Published

7 months ago

August 7, 2025

Alice Rush

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.

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

Key developments

Floods killed 60 people after ‘year of rain in a week’

HUMAN TOLL: Heavy rainfall in late July killed at least 60 people across northern China, with flooding and landslides affecting Beijing and neighbouring Hebei province, Reuters reported, adding that “meteorologists link an increase in extreme weather…to climate change”. In some areas, a “year’s worth of rain fell in less than a week”, another Reuters article said. China’s “usually arid north has seen record rains in recent years”, but Beijing’s topography “amplif[ied] the deluge” that killed more than 30 people in the capital, the newswire added. Other affected regions included Shanxi, Shaanxi, Liaoning, Shandong, Tianjin and Inner Mongolia, according to various news outlets.

PERSISTENT HEAT: Five people were killed in southern Guangdong province due to “torrential rain”, said the state-run newspaper China Daily. Shanghai evacuated “around 280,000 people” as storm Co-may brought “strong winds and heavy rainfall”, Bloomberg said. Elsewhere, China Daily reported on “persistent high temperatures” in central China, adding that multiple regions faced intense heat or rainfall this week. The southern city of Chongqing “elevated its heatwave warning to the highest level” following temperatures “exceeding 40C for a week”, Reuters said.

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RELIEF FUNDS: State broadcaster CGTN said China allocated more than one billion yuan ($139m) to areas across China for flood and drought relief efforts. Beijing and its neighbouring provinces received 550m yuan ($77m) for flood relief, reported the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP).

NEW OUTBREAK: Meanwhile, thousands of residents in southern China’s Guangdong province have contracted chikungunya, a mosquito-borne disease, Bloomberg reported, quoting an expert saying the “surge in chikungunya cases is likely due to favorable climatic conditions”. The outbreak “is the latest sign that tropical diseases…are expanding their reach, as climate change lets mosquitoes live in new territories”, it added.

Government tackled ‘Industrial Cthulhu’

OVERCAPACITY POLICIES: Regulators released a “draft amendment” to China’s pricing law that aims to “rein in price wars”, Reuters said. China will “name and shame” companies that continue to implement “ruinous competition”, said Bloomberg. Draft “guidance” was also issued on deploying government funds, SCMP reported, to prevent continued “overconcentrat[ion]” of local government investment in the “new three” and other sectors. China’s leadership also called for “reducing excess competition” and regulating “local government practices in attracting investment”, said Xinhua. According to Bloomberg, this showed “China’s leaders see the dangers” of China’s manufacturing strength “clearly”. (It added that some netizens had nicknamed the sector “Industrial Cthulhu”, in a “tongue-in-cheek” comparison that it said was meant to imply that “China’s manufacturing power is a beast”.)

SUPERCHARGING DEMAND: Domestic sales of new-energy vehicles (NEVs) between January and June 2025 rose 40% year-on-year to just under seven million units – 44% of total car sales – reported the Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily, while exports “surged” by 75%. Energy news outlet International Energy Net quoted a National Energy Administration (NEA) official saying China expects 2025 power demand for EV charging alone to equal the “annual power generation of the Three Gorges dam”.

HIDDEN FIGURES: While the figures show that 2025 is “shaping up to be another stellar year” for China’s EV industry “on paper”, Caixin said, “overcapacity” and fierce price wars mean the industry’s mood is “far from celebratory”. Separately, Reuters found it is “increasingly common” for automakers in China, including EV manufacturers and foreign brands, to “inflate car sales”.

EV TARIFFS: Meanwhile, Chinese EVs exports to the EU have made a “full comeback from tariffs set in place last year”, with Chinese automakers’ share in Europe’s EV market surpassing 10%, according to Bloomberg. Elsewhere, Thailand has “adjusted” EV subsidies to encourage exports as surging Chinese investment creates excess domestic “capacity”, said finance news outlet Caixin. EV manufacturer BYD has been offered a “short-term tariff break” in Brazil, but will face aggressive “hikes…in the long run”, SCMP reported.

