UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt failed to mention the term “climate change” at all when setting out the government’s spring budget – the first since it was confirmed that 2023 was Earth’s hottest year on record.
As expected, Hunt used his budget speech to announce that the government is freezing fuel duty on petrol and diesel for the 14th year in a row.
As of 2023, this policy had added up to 7% to UK emissions, according to previous Carbon Brief analysis.
The chancellor also announced a year-long extension to the windfall tax on oil-and-gas companies, but failed to commit to spending the money raised on new climate investments.
Hunt did not offer any new policies to help boost the rollout of key low-carbon technologies, such as electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps.
He also pledged no further changes to the government’s long-term regime of maximising oil and gas production.
Overall, despite some confirmation of further funding for supply chains, analysts described the budget as a “missed opportunity” for boosting low-carbon industries and accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels in the UK.
Alongside the budget, the government also confirmed key details of its sixth auction round for new renewable energy projects, including a pot worth just over £1bn.
With a UK general election on the horizon – and Labour enjoying a substantial lead in the polls – this budget is likely to be Hunt’s last as chancellor.
Below, Carbon Brief runs through the key announcements.
Fuel duty
The government has frozen fuel duty on petrol and diesel for the 14th year in a row.
This persistent policy amounts to a significant tax cut, as fuel duty has dropped considerably in real terms over the years rather than rising with inflation.
The freeze makes it cheaper to drive a car and reduces the incentive to use more fuel-efficient models. As of 2023, Carbon Brief calculated that fuel duty freezes had increased UK carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by up to 7%.
Hunt has also opted to retain an extra 5p cut in duty, which was first introduced in 2022 to address rising fuel costs. This reduced the rate on petrol and diesel from 57.95p per litre to 52.95p.
In the 2022 spring statement, it was described as a temporary measure. The government stated the 5p cut would end on 23 March 2024 “as part of the government’s commitment to fiscal responsibility and ensuring trust and confidence in our national finances”.
However, Hunt announced that it will remain in place for another year. This is despite fuel prices now being comfortably lower than they were during the energy crisis.
These two measures have been a major drain on public finances.
Together, they will cost the Treasury £3.1bn in 2024-25, with a cumulative cost of around £90bn since 2010, according to official figures released by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Analysis performed by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) in the run up to the spring budget places the cumulative figure far higher, at £130bn.
The thinktank adds that the cost of maintaining fuel duty freezes would rise to more than £200bn by 2030 – “enough to fund the entire NHS for a year”.
With the government under pressure from the right of the Conservative party and the right-leaning press to cut taxes, the fuel-duty freeze was trailed in the Times ahead of the budget as one of the “two main tax cuts” planned by the chancellor, along with a reduction in national insurance.
The Sun claimed responsibility for Hunt’s continued fuel duty freeze, due to the newspaper’s long-standing “Keep It Down” campaign, which it runs with the climate-sceptic lobbyist and Reform Party London mayoral candidate Howard Cox. A recent Sun editorial stated:
“Seven Tory chancellors have cursed us for it. To them it has ‘cost’ £90bn in tax they would love to have spent.”
Instead, the Sun points to the benefits for “British motorists”. Pro-motoring lobbyists have argued that a fuel-duty cut is a necessary bulwark against the “war on motorists” taking place in the UK. The government has absorbed this message, with prime minister Rishi Sunak announcing last year he was “slamming the brakes on the war on motorists”.
The government describes its fuel duty freeze as part of its efforts to “support people with the cost of living”.
The opposition Labour Party has also backed the fuel-duty freeze on these grounds. Last year, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves threw her weight behind it to help the “many families and businesses reliant on their cars”.
Yet analysis by the SMF shows that, despite rhetoric that emphasises benefits for ordinary, hard-working people, fuel-duty cuts disproportionately benefit wealthier people. This is because they are more likely to own cars and the cars they own are more likely to be less fuel-efficient models, such as SUVs.
