Published

9 months ago

July 10, 2025

Alice Rush

Mukhtar Babayev is COP29 President and Special Representative of the President of Azerbaijan for Climate Issues.

We face an historic irony this year. 2025 was supposed to start a new decade in climate finance.

When countries signed the Paris Agreement in 2015, they set this year as the date from which donor countries would support the developing world under a new climate finance deal. The Baku Finance Goal agreed at COP29 in Azerbaijan did indeed set a target of $300 billion a year by 2035, a three-fold increase on the current funding.

But instead of stepping up, donors are stepping back. Governments are diverting funds from communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Military spending is being raised at the expense of climate finance and aid budgets are being slashed.

This is not how the new decade of solidarity and action was supposed to begin. Developed countries were supposed to take the lead. It is a bitter pill for the world’s poorest to swallow.

No enforcement mechanism for promises

Worryingly, this comes as countries prepare their next generation of climate plans for submission. This round of emission cuts is our last best chance to keep the 1.5 degree Celsius target within reach without a sustained overshoot. But how can developing countries cut emissions if they can’t count on support?

COP Presidents face the same question – how do you ensure the deals you gavelled are actually delivered? The awkward truth is that, technically, we cannot. There are proposals to reform climate governance, but we currently have no formal power to hold countries to account.

There is no international enforcement mechanism. Some countries should be commended for embedding commitments into domestic law. Most, however, exploit every loophole to avoid legally binding requirements.

COP30 president: Transition from fossil fuels can start without climate talks

Instead, we rely on norms, values and standards. We place our hope in enlightened leaders who can see their own interest in collective climate action. We hope they understand that promises made are promises. Or we are forced to invoke their sense of duty.

When governments break promises to each other, it breeds distrust and anger. We can see this in the hallways of climate negotiations already. There is little point investing in soft power if leaders go soft on their words.

Many donor countries seem oblivious to the promises made. At ministerial meetings on climate change, few can recount the pledges of past years. Ministers gathered in Spain last week for the Fourth International Financing for Development conference. For all the talk of implementation, how many governments have kept the promises they made last time?

The early milestones for 2025 are barely on the agenda for this year’s UN climate summit. Small island states have said that, if need be, they will fight to get climate finance on the agenda. Why are their voices alone?

Adaptation finance goal expires this year

The earliest invoice due is a pledge made when the UK hosted COP26 in 2021. Under the “Glasgow Pact”, developed countries would at least double their collective support to help communities adapt to the consequences of climate change by 2025. Put simply, that’s at least $40 billion a year.

This is a critical early test of whether the will is there to hit the $300 billion by 2035. Falling short of a commitment due now augurs ill for a much larger commitment due ten years hence.

The conventional excuse is that the world has changed, making old plans and pledges redundant. To that, we say the world was always going to change. These targets were supposed to provide certainty in uncertain times. They were collective goals, so collectively they must be delivered.

Green Climate Fund reforms aim to fix “slow, cumbersome” accreditation process

When we negotiated the Baku Finance Goal in November following the US election, donors insisted they couldn’t be expected to pay more than $300 billion when some of the biggest players were stepping away. They cannot use the same excuse again to explain why they can’t meet the goal.

To lead is to choose, and in a world of tight finances, the burden of leadership is heavy. Nobody should envy the trade-offs governments must make: which causes to support, which sectors to prioritise, which issues to address. There are no free choices.

But there are shortsighted choices. And there are choices that can corrode the system. Breaking your word is not an acceptable choice. It would be a matter of deep regret. Developed countries need to take the lead on climate finance. Donors must send a clear and strong signal that a promise made is a promise kept.

The post Donors were supposed to step up, not step back on climate finance appeared first on Climate Home News.

Donors were supposed to step up, not step back on climate finance

Climate Change

The History of Earth Day—and Why It Still Matters

Published

8 hours ago

April 18, 2026

Alice Rush

Fifty-six years after the first one rallied 20 million people across America, “we need to do things that make us feel more powerful.”

Interview by Steve Curwood, Living on Earth

From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with environmental historian Adam Rome.

The History of Earth Day—and Why It Still Matters

Climate Change

Judge Dismisses Trump Administration’s Bid to Block Hawaii Climate Lawsuit

Published

12 hours ago

April 18, 2026

Alice Rush

It was the second defeat for the Trump administration’s unusual litigation to stop states from acting on climate change.

