Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy use and industry could peak as soon as this year, according to Carbon Brief analysis of figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook 2023 says it now expects CO2 emissions to peak “in the mid-2020s” and an accompanying press release says this will happen “by 2025”.
Yet the IEA’s own data shows the peak in global CO2 coming as early as this year, partly due to what the outlook describes as the “legacy” of the global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Other highlights from Carbon Brief’s in-depth examination of the outlook include:
- Global fossil fuel use peaking in 2025, two years earlier than expected last year.
- For the first time, coal, oil and gas each peaking before 2030 under current policies.
- Fossil fuel peaks being driven by the “unstoppable” growth of low-carbon technologies.
- The IEA boosting its outlook for global solar capacity in 2050 by 69% since last year.
- The IEA expecting 20% more electric vehicles on the road in 2030 than it did last year.
- A key focus on slowing economic growth and faster low-carbon uptake in China, where fossil fuel demand is now expected to peak in 2024.
Yet climate policies remain far from sufficient to limit warming to 1.5C, the IEA warns.
The outlook reiterates the IEA’s ideas for five “pillars” to keep the path to 1.5C open at COP28, including targets to triple renewable capacity and double the rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030.
(See Carbon Brief’s coverage of previous IEA world energy outlooks from 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015.)
World energy outlook
The IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook (WEO) is published every autumn. It is widely regarded as one of the most influential annual contributions to the climate and energy debate.
The outlook explores a range of scenarios, representing different possible futures for the global energy system. These are developed using the IEA’s “Global Energy and Climate Model”.
The 1.5C-compatible “net-zero emissions by 2050” (NZE) scenario was introduced in 2021 and updated in September 2023.
The report notes that the path to 1.5C is made more difficult by each year of “high emissions and limited progress”, but adds that the “recent acceleration in clean energy” is keeping a path open.
Alongside the NZE is the “announced pledges scenario” (APS), in which governments are given the benefit of the doubt and assumed to meet all of their climate goals on time and in full.
Finally, the “stated policies scenario” (STEPS) represents “the prevailing direction of energy system progression, based on a detailed review of the current policy landscape”. Here, the IEA looks not at what governments are saying, but what they are actually doing.
Annex B of the report breaks down the policies and targets included in each scenario. In effect, the IEA is judging the seriousness of each target and whether it will be followed through.
For example, the provisions of the US Inflation Reduction Act are included in the STEPS. But the US target to cut emissions to 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030 is only met under the APS.
Among various new policies included in the STEPS since last year’s outlook are Japan’s “green transformation” programme that aims to raise the share of renewables and nuclear in the country’s electricity mix, as well as ensuring all new car sales are low-emissions from 2035.
The report emphasises that “none of the scenarios…should be considered a forecast”. It says:
“The intention is not to guide the reader towards a single view of the future, but rather to promote a deeper understanding of the way that various levers produce diverse outcomes, and the implications of different courses of action for the security and sustainability of the energy system.”
Indeed, the design of the scenarios means that the STEPS is all but guaranteed to have become more ambitious by the time next year’s outlook is published – notwithstanding recent policy rollbacks in the UK – as governments around the world continue to implement their pledges.
This increase in ambition over time, as announced pledges are converted into stated policies, is clear from the historical record. (See below for charts comparing IEA outlooks over time.)
In 2021, the newly introduced NZE took centre stage in the IEA’s outlook, with the scenario mentioned 201 times per 100 pages against just 115 for the STEPS.
The STEPS returned to prominence last year and that trend continues in 2023’s outlook, which mentions the scenario 247 times per 100 pages, against just 157 mentions for the NZE.
Another notable change in the 2023 outlook is its shorter length, at 356 pages, compared with 524 last year and as many as 810 in 2019. As a result, this year’s report allows just five pages each to look specifically at coal, oil and gas, whereas the 2022 edition gave them 20-44 pages each.
Emissions peak as soon as 2023
One of the most striking findings in this year’s outlook is that global energy-related CO2 emissions could peak as soon as this year – and by 2025 at the latest.
Carbon Brief understands that the agency did not want to put a firm marker down on 2023, as the expected peak in global emissions will be affected by economic growth, weather and other factors.
However, Figure 1.15 in the report clearly shows CO2 emissions peaking this year under current policy settings in the STEPS scenario.
This curve is reproduced in the figure below, which illustrates the seismic shifts in the global trajectory for CO2 emissions since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015.
