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UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has unveiled the first spending review under the current Labour government, announcing funding for nuclear power, energy efficiency and carbon capture and storage (CCS).

A spending review establishes each ministry’s spending limits and priorities for the rest of the parliamentary term.

The Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) received one of the largest jumps in capital spending, despite energy secretary Ed Miliband reportedly being one of the last to agree to a spending settlement.

Before the final details had been announced, the Times was describing Miliband as one of the “biggest winners” from the process.

High-profile funding announcements in the Treasury’s spending review include £14.2bn for the Sizewell C new nuclear power plant in Suffolk, the first state-backed nuclear power station for decades.

Elsewhere, two new CCS clusters – Acorn and Viking – were allocated funding and railways across the nation were given a boost.

Below, Carbon Brief runs through the key announcements.

Departmental spending

Spending reviews are an opportunity for governments to stake out their priorities by setting the budgets for departments over the rest of this parliament.

Reeves’ spending review has been viewed by experts and media commentators as an opportunity to boost Labour’s flagging popularity and pursue some of its key manifesto commitments, including net-zero.

It covers plans for departmental “resource” spending – including day-to-day running costs – out to 2028-29 and “capital” spending out to 2029-30.

The latter includes injections of funding for infrastructure and public services, such as major clean-energy and transport projects.

In her speech launching the review, Reeves did not specifically mention the terms net-zero or climate change, but stressed the importance of achieving energy security via domestic, low-carbon power. “Clean energy” also featured prominently in the review document itself.

Simon Evans post on BlueSky (‪@drsimevans.carbonbrief.org‬): Given all the briefing that's been flying around about Ed Miliband's job security – and the relentless media attacks on climate action – it's pretty notable to see "clean energy" as one of the few priorities specifically namechecked in the spending review table of contents

Overall, total departmental budgets are set to grow by 2.3% in real terms across the spending review period.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is expected to see a 16% increase in overall departmental spending, reaching £12.6bn in 2028-29.

(This does not include the boost in funding for Sizewell C nuclear plant, which will see a 15.6% increase thanks to a £14.2bn investment over the next five years. See: New nuclear.)

The chart below – taken from the spending review document – shows that while the absolute increase in spending on areas such as health, defence and education is higher, DESNZ is among the most highly prioritised in relative terms.

Simon Evans post on BlueSky (‪@drsimevans.carbonbrief.org‬): Here's the key chart showing the biggest winners and losers at spending review 2025, by department While health is on top in absolute terms, DESNZ is getting the biggest increase in relative terms (+16% per year)

The review document emphasises that this increase in public money is necessary to mobilise private investment and “secure the UK’s electricity system with homegrown, clean power by 2030”.

Other departments that are also relevant for climate action have not seen the same overall increases in budget.

The Department for Transport (DfT) is set to see its overall departmental spending drop by 0.4%. However, the review notes that capital spending will increase, including more money for local low-carbon transport options and major rail projects.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) budget is also expected to fall overall, but support for “nature-friendly farming” is set to more than double over the review period.

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Energy efficiency

Leading up to the spending review, there had been speculation that the government might cut plans to invest £13.2bn on upgrading the nation’s homes under its “warm homes plan”, which had been a manifesto commitment ahead of last year’s election.

Such a move could have cost households more than £1.4bn a year in avoidable energy bills, according to analysis from thinktank the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).

However, the spending review confirmed the pledged £13.2bn in funding for the scheme, covering spending between 2025-26 and 2029-30.

The government says this will help to cut bills by up to £600 per household through energy efficiency measures, heat pumps, solar panels and batteries. It will also help support tens of thousands of jobs across the country, the spending review adds.

According to innovation agency Nesta, the warm homes funding is roughly double the previous government’s commitment, amounting to a £6.6bn increase in government spending on home upgrades over the current parliament, compared with the previous one.

It will see around one-fifth of the nation’s housing stock upgraded by 2029, although to a varying degree.

