The latest round of country climate plans ‘barely move the needle’ on future warming, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned.
Executive director Inger Anderson made the comments as UNEP published its 16th annual assessment of the global “emissions gap”.
The report sets out the gap between where global emissions are headed – based on announced national policies and pledges – and what is needed to meet international temperature targets.
It finds that the latest round of national climate plans – which were due to the UN this year under Paris Agreement rules – will have a “limited effect” on narrowing this emissions gap.
Currently, the world is on track for 2.3-2.5C of warming this century if all national emissions-cutting plans out to 2035 are implemented in full, according to the report.
In a statement, UNEP executive director Inger Anderson said: “While national climate plans have delivered some progress, it is nowhere near fast enough.”
A decade on from the Paris Agreement, the UN agency credits the climate treaty for its “pivotal” role in lowering global temperature projections and driving a rise of renewable energy technologies, policies and targets.
Nevertheless, it warns that countries’ failure to cut emissions quickly enough means the world is “very likely” to breach the Paris Agreement’s aspirational 1.5C temperature limit “this decade”.
It urges countries to make any “overshoot” of the 1.5C warming target “temporary and minimal”, so as to reduce damages to people and ecosystems, as well as future reliance on “risky and costly” carbon removal methods.
Among the other key findings of the report are that China’s emissions could peak in 2025, while the impact of recent climate policy reversals in the US are likely to be outweighed by lower emissions in other countries in the coming years.
(See Carbon Brief’s detailed coverage of previous reports in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.)
Greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow
The UNEP report finds that global emissions of greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases (F-gases) – reached a record 57.7bn tonnes of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e) in 2024. This marks a 2.3% increase compared to 2023 emissions.
This increase is “high” compared to the rise of 1.6% recorded between 2022 and 2023, the report says.
This rate of increase is more than four times higher than the average annual emissions growth rate throughout the 2010s, the report notes, and is comparable with the 2.2%-per-year rate seen in the 2000s.
The chart below shows total greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and 2024.
It illustrates that “fossil CO2” (black), driven by the combustion of coal, oil and gas, is the largest contributor to annual emissions and the main driver of the increase in recent decades, accounting for around 69% of current emissions.
Methane (grey) plays the second largest role. Meanwhile, emissions from nitrous oxide (blue) fluoride gases (orange) and land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF, in green) make up 24% of total greenhouse gas emissions.
The report notes that all “all major sectors and categories” of greenhouse gas emissions saw an increase in 2024. For example, fossil CO2 emissions increased by 1.1% between 2023 and 2024.
However, it highlights that deforestation and land-use emissions played a “decisive” role in the overall increase last year. According to the report, net LULUCF CO2 emissions rose by a fifth – some 21% – between 2023 and 2024.
This spike is in contrast to the past decade, the report notes, where emissions from land-use change have “trended downwards”.
It says one of the reasons for the increase in LULUCF emissions over 2023-24 is the rise in emissions from tropical deforestation and degradation in South America, which were among the highest recorded since 1997.
The authors also break down changes in greenhouse gases by country or country group. They note that the six largest emitters in the world are China, the US, India, the EU, Russia and Indonesia.
The report finds that, when emissions from land use are excluded, emissions from the G20 countries accounted for 77% of the overall increase in emissions over 2023-24. Meanwhile, the “least developed countries” group contributed only 3% of the increase.
The graph below shows contributions to the change in greenhouse gas emissions between 2023 and 2024 for the five highest-emitting countries and groups, as well as for the rest of the G20 countries (purple), the rest of the world (grey), LULUCF globally (green) and international transport (dark blue).
The bottom horizontal black line shows the 56.2GtCO2e emitted in 2023. The size of each bar indicates the change in emissions between 2023 and 2024. The top horizontal black line shows the 57.7GtCO2e emitted in 2024.
The chart illustrates how India and China are the countries that recorded the largest individual increase in emissions between 2023 and 2024, while the EU is the only grouping where emissions decreased.
India and China recorded the largest absolute increase in emissions beyond the land sector. However, Indonesia saw the highest percentage increase of 4.6% (compared to 3.6% for India and 0.5% for China). In contrast, emissions from the EU decreased by 2.1%.
New national climate plans fall short
Under the terms of the Paris Agreement, countries are required to submit national climate plans, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs), to the UN every five years. These documents describe each country’s plans to cut emissions and adapt to climate change.
The deadline for countries to submit NDCs for 2035 was February 2025.
(Carbon Brief reported earlier this year that 95% of countries had missed the February deadline and, more recently, that just one-third of new plans submitted by the end of September expressed support for “transitioning away” from fossil fuels.)
By September 2025, 64 parties had submitted or announced their new NDCs. UNEP says that 60 of these countries accounted for 63% of global emissions. Meanwhile, only 13 countries, accounting for less than 1% of global emissions, had updated their emissions reduction targets for 2030.
Writing in the foreword to the report, UNEP’s Inger Andersen says that “many hoped [the pledges] would demonstrate a step change in ambition and action to lower greenhouse gas emissions and avoid an intensification of the climate crisis that is hammering people and economies”. However, she adds that “this ambition and action did not materialise”.
The report emphasises that “immediate and stringent emissions reductions” are the “fundamental ingredient” for meeting the Paris temperature goal of keeping warming this century to well-below 2C and making efforts to keep it to 1.5C.
However, it adds that the new NDCs and “current geopolitical situation” do not provide “promising signs” that these emissions cuts will happen.