The thick black line shows how, for much of recent history, global CO2 emissions have marched relentlessly upwards, as growth in populations and energy use have led to higher fossil fuel use.
The pre-Paris policy baseline is shown in grey, illustrating how, on the eve of the COP21 summit where the deal was agreed, the IEA expected emissions to continue rising for decades.
Since that moment in 2015, the adoption of new climate policies and the accelerating spread of low-carbon technologies has seen the growth in global emissions slowing down.
In 2021, the IEA found government policies had advanced sufficiently to bring about a peak in global energy-related CO2 emissions (grey-blue line), with the subsequent decline deepening in the 2022 outlook (light blue).
This year’s outlook (dark blue) sees emissions peaking as soon as 2023 under current policy settings – two years earlier than expected in 2022 – and falling even more steeply after the peak.
Despite the improved outlook for global emissions, the outlook shows that current policies remain massively insufficient to meet governments’ climate pledges – including their long-term net-zero targets. If met, these pledges would see emissions falling along the red line in the figure above.
Moreover, even meeting those climate pledges would fall far short of what would be needed to limit warming to less than 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures (yellow line).
‘Beginning of the end’ for fossil fuels
The IEA ascribes the changing outlook for global emissions – at least in part – to the global energy crisis. Last year’s report said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had “turbo-charged” the shift away from fossil fuels. Contrary to some commentary, the IEA repeats this message again:
“A legacy of the global energy crisis may be to usher in the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era; the momentum behind clean energy transitions is now sufficient for global demand for coal, oil and natural gas to all reach a high point before 2030 in the STEPS.”
Although the agency does not put precise figures on these “high points” for fossil fuels – presumably due to the uncertainty around the exact timing – Carbon Brief analysis of the IEA’s data shows coal, oil and gas reaching peaks in 2022, 2028 and 2029, respectively.
This would see global demand for all three fossil fuels combined peaking in 2025, as shown by the dark blue line in the figure below. This 2023 policy curve is compared against historical demand for fossil fuels (black), the pre-Paris baseline (grey) and earlier policy settings (shades of blue).
The impact of countries meeting all of their climate pledges as of 2021, 2022 and 2023 are shown by the red curves, while the IEA’s increasingly narrow pathway to 1.5C is shown in yellow.
The IEA’s assertion that coal, oil and gas will each see peaks in demand this decade has been met with strong pushback from the Opec oil producers’ cartel and some US oil majors.
However, the IEA refers to a range of datapoints in support of its findings, with the rate of new fossil fuel infrastructure being built having already peaked in key areas.
Growth in coal-based steel, cement and electricity generation capacity peaked in 2003, 2010 and 2012, respectively, for example.
Similarly, global sales of combustion-engine cars, motorbikes and trucks peaked in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively. Additions of gas power plants peaked in 2002 and sales of gas boilers in 2020.
These are all leading indicators that “set the scene” for declines in coal, oil and gas use later this decade, the outlook says.
Yet the report notes that, under current policy settings, demand for oil and gas would enter a prolonged plateau after peaking this decade. As IEA energy analyst Peter Zeniewski notes on Twitter, “[oil and gas would] still hang around, stubbornly, for decades in the STEPS”.
Even so, the report points to potential for significant “overinvestment” in oil and gas, with current levels of spending “almost double” the amount needed in the IEA’s 1.5C pathway. It says this “creates the clear risk of locking in fossil fuel use and putting the 1.5C goal out of reach”.
The outlook goes on to make a thinly veiled reference to certain countries and oil majors, saying their calls for increased oil and gas investment are at odds with the latest market trends.
It says circumstances have changed in recent years, because oil and gas investment has already grown, whereas the outlook for oil and gas demand has shrunk.
As a result, the IEA says its own warnings of oil and gas “underinvestment”, made in previous editions of the outlook, are no longer valid. The report says:
“[T]he fears expressed by some large resource-holders and certain oil and gas companies that the world is underinvesting in oil and gas supply are no longer based on the latest technology and market trends.”
Despite these warnings, the IEA argues that “simply cutting spending on oil and gas will not get the world on track for [1.5C]”. Instead, it says the “key is to scale up investment in all aspects of a clean energy system to meeting rising demand for energy services in a sustainable way”.
It adds that risks are “weighted more towards overinvestment”:
“Both overinvestment and underinvestment in fossil fuels carry risks for secure and affordable energy transitions…When it comes to the overall adequacy of spending, however, our analysis suggests that the risks are weighted more towards overinvestment than the opposite.”
