Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Record heat in 2024
DEADLY DECADE: UN secretary general António Guterres used his new year’s message to declare that “we have just endured a decade of deadly heat”, the Press Association reported. The news outlet said that all of the top 10 hottest years on record took place in this period, with 2024 emerging as the hottest. Meanwhile, China Daily reported that China reached its hottest annual temperature since records began, while ABC News said Australia saw its second-warmest year.
DANGEROUS HEAT: The Associated Press covered research from World Weather Attribution and Climate Central that found people globally experienced “an average of 41 extra days of dangerous heat” last year due to climate change. The analysis also found that climate change intensified 26 of the 29 extreme weather events from last year that the groups studied, according to Euronews.
Turning off Russian gas
GAS BLOCK: Russian gas flowing into several European countries was stopped on New Year’s Day, after Ukraine refused to renegotiate a transit deal “in the hopes of hurting its invader financially”, NBC News reported. Ending the flow of gas via Ukrainian pipelines will cost the Russian state-backed Gazprom around $5bn a year in gas sales, but will also cost Ukraine around $800n a year in transit fees, according to CNN.
EUROPE’S RESPONSE: EU member states prepared for this event by increasing capacity for liquified natural gas (LNG) imports and renewables, according to the Kyiv Independent. LNG from the US and Qatar has also helped the EU move away from Russian gas, Reuters said. However, Euractiv reported on “unease” from negatively affected eastern European countries, with Slovakia “threatening” retaliation against Ukraine, and Moldova – which is not an EU member state – “declaring a state of emergency” amid gas shortages.
Around the world
- FIRE WEATHER: “Out of control” bushfires are blazing in Australia, with elevated fire danger warnings issued for many states amid high temperatures, according to the Guardian.
- FLOOD DAMAGE: Hundreds of people have been evacuated in north-west England due to flooding, BBC News reported. Meanwhile, the Bank of England warned that climate change-driven floods could “devastate the value” of hundreds of thousands of UK homes, according to the Daily Telegraph.
- BANK WITHDRAWAL: Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup announced that they were quitting the UN-backed net-zero banking alliance, Bloomberg reported. Financial Times described the departures as “the latest sign corporate America may retreat from climate goals” under incoming president Donald Trump.
- ALL ELECTRIC: Norway is “on the brink” of achieving its target for 100% of new car sales to be electric by 2025, with zero-emission cars making up 88% of new sales last year, the National reported. Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph said Tesla saw its “first ever drop” in annual electric-vehicle sales, amid pressure from Chinese rivals.
$75 billion
The amount that fossil-fuel companies will be fined over the next 25 years, under a recent New York state law, according to Reuters.
Latest climate research
- The record-long Canadian wildfire season in 2023 was more than five times as likely due to human-caused climate change, according to a new study published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.
- New research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the rate at which carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions increase could affect the pace at which the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a current moving water, heat and nutrients around the world, slows down.
- A nationally representative survey of more than 1,000 US adults, published in Environmental Science and Policy, found that only around one-third were aware of the term “climate justice”, but half supported its goals after reading a short description.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The UK’s electricity was the cleanest it has ever been in 2024, according to new Carbon Brief analysis that was covered by the Times, the Guardian and other news outlets. CO2 emissions per unit have fallen by 70% over the past decade, as the chart above shows. This trend can be attributed to the UK phasing out coal while expanding its use of renewables, which reached a record 45% of electricity generation last year.
Spotlight
Europe’s forgotten overseas territories and climate change
In the wake of Cyclone Chido, Carbon Brief considers the climate threat facing Europe’s overseas territories.
Cyclone Chido tore through the French island of Mayotte in mid-December, killing at least 39 people and leaving thousands injured or homeless.
The storm, which was made more intense by climate change, was the strongest to hit the tiny Indian Ocean territory in close to a century. Much of the devastation was linked to the lack of sufficient shelter and resources in what has long been France’s poorest region.
Chido marks the latest extreme weather event to hit one of Europe’s “overseas territories” – colonial remnants that are largely dotted around the tropics, from the Caribbean to the Pacific.
