Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and cement have increased by 1.1% in 2023, hitting a new record high of 36.8bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2), according to the 2023 Global Carbon Budget report by the Global Carbon Project.
The new report finds that the increase in fossil emissions in 2023 has been largely driven by increased emissions in China – without which the global total would have remained approximately flat at 2022 levels.
Total global CO2 emissions – including land use and fossil CO2 – increased by approximately 0.5% in 2023, driven by a combination of a small drop in land-use emissions, but an increase in fossil CO2 emissions.
However, total CO2 emissions remain ever so slightly below the highs set in 2019 and have been relatively flat since 2015.
The 18th edition of the Global Carbon Budget, which is published today, also reveals:
- Global land-use emissions have likely been falling over the past two decades, driven by decreasing rates of deforestation in Brazil and other countries. However, land-use emissions remain highly uncertain and trends should be interpreted with caution.
- Most of the increase in fossil emissions was from coal and oil. Global coal emissions reached a new record high, though oil emissions still remain below pre-pandemic levels. Gas emissions and those from cement and other sources remained relatively unchanged.
- China’s fossil CO2 emissions are estimated to be up 4% this year, while India’s are up 8.2%. US and European Union emissions are expected to fall by 3% and 7.5%, respectively.
- Emissions from international aviation and shipping have grown by an estimated 11.9% in 2023, reflecting a 28% increase in aviation emissions (as the sector continues to recover from pandemic lows) and a 1% increase in shipping emissions.
- Global CO2 concentrations in 2023 set a new record of 419.3 parts per million (ppm), up 2.4ppm from 2022 levels. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are now 51% above pre-industrial levels.
Global CO2 emissions virtually tie 2019 record
While CO2 emissions from fossil fuels have exceeded pre-pandemic levels over the past two years, total CO2 global emissions – which includes those from land-use change – have remained marginally below 2019’s record of 40.9GtCO2.
In 2023, the global total effectively tied the 2019 record. The central estimate provided by the Global Carbon Budget is 0.1% lower than the prior record, though the large uncertainties – particularly for land-use change emissions – reduces confidence in the relative ranking of the two.
Each year the Global Carbon Budget is estimated to include the latest data as well as improvements to modelling sources and sinks, resulting in some year-to-year revisions to the historical record.
The figure below shows the 2023 (dark blue solid line), 2022 (yellow dotted), 2021 (bright blue dotted) and 2020 (red dotted) global CO2 emissions estimates, along with the uncertainty (shaded area) of the new 2023 budget.
The 2023 figures are quite similar to the 2022 numbers over the past decade, though it shows somewhat higher emissions during the 1980s and 1990s.
Annual total global CO2 emissions – from fossil and land-use change – between 1959 and 2023 for the 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 versions of the Global Carbon Project’s Global Carbon Budget, in billions of tonnes of CO2 per year (GtCO2). Shaded area shows the estimated one-sigma uncertainty for the 2023 budget. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Growth in total CO2 emissions has substantially slowed down over the past decade (2013-22), with an average growth of 0.14% per year. This is much lower than the 2.1% per year average growth rate over the previous decade (2003-12) and the longer-term average growth rate of 1.7% between 1959 and 2012.
The continued growth in fossil-fuel emissions has been largely counterbalanced by a slight decline in land-use emissions. However, the uncertainties surrounding land-use emissions remain quite large. As more data is collected there may be upward or downward revisions in the record over the past decade – as seen in both 2021 and 2022 versions of the Global Carbon Budget.
The figure below breaks down global emissions (black line) in the 2023 budget into fossil and (grey) land-use (yellow) components. Fossil CO2 emissions represent the bulk of total global emissions in recent years, accounting for approximately 90% of emissions in 2023 (compared to 10% for land-use). This represents a large change from the first half of the 20th century, when land-use emissions were approximately the same as fossil emissions.
Global fossil emissions include CO2 emitted from burning coal, oil and gas, as well as the production of cement. However, the Global Carbon Budget also subtracts the cement carbonation sink – CO2 slowly absorbed by cement once it is exposed to the air – from fossil emissions in each year to determine total fossil emissions.
Global CO2 emissions separated out into from fossil and land-use change components between 1959 and 2023 from the 2023 Global Carbon Budget. Note that fossil CO2 emissions are inclusive of the cement carbonation sink. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Recent analyses by both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and Climate Analytics have suggested that global fossil emissions may peak in 2023, as the growth of clean energy accelerates and fossil fuel use declines.