As a result, the thinktank says maintaining the 2022 fuel-duty cut will save the UK’s richest people around three times as much money as the nation’s poorest.
Moreover, analysis by the RAC Foundation at the end of 2023 found that the government’s cuts to fuel prices had not all been passed onto consumers. Instead, it concluded that fossil-fuel retailers had kept savings from lower wholesale costs for themselves, leaving drivers “paying 10p [per litre] more than they should be”.
Meanwhile, the cost of bus and coach fares has risen far more than the cost of running a car, as rail fares in England and Wales increased by 5% this year.
The SMF has proposed that investment in public transport would be a more effective way to save households money.
Others have suggested that such investments could also be a major driver of economic growth. For example, government advisors at the National Infrastructure Commission argued last year that the UK should invest £22bn in mass transit schemes outside London in the coming years.
Instead, the most significant public-transport policy the government has introduced in recent months has been cancelling the northern leg of the HS2 train line.
Air passenger duty
Hunt also announced an increase in air passenger duty on “non-economy” passengers as a revenue-raising measure to help pay for tax cuts elsewhere.
As a result, those flying business class, premium economy, first class or in private jets will pay a higher price for plane tickets.
This policy will raise between £110m and £140m annually from 2025 through to 2029, according to government figures.
The budget document explains that this is a measure to bring air passenger duty in line with high inflation and maintain its value in real terms.
Nevertheless, it emphasises that for the 70% of passengers flying economy, or on short-haul flights, “rates will remain frozen” in order to “keep the cost of flying down”.
In fact, in 2021 when Sunak was chancellor, the government cut air passenger duty in half for domestic flights, making air travel cheaper within the UK. Reversing this change would bring in an extra £69m to the Treasury, according to the Campaign for Better Transport.
Campaigners have proposed a more expansive “frequent flyer levy” in order to actively discourage flying and cut emissions from aviation, which accounts for around 3% of UK emissions.
According to New Economics Foundation modelling, this could have raised £4bn in revenues in 2022.
As it stands, the government has no explicit plans to reduce demand for air travel in the UK. This is despite such plans being flagged repeatedly by government climate advisors the Climate Change Committee (CCC) as a missing part of the UK’s strategy to reach net-zero.
Windfall tax
Hunt used his budget to extend the windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas companies by another year, bringing its scheduled end date to March 2029.
This was despite opposition from Scottish Conservatives, according to BBC News – and the energy secretary Claire Coutinho, according to Politico.
He told parliament this extension would raise £1.5bn. However, he did not say what this additional money would be spent on.
He added that the “energy profits levy”, as the windfall tax is known, would be abolished “should market prices fall to their historic norm for a sustained period of time”.
In a statement, Kate Mulvany, principal consultant at consultancy Cornwall Insight, said that the move “could be seen as positive for decarbonisation if the resulting profits are used to deliver the UK’s net-zero plan”, but added:
“Yet, without a solid transition strategy away from the UK’s oil and gas dependence and no assurance that tax revenues will directly support decarbonisation initiatives, the potential upheaval in investment could outweigh the benefits.”
Ahead of the budget, both the Times and Bloomberg reported that the tax extension was being described as one of the measures that could help fund Hunt’s 2p cut in national insurance.
Labour has also proposed extending the tax by a year, if elected to power, Politico reported. Additionally, Labour intends to raise the levy on oil-and-gas company profits from 75% to 78%. It has pledged to spend the money raised on low-carbon investments.
Oil-and-gas trade group Offshore Energies UK has called the Labour proposal “alarming” and claimed that it could lead to job losses in the sector. (See Carbon Brief’s factcheck of misleading claims surrounding North Sea oil and gas.)
Elsewhere in his budget speech, Hunt did not commit to any other changes on fossil-fuel investment policies.
This was to the dismay of many environmental groups and energy experts, who had urged the chancellor to commit to new measures to end reliance on oil and gas. In a statement, Esin Serin, policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said:
“The chancellor should be making more of the tax system to drive the transition away from fossil fuels.”