The report presents a “deep dive” into the emissions reduction targets of G20 countries – the world’s largest economies, which are collectively responsible for more than three-quarters of global emissions.
The analysis investigates NDCs and policy updates as of November 2024.
None of the G20 countries have strengthened their targets for 2030, according to the report. However, it finds that seven G20 countries have submitted NDCs with emissions reduction targets for 2035. The EU, China and Turkey have announced targets, but had not yet submitted 2035 climate plans to the UN by the time the report was finalised.
According to the report, the new NDCs and policy updates of G20 countries lead to a reduction in projected emissions by 2035. However, these reductions are “relatively small and surrounded by significant uncertainty”, it cautions.
Nevertheless, UNEP says there are a number of G20 countries whose emissions projections have seen “significant changes” in this year’s report, including the US and China.
For the first time, the projections in the gap report suggest that China will see its emissions peak in 2025, followed by a reduction in emissions of 0.3-1.4GtCO2e by 2030. According to the report, this is due to the growth of renewable electricity generation in the country “outpacing” overall power demand growth.
In contrast, the authors warn that projections for US emissions in 2030 have increased by 1GtCO2e compared to last year’s assessment, mainly due to “policy reversals”.
(Since taking office in January 2025, Donald Trump has triggered the process of withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement for the second time and dismantled US climate policies implemented under Joe Biden. The UNEP report does not specifically mention Trump or his administration.)
However, it finds that lower greenhouse gas projections for China and several other countries outweigh the higher projections in the US by 2030.
Overall, the report projects that, under current climate policies, annual emissions from G20 countries will drop to 35GtCO2 by 2030 and 33Gt by 2035.
China is the largest contributor to this projected reduction, followed by the EU then the US, according to the report. (Emissions from the US are still projected to decline, albeit much more slowly than previously expected.)
It adds that other G20 members are on “clear downward emission trends”, noting that “several more” might see emissions “peak or plateau between 2030 and 2035” under current policies.
The graph below shows the historical emissions (light blue) and projected emissions (dark blue) of the G20 members, along with their NDCs for 2030 and 2035 (shown by the diamonds) and net-zero targets (circles).
The graph shows that some countries, such as Turkey and Russia, are projected to cut emissions more rapidly than they have pledged under their NDCs. In contrast, other nations, such as the UK and Canada, are anticipated to fall short of the emissions-reduction goals set out in their national climate plans.
New NDCs and policy updates lower expected emissions in 2035
The report conducts an “emissions gap” analysis that compares the emissions that would be released if countries follow their climate policies or pledges, with the levels that would be needed in order to hold warming below 2C, 1.8C and 1.5C with limited or no overshoot.
The “gap” between these two values shows how much further emissions would need to be reduced in order to limit warming below global temperature thresholds.
To explore potential rises in global temperature over the coming years and decades, the report authors use a simple climate model, or “emulator”, called FaIR. They assess a range of potential futures:
- A “current policy” scenario, which assumes that countries follow policies adopted as of November 2024. This scenario also assumes the full implementation of announced policy rollbacks in the US as of September 2025.
- An “unconditional NDCs” scenario, which assumes the implementation of NDCs that do not depend on external support. This scenario includes the US NDC, as withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will not be complete until January 2026.
- A “conditional NDCs” scenario that further assumes the implementation of NDCs that depend on external support, such as climate finance from wealthier countries.
The report also analyses two “scenario extensions”, which explore the post-2035 implications of current policies, NDCs and net-zero pledges:
- A “current policies continuing” scenario, which “follows current policies to 2035 and assumes a continuation of similar efforts thereafter”.
- A “conditional NDCs plus all net-zero pledges” scenario, which is “the most optimistic scenario included”. This scenario assumes the “conditional NDC” scenario is achieved until 2035 and then all net-zero or other long-term low emissions developments strategies are followed thereafter, excluding that of the US.
The authors note that emissions projections for 2030 under the “current policy” scenario in this year’s report are slightly larger than they were in last year’s assessment. The authors say this is “mainly” due to policy rollbacks in the US.
In contrast, this report projects slightly lower emissions for 2035 than last year’s report, as policy changes in the US are offset by “improved 2035 policy estimates” in other countries.
The authors find that the new NDCs have “no effect” on the 2030 gap when compared to last year’s assessment.
According to the report, implementing unconditional NDCs would result in emissions in 2030 being 12GtCO2e above the level required to limit warming to 2C. This number rises to 20GtCO2e for a 1.5C scenario.
Also implementing conditional NDCs would shrink these gaps by around 2GtCO2e, the report says.
(The authors note that these numbers are slightly smaller than in last year’s report, but say this is not a reflection of “strengthening of 2030 NDC targets”, but instead from “updated emission trends by modelling groups and methodological updates”.)
The report adds that the formal withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement for a second time will mean that emissions laid out in the US NDC are not counted. This will increase the emissions gap by 2GtCO2e, the report says.
According to the report, the new NDCs do narrow the 2035 emissions gap compared to last year’s assessment. The report says:
“The unconditional and conditional NDC gaps with respect to 2C and 1.5C pathways are 6bn and 4bn tonnes of CO2e lower than last year, respectively.”
This means that the “emissions gap” between a world that follows conditional NDCs and one that limits warming to 2C above pre-industrial temperatures is 6GtCO2e smaller in this year’s report than last year’s. Similarly, the gap between the “conditional NDCs” scenario and the 1.5C scenario is now 4GtCO2e smaller.
