While 2023’s climate questions depended largely on governments and big bankers, 2024 is one of those years where the fate of the world rests in the hands of ordinary people.
But not all its people. Because of the USA’s huge emissions, financial power and electoral system, our hopes lie largely on those in a few swing states – like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona.
In 2020, we spoke to grassroots campaigners trying to boost climate voter turnout in Georgia. They were crucial in swinging the Senate then, which allowed a huge climate bill to be passed in 2022. The planet needs the likes of them again.
1.Who will win the US election?
Of all the world’s elections, the USA’s is the one that matters the most for the climate. The policies of the world’s second biggest polluter swing wildly depending on who is in the Oval Office.
The vote on November 5 is likely to pit Joe Biden against Donald Trump. Polls and bookmakers currently suggest Trump is more likely to win.
That would put a major dampener on climate hopes ahead of Cop29, on November 11.
We know where both men stand. As president, Trump withdrew the US from the Paris agreement. Biden re-joined it on his first day in office and pushed through $369bn of green spending.
On the same day as the Presidential election, Americans will also vote for all the seats in the House of Representatives and a third of those in the Senate.
Republican control of the House of Representatives is a big barrier to US climate finance. Given Democratic turnout is usually higher when there’s a Presidential election, there’s a chance Democrats could win control and at least deliver on their $3 billion promise to the Green Climate Fund.
Donald Trump being sworn in as US president in 2016 (Pic: White House photo)
2.What will the new global finance target be?
Compared to fossil fuels, finance was low profile in 2023 – to the anger of developing countries.
But 2024 should be its year, as countries have to negotiate a new finance goal for 2025 onwards by the time they leave Cop29 in Baku in November.
Expect debate over who should pay and who should receive, as well as how much should be given and to what.
Separately, France and Kenya have launched a taskforce on how to get money for climate which isn’t just from governments.
Options include taxes on international shipping, aviation, financial transactions and fossil fuels.
The US, Germany and others will continue their push to squeeze more money out of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund for climate.
3.Will emissions finally start going down?
Almost every year so far, the world’s humans have pumped out more greenhouse gas than any year before, sparking depressing headlines about “record emissions”.
But 2023 could well be the last year of this. A report by Climate Analytics finds a 70% chance that emissions will peak in 2023 and start falling in 2024.
The International Energy Agency thinks something similar – but the US government’s forecasters are more pessimistic.
Whether emissions peak or not, the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere will keep going up. A bath tub doesn’t empty because you put less water in it each year – you have to pull the plug out.
Climate Analytics says emissions are likely to peak this year but how fast they decline depends on policies (Photos: Climate Analytics)
4.When will the loss and damage fund start spending?
Before rich nations agreed to a loss and damage fund at the end of 2022, they argued that it would take years and years to set up – too long to be useful.
After governments agreed on most of the details in 2023, 2024 may be the year they are proved wrong.
Regional groups are appointing their board members to the fund now.
Then the board needs to meet, agree policies, receive the money it’s been promised and start dishing it out.
What’s for sure is that there will be loss this year and there will be damage – droughts, heatwaves, storms and more. So the victims can’t wait.
5.Will countries firm up adaptation targets?
After two years of talks, at Cop28 this year governments agreed to draw up targets on adapting to climate change in areas like healthcare, food security and protecting nature.
They will now spend two years discussing whether there should be numbers attached to those targets and what those numbers should be.
Developing countries want the numbers – like a target to reduce adverse climate impacts on agricultural production by 50% by 2030.
But developed nations argue numbers can’t show how well you’ve adapted to climate change.
They will hash out this debate at Bonn in June and at Cop29 in Baku in November.
Seaweed farmers in Tanzania are having to move into deeper waters as seaweed-killing bacteria thrives in warming seas (Photo: Natalija Gormalova / Climate Visuals Countdown)
6.Will governments get rid of fossil fuel subsidies?
Since 2009, governments have kept promising to get rid of subsidies for fossil fuels – but not really doing so.
