Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Heat dome hits North America
100F: Temperatures in New York City reached 100F (38C) for the first time since 2013, as a heat dome “crushed” the eastern side of the US, reported the Associated Press. Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston all also surpassed three-digit temperatures, it added.
CHIOS FIRES: More than 400 firefighters have been fighting wildfires on the Greek Island of Chios, with evacuation orders in place across the island, reported Reuters. Strong winds and 40C temperatures have made the fire “extremely difficult to control” amidst Greece’s first heatwave of the summer, added BBC News.
HEATWAVES: Japan is currently facing a two-week heatwave, driving up energy demand and keeping power prices high, reported Bloomberg. The Financial Times warned that temperatures could reach dangerous highs as “heat domes” continue to hit the US and Europe. The Daily Mail said the UK Health Security Agency had “activated the five-day alert amid concerns that there could be ‘a rise in deaths, particularly among those ages 65 and over or with health conditions’”.
Bonn climate talks close
BUDGET GROWTH: Reuters reported that more than 200 countries have agreed at the Bonn climate talks to increase the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) budget by 10% to €81.5m for 2026-27. (Carbon Brief has just published its in-depth summary of the Bonn intersessional.)
JUST TRANSITION: After talks stalled at COP29 last year, activists have welcomed progress on the just transition work programme (JTWP) in Bonn, reported Climate Home News. Campaigners hope the JTWP will lead to the creation of the Belém Action Mechanism at the upcoming COP30 in Brazil, helping to facilitate a just transition on the ground, the article added.
EYES ON COP30: As the two weeks of talks in Bonn came to an end, Bloomberg noted that “it’s still not clear what Brazil will need, or is aiming, to deliver” at COP30 in November. It added that, before the climate summit, most countries still need to submit new “nationally determined contributions”, detailing their plans to help meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, but, currently, less than 30 countries have done so.
Around the world
- DRILL, BABY, DRILL: US president Donald Trump has urged his government to “drill, baby, drill” as fears grew that the aftermath of attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities could cause energy prices to spike, reported Reuters.
- GREENWASHING: EU countries have abandoned anti-greenwashing negotiations, after Italy withdrew its support for the bill, according to Politico.
- SOUTH AFRICA GRANT: South Africa’s national treasury has announced that the World Bank has granted it a $1.5bn loan to help it transition to a low-carbon economy, reported the Associated Press.
- MONEYPOINT: Ireland became Europe’s sixth country to end coal power with the closure of its last coal-fired plant at Moneypoint, according to the Irish Examiner.
- RECORD DEMAND: The Times reported on the Energy Institute’s annual statistical review, which showed global demand for every main type of energy hit a record high in 2024.
$525bn
Between 2000 and 2019, 55 climate-vulnerable economies lost approximately $525bn “because of climate change’s temperature and precipitation patterns”, according to a new report from the United Nations Development Programme.
Latest climate research
- Sea turtles will likely experience “substantial habitat redistributions” under future climate change scenarios, according to a new study in Science Advances.
- Warming of the tropical Indian Ocean can increase sea ice concentration in the Arctic during winter in the northern hemisphere, a study published in Climate Dynamics has found.
- According to a study published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, a 2C temperature increase over high-mountain Alpine regions would double the frequency of “extreme summer downpours”, compared to 1991-2020 levels.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Emissions from the electricity sector in the UK have now fallen from being the largest emitter in the UK up until the mid-2010s, to the sixth-largest emitter, according to the Climate Change Committee’s latest progress report. As Carbon Brief’s chart above shows, this dramatic drop means that the electricity sector now produces fewer emissions than surface transport, industry, residential buildings, agriculture and – as of 2024 – aviation.
Spotlight
Gender clash at the climate talks
Negotiations in Bonn have laid bare divergent political and cultural stances as countries dispute gender terminology, reports Carbon Brief.
