore wind farm, according to Bloomberg. The deal for the 147 turbine wind farm, 15 miles south of New York’s Long Island was signed in 2022, for a strike price of $107.50 per megawatt-hour, the Financial Times noted.
WIND WOES: BP and Equinor pointed to the “unforeseeable economic forces” – including inflation stemming from the war in Ukraine and Covid-19, supply chain bottlenecks and interest rate increases, along with permitting delays – which affected the “financial attractiveness” of the project, the FT added. Offshore wind developers have cancelled contracts to sell power in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, as well as threatening to cancel agreements in other states, as project costs rise, Reuters reported.
VINEYARD WIND: Meanwhile, the first turbine in the Vineyard offshore wind development began generating power this week, delivering around 5 megawatts of power to the New England grid, the Guardian reported. Vineyard Wind is the first US large-scale offshore wind project, and is expected to have 62 turbines in total when complete.
UK’s second-warmest year
SECOND WARMEST: Data from the Met Office shows that 2023 was the UK’s second-warmest year of record, and the warmest year on record for Wales and Northern Ireland, BBC News reported. The average absolute temperature for last year was 9.97C, only slightly lower than the 10.02C recorded in 2022 – the warmest year on record for the UK – according to the Guardian.
TOP 10: The UK’s 10 warmest years have all occurred since 2003, the Guardian noted, with Met Office scientists emphasising that “such a warm year would have occurred only once in 500 years without human-caused global heating”. The news comes as heavy flooding driven by Storm Henk has hit the UK, with more than 550 flood warnings and alerts in place in England and Wales and hundreds of homes flooded, the Guardian reported.
REPEAT RECORDS: While 2023 is expected to be announced as the warmest on record in the coming weeks, the contributing factors that made it so warm will likely “push the dial even further in 2024”, New Scientist reported. The El Niño climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean is expected to reach its full strength – on top of warming driven by greenhouse gases – next year, it noted.
Around the world
- GERMAN EMISSIONS: Germany’s carbon dioxide emissions fell to their lowest level since the 1950s in 2023, due to less coal-fired power and a reduced output by energy-intensive industries, reported Reuters, but the decline is “unsustainable without climate policy changes”.
- OVERTAKING TESLA: Chinese firm BYD has knocked Elon Musk’s company “off the top spot” to become the world’s best-selling electric vehicle manufacturer for the first time, according to the Financial Times.
- COP29 PRESIDENT: Azerbaijan has appointed environmental minister Mukhtar Babayez as president of the COP29 climate talks, reported Climate Home News. Babayez is the former head of the country’s state-owned oil and gas company Socar.
- LOW-CARBON HYDROGEN: The US government has unveiled a new framework to support the production of low-carbon hydrogen, offering tax credits based on the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions from the power source used in hydrogen production, according to Reuters.
- ‘POSTCODE LOTTERY’: Analysis of the 20 costliest climate disasters of 2023 has shown that “countries less able to rebuild or who have contributed least to climate crisis suffer worst”, reported the Guardian.
- PIPELINE PRACTICES: French energy giant TotalEnergies has launched a review of its land acquisition practices for the controversial $10bn East African crude oil pipeline in Uganda and Tanzania, Agence France-Presse reported.
324tn yuan
China will need to spend around 324tn yuan ($45.5tn), roughly 2.7 times its GDP in 2022, to realise its climate targets of peaking CO2 emissions before 2030 and going carbon neutral before 2060, reported China Daily.
Latest climate research
- Diversifying agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa towards more micronutrient-rich foods is “necessary” to provide an adequate nutrient supply under increasing climate risks and population growth, according to a new study published in Nature Food.
- Using a large-scale experiment on Facebook, a new paper in Climatic Change found “little to no support” for the fear that attention on solar radiation management or carbon dioxide removal “might crowd out the desire to cut emissions”.
- The genes of an Antarctic octopus provide “empirical evidence” that the West Antarctic ice sheet previously “collapsed when the global mean temperature was similar to that of today”, warned a new study in Science, suggesting “the tipping point of future WAIS collapse is close”.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Last year, the UK’s electricity from fossil fuels dropped to its lowest level since 1957, new analysis from Carbon Brief reveals. The amount of electricity from fossil fuels fell 22% year-on-year in 2023, to 104 terawatt hours (TWh), its lowest level in 66 years. Back then, Harold Macmillan was the UK prime minister and the Beatles’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney had just met for the first time. The chart above shows the fall of fossil fuels in the electricity mix, to meet just 33% of electricity needs in 2023, while renewable energy generation continues to surge.
Spotlight
Carbon Brief’s top five articles of 2023
Carbon Brief takes a look at its top five most-read stories published in 2023.
Factcheck: 21 misleading myths about electric vehicles
Carbon Brief’s most-read new article of 2023 was a factcheck by deputy editor Dr Simon Evans of 21 of the most common misleading myths about electric vehicles (EVs). The article explored claims often seen in the press, such as EVs having to travel more than 50,000 miles for their emissions to break even with a conventional car, EVs having little or no CO2 advantage over a car someone already drives, and sales of EVs appearing to be slowing.