Clean technology
Hunt announced that the government is buying two nuclear sites from Hitachi for £160m, in a move reportedly aimed at quickly delivering nuclear expansion plans.
The sites are at Wylfa in Anglesey, Wales and Oldbury-on-Severn in South Gloucestershire. The decision follows a period of uncertainty for Wylfa, after the closure of the previous nuclear power plant at the site in 2015.
Hitachi had planned to build a new 2.9 gigawatt (GW) nuclear plant on the site for a reported £20bn. However, the Japanese conglomerate announced it was shelving the plans in 2019.
Additionally, Hunt announced that the government has moved onto the next stage in its competition to build “small modular reactors” (SMRs). There are now six companies that have been invited to submit their initial tender responses by June.
The chancellor confirmed a £120m increase in funding for the “green industries growth accelerator” (GIGA), a fund designed to support the expansion of ”strong and sustainable clean energy supply chains” in the UK. The increase was announced earlier this week.
This will bring the total amount in the fund to £1.1bn, according to the budget documents, up from £960m announced in the autumn statement in November.
GIGA is designed to support carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS), engineered greenhouse gas removals (GGRs) and hydrogen, offshore wind and electricity networks, as well as civil nuclear power.
The fund will be split between these sectors, with around £390m earmarked for electricity networks and offshore wind supply chains, and around £390m earmarked for CCUS and hydrogen, the treasury’s note stated.
In January, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero announced £300m will be used to fund the production of a type of nuclear fuel known as “high-assay low-enriched uranium” (HALEU). Currently, Russia is the only producer of HALEU, so the domestic production plan is designed to help end “Russia’s reign”, the government states, as well as to support the UK’s wider plans to deliver “up to” 24GW of nuclear power by 2050.
In a statement, trade association RenewableUK’s chief executive Dan McGrail said:
“The increase in GIGA funding to secure further private investment in green manufacturing jobs will enable us to supply more goods and services to projects here and abroad. It’s also good to see that nearly £400m of that funding will be used specifically to grow our offshore wind supply chain and electricity networks.”
Additionally, earlier this week the government trailed £360m for manufacturing projects and for research and development. This includes almost £73m in combined government and industry investment in the development of electric vehicle (EV) technology.
This will be supported by more than £36m of government funding awarded through the UK’s “advanced propulsion centre”, the Treasury notes, including four projects that are developing technologies for battery EVs.
Renewable auction budget
Alongside the budget, the government also confirmed key details of its sixth auction (AR6) round for new renewable energy projects, including a pot worth just over £1bn.
This follows last year’s fifth auction round, which failed to secure any new offshore wind projects for the first time.
The budget documents said the £1bn budget for AR6 is the “largest ever” and includes £800m specifically for offshore wind.
If winning projects bid at the maximum price for offshore wind announced last year of £73 per megawatt hour (MWh) in 2012 prices, then the £800m budget would only be sufficient to secure just 3GW of new capacity, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
However, consultancy LCP Delta said it could be sufficient to secure 4-6GW of new capacity, implying that it assumes winning projects will bid at prices around £50-60/MWh. In a statement, it added:
“This is certainly a welcome development given last year’s failed auction. However, it may not be enough to get the UK back on track with time running out to build the additional 23GW needed [to meet its 50GW target] by 2030.”
The government has a target of building 50GW of offshore wind by 2030. There is currently around 15GW in operation and another 14GW either under construction, awarded a contract or having already taken a final investment decision, according to trade association Energy UK.
This means another 21GW of new capacity would be needed to hit the 50GW by 2030 target, implying a need for at least 10GW in each of the next two auction rounds, according to industry body Energy UK.
In addition to the £800m pot for offshore wind, the government has confirmed the upcoming auction will include up to £105m for “pot two” technologies including onshore wind, solar, energy from waste with combined heat and power and others, as well as £120m for “pot three” technologies including floating offshore wind, geothermal, tidal stream, wave and others.