As technical discussions drew to a close in Bonn, Argentina inserted a footnote into one of the event’s many documents, defining “gender” as “two sexes, male and female”.
This seemingly innocuous move came at the end of a week-long terminology dispute, as nations debated a new “action plan” to centre gender equality in climate action.
Climate change often disproportionately harms women and can also have an outsized impact on other marginalised communities.
However, divergent political and cultural stances meant countries disagreed about the right ways to discuss these issues, ahead of a major decision later this year.
‘Global rollback’
UN climate talks are taking place amid a “global rollback” of rights for women and girls.
In some countries, notably the US and Argentina, this rollback has gone hand-in-hand with a rejection of so-called “gender ideology” and a reversal of trangender rights.
Right-wing populist leaders are also conflating environmental protection with efforts to protect women and marginalised groups.
For example, Argentine president Javier Milei has described “environmentalism”, “feminism” and “gender ideology” as “heads of the same beast” – namely, “wokeism”.
These views have manifested in unexpected places. Negotiations at a UN working group on pollution earlier this month saw the US insist that the output text stated: “Women are biologically female and men are biologically male.”
‘Strong divergence’
While the US was absent from Bonn, Argentina was a prominent voice in the gender sessions. This was despite the nation sending just one negotiator: Eliana Saissac.
Jennifer Bansard, who led the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) team that reported from within the Bonn talks, told Carbon Brief that Argentina took a “hard stance”:
“There’s definitely strong divergences on gender terminology and broader societal debates are affecting the talks.”
ENB’s reporting captures these disagreements. Argentina wanted to define “gender” based on a contentious 1998 statute of the international criminal court, referring to “two sexes, male and female”. Paraguay sought a similar definition.
Bansard noted that the divergence was “in both directions”, with some expressing more expansive views. Norway discussed “women and girls in all their diversity”, Canada referred to “gender-diverse people” and Iceland stated that it “[does] not support binary terms”.
Future plans
The talks also saw the Holy See – the governing arm of the Vatican City – make a rare intervention calling for a reference to “sex” rather than ”gender”. Saudi Arabia was among those flatly rejecting the notion of “gender diversity”.
These religiously conservative states have previously aligned in UN talks on gender. At COP29, they were among those reportedly blocking progress on the action plan.
In Bonn, they argued for cultural sensitivity and respect for nations’ differing laws. Claudia Rubio Giraldo, a lawyer who works with the Women and Gender Constituency, told Carbon Brief that she sympathised with this view:
“I think we all come here assuming that we are all on the same ground, understanding certain terminology…but there is a process of bridging that is necessary.”
Nevertheless, Giraldo championed an “intersectional” approach, backed by some nations, that benefits not only women, but also other marginalised groups.
NGOs also warned of parties attempting to roll back existing language on “gender mainstreaming” and “gender responsive” action.
Despite the disagreements, participants noted a constructive tone and agreed on an “informal note” to feed into future negotiations.
Yet, with the gender plan expected to be one of the more tangible outcomes from COP30, civil-society observers were cautious. Francesca Rhodes, a senior policy adviser at CARE International UK, told Carbon Brief:
“These negotiations are taking place in the wider context of a global rollback on rights and inclusive approaches to gender…Progress made must not be sidetracked by these efforts.”
Watch, read, listen
BESTING BIG OIL: The New Statesman had a feature on campaigner Sarah Finch and her victory in the supreme court in the UK last summer, which has “sunk billions of pounds worth of oil and gas projects”.
THIN ICE: Scientists at the University of Cambridge, including Prof Michael Meredith, discussed on The Naked Scientists podcast how the latest polar science is tracking climate change’s impact in Antarctica.
MAMDANI’S ‘GREEN ABUNDANCE’: The Jacobin examined how the focus of New York City mayor frontrunner Zohran Mamdani on lowering the cost of living can serve as a “blueprint” for embedding climate action in everyday life.