Responding to the announcement, trade association Energy UK’s chief executive Dhara Vyas said in a statement:

“It’s also very important that millions of customers will see a direct benefit from today’s announcements. By reaffirming the funding to improve the energy efficiency of millions of homes and supporting the switch to cleaner heating alternatives, customers can expect warmer and more comfortable homes, cleaner air and cheaper bills – showing how the energy transition can improve their daily lives.”

Funding for the warm homes plan in the spending review follows £3.4bn in investment announced for the scheme at the autumn budget in 2024. At the time, Labour had said that this was just the “first step” in investment for decarbonisation and household energy efficiency within the scheme.

Further details for the warm homes plan will be confirmed in October, the spending review says.

Beyond energy efficiency, Reeves announced what she called the “biggest boost to investment in social and affordable housing in a generation”, confirming £39bn in funding for a 10-year affordable homes programme.

This will nearly double government spending on affordable housing, according to reporting earlier this week.

Miliband recently announced changes to the “future homes standard” that will mean almost all new homes will have to be built with rooftop solar as a default, high levels of energy efficiency and low-carbon heating, such as heat pumps.

As such, new properties built under the affordable homes programme will largely have to include energy efficiency measures and low-carbon energy technologies.

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Energy infrastructure investment

GB Energy

The spending review also confirms that it will allocate £8.3bn in funding for Great British Energy (GB Energy) and the linked GB Energy – Nuclear, another manifesto commitment.

It says this has been achieved by allocating £9.6bn in “additional financial transactions, such as loans and equity investments, to support growth”.

(It explains that “financial transactions” are designed to “allow government to invest alongside the private sector, through equity investments, loans and guarantees”. The document also says that GB Energy will be designated as a “public financial institution”.)

In addition to this top-line confirmation for GB Energy, the spending review also gives it an extra £300m in support for offshore wind supply chains.

This forms part of the “government’s investment in resilient and clean energy security, boosting domestic jobs, mobilising additional private investment and securing manufacturing facilities for critical clean energy supply chains such as floating offshore platforms”, it notes.

The spending review confirms up to £80m for port investment to support floating offshore wind deployment in Port Talbot in Wales, subject to final due diligence.

GB Energy funding follows on from Labour’s manifesto, promising investment into technologies such as floating offshore wind, as well as partnering with local authorities and the private sector to support the deployment of mature technologies.

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New nuclear

Ahead of the spending review, the chancellor announced a £14.2bn investment in the planned Sizewell C new nuclear power plant in Suffolk.

The plant is being jointly developed by the UK government with French state-owned utility firm EDF Energy, which is already building the Hinkley C plant in Somerset.

Each new plant will have a capacity of 3.2 gigawatts (GW), enough to power six million homes. During its construction, Sizewell C will provide 10,000 jobs, including 1,500 apprenticeships, according to the government.

In a statement earlier this week, energy secretary Ed Miliband said new nuclear was needed for energy security, lower bills and to help cut emissions. He said:

“We need new nuclear to deliver a golden age of clean-energy abundance, because that is the only way to protect family finances, take back control of our energy, and tackle the climate crisis.

“This is the government’s clean energy mission in action- investing in lower bills and good jobs for energy security.”

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme following the investment announcement, Miliband stated that China would not be able to invest in the new nuclear plant in Suffolk. He further clarified that, while the majority of the investment would come from the UK government, there will also be private investment announced at a later date.

Sizewell C will be one of the first new nuclear power stations in the UK in decades, with no new nuclear power plants having opened since 1995 and all but one of the existing fleet expected to retire by the early 2030s.

The under-construction plant at Hinkley Point C is also being developed by EDF and is expected to serve as a “blueprint” for Sizewell C.

The Hinkley C plant is being funded via a “contract for difference” (CfD), under which EDF is responsible for the upfront investment costs, but will receive £92.50 per megawatt hour (MWh, 2012 prices) for each unit of electricity generated. (This will drop to £89.50/MWh in 2012 prices as a result of the Sizewell C project going ahead.)

