Fungi are learning to adapt to climate change, posing a major threat to human health.
Fungal infections range from minor conditions, such as athlete’s foot, to life-threatening respiratory diseases and bloodstream infections.
Fungi are known for their ability to adjust to – and thrive in – new and changing environments.
Now, they are learning to adapt to the rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and extreme weather events that characterise a warming planet.
This is increasing their ability to colonise and cause disease in the human body.
However, there is a severe lack of diagnostics, treatments and vaccines available for fungal infections – and fungal resistance to existing drugs is on the rise.
An increase in fungal infections driven by climate change could also have devastating consequences for agriculture, damaging crops and threatening food security.
New fungal pathogens
Fungi are one of five “kingdoms” of life on Earth – putting them in a distinct category separate from animals or plants.
There are millions of fungal species – from saccharomyces cerevisiae, or baker’s yeast, to penicillium chrysogenum, which is the source of the antibiotic penicillin.
Fungal infections can be transmitted to humans through direct contact in the environment, with contaminated surfaces or via infected individuals.
Historically, most fungi do not cause disease in humans, meaning they are not “pathogenic”.
This is because – unlike viruses and bacteria – most fungi cannot survive or spread in body temperatures of 37C.
But, as global temperatures rise, some fungi are adapting to survive in hotter environments, including the human body.
(How fungi adapt to their environments is still not fully understood. However, their large genomes and diverse metabolic pathways – the chemical reactions which allow organisms to function – are thought to play a key role in their ability to survive and grow in a wide range of conditions.)
An example of this is candida auris, a fungal infection that emerged simultaneously on three continents in the late 2000s. The fungus mostly infects people with weakened immune systems and is a real concern as it can cause bloodstream infections. It is a serious problem in intensive care units, where the fungus sticks to medical equipment and grows rapidly.
Many infection, prevention and control measures are unable to get rid of it. Candida auris is already resistant to several antifungal drugs, making it very challenging to treat. One study in Oman, for example, recorded a fatality rate over more than 50%.
Due to lack of surveillance and routine monitoring, we do not know exactly how many people are impacted by candida auris infections.
To address this, the World Health Organization Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (WHO-GLASS) – a programme that provides a standardised approach to collect and analyse data for antimicrobial resistance surveillance – has included a protocol for candida auris.
Candida auris is one of four fungal species identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a “critical” threat to public health, alongside aspergillus fumigatus, candida albicans and cryptococcus neoformans.
Scientists have pointed to the likelihood that the emergence of candida auris is being driven by rising temperatures caused by climate change.
A 2022 study noted that higher temperatures driven by human-caused climate change may have added “selective pressure” on candida auris – leading to the spread of strains “adapted to salinity and higher temperatures – similar to the conditions found in the human body”.
The emergence of candida auris is just one example of how climate change is exacerbating fungal infection.
A study currently undergoing peer review suggests that – without effective strategies to tackle climate change – the aspergillus family could expand its reach to more northerly swathes of Europe, Asia and the Americas, exposing more people to life-threatening respiratory infections as temperatures rise.
Aspergillus infections can cause permanent damage to lungs and lead to serious illness in individuals with existing respiratory conditions or weakened immune systems.
Extreme weather
Rising temperatures are not the only cause of rising fungal infections linked to climate change.
Changing rainfall patterns, increasing humidity and worsening extreme weather events are also driving fungal pathogens to new areas.
Heavy rainfall, flooding and humidity leads to increased moisture in homes, increasing the growth of indoor mould. Mould – which encompasses a diverse group of fungal species – can cause substantial health impacts when inhaled for those with underlying health conditions, such as asthma.
Meanwhile, extreme weather events, such as wildfires and floods, transport fungal pathogens to new regions by spreading spores far beyond where they would typically be found. This increases the threat fungi pose to both human health and agriculture.
For instance, the fungus coccidioides, which is found in soils in the south-western US and parts of central and South America, causes valley fever – a lung infection which can be fatal to humans and animals.
Outbreaks occur when extreme events, such as wildfires, disturb large amounts of soil and spread fungal spores into the air. These enter the human body when inhaled. Cases are often unreported, but it is estimated that the fungi causes around 206,000-360,000 cases per year in the US.
