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.
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Blazing heat hits Europe
FANNING THE FLAMES: Wildfires “fanned by a heatwave and strong winds” caused havoc across southern Europe, Reuters reported. It added: “Fire has affected nearly 440,000 hectares (1,700 square miles) in the eurozone so far in 2025, double the average for the same period of the year since 2006.” Extreme heat is “breaking temperature records across Europe”, the Guardian said, with several countries reporting readings of around 40C.
HUMAN TOLL: At least three people have died in the wildfires erupting across Spain, Turkey and Albania, France24 said, adding that the fires have “displaced thousands in Greece and Albania”. Le Monde reported that a child in Italy “died of heatstroke”, while thousands were evacuated from Spain and firefighters “battled three large wildfires” in Portugal.
UK WILDFIRE RISK: The UK saw temperatures as high as 33.4C this week as England “entered its fourth heatwave”, BBC News said. The high heat is causing “nationally significant” water shortfalls, it added, “hitting farms, damaging wildlife and increasing wildfires”. The Daily Mirror noted that these conditions “could last until mid-autumn”. Scientists warn the UK faces possible “firewaves” due to climate change, BBC News also reported.
Around the world
- GRID PRESSURES: Iraq suffered a “near nationwide blackout” as elevated power demand – due to extreme temperatures of around 50C – triggered a transmission line failure, Bloomberg reported.
- ‘DIRE’ DOWN UNDER: The Australian government is keeping a climate risk assessment that contains “dire” implications for the continent “under wraps”, the Australian Financial Review said.
- EXTREME RAINFALL: Mexico City is “seeing one of its heaviest rainy seasons in years”, the Washington Post said. Downpours in the Japanese island of Kyushu “caused flooding and mudslides”, according to Politico. In Kashmir, flash floods killed 56 and left “scores missing”, the Associated Press said.
- SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION: China and Brazil agreed to “ensure the success” of COP30 in a recent phone call, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
- PLASTIC ‘DEADLOCK’: Talks on a plastic pollution treaty have failed again at a summit in Geneva, according to the Guardian, with countries “deadlocked” on whether it should include “curbs on production and toxic chemicals”.
15
The number of times by which the most ethnically-diverse areas in England are more likely to experience extreme heat than its “least diverse” areas, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- As many as 13 minerals critical for low-carbon energy may face shortages under 2C pathways | Nature Climate Change
- A “scoping review” examined the impact of climate change on poor sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa | PLOS One
- A UK university cut the carbon footprint of its weekly canteen menu by 31% “without students noticing” | Nature Food
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Factchecking Trump’s climate report
A report commissioned by the US government to justify rolling back climate regulations contains “at least 100 false or misleading statements”, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists. The report, compiled in two months by five hand-picked researchers, inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed” and misleadingly states that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”80
Spotlight
Does Xi Jinping care about climate change?
This week, Carbon Brief unpacks new research on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s policy priorities.
On this day in 2005, Xi Jinping, a local official in eastern China, made an unplanned speech when touring a small village – a rare occurrence in China’s highly-choreographed political culture.
In it, he observed that “lucid waters and lush mountains are mountains of silver and gold” – that is, the environment cannot be sacrificed for the sake of growth.
(The full text of the speech is not available, although Xi discussed the concept in a brief newspaper column – see below – a few days later.)
In a time where most government officials were laser-focused on delivering economic growth, this message was highly unusual.
Forward-thinking on environment
As a local official in the early 2000s, Xi endorsed the concept of “green GDP”, which integrates the value of natural resources and the environment into GDP calculations.
He also penned a regular newspaper column, 22 of which discussed environmental protection – although “climate change” was never mentioned.
This focus carried over to China’s national agenda when Xi became president.
New research from the Asia Society Policy Institute tracked policies in which Xi is reported by state media to have “personally” taken action.
It found that environmental protection is one of six topics in which he is often said to have directly steered policymaking.
Such policies include guidelines to build a “Beautiful China”, the creation of an environmental protection inspection team and the “three-north shelterbelt” afforestation programme.
“It’s important to know what Xi’s priorities are because the top leader wields outsized influence in the Chinese political system,” Neil Thomas, Asia Society Policy Institute fellow and report co-author, told Carbon Brief.
Local policymakers are “more likely” to invest resources in addressing policies they know have Xi’s attention, to increase their chances for promotion, he added.