However, hopes for an imminent peak in global emissions should be tempered by past failed predictions. Back in 2016, there were suggestions that global emissions had peaked and would decline. Similarly, a number of researchers (including one of the authors of this article) estimated that fossil emissions would peak in 2019 in the wake of Covid-19 disruptions. In reality, fossil emissions set new records in both 2022 and 2023.
It is also important to emphasise that stopping the growth of CO2 emissions does not stop CO2 from accumulating in the atmosphere or stop the world continuing to warm. For warming to stop, global CO2 emissions need to not only peak, but rapidly fall to net-zero.
Land-use emissions
The Global Carbon Budget estimates that land-use emissions will be 4.1GtCO2 in 2023, down around 5% from 2022 and continuing a small downward trend over the past two decades. However, despite declines in land-use emissions from deforestation, they remain substantially higher than CO2 removals from intentional reforestation and afforestation projects.
The Global Carbon Project now provides a database of land-use emissions by country, though it does not provide country-level emissions through to 2023 yet. The figure below highlights the four countries with the largest land-use emissions in 2022 – Brazil (grey shading), Indonesia (red), the Democratic Republic of Congo (bright blue) and China (yellow) – as well as land-use emissions in the rest of the world (purple).
Annual CO2 emissions from land-use change by major emitting countries and the rest of world from 1959-2022. Note that country-level land-use change emissions are not yet available for 2023. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
The decline in global land-use emissions over the past two decades was driven in part by decreasing rates of deforestation in countries such as Brazil, as well as slightly increasing removals of CO2 from reforestation and afforestation projects.
However, these estimates are subject to large uncertainties – as recently as 2020 researchers thought land-use emissions had been increasing – and the Global Carbon Budget authors suggest that long-term trends should be interpreted with caution.
This year’s budget provides a first estimate of how land-use emissions break down into different categories. They find that permanent deforestation is responsible for emissions of around 4.2GtCO2 per year, with around 1.9GtCO2 removed per year by reforestation and afforestation.
(In addition, there is currently a tiny 0.00001GtCO2 removed by permanent carbon removal technologies, such as direct air capture and enhanced rock weathering.)
Deforestation due to shifting cultivation cycles (where deforestation is temporary before land is abandoned to return to forest cover) is responsible for emissions of around 2.9GtCO2 per year, while regrowth in previously cultivated areas removes around 2.8GtCO2 per year. This results in only a small net source of emissions (~0.1GtCO2 per year).
The harvesting of trees for wood (as well as other forest management) leads to net emissions of around 0.8GtCO2 per year, as deforestation for timber production is higher than regrowth rates globally – though this will vary substantially by country and region.
Finally, other emissions from land management, such as peat drainage and burning as well as other land transitions, are responsible for around 1.4GtCO2 per year.
Emissions from wildfires are also presented in the new report, which notes that it is not an additional CO2 source – rather, forest fires are part of the net land carbon sink (or included as land-use emissions if triggered by humans for deforestation purposes).
Chinese emissions drive rising global fossil CO2
Global emissions of fossil CO2 – including coal, oil, gas and cement – increased by around 1.1% in 2023, relative to 2022, with an uncertainty range of 0.0% to 2.1%. This represents a new record high and is 1.4% above the 2019 pre-Covid levels.
The figure below shows global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, divided into emissions from China (red shading), India (yellow), the US (bright blue), EU (dark blue) and the remainder of the world (grey).
Annual fossil CO2 emissions by major countries and the rest of the world from 1959-2023, excluding the cement carbonation sink as national-level values are not available. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
China represents 31% of global CO2 emissions. Their emissions in 2023 are projected to increase by 4% (with an uncertainty range of 1.9% to 6.1%), driven by a rise in emissions from coal (+3.3%), oil (+9.9%) and natural gas (+6.5%). The strong growth in Chinese emissions in 2023 is partly due to a delayed rebound from Covid-19 lockdowns.
India represents 8% of global emissions. In 2023, Indian emissions are projected to increase by 8.2% (ranging from 6.7% to 9.7%), with a 9.5% increase in emissions from coal, a 5.3% increase in emissions from oil, a 5.6% increase in emissions from natural gas and a 8.8% increase in emissions from cement.