The fungus thrives in a hot and dry climate. Coccidioides is now being seen in regions that would not normally support its growth, as the climate heats up.
A 2019 study used climate models to project that the range of valley fever could expand into more northerly US states such as Idaho, Wyoming and Nebraska. It also estimates that, by 2100, cases across the US could rise by approximately 50% as more regions develop climates suitable for transmission.
Threatening food security
Fungal pathogens also threaten human health indirectly by damaging harvests and causing a range of plant diseases, including blights, root rot and mildew.
Fungi are a key part of soil ecosystems, but plant pathogenic fungi can cause growers to lose between 10-23% of their crops every year – and a further 10-20% after they are harvested, as food that is incorrectly stored goes mouldy at different points of the supply chain.
Rising temperatures can spread and introduce more pathogens to an area, which can reduce harvests and, in some cases, wipe out entire crop families. This could result in food insecurity globally and economic instability in regions that rely on agricultural exports.
Modern agriculture’s reliance on growing genetically uniform crops, known as monocultures, puts the global food system at increased risk of fungal disease, as pathogens learn how to colonise crops.
Developments in the global banana market are a prominent example of the threat posed by fungus to crops. In the 1950s, the Gros Michel banana – once the main export variety of banana – was wiped out by a disease caused by the fungus fusarium oxysporum.
Now, the banana variety that was grown and exported in its place – the Cavendish banana – is under threat by a new strain of fusarium. This poses a major threat to the global banana trade, given that the Cavendish banana accounts for 47% of banana production and virtually all bananas supplied to the US and Europe.
In another example, the fusarium graminearum fungus, which flourishes in wet conditions and warm temperatures, causes a disease that is thought to cause wheat and barley yield losses amounting to more than $1bn every year.
Rising antifungal resistance
The spread of fungal infections caused by climate change is particularly concerning given the lack of available treatment options, as well as limited awareness among the public and healthcare professionals.
Most healthcare professionals receive little training around how to identify fungal infections, leading to delayed diagnosis and treatment. In the developing world, fungal infections can be deadly because both awareness and access to diagnostic tests are lacking.
There are just four types of antifungal drugs and no approved fungal vaccines.
Antifungal treatments are harder to develop than antibiotics because fungi are more biologically similar to humans than plants – making them difficult to kill without harming human cells.
Meanwhile, resistance to the antifungal drugs that are available is growing.
The fungicides used to kill fungi in agriculture often share “modes of action” with medical antifungals. The overuse of these fungicides has led to fungi in the environment building up their resistance – creating hardier fungi that are more difficult to treat in clinical settings.
As climate change puts additional stress on the food system, the risks and benefits of using fungicides to ensure food security need to be balanced with safeguarding the effectiveness of antifungal drugs.
However, there is limited communication between agricultural and medical sectors around how to juggle these priorities.
And yet – despite all these challenges – fungal infections receive a fraction of the funding and attention that bacterial or viral diseases do.
Fungi that tackle climate change
Fungi have historically been an asset in medical research – most notably the discovery of the drug penicillin. They could also prove valuable in the fight against climate change.
Some fungi are used to suppress populations of pests or pathogens in agriculture. This method – known as natural biocontrol – uses fungi, or other forms of naturally occurring organisms – such as bacteria, insects or viruses – as a replacement for chemical pesticides.
Natural biocontrol is seen as a more environmentally friendly method for treating crops than manmade chemicals because the organisms break down naturally in the environment and do not leave toxic residues in the soil.
Meanwhile, researchers have also found that mycorrhizal fungi – which grow in association with plant roots – store roughly 13bn tonnes of carbon (GtC) – equivalent to 36% of annual global fossil fuel emissions. The fungus does this by absorbing carbon from plants and locking it in their underground networks and soil, where it stays stable for long periods.
There are groups looking at how the mycorrhizal fungi could be harnessed to help deliver decarbonisation – similar to tree planting.
However, more research is needed to better understand the valuable properties of fungi, including how they could be part of “nature-based solutions” to help tackle climate change.
Discovering the unknown
There is still a lot that remains unknown about fungi. Scientists estimate that less than 10% of all species have been identified globally.
Fungi are essential to healthy ecosystems. They recycle nutrients by breaking down organic matter and play a critical role in the carbon cycle.