What about climate and energy?
However, the research noted, climate and energy policies have not been publicised as bearing Xi’s personal touch.
“I think Xi prioritises environmental protection more than climate change because reducing pollution is an issue of social stability,” Thomas said, noting that “smoggy skies and polluted rivers” were more visible and more likely to trigger civil society pushback than gradual temperature increases.
The paper also said topics might not be linked to Xi personally when they are “too technical” or “politically sensitive”.
For example, Xi’s landmark decision for China to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 is widely reported as having only been made after climate modelling – facilitated by former climate envoy Xie Zhenhua – showed that this goal was achievable.
Prior to this, Xi had never spoken publicly about carbon neutrality.
Prof Alex Wang, a University of California, Los Angeles professor of law not involved in the research, noted that emphasising Xi’s personal attention may signal “top” political priorities, but not necessarily Xi’s “personal interests”.
By not emphasising climate, he said, Xi may be trying to avoid “pushing the system to overprioritise climate to the exclusion of the other priorities”.
There are other ways to know where climate ranks on the policy agenda, Thomas noted:
“Climate watchers should look at what Xi says, what Xi does and what policies Xi authorises in the name of the ‘central committee’. Is Xi talking more about climate? Is Xi establishing institutions and convening meetings that focus on climate? Is climate becoming a more prominent theme in top-level documents?”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP EFFECT: The Columbia Energy Exchange podcast examined how pressure from US tariffs could affect India’s clean energy transition.
NAMIBIAN ‘DESTRUCTION’: The National Observer investigated the failure to address “human rights abuses and environmental destruction” claims against a Canadian oil company in Namibia.
‘RED AI’: The Network for the Digital Economy and the Environment studied the state of current research on “Red AI”, or the “negative environmental implications of AI”.
Coming up
- 17 August: Bolivian general elections
- 18-29 August: Preparatory talks on the entry into force of the “High Seas Treaty”, New York
- 18-22 August: Y20 Summit, Johannesburg
- 21 August: Advancing the “Africa clean air programme” through Africa-Asia collaboration, Yokohama
Pick of the jobs
- Lancaster Environment Centre, senior research associate: JUST Centre | Salary: £39,355-£45,413. Location: Lancaster, UK
- Environmental Justice Foundation, communications and media officer, Francophone Africa | Salary: XOF600,000-XOF800,000. Location: Dakar, Senegal
- Politico, energy & climate editor | Salary: Unknown. Location: Brussels, Belgium
- EnviroCatalysts, meteorologist | Salary: Unknown. Location: New Delhi, India
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 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Greenhouse Gases
Cropped 13 August 2025: Fossil-fuelled bird decline; ‘Deadly’ wildfires; Empty nature fund
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
‘Deadly’ wildfires
WINE BRAKE: France experienced its “largest wildfire in decades”, which scorched more than 16,000 hectares in the country’s southern Aude region, the Associated Press said. “Gusting winds” fanned the flames, Reuters reported, but local winemakers and mayors also “blam[ed] the loss of vineyards”, which can act as a “natural, moisture-filled brake against wildfires”, for the fire’s rapid spread. It added that thousands of hectares of vineyards were removed in Aude over the past year. Meanwhile, thousands of people were evacuated from “deadly” wildfires in Spain, the Guardian said, with blazes ongoing in other parts of Europe.
MAJOR FIRES: Canada is experiencing its second-worst wildfire season on record, CBC News reported. More than 7.3m hectares burned in 2025, “more than double the 10-year average for this time of year”, the broadcaster said. The past three fire seasons were “among the 10 worst on record”, CBC News added. Dr Mike Flannigan from Thompson Rivers University told the Guardian: “This is our new reality…The warmer it gets, the more fires we see.” Elsewhere, the UK is experiencing a record year for wildfires, with more than 40,000 hectares of land burned so far in 2025, according to Carbon Brief.
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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.
WESTERN US: The US state of Colorado has recorded one of its largest wildfires in history in recent days, the Guardian said. The fire “charred” more than 43,300 hectares of land and led to the temporary evacuation of 179 inmates from a prison, the newspaper said. In California, a fire broke out “during a heatwave” and burned more than 2,000 hectares before it was contained, the Los Angeles Times reported. BBC News noted: “Wildfires have become more frequent in California, with experts citing climate change as a key factor. Hotter, drier conditions have made fire seasons longer and more destructive.”