Electric cars
Ahead of the budget, an open letter by the motoring lobby group FairCharge called on the chancellor to end the higher rates of VAT on public electric car charging, when compared to home charging.
People who charge their EVs at home only pay 5% VAT on their bills, but the 38% of the population without driveways who would have to use public chargers pay the full VAT rate of 20%, presenting a “charging injustice”, the group told the Daily Mirror.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders also called for VAT on public EV charging points to be cut, to be in line with the VAT on home charging points.
Speaking to the Times, Mike Hawes, chief executive of the group, said that high VAT rates on public charging points were part of a “triple tax barrier” to more private ownership of EVs.
He also urged the chancellor to reverse proposed excise duty changes that treat upmarket electric cars as luxuries rather than essentials, increasing car taxes by up to £2,000, and to cut the 20% VAT that new car buyers have to pay on new EVs.
However, during the budget, Hunt did not mention any new measures to boost EVs.
The post UK spring budget 2024: Key climate and energy announcements appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Ellen Davies is head of programmes at the African Climate Foundation and is based in Kenya. Wole Hammond is programme officer for adaptation and resilience at the foundation, based in Nigeria.
For generations, African communities have lived on the frontlines of climate disruption, managing erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts and the slow erosion of their livelihoods, which depend on predictable seasons.
When the rains failed across Southern Africa in 2024, it was but the latest chapter of a crisis already long underway. During that season, maize crop failures of 40-80% devastated farming communities in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, where roughly 70% of people depend on rain-fed agriculture. Governments already stretched by debt were forced to raid development budgets, trading long-term growth for emergency relief.
Then came the floods. In early 2026, parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa received over a year’s worth of rain in days. More than 2 million people were affected. In East Africa, drought has displaced nearly 62,000 people in Somalia this year alone, with nearly one in four Somalis now facing acute food insecurity.
This is what climate change looks like on the ground – not parts per million or diplomatic jargon, but whether a school stays open after floods cut off the road, whether a clinic can function in extreme heat, whether a country can still invest in its future when every year brings another disaster bill.
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Africa as a continent contributes the least to global emissions yet bears a disproportionate share of the consequences. Nine of the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change are African. As livelihoods collapse and rural economies fail, migration pressures will intensify, driven by climate change intersecting with poverty, conflict and constrained opportunity.
Chronic under-funding
Europe is only now beginning to experience, in more limited form, what African communities have navigated for decades with far less fiscal space, thinner insurance coverage and fewer resources for recovery. With El Niño conditions confirmed and a “super” version of the naturally occurring weather pattern possible later this year, the pressure is set to intensify further.
In Africa, climate action is fundamentally a development challenge where adaptation and mitigation must go hand in hand. Building a solar grid and flood-proofing the road that serves it are not separate agendas. Yet for too long, the global climate conversation has prioritised mitigation while leaving adaptation – the work of protecting lives, livelihoods and economies in a changing climate – chronically under-funded.
The result is three compounding gaps. A visibility gap: much of Africa’s adaptation work remains under-documented and under-recognised in global climate narratives. A financing gap: capital does not flow at the scale or speed required to the people and institutions best placed to use it. And a decision-making gap: too many solutions are still designed elsewhere and imported into African contexts, rather than backing African-led platforms to scale what is already working.
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Solutions ready for finance
The solutions exist. Rwanda’s green investment fund has mobilised climate finance at national scale through its own systems. Egypt’s Nexus of Water, Food and Energy programme has shown how integrated planning can stretch limited resources across interdependent systems.
Zambia’s Presidential Irrigation Initiative is building climate-resilient food production from the ground up. In Pata, Senegal, a solar irrigation project has unlocked agricultural production and created jobs, demonstrating how integrated investments in water, energy and livelihoods can deliver resilience and development gains simultaneously.
