More than a dozen wildfires have been sweeping through Los Angeles in California, consuming tens of thousands of acres of land and devastating some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the US.
As firefighters battle to contain the blazes, at least 24 people have died, while tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate and thousands of properties have been razed to the ground.
The disaster has received widespread attention across international media, covering the scale of the damage through to the causes of the fires – and the political spats they have triggered.
Both US president Joe Biden and his Californian vice-president Kamala Harris made the link between climate change and the fires.
Meanwhile, many scientists have pointed to “climate whiplash” – rapid switches from wet to dry conditions that are becoming more common in a warmer climate – as a factor in the scale of the devastation.
Many outlets have highlighted misleading claims by right-wing commentators about the Los Angeles fire department, as well as statements from incoming president Donald Trump casting blame on California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.
A number of outlets have also explored the impact of the wildfires – which have already been dubbed the costliest in US history – on the state’s already-fragile property insurance market.
In this article, Carbon Brief examines the role of climate change in the Los Angeles wildfires and how the media has covered the disaster.
- How did the wildfires develop around Los Angeles?
- How were the fires ignited?
- What have been the impacts of the fires?
- Does climate change have a role in driving the fires?
- What has been the political reaction?
- How has the media responded to the wildfires?
- What are the implications for insurance in the state?
How did the wildfires develop around Los Angeles?
Over the course of just a week in early January, multiple fires erupted in and around Los Angeles in southern California.
The first – and what became the largest – wildfire was the Palisades fire. This was first reported at around 10:30am on Tuesday 7 January and quickly spread, explained the Washington Post, “as winds gust[ed] to about 50 mph in the area”.
The Financial Times reported that more than 29,000 acres [11,174 hectares] were burned on Tuesday in Palisades, “an affluent coastal community with some of the most expensive property in the US”. With thousands of homes at risk, evacuation orders were issued for around 30,000 people, according to the newspaper.
Rescuers were “forced to use a bulldozer to clear a path” through gridlocked, abandoned cars for emergency services to pass, reported the Times.
Through the day, a “life-threatening” windstorm “accelerated the fire’s spread across a parched landscape that has had very little rain in months”, the FT said. This storm was the “strongest to hit southern California in more than a decade”, the Associated Press noted.
An AP photographer reported seeing “multi-million dollar mansions on fire as helicopters overhead dropped water loads”.
The Washington Post described the Palisades fire as a “monster from the start”, noting that it spanned “the size of 150 football fields within half an hour and an area larger than Manhattan a day after that”.
On Tuesday night, a fast-moving fire broke out in the hills above Altadena near Eaton Canyon, reported the Los Angeles Times, prompting further evacuation orders.
The Eaton fire had “quickly grown to 200 acres” [81 hectares] by Tuesday night, said the Times, while “another fire had ignited in Sylmar, a suburb north-west of Los Angeles, and had already consumed 50 acres [20 hectares] with some nearby residents ordered to evacuate”.
These three fires – Palisade, Eaton and what would later be named the Hurst fire – would become the focus of media coverage, but a number of other fires, such as Kenneth, Archer, Sunset, Lidia, Woodley and Olivas, also ignited across the region through the week.
By Tuesday evening, California governor Gavin Newsom had declared a state of emergency, CBS News reported.
On Wednesday, the wildfires “burned uncontrollably across a wide swathe of greater Los Angeles”, reported the Washington Post, “transforming the landscape into scenes of apocalyptic destruction with blocks and blocks of neighborhoods reduced to ash”.
By the end of the day, more than 1,000 structures had been destroyed, at least 130,000 people were under evacuation orders and nearly 1.5 million residents were without power, the newspaper said. The fires were still raging with “almost zero containment”, it added.
The newspaper quoted Los Angeles county fire chief Anthony Marrone, who warned that his department was prepared for one or two major fires, but not for “this type of widespread disaster”. He added:
“There are not enough firefighters in LA county to address…fires of this magnitude.”
In response, firefighting teams from across California and the west “poured into the Los Angeles region in recent days to help relieve and reinforce local crews”, said the Washington Post.
Reports also emerged that firefighters were, in the words of BBC News, “struggl[ing] with water supply to their hoses and hydrants”. Reuters noted that “Los Angeles authorities said their municipal water systems were working effectively but they were designed for an urban environment, not for tackling wildfires”.
In total, at least a dozen fires have raged across the greater Los Angeles area over the past week. By Friday, the two largest fires of Palisades and Eaton were 8% and 3% contained, respectively, reported the Los Angeles Times. This increased to 11% and 15% by Saturday morning.
[As of early Monday 13 January (Pacific Standard Time), fire containment stood at 14%, 33% and 95% for the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires, respectively, according to California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. All other fires have been contained.]