But climate change is disrupting this balance. Rising temperatures and environmental shifts threaten to wipe out some fungal species before they’re even discovered, while enabling others to thrive in new – and often harmful – ways.
These changes signal deep trouble for the natural world.
It is, therefore, critical that more scientific attention is paid to the risks and opportunities of fungi as they learn to adapt to a warmer climate.
The post Guest post: Fungal infections are adapting to climate change – and threatening public health appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: Fungal infections are adapting to climate change – and threatening public health
Climate Change
DeBriefed 29 May 2026: Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May | Indian heat deaths | Nigeria’s solar mini-grids
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
UK, Europe and India battle heatwaves
‘MIND-BOGGLING’ MAY: The UK and continental Europe have set “mind-boggingly crazy” temperature records for May amid a deadly heatwave, reported the Financial Times. According to the Associated Press, the UK “smashed a century-old temperature record for the second time in 24 hours on Tuesday”. The newswire added that records “also fell in France, where temperatures reached 36C on Monday in the country’s south-west”. On Wednesday, Portugal hit a record May temperature of 40.3C, said BBC News.
‘BRUTAL REMINDER’: In parts of Italy, the heatwave triggered blackouts, reported Reuters. The heatwave has also been linked to more than a dozen deaths in the UK and France, including from people drowning and suffering heat-related deaths while competing in sporting events, said ABC News. Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said the intense heatwaves were a “brutal reminder” of the cost of global warming, reported Politico. Carbon Brief has in-depth coverage of the record-shattering heatwave.
INDIA’S DEADLY HEAT: In the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, more than 100 people died within three days following an intense heatwave, reported the Khaleej Times. The publication noted that authorities urged people to stay indoors and avoid direct exposure to the heat. Meanwhile, some parts of India are “grappling with power cuts as record-breaking heat has pushed electricity demand to an all-time high”, reported Reuters.
Around the world
- CRUDE DIPS: The International Energy Agency (IEA) said global investments in oil projects will fall below $500bn in 2026, continuing a three-year decline, reported Bloomberg. Carbon Brief’s analysis of the data shows the US’s “data-centre boom” means it is now investing more in fossil-fuel power than China.
- DODGING NET-ZERO: The world’s biggest miner, Australian giant BHP, has backtracked on climate action by halting or delaying projects to cut “vast” amounts of emissions, according to a Guardian investigation.
- SOLAR SLIP: China’s new solar installations dropped for a fourth straight month, reflecting weakening domestic demand, said Bloomberg.
- NO LOGGING: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell last year to its lowest level since 2019, according to a new report, said Agence France-Presse.
- EXECUTIVE ACTION: Puerto Rico’s governor announced a state of emergency to fight a surge in coastal erosion, citing the need to protect natural resources and vulnerable communities, reported the Associated Press.
Four million
The number of homes in the UK with air conditioning, double the figure from three years ago, reported the Guardian. There are 29m households in the UK.
Latest climate research
- Carbon Brief will soon be launching a new fortnightly newsletter focused on climate research. Sign up for free today.
- LGBTQ+ households in the US are “significantly more likely” to face energy poverty and insecurity than the general population | Energy Research & Social Science
- Global rice-paddy greenhouse gas emissions have doubled over the past six decades | Nature Food
- Vegetation greening and human-caused warming are the “main drivers” of a surge in flash floods over the last decade | Science Advances
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
A Carbon Brief investigation has shed light on the impact of weather-related flooding on National Health Service (NHS) facilities across the UK. At least 67 NHS hospital wards, departments and other sites have been forced to temporarily close or relocate due to weather-related flooding. The chart above shows sites of weather-related flooding incidents at NHS facilities. The size of the circles indicates the number of incidents reported at each site.
Spotlight
How solar mini-grids can ‘help boost’ Nigeria’s economy
This week, Carbon Brief covers a new report on Nigeria’s solar mini-grid industry.
Amid the impact of the US-Iran war on the Nigerian economy, a new report has argued that solar-mini grids can help to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and create more than 200,000 jobs.
In Nigeria, Africa’s third-largest economy, the war has led to an increase in energy prices and a decrease in petrol consumption. Petrol is one of the country’s main sources of transport and household fuel. According to one estimate, prices have surged by up to 40% since the conflict commenced in February.