In South Africa, the African Climate Foundation’s work with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) is supporting district municipalities to assess their climate risks and develop fit-for-purpose Climate Action Plans, building adaptation capacity where it is needed most – at the local level.
These are not pilot projects waiting to be validated. They are working systems waiting for investment.
Closing the gaps requires a decisive shift in posture from global finance, philanthropy and development institutions. It means backing country-led platforms that can prepare, aggregate and finance adaptation projects. It means investing in place-based initiatives grounded in local knowledge.
French court rules Total must revise climate plan to account for all emissions
It means fostering intra- and inter-continental collaboration, so that lessons from Kigali inform decisions in Nairobi and innovations in Lagos reach communities in Dakar. And it means treating adaptation as core economic infrastructure, not charitable relief.
Invest now for future gains
The economic case is clear. Every dollar invested in climate adaptation returns an estimated four dollars in benefits on average – and up to five in the poorest economies. Under-investment in African adaptation is as economically irrational as it is morally unjust.
The world depends on Africa’s food systems, its young workforce – the majority of the continent’s population is under 25 – and its minerals. Several African countries supply a substantial share of the copper, cobalt and other critical materials underpinning the global clean energy transition.
Drought in Zambia has already shown how climate stress can disrupt hydropower, electricity supply and mining output. A transition that depends on African minerals cannot afford to ignore African climate resilience.
The world can continue to under-fund adaptation and pay repeatedly for emergencies, instability and lost development. Or it can invest now in the people, institutions and systems already doing the work on the ground in Africa, not in solutions imported from elsewhere.
Africa has the agency, the knowledge and the platforms. What it needs is the finance to match. A super El Niño will not wait for consensus to form. Neither, frankly, should we.
The post Climate adaptation in Africa needs investment, not imported solutions appeared first on Climate Home News.
Climate adaptation in Africa needs investment, not imported solutions
Climate Change
DeBriefed 26 June 2026: Heat records broken across Europe | London climate action week | Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Record Europe heat
HOTTEST EVER: The UK broke its temperature record for June twice this week, while France recorded its hottest day ever two days in a row, reported the Guardian. The Times reported that temperatures reached 36.7C in Somerset on Thursday, as the “London Ambulance Service had its busiest-ever day for life-threatening emergencies”.
FRANCE FRYING: French newspaper Libération said that temperatures reached as high as 44.3C in the south-western commune of Pissos on Wednesday. Spain also recorded its highest daily average temperature for June, said BBC News. On Thursday, Switzerland also had its hottest June day, when temperatures reached 37C in four locations, reported SwissInfo.
CLIMATE LINK: CNN covered a rapid analysis from the World Weather Attribution service finding that fossil-fuelled climate change has made this heatwave the most severe and widespread in Europe’s history. Carbon Brief covered the broken heat records, explaining the influence of climate change.
‘Electrifying’ London talks
‘LONDON COOKING’: In a sweltering, packed-out event at London climate action week, UN chief António Guterres quipped that “London is not just calling, it’s cooking”, reported Edie. Guterres also used his address to release a “global call to action on methane” and to call on artificial intelligence companies to reveal their environmental impact and source their power solely from renewables by 2030, said the publication.
‘ELECTRIFY NOW’: Elsewhere, dozens of governments, led by the EU and the UK, committed to throwing “their political weight” behind a rapid electrification of the world’s economy, according to Climate Home News. A high-level summit in London’s Mansion House saw energy ministers and business leaders, joined by Guterres, in “calling for faster action to curb demand for oil, coal and gas by powering homes, industry and transport with clean electricity”.
FOSSIL TRANSITION: At the same event, ministers from Colombia and the Netherlands, the co-hosts of the world’s first summit on transitioning away from fossil fuels in April, unveiled a report on their key takeaways. It comes after the current Colombian government has been ousted by a presidential election defeat to a fossil-fuel-supporting Trump ally. Carbon Brief examined what this could mean for the world’s energy transition.