Forecast for solar growth in 2025 rose to 300GW

GENERATION SHARE: Renewable energy accounted for “almost 40% of total power generation” in the first half of 2025, NEA officials said at a press conference covered by BJX News. New solar and wind generation also covered “total growth in electricity demand”, the energy news outlet added. BJX News also added that, according to the NEA officials, non-fossil fuel sources now account for 60% of China’s electricity mix. Meanwhile, the China Photovoltaic Industry Association “raised its forecast for new domestic solar installations this year” to 270-300 gigawatts (GW), citing the “minimal impact” of “new policies such as document 136” on large-scale clean-energy bases, reported business news outlet Jiemian. China had already installed 212GW of new solar capacity in the first half of the year, said China Daily.

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INDUSTRY INSPECTIONS: The government will conduct “energy conservation inspections” on polysilicon manufacturers, Jiemian said. It quoted an anonymous “industry insider” as saying the targeted companies are “not all…polysilicon projects for photovoltaic use”, adding that the inspections likely aim to identify “projects that consume resources without creating actual value”. Meanwhile, Reuters found “China’s biggest solar firms shed nearly one-third of their workforces last year”, illustrating the “pain from the vicious price wars”, while “more than 40 solar firms have delisted, gone bankrupt or been acquired” since 2024.

‘ORDERLY’ DEVELOPMENT: China issued a new policy on “further regulating the use of farmland for solar projects”, calling for better management and strict supervision of “solar projects involving the use of farmland”, reported International Energy Net. The NEA also pledged to “guide the orderly development of distributed [solar] projects and ensure safe and efficient consumption”, said another International Energy Net article.

Central bank boosted finance for ‘future energy’

NEW ENERGY FINANCE: China’s central bank, alongside several government ministries, released guidance on financing “new industrialisation”, BJX News reported, adding that it encouraged supporting sectors such as “new energy” in “raising capital” and encouraged state-run investment funds to focus on “future energy” and other “future industries”. The guidance also called for more support for “green and low-carbon transformation” and clean-energy technologies. Separately, China will evaluate the energy consumption and potential carbon emissions of “fixed asset” investments over a certain threshold of energy or coal consumption, said International Energy Net.

‘CLIMATE THREATS’: The CMA launched a new “initiative” to “establish a global early warning service network in the face of escalating climate threats”, CGTN said. China also issued a plan to “create greener, safer and more livable environments” in the face of “intensifying global climate change”, said People’s Daily. China’s agriculture ministry also released a work plan to “ensure a bountiful autumn grain harvest” in the face of an “above-average number of extreme weather and climate events this year”, Xinhua reported.

NDRC ON HIGH DEMAND: The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning agency, commented on recent high power demand, reported International Energy Net. It explained that the NDRC said China will “ensure an adequate and stable [power] supply” through effective management of coal production and will “integrate new energy’s supporting role” with coal’s role as a “bottom-line guarantee” (兜底保障) for power generation. Separately, the NDRC also highlighted “promoting…comprehensive transformation under dual-control of carbon mechanisms” as one of its “key tasks” for the rest of 2025, according to China Energy Net.

Spotlight

Guest spotlight: What an ‘ambitious’ 2035 electricity target looks like for China

A new study has found that China must at least double its wind and solar capacity by 2035 to align its power sector with a 2C global warming target.

In this issue, co-authors Zhenhua Zhang and Michael R Davidson, a PhD student and associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, respectively, explain how China could encourage climate ambition by setting power-sector targets.

The full article is available on Carbon Brief’s website.

China’s power sector is both the world’s largest emitter and the largest source of clean-energy growth.

This means it will be a key part of China’s next nationally determined contribution (NDC) – its climate pledge under the Paris Agreement for 2035.

In our new study, co-authored with experts from Tsinghua University, we model pathways for China’s power system up to 2035 that are consistent with its wider climate goals.

China has already surpassed its 2030 renewable deployment target, due to recent record-breaking annual additions.