With more heavy winds expected this week, a local fire chief told BBC News that the fight against the blazes is “at a fork in the road”, warning that the fires could “take off on Tuesday or Wednesday”.
How were the fires ignited?
Investigators are still exploring the initial cause of the fires, reported the Associated Press.
While lightning is the “most common source of fires in the US…investigators were able to rule that out quickly”, the newswire said. It explained:
“There were no reports of lightning in the Palisades area or the terrain around the Eaton fire.”
The next two most-common causes are “fires intentionally set and those sparked by utility lines”, it added.
NBC News reported that the key to identifying the cause of the Palisades fire lies “on a brush-covered hilltop where the blaze broke out just after 10:30am on Tuesday”. A former battalion chief for the Los Angeles Fire Department told the outlet that arson was an unlikely cause:
“This is what we call inaccessible, rugged terrain…Arsonists usually aren’t going to go 500 feet off a trailhead through trees and brush, set a fire and then run away.”
Analysis by the Washington Post suggested the cause was an extinguished fire from New Year’s Eve. Combining photos, videos, satellite imagery, radio communications and interviews, the newspaper concluded that “the new fire started in the vicinity of the old fire, raising the possibility that the New Year’s Eve fire was reignited, which can occur in windy conditions”.
The Daily Mail picked up the Washington Post’s reporting, describing it as a “haunting new theory”.
Other fires, such as the Eaton fire, were linked to power lines, reported NBC News (link above):
“Whipping winds can cause the lines to slap together, shedding small balls of superhot molten metal.”
The Guardian noted that “it is routine for utilities to shut off power during ‘red-flag events’, but the power lines were on near the Eaton and Palisades fires” when they started last week.
However, NBC News said, this was just one theory, adding that “it’s also possible that it was started by a person operating a camping stove or a car or lawn mower that ejected a hot spark onto dry grass”.
What have been the impacts of the fires?
The fires that swept through Los Angeles have consumed more than 40,000 acres [16,187 hectares] of land, spread across a number of neighbourhoods in both the city and Los Angeles county, according to an update from the Washington Post on Monday 13 January.
The outlet also noted the fires had claimed the lives of 24 individuals at the latest count.
NPR added that more than 12,000 structures, including houses and businesses, had been destroyed by the fires over seven days.
In a separate article, the Washington Post mapped the wildfires in various areas in Los Angeles – Palisades, Eaton and Hurst. It noted that, as of 12 January, the Lidia, Sunset, Woodley, Archer and Kenneth fires had been contained.
In response to the fires, evacuation orders were issued for approximately 153,000 people in LA county, NBC Los Angeles reported.
The New York Times added that some evacuees found temporary housing in Los Angeles hotels, including a luxury hotel in Santa Monica and 19 hotels owned by the IHG chain, which includes Intercontinental, Regent and Holiday Inn.
Evacuations were ordered in “many parts of Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Santa Monica, Calabasas, Brentwood and Encino”, Los Angeles Times reported. Meanwhile, in areas including Glenoaks Canyon and Chevy Chase Canyon, evacuation orders were lifted, allowing residents to return to their homes, according to the outlet.
However, due to poor air quality affecting regions not directly impacted by the fires, schools in Los Angeles were cancelled on Friday, according to NBC Los Angeles. “Nearly all LA unified [school district] campuses and all offices would reopen Monday”, the Los Angeles Times added.
Cultural events have also been impacted, with the nominations for the 97th Academy Awards, and the Critics’ Choice Awards being postponed, as well as television shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, as reported by ABC News.
Meanwhile, an early estimate of total damages by insurance provider AccuWeather, widely cited in the media, including BBC News, predicts the fires have caused $135-150bn in total damages.
The fires are expected to have a major impact on California’s property insurance market. (See: What are the implications for insurance in Los Angeles?)
Does climate change have a role in driving the fires?
The severity and likelihood of wildfires are affected by a wide range of conditions. Some of these are related to the climate, such as temperature, wind speed and rainfall. Meanwhile, others are linked to land use, such as the density and type of vegetation, or human-implemented fire-suppression techniques.
Nevertheless, there is a wide body of evidence showing that climate change is making wildfire conditions more likely in many parts of the world. Attribution studies have revealed that climate change has already made many individual wildfires more intense or likely. However, no such attribution study has yet been published about the Los Angeles wildfires.
News outlets and experts across the world have been making the climate connection to the fires in recent days. Many outlets note that Los Angeles has seen rapid swings between extremely dry and wet conditions over the past few years.
BBC News reported that “decades of drought in California were followed by extremely heavy rainfall for two years in 2022 and 2023”, which allowed lots of vegetation to grow. However, the state saw a switch to very dry conditions in the autumn and winter of 2024, which dried out the vegetation, providing ideal fuel for the wildfire.