FIRE FUNDING: “Worsening fires” in the Brazilian Amazon threaten new rainforest funding proposals due to be announced at the COP30 climate summit later this year, experts told Climate Home News. The new initiatives include the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, which the outlet said “aims to generate a flow of international investment to pay countries annually in proportion to their preserved tropical forests”. The outlet added: “If fires in the Amazon continue to worsen in the years to come, eligibility for funding could be jeopardised, Brazil’s environment ministry acknowledged.”
Farming impacts
OUT OF ORBIT: US president Donald Trump moved to “shut down” two space missions which monitor carbon dioxide and plant health, the Associated Press reported. Ending these NASA missions would “potentially shu[t] off an important source of data for scientists, policymakers and farmers”, the outlet said. Dr David Crisp, a retired NASA scientist, said the missions can detect the “glow” of plant growth, which the outlet noted “helps monitor drought and predict food shortages that can lead to civil unrest and famine”.
FARM EXTREMES: Elsewhere, Reuters said that some farmers are considering “abandoning” a “drought-hit” agricultural area in Hungary as “climate change cuts crop yields and reduces groundwater levels”. Scientists warned that rising temperatures and low rainfall threaten the region’s “agricultural viability”, the newswire added. Meanwhile, the Premium Times in Nigeria said that some farmers are “harvest[ing] crops prematurely” due to flooding fears. A community in the south-eastern state of Imo “has endured recurrent floods, which wash away crops and incomes alike” over the past decade, the newspaper noted.
SECURITY RISKS: Food supply chains in the UK face “escalating threats from climate impacts and the migration they are triggering”, according to a report covered by Business Green. The outlet said that £3bn worth of UK food imports originated from the 20 countries “with the highest numbers of climate-driven displacements” in 2024, based on analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. The analysis highlighted that “climate impacts on food imports pose a threat to UK food security”. Elsewhere, an opinion piece in Dialogue Earth explored how the “role of gender equity in food security remains critically unaddressed”.
Spotlight
Fossil-fuelled bird decline
This week, Carbon Brief covers a new study tracing the impact of fossil-fuelled climate change on tropical birds.
Over the past few years, biologists have recorded sharp declines in bird numbers across tropical rainforests – even in areas untouched by humans – with the cause remaining a mystery.
A new study published this week in Nature Ecology and Evolution could help to shed light on this alarming phenomenon.
The research combined ecological and climate attribution techniques for the first time to trace the fingerprint of fossil-fuelled climate change on declining bird populations.
It found that an increase in heat extremes driven by climate change has caused tropical bird populations to decline by 25-38% in the period 1950-2020, when compared to a world without warming.
In their paper, the authors noted that birds in the tropics could be living close to their “thermal limits”.
Study lead author Dr Maximilian Kotz, a climate scientist at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain, explained to Carbon Brief:
“High temperature extremes can induce direct mortality in bird populations due to hyperthermia and dehydration. Even when they don’t [kill birds immediately], there’s evidence that this can then affect body condition which, in turn, affects breeding behaviour and success.”
Conservation implications
The findings have “potential ramifications” for commonly proposed conservation strategies, such as increasing the amount of land in the tropics that is protected for nature, the authors said. In their paper, they continued:
“While we do not disagree that these strategies are necessary for abating tropical habitat loss…our research shows there is now an additional urgent need to investigate strategies that can allow for the persistence of tropical species that are vulnerable to heat extremes.”
In some parts of the world, scientists and conservationists are looking into how to protect wildlife from more intense and frequent climate extremes, Kotz said.
He referenced one project in Australia which is working to protect threatened wildlife following periods of extreme heat, drought and bushfires.
Prof Alex Pigot, a biodiversity scientist at University College London (UCL), who was not involved in the research, said the findings reinforced the need to systematically monitor the impact of extreme weather on wildlife. He told Carbon Brief:
“We urgently need to develop early warning systems to be able to anticipate in advance where and when extreme heatwaves and droughts are likely to impact populations – and also rapidly scale up our monitoring of species and ecosystems so that we can reliably detect these effects.”
There is further coverage of this research on Carbon Brief’s website.