At Cop28, a dozen nations including France and Canada joined a coalition to try and finally turn this promise into action.
They committed to drawing up an inventory of their fossil fuel subsidies by Cop29 in November.
Inventories can lead to action. When a Dutch inventory revealed they were spending $40bn a year subsidising fossil fuels, protesters braved water cannons to block off the country’s parliament, rocketing the issue up the agenda. Will the same happen elsewhere?
7.Will coal-to-clean deals keep disappointing?
Just energy transition partnerships (Jetp) faced a brutal reality check in 2023, as investment blueprints were finally unveiled.
Rich countries are offering most of their money as loans not grants. Ambitious plans to switch off coal plants early in South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam are now much more uncertain as a result.
As the money starts flowing in 2024, the implementation of the first few projects should give a flavour of how effective and just the transition will be.
The energy transition deal aims to wean Indonesia off coal, which now takes up nearly half of the country’s electricity mix. Photo: Kemal Jufri / Greenpeace
8.Will new treaty target plastic production?
Government negotiators are currently debating a draft of a new plastics treaty, which they hope to finalise by the end of 2024 – after meetings in Ottawa in April and Busan at the end of November.
One option being fiercely debated is whether to set limits on the amount of plastic each country can produce.
While the majority of European and African countries want limits, the US and Saudi Arabia are resistant.
Plastics are made from oil and gas. With electricity systems and vehicles transitioning to renewable electricity, oil and gas companies see plastics as a lifeline which this treaty could take away.
9.How will companies prepare for the EU’s carbon border tax?
Many developing countries have long seen the European Union’s carbon border tax and elements of the USA’s Inflation Reduction Act as unfair protectionist trade measures, dressed up in concern for the environment.
These complaints were high-profile at Cop28 – with China and others trying to get them put on the official agenda. The United Nation’s trade chief – Costa Rica’s Rebecca Grynspan – recently echoed these concerns and they’re likely to keep rising up the agenda in 2024.
The EU’s carbon border tax incentivises companies making certain polluting products outside of the EU to clean up their manufacturing – or at least to say they’re cleaning up. As the 2026 start date for the tax nears, we expect more stories about companies greenwashing to lessen their tax burden and about the impact of the tax on ordinary people in developing countries, aluminium workers in Mozambique for instance.
Bratsk aluminium smelting facility in Russia will be affected by the EU’s border tax (Photo credit: UC Rusal/WikiCommons)
10.Will carbon markets gain integrity?
Carbon markets – and the voluntary one, in particular – are facing a credibility crisis. Scandal after scandal has put the spotlight on the wildly exaggerated claims and environmental and social issues of many projects. Demand has slowed down as a result.
The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market – a new regulator-like body – is trying to steer buyers away from dodgy offsets and onto quality ones. It is expected to apply its quality label on the first batch of credits at the start of the new year.
After talks collapsed at Cop28 earlier this month, Article 6 negotiations will resume in Bonn in June. The US and EU are at loggerheads. Another bitter battle seems likely.
The post Ten climate questions for 2024 appeared first on Climate Home News.
Doubts over whether governments will maintain ambitious targets on boosting the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) are a threat to the industry’s growth and play into the hands of fossil fuel companies, investors warned this week.
Several executives from airlines and oil firms have forecast recently that SAF requirements in the European Union, United Kingdom and elsewhere will be eased or scrapped altogether, potentially upending the aviation industry’s main policy to shrink air travel’s growing carbon footprint.
Such speculation poses a “fundamental threat” to the SAF industry, which mainly produces an alternative to traditional kerosene jet fuel using organic feedstocks such as used cooking oil (UCO), Thomas Engelmann, head of energy transition at German investment manager KGAL, told the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Investor conference in London.
He said fossil fuel firms would be the only winners from questions about compulsory SAF blending requirements.