The large growth in coal in India is being driven by rapid increases in electricity demand. While India is installing large amounts of renewable energy, it is still far from sufficient to meet the growth in demand. Emissions from India now exceed those from the European Union, though they remain much smaller on a per-capita basis.
The US represents 14% of global emissions (though is responsible for a much larger portion of historical emissions and associated atmospheric accumulation of CO2). US emissions are projected to decrease by 3% in 2023 (ranging from -5.0% to -1.0%). This is being driven by a large decrease in coal emissions, which are expected to fall by more than 18% compared with 2022 levels. Oil emissions are expected to decline by a slight 0.3%, reflecting the rise of electric vehicles, while emissions from gas are expected to increase by 1.4%.
The European Union represents 7% of global emissions. EU emissions are expected to decrease by a sizable 7.4% in 2023, driven by a 18.8% decline in coal emissions, a 1.5% decline in oil emissions and a 6.6% decline in natural gas emissions (driven in part by higher prices and the phaseout of Russian gas).
A combination of rapidly increasing renewable capacity, electric vehicle adoption, lower energy demand and generally high fossil energy prices are driving fairly rapid emissions reductions.
The rest of the world represents 40% of global emissions, of which 2.8% is international aviation and shipping. Emissions in the rest of the world are expected to grow by 0.4% in 2023 – though this is entirely due to growth in international aviation and shipping, which are expected to grow by 11.9% (reflecting a 28% increase in aviation emissions and a 1% increase in shipping emissions). The large increase in aviation emissions reflects the ongoing recovery from pandemic-era declines.
Excluding international aviation and shipping, emissions in the rest of the world are expected to fall by 0.4%.
The total emissions for each year between 2019 and 2023, as well as the countries and regions that were responsible for the changes in absolute emissions, are shown in the figure below. Annual emissions for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and estimates for 2023 are shown by the black bars. The coloured bars show the change in emissions between each set of years, broken down by country or region – the US (bright blue), European Union (dark blue), China (red), India (yellow) and the rest of the world (grey). Negative values show reductions in emissions, while positive values reflect emission increases.
Annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels (black bars) and drivers of changes between years by country (coloured bars), excluding the cement carbonation sink as national-level values are not available. Negative values indicate reductions in emissions. Note that the y-axis does not start at zero. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
In the absence of an increase in Chinese emissions, global CO2 emissions would have remained flat between 2022 and 2023, with declines in the US, the EU and the rest of the world counterbalancing increases in India and in shipping and aviation.
The large (0.5GtCO2) increase in Chinese emissions relative to 2022 resulted in an overall year-over-year increase in global fossil CO2.
However, there is reason to think that the large increase in Chinese emissions in 2023 will not persist, given that it in part reflected economic recovery after extended Covid lockdowns. As a recent Carbon Brief guest post argued, the combination of slowing economic growth and rapidly expanding clean energy deployments suggests that Chinese emissions might fall in 2024, though it is too early to know with confidence.
The Global Carbon Project also notes that emissions have declined over the past decade (2013-22) in 26 nations despite continued domestic economic growth, representing a long-term decoupling of CO2 emissions and the economy.
These countries include Belgium, Brazil, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, US and Zimbabwe. Collectively they represent 28% of global emissions.
Coal emissions reach record highs
Global fossil fuel emissions primarily result from the combustion of coal, oil and natural gas. Coal is responsible for more emissions than any other fossil fuel, representing approximately 41% of global fossil CO2 emissions in 2023. Oil is the second largest contributor at 32% of fossil CO2, while gas rounds out the pack at 21%.
These percentages reflect both the amount of each fossil fuel consumed globally, but also differences in CO2 intensities. Coal results in the most CO2 emitted per unit of heat or energy produced, followed by oil and natural gas.
The figure below shows global CO2 emissions from different fuels over time, covering coal (grey shading), oil (red) and gas (blue), as well as cement production (yellow) and other sources (purple). While coal emissions increased rapidly in the mid-2000s, it has largely plateaued since 2013. However, coal use increased significantly in 2021 and modestly in 2022 and 2023.
Annual CO2 emissions by fossil fuel from 1959-2023, excluding the cement carbonation sink. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Global emissions from coal increased by 1.1% in 2023 compared to 2023, while oil emissions increased 1.5% and gas emissions increased by 0.47%. Emissions from cement and other sources increased by 0.64%.
Despite setting a new record this year, global coal use is only 4% above 2011 levels – a full 12 years ago. By contrast, during the 2000s, global coal use grew at a rate of around 4% every single year.