However, new coal-power developments and rapid growth in electricity demand pose a threat to meeting China’s other targets.

Our research looks at the rate of growth from clean energy that would be required to not only meet China’s rapidly rising demand for electricity, but also to push down its coal generation and squeeze emissions from the power sector.

Staying below 2C

We simulate a range of scenarios for 2035, based around two different scenarios for China that are compatible with a global limit of 2C warming this century.

The basic 2C trajectory would see China’s power-sector emissions fall to 36% below 2024 levels by 2035, whereas the more ambitious 2C trajectory has a 42% decline.

It shows wind and solar energy would need to supply around 40% of China’s electricity by 2030, if the country aims to remain on track for 2C of global warming.

Solar and wind power generation would need to then rise to 50% by 2035, up from 17.9% in 2024.

This growth would substantially reduce the system’s reliance on coal and other fossil fuels, which would decrease to 35% of generation in 2030 and 25% in 2035.

The more ambitious scenario, which targets limiting global warming since the pre-industrial period to 1.5-2C, would see even higher wind and solar generation shares of 44% by 2030 and 54% by 2035.

Under the different scenarios, China’s wind and solar capacity would rise from around 1,700GW today to 2,350-2,780GW by 2030 and 2,910-3,800GW by 2030, requiring annual additions of 120-220GW.

Recent wind and solar additions have already exceeded this pace.

Challenges with grid integration and supporting infrastructure could slow future large-scale buildouts, meaning battery and grid capacity would need to rise by 6% and 5% per year to 2035, respectively to better integrate renewables into the grid.

The NDC and beyond

Due to the rapidly evolving economic and geopolitical situation, there are good reasons to expect that China’s topline emissions number in its NDC may be underwhelming. But there is an opportunity to emphasise and expand ambition within the power sector through additional sectoral targets.

While China has previously set a target for the absolute capacity of wind and solar, a goal for the share of electricity generation would set a narrower range for future power sector emissions.

Given current uncertainties around the pace of power demand growth, for example, a target for clean energy share might provide greater confidence than a capacity target alone.

Regardless of what targets are set, achieving the growth of clean energy modelled in our study would support China’s long-term climate commitments and demonstrate the nation’s intent to be a clean-energy powerhouse.

Watch, read, listen

‘UNSHAKEABLE’ GOAL: President Xi Jinping told attendees of the 2023 National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection that China’s commitment to its “dual-carbon” goals is “unshakeable”, according to a speech published in full, for the first time, by top ideological journal Qiushi.

CLIMATE REFUGEES: The United Nations Refugee Agency assistant high commissioner Raouf Mazou spoke with China Daily about China’s role in addressing “climate change-linked displacement”.

FINANCE FLOWS: The Environment China podcast explored what impact China’s push to develop “green finance” has had on the country’s energy transition.

PROVINCIAL PROGRESS: The Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs published a report assessing different provinces’ progress in reaching China’s “dual-carbon” goals.

1.35 billion

In tonnes per annum, the amount of coal-mine capacity that is “at various stages of development” in China, according to updated data from thinktank Global Energy Monitor – more capacity than “all other countries combined”.

New science

Wet-hot days increased faster than dry-hot days during the warm season in Chinese cities over the past four decades

Communications Earth & Environment

A new study found a “significant increase” in both dry-hot and wet-hot extremes in China during the May-September warm season. The authors investigated changes in hot extremes in 136 Chinese cities over 1981-2022. They found that wet-hot extremes accounted for 36% of all hot days, while dry-hot days accounted for only 4%. The authors said their findings “underscore the urgent need for adaptive urban strategies to mitigate the growing risk of compound temperature-humidity extremes under ongoing urbanisation and climate change”.

China’s nationwide streamflow decline driven by landscape changes and human interventions

Science Advances

The amount of water running through rivers, or “streamflow”, has declined at more than 70% of Chinese hydrological stations over the past six decades, according to a new study. The authors combined data from more than 1,000 hydrological stations with climate models to produce a “comprehensive national assessment” of streamflow across China. They found that decreases in streamflow were mainly in northern China and were driven by changes in land use, but that increases in streamflow were found in the south, mainly driven by “climate change and variability”.