By Marianne Lavelle

In a setback to the Trump administration’s extraordinary legal campaign against state climate action, a federal judge threw out the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to prevent the state of Hawaii from suing oil companies for damages.

Judge Dismisses Trump Administration’s Bid to Block Hawaii Climate Lawsuit

Climate Change

DeBriefed 17 April 2026: Fossil-fuel power slumps | ‘Super’ El Niño warning | Afghanistan’s climate struggle

Published

1 day ago

April 17, 2026

Alice Rush

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

Oil prices rebound

OIL UP AGAIN: Oil prices surged by more than 7% and back above $100 a barrel on Monday after US-Iran peace talks faltered and US president Donald Trump ordered the blockading of Iranian ports, reported BBC News. The jump came after prices fell last week in the wake of the announcement of a conditional two-week ceasefire, it said.

RESCUE PLANS: European countries unveiled plans to protect citizens and businesses from rising energy prices. Ireland announced a support package worth €505m, reported BBC News, while Germany agreed on measures worth €1.6bn, said Bloomberg. Meanwhile, Reuters reported on a draft EU proposal due to be unveiled next week that would see the bloc reduce electricity prices and roll out clean energy more quickly in response to the crisis.

UNSOLICITED ADVICE: Trump renewed his criticism of UK energy policy and called on the government to “drill, baby drill”, reported the Independent. Via social media, the president said: “Europe is desperate for energy, and yet the United Kingdom refuses to open North Sea oil, one of the greatest fields in the world. Tragic!!!” (See Carbon Brief’s recent factcheck of various false claims about the North Sea.)

Around the world

C-WORD: Faced with pressure from the US, countries attending spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank were urged to “not mention the climate”, reported the Guardian. It added that plans to agree a new “climate change action plan” for the World Bank “may be shelved, along with substantive discussion of the climate crisis”.
NEW DIRECTION: Péter Magyar’s landslide victory over Victor Orbán in Hungary’s elections “presents new opportunities for the country to reduce emissions and invest in clean energy”, reported Time. Carbon Brief explored what it means for European climate action.
‘FURNACE’ SUMMER: There was widespread coverage – including in the Boston Globe, ABC News, CNN, Euro Weekly News, Guardian and New Scientist – of warnings from meteorologists of the development of a “super” El Niño phenomenon that could ramp up temperatures and drive extreme weather.
ANTALYA COP: The Turkish government unveiled the dates and venues for the “leaders’ summit” segment of November’s COP31 conference, according to Climate Home News.
PACIFIC PRE-COP: Meanwhile, the Guardian reported that Tuvalu will host a special meeting of world leaders before the climate summit in Antalya.

€10bn a year

The amount of state support that French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu has pledged for electrification through to 2030 in a bid to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. In a speech late on Friday 10 April, Lecornu noted the figure amounted to a “doubling” of existing support.

Latest climate research

Over a four-month period of 2023, more than 70% of editorials discussing net-zero in four right-leaning UK newspapers included “at least one misleading statement” | Climate Policy
Air pollution from global transport currently has a net cooling effect that offsets 80% of the warming impact of the sector’s CO2 emissions | npj Climate and Atmospheric Science
The incorporation of “observational constraints” into climate-model projections suggests that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation could weaken by 50% by 2100 in a medium-emissions scenario | Science Advances

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

Global power generation from fossil fuels fell in the first month of the Hormuz blockade.

Analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found that global electricity generation from fossil fuels fell in the first month of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Across all countries with real-time electricity data outside of China, coal-fired power generation fell 3.5% and gas-fired power generation fell 4.0%, according to CREA. This was offset by a rise in solar power and wind generation, which increased by 14% and 8%, respectively. Hydropower generation also saw a small increase, the analysis showed, but this was “more than offset” by a drop in nuclear power generation.

Spotlight

How climate change affects Afghan lives

This week, Carbon Brief reports on the impact of climate change in Afghanistan, following deadly floods this year.

Earlier this month, heavy rains, flash floods and landslides struck large parts of Afghanistan, damaging thousands of homes, destroying crops, bridges and roads and taking nearly 100 lives.

The flooding – reported to have affected 74,000 people in 31 of 34 provinces – is the latest weather-related catastrophe to afflict the nation, whose communities have suffered the brunt of repeated flash floods, droughts and landslides in recent years.