‘Urgent action’ required
Most of the 34 European overseas territories are part of France, the UK and the Netherlands, due to their histories operating slave plantations on tropical islands.
These territories vary significantly in governance, wealth and independence. However, they have a shared vulnerability to climate-related threats, such as cyclones and sea level rise.
The EU’s first climate risk assessment report, published last year, called for “urgent action” to protect member states’ overseas territories from climate change, highlighting their “remote locations, weaker infrastructure and economic vulnerability”. UK territories, particularly those in the Caribbean, face similar challenges.
“Technically, politically, institutionally, they’re in the global north, but their realities are akin to any other country in the global south,” Dr Vanessa Deane, an urban planning researcher at New York University, told Carbon Brief.
Carbon Brief analysis of the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT), run by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) in Belgium, shows that at least 197 people in European overseas territories were killed by extreme weather events over 1990-2024. (EM-DAT is the most comprehensive disaster database, but lacks complete data for poorer countries, meaning this figure is likely to be an underestimate.)
At least another 39 have been killed by Chido in Mayotte, making it the deadliest single event over this period in an overseas territory, according to EM-DAT data. The final death toll may be far higher.
Another quarter of a million people in these territories have lost their homes, been injured or otherwise affected over this period, mainly due to cyclones, according to EM-DAT.
‘Lagging behind’
Dr Virginie Duvat, a small islands researcher at the University of La Rochelle in France, said territories such as Mayotte are simply not treated the same as their mainland counterparts by French policymakers:
“Climate adaptation policies are lagging behind. This is paradoxical because these territories are more exposed and more vulnerable to climate change.”
Elise Naccarato, a climate justice advocate at Oxfam France, pointed to the “almost total absence of the overseas territories” in France’s upcoming climate adaptation plan.
Overseas territories generally lack the financial and technical capacity to implement climate adaptation programmes, or recover from climate-related disasters. Yet they also often cannot access climate-related aid.
Instead, the territories tend to rely on specialised funds set up by the EU and central governments to support climate-related activities, but these have been described as “insufficient” and “uncertain”.
As an example, Dr Daphina Misiedjan, a legal researcher at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, pointed to the “roundabout way” that the Dutch government provided relief to the territory of Sint Maarten, in the wake of Hurricane Irma. Rather than providing money directly, the government handed control to the World Bank, and funds took years to reach people.
Last year, residents of the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire, alongside Greenpeace Netherlands, launched a lawsuit against the Netherlands, claiming the state had not protected them sufficiently from climate change.
“[European countries] really profited from the colonial times, but now they have extra responsibility to make sure these islands are safe during the climate crisis,” Greenpeace climate campaigner Maarten de Zeeuw told Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
THE YEAR IN CLIMATE: After a year of key elections and many extreme weather events, BBC podcast the Climate Question presented a review of the top climate stories from 2024, hosted by an expert panel.
WINE LIST: A “big read” article in the Financial Times, which includes interactive graphics, looked at how the changing climate is pushing wine making into northern regions and “redrawing of Europe’s wine map”.
BEST BOOKS: Mongabay has published a list of 10 “notable” environment-themed books published in 2024. Topics covered range from Indigenous land rights to coral bleaching.
Coming up
- 6-11 January: First Global Heat Health Information Network Southeast Asia Heat Health Forum, Singapore
- 9-10 January: Attribution Science and Climate Law Conference, New York City
- 9-11 January: Extraordinary Summit on the Post Malabo Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, Kampala, Uganda
Pick of the jobs
- UK Climate Change Committee, chair | Salary: £1,000 per day. Location: London
- Wiley, deputy editor – environment | Salary: $59,900-$87,767. Location: Remote or hybrid, US, UK or Brazil
- Smith School, University of Oxford, data lead – state of carbon dioxide removal | Salary: £48,235-£57,255. Location: Oxford, UK
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 3 January 2025: ‘Decade of deadly heat’; Russian gas cut off; Europe’s forgotten overseas territories and climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during the conflict that broke out in October 2023 has wrecked progress towards adapting the enclave to climate change and left two million Gazans vulnerable to heatwaves, drought and disease, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said in a new climate plan submitted to the United Nations.