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

The post China Briefing 7 August 2025: Deadly floods; ‘Industrial Cthulhu’; Higher solar forecast appeared first on Carbon Brief.

China Briefing 7 August 2025: Deadly floods; ‘Industrial Cthulhu’; Higher solar forecast

Greenhouse Gases

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

Published

1 day ago

February 27, 2026

Alice Rush

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

This week

Absolute State of the Union

‘DRILL, BABY’: US president Donald Trump “doubled down on his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda” in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, said the Los Angeles Times. He “tout[ed] his support of the fossil-fuel industry and renew[ed] his focus on electricity affordability”, reported the Financial Times. Trump also attacked the “green new scam”, noted Carbon Brief’s SOTU tracker.

COAL REPRIEVE: Earlier in the week, the Trump administration had watered down limits on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, reported the Financial Times. It remains “unclear” if this will be enough to prevent the decline of coal power, said Bloomberg, in the face of lower-cost gas and renewables. Reuters noted that US coal plants are “ageing”.

OIL STAY: The US Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments brought by the oil industry in a “major lawsuit”, reported the New York Times. The newspaper said the firms are attempting to head off dozens of other lawsuits at state level, relating to their role in global warming.

SHIP-SHILLING: The Trump administration is working to “kill” a global carbon levy on shipping “permanently”, reported Politico, after succeeding in delaying the measure late last year. The Guardian said US “bullying” could be “paying off”, after Panama signalled it was reversing its support for the levy in a proposal submitted to the UN shipping body.

Around the world

RARE EARTHS: The governments of Brazil and India signed a deal on rare earths, said the Times of India, as well as agreeing to collaborate on renewable energy.
HEAT ROLLBACK: German homes will be allowed to continue installing gas and oil heating, under watered-down government plans covered by Clean Energy Wire.
BRAZIL FLOODS: At least 53 people died in floods in the state of Minas Gerais, after some areas saw 170mm of rain in a few hours, reported CNN Brasil.
ITALY’S ATTACK: Italy is calling for the EU to “suspend” its emissions trading system (ETS) ahead of a review later this year, said Politico.
COOKSTOVE CREDITS: The first-ever carbon credits under the Paris Agreement have been issued to a cookstove project in Myanmar, said Climate Home News.
SAUDI SOLAR: Turkey has signed a “major” solar deal that will see Saudi firm ACWA building 2 gigawatts in the country, according to Agence France-Presse.

$467 billion

The profits made by five major oil firms since prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago, according to a report by Global Witness covered by BusinessGreen.

Latest climate research

Claims about the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change, made in a recent US Department of Energy report, are “factually incorrect” | AGU Advances
Large lakes in the Congo Basin are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from “immense ancient stores” | Nature Geoscience
Shared Socioeconomic Pathways – scenarios used regularly in climate modelling – underrepresent “narratives explicitly centring on democratic principles such as participation, accountability and justice” | npj Climate Action

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

Captured

The constituency of Richard Tice MP, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of Reform UK, is the second-largest recipient of flood defence spending in England, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Overall, the funding is disproportionately targeted at coastal and urban areas, many of which have Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs.

Spotlight

Is there really a UK ‘greenlash’?

This week, after a historic Green Party byelection win, Carbon Brief looks at whether there really is a “greenlash” against climate policy in the UK.

Over the past year, the UK’s political consensus on climate change has been shattered.

Yet despite a sharp turn against climate action among right-wing politicians and right-leaning media outlets, UK public support for climate action remains strong.

Prof Federica Genovese, who studies climate politics at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief:

“The current ‘war’ on green policy is mostly driven by media and political elites, not by the public.”

Indeed, there is still a greater than two-to-one majority among the UK public in favour of the country’s legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, as shown below.