Although the Nigerian treasury has benefited from rising crude oil prices – the country is a major exporter of oil and gas – the impact has been most visible on the wider population.
Rising energy prices “have affected the purchasing power of workers”, Agnes Funmi Sessi, a labour union leader in Lagos, told Carbon Brief.
However, scaling the deployment of solar “mini-grids” could help the country move away from fossil fuels, stimulate rural economies and improve livelihoods, according to the new report authored by the thinktank, the Africa Policy Research Institute.
“We estimate that, by deploying over 10,000 mini-grids, the sector could create 212,688 direct full-time informal and productive-use jobs across the off-grid and under-grid market segments,” the report said.
A nascent industry
Solar “mini-grids” are small-scale, localised electricity generation and distribution systems powered by solar panels.
The report positioned Nigeria’s mini-grid sector as one of the fastest-growing in Africa, with the country having just 11 mini-grids in 2015 and 155 by 2024, along with at least 42 active developers.
Many of the companies within the sector are young and apply novel local techniques in their deployment of solar technology, the report said.
However, access to finance remains a huge barrier. According to the report, the sector may require up to $8bn to connect 35.4 million people to mini-grids.
“Most Nigerians want solar power in their homes, but it is a capital intensive business for vendors and customers,” Dr Ben Iheagwara, a renewable energy entrepreneur and policy analyst, told Carbon Brief.
The report urged the Nigerian government and its international partners to “attract private capital by de-risking investments and ensuring regulatory clarity and long-term planning”.
Other key recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders include investment in skills development and paying attention to the gender gap.
Powering rural communities
Many rural communities, which make up about 37% of the country, are disconnected from the national grid system, so often have to generate their own electricity through mini-grid systems.
According to Nigeria’s electricity regulator, NERC, a mini-grid is defined as a power generating system with an installed capacity of up to 10 megawatts.
A mini-grid can be powered by fossil fuels such as diesel or petrol, but solar power is now considered a cheaper and cleaner source.
With more than 80 million people lacking access to electricity in Nigeria, solar mini-grids are increasingly viewed as the lowest-cost electrification solution, the report said.
Watch, read, listen
MOVING FORWARD: The Energy Transition Show dug into electricity reform in South Africa, discussing the country’s coal legacy and the role of renewables.
ENERGY POVERTY: In an opinion article for Project Syndicate, executive director of the African Climate Foundation, Saliem Fakir, argued that the energy transition in emerging and developing economies is driven by economics and security rather than emissions targets.
VANISHING CITY: BBC News reported on a coastal community in Nigeria where the ocean has “already swallowed more than half of the town”.
Coming up
- 31 May: Colombia presidential elections
- 31 May-5 June: Global Environment Facility council meeting, Samarkand, Uzbekistan
- 2-5 June: The Venice Agreement for Peatlands workshop, Kisumu, Kenya
Pick of the jobs
- National Oceanography Centre, engagement assistant (external communications) | Salary: £28,254. Location: Southampton, UK
- Dangote Industries, decarbonisation specialist | Salary: Unknown. Location: Lagos, Nigeria
- City of New York, chief decarbonization officer | Salary: $261,469. Location: New York City
- Climate Central, writer and associate editor | Salary: $72,000-$75,000. Location: US (Remote)
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 29 May 2026: Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May | Indian heat deaths | Nigeria’s solar mini-grids appeared first on Carbon Brief.
At the African Development Bank (AfDB) annual meetings this week, several African leaders called for investments in electricity infrastructure which go beyond lighting homes to powering economies.
Applauding the AfDB for its energy programmes like Mission 300 – which aims to provide electricity access to 300 million Africans by 2030 – the Central African Republic’s President Faustin-Archange Touadera said that without power supply “we will not be able to achieve development”.
Speaking alongside him, the Republic of Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso echoed this, saying that “as we need to help our people to turn towards agriculture, to turn towards livestock rearing, we also need to provide power to them.”
As the Mission 300 initiative advances, attention is increasingly shifting from simply connecting households to ensuring that electricity access translates into economic opportunities and livelihoods. That shift is driving the launch of a new Centre of Excellence for Productive Use of Energy being developed under Mission 300 by the philanthropically funded Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP).