Around the world
- UK TARGET: The UK parliament has approved its “seventh carbon budget”, aimed at cutting emissions 87% below 1990 levels by 2040.
- TOTAL ACCOUNTABILITY: A French court has ordered oil-and-gas giant TotalEnergies to account for the emissions from the use of its products, following a case brought by a climate NGO, reported Le Monde.
- METHANE RULES: The US, Qatar and other major energy exporters have urged the EU to “rewrite planned methane emissions” rules for oil-and-gas imports, saying that the policy could disrupt fuel supplies to Europe, according to Reuters.
- CHINA MESSAGE: China’s special envoy for climate change, Liu Zhenmin, said at the World Economic Forum that energy shortages triggered by the Iran war should be a “lesson to countries to accelerate their energy transitions”, reported Bloomberg.
- US WEBSITE REVIVED: Former US government workers have “recreated a valuable climate-science website” shut down by the Trump administration last year, said the New York Times.
6,600 animals
The number of livestock that perished in transport during heat in England and Wales from June to August 2025, double the number killed the year before, reported Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Some world regions are experiencing up to 50 additional heat stress days annually, when compared to 1950 | Nature Climate Change
- Projections of national land-use emissions to 2100 suggest the strongest “carbon sinks” will be in China and Indonesia, whereas Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo will “dominate global sources” | Nature
- Most carbon-offset projects relying on “avoided deforestation” have “mixed, negligible or negative impacts relative to control areas” | Nature Climate Change
(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 UK government’s official climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), has released its latest progress report, emphasising that faster electrification is the best way to secure lower energy bills and stronger energy security. Electrification has shot up the agenda in recent months, with the COP31 presidency calling for countries to back a global goal for 35% of “final” energy to come from electricity by 2035. The text of the CCC’s latest report uses the word “electrification” far more often than previous editions, as shown in the figure above. See Carbon Brief’s in-depth breakdown of the CCC’s latest advice.
Spotlight
Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’
Carbon Brief explains how it built a major new database of climate science research and unveils a new ranking of the 500 most highly cited publications, authors and institutions in climate science.
This week, Carbon Brief launched Project Cosmos – the world’s largest and most complete database of climate change research.
The database features more than 1.8m academic papers, books and reports, capturing the vast body of human knowledge about climate change that has accumulated over more than a century of academic study.
The climate science “universe” is based on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which are recognised as the world’s most authoritative summaries of the latest climate science.
Since its first report was published in 1990, humanity’s knowledge about human-caused climate change has ballooned. The IPCC has published six sets of reports in total – each one longer than the last.
In total, IPCC reports reference more than 100,000 other papers, books and reports. This is the core of our climate science universe. Carbon Brief then built on this core, by looking at four other sources of data. Read more about how the Cosmos database was created here.
Every single publication in the Cosmos database is linked to at least one other through references. Visualising these links reveals a “galaxy” of references.
In the image above, each colour and cluster reveals different topics and densities of research. Explore the galaxy in an interactive map.
Cosmos 500
As part of an initial wave of preliminary analysis to demonstrate the scope of the Project Cosmos database, Carbon Brief has ranked the 500 most highly cited publications, authors and institutions in the database.
The most highly cited climate scientist is Prof Philippe Ciais, who has spent almost four decades researching the planet’s carbon cycle – and the ways in which humans have been impacting its balance. Carbon Brief recently interviewed Ciais in Paris.
The US tops the tables for the most highly cited authors and institutions. Almost half of the 500 most highly-cited authors are from US institutions. This raises particular concerns for the future of climate science, as US climate scientists and institutions are coming under attack under the Trump administration.
Experts from global south countries account for only 4% of all authors in the Cosmos 500. China stands out as the most highly-cited global south country. Meanwhile, only 10% of authors in the Cosmos 500 are women.
There are many possibilities for future avenues of research using the Cosmos database. Over time, the database could be used to reveal, for example, how interest in different areas of climate science has changed over time, plus identify potential knowledge gaps and, thus, opportunities for future research.