Steve Akehurst, director of public-opinion research initiative Persuasion UK, also noted the growing divide between the public and “elites”. He told Carbon Brief:

“The biggest movement is, without doubt, in media and elite opinion. There is a bit more polarisation and opposition [to climate action] among voters, but it’s typically no more than 20-25% and mostly confined within core Reform voters.”

Conservative gear shift

For decades, the UK had enjoyed strong, cross-party political support for climate action.

Lord Deben, the Conservative peer and former chair of the Climate Change Committee, told Carbon Brief that the UK’s landmark 2008 Climate Change Act had been born of this cross-party consensus, saying “all parties supported it”.

Since their landslide loss at the 2024 election, however, the Conservatives have turned against the UK’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050, which they legislated for in 2019.

Curiously, while opposition to net-zero has surged among Conservative MPs, there is majority support for the target among those that plan to vote for the party, as shown below.

Dr Adam Corner, advisor to the Climate Barometer initiative that tracks public opinion on climate change, told Carbon Brief that those who currently plan to vote Reform are the only segment who “tend to be more opposed to net-zero goals”. He said:

“Despite the rise in hostile media coverage and the collapse of the political consensus, we find that public support for the net-zero by 2050 target is plateauing – not plummeting.”

Reform, which rejects the scientific evidence on global warming and campaigns against net-zero, has been leading the polls for a year. (However, it was comfortably beaten by the Greens in yesterday’s Gorton and Denton byelection.)

Corner acknowledged that “some of the anti-net zero noise…[is] showing up in our data”, adding:

“We see rising concerns about the near-term costs of policies and an uptick in people [falsely] attributing high energy bills to climate initiatives.”

But Akehurst said that, rather than a big fall in public support, there had been a drop in the “salience” of climate action:

“So many other issues [are] competing for their attention.”

UK newspapers published more editorials opposing climate action than supporting it for the first time on record in 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

Global ‘greenlash’?

All of this sits against a challenging global backdrop, in which US president Donald Trump has been repeating climate-sceptic talking points and rolling back related policy.

At the same time, prominent figures have been calling for a change in climate strategy, sold variously as a “reset”, a “pivot”, as “realism”, or as “pragmatism”.

Genovese said that “far-right leaders have succeeded in the past 10 years in capturing net-zero as a poster child of things they are ‘fighting against’”.

She added that “much of this is fodder for conservative media and this whole ecosystem is essentially driving what we call the ‘greenlash’”.

Corner said the “disconnect” between elite views and the wider public “can create problems” – for example, “MPs consistently underestimate support for renewables”. He added:

“There is clearly a risk that the public starts to disengage too, if not enough positive voices are countering the negative ones.”

Watch, read, listen

TRUMP’S ‘PETROSTATE’: The US is becoming a “petrostate” that will be “sicker and poorer”, wrote Financial Times associate editor Rana Forohaar.

RHETORIC VS REALITY: Despite a “political mood [that] has darkened”, there is “more green stuff being installed than ever”, said New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells.
CHINA’S ‘REVOLUTION’: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast reported from China on the “green energy revolution” taking place in the country.

Coming up

2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean, Brasília
3 March: UK spring statement
4-11 March: China’s “two sessions”
5 March: Nepal elections

Pick of the jobs

The Guardian, senior reporter, climate justice | Salary: $123,000-$135,000. Location: New York or Washington DC
China-Global South Project, non-resident fellow, climate change | Salary: Up to $1,000 a month. Location: Remote
University of East Anglia, PhD in mobilising community-based climate action through co-designed sports and wellbeing interventions | Salary: Stipend (unknown amount). Location: Norwich, UK
TABLE and the University of São Paulo, Brazil, postdoctoral researcher in food system narratives | Salary: Unknown. Location: Pirassununga, Brazil

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

The post DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.

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

Greenhouse Gases

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

Published

1 day ago

February 27, 2026

Alice Rush

The Lincolnshire constituency held by Richard Tice, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of the hard-right Reform party, has been pledged at least £55m in government funding for flood defences since 2024.

This investment in Boston and Skegness is the second-largest sum for a single constituency from a £1.4bn flood-defence fund for England, Carbon Brief analysis shows.