Despite the improvement, the report warns that the emissions gap “remains large”.
The graph below shows historical and projected global emissions over 2015-35 under the current policy (dark blue), unconditional NDCs (mid blue), conditional NDCs (light blue), 2C (pink) and 1.5C (red) scenarios.
The report also warns that there is an “implementation gap”, as countries are currently not on track to achieve their NDC targets.
The authors say the implementation gap is currently 5GtCO2e for unconditional NDCs by 2030 and 7GtCO2e for conditional NDCs, or around 2GtCO2e lower once the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is complete next year.
‘Limited’ progress on reducing future warming
UNEP calculates that the full implementation of both conditional and unconditional NDCs would reduce emissions in 2035 by 12% and 15%, respectively, on 2019 levels. However, these percentages shrink to 9% and 11% if the US NDC is discounted.
The projections suggest there will be a “peak and decline” in global emissions. However, the report says the large range of estimates that remain around global emissions reductions means there is “continued uncertainty” around when peaking could happen.
Projected emissions cuts by 2035 are “far smaller” than the 35% reduction required to align with a 2C pathway and the even steeper cut of 55% required for a 1.5C pathway, the report says.
The authors say that temperature projections set out in this year’s report are only “slightly lower” – at 0.3C – than last year’s assessment.
It notes that new policy projections and NDC targets announced since the last assessment have lowered warming projections by 0.2C. “Methodological updates” are responsible for the remaining 0.1C.
Furthermore, the forthcoming withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement would reverse 0.1C of this “limited progress”, the report notes.
Responding to these figures in the report’s foreword, UNEP’s Anderson says the new pledges have “barely moved the needle” on temperature projections.
The chart below shows the different warming projections under four of the scenarios explored in the report.
It shows how, under the current policies pathway, there is a 66% chance of warming being limited to 2.8C. In a scenario where efforts are made to meet conditional NDCs in full, there is the same probability that warming could be capped at 2.3C.
In the most optimistic scenario – where all NDCs and net-zero targets are implemented – there is a 66% chance that warming could be constrained to 1.9C. (This projection remains unchanged since last year’s report.)
The report warns that, across all scenarios, the central warming projections would see global warming surpass 1.5C “by several tenths of a degree” by mid-century. And it calculates there is a 21-33% likelihood that warming could exceed 2C by 2050.
Nevertheless, it stresses that the Paris Agreement has been “pivotal” in reducing temperature projections. Policies at the time of the treaty’s adoption would have put the world on track for warming “just below 4C”.
1.5C limit could be exceeded within a decade
UNEP notes that its updated temperature projections underscore an “uncomfortable truth” that surpassing the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C warming limit is “increasingly near”.
The limit – which refers to long-term warming over a pre-industrial baseline and not average warming in any particular year – could be exceeded “within the next decade”, it says. However, the report emphasises that it remains “technically possible” to return to 1.5C by 2100.
Global inaction on emissions in the 2020s means that 1.5C pathways explored in previous emission gap reports and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment cycle are “no longer fully achievable”, according to UNEP.
Moreover, a lack of “stringent emissions cuts” in recent years means climate pathways with “limited” overshoot of 1.5C are also “slipping out of reach”, the authors say.
A future of “higher and potentially longer” overshoot of 1.5C is “increasingly likely”, they warn.
Climate “overshoot” pathways are those where temperatures exceed 1.5C temporarily, before being brought back below the threshold using techniques that remove carbon from the atmosphere.
(For more on climate overshoot, read Carbon Brief’s detailed write-up of a recent conference dedicated to the concept.)
Elsewhere, the report notes the remaining “carbon budget” for limiting warming to 1.5C without any overshoot of the goal will “likely be exhausted” before 2030.
(The carbon budget is the total amount of CO2 that scientists estimate can be emitted if warming is to be kept below a particular temperature threshold. Earlier this year, the Indicators of Global Climate Change report estimated the remaining carbon budget had declined by three-quarters between the start of 2020 and the start of 2025.)
The graphic below illustrates the percentage likelihood of limiting warming under 1.5C, 2C and 3C under the four scenarios set out in the report.
It shows how the chances of limiting warming to below 1.5C throughout the 21st century is close to zero in all but the most optimistic scenario. In the scenario where conditional NDCs and net-zero pledges are met, the chances of limiting temperatures below the goal is just 21%.
The report stresses that it is critical to limit “magnitude and duration” of overshoot to avoid “greater losses for people and ecosystems”, higher adaptation costs and a heavier reliance on “costly and uncertain carbon dioxide removal”.
Roughly 220GtCO2 of carbon removals will be required to reverse every 0.1C of overshoot, according to the report. This is equivalent to five years of global annual CO2 emissions.
The report also warns that it is “highly unlikely” that all risks and hazards will “reverse proportionately” after a period of temperature overshoot.
UNEP states that pursuing the 1.5C temperature goal is nevertheless a “legal, moral and political obligation” for governments regardless of whether warming exceeds the target.
The UN agency emphasises that the 2015 Paris Agreement establishes “no target date or expiration” for its temperature goal – and points to the International Court of Justice’s recent advisory opinion that 1.5C remains the “primary target” of the climate treaty.
The post UNEP: New country climate plans ‘barely move needle’ on expected warming appeared first on Carbon Brief.
UNEP: New country climate plans ‘barely move needle’ on expected warming
Nations are “back on track” to adopt a framework for curbing global shipping emissions, following the latest International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) meeting in London, UK.