EDF has reportedly accepted that Hinkley C will cost more than £40bn to complete, but has “rejected claims” that the Sizewell C scheme would cost a similar amount.

Sizewell C is due to be funded under the “regulated asset base” (RAB) model and so will not receive a CfD, but the details of this deal are not yet available. The final investment decision on the project is due later this summer, according to reports.

Additionally, the government announced Rolls-Royce has been selected to build small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) following a “rigorous” two-year competition.

Rolls-Royce will partner with Great British Energy – Nuclear as part of the government’s industrial strategy, which will see £2.5bn invested over the spending review period.

The firm is expected to build three SMRs, with the first connecting to the grid “in the mid-2030s”, according to Rolls-Royce.

The spending review also included over £2.5bn for nuclear fusion. This will include support for the design and build of a prototype energy plant in Nottinghamshire.

The document notes that the government is providing a “pathway for privately led advanced nuclear technologies”, although details are not elaborated.

Great British Energy – Nuclear will shortly publish a new framework with the National Wealth Fund for exploring further investment opportunities for viable nuclear projects.

The spending review includes £13.9bn for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, to keep “former nuclear sites and facilities safe and secure as it decommissions sites and manages nuclear waste”.

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Carbon capture and storage

The UK has already pledged “up to” £21.7bn of funding over 25 years to support five carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, involving “clusters” of connected facilities.

Most of this funding will come from levies on consumers, but the government has also been gradually announcing chunks of public investment to get these initiatives off the ground.

The spending review allocates another £9.4bn of capital spending by 2029. This will partly go towards “maximis[ing] deployment to fill the [CO2] storage capacity” of the first two funded clusters.

At the same time, the government also confirmed its support for the next two clusters – Acorn in north-east Scotland and Viking in the Humber in the spending review. These projects are set to be up and running in the 2030s.

The review states that the government is providing the “development funding to advance [the] delivery” of these clusters, with a final investment decision expected “later this parliament, subject to project readiness and affordability”.

Pathways set out by government advisors at the Climate Change Committee (CCC) suggest CCS is required to meet the UK’s net-zero targets.

However, the government has faced intense scrutiny over its investments in CCS. A report by the influential Public Accounts Committee earlier this year said investing public funds in this relatively undeveloped technology was a “high risk” approach.

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Transport

The spending review includes a number of commitments for regional transport projects that could help cut UK emissions, including rail upgrades, bus lanes and cycleways.

Overall, the Department for Transport (DfT) settlement will reach total funding of £31.5bn in 2028-29, a slight increase from current levels. This includes support for the HS2 high-speed rail project.

HS2, which had its second phase out to Manchester cancelled under the Conservatives in 2023, will see its funding drop over the spending period.

Meanwhile, capital spending on transport projects around the country is set to experience a 4% real-terms growth rate each year out to 2029-30.

Regional transport projects receiving funding include the TransPennine Route Upgrade between York and Manchester, with £3.5bn, as well as £2.5bn for East-West Rail between Oxford and Cambridge and £300m for rail investment in Wales.

(For comparison, despite the declining funds, HS2 will receive £25.3bn over the period.)

Other relevant investments in the spending review include a commitment to “more than double” city region transport spending per year by 2029-30, by providing a total of £15.6bn for elected mayors across England. The review says this could go towards local transport priorities, including “zero-emission buses, trams and local rail”.

Additionally, there is another £2.3bn allocated for investment in local transport grants to support “bus lanes, cycleways and congestion improvement measures” for areas outside the larger regions with mayors.

The review includes a relatively small sum – £2.6bn – of capital investment that is set aside to “decarbonise transport” as “part of the government’s clean energy mission”.

This is made up of £1.4bn to “support continued uptake” of electric vehicles, in particular vans and heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), as well as £400m for charging infrastructure and £616m for walking and cycling infrastructure.