Flooding is becoming more likely and more extreme in the UK due to climate change.

Yet, for years, governments have failed to spend enough on flood defences to protect people, properties and infrastructure.

The £1.4bn fund is part of the current Labour government’s wider pledge to invest a “record” £7.9bn over a decade on protecting hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from flooding.

As MP for one of England’s most flood-prone regions, Tice has called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.

He is also one of Reform’s most vocal opponents of climate action and what he calls “net stupid zero”. He denies the scientific consensus on climate change and has claimed, falsely and without evidence, that scientists are “lying”.

Flood defences

Last year, the government said it would invest £2.65bn on flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) schemes in England between April 2024 and March 2026.

This money was intended to protect 66,500 properties from flooding. It is part of a decade-long Labour government plan to spend more than £7.9bn on flood defences.

There has been a consistent shortfall in maintaining England’s flood defences, with the Environment Agency expecting to protect fewer properties by 2027 than it had initially planned.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has attributed this to rising costs, backlogs from previous governments and a lack of capacity. It also points to the strain from “more frequent and severe” weather events, such as storms in recent years that have been amplified by climate change.

However, the CCC also said last year that, if the 2024-26 spending programme is delivered, it would be “slightly closer to the track” of the Environment Agency targets out to 2027.

The government has released constituency-level data on which schemes in England it plans to fund, covering £1.4bn of the 2024-26 investment. The other half of the FCERM spending covers additional measures, from repairing existing defences to advising local authorities.

The map below shows the distribution of spending on FCERM schemes in England over the past two years, highlighting the constituency of Richard Tice.

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

By far the largest sum of money – £85.6m in total – has been committed to a tidal barrier and various other defences in the Somerset constituency of Bridgwater, the seat of Conservative MP Ashley Fox.

Over the first months of 2026, the south-west region has faced significant flooding and Fox has called for more support from the government, citing “climate patterns shifting and rainfall intensifying”.

He has also backed his party’s position that “the 2050 net-zero target is impossible” and called for more fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea.

Tice’s east-coast constituency of Boston and Skegness, which is highly vulnerable to flooding from both rivers and the sea, is set to receive £55m. Among the supported projects are beach defences from Saltfleet to Gibraltar Point and upgrades to pumping stations.

Overall, Boston and Skegness has the second-largest portion of flood-defence funding, as the chart below shows. Constituencies with Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs occupied the other top positions.

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

Overall, despite Labour MPs occupying 347 out of England’s 543 constituencies – nearly two-thirds of the total – more than half of the flood-defence funding was distributed to constituencies with non-Labour MPs. This reflects the flood risk in coastal and rural areas that are not traditional Labour strongholds.

Reform funding

While Reform has just eight MPs, representing 1% of the population, its constituencies have been assigned 4% of the flood-defence funding for England.

Nearly all of this money was for Tice’s constituency, although party leader Nigel Farage’s coastal Clacton seat in Kent received £2m.

Reform UK is committed to “scrapping net-zero” and its leadership has expressed firmly climate-sceptic views.

Much has been made of the disconnect between the party’s climate policies and the threat climate change poses to its voters. Various analyses have shown the flood risk in Reform-dominated areas, particularly Lincolnshire.

Tice has rejected climate science, advocated for fossil-fuel production and criticised Environment Agency flood-defence activities. Yet, he has also called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.

This may reflect Tice’s broader approach to climate change. In a 2024 interview with LBC, he said:

“Where you’ve got concerns about sea level defences and sea level rise, guess what? A bit of steel, a bit of cement, some aggregate…and you build some concrete sea level defences. That’s how you deal with rising sea levels.”

While climate adaptation is viewed as vital in a warming world, there are limits on how much societies can adapt and adaptation costs will continue to increase as emissions rise.

The post Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding appeared first on Carbon Brief.

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

Greenhouse Gases

Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate

Published

3 days ago

February 25, 2026

Alice Rush

We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.
Subscribe for free here.