The outlet highlighted a timely academic paper, which explains that climate change has increased “hydroclimate whiplash” conditions – the rapid swings between periods of high and low rainfall – globally by 31-66% since the middle of the 20th century.
Dr Daniel Swain – a climate scientist from UCLA, who led the research – wrote a Bluesky thread explaining why climate “whiplash” can create the ideal conditions for fires to spread. He said:
“In coastal southern California, where grass and brush (including chaparral) are predominant vegetation types, there is actually a historical relationship between wetter winters and increased fire activity in [the] following fire season.”
Many outlets unpacked the rapid changes in California’s rainfall. The Guardian reported that in both the rainy seasons of 2023 and 2024, more than 25 inches of rain fell over southern California. However, it said this year’s rainy season “is running at just 2% of normal for Los Angeles, which has only seen 0.16in [4mm] of rain so far”.
Al Jazeera reported that, on 7 January, only 39% of California was completely drought-free, with the rest of the state described as “abnormally dry”. However, around the same time last year, 97% of the state was classed as “drought-free”, with only 3% classed as abnormally dry, it said.
Many outlets also pointed to the Santa Ana winds. According to the Guardian, these winds blow dry, warm air into California from the US western desert during cooler months, and have contributed to many forest fires in the past. The Associated Press reported that the winds were “much faster than normal” this year and have been “whipping flames and embers at 100mph – much faster than normal”.
BBC News reported that the low-humidity Santa Ana wind “strips the vegetation of a lot of its moisture, meaning that fire can catch quicker and the vegetation burn more readily”.
Inside Climate News said the “unusually warm” band of the Pacific Ocean near southern California is bending the jet stream, allowing high pressure to settle over the north-east of Los Angeles, while intensifying the Santa Ana winds.
In the Conversation, Prof Jon Keelet from the University of California, Los Angeles, explained his research, which shows a shift in the timing of Santa Ana winds. “Due to well-documented trends in climate change, it is tempting to ascribe this to global warming, but, as yet, there is no substantial evidence of this,” he said.
What has been the political reaction?
As the fires blazed, US president Joe Biden met with California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, and approved his request for a major disaster declaration, enabling increased federal funding, according to the Los Angeles Times.
When asked by NBC News if he thought these fires would be the worst “natural” disaster in US history, Newsom replied: “I think it will be just in terms of just the costs associated.”
Craig Fugate, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator under former president Barack Obama, told the Los Angeles Times that the fires were LA’s “Hurricane Katrina” – a moment that would “forever change the community”.
Bloomberg reported that Biden said federal support would cover 100% of the costs of the fire response for 180 days. The president also directed 400 additional federal firefighters and more than 30 helicopters and planes towards the region, the news outlet added.
Both Biden and his Californian vice-president Kamala Harris made the link between climate change and the fires in their public statements.
The wildfires come at a fraught political moment for the US. Biden, who has championed climate action during his presidency, will soon be replaced by Donald Trump, a climate sceptic who has vowed to roll back many of his predecessor’s policies.
Trump’s response to the fires was summarised in an Associated Press headline that stated: “As wildfires rage in LA, Trump doesn’t offer much sympathy. He’s casting blame.”
The article said Trump had taken aim at his “longtime political foe” and falsely blamed Newsom’s forest management policies and fish conservation efforts in California for the water shortages affecting the response effort . It added that Trump “has a history of withholding or delaying federal aid to punish his political enemies”.
The Los Angeles Times noted that both Biden and current FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell “stopped short” of guaranteeing that aid would continue under Trump.
Following the incoming president’s remarks, Newsom addressed a letter to Trump inviting him to visit LA fire victims and stating “we must not politicise human tragedy or spread disinformation”, according to the Los Angeles Times.
There were also claims in right-wing media that Democratic LA mayor Karen Bass had cut the fire department’s budget, but the Los Angeles Times noted that its budget “actually grew by more than 7%”. BBC News and Media Matters both ran articles fact-checking various claims made about Democrats by figures on the US right.
The Guardian reported on “misinformation” spread by the US right, including claims that the LA fire department prioritised “diversity schemes” – often referred to as “DEI” – over fighting fires. Elon Musk, Trump’s new “efficiency tsar”, supported such claims, and wrote on Twitter: “Wild theory: maybe, just maybe, the root cause wasn’t climate change?”
Meanwhile, another Guardian article noted that “nearby blue and red states as well as foreign countries are making their own political statements in their decisions to deploy firefighters to aid California”. CBS Austin reported that Republican Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has provided resources to California.
Canada and Mexico sent firefighters to help in California, with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau offering his nation’s “full support”. Trump has threatened to impose punitive tariffs on both nations.