Palestine’s third nationally determined contribution (NDC), uploaded to the UN climate body’s website this week, says that while “the aggression on the Gaza Strip did not make the climate worse”, “it removed the housing, water and sanitation systems, health facilities, energy networks, roads and livelihoods through which people absorb a climate they were already struggling with.”
The 91-page document lists the types of infrastructure it says Israel has destroyed and notes how the destruction will worsen the impacts of climate change. It says the bombing of hospitals and rising hunger have make it harder for Gazans to cope with the health impacts of climate-driven heatwaves and waterborne diseases.
The destruction of water tanks, boreholes and desalination plants, meanwhile, have left Gazans struggling with the effects of water shortages and drought, while mass unemployment reduces people’s ability to afford climate-driven price rises. The erasure of most of the Strip’s homes makes it more difficult for people to avoid the sun’s increasing heat, the NDC said.
Many Gazans are now living in the ruins of collapsed buildings or in makeshift shelters and tents that offer little or no protection from high temperatures.
Palestine’s previous goals to cut emissions and adapt to climate change in Gaza, expressed in its last NDC five years ago, were based on a pre-war baseline that “no longer describes anything that exists”, the NDC says. Progress made since 2021 has now been destroyed, it adds.
Green reconstruction of Gaza
Instead of continuing to aim for these adaptation and emissions-reduction goals, the PA is now calling for the green reconstruction of Gaza. It says buildings should be constructed again in an energy-efficient manner with solar panels and served with modern water, waste and transport systems.
While the PA, controlled by the Fatah political party, continues to claim legitimate control of Gaza, the strip was effectively governed by Fatah’s rival Hamas between 2007 and the recent war. Control is now split between Israel and the political wing of Islamist militant group Hamas, after a US-backed ceasefire took effect in October 2025, although a UN-backed committee plans to take over.
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The United Nations, European Union and World Bank have jointly estimated that Gaza needs $71.4 billion of investment in the next two years to recover and build back. This process should be Palestinian-led, they said in April.
But US President Donald Trump has said the US should “take over” and “own” Gaza and redevelop it as the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Israel’s right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel should control the territory with civil administration managed by Palestinians favourable to Israel.
With occupation, targets conditional
In the other part of Palestine, the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority carries out some government functions, but ultimate control rests with Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Because Israel controls planning in most of the West Bank, the NDC argues that the PA cannot pursue all the climate projects it wants. In addition, Israel restricts the movement of PA officials, making data collection difficult, and controls the West Bank’s electricity supply meaning that the PA cannot control whether it comes from dirty or clean sources of energy.
Given this situation, the NDC says that all of Palestine’s new climate targets are conditional but it will aim to reduce emissions 12.8% below a business-as-usual baseline by 2035 and 17.1% by 2040. If the Israeli occupation ends and Palestine regains full sovereignty over its land and resources, it will aim for reductions of 15.1% and 19.1% by 2035 and 2040 respectively under an “independence pathway”.
That could allow, for example, for greater electrification and reducing emissions per unit of growth, the document said.
To achieve the 2035 emissions-reduction target and adapt to the impacts of climate change, the PA says it needs $8.6 billion in total. This funding would be spent on measures like encouraging solar farms and rooftop solar and scaling up solar water heating to cover four-fifths of households. To complement the planned increase in solar power, the authority wants to modernise the electricity grid and install battery storage.
In the transport sector, it aims to promote the uptake of electric vehicles, develop bus rapid transit corridors and scrap old polluting trucks and buses. In Gaza in particular, it wants to deploy 66 electric buses when the conflict ends.
To adapt to climate-driven drought, the NDC includes initiatives to reuse wastewater through treatment plants, build desalination plants in Gaza to remove salt from seawater, and promote irrigation for farmers.
The new climate plan was prepared by Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the governments of Britain and Spain.
The United Nations recognised Palestine’s statehood in 2012 and it joined the UN’s climate convention and signed the Paris climate agreement – which requires countries to submit more ambitious NDCs every five years – in 2016.
The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. But in late 2024, then Israeli climate envoy Gideon Behar told Climate Home News that the war and the resulting environmental destruction in Gaza was the fault of Hamas.
The post Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.
Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change
Solar power generation in the UK reached a new record over the summer of 2026, as temperatures across the nation soared, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Collectively over June, July and August, solar farms and rooftops generated 8.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in the UK*, as shown in the chart below.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Chris Hewett, chief executive of trade association Solar Energy UK welcomed the new record, adding that it was driven by “clear skies and continued growth in deployment”.
This surge in generation took place amid the hottest summer on record in the UK, with five heatwaves between May and August.
Summer 2026 was the sixth sunniest on record, with more than 620 hours of sunshine, according to the Met Office. England and Wales – which experienced the most extreme heat – saw their second-sunniest summers on record.
June 2026 was the hottest June in England since records began in 1884, according to Met Office data, while Wales and the UK as a whole experienced their second-warmest June.
It was the driest July for England and Wales since records began in 1836, with some parts of London seeing no rain at all in the month, while Wisley in Surrey had no rain for 62 days.
In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August.
According to the Met Office, this summer’s record mean temperature was made 130 times more likely by climate change.
Amid these hot and sunny months, solar power generation increased 23% from the same period in 2025. This is double the level of solar generation over the summer of 2021, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
While solar panels can be affected by periods of extreme heat, the longer hours of daylight and higher levels of irradiation over the summer more than offset any efficiency losses.
June, July and August all saw solar set new monthly records for solar generation – July saw the highest solar generation in a calendar month ever, with 3.3TWh meeting 15% of overall electricity demand for the month.
As of the end of August, the total UK solar generation in 2026 stood at 17TWh – 13% higher than the same point in 2025.
The number of solar farms and rooftop installations has grown substantially in recent years, helping to boost generation. Domestic rooftop solar accounts for around 29% of total capacity.
In 2025, the UK’s solar capacity reached 21 gigawatts (GW) by the third quarter of the year, according to UK government figures. This is a jump of 3GW, or 18%, year-on-year, as Carbon Brief reported in January.
(Capacity is the maximum output possible from an electricity generation, whereas generation is what was produced over a certain time period, such as a day, month or year.)
According to the University of Sheffield, the installed solar capacity is now nearly 24GW.
This includes nearly 172,000 solar installations that have been fitted across the UK since the start of 2026, according to recent government figures. In July alone, more than 19,800 rooftop solar panels were installed – the equivalent of one installation every two minutes.
In total, nearly 1.7m households in the UK now have solar panels installed.
Over 26 heatwave days this summer – periods of at least three days when temperatures exceed the Met Office’s county-level heatwave temperature threshold – UK households with rooftop solar panels avoided an estimated £86.7m in electricity costs, according to analysis by Utility Bidder.
Talking about the surge in solar generation this summer, Hewett says:
“[It] not only kept bills down for people with solar and batteries in their homes, but helped keep overall power prices much lower than they would have been if Britain had been relying on more gas generation during the day”.
Despite the record generation, no new half-hourly solar power output record was set in the summer of 2026. This still stands at 15.2 megawatts (MW) on 23 April 2026.
* This article refers to the UK throughout, but strictly relates to the island of Great Britain, made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is part of the separate, all-Ireland electricity system.
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The post Analysis: UK solar power hits record high over summer 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Farmers around Europe are dealing with the aftermath of a summer of extreme heat, drought and wildfires that were exacerbated by climate change.
Human-caused climate change is increasing the severity and likelihood of many extreme weather events around the world, which is increasing volatility for food producers.
This summer resulted in, for example, shrunken potatoes in the Netherlands, reduced carrot harvests in France, dried-up rice fields in Italy and scorched olive groves in parts of the Mediterranean region.
Global food prices are currently at their highest level since early 2023 due to “heatwaves and energy price dynamics”, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Other factors such as blocked fertiliser supplies in the Strait of Hormuz and high fuel costs have also played a role in this year’s agricultural outputs.
In the six charts below, Carbon Brief provides a snapshot of the impact this summer’s extremes are considered to have had on crop production and yields across Europe.
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
France, in particular, will see heavy losses in the amount of cereals – such as wheat, barley and oats – it produces this year, according to European Commission data.
French cereal production is expected to drop by almost 8 megatonnes (Mt) in 2026, compared to 2025.