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Kenya seeks regional coordination to build African mineral value chains
Kenyan President William Ruto is the latest African leader to announce an end to raw mineral exports as governments want to add more value to their resources -
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Restricting raw materials exports is well-intentioned but without other policies to foster domestic processing, they can backfire -
Africa records fastest-ever solar growth, as installations jump in 2025
Africa’s solar power installations have increased sharply, driven by utility-scale projects and privately financed rooftop and commercial systems
In an interview with Climate Home News, Carol Koech, GEAPP’s vice president for Africa, said the initiative is designed to ensure that electrification supports income generation, agriculture and local economic development rather than only basic household access.
Q: What is the Centre of Excellence for Productive Use of Energy aiming to achieve with Mission 300?
A: Mission 300 is increasingly being seen as a job platform and so the role of the Centre of Excellence in translating those electricity connections to jobs. So we want the centre to do four things. First, as a delivery engine, which enables countries to embed a cross-institutional advisor that supports the electrification components, but also other components that are happening in the country.
Second, we want the centre to be an innovation and strategy hub. Today, there’s really no place where you can go to find the state of the industry for productive use of energy across the globe, and we want to make the centre of excellence the place where you can go and get information about what technologies are available, where deployment is happening and how much is being deployed.
(Photo: Lighting Global/SunCulture/World Bank)
The third pillar is to coordinate and mobilise capital. We anticipate the centre coordinating internally within the ecosystem but also mobilising additional financing to help productivity. The last piece is how to scale businesses, enterprises and partnerships around this centre because we anticipate that as we grow this space, new industries will emerge and those industries will need to be supported.
Q: Why is productive use of energy becoming important under Mission 300?
A: Mission 300 gave us a bigger platform to demonstrate that energy is truly an enabler for economic development. It’s not sufficient to just provide a connection, but it is required that that connection truly translates to economic development for the communities that benefit.
We shouldn’t bring electricity and then start thinking about what people can do with it. We need to think about both at the same time and ensure electricity arrives together with the things that will make a difference in people’s lives. Historically, we’ve brought electricity and imagined a miracle would happen, but we know that hasn’t been the case.
The question is how to ensure universal access in the cheapest way while still transforming communities. Some mini-grids have been deployed in places where demand is extremely low, making them too expensive to sustain. But when mini-grids are paired with productive uses, the economics start to change. If businesses currently running on fossil fuel generators move to solar or renewable energy, operating costs fall and the business case for mini-grids becomes much stronger.
Q: How could this work in practice for agriculture and rural communities?
A: I’ll give you a practical example in our pilot country Zambia. Zambia has two programmes, they have the ASCENT programme for energy access and they also have the Zambia agribusiness and trade platform (ZATP). Some of the components of the ZATP programme – which is an agri-business program to help farmers to be productive – have a productive use component but don’t have an energy supply component. So we’re offering things like mills, processing facilities, irrigation and others. In some parts of Zambia, these productive use equipment has been supplied but has not been powered, so communities are not benefiting from that.
So the whole point is if we coordinate where the agribusiness programme is deployed together with where the energy access programme is deployed and layer those two programmes together in one place, then you could solve the energy access problem and solve productive use together and therefore have really meaningful outcomes for communities.
Q: How will the centre help both households and small businesses use electricity productively?
A: The question on whether we should electrify households or businesses is neither here nor there. We need to electrify all. The argument is really once we electrify businesses, the owners of those businesses will be able to pay what they need for their households as well as increase production for their businesses.
Electricity consumption is usually an indicator of economic development and by pushing productive use into households, especially where households are also smallholder farmers, the question becomes: how can electricity access translate to additional economic development for them? If you are connected onto a mini-grid, then you can actually use that connection to run irrigation, put in a dryer, or a cold storage system, whatever you require to improve your income but the fact that you have energy means that you can access productive use. Now, we need to ask ourselves how do these farmers or these households then get access to these appliances, because that’s another barrier.
Q&A: Will subsidy cuts for Chinese clean-tech exports hurt Africa’s solar boom?
The cost of these appliances is usually extremely high, and when you have programmes such as the ZATP running in Zambia, that’s already a public funding approach to making these appliances available and potentially reachable for farmers, either at household level, at farm level or at community level.
Q: How does this complement the already existing Mission 300 national energy compacts designed by countries?