The proposed “net-zero framework” had been expected to be approved by countries at the IMO towards the end of 2025.
Instead, the Trump administration was accused of “bully-boy” tactics as the US led a concerted effort to reject the framework, leading to its approval being delayed.
Since then, the US, other fossil-fuel producers and some industry groups have called for the framework to be stripped of its carbon-pricing mechanism, or abandoned entirely.
At the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC84) meeting in London, UK, last week, nations tried once again to reach an agreement on the framework.
Opponents said they were trying to seek consensus, but supporters, such as Brazil, the EU and Pacific islands, pointed out the framework was already a “careful balance of interests”.
Liberia and Panama – “flag states” for a third of the world’s commercial shipping – led a counter-proposal, alongside Argentina, which effectively cut carbon pricing from the framework.
Ultimately, however, the meeting ended with a reconfirmation that delegations are committed to rebuilding consensus on global shipping emissions.
The framework survived the negotiations and the committee will now try to adopt it at its December 2026 meeting.
Below, Carbon Brief explains why the framework has proved so contentious, who the major players have been and what the final outcome was at the latest IMO meeting.
- Why was the net-zero framework delayed last year?
- Why do some countries oppose the net-zero framework?
- What ‘alternative frameworks’ were discussed?
- What do supporters of the net-zero framework want?
- What was the final outcome from the IMO meeting?
Why was the net-zero framework delayed last year?
In April 2025, nations at the IMO had agreed on a “net-zero framework” at their MEPC83 meeting in London, despite the US withdrawing halfway through.
Later that year, in October 2025, they failed to formally adopt the framework after a fraught meeting that saw US negotiators accused of “bully-boy tactics”.
The framework was meant to be a practical set of measures to achieve the global net-zero target for shipping, agreed at the IMO in 2023. The target is significant, as international shipping is responsible for more than 2% of emissions and is not covered by the Paris Agreement.
Following a week of negotiations at the April 2025 meeting, the remaining nations had voted on approving a compromise proposal for an emissions levy – effectively a carbon tax on global shipping – and a credit-trading system.
A majority of nations had agreed to this framework that would have set a lower emissions-intensity reduction target of 4% in 2028, rising to 30% in 2035. It had also included an upper target that would have increased from 17% in 2028 to 43% in 2035.
Ships that failed to lower their emissions intensity in line with these limits would have needed to purchase “remedial units” for $380 per “tier two” unit. This would have fed into a new IMO “net-zero fund”.
Those who met the lower target, but fell short of the more difficult upper target, would have had to pay into the IMO fund, but at the lower rate of $100 per “tier one” unit.
The number of compliant ships had been expected to grow under this framework, reducing the number of vessels reliant on buying units and helping to reduce emissions intensity by over 40%, as the chart below shows.
The purchase of units to comply with the rules had been expected to raise $10-15bn annually in the initial years of the fund, as well as help with the development of zero and near-zero (ZNZ) greenhouse gas fuels and energy sources, according to thinktank IDDRI.
In turn, the fund would have been used to support developing countries to decarbonise shipping.
A clear majority of 80% of the eligible voters – not including those who abstained or the US – approved the framework at the April 2025 meeting.
The 63 countries that voted in favour included the EU, China, India and Brazil, while those that voted against included major fossil-fuel producers, such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Following this “landmark” agreement, countries had then been expected to formally adopt the framework at the next MEPC session in October 2025.
However, the meeting proved challenging. The US “unequivocally rejected” the proposal and lobbied extensively against adoption, including by threatening governments, individual diplomats and shipping companies with sanctions, visa restrictions, tariffs and port fees.
During the October meeting, the US and its allies pushed for a shift from a “tacit” approval system for the net-zero framework to one that would require explicit acceptance by governments. This would mean it would only come into force if, six months later, two-thirds of nations actively accepted the deal, Climate Home News explained at the time.
Negotiations continued throughout the week before Saudi Arabia called to adjourn the meeting, a move that was passed after it was backed by 57 countries.
As such, the decision on the adoption of the net-zero framework was pushed back by a year.
Among the 63 countries that supported the IMO net-zero framework at MEPC83 in April 2025, 15 supported the adjournment and 10 abstained – showing that some nations that had previously supported the framework had softened on the deal, following lobbying by the US, Saudi Arabia and their allies.
Going into the April 2026 MEPC84 meeting, it was clear that agreement on the framework would not be straightforward. A report ahead of the meeting from University College London (UCL) noted:
“The level of support is noticeably weaker than in April [2025] and likely reflects the effectiveness and efforts made by sides supporting or opposing the net-zero framework over the intervening period.”
In the week ahead of the MEPC84, US IMO delegation lead Wayne Arguin told a meeting that there was a “clear, strong and sizable bloc of countries opposed to the [net-zero framework]” and “no prospect of achieving consensus”, according to Politico.
As the meeting kicked off on 27 April 2026, IMO secretary-general Arsenio Dominguez called on parties to engage in “engage in constructive and pragmatic exchanges”.
Why do some countries oppose the net-zero framework?
A coalition of countries, including the US, Saudi Arabia and various fossil-fuel producers, strongly oppose the IMO net-zero framework that was agreed last year.
They were supported by a wider group of industry bodies and major flag states – countries where many ships are registered – which were instrumental in advancing “alternative frameworks” at the latest meeting. (See: What ‘alternative frameworks’ were discussed?)
Documents submitted ahead of the April 2026 meeting laid out the basis for this opposition, with the US criticising the net-zero framework’s “significant shortcomings”, concluding:
“The most appropriate path forward is to end consideration of the IMO net-zero framework entirely.”