News and views
EMPTY CALI FUND: A major voluntary fund for biodiversity remains empty more than five months after its launch, Carbon Brief revealed. The Cali Fund, agreed at the COP16 biodiversity negotiations last year, was set up for companies who rely on nature’s resources to share some of their earnings with the countries where many of these resources originate. Big pharmaceutical companies did not take up on opportunities to commit to contributing to the fund or be involved in its launch in February 2025, emails released to Carbon Brief showed. Just one US biotechnology firm has pledged to contribute to the fund in the future.
LOSING HOPE: Western Australia’s Ningaloo reef – long considered a “hope spot” among the country’s coral reefs for evading major bleaching events – is facing its “worst-ever coral bleaching”, Australia’s ABC News reported. The ocean around Ningaloo has been “abnormally” warm since December, resulting in “unprecedented” bleaching and mortality, a research scientist told the outlet. According to marine ecologist Dr Damian Thomson, “up to 50% of the examined coral was dead in May”, the Sydney Morning Herald said. Thomson told the newspaper: “You realise your children are probably never going to see Ningaloo the way you saw it.”
‘DEVASTATION BILL’: Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, signed a “contentious” environmental bill into law, but “partially vetoed” some of the widely criticised elements, the Financial Times reported. Critics, who dubbed it the “devastation bill”, said it “risked fuelling deforestation and would harm Brazil’s ecological credentials” just months before hosting the COP30 climate summit. The newspaper said: “The leftist leader struck down or altered 63 of 400 provisions in the legislation, which was designed to speed up and modernise environmental licensing for new business and infrastructure developments.” The vetoes need to be approved by congress, “where Lula lacks a majority”, the newspaper noted.
RAINFOREST DRILLING: The EU has advised the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) against allowing oil drilling in a vast stretch of rainforest and peatland that was jointly designated a “green corridor” earlier this year, Climate Home News reported. In May, the DRC announced that it planned to open the conservation area for drilling, the publication said. A spokesperson for the European Commission told Climate Home News that the bloc “fully acknowledges and respects the DRC’s sovereign right to utilise its diverse resources for economic development”, but that it “highlights the fact that green alternatives have facilitated the protection of certain areas”.
NEW PLAN FOR WETLANDS: During the 15th meeting of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, held in Zimbabwe from 23 to 31 July, countries agreed on the adoption of a new 10-year strategic plan for conserving and sustainably using the world’s wetlands. Down to Earth reported that 13 resolutions were adopted, including “enhancing monitoring and reporting, capacity building and mobilisation of resources”. During the talks, Zimbabwe’s environment minister announced plans to restore 250,000 hectares of degraded wetlands by 2030 and Saudi Arabia entered the Convention on Wetlands. Panamá will host the next COP on wetlands in July 2028.
MEAT MADNESS: DeSmog covered the details of a 2021 public relations document that revealed how the meat industry is trying to “make beef seem climate-friendly”. The industry “may have enlisted environmental groups to persuade people to ‘feel better’ about eating beef”, the outlet said, based on this document. The strategy was created by a communications agency, MHP Group, and addressed to the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef. One of the key messages of the plan was to communicate the “growing momentum in the beef industry to protect and nurture the Earth’s natural resources”. MHP Group did not respond to a request for comment, according to DeSmog.
Watch, read, listen
MAKING WAVES: A livestream of deep-sea “crustaceans, sponges and sea cucumbers” has “captivated” people in Argentina, the New York Times outlined.
BAFFLING BIRDS: The Times explored the backstory to the tens of thousands of “exotic-looking” parakeets found in parks across Britain.
PLANT-BASED POWER: In the Conversation, Prof Paul Behrens outlined how switching to a plant-based diet could help the UK meet its climate and health targets.
MARINE DISCRIMINATION: Nature spoke to a US-based graduate student who co-founded Minorities in Shark Science about her experiences of racism and sexism in the research field.
New science
- Applying biochar – a type of charcoal – to soils each year over a long period of time can have “sustained benefits for crop yield and greenhouse gas mitigation”, according to a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study.
- New research, published in PLOS Climate, found that nearly one-third of highly migratory fish species in the US waters of the Atlantic Ocean have “high” or “very high” vulnerability to climate change, but the majority of species have “some level of resilience and adaptability”.
- A study in Communications Earth & Environment found a “notable greening trend” in China’s wetlands over 2000-23, with an increasing amount of carbon being stored in the plants growing there.