‘Unstoppable’ clean energy
A major driver of the reduced outlook for fossil fuel growth is the “accelerating” shift to low-carbon technologies, which IEA executive director Dr Fatih Birol says in the report foreword is “moving faster than many people realise”.
This is one of several key distinctions that Birol draws between the current global energy crisis – which is continuing amid heightened geopolitical tensions and conflict in the Middle East – as compared with the 1970s oil crisis 50 years earlier. Birol writes:
“A second difference between the 1970s and today is that we already have the clean energy technologies for the job in hand…Today, solar, wind, efficiency and electric cars are all well established and readily available – and their advantages are only being reinforced by turbulence among the traditional technologies.”
While inflationary pressures have pushed up the cost of low-carbon technologies after many years of rapid decline, the IEA notes that “the prices of all clean energy technologies today are significantly lower than a decade ago [and] they remain competitive with fossil fuel alternatives”.
It adds that there are signs that cost pressures are easing and that technology costs will “continue to trend downward”, although higher borrowing costs “complicate project economics” for now.
Overall, despite all these challenges, the IEA sees a much brighter outlook for low-carbon technologies than it did last year, due to more favourable policies and other factors.
The report lays out the reasons for this brighter outlook, which it says “provides hope for the way forward”. It explains:
“Investment in clean energy has risen by 40% since 2020. The push to bring down emissions is a key reason, but not the only one. The economic case for mature clean energy technologies is strong. Energy security is also an important factor, particularly in fuel-importing countries, as are industrial strategies and the desire to create clean energy jobs.”
As a result, it has once again massively boosted its outlook for global solar growth, with capacity now seen reaching more than 4,000 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 and 12,000GW by 2050, as shown by the red line in the figure below. This is up 56% in 2030 and 69% in 2050 on last year’s outlooks.
Moreover, the IEA’s pre-Paris outlook for global solar capacity of some 1,405GW in 2050 (blue) is set to be passed in 2023, with installations having already reached a total of 1,145GW last year.
This year’s outlook sees global solar capacity growing by some 344GW in 2023 – more than double the 163GW added in 2021 – with additions reaching nearly 500GW in 2030.
These numbers represent significant upgrades to expected solar growth, for which the IEA has been repeatedly criticised in the past. Nevertheless, the numbers remain well short of projections from BloombergNEF, which expects solar additions to reach more than 700GW in 2030.
This year’s WEO looks at what would happen if solar grows even more quickly – a scenario that it says is supported by ample manufacturing capacity.
In this “NZE solar case”, capacity additions would exceed 800GW in 2030, seen in the figure below. Global use of coal and gas to generate electricity would each be 15% lower than expected under current policy settings – and CO2 emissions in the power sector would also be 15% lower.
In order to integrate such large amounts of variable solar generation into electricity networks, the IEA says it would be “crucial” to scale up battery storage capacity to match. It adds:
“Measures to modernise and expand networks, facilitate demand response and boost power system flexibility would also be necessary.”
In a press statement summarising the changed circumstances reflected in this year’s outlook, Birol says the shift to low-carbon technologies is now “unstoppable”:
“The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it’s unstoppable. It’s not a question of ‘if’, it’s just a matter of ‘how soon’ – and the sooner the better for all of us.”
Birol goes on to criticise those calling for new investments in oil and gas in the name of energy security, saying such claims “look weaker than ever”. He says:
“Governments, companies and investors need to get behind clean energy transitions rather than hindering them. There are immense benefits on offer, including new industrial opportunities and jobs, greater energy security, cleaner air, universal energy access and a safer climate for everyone. Taking into account the ongoing strains and volatility in traditional energy markets today, claims that oil and gas represent safe or secure choices for the world’s energy and climate future look weaker than ever.”
In addition to boosting the outlook for solar in its main STEPS pathway, the IEA also sees 20% more electric vehicles on the world’s roads and 13% more wind power capacity by 2030.
These changes contribute to the lower fossil fuel demand seen in the preceding section. The IEA sees coal demand in 2050 being 9% lower than expected last year, oil down 6% and gas 3%.
The other major shift since last year’s outlook is the structural changes in China’s economy, where growth is slowing and shifting towards less carbon-intensive sectors.
The outlook gives special attention to this slowdown, which it says is the result of ongoing strains in the Chinese property sector and long-term decline in its working-age population.