How has the media responded to the fires?
There has been extensive coverage in the media of the wildfires, across the US and around the world.
This has taken many forms, but there has been a particular focus in editorials on political divisions and the role of climate denial. For example, an editorial in the Guardian argued that “political obstruction is deepening a climate crisis that needs urgent action”.
In the Washington Post, columnist Jennifer Rubin said that the fires should affect the spread of climate denial, “but won’t”. She wrote:
“The hellish fires tearing through the Los Angeles area are a preview of what’s to come if politicians, ideologues and big oil continue to ignore climate change…These sorts of horror shows will become routine if climate change deniers, led by the [Make America Great Again] anti-science crowd, get their way.”
Explainers on the role of climate change in the Los Angeles wildfires have formed a notable part of the media reaction. This included pieces from the Associated Press, Al Jazeera, Channel 4 News, Le Monde, Axios and the Los Angeles Times, among others.
Elsewhere, right-leaning, climate-sceptic media has called into question the role of climate change and conservation on the wildfires. Many have also criticised the Democratic government of California, as well as the Los Angeles fire chief and members of her department.
In the Daily Telegraph, Freddy Gray, deputy editor of the Spectator, argued that “the LA fires are an epitaph for Democrat misrule”, hitting out at the “climate change lobby” and arguing that the Biden administration “spent far too much time and resources pursuing politically correct causes at the expense of competent or even sane governance”.
An article in the New York Post hit out at Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass’s “botched response” to the fires. It also amplified the comments made across social media by celebrities such as actor James Woods, who claimed that “the fire is not from ‘climate change’” and instead blamed “liberal idiots” for electing “liberal idiots like Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass”.
As noted in a piece in Forbes, Youtubers have been among the right-wing influencers pushing criticism of fire department policy. For example, journalist Megyn Kelly – recently dubbed the “Rumplestiltskin of irritation” in Vox – alleged that the fire chief “has made not filling the fire hydrants top priority, but diversity” in a viral clip.
Similar misleading claims have been made on social media, including by Twitter CEO and leader of the new US Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk, who, as noted above, argued the Los Angeles fire department “prioritised [DEI] over saving lives and homes”.
In response to the misinformation and disinformation being spread, there has also been a wave of articles attempting to counter or factcheck claims. This includes articles in the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, BBC News and the Times, among others.
One specific aspect of the coverage of the Los Angeles wildfires has been the impact on celebrities, with the homes of Billy Crystal, Paris Hilton and Eugene Levy destroyed in the fires. As such, there has been a range of coverage from sources for whom disasters would generally fall outside their remit, including Hello!, Elle, TMZ and others.
An editorial in the Daily Mirror argued that “the destruction of celebrity mansions has captured attention, but we should not forget ordinary Americans”.
What are the implications for insurance in Los Angeles?
Media coverage has highlighted how the fires are set to deliver a major blow to the area’s property insurance market – seen as in “crisis” already – with major consequences for the Californian economy and households across the state.
Insured losses of the Los Angeles fires are expected to be in the tens of billions, according to early predictions from the insurance industry cited by Bloomberg and Reinsurance News.
The eye-watering damages are driven in part by Los Angeles’ expensive real estate. The National Post said the wildfires could prove to be “the costliest in US history, specifically because they have ripped through densely populated areas with higher end-properties”. Properties in the affected Palisades neighbourhood, for example, have a median home value of $3.1m, according to real-estate data cited in a CBS News report.
After wildfires in 2017 and 2018 decimated the industry’s profits, insurers have pulled back from California’s property insurance market in recent years, making it difficult for homeowners to find affordable cover. State Farm, Allstate and Farmers Insurance are among the insurers that have either dropped California policies or halted underwriting in recent years, CBS News said.
As a result, the Los Angeles Times said the fires threaten “to deepen a crisis that has already left hundreds of thousands of Californians struggling to find and keep affordable homeowners insurance”.
Meanwhile, the New Yorker said the “insurance crisis” has been “years in the making”, noting that people had been moving to wildfire-prone areas, despite fires “becoming more destructive, in large measure due to climate change”.
The retreat of insurers from California means a significant proportion of homeowners in Los Angeles rely on the state’s insurer of last resort, California’s Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) plan.
There are now concerns the FAIR plan – which is run by the state government, but pools funds from insurers – could run out of money, putting private insurance firms on the hook to foot the bill. These costs – which could be as large as $24bn, according to the San Francisco Chronicle – would likely be passed on to insurance policyholders across the state.
