Published

1 year ago

January 9, 2025

Alice Rush

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.

China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.

Key developments

Energy priorities in 2025

XI SPEAKS: President Xi Jinping underscored China’s low-carbon technology success in his new year’s address for 2025, mentioning that China “produced more than 10m new energy vehicles” (NEVs, including electric and plug-in hybrids) in 2024, the state-run newspaper China Daily said. On 1 January, the party’s leading magazine on ideology, Qiushi, published the transcript of one of Xi’s speeches, in which he called on China to “advance an ecology-first, resource-conserving and green and low-carbon approach to development”, adding that China must “actively yet prudently work towards” its “dual carbon” goal.

PRIORITY TASKS: The national energy work conference – in which the top planning body the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA) set objectives for the next year – was held in mid-December, according to International Energy Net. At the same meeting, the NEA set “10 key energy priorities” for the new year, including “implementing the energy law”, the Communist party-sponsored People’s Daily said in its coverage of the conference. (Read more about China’s new energy law below.) International Energy Net’s coverage reported that 2025 priorities included to “accelerate” construction of an energy system based on the need for “security and abundance” and the “economic feasibility” of low-carbon energy, as well as to vigorously promote “development and utilisation” of renewables. In a separate NDRC work conference, the body pledged to “accelerate” the shifting towards “dual-control” of carbon and “push forward carbon reduction, pollution reduction and green expansion”, Shanghai Securities News said.

Sign up to Carbon Brief’s free “China Briefing” email newsletter. All you need to know about the latest developments relating to China and climate change. Sent to your inbox every Thursday.

GREEN AGENDAS: Elsewhere, the Ministry of Finance (MOF)’s annual work conference emphasised financial support for “green and low-carbon transformation”, International Energy Net reported. MOF may release a 3tn yuan ($411bn) stimulus package this year that, according to Reuters, will have a large portion dedicated to electric vehicles (EVs) and “green energy”. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) work conference highlighted the need for “innovation” to “cultivate and grow emerging industries”, a category that usually includes low-carbon technology, according to a state news agency Xinhua readout.

NATIONAL NETWORK: A recent policy document issued by the NDRC urged China to build a national unified market covering a number of economic and regulatory issues, BJX News reported, including calls to build a unified energy system. The policy added that China must ensure the construction of a unified power system, as well as establishing a “fair and open” national oil and gas market system. Bloomberg explained that the initiative has been in progess for years.

Landmark law now in force

NEW YEAR’S REGULATION: On 1 January, China’s first energy law came into force, China News reported, saying the move “helps ensure national energy security and serves as a cornerstone for promoting a green and low-carbon transition”. The law, it added, “includes hydrogen energy in national legislation for the first time, defining its role as an energy source”. China Energy Net quoted an NEA official saying the law would promote both the “development of non-fossil energy” and the ”clean and efficient use of coal”.

EXPERT VOICES: Prof Alex Wang, faculty co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, told Carbon Brief that, in general, Chinese law normally “consolidates” existing “successful” policy, rather than setting new policy directions. North China Electric Power University’s Prof Wang Peng wrote in China Power News Net that the law is a symbol supporting development of “explicit goals for carbon emissions and renewable energy use”, and will lead to the provision of “specific guidelines for developing” renewable energy and strengthening of “mechanisms for green energy consumption”. Industry news outlet BJX News republished a commentary by China Coal chairman Wang Shudong arguing that the law “strengthens the role of coal as a basic guarantor [of energy security]”.

Renewable energy buildout

SOLAR LEAP: China installed more than 200 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity in 2024, according to industry newspaper China Energy Net. The country installed more than 300GW of renewable energy capacity in 2024, the party-affiliated People’s Daily reported, with China’s total solar and wind capacity now standing at 840GW and 510GW, respectively. A separate NDRC and NEA policy document called for China to add more than 200GW of “new energy” each year between 2025 and 2027, at a utilisation rate of 90%, said BJX News.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY: Despite the growth of renewables, China’s power generation from fossil fuels “inched up 1.9% year-on-year” between January and November, Reuters reported. Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, wrote on Bluesky that this was likely due to a “major increase in curtailment” of wind and solar, and particularly a rise in unreported curtailment. This, he added, indicates that the “grid is struggling to integrate” new renewable capacity additions and that “official curtailment tracking seems to be prone to manipulation”.

HYDROGEN ‘AT SCALE’: Elsewhere, China Energy News reported, MIIT released a new plan for accelerating the use of hydrogen in China’s industry, calling for the country to have “clean and low-carbon hydrogen to be applied at scale” by 2027 in areas including certain metals and coal-chemical industries. It added that China will also aim to use hydrogen for “industrial green microgrids, ships, aviation [and] rail transport”.