The press release accompanying the outlook says these changes will result in a peak and then decline in China’s energy demand and a structural decline for fossil fuels and CO2 emissions:
“China, which has an outsize influence on global energy trends, is undergoing a major shift as its economy slows and undergoes structural changes. China’s total energy demand is set to peak around the middle of this decade, the report projects, with continued dynamic growth in clean energy putting the country’s fossil fuel demand and emissions into decline.”
These changes point to a peak in the nation’s demand for fossil fuels in 2024, as shown by the purple columns turning negative in the chart, below right. After this point, the IEA sees growth in low-carbon sources of energy (green columns) more than covering rising demand.
In addition to this central case, the IEA also looks at what would happen if China’s economic slowdown goes even further, with “slower but ultimately ‘higher quality’ growth”. In this “low” case, China’s emissions would fall an additional 0.8GtCO2 in 2030 to nearly 15% below 2022 levels.
In an alternative “high” case, China’s emissions would still peak by 2030 – in line with the government’s international climate goal – but at a level 0.8GtCO2 higher than in the central STEPS scenario, due in particular to stronger coal demand.
Clean energy outspending fossil fuels
Global investment in “clean energy”, at $1.8tn in 2023, is already nearly twice as high as fossil fuel spending ($1tn), the IEA says, as shown in the leftmost column in the figure below.
The IEA expects this disparity to grow over the coming decades. Clean energy would outspend fossil fuels by 2.5 times in 2030 under current policy settings (STEPS).
If countries get on track to stay below 1.5C (NZE), then clean energy spending would reach $4.3tn in 2030, while fossil fuel investment would fall 60% to just $0.4tn, some 10 times lower.
Although the shift towards net-zero would require significant upfront capital spending, the IEA figures show that the extra investment would only amount to around 1% of global GDP.
Moreover, much of this extra investment would be paid back in lower running costs, with fossil fuel importing countries such as the UK and China also benefiting from lower trade deficits and increasing energy security. The report explains:
“The large increase in capital investment in the NZE scenario is partly compensated for by lower operating costs that follow the shift away from fossil fuels towards capital-intensive clean technologies. For fossil fuel importing countries, the shift towards clean energy also improves trade balances and enhances energy security as the share of energy met through domestically sourced renewables starts to rise.”
‘Very difficult’ path to 1.5C
The IEA says current government policies in the STEPS pathway would peak global CO2 emissions by 2025, sufficient to keep global warming to 2.4C by 2100.
This is a significant improvement on the 3.5C of warming it expected under the policies in place before the Paris Agreement. Moreover, warming would be limited to 1.7C if all countries meet their near- and longer-term climate pledges and net-zero targets, the agency says.
Yet this would still leave a significant gap to staying below 1.5C, a path that the IEA says is “very difficult – but remains open”.
The outlook reiterates the agency’s five ideas for keeping the door to 1.5C open at COP28, which it has been promoting all year – and some of which have been taken up by the COP28 presidency.
Its suggested targets are that by 2030, the world should: triple the capacity of renewable energy sources to 11,000GW; double the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements to 4%; and cut methane emissions from fossil fuel extraction by 75%, as shown in the figure below.
These “mature, tried and tested, and in most cases very cost effective” actions would provide more than 80% of the emissions cuts needed by 2030 to get on track for 1.5C, the IEA says.
In order to achieve these goals, the IEA says there will be a need for “innovative, large-scale financing mechanisms” to support low-carbon investments in emerging and developing countries.
It also calls for “measures to ensure an orderly decline in the use of fossil fuel” such as ending the approval of new unabated coal power plants.
Finally, the IEA notes that there is “noticeably less reliance on early-stage technologies to reach net-zero emissions” in this year’s outlook as compared with 2021. It explains:
“At that time, technologies not available on the market, ie at prototype or demonstration phase, delivered nearly 50% of the emissions reductions needed in 2050 to reach net-zero. Now that number is around 35%.”
Analysis of the WEO was conducted by Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans and Verner Viisainen.
The post Analysis: Global CO2 emissions could peak as soon as 2023, IEA data reveals appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Global CO2 emissions could peak as soon as 2023, IEA data reveals
Brazil’s environment minister says he is “very optimistic” that the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) – a new rainforest fund to channel private and public finance to developing nations – can meet a key $10 billion funding target this year, and is not at risk from his country’s elections next month.