Key developments

Food inflation on the rise

DELUGE STRIKES FOOD: Extreme rainfall and flooding across the Mediterranean and north Africa has “battered the winter growing regions that feed Europe…threatening food price rises”, reported the Financial Times. Western France has “endured more than 36 days of continuous rain”, while farmers’ associations in Spain’s Andalusia estimate that “20% of all production has been lost”, it added. Policy expert David Barmes told the paper that the “latest storms were part of a wider pattern of climate shocks feeding into food price inflation”.

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

NO BEEF: The UK’s beef farmers, meanwhile, “face a double blow” from climate change as “relentless rain forces them to keep cows indoors”, while last summer’s drought hit hay supplies, said another Financial Times article. At the same time, indoor growers in south England described a 60% increase in electricity standing charges as a “ticking timebomb” that could “force them to raise their prices or stop production, which will further fuel food price inflation”, wrote the Guardian.

‘TINDERBOX’ AND TARIFFS: A study, covered by the Guardian, warned that major extreme weather and other “shocks” could “spark social unrest and even food riots in the UK”. Experts cited “chronic” vulnerabilities, including climate change, low incomes, poor farming policy and “fragile” supply chains that have made the UK’s food system a “tinderbox”. A New York Times explainer noted that while trade could once guard against food supply shocks, barriers such as tariffs and export controls – which are being “increasingly” used by politicians – “can shut off that safety valve”.

El Niño looms

NEW ENSO INDEX: Researchers have developed a new index for calculating El Niño, the large-scale climate pattern that influences global weather and causes “billions in damages by bringing floods to some regions and drought to others”, reported CNN. It added that climate change is making it more difficult for scientists to observe El Niño patterns by warming up the entire ocean. The outlet said that with the new metric, “scientists can now see it earlier and our long-range weather forecasts will be improved for it.”

WARMING WARNING: Meanwhile, the US Climate Prediction Center announced that there is a 60% chance of the current La Niña conditions shifting towards a neutral state over the next few months, with an El Niño likely to follow in late spring, according to Reuters. The Vibes, a Malaysian news outlet, quoted a climate scientist saying: “If the El Niño does materialise, it could possibly push 2026 or 2027 as the warmest year on record, replacing 2024.”

CROP IMPACTS: Reuters noted that neutral conditions lead to “more stable weather and potentially better crop yields”. However, the newswire added, an El Niño state would mean “worsening drought conditions and issues for the next growing season” to Australia. El Niño also “typically brings a poor south-west monsoon to India, including droughts”, reported the Hindu’s Business Line. A 2024 guest post for Carbon Brief explained that El Niño is linked to crop failure in south-eastern Africa and south-east Asia.

News and views

DAM-AG-ES: Several South Korean farmers filed a lawsuit against the country’s state-owned utility company, “seek[ing] financial compensation for climate-related agricultural damages”, reported United Press International. Meanwhile, a national climate change assessment for the Philippines found that the country “lost up to $219bn in agricultural damages from typhoons, floods and droughts” over 2000-10, according to Eco-Business.
SCORCHED GRASS: South Africa’s Western Cape province is experiencing “one of the worst droughts in living memory”, which is “scorching grass and killing livestock”, said Reuters. The newswire wrote: “In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.”
NOUVELLE VEG: New guidelines published under France’s national food, nutrition and climate strategy “urged” citizens to “limit” their meat consumption, reported Euronews. The delayed strategy comes a month after the US government “upended decades of recommendations by touting consumption of red meat and full-fat dairy”, it noted.
COURTING DISASTER: India’s top green court accepted the findings of a committee that “found no flaws” in greenlighting the Great Nicobar project that “will lead to the felling of a million trees” and translocating corals, reported Mongabay. The court found “no good ground to interfere”, despite “threats to a globally unique biodiversity hotspot” and Indigenous tribes at risk of displacement by the project, wrote Frontline.
FISH FALLING: A new study found that fish biomass is “falling by 7.2% from as little as 0.1C of warming per decade”, noted the Guardian. While experts also pointed to the role of overfishing in marine life loss, marine ecologist and study lead author Dr Shahar Chaikin told the outlet: “Our research proves exactly what that biological cost [of warming] looks like underwater.”
TOO HOT FOR COFFEE: According to new analysis by Climate Central, countries where coffee beans are grown “are becoming too hot to cultivate them”, reported the Guardian. The world’s top five coffee-growing countries faced “57 additional days of coffee-harming heat” annually because of climate change, it added.