The New York Times said such a scenario “would further strain the financial health of those insurers, adding to the pressure to pull back from the [California property insurance] market”. It adds:
“The potential consequences are huge. Without insurance, banks won’t issue a mortgage; without a mortgage, most people can’t buy a home. Fewer buyers mean falling home prices, threatening the tax base of fire-prone communities. It’s a scenario that could come to define California, as rising temperatures and drier conditions caused by climate change intensify the risk of wildfires.”
The Los Angeles Times said rising insurance costs for homeowners were just one way the fires would exacerbate the region’s “housing affordability crisis”. The paper has also pointed to higher rents and fierce competition for contractors that can rebuild destroyed and damaged properties.
The crisis comes as insurers around the world grapple with the rising costs attached to escalating climate impacts. Munich Re data – covered by Reuters – reveals that extreme weather events in 2024 caused an estimated $140bn in insured losses globally, up from $106bn the previous year.
Dave Jones, the former insurance commissioner of California and director of the Climate Risk Initiative at Berkeley School of Law, told Time the dynamics hurting California’s beleaguered insurance market could spread to other states as climate impacts intensified. He said:
“In the long term, we’re not doing enough to deal with the underlying driver, which is fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions, so we’re going to continue to see insurance unavailability throughout the US. We are marching steadily towards an uninsurable future in this country.”
The post Media reaction: The 2025 Los Angeles wildfires and the role of climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Media reaction: The 2025 Los Angeles wildfires and the role of climate change
Türkiye and Australia risk losing their credibility as hosts of this year’s COP31 UN climate summit if they keep betting on fossil fuels at home, climate policy experts have warned.
As governments are expected to continue fraught talks over how to advance the global transition away from oil, coal and gas in Antalya this November, both of the co-host countries are pursuing fossil fuel expansion at home, without a national timeline to phase out their use.
Türkiye has accelerated its rollout of wind and solar energy in recent years. But that progress has yet to make a dent in the country’s dependence on fossil fuels for power, as demand growth has outpaced the renewables build-out, new analysis by Climate Action Tracker (CAT) has found.
The share of electricity generated by burning coal and fossil gas – 56% in 2025 – has barely changed since 2019, and total fossil fuel use in the power sector, and the emissions it produces, are still rising, according to the report released on Friday.
The Turkish government has also signalled that fossil fuels will remain a central component of its energy mix and has outlined plans to expand the country’s burgeoning domestic gas production in the Black Sea.
‘Need to demonstrate seriousness’
Australia, which will chair the Antalya negotiations, relies on fossil fuels for over 60% of its electricity, with coal alone still supplying 45%. According to experts, it lacks an ambitious plan to shift away from fossil fuels at home, relying heavily on carbon offsetting to reach its climate targets.
Australia is also the world’s third-largest fossil fuel exporter and has plans to expand its coal and gas production, which is backed by significant government subsidies. It recently upset climate groups by approving an extension of the Saraji open-cut coal mine in Queensland.
Türkiye says it has “final decision” at COP31 despite Australia running negotiations
Jennifer Morgan, a senior fellow with the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and former climate envoy for Germany, said Türkiye and Australia need to demonstrate their seriousness about their COP presidency roles by leading by example on the energy transition.
“They have made progress in renewable energy,” she told reporters this week. “But I think their credibility – and their ability to therefore bring momentum and good outcomes to the COP – will depend on their taking further action at home.”
Türkiye’s electrification homework
The co-hosts’ fossil fuel policies are being scrutinised in the run-up to the annual UN climate summit, with much riding on the signal climate diplomacy sends on the energy transition.
Türkiye has so far stopped short of putting any overt political capital behind the fossil fuel transition itself. It has instead been rallying support for a new global electrification target of 35% by 2035, seen as the centrepiece of this year’s non-negotiated Action Agenda put forward by Ankara.
COP31 president Murat Kurum said last week the push to electrify economies – through measures like electric vehicles and heat pumps – will “automatically” lead to a reduction in the use of fossil fuels.
Türkiye’s own energy plan projects the country’s electrification rate would fall short on the global target and only hit 25% by 2035, according to the CAT report, which called for a “substantial step-change” in electrification policies and the deployment of more renewable power and grid infrastructure.
Coal still dominant
CAT’s analysts also warned that, without a parallel phase-out of fossil fuels, rising electricity demand risks being met in part by coal and gas, failing to deliver the emissions reductions the electrification target is meant to achieve.
Türkiye has had some success in its clean energy build-out: the share of electricity generation from wind and solar rose to 22% in 2025, up from 12% in 2020, according to the CAT report.
But coal’s role in Türkiye’s electricity mix has also grown, in both its share and absolute terms, over the past decade. And while reliance on fossil gas has declined overall, it still plays an important role in Ankara’s energy policy, which is pushing to boost domestic gas production in the Black Sea.