Some of these funds will also support the production of “sustainable” aviation fuel (SAF) in the UK by extending the government’s advanced fuels fund.

The spending review also includes funding for transport projects that may not help to decarbonise the nation’s transport. Notably, there is £24bn of funding by 2030 to “maintain and improve motorways and local roads across the country”.

Also, while the project is not mentioned in the spending review document itself, Reeves’s speech mentioned “backing Doncaster airport” alongside “investment to connect our cities and our towns”. (The airport is currently closed, but there has been a local political effort to reopen it.)

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Other announcements

R&D funding

The government is increasing research and development (R&D) funding to £22.6bn per year by 2029-2030.

This will include funding for the UK’s science base, the spending review says, such as the non-departmental public body UK Research and Innovation and research initiative Horizon Europe.

Part of this funding will go to the government’s new R&D missions accelerator programme. Some £500m of public funds are intended to leverage a further £1.5bn of private investment in innovation that supports the government’s “missions”.

(One of the five key “missions” announced by the Labour government in its manifesto is to “make Britain a clean-energy superpower”.)

Additionally, R&D funding will include up to £750m for a new supercomputer at Edinburgh University, the largest in the UK. This will be used to support a broad range of fields, including climate and weather predictions and research into fusion power.

In a statement, secretary of state for Scotland Ian Murray welcomed the funding for the supercomputer, adding:

“This will see Scotland playing a leading role in creating breakthroughs that have a global benefit – such as new medicines, health advances and climate change solutions.”

Ahead of the publication of the delayed UK industrial strategy, the spending review lists relevant R&D commitments.

It says over £3bn in R&D and capital funding over the next four years will go to advanced manufacturing across the UK, “anchoring the supply chain of zero emission vehicles, batteries and ultra-low and zero-carbon emissions aircraft[s]”.

Clean-energy industries will also receive “significant additional funding”, it adds.

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Flood defences and farming funds

As part of the spending review, the government announced investment in climate adaptation and the natural environment to “increase the UK’s resilience to the effects of climate change and protect the ecosystems that underpin the economy and food security”.

This includes £2.7bn in sustainable farming and nature recovery funding until 2028-29, as well as £4.2bn to build and maintain flood defences from 2026-27 to 2028-29.

According to the spending review, farmers will benefit from £2.3bn through the farming and countryside programme and up to £400m from additional nature schemes

There will be increasing support for “nature-friendly farming” through environmental land management schemes, which will grow from £800m in 2023-24 to £2bn by 2028-29. This will be sustained by “rapidly winding down” other subsidy payments.

The spending review states that this will make a “significant contribution” to the Environment Act targets, including improvements to water and air quality and creating spaces for wildlife to support biodiversity.

Funding for both flood defences and farm schemes follows the government stating that it was facing “significant funding pressures” of almost £600m in 2024-25 in the autumn budget.

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Foreign aid and climate finance

The government announced in February that it would further cut aid spending to 0.3% of gross national income (GNI) by 2027 in order to fund higher defence spending.

This came just three months after the UK, alongside other developed countries, had committed to raising at least $300bn a year for climate action in developing countries at the COP29 climate summit.

Developed countries have traditionally used their aid budgets to meet such “climate finance” goals.

But observers have noted that scaling up climate finance to meet this new target will be difficult, as nations cut back their overseas spending and the world faces overlapping humanitarian crises.

When announcing the cut earlier this year, prime minister Keir Starmer said that the UK would retain its focus on “tackling climate change” in its aid spending. The government also acknowledged that the decision to cut aid would require “many hard choices”.

The government has a pledge to spend £11.6bn over five years on climate finance in developing countries, which ends in 2025-26. Beyond that, it is expected to announce a new pledge to feed into the $300bn goal.

The spending review does not provide details of precisely what this goal will be, or whether it will be more ambitious as other aid programmes undergo swingeing cuts.

It states that the funding plan “prioritises UK multilateral investment across issues where the international system needs to deliver at scale and to reform”, including the “climate and nature crisis”.