The chart above shows that most European countries, aside from Bulgaria, will also see production losses this year.
Germany is due to see the second-largest losses in production, dropping by almost 4Mt compared to 2025.
Prof Til Feike, a cropping systems expert at the Julius Kühn-Institut, says many areas in Germany and Austria, as with other parts of Europe, have been “hit hard by a long-lasting dry period in combination with record-high heatwaves”.
This has resulted in dry grassland for animals and lower yields of maize, which is a “key fodder crop” for livestock. He tells Carbon Brief:
“In the long run, farming must adapt better to more extreme weather conditions, not only heat and drought, but also prolonged wet periods. So, there is no one-fits-all solution for climate change adaptation.”
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
Heat and a lack of water have “substantially worsened” crop expectations this summer in western and most of central Europe, according to a recent bulletin from the EU Joint Research Centre.
Yields are expected to be “significantly reduced”, with local crop failures “likely” in areas such as France, southern Germany, northern and central Italy, and Hungary, it added.
The chart below shows that yields of cereal grains – which, here, refers to the tonnes of a grain grown per hectare of land – are expected to fall in most EU countries in 2026.
Slovakia, Austria and Hungary are expected to see the largest declines in cereal yields, reducing by more than one tonne per hectare in 2026 compared to 2025.
The recent EU bulletin noted that irrigated crops performed well in Portugal this summer – the country with the largest yield increases. Other crops relying on rainfall showed growing signs of heat stress, it added.
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
The record heatwave that hit many parts of Europe in June contributed to an estimated €2-2.3bn in cumulative grain production losses, as shown in the chart below.
The intense June heat in western Europe would have been “virtually impossible” just 50 years ago, according to a rapid climate attribution study. It was the region’s hottest June on record.
The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank analysed June and July 2026 grain forecasts from Coceral, a European grain traders association.
ECIU estimated lost supply by multiplying the change in tonnes of grains between these two months by prices for harvest delivery in 28 European countries.
Major grain producers France, Germany, Hungary and Spain accounted for 86% of the lost revenue, according to the ECIU.
Extreme heat is also expected to have a wider economic impact across the continent. Analysis from Triodos Bank found that this summer’s extreme weather could reduce the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) by around 1% this year, or around €180bn.
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
If current trends continue, the average yields for cereals and oilseeds will result in the UK’s worst harvest since detailed records began in 1984, according to ECIU.
Barley yields could fall by 15%, oats by 14% and wheat yields by 6% year-on-year, according to 2026 harvest surveys from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, a non-departmental public body that provides agricultural data to the UK government.
ECIU said that, even if the situation improves, this year is still expected to be one of the five worst harvests on record. This means that four of the five worst harvests in the UK have occurred in the past decade.
Consumers will likely see higher prices and/or smaller vegetables in supermarkets as a result, Tim O’Malley, chairman of UK company Nationwide Produce, told BBC News in August.
Other crops, such as berries, have grown successfully in the extreme heat. But the Guardian noted fears this could dip later this year “as plants become exhausted from heavy cropping during the heatwave”.
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
France has been acutely affected by this summer’s extreme weather, with more than 7,300 excess deaths during heatwaves and a record number of weather stations recording temperatures of above 40C.
The country is the EU’s largest agricultural producer, but heat, drought and wildfires have affected many crops.
The chart below shows that maize production is set to drop by more than one-third (35%) year-on-year.
This could result in France’s lowest maize production since 1980, according to data from Agreste, the country’s agriculture ministry’s statistics service.
Due to the heat, “record-early” grape harvests have also been recorded in various parts of the nation since mid-July, reported Le Monde. In some cases, this means “smaller, less juicy grapes, which will yield less wine”, explained the newspaper.
6. Declines in EU grains since 2025
Overall in the EU, data and projections indicate declines in the output of cereal grains this year.
Cereal production is set to fall by 9% compared to 2025, according to the European Commission.
Just one year in the past decade – 2024 – recorded lower production levels.
Maize production is set to be particularly affected, with projections indicating a 13% drop, to 52Mt – the lowest level in the EU since 2007.
The post How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts
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