Dr Niklas Höhne from the NewClimate Institute said the government could demonstrate leadership as COP31 president by building on its recent successes in increasing its renewable energy capacity and announcing targets and plans to phase out coal and gas ahead of the summit.
According to CAT, Türkiye should phase out coal by 2040 and fossil gas by 2045 at the latest to align its power sector with global efforts to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C above preindustrial times.
Türkiye quiet on fossil fuel roadmap
Ümit Şahin, coordinator of climate change studies at the Istanbul Policy Center (IPM), said Türkiye’s strategy is to approach the fossil fuel debate exclusively from the “end-use point of view”.
“I don’t expect any push from the Turkish presidency to the producer countries in terms of fossil fuel production,” he told reporters.
Neither does Şahin believe the Turkish presidency will throw its political weight behind another big-ticket item for COP31: a new global roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels.
Brazil took on the responsibility to voluntarily draft this document outside of the formal negotiations as a way to break the deadlock at last year’s UN summit in Belém when governments clashed over whether to develop one.
The outgoing COP30 presidency will deliver the roadmap in early November – but it will be up to Türkiye and Australia to guide countries towards a decision on how the blueprint will be taken forward, either inside or outside the negotiations.
Leadership needed
Australia’s Chris Bowen, COP31’s president of negotiations, promised to lobby producing countries to deliver a “meaningful step forward” on the fossil fuel transition in an interview with The Guardian earlier this year. But he has been quiet on the role Australia sees for the fossil fuel transition roadmap.
Natalie Jones, senior policy advisor at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), said the COP31 co-presidents “must provide clear leadership” on this process.
“This roadmap cannot be left in a dusty drawer,” she told journalists. “Rather, it must be translated into action, with all countries identifying what elements they can adopt or develop in their own national roadmap.”
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Like Türkiye, Australia has yet to produce a national blueprint for winding down coal, gas and oil. Rather than moving toward a phase-out, state and federal governments have kept expanding fossil fuel licensing over the past year, according to a new analysis published this month by Climate Analytics.
Under existing policy, both coal and gas are on track to remain in Australia’s power system as late as 2050 – a trajectory the report defines as incompatible with the 1.5C limit the country says it’s committed to.
No binding end dates for the Netherlands
Analysts are watching out for national transition roadmaps as a bellwether for governments that claim to be leaders in the global shift away from fossil fuels.
The Netherlands, which co-hosted the first fossil fuel transition conference in Santa Marta this year, published its own domestic roadmap earlier this week. The document followed through on a pledge that “leadership on transitioning away from fossil fuels must be backed by concrete action, not just ambitious words”, said a spokesperson for Stientje van Veldhoven, the Dutch minister for climate policy.
But experts criticised the plan for failing to set a binding end date for the country’s fossil fuel production and use. While targeting a rapid increase in renewables capacity, the Dutch government only commits to phasing out oil, gas and coal “in the energy and feedstock system to eventually zero, and to minimise fossil use” by 2050.
Yvo de Boer, a former Dutch diplomat and executive secretary of the UN climate body, said the Dutch roadmap falls short of what’s needed to give industry the confidence to deploy capital in support of the energy transition with greater predictability.
“Ultimately, a roadmap without deadlines is nothing more than a footpath paved with good intentions,” he added, writing on LinkedIn.
The post Fossil fuel expansion threatens COP31 hosts’ credibility, experts warn appeared first on Climate Home News.
Fossil fuel expansion threatens COP31 hosts’ credibility, experts warn
Despite millions of dollars in grants and technical help for African businesses to power farming and other food production activities with renewable energy, most efforts remain stuck at the early stages because they struggle to find the investors, markets and expertise they need to grow.
This was the message from a coalition of global institutions working on energy, water and agriculture at this month’s Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali, Rwanda.
“Energy, agriculture, water and nutrition actors rarely design solutions together,” the Agri-Energy Coalition said in a Call to Action on powering food systems with clean energy.
Using more renewables – especially solar power – to drive food systems would reduce food losses, ensure year-round availability and affordability of healthy foods, and improve productivity, income and resilience among farmers, food processors and other small enterprises, the coalition added.
In an interview with Climate Home News at the forum, Olamide Niyi-Afuye, CEO of the Africa Minigrid Developers Association (AMDA) – a body representing private-sector developers of small-scale, off-grid electricity systems across the continent – said its members are starting to recognise this interdependence and are increasingly considering businesses that combine energy with agricultural activities.
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This, Niyi-Afuye added, could lead to greater supply and use of clean power for key processes like irrigation, food processing and storage, creating new sources of revenue for both sectors.
CHN: Conversations at the Africa Food Systems Forum highlighted how organisations working in energy and agriculture often operate in silos. What has hampered their collaboration, and how has that affected Africa’s economic development?