It also says the three departments that provide nearly all UK climate finance – the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, DESNZ and Defra – will “maintain progress” on the nation’s international climate goals.

However, the amounts of aid channelled via all three of these departments will be lower in the coming years than they are now, according to the government’s figures.

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Response to climate-risks report

In a separate document published alongside the spending review, the government also set out its response to the latest “fiscal risks and sustainability” (FRS) report, published by the Office for Budget in September 2024.

Within this, the government reiterates its intention to “accelerate to net-zero”, including via its target for clean power by 2030.

The response adds that, alongside this, the government recognises that it “must also take action to build resilience and ensure the UK is well-prepared for the changing climate”.

It says that FRS identified flooding and extreme heat as areas that need particular attention, before setting out its spending commitments in these areas.

The response also confirms two important dates for UK climate-policy watchers.

First, the response says the government will, in October 2025, publish its “carbon budget delivery plan”. This will set out the plans and policies the government will put in place in order to meet the first six carbon budgets, covering the years out to 2037.

Second, it says that the government will legislate for the seventh UK “carbon budget” by June 2026. This is a legally binding limit on emissions covering five years from 2038 to 2042. The CCC has recommended an 87% reduction below 1990 levels.

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UK spending review 2025: Key climate and energy announcements

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Trump Administration Abandons Fight Against Wind Energy as Clean Energy Output Surges

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The clean energy sector is showing resilience despite challenges thrown at it by a hostile White House, a recent report found. A string of legal victories has further dampened the Trump administration’s efforts to halt wind and solar power.

The Trump administration has abandoned its effort to halt wind energy projects across the United States and dropped its challenge to the court ruling that tossed President Donald Trump’s order freezing federal permitting and leasing for wind projects. States that challenged the order hailed the development as one of the most significant legal victories against the Trump White House’s campaign against the energy transition.

Trump Administration Abandons Fight Against Wind Energy as Clean Energy Output Surges

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Analysis: UK’s EV drivers are now saving £1,100 each a year – and £3bn in total

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Amid reports that the government could weaken the UK’s electric vehicle (EV) targets, Carbon Brief analysis reveals the nation’s EV drivers are saving more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs, compared with running a petrol car.

Battery EVs (BEVs) are roughly four times more efficient than combustion-engine cars, making them far cheaper to run – particularly since the Iran crisis caused a spike in fossil-fuel prices.

The savings from driving BEVs are also more than three times higher than for “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs), which evidence shows are mostly driven with their combustion engines.

In total, the more than 2m BEVs, 1m PHEVs and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are saving drivers around £3bn a year, Carbon Brief’s analysis shows, as illustrated in the figure below.

In addition, these EVs are avoiding the need for nearly 2.5bn litres of fuel and cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by nearly 7m tonnes each year.

Total annual fuel cost savings from the UK’s fleet of battery EVs, plug-in hybrids and electric vans, £bn. Figures for 2026 based on EVs on the road as of May 2026 and the latest road fuel prices. Analysis based on 80% home charging at cheap overnight rates and 20% public charging. Savings can reach £1,400 a year with exclusive home charging. Source: Carbon Brief analysis.

Despite recent news that EVs are now cheaper to buy than petrol cars, as well as having far lower running costs, BBC News says the government is “set to water down” its EV sales targets.

The broadcaster explains that the current goal, under the UK’s “zero-emissions vehicle” (ZEV) mandate, is for 80% of new car sales to be BEVs by 2030.

It says that the government is set to consult on weakening this to between 50% and 70%, following “lobbying” by carmakers and trade unions.

According to the Sunday Times, prime minister Keir Starmer “is understood to have overruled the energy secretary [Ed Miliband] after sustained pressure from industry, the Unite union and Peter Kyle, the business secretary”.

The car industry has consistently claimed there is insufficient demand for BEVs to meet the targets under the ZEV mandate, yet the government says manufacturers have “over-complied” to date. Independent analysts say the industry is on track to continue beating the ZEV mandate goals.