Hameed Hakimi, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, told Carbon Brief the recent floods would hurt livelihoods and food security, noting reports of destroyed wheat and rice crops in the most affected eastern parts of the country. He said:

“This is common. For at least a decade now, [we have seen] these flash floodings and the damage that happens to rural life, farming, the disruption to crops…Flash flooding physically eats up the land. So, it not only damages where people live, but also people’s livelihoods, based on what they grow.”

The damage to crops will be felt acutely, he explained, given that food security in the landlocked nation is already strained by the blockage of its main transit trade artery through Pakistan and international sanctions that have frozen long-term development aid.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Abdulhadi Achakzai, founding CEO of the Environmental Protection Trainings and Development Organization (EPTDO), an Afghan NGO, described flooding in Afghanistan as a “chronic situation”.

Achakzai, whose organisation runs projects that help urban and rural communities adapt to climate impacts, says climate change hurts the country in four key ways: extreme drought; extreme temperature; “natural hazards”, including landslides and dust storms; and, finally, flash flooding. He said:

“Climate change is a serious matter in Afghanistan. Every nation and every corner within this country is severely affected.”

Ranked 176 of 187 on the University of Notre Dame “global adaptation index”, Afghanistan is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change.

Average temperature across the country has increased from 12.2C in 1960 to 14.2C in 2024, according to the World Bank’s climate change knowledge portal. Drought is widespread, severe and persistent – harming food and water security in a nation of subsistence farmers.

Meanwhile, extreme weather events are the leading driver of internal displacement in the country. More than three-quarters of the 710,000 people who relocated within Afghanistan in 2024 did so driven by “environmental hazards”, such as drought and flood, according to a recent climate vulnerability assessment from the International Organization for Migration.

A UNDP-funded workshop run by EPTDO in Badakhshan, north-eastern Afghanistan Credit: EPTDO.

Finance struggles

Despite feeling the impacts of extreme weather, Afghanistan has been barred from UN climate negotiations and had limited access to climate finance since 2021. (The government attended COP29 in Baku as guests of the Azerbaijan hosts, but did not take part in formal negotiations.)

This is because the international community does not recognise the Taliban government, which resumed power in 2021, due to its record on human rights and its repression of women and girls in particular.

Almost all financing from key climate funds has been suspended, with the exception of a few projects where UN agencies and NGOs act simultaneously as a “requesting” and “implementation” partner.

Aid from UN climate funds fell from $5.9m annually over 2014-20 to $3.9m annually over 2021-24, according to recent analysis by the Berghof Foundation. Multilateral development banks provided a further $337m of funds badged as “climate finance” over 2021-23, it said.

By comparison, Afghanistan’s national climate plan, submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2016, requested $17.4bn in climate finance over 2020-30. An updated national climate plan seen by Carbon Brief – completed in 2021 and later endorsed by the Taliban government, but not accepted by member governments of the UNFCCC – called for $20.6bn through to 2030.

Achakzai, whose organisation attends the COP climate summit each year in an observer capacity, has in the past been the sole delegate from Afghanistan to the conference.

He is calling on the UNFCCC to accept the country’s latest climate plan – and to find an “alternative solution” that would give the people of the country a voice in negotiations. He said:

“Every year we are losing hundreds, thousands of people because of climate change-related matters. Every year we are losing hundreds, thousands of hectares of crops. We are affected by [the decisions of] other countries. Why are we not part of this process?”

Watch, read, listen

BLOSSOM WATCHER: The Guardian reported on the successful search to find a researcher to continue Japan’s 1,200-year cherry blossom record.

COP OUT: Deutsche Welle spoke to experts to understand why India walked away from its bid to host COP33 in 2028.

‘BOMBS AND PORN’: The New Republic looked at who is set to benefit from the rapid build-out of energy-intensive AI datacentres.

Coming up

20-24 April: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working group one report author meeting, Santiago, Chile
22 April: Earth day
22 April: Launch of third edition of the Lancet Countdown’s Europe report
24-29 April: First conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, Santa Marta, Colombia

Pick of the jobs

International Organization for Migration, senior thematic associate (climate action) | Salary: UN G-6 salary grade | Location: Dakar, Senegal
Climate Action Network UK, several board member roles | Salary: Unknown. Location: Unknown
UK Department for Energy, Food and Rural Affairs, G7 science lead | Salary: £56,375. Location: Bristol, London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne or York, UK
Save the Children UK, senior climate change advisor | Salary: £62,000-£65,000. Location: London