In the diary
- 18-29 August: Second meeting of the preparatory commission for the Agreement on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction | New York
- 24-28 August: World Water Week | Online and Stockholm, Sweden
- 26-29 August: Sixth forum of ministers and environment authorities of Asia Pacific | Nadi, Fiji
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 13 August 2025: Fossil-fuelled bird decline; ‘Deadly’ wildfires; Empty nature fund appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 13 August 2025: Fossil-fuelled bird decline; ‘Deadly’ wildfires; Empty nature fund
CCL submits a formal comment on EPA’s proposed endangerment finding rollback
By Dana Nuccitelli, CCL Research Manager
On July 29, the EPA proposed to rescind its 2009 endangerment finding that forms the basis of all federal climate pollution regulations.
Without the endangerment finding, the EPA may not be allowed or able to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from sources like power plants or vehicle tailpipes, as they have done for years. News coverage has framed this as a “radical transformation” and a “bid to scrap almost all pollution regulations,” so it has appropriately alarmed many folks in the climate and environment space.
At CCL, we focus our efforts on working with Congress to implement durable climate policies, and so we don’t normally take actions on issues like this that relate to federal agencies or the courts. Other organizations focus their efforts on those branches of the government and are better equipped to spearhead this type of moment, and we appreciate those allies.
But in this case, we did see an opportunity for CCL’s voice — and our focus on Congress — to play a role here. We decided to submit a formal comment on this EPA action for two reasons.
First, this decision could have an immense impact by eliminating every federal regulation of climate pollutants in a worst case scenario. Second, this move relates to our work because the EPA is misinterpreting the text and intent of laws passed by Congress. Our representatives have done their jobs by passing legislation over the past many decades that supports and further codifies the EPA’s mandate to regulate climate pollution. That includes the Clean Air Act, and more recently, the Inflation Reduction Act. We at CCL wanted to support our members of Congress by making these points in a formal comment.
There has been a tremendous public response to this action. In just over one week, the EPA already received over 44,000 public comments on its decision, and the public comment period will remain open for another five weeks, until September 15.
To understand more about the details and potential outcomes of the EPA’s actions, read my article on the subject at Yale Climate Connections, our discussion on CCL Community, and CCL’s formal comment, which represents our entire organization. As our comment concludes,
“In its justifications for rescinding the 2009 endangerment finding, the Reconsideration has misinterpreted the text of the Clean Air Act, Congress’ decadeslong support for the EPA’s mandate to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles and other major sources, and the vast body of peer-reviewed climate science research that documents the increasingly dangerous threats that those emissions pose to Americans’ health and welfare. Because the bases of these justifications are fundamentally flawed, CCL urges the EPA to withdraw its ill-conceived Reconsideration of the 2009 endangerment finding. The EPA has both the authority and the responsibility to act. Americans cannot afford a retreat from science, law, and common sense in the face of a rapidly accelerating climate crisis.”
After the EPA responds to the public comment record and finalizes its decision, this issue will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court several years from now.
In the meantime, CCL will continue to focus our efforts on areas where we can make the biggest difference in preserving a livable climate. Right now, that involves contacting our members of Congress to urge them to fully fund key climate and energy programs and protect critical work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Department of Energy. We’ve set an ambitious goal of sending 10,000 messages to our members of Congress, so let’s all do what CCL does best and make our voices heard on this critical issue.
This action by the EPA also reminds us that federal regulations are fragile. They tend to change with each new administration coming into the White House. Legislation passed by Congress – especially when done on a bipartisan basis – is much more durable. That’s why CCL’s work, as one of very few organizations engaging in nonpartisan advocacy for long-lasting climate legislation, is so critical.
That’s especially true right now when we’re seeing the Trump administration slam shut every executive branch door to addressing climate change. We need Congress to step up now more than ever to implement durable solutions like funding key climate and energy programs, negotiating a new bipartisan comprehensive permitting reform bill, implementing healthy forest solutions like the Fix Our Forests Act, and advancing conversations about policies to put a price on carbon pollution. Those are the kinds of effective, durable, bipartisan climate solutions that CCL is uniquely poised to help become law and make a real difference in preserving a livable climate.
For other examples of how CCL is using our grassroots power to help ensure that Congress stays effective on climate in this political landscape, see our full “Holding the Line on Climate” blog series.
The post Holding the line on climate: EPA appeared first on Citizens' Climate Lobby.
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