The industry has been able to beat its targets by using a wide range of “flexibilities”, which were introduced after a previous round of lobbying. These allow carmarkers to meet part of their EV targets by selling more efficient combustion cars, such as hybrids and plug-in hybrids.

The ZEV mandate is the single-largest part of the government’s plans to meet its legally binding climate goals over the next decade.

The advisory Climate Change Committee (CCC) previously warned that the extra flexibilities would result in a larger number of hybrids being sold, at the expense of battery EVs.

When it consulted on the ZEV mandate in 2023, the then-Conservative government noted that PHEVs do not deliver the cost and CO2 savings they are advertised with.

It pointed to “dramatic” differences between the performance of PHEVs in test cycles and what they deliver under real-world conditions.

In practice, less than a third of miles driven in PHEVs are fuelled by electricity, with petrol making up the rest. As a result, cost and CO2 savings from BEVs are three times larger than for PHEVs.

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Analysis: UK’s EV drivers are now saving £1,100 each a year – and £3bn in total

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UN’s first Paris Agreement carbon credits face human rights and climate concerns

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Civil society groups have called for an investigation into the first carbon credits approved under a new UN mechanism, alleging the project is linked to Myanmar’s military junta – which the UN says is guilty of human rights abuses – and has “massively” overstated its climate impact.

The programme, which aims to cut emissions by distributing efficient cookstoves across Myanmar, received approval to issue around 650,000 carbon credits from the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body in February, in a landmark moment for the Paris Agreement’s carbon market. Only two projects have been given the green light by the mechanism’s regulator so far.

But two reports published last week, led by the Global Forest Coalition and Brussels-based NGO Carbon Market Watch, raised serious concerns about the project’s implementation in conflict zones where civilians have faced airstrikes and mass displacement as well as its emission-reduction calculations.

Project continued after military coup

Myanmar has been ravaged by a brutal civil war since the country’s military overthrew the democratically elected government in a coup d’état in February 2021. The military regime has attacked civilian populations, persecuted ethnic minorities and committed widespread sexual violence, among other serious human rights violations, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar said in April.

The cookstove programme started in 2018 under the previous UN-run carbon offsetting scheme – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – as a partnership between Myanmar’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC) and the Climate Change Center (CCC), a South Korean NGO, with investment from private South Korean firms.

    The project continued operating after the coup. For most of the period between 2021 and 2022 in which the issued credits were generated, MONREC was led by Colonel Khin Maung Yi, who was sanctioned by the European Union in 2021 for supporting the military regime, the Global Forest Coalition report said.

    CCC acknowledged engaging with government authorities after the coup but said this “should not be interpreted as political endorsement” of the junta. The South Korean NGO added that abandoning the programme when political circumstances changed “would not necessarily have been the most responsible outcome for the households involved”.

    Conflict prevents on the ground verification

    The Global Forest Coalition report raised particular concerns about the project’s implementation in Myanmar’s central Dry Zone, including Sagaing Region, an anti-junta resistance stronghold that has been most heavily affected by the conflict and routinely targeted by airstrikes and violent attacks. The region accounts for more than a third of Myanmar’s 3.8 million internally displaced people.

    The NGOs said that, in addition to ethical concerns about carbon credits being produced by the military government in an area actively affected by its attacks, this raises questions over the ability to effectively verify the climate integrity of the projects.

    TAK, THAILAND – JANUARY 01: Internally displaced people (IDP) from Myanmar carrying bags of donated supplies from Thailand while crossing the Moei river as seen from behind a fence with razor wire on the river bank in Mae Sot, a district at the Thai-Myanmar border on new year on January 1, 2022 in Tak, Thailand. (Photo by Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Getty Images)

    TAK, THAILAND – JANUARY 01: Internally displaced people (IDP) from Myanmar carrying bags of donated supplies from Thailand while crossing the Moei river as seen from behind a fence with razor wire on the river bank in Mae Sot, a district at the Thai-Myanmar border on new year on January 1, 2022 in Tak, Thailand. (Photo by Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Getty Images)

    Before carbon credits are issued, external auditors need to validate the claims made by project developers and confirm that the emission reductions claimed are correct. This process usually includes site visits to a representative sample of households to check how the improved cookstoves are being used.