The TFFF, launched by Brazil at COP30 in the Amazon last November and co-led by Norway, is intended as an alternative to traditional grant-based forest finance. The fund aims to raise $125bn in public and private capital, invest it in bond markets, and then pay countries that keep their forests standing from the annual returns. Donor contributions needed to get it going have tailed off after an initial burst.
Speaking to Climate Home News on the sidelines of Climate Week in New York, Brazilian environment minister João Paulo Capobianco pointed out that in less than a year since its official launch, the TFFF has already secured $7.3bn from governments.
“How many other initiatives can say that?” he asked. “Of course, if you have $7 billion, it’s easier for more countries to consider their own contribution. And not just countries – non-governmental organisations also. We are expecting even more support.”
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As its initial target, the TFFF aims to raise $10bn in seed capital from governments by the end of 2026, and still needs to fill a gap of $2.7bn. Its backers say that for each dollar in public funding, they can secure $4 from the private sector. Critics say the $10bn goal barely covers the fund’s expenses and would not allow it to make any significant payments to forest countries.
Because setting up its financial architecture, raising the starting capital and making the first investments will take time, experts say the TFFF is unlikely to generate any payments for developing countries before 2028.
Seeking new pledges
Capobianco told Climate Home News that Brazil is still in talks with potential new contributors to the fund, among them China, Korea and Japan, and said he hoped to see more pledges announced at the upcoming biodiversity and climate COPs in October and November. The Netherlands is expected to up its first small contribution and Canada may also come in, according to other sources close to the TFFF.
Because the fund was not created as part of the UN climate talks and is hosted by the World Bank, developing countries can contribute without taking on wider donor responsibilities for climate finance. Brazil and Indonesia – both large emerging rainforest nations – have each pledged $1bn to the TFFF.
Earlier in September, the UK became the latest country to pledge funding – promising a loan of £400 million (about $540 million). Capobianco welcomed the contribution and noted that Britain has also said it will keep “under review” the possibility of putting in more.
Currently the largest donor is Norway, which announced a $3bn pledge last year at COP30 in Belém. However, that pledge came with conditions, among them that the fund must reach $10bn in sponsor capital by 2026, and that Norway’s contribution can’t make up more than 20% of that total. Over the longer term, this means the fund must raise $15bn from governments to unlock Norway’s full investment.
Comment: UK’s budget juggling trick with rainforest loan for bus-fare cap needs transparency
Speaking at a forest finance event in New York, Norway’s environment minister Sigrun Aasland said the country’s pledge was made not “only out of solidarity but because of shared interests”, adding that protecting rainforests is critical for climate and biodiversity goals as well as for national security.
“Tropical deforestation matters to people in the Amazon and in the Congo. But let’s not forget that it also matters to global food production and to the cost of living in Oslo or in London,” she said.
At the event, Guyana’s minister of natural resources Vickram Bharrat said the TFFF is “one in a menu of options” to finance forest protection in developing countries. He added that to boost its capital “maybe we should put some amount of pressure on oil companies to contribute to the fund”.
Upcoming election “not a risk”
Brazil, which has been pivotal to getting the fund off the ground, is now heading into a national election that could see the country swing back to an anti-climate stance if right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro beats current left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Capobianco, however, said the election result does not pose a risk to the TFFF.
“It’s a global initiative, not a Brazilian initiative. We proposed the first idea, but nowadays it’s a global initiative,” he said. “We believe the investor countries and the tropical countries together have the possibility to continue this process.”
In Brazil, the first round of voting is scheduled for Sunday, October 4. If no candidate wins more than 50% of valid votes, a run-off ballot will take place on October 25.
COP30 roadmap to end deforestation will invite countries to draft domestic plans
In July, the TFFF board adopted a charter, which outlines the instrument’s objectives and values, including that 20% of the payments made to tropical countries will go directly to Indigenous people and local communities.
The charter also says the TFFF board may comprise up to 12 member countries during the initial phase. Currently, seven seats are filled by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Germany, Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Indonesia.
The board has also formally incorporated the Tropical Forest Investment Fund (TFIF) – the TFFF’s investment arm that will trade bonds in financial markets – hosted in Luxembourg.
The post Brazil confident new rainforest fund will reach $10bn donor milestone appeared first on Climate Home News.
Brazil confident new rainforest fund will reach $10bn donor milestone
Patrick Schröder is a senior research fellow at Chatham House’s Environment and Society Centre.