Carbon Brief invites researchers – including academics, journalists and analysts – to submit their own proposals for co-authored studies, literature reviews and analytical projects. Proposals should be sent to cosmos AT carbonbrief DOT org.
This spotlight first appeared in Cited, Carbon Brief’s new fortnightly newsletter focused on climate research. Sign up for free.
Watch, read, listen
‘DOOMSDAY CULT’: OpenDemocracy reported on a “religious cult” spreading climate misinformation in “parliaments” and at “COP summits”.
‘WEDGES’ EXAMINED: ProPublica and Drilled released an investigation into how oil executives worked to influence a climate research paper from Princeton University known as “wedges”.
‘1976 to 2056’: A 30-minute YouTube video from the Met Office had climate scientists explaining how current UK temperatures compare to the infamous 1976 heatwave, and how extremes could worsen by 2056.
Coming up
- 29-30 June: Hamburg sustainability conference, Hamburg, Germany
- 29-30 June: Seventh global conference on climate and sustainable development goals synergies, Bangkok, Thailand
- 29-30 June: 11th annual global conference on energy efficiency, Montreal, Canada
Pick of the jobs
- Drilled, series editor | Salary: $4,000 a month (six-month contract). Location: US
- Met Office, ocean climate science manager | Salary: £54,515-£58,582. Location: Exeter, UK
- Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, research officer (climate science and law) | Salary: £43,277-£55,497. Location: London
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 26 June 2026: Heat records broken across Europe | London climate action week | Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Over the last four years, Colombia has emerged as one of the most vocal advocates for the world to transition away from fossil fuels.
Under the leadership of leftist politician and economist Gustavo Petro, it became the first major oil-and-gas producer to commit to halting all new fossil-fuel expansion.
In April, the nation hosted a first-of-its-kind meeting of countries on transitioning away from fossil fuels, alongside the Netherlands, in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta.
The meeting concluded with a promise for a new “Santa Marta process” spearheaded by Colombia and the Netherlands, a movement of countries that would continue to push for a transition away from fossil fuels at home – and at international climate talks.
But on 21 June, an ally of Petro suffered defeat in a presidential election runoff against Abelardo de la Espriella, a hard-right populist and favourite of US president Donald Trump, who has pledged to boost oil production and pursue “fracking to the max”.
Below, Carbon Brief examines what the loss could mean for Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels, as well as international efforts to transition away from coal, oil and gas, including at the COP31 climate summit in Turkey in November.
- How could the election defeat change Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels?
- How could it affect international efforts to transition away from fossil fuels?
- How could efforts to transition away from fossil fuels feature at COP31?
How could the election defeat change Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels?
In 2022, Petro became Colombia’s first left-wing president in recent history.
Under his leadership, Colombia became the first major oil producer and exporter to halt all new fossil-fuel expansion, boosted renewable energy and saw a sustained decline in deforestation.
At the COP28 summit in 2023, Petro announced that Colombia would become the first major oil exporter to sign the fossil-fuel non-proliferation treaty, a pact to legally control fossil-fuel production and use.
Successive Colombian environment ministers became among the most vocal supporters of transitioning away from fossil fuels at UN climate talks.
This included former minister Susana Muhamad, a political scientist and environmentalist who stepped in to lead the most recent UN biodiversity summit in 2024 after original host Turkey was forced to withdraw following earthquakes.
She was succeeded by Irene Vélez Torres, a former academic who led calls for a “fossil-fuel roadmap” to be part of the formal outcome at the COP30 summit in 2025.
At the sidelines of COP30, Vélez Torres and Netherlands climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven announced plans to co-host a first-of-its-kind summit on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Colombia in April 2026.
(In the end, countries failed to agree to a formally negotiated “fossil-fuel roadmap” at COP30. However, the Brazilian COP30 presidency promised to bring forward a voluntary roadmap instead, informed by the Santa Marta summit.)