A: Each of the national energy compacts have a productive use component, a pillar that talks about distributed renewable energy, productive use, and clean cooking. This is actually complementing the work of the countries, and this centre is like an available support, back office for countries to tap into as they implement their national energy compacts, if they have specific requirements and support for that pillar three.
So the advisers that will be embedded into countries, their role is to coordinate within country programs that are running where energy could make a difference. The advisers will be sourced from the country and so they will make sure that the donor money is coordinated to benefit the country fully. Their role will include going to ministries of agriculture or any related ministries and understanding where they are prioritising programmes that require electrification. In many cases, programmes and money have already been allocated, but this component is about how do we deploy it in a way that it actually truly brings a difference, so those advisers will do that.
Q: How will the centre address financing and private sector investment challenges?
A: What we’re really looking at is different financing mechanisms. In the past, we have provided subsidies and results-based financing to suppliers, distributors and manufacturers to help create markets for productive-use appliances. I see this as one mechanism the centre could use, but the bigger opportunity is aligning public funding across different programmes so that more of it can support productive uses, either through direct funding or subsidies.
Nigerians bet on solar as global oil shock hits wallets and power supplies
When it comes to private sector investment, the reality is that Africa’s energy sector still faces serious constraints. Most private investment has gone into power generation, particularly through independent power producers, and even then that has only been possible in places where the off-takers, usually utilities, are bankable.
To unlock more private capital, countries need the right policies, reforms and regulations, but even more importantly, utilities must become financially viable. If the off-taker is not bankable, then the project is not bankable.
Another major question is how to attract private investment into transmission infrastructure. There are different models being explored, but the reality is that public funding alone is not sufficient to achieve Mission 300, so finding new ways to mobilise private capital will be critical.
The post Q&A: How can African electricity access power jobs not just lightbulbs? appeared first on Climate Home News.
Q&A: How can African electricity access power jobs not just lightbulbs?
The “data-centre boom” is driving a surge in gas investment in the US, pushing its fossil-power spending ahead of China, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
A rapid expansion of data centres across the nation is at the heart of the US tech sector’s plans to continue “dominat[ing]” the global artificial intelligence (AI) industry.
High demand for electricity to power these data centres has led to companies rushing to build new gas-fired power plants across the country.
This trend, combined with “soaring” gas-turbine prices, drove a threefold increase in US gas‑power investment in 2025 – and the IEA expects this to continue throughout 2026.
As the chart below shows, Chinese investment in coal- and gas-fired power is expected to drop this year, amid domestic policy changes and the Iran war sending gas prices spiralling.
Together, these trends mean the IEA expects US investment in fossil-fuelled power plants to overtake China’s in 2026.
The IEA’s latest world energy investment report shows that spending on renewables and electricity grids continues to dominate at the global scale.
In the US, Trump administration policies such as the phase-out of tax credits for renewables has led to the IEA revising its forecast for new wind and solar power downwards.
At the same time, US electricity demand is expected to rise by an average of 2% per year from 2026 to 2030, with data centres contributing half of the overall increase.
This is leading to what the IEA calls an “AI-driven push” to build new gas-power plants in the US, the world’s largest data-centre market and largest gas producer.
Globally, orders for new gas-power plants increased to 130 gigawatts (GW) in 2025 – a 25-year high – and US demand was a “major factor” in this, according to the IEA.
Much of the demand is coming from tech companies in the US seeking to bypass grid connection queues by building “captive” gas-power plants.
As the chart below shows, since the start of 2025 these US captive data centres alone have signed off on more investment in new gas turbines than any country in the world – aside from the US itself.
Overall, investment in grid upgrades, power equipment and electricity generation to support the buildout of data-centre infrastructure around the world hit $105bn in 2025, according to the IEA.
This is more than the total invested in the energy sector across the whole of Africa – a continent where more than 600 million people do not have access to electricity.
The IEA notes that strong demand for gas-power plants for data centres in the US – and, to a lesser extent, the Middle East – is “limiting the availability of turbines for near-term deployment elsewhere in the world”.
The agency also points out that as the tech sector becomes a “major energy investor”, accounting for around 40% of all corporate power-purchase agreements, it is also “underpinning momentum” for emerging clean technologies, such as small modular nuclear reactors and advanced geothermal.
The post AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China appeared first on Carbon Brief.
AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China
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