More nuance came in a statement from a group of primarily large fossil-fuel producers, including Saudi Arabia, Russia and Algeria, which was also backed by the US.
It stressed the need for “alternative” frameworks, with an emphasis on achieving consensus, as well as “practicability, equity and trust”. In practice, this meant a system without any carbon pricing, “top-down restrictions” or “international penalties”.
Opposing countries said any outcome should be “technology-neutral”, meaning it should not disadvantage specific fuels, potentially including liquified natural gas (LNG) and other fossil fuels.
These nations also stressed what they claimed were the potential impact of additional net-zero costs on “food and energy security”.
Much of their criticism was based on supposed economic harm that the net-zero framework would cause, particularly in developing countries.
These arguments purported to be about fairness for these countries. Yet some opponents of the framework were also calling for the IMO fund to be abandoned.
If this IMO fund were lost, then developing countries could lose out on a potential source of support for their own maritime decarbonisation, as well as potentially their broader energy transitions.
As well as supporting the fossil-fuel producers’ call for “alternative frameworks”, the UAE filed its own submission questioning the legitimacy of the IMO in establishing a new fund.
The US submission to the IMO stated that the fund would provide “pennies on the dollar compared to the economic hardship” brought about by the framework overall.
US delegates distributed flyers at the IMO meeting, emphasising the financial burden they claimed the framework would place on developing countries. While low-carbon shipping will come with substantial costs, analysts said the US figures were “not credible”.
Campaigners accused the US of “pretending to care about other countries’ economies”, pointing out that the energy crisis – triggered by the US-led war on Iran – is costing the shipping industry billions.
Moreover, they stated that the Trump administration’s new port entry fees would be a far greater financial burden for the global shipping industry than the mooted net-zero rules.
Analysis by UCL shipping researchers ahead of MEPC84 concluded that the Trump administration would potentially be less able to exert “soft power and influence” at the talks than last year. Additionally, it pointed to a Supreme Court ruling that limited the US’s capacity to impose punitive tariffs.
In practice, the US was less vocal at the talks, choosing to support alternative framework ideas proposed by other IMO members.
What ‘alternative frameworks’ were discussed?
There were two main alternatives to the net-zero framework considered at MEPC84.
Japan suggested some ideas as a “possible basis for discussion”, which included removing the need for ships to pay into an IMO fund when they fail to meet emissions targets.
It also suggested simply relaxing the emissions targets, in order to make them easier for shipping companies to meet.
The second – and more significant – counter-proposal to the net-zero framework was not submitted by the US or its fossil-fuel producer allies.
Instead, it came from Liberia, Panama and Argentina, three countries that have strong political and historical ties with the US.
This was particularly notable given Liberia and Panama’s status as the top two “flags of convenience”, as shown in the chart below. A third of the world’s commercial shipping is registered in these small states, giving them disproportionate significance within the talks.
Their proposal, offered in the spirit of “consensus‑building”, said that only fuels already considered “commercially viable” should be included in the IMO’s carbon-intensity targets.
The Argentina-Liberia-Panama proposal was dismissed by observers as “business-as-usual”, as it removes incentives to develop clean fuels, any substantial means of enforcement and opportunities to raise funds to help developing countries.
Delaine McCullough, director of the shipping programme at the Ocean Conservancy, tells Carbon Brief:
“By removing the mandatory greenhouse gas price, you take away the ability to provide any kind of rewards or other incentives, and you also take away the regulatory incentive, so you just end up where we are today.”
This was the proposal that the net-zero framework’s most prominent opponents, including the US and the Gulf states, rallied around at MEPC84.
Among those also backing the idea during the talks were some developing countries, such as Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, that also said they wanted the IMO outcome to provide them with financial support.
This came in spite of the proposal stating there should be “no establishment of an IMO fund”. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a small-island state delegate tells Carbon Brief:
“Many countries that support the Liberia-Panama-Argentina submission also seek support for transition, capacity-building and mitigation of negative impacts. This support will not be available if [that] approach is taken.”
Some delegates questioned the decision by Liberia and Panama to lead this pushback against the net-zero framework. Both nations had previously supported an emissions levy on shipping, which would have been far more ambitious than the framework they now oppose.
Observers noted ties between nations that opposed the framework and parts of the shipping sector – including US-based interests and LNG assets.
Among the industry voices arguing strongly against the net-zero framework have been the American Bureau of Shipping and a group of international shipping companies and registries – including the national registries of Liberia and Panama.
The latter group voiced “significant concerns” and called for “alternative proposals”. Rather than a domestic entity, the Liberian registry that issued this statement is a privately owned US company.
Reflecting on these issues, Prof Tristan Smith, an energy and transport expert at UCL, wrote on LinkedIn:
“Privately owned registries have leverage over their host governments because one angry shipowner’s personal wealth is more than the flag state’s GDP and governments of low-income countries can’t easily take risks with even small volume revenues.”
Major Greek shipowners, including some with US-linked LNG interests, also opposed the net-zero framework, citing the “absence of support from major and influential states representing a significant share of global tonnage”.
Greece itself had reportedly pushed back against the framework behind the scenes, despite the EU’s public, unified position of support.
What do supporters of the net-zero framework want?
There were many vocal supporters of the net-zero framework at MEPC84, including a broad range of developed and developing countries.
Among them were the EU, Brazil, Mexico, Kenya, Pacific island states, Australia and the UK.