The total emissions for each year between 2019 and 2023 (black bars), as well as the absolute change in emissions for each fuel between years, are shown in the figure below.
Annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels (black bars) and drivers of changes between years by fuel (coloured bars), excluding the cement carbonation sink. Negative values indicate reductions in emissions. Note that the y-axis does not start at zero. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Even though they have been increasing over the past three years, global CO2 emissions from oil remain below pre-pandemic highs of 2019.
Similarly, emissions from natural gas decreased notably in 2022 and were flat in 2023, reflecting the effect of higher prices due to geopolitical instability associated with the conflict in Ukraine.
The global carbon budget
Every year, the Global Carbon Project provides an estimate of the overall “global carbon budget”. This is based on estimates of the release of CO2 through human activity and its uptake by the oceans and land, with the remainder adding to atmospheric concentrations of the gas.
(This differs from the commonly used term “carbon budget”, referring to the amount of CO2 that can be released while keeping warming below global limits of 1.5 or 2C.)
The most recent budget, including estimated values for 2023, is shown in the figure below. Values above zero represent sources of CO2 – from fossil fuels and industry (grey shading) and land use (yellow) – while values below zero represent “carbon sinks” that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Any CO2 emissions that are not absorbed by the oceans (dark blue) or land vegetation (green) accumulate in the atmosphere (blue).
Annual global carbon budget of sources and sinks from 1959-2023. Fossil CO2 emissions include the cement carbonation sink. Note that the budget does not fully balance every year due to remaining uncertainties, particularly in sinks. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
The ocean takes up around 26% of total human emissions, or around 10.4GtCO2 per year. The ocean CO2 sink has been relatively flat from 2019 to 2022 due to persistent La Niña conditions (which tend to result in lower ocean CO2 uptake), but increased in 2023 in response to the emerging El Niño event.
The land sink takes up around 31% of global emissions, or 12.3GtCO2 per year on average. However, the land sink is expected to be notably lower in 2023 – only 10.4GtCO2 – due to the effect of El Niño on global vegetation.
Global CO2 emissions from fires were above average this year – at 7-8GtCO2 over the first 10 months of the year – largely due to the extreme wildfire season in Canada.
While fire emissions are presented alongside the global carbon budget for the first time in the 2023 report, a direct comparison cannot be made between fire emissions and other carbon budget components as they already show up in both parts of the land sink and land use emissions.
Overall, the impact of the ongoing emissions from human activity is that atmospheric CO2 continues to increase.
The growth rate of atmospheric CO2 in 2023 is expected to be around 2.4ppm, which matches the average rate over the past decade (2013-22). The emerging El Niño event is expected to contribute to a somewhat higher growth of atmospheric CO2 in 2024.
Atmosphere accumulation hits new heights
More than 40% of human emissions since the industrial revolution have accumulated in the atmosphere, with the remainder absorbed by land and ocean sinks.
The upper chart in the figure below shows the cumulative human emissions (dark blue line) and atmospheric CO2 accumulation (red) since 1750. The lower chart shows the percentage of cumulative emissions remaining in the atmosphere.
Cumulative CO2 emissions from fossil fuels (with the carbonation sink removed) and land use as well as atmospheric CO2 accumulation between 1750 and 2023 (top). Percentage of cumulative CO2 emissions remaining in the atmosphere over time (bottom). Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
The fact that global emissions substantially exceed atmospheric accumulation is a clear sign that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to human emissions, and that other natural systems including the ocean and biosphere are net sinks rather than sources.
This is reinforced by direct measurements showing that both are absorbing more carbon from the atmosphere over time.
The fact that less than half of human-caused emissions remain in the atmosphere over time is, ultimately, a good thing; it means that the world has experienced much less severe climate change than if all emissions remained in the atmosphere.
However, as the world continues to warm, the oceans and potentially the land will become less able to absorb a portion of our emissions. This means that the portion of human emissions remaining in the atmosphere is expected to increase in future.
The post Analysis: Growth of Chinese fossil CO2 emissions drives new global record in 2023 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Growth of Chinese fossil CO2 emissions drives new global record in 2023
The United Nations Secretary-General and foreign ministers from the UK, France and Spain have blamed the deadly wildfires engulfing Europe on climate change, using the disaster to renew calls for faster cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.