A climate summit serious about implementation cannot afford to leave major emissions reductions off the table. Yet, that is the risk COP31 faces unless it makes reducing raw material use central to the way countries decarbonise their economies.
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last week, COP31 host Türkiye laid out proposals to accelerate emissions cuts in the next decade. Its plans include global goals to increase the share of recycled products in material use to at least 15% (up from 6.9% in 2025) and halve waste generation by 2035.
COP31 offers an opportunity to connect efforts to improve material circularity with stronger national climate commitments and mitigation pathways. But these targets could be a lot more ambitious.
The case for circularity
The Paris Agreement cannot be delivered through cleaner electricity alone. We must also reduce the emissions that are embedded in the way we extract resources, manufacture products, build infrastructure and dispose of waste.
Circularity principles are pivotal to credible mitigation pathways: designing technologies and products to last, repairing and reusing them, and reducing demand for virgin resources.
The scale of the opportunity is striking. A recent European Environment Agency review found that adopting such principles could deliver average global emissions reductions potential of 52% in the waste sector against a business-as-usual scenario, 48% in construction and buildings, 28% in transport and mobility, 26% in industry and 24% in agriculture.
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These figures make a compelling case for raising circularity ambitions across the economy, offering the promise of far more than better recycling bins.
In fact, recycling minerals used in cleantech equipment, for example, illustrate the extent of the emissions savings available. The carbon footprint of minerals and metals recovered from secondary sources is up to 80% lower than those produced from new mining and processing, according to the International Energy Agency.
A major EU-funded project estimates that recovered materials could substitute up to 56% of Europe’s primary critical raw material requirements by 2050, provided they achieve the necessary quality. The main takeaway goes beyond Europe: yesterday’s products can become tomorrow’s strategic resources while mitigating climate change.
In this light, a target to increase the share of recovered material use to 15% isn’t enough.
The evidence-based Circularity Gap Report found a 17% target by 2032 is possible and could unlock additional emissions reductions amounting to several gigatonnes of CO2.
Reducing material demand
A higher circularity metric is only part of the answer, however. An economy can increase its recycling rate at the same time as extracting more primary materials if total material demand keeps growing.
The tougher issue governments need to address is identifying what reductions in primary material use are needed.
The Circularity Gap Report uses an indicative benchmark of eight tonnes of virgin materials consumed per person annually. This is already being translated into policy: Germany’s 2024 circular economy strategy aims to reduce primary resource consumption, with the German Federal Environment Agency identifying six to eight tonnes per person as an ambitious target.
Reducing primary material demand will require a closer integration of energy and resource policies. Efficient EVs charged with solar power can complement better public transport and walkable cities, while batteries designed to be repaired and reused for stationary energy storage before being recycled will reduce the materials footprint of transport and clean energy services.
Coordinated infrastructure development and urban planning can prevent unnecessary overbuild, while renovating existing building stock reduces demand for new steel, cement and aluminium, which are emissions-intensive to produce. Connecting industrial waste heat to district heating networks can further reduce energy demand and emissions.
What governments should agree at COP31
COP31 can translate this approach into three concrete commitments.
First, governments should agree a stronger circularity ambition, supported by material-footprint indicators and milestones. The presidency should seek recognition of these priorities in negotiated outcomes, alongside concrete delivery partnerships under its COP31 Action Agenda.
Second, countries should include quantified circular economy measures in their updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and implementation plans. Such measures should include reuse, material efficiency and circularity targets, as well as transparent estimates of emissions savings that avoid double counting across sectors. By the end of 2025, countries had developed 101 national circular economy roadmaps and action plans, yet these often remained disconnected from their NDCs.
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Third, climate finance should support the delivery of circular solutions such as material recovery at scale, investments into circular critical mineral value chains beyond mining, developing a circular plastics economy, and designing buildings and cities that support material reuse. Developing countries need technology, affordable finance and support to deliver these ambitions, including for the informal workers whose livelihoods depend on recovering and recycling materials.
The test for COP31 is to reach an agreement that can start the transformation of our production and consumption systems and how they are financed.
A headline circularity target will achieve little without policies that address absolute resource demand and deliver measurable emissions cuts. But COP31 offers an opportunity to make circularity a central element of climate policy, with targets strong enough to matter and institutions equipped to deliver them.
The post COP31 must aim higher to cut emissions from the use of materials appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP31 must aim higher to cut emissions from the use of materials
An exceptional El Niño is building. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says it has intensified to very strong levels and is likely to last at least through February 2027. If its current trajectory holds, it could become stronger than anything seen since WMO monitoring began four decades ago.