As Evans explained, the sales of EVs have continued to surge in the UK and globally, as the vehicles become cheaper, charging infrastructure more widespread and bans on combustion engines loom closer. Despite this growth, EVs are still subject to “relentless hostile reporting across mainstream media in many major economies, including the UK”, Evans noted.
COP28: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Dubai
At COP28 in Dubai, nearly every country in the world agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels” within the global stocktake – the first time fossil fuels have been explicitly mentioned in the 28 years of international climate negotiations.
Ten of Carbon Brief’s journalists attended the two-week event and pulled together this mammoth summary – covering everything from the significant loss-and-damage fund on the first day to the gritty negotiations around Article 6 and a just transition.
Analysis: Which countries have sent the most delegates to COP28?
More than 97,000 badges were issued for COP28 in Dubai, almost twice the number of participants that travelled to Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt in 2022. In Carbon Brief’s third most-read article of 2023, senior science editor Robert McSweeney detailed who registered for COP28, including 24,488 delegates representing parties, 14,338 observers from NGOs and 3,972 media delegates.
Analysis: China’s emissions set to fall in 2024 after record growth in clean energy
China’s carbon dioxide emissions are set to fall in 2024, according to analysis for Carbon Brief by Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst and co-founder of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). Myllyvirta explained how China’s emissions “could now be facing structural decline due to record growth in the installation of new low-carbon energy sources”. This came despite CO2 emissions rising 4.7% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2023 as they continued to rebound following China’s “zero-Covid” period.
Analysis: How low-sulphur shipping rules are affecting global warming
Rounding out the list of Carbon Brief’s top five most-read articles of 2023, is an analysis of how new international rules to reduce air pollution from shipping could affect the climate. The article – by Dr Zeke Hausfather, climate science contributor for Carbon Brief, and Prof Piers Forster, professor of climate physics at the University of Leeds – found that the new regulations, imposed in 2020, will likely add 0.05C to global temperatures by 2050.
Watch, read, listen
DOCUMENTING DROUGHT: A Guardian article explored the images Maasai photographers Claire Metito and Irene Naneu have been using to chronicle the everyday experiences of two elderly women in Esiteti in southern Kenya, where a prolonged drought has made life more challenging for women in pastoralist communities.
WITNESSING A WARMING WORLD: BBC’s Future Planet’s team of climate reporters have written from across five continents to share their thoughts on what they have witnessed as the world warmed in 2023.
PRESCIENT POSTERS: An article in the New York Times explored some of the most arresting images on display at a new exhibition at Poster House in Manhattan that highlights the differing approaches – “bright, witty, sombre, blunt, even sexy” – the environmental movement has taken in an effort to “save the world”.
Coming up
- 4-5 January: Goldman Sachs Energy, CleanTech and Utilities Conference 2024, Miami, Florida
- 10 January: Winter school on “Dealing Professionally with Climate Change Issues”, online event
- 17 January: Climate change adaptation: evaluating Scottish Marine Protected Area resilience, webinar
Pick of the jobs
- Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, research officer | Salary: £40,229-£48,456. Location: London, UK
- European Geosciences Union, media and communications officer | Salary: €53,000-€58,000. Location: Munich, Germany
- Rewilding Britain, chair and trustees | Salary: unknown. Location: UK
- ODI, communications collaborators | Salary: unknown. Location: unknown
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org
The post DeBriefed 5 January 2024: US offshore wind; UK’s second warmest year; Carbon Brief’s top articles of 2023 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Adeline Rochet is a programme manager for the Corporate Leaders Group Europe, a business coalition driving the transition to a sustainable, competitive, and resilient economy convened by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).
Europe’s economy depends on the natural world functioning as it should, but the effects of climate change risk undermining increasingly delicate ecosystems. Talks about the European Union’s next long-term budget miss this fact.
Climate-related losses in the EU have already reached €822 billion since 1980, with a quarter of that damage concentrated in just the past four years. Ecosystems are under increasing pressure: more than 80% of protected habitats are in poor condition, soils are degrading and water stress is rising across the continent.
The latest state of the climate report by the EU’s Earth monitoring service Copernicus confirms this worrying state of affairs: 95% of Europe experienced above-average temperatures in 2025.
Economic exposure to nature-related risk is also growing. Businesses, banks and insurers are beginning to reflect this in their risk assessments.
So, will the policymakers in charge of developing the European Union’s next big budget integrate this vision? We are in the midst of finding out.
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COP30 roadmap to end deforestation will invite countries to draft domestic plans
After promising at COP30 to produce a voluntary global roadmap to stop forest loss by 2030, Brazil provided an update on the consultations this week -
Brazil leads “encouraging” decline in global rainforest destruction in 2025
After hitting a record high in 2024, loss of primary tropical forest dropped by over a third last year, but the world remains way off track for a 2030 goal to halt deforestation
Every seven years, the EU must negotiate a new budget that will help fund priorities over a seven-year-long period. The current one, which runs out next year, is worth more than a trillion euros.