A: Most mini-grid companies in Africa were primarily incentivised to achieve connections. If you look at some ongoing projects, you see a cost-per-connection model [of revenue]. When a subsidy is tied to achieving a connection, regardless of whether it is a productive connection, you might not notice the problem until five years down the line, when you realise the cash flows are not what you projected.
Despite African walkout, fractious land COP ends without drought deal
So now we’re in a “come-to-Jesus moment” as an industry, where we’re righting the wrongs and adjusting our business models to make sure companies do not go bust and there is some level of sustainability over the long term.
The saying is not wrong that we’ve been working in our own silos because we’ve focused on the smaller things instead of the helicopter view. There needs to be cross-pollination [between the energy and agriculture sectors] because, if we are thinking about industrialisation, energy is a key driver of industrialisation. We will not achieve that if we’re not in the room and part of those conversations.
CHN: Productive use of energy is intended to ensure electricity access goes beyond lighting homes to improving livelihoods, creating jobs and powering equipment. But what happens when farmers cannot afford the equipment they need to do that? How can energy, agriculture and equipment players work together to make the transition more accessible?
A: That’s why we’re having conversations with companies set up to de-risk the agriculture sector. By leveraging that connection, we’re able to aggregate potential energy needs and develop instruments that make equipment more affordable through bulk procurement.
We can have arrangements that make it easier for farmers and food producers to lease equipment and eventually own it over a period. There’s no real pressure to recover the capital very quickly because you’re looking at scale.
There is a whole lot across the agricultural value chain that needs energy, from farming and harvesting to food processing and value-addition. We need to understand the energy needs across the value chain and bring our members in to provide solutions.
Developers do not necessarily need to provide every productive-use solution themselves. They can partner with equipment suppliers, financiers, agribusinesses and other service providers to enable customers to use electricity productively. The objective is simple: do not just electrify communities; enable economic activity that uses that electricity.
CHN: When Africa’s industrialisation is discussed, you hear things like renewables cannot provide enough baseload, while some food processors are sceptical about switching to renewable energy because of these concerns about reliability. What is your response?
A: It’s not a controversial statement to say that a typical baseload is usually from the grid, and it’s usually from multiple sources including renewable energy. For large-scale operations, we can look at blending multiple sources of energy. But how do we solve the problem of a mid-sized farmer? We can solve it with a mini-grid using renewable energy.
Comment: Every country needs a model to help optimise its energy transition
If you go to a small farmer in a rural area, they don’t care about what source of energy they’re getting. They just want something that can help them get from A to B. If you look at the direct energy needs of farmers and food processors, I’m sure 90 percent of their consumption can be solved by renewable energy. Let’s start with that problem first. Then, as they scale, they might need to ramp up, and we can start talking about a bigger baseload.
CHN: How much agricultural value is lost because farmers and food businesses lack reliable, affordable electricity?
A: If you look at, for example, the fact that we need to maybe plant tomatoes or strawberries in Jos before it gets to Lagos [Nigeria], which most likely is by road, I can assure you that a good chunk, if not stored properly, would be bad by then. So the fact that we do not have energy is in itself a lost opportunity to maximise the potential of the agriculture sector. So until we’ve solved the energy problem, we will not salvage waste – and for me that is a lost opportunity.
CHN: AGRA, an institution focused on scaling agricultural innovations to help smallholder farmers, estimates a massive shortfall between current investments in the continent’s food systems and what is actually needed to build a resilient, profitable agricultural economy – to the tune of $180 billion per year. Can integrating energy into food systems help bridge that gap?
A: Yes – if energy can help unlock the potential to earn more money, investors will follow the money. Investments go where there is certainty, and until there is certainty around cash flow and revenue, investment will be limited.
My vision is to see more Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) being signed between energy players and the agriculture sector. We can start by getting people into the room, understanding their pain points, crafting a framework and documentation that works for both parties, and then seeing deals happen.
This interview was shortened and edited for clarity.
The post How clean energy can boost business for Africa’s food producers appeared first on Climate Home News.
How clean energy can boost business for Africa’s food producers
Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio is a senior advisor on adaptation and resilience with the United Nations Foundation and Mattias Söderberg is global climate lead at Danish NGO DanChurchAid.
Recent extreme events – from wildfires and heatwaves in Europe to flash flooding following a glacier collapse in Nepal – have shocked and devastated communities, bringing years of warnings about such climate impacts to the doorstep of communities around the world.
One thing is certain: the new climate reality is here – and the adaptation strategies designed for yesterday’s world are no longer sufficient.
Attribution science has since shown that the hotter and more frequent heatwaves we’re experiencing around the world would have been virtually impossible without today’s high concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Climate shocks are now so severe that they reverberate through supply chains, food and water systems, financial markets and the movement of people.