That is bad news for agriculture. El Niño – a naturally occurring weather phenomenon – can scramble rainfall patterns across the world, bringing drought to some regions and floods to others. And this time it is unfolding against the backdrop of a significantly hotter climate, with farmers already contending with unreliable growing seasons, extreme heat and less predictable rainfall because of global warming.
El Niño expected to bring next record-hot year as soon as 2027
We are seeing the consequences already. In Sri Lanka, drought linked to El Niño has dried wells and reservoirs and cut into crops and farmer incomes. Indonesia is experiencing its worst wildfire season in 11 years, with prolonged drought and extreme heat exacerbated by El Niño. And in Peru, authorities are preparing for the opposite extreme: intense rains, flooding and landslides which the national civil-defence agency says could affect around 1.2 million people.
These impacts will multiply as El Niño intensifies.
And yet, just as the risks to food production are rising, the money available to help farmers withstand them is shrinking.
10% funding decline in 2024
A forthcoming analysis from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows that climate-related development finance for agrifood systems is moving in the wrong direction. In 2024, the latest year for which data is available, it fell by 10 percent compared with a 2 percent overall decline. The sectors that put food on our tables — crops, livestock, forestry and fisheries — received just 5 percent.
Yet this is precisely the moment when climate investment in agriculture needs to grow, not shrink. It can help communities adapt, build resilience and protect food security, while unlocking larger flows of public and private finance. Agriculture feeds us, supports the livelihoods of well over a billion people, and is often the first sector hit by drought, floods and extreme heat. Cutting that investment now is a false economy.
One failed harvest can plant the seed for the next crisis, forcing farmers to eat the seed they have saved for planting, sell livestock or tools, or take on debt. It can also deepen food insecurity, disrupt supply chains and drive up prices, showing up months later in supermarket aisles far away.
The Central American Dry Corridor, stretching through much of the region, shows both how exposed farmers are, and what investment can do. Based on an analysis of 41 years of satellite observations, FAO finds that some crop and pasture areas there face more than a 50 percent chance of agricultural drought over the coming months.
About half of Central America’s 1.9 million producers of maize, beans and other basic grains live in the Dry Corridor. Many grow food both for sale and for their own families. When a harvest fails, they lose both income and dinner.
El Salvador project conserves water and soil
In El Salvador, which lies within the Dry Corridor, more than 50,000 farmers have adopted practices to better withstand drought and increasingly unreliable rainfall through RECLIMA, a project financed by the Green Climate Fund and implemented by FAO in partnership with the government of El Salvador. It has substantial national co-financing, including from the country’s Environmental Investment Fund.
El Niño can intensify El Salvador’s annual mid-season dry spell, known as the canícula, turning it into a longer, harsher drought just as maize needs water most.
For María Cristina Corvera de López, a second-generation farmer in rural Nahualapa, adapting means changing how every drop of rain is captured and used. She plants trees alongside her crops to provide shade and minimise evaporation and uses simple irrigation channels and a homemade drip system to conserve water. Instead of burning stalks, leaves and husks after harvest, as generations before her did, she turns them into mulch to hold moisture in the soil.
“The effects of climate change are a constant challenge,” she says. But the new techniques have made her farm more resilient to El Niño as well. Where she once harvested about 50 bags of maize per acre, she now gets around 80, even during droughts. It’s enough to feed her family and sell the surplus.
Managing risk now cuts future costs
Together, these adaptations can mean the difference between losing a crop and getting through a dry season with enough food, seed and income to plant again. They are also the result of climate finance invested before disaster strikes.
RECLIMA shows what that kind of adaptation investment can buy. Adaptation accounted for 45 percent of climate-related development finance to agrifood systems in 2024, and multilateral development banks are directing more agricultural finance towards resilience. That shift reflects a growing recognition that adaptation is a form of risk management, not just a development cost.
We need much more of it. The same investments that help farmers withstand El Niño also enable them to adapt to a hotter, more unpredictable future. Cutting investment in the people who produce our food just as climate risks intensify does not save money. It simply pushes a much larger bill into the next harvest, the next food crisis, and the next El Niño.
The post As El Niño intensifies, we should be investing more in the world’s farmers appeared first on Climate Home News.
As El Niño intensifies, we should be investing more in the world’s farmers
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