    But, because of the “volatile political situation” in Myanmar, the auditing team was not able to leave the capital Yangon and could only speak to project participants remotely via Zoom, project documents show.

    “Due to ongoing armed conflict on the ground, the data currently used to justify carbon credit issuance in Sagaing by the Burmese military junta is unverifiable and highly likely fraudulent,” said Zaw Tuseng, founder and president of the Myanmar Policy Institute, which contributed to the report, in a written statement. “This demands an immediate suspension of credit transfers until a neutral, conflict-sensitive audit can be conducted.”

    “Exceptional circumstances”

    CCC told Climate Home News that, although it recognises that on-site verification is “generally preferable, particularly in complex operating environments”, the decision to opt for remote controls was not taken “as a discretionary shortcut, but as an approved alternative under exceptional circumstances”.

    The South Korean NGO added that it reviewed the feasibility of the project at community level “on an ongoing basis” and it “did not identify conflict-related incidents that directly affected project implementation activities in participating communities during the monitoring period”.

    A spokesperson for the UN climate change body told Climate Home News that, when site access is not possible, the UN carbon credit mechanism allows for “alternative verification approaches while still maintaining conservative assumptions and environmental integrity safeguards”. “These provisions ensure that crediting can only proceed where evidence is reliable,” they added.

    Contested methodology

    Carbon markets are seen as an important channel to raise money to help low-income communities in developing countries switch to less polluting cooking methods, both reducing CO2 emissions and improving air quality. But several cookstove offsetting projects have faced criticism from researchers and campaigners who argue that climate benefits are often exaggerated and weak monitoring can undermine claims of real emission reductions.

    The project in Myanmar uses a contested methodology developed under the earlier Kyoto Protocol that was rejected last year by The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), a watchdog that issues quality labels to carbon credit types, because it found it “insufficiently rigorous”.

    EU carbon credits could supercharge world’s clean cooking push, France says

    After transitioning from the CDM to the new mechanism, the project was required to apply “more conservative” assumptions to calculate emission reductions, which resulted in 40% fewer credits being issued, according to the UN climate change body.

    “The result is consistent with environmental integrity requirements and ensures that each credited tonne genuinely represents a tonne reduced and contributes to the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body, which oversees the mechanism, said in February.

    Too many credits issued

    But Carbon Market Watch claimed in a second report last week that, despite the adjustment, the project is still likely to issue seven times more credits than its real climate impact justifies, comparing its calculations with values from peer-reviewed scientific literature.

    The biggest driver of the credit inflation, the group said, is the failure to account for “stacking” – the widespread practice of households using multiple stoves at the same time, including more polluting ones the project does not monitor.

    Peer-reviewed science considers a stacking rate of 68% a conservative assumption, but the methodology used by the Myanmar programme makes no allowance for it at all, the report said.

    CCC disputed those findings. In a written response to Climate Home News, it said the project was developed under methodologies approved within the UN climate framework and that external recalculations by researchers are not “determinative of the level of crediting achieved”.

    The credits are expected to be used primarily by major South Korean polluters to meet obligations under the country’s emissions trading system – a move that will also enable the government to count those units toward emissions reduction targets in its nationally determined contribution (NDC), the UN climate body told Climate Home News.

    Myanmar will use the remaining credits to achieve in part the goals of its own national climate plan under the Paris Agreement.

    “Over-crediting, at any magnitude, cannot be compatible with the climate ambition of a world striving to limit global warming to 1.5ºC,” said Isa Mulder, an expert at Carbon Market Watch.

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