Some 57 countries – representing one-third of the world’s economy – participated in the event, with officials describing it as “refreshing”, “highly successful” and “groundbreaking”, according to Carbon Brief’s reporting from Colombia.
The meeting concluded with a range of outcomes, including a second fossil-fuel transition summit to be co-hosted by Tuvalu and Ireland in 2027.
In stark contrast to Petro’s government, new hard-right populist president Abelardo de la Espriella has promised to quickly boost new fossil-fuel and mining projects, including by “fracking to the max”.
De la Espriella has also promised to build 10 “mega prisons” inside Colombia’s Amazon rainforest.
He has not yet commented on whether he will withdraw Colombia from Santa Marta’s “coalition of the willing”.
How could it affect international efforts to transition away from fossil fuels?
Just two days after the Colombian government’s election defeat, environment minister Vélez Torres took to the stage at London climate action week, alongside Netherlands climate minister van Veldhoven, to present a report on key takeaways from the Santa Marta summit.
The report, written before the election loss, speaks of an ongoing “Santa Marta process” to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels. It says that this will be coordinated by Colombia and the Netherlands, along with the two appointed co-hosts of the second conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, Tuvalu and Ireland.
Acknowledging that this was likely to be one of her last addresses as Colombia’s environment minister, Vélez Torres told the audience that, going forward, the Santa Marta process must be resilient to “political setbacks”.
At the sidelines of the event, Vélez Torres told Carbon Brief that the work her government has done “cannot be erased”, despite a change in power. She said:
“Right now, we are facing the dark nights, this will really shift the politics in terms of energy position and environmental protection. But we are certain that our legacy will continue. It goes beyond governments.”
Dutch minister van Veldhoven told Carbon Brief that the plan for the “Santa Marta process” is to hold fossil-fuel transition summits in a different country every year, with two new co-hosts each time. This could help weather political shocks, she said:
“We know that every couple of years there will be elections. That is why [we have] the idea of rotating presidencies and chairmanships…while we make sure we make use of existing secretariats and organisations that are not subject to political changes every couple of years.
“In that combination, we hope to create a historic legacy and continue to drive the process forward, but also [create space for] a new energy from two new countries every year that bring their own perspective and their own dynamic.”
Although new countries could drive the process forward without Colombia, there are few major oil producers that have shown the same level of commitment to transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Ana Toni, an economist and CEO of the COP30 summit in Brazil, told Carbon Brief at London climate action week that the world will “miss the leadership of Colombia”, but added:
“Not one country will stop this movement. All countries need to chip in. There isn’t one leader for this topic. Everybody needs to join forces.”
How could efforts to transition away from fossil fuels feature at COP31?
At London climate action week, Colombia and the Netherlands presented their Santa Marta report to the Brazilian COP30 presidency.
The COP30 presidency is due to release a voluntary international “fossil-fuel roadmap” ahead of COP31 in Turkey in November, which it has promised will be informed by the takeaways from Santa Marta.
Speaking at the sidelines of London climate action week, Colombia and the Netherlands added that they have had “constructive” conversations with the COP31 co-presidencies, Australia and Turkey, about how to incorporate the discussions from Santa Marta.
Colombian environment minister Irene Vélez Torres told a small group of journalists:
“We had this very interesting conversation with COP31 and they were clearly open to suggestions about what is needed in the discussion in Turkey, and we were explicit about the need to engage with the phasing out of fossil fuels.”
However, both Colombia and the Netherlands added that they were unsure of how this might work in practice.
When asked about whether the Santa Marta discussions could be incorporated into formal COP texts, they were keen to emphasise that all the conversations in Colombia were specifically not negotiations.
They added that they were unsure of whether the group of 57 countries that gathered in Santa Marta would appear as a collective at press conferences or events at the COP31 summit.
The post Q&A: What change of power in Colombia could mean for world’s fossil-fuel transition appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What change of power in Colombia could mean for world’s fossil-fuel transition
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