Having supported the net-zero framework last April, but voted to postpone its adoption in October, China expressed support for a carbon-pricing system and an IMO fund in a technical submission issued ahead of MEPC84.
The major shipping nation had remained quiet during the US-Saudi disruption in October last year, so its submission was viewed as a positive for backers of the framework.
Colombia, which was simultaneously hosting a global conference on “transitioning away” from fossil fuels, also emerged as a supporter of the net-zero framework.
There has also been support from some sections of the shipping industry, including a large coalition of ports, logistics companies and clean-fuel providers.
Supportive nations pointed out that the net-zero framework was the result of years of talks and already represented what Pacific island states called a “fragile compromise”. They framed it as the “only politically viable option” for hitting the IMO’s net-zero goal.
Pacific islands and around 50 other nations had originally called for a universal carbon levy on shipping. Ultimately, they were forced to accept the net-zero framework as a compromise, but Pacific islands said they would revert to their call for a levy if they felt the framework was being “watered down”.
The demand for a levy was strongly opposed by numerous countries, including some of the current framework’s supporters, such as Brazil and Australia.
In a bid to revive the net-zero framework, a submission by Brazil sought to “dispel any possible potential misunderstandings”, stressing that the approach is “flexible” and “should not be mistaken for a ‘global tax’”.
For example, Brazil notes that the framework “does not exclude any fuels” and that even existing “bunker” fuels and LNG could be used, as long as carbon intensity targets are met. (Ships could, for example, use carbon capture and storage to meet the goals.)
Michael Mbaru, a low-carbon shipping expert for the Kenya climate special envoy, told a briefing ahead of the conference that the net-zero framework was in developing countries’ interests:
“If the global package unravels, pressure grows for more regional and unilateral measures instead, and this is particularly difficult for African and other developing countries, because fragmented regulation raises compliance, complexity [and] transaction costs.”
In response to the Argentina-Liberia-Panama proposal that opponents of the framework had coalesced around, the Solomon Islands pointed out that, in seeking “consensus”, this group was ignoring the numerous parties that wanted more ambition, rather than less. It stated in a submission:
“There is no reason to expect that a new proposal, that differs from the IMO net-zero framework, would find a majority, much less a consensus.”
Nevertheless, supporters of the net-zero framework also acknowledged that there were some areas where greater clarity might help countries to finalise the details.
These areas include clarifying technical considerations such as: how fuel intensity is calculated; addressing the potential impacts of net-zero rules on food security; the governance of the IMO fund; and regulation of sustainable fuel certification schemes.
Given this, there was broad support for more discussions at an extra “intersessional” meeting later this year, in order to hash out these final details before attempting to approve the net-zero framework once more.
What was the final outcome from the IMO meeting?
Ultimately, the IMO’s net-zero framework was agreed and will now be negotiated further in the uutumn, ahead of the next MEPC meeting in December 2026.
The decision, as well as the general willingness to move forward noted by numerous observers, was broadly welcomed. IMO secretary-general Arsenio Dominguez said:
“We are back on track, but we have to rebuild trust. I encourage you to maintain this momentum through your intersessional work and to prepare submissions that can bring the membership together.”
Over the week of negotiations, nearly 100 delegations took to the floor to voice their opinions on the adoption of the net-zero framework.
Of these, over half were in favour of it, including countries like the EU, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Tuvalu and others.
Others pushed for reopening the framework for substantial changes, including the US, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Liberia and others.
On Friday 1 May, the discussion turned to the terms of reference for further negotiation and countries agreed to move the net-zero forward as the only option in the final outcome text.
Em Fenton, senior director of climate diplomacy at Opportunity Green, tells Carbon Brief:
“The framework has survived, but survival is not a victory and we cannot end up in a cycle of open-ended negotiations. Taking forward consideration of multiple proposals is only acceptable as a bridge, not a destination.
“We must now look forward to moving towards adoption of the framework later this year in a way that maintains urgency and ambition, and delivers justice and equity for countries on the frontlines of climate impacts.”
The IMO committee agreed to establish an intersessional working group to resolve a number of outstanding concerns and “drive broader convergence on a global measure” ahead of the next MEPC meeting.
Member states will be able to submit new amendments and adjustments to complement those already approved.
The two intersessional meetings will take place in September and November, ahead of MEPC85 in December.
Christiaan De Beukelaer, senior lecturer in culture and climate at the University of Melbourne, tells Carbon Brief:
“The ship is mostly built, though it’s obvious that more work needs doing on its interior. Right now, some are trying to finish the build while others are trying to scuttle it.”
The post Q&A: How countries got the global ‘net-zero’ shipping deal ‘back on track’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: How countries got the global ‘net-zero’ shipping deal ‘back on track’
Climate Change
Cropped 6 May 2026: Forest loss falls | Deforestation regulations | Saving ‘India’s Galapagos’
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
Forest loss falls
DRIVER DECLINE: Tropical primary forest loss fell by more than one-third from 2024-25, according to the latest edition of the Global Forest Review. (Primary forests are those that are intact or relatively undisturbed by humans.) The World Resources Institute, which co-produced the report, noted that the loss of these forests is “still 46% higher than [it was] a decade ago”. It attributed much of this year’s decline to a decrease from last year’s “record-breaking year of extreme fires”.
WIDESPREAD COLLABS: Although Brazil had the largest loss in terms of area, deforestation in the country fell by 42% compared to the previous year, reported Agência Brasil. It noted that this was made possible by a governmental task force, “with the participation of civil society, academia, local communities and the private sector”. In Indonesia, Malaysia and Colombia, progress “reflected improved governance, recognition of Indigenous land rights and corporate commitments to deforestation-free production”, said EnviroNews Nigeria.