MEGADAM: Separately, China has approved “construction of what will be the world’s largest hydropower dam” along a river in Tibet, according to Reuters. The newswire added that the project “could produce 300 terawatt hours of electricity annually” – equivalent to the UK’s total annual demand – but could also “affect millions downstream in India and Bangladesh”. A Bloomberg commentary by columnist David Fickling said that the dam, despite its size, would be “simply too small to move the needle” on China’s “insatiable appetite for coal”.

Driving the economy

HOLIDAY SPLURGE: According to finance news outlet Yicai, Chinese EV giant BYD sold 4.3m vehicles in 2024. An end-of-year surge in EV purchases occurred in China due to the “nationwide buying spree” ahead of the end of a consumer goods trade-in policy that subsidised consumers’ replacement of petrol cars with EVs, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. The January sales have already slowed down, said China Consumer Journal. Nevertheless, the Financial Times predicted that in 2025 EVs could, for the first time, “outsell” traditional fuel cars in China, with domestic EV sales expected to exceed 12m cars compared to less than 11m for petrol cars.

GROWTH SUPPORT: The government has subsequently “renewed a trade-in subsidy of up to 20,000 yuan ($2,730)” for EVs and hybrid cars, Bloomberg said. The People’s Daily reported that China will ensure that EVs make up “no less than 30%” of government car purchases “in principle”. Meanwhile, a draft proposal “restricting the export of technologies used in the production of lithium-ion batteries” has been issued, business newspaper Caixin said, which, if adopted, could “further cement China’s dominance” in the sector. A new discovery of large lithium reserves in Tibet has made China the “world’s second-largest holder” of the metal behind Chile, according to SCMP.

OVERCAPACITY: Separately, SCMP cited a prominent Chinese policymaker suggesting China should take action to abate “involution” – unnecessary internal competition – that is currently affecting several industries, including solar. The People’s Daily also carried a commentary on economic growth with the byline “benbao pinglunyuan” (本报评论员), meaning it was written by “top staff” and represents views at senior levels of the Communist party. It also asked local policymakers to stop “involution” by “not only focusing on the new three” of solar, batteries and EVs.

Captured

China emitted 11.6bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2021, according to the country’s first biennial transparency report, which was submitted to the UN in early January. The report follows new reporting rules under the Paris Agreement, which require more regular and more timely information on emissions and progress towards tackling them. China had previously only reported its greenhouse gas inventory up to 2017.

Spotlight

Experts: What will 2025 bring for China’s energy and climate policy?

Last year was significant for energy and climate developments in China. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions growth hovered close to 2023 levels throughout the year, raising the possibility of China’s CO2 emissions peaking before 2030. On the global stage, China played a prominent role in getting to an agreement at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Entering 2025, China has pledged to accelerate its energy transition. In this issue, Carbon Brief asks leading experts what they are watching for from China over the year ahead. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity. A full-length version of the article is available on the Carbon Brief website.

Dr Muyi Yang, senior electricity policy analyst for China, Ember

In 2025, China will need to strike a delicate balance between sustaining economic growth and advancing its decarbonisation agenda. This balancing act will require more than just scaling up renewables such as wind, solar and energy storage – coal power, which has long been central to China’s energy security and economic activity, also requires a major transformation.

This is not simply about shuttering a handful of coal-fired power plants, but managing the broader tensions and conflicts arising from the decline of the coal-electricity ecosystem. The impacts will extend to power generators, logistics companies, mining firms, equipment manufacturers and the coal-chemical industry, along with the socio-economic systems built around them. As China approaches a critical turning point – envisioning the start of absolute coal consumption reductions during the next five-year plan period – it must begin planning for this transition now.

Prof Boqiang Lin, dean, China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy

In 2025, China’s energy and climate developments will focus on advancing its “dual-carbon” goals through several key initiatives. The deployment of “new energy” will accelerate, with offshore wind power, distributed solar and decentralised wind power seeing significant growth…Efforts to promote the “clean and efficient use” of coal will also progress, with coal power continuing to support the significant growth in wind and solar power.

Energy storage technologies and the development of smart grids will expand, while development of virtual power plants and large-scale vehicle-to-grid pilots will enhance grid efficiency and energy interaction. The supporting infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs) will also receive more attention to support the rapid increase in EV penetration.

Dr Ilaria Mazzocco, deputy director and senior fellow with the trustee chair in Chinese business and economics, Center for Strategic & International Studies

What I’m looking out for is how China manages its increasingly tense external commercial relations and the growing demand internationally for Chinese foreign direct investment. Clean technologies, particularly the “new three” of solar, lithium-ion batteries and EVs, are at the heart of this tension.

The brewing global conflict over the future of climate technology manufacturing and trade will depend in no small part on developments in the industries in China, including domestic demand and profitability of Chinese firms. Just as important are the types of trade-offs and deals that China’s trade partners, including the US, will lean towards [in their China policy going forward].