Talks about the next multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2028-2034 are now getting serious and the initial outline of this new budget shows it will focus on competitiveness, resilience and prosperity.
But, as the European Parliament adopted its negotiating position for the crunch budget talks and EU member states shape their approach ahead of a Council meeting on May 26, it is clear that the positioning of nature within this framework is strategically underestimated.
Why nature impacts economic growth
Back in 2022, France’s nuclear power output was severely affected when heatwaves drove up the temperature of the rivers used to cool atomic reactors, impacting other European countries too. This was particularly poor timing given the energy price crisis triggered earlier that year by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Low river levels caused by drought have also heavily impacted economic activity and growth in countries like Germany, due to the negative effect on inland trade, while degraded fields in the Netherlands combined with heavy rainfall have ruined potato harvests.
These examples show that we cannot detach the health of the European economy from the good functioning of nature.
UN General Assembly backs “climate obligations” set by world’s top court
Nearly three-quarters of businesses in the eurozone rely directly on ecosystem services such as clean water, fertile soils and pollination. That dependency extends into the financial system, where around 75% of bank lending is exposed to companies dependent on these natural assets.
They entirely underpin supply chains and financial stability across the European economy. If load-bearing ecosystems collapse, businesses not only face disruption in their own operations, but they will also be exposed to failures from suppliers and customers.
This is not just a risk for individual companies, it is a threat for the whole system.
A budget that looks greener than it is
According to the latest proposals for the next MFF, a single 35% climate and environmental target will replace priorities that used to have distinct funding. As it stands, biodiversity has a 10% target, yet spending has struggled to reach even 8%, already showing how easily it is put to one side in practice.
In the new framework, biodiversity is absorbed into a broader category with no separate tracking or visibility. Dedicated instruments are folded into larger funding envelopes, and nature-based investments are placed in direct and distorted competition with industrial projects.
These are often faster to deploy and easier to measure, making them more attractive.
Headline figures reinforce some appearance of ambition, with €587–635 billion allocated to climate and environmental objectives. But since these are aggregated numbers, they do not show how much will reach ecosystem conservation or restoration.
Less visibility, weaker accountability
Biodiversity funding also remains structurally fragile, with around 80% concentrated in agriculture policy rather than supported by a diversified investment strategy.
This shift is structural: nature has been relegated from a defined priority to a mere discretionary allocation, and the governance model reinforces this dynamic.
Webinar: From Santa Marta to Bonn – where next for the fossil fuel transition?
Greater reliance on National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs) moves decision-making into national spending choices, where fiscal and domestic political pressure will likely mean long-term ecosystem investments struggle to compete with short-term economic demands.
The current MFF paints a worrying picture of structural triple risk for nature: reduced visibility, increased competition for funding and weaker accountability.
Nature is critical infrastructure
It is a point worth reiterating: investment in nature offers clear economic returns. Healthy ecosystems drive resilience by reducing exposure to climate damage and supporting local economic activity.
Public finance plays a decisive role in enabling these investments at scale, making budget design a question of risk management and capital allocation.
Nature-based solutions already perform essential economic functions. They regulate water systems, restore carbon sinks, provide a buffer against extreme weather events and support agricultural productivity.
These are characteristics of infrastructure. Energy systems, transport networks and digital capacity are treated as strategic investments because they underpin competitiveness.
Natural systems play the exact same role, so why does the current budget plan not reflect this?
The next EU budget will shape investment for the decade ahead. Its structure will determine how risks are managed and where capital flows. Nature cannot be erased in favour of competing short-term priorities.
In the upcoming negotiations, European leaders still have the option to treat nature as a structural objective and a core asset, supporting Europe’s resilience and long-term competitiveness. But they must act now, before it’s too late.
The post Nature cannot be ignored by Europe’s next big budget appeared first on Climate Home News.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/05/25/nature-cannot-be-ignored-by-europes-next-big-budget/
Climate Change
In Florida, an Agricultural Town in Need of an Economic Boost Eyes Hyperscale Data Centers
Across the state’s heartland, communities such as Indiantown are weighing proposals for hyperscale data centers. The massive facilities would reshape Florida’s rural lands.
INDIANTOWN, Fla.—Carroll McAllister frets over the prospect of a hyperscale data center opening next to the grassy expanse where she grew up, in a shack her father built.
In Florida, an Agricultural Town in Need of an Economic Boost Eyes Hyperscale Data Centers
Anaerobic digester loans showed “significant delinquency rates,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said, while environmental groups see the technology driving an expansion of large-scale animal farming operations.
The federal government’s pause on new loans for anaerobic digesters, the controversial method of converting animal manure from large-scale feeding operations into biogas, will now extend through the end of the year.
USDA Extends Pause on Loans for Controversial Digesters That Turn Manure Into Biogas
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