EXCEEDING THE LIMIT: Despite the decline, the amount of deforestation “still remains ‘far above’ the level required to put the world on track to meet international targets to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030”, said BusinessGreen. It added that “fires present a growing threat that could reverse recent gains”, despite the declines from 2024. Reuters noted: “Agricultural expansion continued to be the biggest driver of forest loss around the world.”
EU deforestation law watered down
UNDER PRESSURE: Following industry pressure, the European Commission decided to “exclude imports of leather from its anti-deforestation law”, according to Reuters. The newswire said: “Leather industry groups have argued that as a by-product of the meat industry, with a relatively low value, leather’s production does not incentivise the cattle farming that drives deforestation.” It added that imported beef is still covered by the law.
‘LONG-OVERDUE’: Meanwhile, a group of UK Parliament members released an open letter calling for “long-overdue regulations to end UK imports linked to illegal deforestation”. Although the forest-risk regulation was introduced in 2021 as part of the Environment Act, “lawmakers have spent the last four years delaying the implementation” of the anti-deforestation rules, according to a Mongabay report from last year.
PROVISIONAL DEAL: The EU-Mercosur deal – a trade agreement between the European bloc and four South American countries – provisionally came into force on 1 May “after 25 years of negotiations”, said Euractiv. The application of the agreement is provisional because members of the European Parliament “referred the deal to the European Court of Justice for a legal review” in January, it added.
News and views
- PACKAGING PLANTATION: Asia Symbol, a China-based pulp and paper company, cleared “vast tracts of Indonesian rainforest home to endangered orangutans…for plantations supplying a maker of ‘carbon-neutral’ packaging”, according to an investigation by Agence France-Presse and the Gecko Project. The company told AFP that it is “committed to its no-deforestation policy”, while the newswire noted that the plantations supplying the paper mill have permits from the Indonesian government.
- SODA MOUNTAIN SOLAR: The California Energy Commission approved a proposed $700m solar power plant in the Mojave Desert after “nearly 20 years” of challenges, reported the San Bernardino Sun. Last month, climate journalist Sammy Roth dove into the history of – and current debate over – the Soda Mountain project on his Substack, Climate Colored Goggles.
- POSITIVE TIPPING POINTS: In a Nature Sustainability perspective piece, Prof Tim Lenton at the University of Exeter argued for the existence of “positive tipping points” – ecological, social or socio-ecological states where feedback loops that “suppor[t] self-propelling nature-positive change can help” achieve nature-recovery goals.
- ‘ACUTE HUNGER’: Nearly eight million people in South Sudan are at risk of “acute food insecurity” in coming months, “fuelled by ethnic conflict, climate change and the spillover of fighting from neighbouring Sudan”, according to Al Jazeera coverage of a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification analysis. Meanwhile, a UN-produced global food crises report showed that “acute hunger” has doubled over the past decade, with two famines declared last year for the first time since the reports began a decade ago.
- SUMMERTIME SADNESS: Production of India’s prized Devgad Alphonso mango “has dropped by 70-90%” this summer, due to both “climate shock” and “ineffective pesticides”, reported the Print. Rich mango farmers in western India staged a “rare protest” demanding compensation for their losses, the outlet added, while a Print comment called for a “shift from compensation to climate-adaptation policies”.
- SEED SUIT: A judge at the Kenyan High Court “declared unconstitutional parts of a law that prohibited farmers from sharing and selling Indigenous seeds” – although the government has appealed the decision, reported Devex. The lawyer who represented the farmers in the suit “said that the ruling could have ripple effects worldwide”, it added.
Spotlight
Saving ‘India’s Galapagos’
This week, Carbon Brief follows the uproar around the Great Nicobar project, after India’s opposition leader visited the biodiversity hotspot, which is at imminent risk of deforestation.
On 30 April, Rahul Gandhi – the head of India’s opposition and grandson of former prime minister Indira Gandhi – posted an Instagram video from the evergreen rainforest on Great Nicobar island, the southernmost point of India’s territory.
The island is the site of a proposed $10bn infrastructure project called the Great Nicobar Island Project, which includes a transhipment port in Galathea Bay, an international airport, a township and a gas and solar-based power plant.
Completion of the project would require the felling of more than a million trees – nearly 130 square kilometres of forest.
Speaking to the camera and dwarfed by gigantic tree trunks, Gandhi said:
“I’m in the middle of what is easily the most beautiful forest I’ve seen in my life.”
As drone footage showed viewers the lush forest canopy, Gandhi told viewers that the primary forest here is so dense, there was simply no way through. He continued by claiming:
“Now I understand why the government did not want me to come…because this is the largest theft of Indian ecological property in history.”
(In February, India’s National Green Tribunal upheld environmental clearances for the project, stating that the government had “considered all possible damage to the ecology and had taken efforts to compensate it”, according to the Hindu. A challenge is pending in the Calcutta High Court. In March, India announced it was raising its forest carbon target in its 2035 climate pledge.)
The provocative video calling for a halt to large-scale deforestation on “India’s Galapagos” has garnered more than 1.4m views and has sparked media debate, smear campaigns and government pushback, defending its strategic importance.
Paradise almost lost?
Barely hours after Gandhi’s video was posted, the Indian government published a press release detailing how environmental and tribal welfare safeguards have been met, despite more evidence to the contrary emerging this week.