Dr Angel Hsu, associate professor of public policy and environment, ecology and energy, University of North Carolina

I am enthusiastic about the prospects for continued subnational cooperation between China and the US in climate and energy policies, especially following the strong interest shown at COP29. The numerous technical exchanges between states like Washington and the Chinese delegation…are promising developments. Plans are already in place to sustain this dialogue into 2025, building on the progress made this past year.

I am particularly eager to see how third-party countries and regions can serve as neutral grounds for collaboration. With the US likely stepping back from climate engagement, there’s a significant opportunity for increased alignment between China and ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations], for example. China’s proactive approach at COP29, especially regarding voluntary climate financing, positions it well to lead in supporting south-east Asian nations in their decarbonisation efforts.

Dr Christoph Nedopil, director and professor of economics, Griffith Asia Institute

For 2025, China’s engagement in green energy will likely flourish in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), driven by the growing energy transition needs of partner countries. In Indonesia, for instance, president Prabowo’s accelerated green energy plan announced in December 2024 and newly signed agreements with China highlight the role of targeted collaboration with China in addressing local energy priorities. This includes investments not only in renewable energy, but also in critical technologies such as battery manufacturing.

I also hope we can make progress on three challenges: first, simultaneously accelerating investment in low-carbon energy and phase-down investment in fossil fuels; second, helping local employees benefit more from the green energy transition, particularly with more western trade restrictions; and, third, how can we accelerate greening of industrial and captive energy in the BRI.

Watch, read, listen

WHO’S NEXT?: A commentary in Jiemian listed the challenges various industries face when entering the national carbon market in China.

MUSHROOMING POWER: David Fishman, senior manager at the Lantau Group, spoke to the Odd Lots podcast about the levers behind China’s rapid buildout of nuclear power.

SHOW ME THE MONEY: A new report co-authored by Ma Jun, president of the Beijing-based Institute of Finance and Sustainability for the CFA Institute, examined how one Chinese city used innovative finance mechanisms to decarbonise its heavy industry.

DECEMBER DEBRIEF: Caixin published an English version of its interview with Chinese climate envoy Liu Zhenmin, covering China’s view of the COP29 climate finance commitment, its future climate targets and China’s role in future climate negotiations.

10.92

In Celsius, the average temperature in China in 2024, which was the “warmest year on record, according to the China Meteorological Administration (CMA)”, China Daily reported. It added that “global warming is the primary reason for China recording above-average temperatures”, with China’s previous four years being the country’s “top four warmest years” since records began in 1961.

New science

China’s current carbon inequality is predominantly determined by capital disparity
Ecological Economics

The top 20% of China’s urban residents by income, who account for nearly 10% of the country’s population, are responsible for 33% of the country’s investment-related carbon emissions, a new study has found. Meanwhile, the lowest 20% of rural residents, who comprise 8.6% of the total population, contribute only 2% of these emissions, it said. The authors stated that most existing literature on China’s carbon inequality has “primarily concentrated on the inequality of household consumption-related emissions” while overlooking emissions related to investment. The paper’s findings, they add, suggest that emissions reduction efforts “should focus on the capital/investment of high-income groups”.

Carbon dioxide emissions from industrial processes and product use are a non-ignorable factor in China’s mitigation

Communications Earth & Environment

China’s CO2 emissions from industrial processes and product use (IPPU) exceeded 1,600m tonnes in 2020, according to new research. This estimate is 3.0-6.5% higher than estimates from other studies, according to the authors. The figure was reached using statistics taken from “18 industrial productions and two product uses” between 2000 and 2020. The study also identified a number of areas that could be key to mitigating IPPU emissions in future.

China Briefing is compiled by Wanyuan Song and Anika Patel. It is edited by Wanyuan Song and Dr Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org

The post China Briefing 9 January 2025: 2025 government priorities; China’s first energy law; What to watch in year ahead appeared first on Carbon Brief.

China Briefing 9 January 2025: 2025 government priorities; China’s first energy law; What to watch in year ahead

Greenhouse Gases

DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?

Published

1 day ago

February 27, 2026

Alice Rush

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.

DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?

Greenhouse Gases

Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding

Published

1 day ago

February 27, 2026

Alice Rush

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.

Map of England showing that Richard Tice's Boston and Skegness constituency is set to receive at least £55m for flood defences between 2024 and 2026 — Flood-defence spending on new and replacement schemes in England in 2024-25 and 2025-26. The government notes that, as Environment Agency accounts have not been finalised and approved, the investment data is “provisional and subject to change”. Some schemes cover multiple constituencies and are not included on the map. Source: Environment Agency FCERM data.

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.

Chart showing that Conservative, Reform and Liberal Democrat constituencies are the top recipients of flood defence spending — Top 10 English constituencies by FCERM funding in 2024-25 and 2025-26. Source: Environment Agency FCERM data.

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

Published

3 days ago

February 25, 2026

Alice Rush

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”.

Sign up to Carbon Brief’s free “Cropped” email newsletter. A fortnightly digest of food, land and nature news and views. Sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.

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