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Foreign minister: Nepal needs “meaningful” international support to face climate threats
Following its recent Himalayan flooding disaster, the South Asian nation is seeking urgent help from a new UN climate fund, appealing for “stronger global solidarity” -
Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change
With homes, hospitals and water storage destroyed, Palestine’s government says that Gazans have little protection from climate impacts and sets conditional emissions targets
They must be a catalyst for a new way of thinking about adaptation and resilience, and how we finance solutions that work. A failure to invest in adaptation in one region can create costs far beyond it, which is why the concept of shared resilience is critical for leaders to grasp.
Investment not charity
At the UN General Assembly (UNGA 81) this month, leaders have an opportunity to translate today’s urgency into concrete commitments on adaptation and loss and damage finance ahead of COP31.
Those commitments are needed to underpin global stability, shared prosperity and human security. Governments should use this moment to show what a new response looks like: finance that reaches communities faster, supports locally grounded solutions, strengthens national systems, and helps countries prepare before the next shock arrives.
If we want sustained economic growth, food and water security, and resilient and prosperous societies across every region, adaptation must be at the heart of today’s development and security agenda. It cannot be just a future planning consideration or a narrow issue for climate ministries. Adaptation is now everyone’s business – and it must be financed fast and fair.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has repeatedly framed climate finance as an investment rather than charity, warning that “a world in climate chaos cannot be a world at peace” and describing human security as freedom from the chronic and sudden disruptions that climate change multiplies.
What’s more, adaptation delivers a real return-on-investment, with researchers estimating that every dollar invested produces $10 in benefits, saving lives, protecting livelihoods, and reducing the costs of future disasters.
Hitting adaptation limits
The urgency to scale adaptation systematically is growing. The newly released “Limiting Overshoot” report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) confirms what scientists have long warned: exceeding global warming of 1.5C is now unavoidable under current policies. Yet, how high temperatures rise – and how long the world remains above the 1.5C threshold – will determine whether communities, economies and entire ecosystems can keep pace.
There are limits to adaptation. When we breach those limits, lives and livelihoods are lost, and people and ecosystems suffer greatly. We cannot simply build yesterday’s infrastructure a little stronger and assume it will be enough.
Nepal flood destruction shows “limits to adaptation”, scientists say
We need to fundamentally change the systems that determine how societies anticipate, absorb and recover from both immediate and evolving non-linear climate shocks. This includes transforming physical systems, such as infrastructure, and the governance systems that affect where and how we live to how we maintain our health and wellbeing.
Finance today is nowhere near the scale of the challenge.
The UNEP “Adaptation Gap Report 2025” estimates the shortfall in adaptation finance in developing countries at $284 billion–$339 billion a year – roughly 12 to 14 times current international public flows of around $26 billion. That gap is a development, economic and human security problem, especially for the most vulnerable populations who have contributed the least to causing the climate crisis.
Building resilience into financial systems
There are already signs of what a more systemic adaptation response could look like. Communities around the world are delivering practical solutions at local level, even as adaptation finance remains notoriously, and appallingly, difficult to access. Cyclone-resistant homes, local forecasting capacities, drought-resistant crops, heat insurance for pregnant informal workers and mangrove restoration are rooted in local knowledge and lived experience, while delivering benefits far beyond the communities where they originate from.
But local innovation alone is not enough; the systems around it need to be resilient too.
Jamaica offers one example. The country has built a multi-layered disaster-risk financing framework, including a catastrophe bond and contingency funds, through sustained fiscal discipline and proactive investment. Its debt-to-GDP ratio fell from around 147% in 2012 to around 62% in 202-25. That groundwork matters when disaster strikes.
Hurricane Melissa’s destruction shows need for climate resilience push
Following Hurricane Melissa, Jamaica was able to secure billions of dollars in reconstruction financing from multilateral banks – finance that might otherwise have been much harder to access. The lesson is clear: resilience can be built into the financial architecture of a country before a crisis arrives. That is the shift we now need to make at scale.
The foundations already exist – in Kingston’s fiscal reforms, in early-warning systems from the Sahel to the Pacific, and in every community that adapted before disaster struck. What is still missing is the political will, and the finance, to take what works and put it to work everywhere, at the speed our world’s new climate reality demands.
To hear more on this issue from high-level officials and experts, sign up for this event during Climate Week NYC, at 8am EDT on September 24 (in person or online), moderated by Climate Home News Editor Megan Rowling: Adapting to the New Climate Reality: Why Accelerating Impacts Demand New Responses.
The post Human security relies on adapting to the world’s new climate reality appeared first on Climate Home News.
Human security relies on adapting to the world’s new climate reality
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