The EU and the UK introduced the world’s first SAF mandates in January 2025, requiring fuel suppliers to blend at least 2% SAF with fossil fuel kerosene. The blending requirement will gradually increase to reach 32% in the EU and 22% in the UK by 2040.
Another case of diluted green rules?
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, CEO of French oil and gas company TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanné said he would bet “that what happened to the car regulation will happen to the SAF regulation in Europe”.
The EU watered down green rules for car-makers in March 2025 after lobbying from car companies, Germany and Italy.
“You will see. Today all the airline companies are fighting [against the EU’s 2030 SAF target of 6%],” Pouyanne said, even though it’s “easy to reach to be honest”.
While most European airline lobbies publicly support the mandates, Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary said last year that the SAF is “nonsense” and is “gradually dying a death, which is what it deserves to do”.
EU and UK stand by SAF targets
But the EU and the British government have disputed that. EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said in November that the EU’s targets are “stable”, warning that “investment decisions and construction must start by 2027, or we will miss the 2030 targets”.
UK aviation minister Keir Mather told this week’s investor event that meeting the country’s SAF blending requirement of 10% by 2030 was “ambitious but, with the right investment, the right innovation and the right outlook, it is absolutely within our reach”.
“We need to go further and we need to go faster,” Mather said.
SAF investors and developers said such certainty on SAF mandates from policymakers was key to drawing the necessary investment to ramp up production of the greener fuel, which needs to scale up in order to bring down high production costs. Currently, SAF is between two and seven times more expensive than traditional jet fuel.
Urbano Perez, global clean molecules lead at Spanish bank Santander, said banks will not invest if there is a perceived regulatory risk.
David Scott, chair of Australian SAF producer Jet Zero Australia, said developing SAF was already challenging due to the risks of “pretty new” technology requiring high capital expenditure.
“That’s a scary model with a volatile political environment, so mandate questioning creates this problem on steroids”, Scott said.
Others played down the risk. Glenn Morgan, partner at investment and advisory firm SkiesFifty, said “policy is always a risk”, adding that traditional oil-based jet fuel could also lose subsidies.
Asian countries join SAF mandate adopters
In Asia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Japan have recently adopted SAF mandates, and Matti Lievonen, CEO of Asia-based SAF producer EcoCeres, predicted that China, Indonesia and Hong Kong would follow suit.
David Fisken, investment director at the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, said the Australian government, which does not have a mandate, was watching to see how the EU and UK’s requirements played out.
The US does not have a SAF mandate and under President Donald Trump the government has slashed tax credits available for SAF producers from $1.75 a gallon to $1.
Is the world’s big idea for greener air travel a flight of fancy?
SAF and energy security
SAF’s potential role in boosting energy security was a major theme of this week’s discussions as geopolitical tensions push the issue to the fore.
Marcella Franchi, chief commercial officer for SAF at France’s Haffner Energy, said the Canadian government, which has “very unsettling neighbours at the moment”, was looking to produce SAF to protect its energy security, especially as it has ample supplies of biomass to use as potential feedstock.
Similarly, German weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall said last year it was working on plans that would enable European armed forces to produce their own synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel “locally and independently of global fossil fuel supply chain”.
Scott said Australia needs SAF to improve its fuel security, as it imports almost 99% of its liquid fuels.
He added that support for Australian SAF production is bipartisan, in part because it appeals to those more concerned about energy security than tackling climate change.
The post Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn appeared first on Climate Home News.
Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn
Climate Change
Southern Right Whales Are Having Fewer Calves; Scientists Say a Warming Ocean Is to Blame
After decades of recovery from commercial whaling, climate change is now threatening the whales’ future.
Southern right whales—once driven to near-extinction by industrial hunting in the 19th and 20th centuries—have long been regarded as a conservation success. After the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in the 1980s, populations began a slow but steady rebound. New research, however, suggests climate change may be undermining that recovery.
Southern Right Whales Are Having Fewer Calves; Scientists Say a Warming Ocean Is to Blame
Climate Change
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
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