Spotlight

Nature talks inch forward

This week, Carbon Brief covers the latest round of negotiations under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which occurred in Rome over 16-19 February.

The penultimate set of biodiversity negotiations before October’s Conference of the Parties ended in Rome last week, leaving plenty of unfinished business.

The CBD’s subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) met in the Italian capital for four days to discuss a range of issues, including biodiversity finance and reviewing progress towards the nature targets agreed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

However, many of the major sticking points – particularly around finance – will have to wait until later this summer, leaving some observers worried about the capacity for delegates to get through a packed agenda at COP17.

The SBI, along with the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA) will both meet in Nairobi, Kenya, later this summer for a final round of talks before COP17 kicks off in Yerevan, Armenia, on 19 October.

Money talks

Finance for nature has long been a sticking point at negotiations under the CBD.

Discussions on a new fund for biodiversity derailed biodiversity talks in Cali, Colombia, in autumn 2024, requiring resumed talks a few months later.

Despite this, finance was barely on the agenda at the SBI meetings in Rome. Delegates discussed three studies on the relationship between debt sustainability and implementation of nature plans, but the more substantive talks are set to take place at the next SBI meeting in Nairobi.

Several parties “highlighted concerns with the imbalance of work” on finance between these SBI talks and the next ones, reported Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB).

Lim Li Ching, senior researcher at Third World Network, noted that tensions around finance permeated every aspect of the talks. She told Carbon Brief:

“If you’re talking about the gender plan of action – if there’s little or no financial resources provided to actually put it into practice and implement it, then it’s [just] paper, right? Same with the reporting requirements and obligations.”

Monitoring and reporting

Closely linked to the issue of finance is the obligations of parties to report on their progress towards the goals and targets of the GBF.

Parties do so through the submission of national reports.

Several parties at the talks pointed to a lack of timely funding for driving delays in their reporting, according to ENB.

A note released by the CBD Secretariat in December said that no parties had submitted their national reports yet; by the time of the SBI meetings, only the EU had. It further noted that just 58 parties had submitted their national biodiversity plans, which were initially meant to be published by COP16, in October 2024.

Linda Krueger, director of biodiversity and infrastructure policy at the environmental not-for-profit Nature Conservancy, told Carbon Brief that despite the sparse submissions, parties are “very focused on the national report preparation”. She added:

“Everybody wants to be able to show that we’re on the path and that there still is a pathway to getting to 2030 that’s positive and largely in the right direction.”

Watch, read, listen

NET LOSS: Nigeria’s marine life is being “threatened” by “ghost gear” – nets and other fishing equipment discarded in the ocean – said Dialogue Earth.

COMEBACK CAUSALITY: A Vox long-read looked at whether Costa Rica’s “payments for ecosystem services” programme helped the country turn a corner on deforestation.

HOMEGROWN GOALS: A Straits Times podcast discussed whether import-dependent Singapore can afford to shelve its goal to produce 30% of its food locally by 2030.

‘RUSTING’ RIVERS: The Financial Times took a closer look at a “strange new force blighting the [Arctic] landscape”: rivers turning rust-orange due to global warming.

New science

Lakes in the Congo Basin’s peatlands are releasing carbon that is thousands of years old | Nature Geoscience
Natural non-forest ecosystems – such as grasslands and marshlands – were converted for agriculture at four times the rate of land with tree cover between 2005 and 2020 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Around one-quarter of global tree-cover loss over 2001-22 was driven by cropland expansion, pastures and forest plantations for commodity production | Nature Food