Coming up
- 7-25 July: 2nd Part of the 30th Annual Session of the International Seabed Authority, Kingston, Jamaica
- 11 July: IEA Oil Market Report publication
- 14-23 July: High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development 2025, UN Headquarters, New York
Pick of the jobs
- United Nations, national contractor for climate change mitigation | Salary: Unknown. Location: Baku, Azerbaijan.
- UNICEF, climate change negotiations consultant | Salary: Unknown. Location: Panama City, Panama.
- Chatham House, senior research fellow – energy transition and climate mitigation | Salary: £90,000. Location: London, England.
- Young European Greens, communications and campaigns intern | Salary: €1,500 per month. Location: Belgium.
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 27 June 2025: Heat domes; Bonn comes to a close; Gender clash in climate talks appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 27 June 2025: Heat domes; Bonn comes to a close; Gender clash in climate talks
Aiqun Yu, Christine Shearer and Joe Hittinger work at Global Energy Monitor, a US-based organisation that seeks to provide the worldwide energy transition with transparent data and analysis.
With global oil and gas prices soaring at the start of the Iran war, China quietly broke ground on three major coal-to-gas and coal-to-chemical projects worth roughly $10 billion in two regions with abundant coal resources.
But as a Chinese saying goes, “three feet of ice does not form in a single day”. China’s push to use coal as a substitute for imported oil and gas has been gathering momentum since the Russia-Ukraine war began in 2022, prompting a recalibration of energy security priorities in Beijing and beyond.
The policy raises new concerns, threatening China’s climate goals and growing reputation as a global clean energy leader by creating renewed demand for coal.
A new expansion wave
Over the past three years, China has entered a new cycle of investment in so-called “modern coal chemicals”, differentiated from conventional coal chemicals. Four pathways – coal-to-gas, coal-to-liquids, coal-to-olefins, and coal-to-ethylene glycol – account for the bulk of new modern coal-chemical capacity under development.
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After another battery startup bankruptcy, can Europe ever cut reliance on China?
Norway’s Morrow Batteries set out to challenge Chinese producers, but a cash crunch forced it to file for bankruptcy in a setback for European ambitions for clean energy sovereignty -
China’s emissions fall but growing coal-to-chemicals sector raises concern
The fast-rising use of coal in the production of synthetic fuels and plastics could put China’s climate targets at risk despite record additions of renewables, new analysis shows -
Big banks’ lending to coal backers undermines Indonesia’s green plans
Foreign banks involved in Indonesia’s $20-billion Just Energy Transition Partnership have also funded companies working on coal power expansion, a TBIJ and Climate Home News investigation reveals
According to Global Energy Monitor data, proposed and under-construction coal-to-gas capacity is approaching three times current operating capacity. Together, 34 projects under active consideration represent more than 1 trillion yuan ($150 billion) in planned investment and could add roughly 300 million tonnes of annual coal demand if completed, equivalent to South Africa’s entire coal mining capacity.
Most projects are in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Ningxia, regions with plentiful coal resources and relatively low mining costs. Xinjiang has emerged as the epicentre of the new boom, accounting for more than half of all proposed modern coal chemical projects.
Why the world abandoned coal chemicals
Coal chemicals are often presented as an emerging industry, but the technologies themselves are more than a century old.
Earlier “conventional” coal chemistry was a byproduct of coking, a process run primarily for iron and steel making. “Modern” coal chemistry instead uses gasification to convert coal into synthesis gas, a versatile building block for fuels, plastics, fertilisers and other chemicals that would traditionally be made from oil or gas.
These modern processes were developed in the early 20th century and expanded during periods of wartime fuel shortages. For example, Germany relied heavily on synthetic fuels during the Second World War while South Africa developed similar technologies in the apartheid era to reduce vulnerability to international sanctions.
Once cheap oil and gas became widely available, however, most countries moved away from coal chemicals, which required large amounts of energy, water and capital investment, and generally produced more pollution and carbon emissions than the conventional alternatives.