Several media outlets – particularly print and independent outlets – have gone to Great Nicobar since 2024 to investigate the project’s impacts on biodiversity, assess its economic viability and corroborate the government’s claims of receiving Indigenous consent.
However, many of the project’s details have been shrouded in secrecy and restrictive conditions, including “gag orders” on scientists, rebuffed right to information requests and missing maps of tribal lands and coral colonies, media investigations have alleged.
For many mainland Indians, Gandhi’s video was a first glimpse of the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve and its 1,800 species, many of them endemic to the islands.
Turtle walker
Among the most charismatic and vulnerable are Great Nicobar’s sea turtles: leatherbacks, hawksbills and Olive Ridleys.
In an era before Instagram, biologist Satish Bhaskar surveyed over 4,000km of India’s coastline on foot from 1977-96 to document sea turtle nesting sites. Bhaskar laid the groundwork – and established the baseline – for Great Nicobar’s biodiversity and turtle conservation in India.
With only a transistor radio for company, Bhaskar would “maroon himself” on these islands for months at a time to measure tracks in the sand, count eggs and nests and wait for sightings of leatherback sea turtles, which can grow up to 2.7 metres long and weigh up to half a tonne.
From 1991-92, Bhaskar recorded more than 800 leatherback turtle nests on Great Nicobar Island alone. He identified Port Campbell Bay – where Gandhi met Nicobarese leaders last week – as a critical, irreplaceable turtle-nesting beach during his surveys.
“I’m glad I did what I did,” said the soft-spoken biologist in the 2025 documentary Turtle Walker, which recreates his early years on the island. Sadly, this new footage of Nicobar’s coastal reefs, mangroves and evergreen forests – is still only accessible to film festival audiences in India.
Can more visual, vocal and felt evidence shift the debate on deforestation in India? Experts told Carbon Brief that remains to be seen, but Gandhi’s video has brought “tremendous attention” back to the project, and brought in unlikely allies asking important questions.
Watch, read, listen
GO FISH: BBC News explored how climate change is “threaten[ing] the economic backbone” of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati – its tuna fisheries.
LIFE AFTER COWS: The New York Times profiled Butter Ridge’s dairy farmers selling their generations-old Pennsylvania farm in the face of looming tariffs and “surging” input costs.
C FOR COMMODITY: On the Wilder podcast, Sue Pritchard – chief executive of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission – explored the “invisible forces” shaping modern food systems.
WAR FALLOUT: From oil spills to contaminated soil, Wired took a closer look at how the war on Iran is impacting the environment in “unseen ways”.
New science
- Commercial bottom-trawling fishing costs Europe nearly €16bn per year, mainly due to the release of carbon from ocean sediments | Ocean & Coastal Management
- A combination of global warming of 1.5-1.9C and deforestation of 22-28% could drive the Amazon to “system-wide changes” | Nature
- By 2050, 74% of the current habitats of all land mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians could be exposed to heatwaves under a high-emissions scenario | Nature Ecology & Evolution
In the diary
- 11-15 May: 21st session of the UN Forum on Forests | New York City
- 11 to 15 May: Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) regional conference for Europe | Dushanbe, Tajikistan
- 13 May: Webinar on the State of Forests report from the World Resources Institute | Online
- 22 May: International day for biological diversity
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyerand Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 6 May 2026: Forest loss falls | Deforestation regulations | Saving ‘India’s Galapagos’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 6 May 2026: Forest loss falls | Deforestation regulations | Saving ‘India’s Galapagos’
Climate Change
Analysis: Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began
The UK has avoided the need for gas imports worth £1.7bn since the start of the Iran war, as a result of record electricity generation from wind and solar, reveals Carbon Brief analysis.
The surge in wind and solar output is cutting the need for gas-fired generation, which has been nearly a third lower than last year and fell to record lows in both March and April 2026.
The figure below shows that wind and solar have generated a record 21 terawatt hours (TWh) on the island of Great Britain since the end of February 2026, when the US and Israel first attacked Iran.
Amid another fossil-fuel price crisis, the record wind and solar output since the start of the Iran war avoided the need to import 41TWh of gas – roughly 34 tankers of liquified natural gas (LNG).
Importing those 34 tankers of LNG would have cost around £1.7bn, given the high gas prices triggered by the conflict.
At the same time, record wind and solar helped to cut electricity generation from gas by around a third year-on-year to the lowest levels ever recorded for the months of March and April, as shown in the figure below.
Together, wind and solar have generated more than twice as much electricity as fossil fuels over the period since the Iran war began. The country’s electricity mix has now flipped: a decade ago, fossil fuels were generating more than four times as much electricity as wind and solar.
Indeed, wind and solar have generated more electricity than fossil fuels for a record 15 months in a row. As shown in the figure below, this included a full winter season for the first time in 2025-26.
This meant that gas was setting the price of electricity roughly 25% less often in both March 2026 and April 2026 than in the same month in 2022, when fossil-fuel prices spiked after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
April 2026 also marked a series of other records for the GB electricity system.
For half an hour between 15.30 and 16:00 on 22 April, a record 98.8% of the electricity feeding into the country’s main “transmission” grid came from zero-carbon sources, according to the National Energy System Operator (NESO).
In addition, solar generation hit a series of new record-highs, ultimately reaching 15.4 gigawatts (GW) on the afternoon of 23 April. Wind set a new record of 23.9GW on 25 March.
The post Analysis: Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began
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