Today, only a handful of commercial coal gasification facilities operate outside China.
China has already tested this theory once
The current expansion is not China’s first attempt to build a major coal chemical industry.
A previous boom emerged during the 2010s, driven by many of the same arguments: high oil prices, concerns over energy security and expectations that technological improvements would unlock a new era of coal-based industrial growth.
Brazil jostles for rare earths share as US-China rivalry heats up
The outcome was far from successful. Dozens of projects were proposed, but many were delayed, suspended or scrapped before completion, and there were difficulties among those that did get off the ground.
Three of China’s four operating coal-to-gas projects reportedly spent much of the past decade operating at a loss, and several large coal chemical facilities generated only marginal returns despite government support.
Policy support is driving the revival
Backers say technological improvements have made the industry more competitive than it was a decade ago.
Yet coal chemical projects remain highly dependent on oil and gas prices. When international prices rise, coal-derived products can appear competitive. When prices fall, the economics often deteriorate rapidly.
More than changes in technology, government policy has played a pivotal role in the sector’s revival.
Following power shortages in 2021 and the energy market disruptions that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy security became a national priority. Coal production expanded, particularly in western China, boosted by government support.
China’s solar exports reach “gigantic” record in March as energy crisis bites
A key policy change in 2022 exempted coal used as industrial feedstock from certain energy consumption controls, easing regulatory pressure on coal chemical projects.
The impact of such measures highlights the degree to which coal chemicals depend on expansive and favourable policy treatment to remain viable.
At the same time, the current expansion is creating new demand for an industry confronting structural decline as China races to renewables in electricity generation.
The cost to China’s climate leadership
Converting coal into fuels and petrochemical products also releases substantially more carbon dioxide than conventional oil- and gas-based alternatives, which themselves are a major source of emissions.
Proponents argue that coupling production with green hydrogen and carbon capture could resolve the emissions problem, but the arithmetic doesn’t support this.
Sinopec’s flagship Dalu coal-to-olefins plant, paired with a 10,000 tonne-per-year green hydrogen demonstration, displaces less than 2% of the plant’s annual coal use. Replicating this across the proposed buildout would consume enormous quantities of clean energy just to partially decarbonise an inherently dirty process.
China could instead leverage that same industrial capacity and policy support to lead the development of cleaner chemical pathways, such as green ammonia for fertiliser, bio-based and CO2-derived feedstocks for plastics, and e-fuels or biofuels where liquid fuels are still needed.
Rather than locking in another generation of coal-dependent infrastructure, China should learn from the lessons of the past and seek a cleaner and more viable industrial future.
The post China’s coal-chemicals boom risks repeating the mistakes of the past appeared first on Climate Home News.
China’s coal-chemicals boom risks repeating the mistakes of the past
Welcome to the Project Cosmos homepage.
The project was launched by Carbon Brief in June 2026 following an 18-month research and development effort.
The aim: to build the world’s largest database of climate change research.
Containing more than 1.8 million unique publications linked by 40 million citation relationships, the Cosmos database represents the most complete and expansive mapping of human knowledge on climate change ever assembled.
The articles and visuals below will guide you through how the Cosmos database was built, as well as all the subsequent analysis, including the Cosmos 500 rankings of most cited authors, publications and institutions.
The post Project Cosmos appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/project-cosmos/
This is the vast “cosmos” of academic literature and evidence that underpins humanity’s knowledge of climate change.
Every “star” – all 1.8m of them – represents one of the studies inside Carbon Brief’s Cosmos database.
The coloured “nebulae” and “galaxies” within this cosmos illustrate where clusters of studies share similar citations and, hence, areas of common academic focus.
The post Mapped: Inside Carbon Brief’s Cosmos database of 1.8 million climate studies appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-inside-carbon-briefs-cosmos-database-of-1-8-million-climate-studies/
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