António Guterres told journalists on Friday that the “climate crisis is in overdrive”, adding that global heat seen so far is just a “warm up act” as a phenomenon known as El Niño intensifies “adding fuel to a planet already on fire”.
A new World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) report published on Friday predicts that the weather pattern will grow into a “strong event” between now and October, increasing the risk of higher than normal temperatures across much of the world and disrupted rainfalls.
“That risks shattering every seasonal record – and driving even more severe effects worldwide,” Guterres said.
El Niño builds on top of an already warming world, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. A WMO scientist, who did not want to be named, told journalists that all the heatwaves and other climate impacts seen so far this year are “before the effects of El Niño are really kicking in at a global scale”.
Fossil fuellling the fires
Fires have broken out across much of Europe but are threatening the most people in the south-west of France near Bordeaux and in Central Spain near Madrid. Nearly a quarter of a million people have been evacuated in France with hundreds of homes destroyed while in Spain 80,000 people have had to leave their homes and at least 13 died in one village.
A scientific study published on Friday by the World Weather Attribution group found that man-made climate change made deadly fires in France twice as likely and those in Spain twenty times more likely. Smaller fires in the UK were not analysed by the study.
UN Climate Change leader Simon Stiell blamed fossil fuels for the fires, as well as storms in Chile and heatwaves in North America and Japan in recent weeks. “The climate alarm is blaring”, he said on Wednesday.
Guterres criticised new fossil fuel production projects and fossil fuel subsidies for causing hardship across the world. Discussing his speech, a senior UN official – who did not want to be named – said the subsidies amounted to trillions of US dollars a year and criticised pension funds and institutional investors, including insurance companies, for continuing to invest in fossil fuel projects.
Asked why world leaders and the public are not prioritising climate action, Guterres said they are distracted by wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan and elsewhere and sometimes forget “other aspects that are a sometimes even more dangerous threat”.
Also the fossil fuel industry and “some countries” are campaigning to pretend that climate change does not exist, he said, adding that the UN should be more active in “naming the situations as they are and the responsibilties as they are and mobilising the public opinion”.
After meetings in Paris and Madrid earlier in the week, the UK’s new foreign minister Ed Miliband issued joint statements with his French and Spanish counterparts – Jean-Noël Barrot and José Manuel Albares Bueno – calling on the world to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.
They promised to do more to reduce emissions and protect their people and encouraged other governments to do the same.
The UK-French statement called on governments to publish UN climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which are aligned with the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit global average temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
According to Climate Action Tracker, only three countries – the UK, Nigeria and Norway – have submitted NDCs with 2035 emissions reduction targets which are compatible with 1.5C. Fifty-two countries – including Egypt, Vietnam and Argentina – have yet to submit an NDC at all.
Defending science
Beyond action on emissions, the ministers also intervened in an ongoing dispute over the timing of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC)’s next flagship assessment.
Miliband and Barrot’s statement said they “underline the importance” of scientific report feeding into governments’ next global stocktake of progress on climate action in two years’ time, calling it a “critical input” to that process.
The timing of this report has been a contentious issue in government negotiations at the IPCC and at June’s climate talks in Bonn. While a group of nations calling themselves the “friends of science” want the report before the stocktake, others like Saudi Arabia and India have argued that this would make the report of a worse quality and less inclusive of developing countries’ scientists.
Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks
The UK-Spanish statement weighed in less explicitly on this issue but said that they “recall the importance of scientific evidence and acknowledge the work of the IPCC in this respect.”
The British and French ministers said they would seek to accelerate reductions of emissions in methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, at COP31 in November. They encouraged governments “to work jointly to develop a marketplace for fossil fuels with near-zero methane intensity.”
Methane leaks from oil, gas and coal production are a major contributor to global warming. Over a 20-year period, methane traps around 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide.
The UK and Spanish statement emphasised the importance of supporting the Global South and underlined the need to mobilise sustainable financing “at scale with the challenge we face”. The previous UK government, in which Miliband was energy minister, cut climate finance to developing countries to pay for increases in military spending.
The UK government led by new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has yet to outline any major changes to climate finance in its two weeks in power but has announced it will convert some finance from grants to loans in order to free up money to subsidise bus travel in England.
More adaptation needed
Guterres said that “it is time to stop treating each disaster as an isolated tragedy and recognise the systemic risk that is unfolding before our eyes.” A recent study found that three-quarters of UK media reports about the British June heatwave did not mention climate change.
As well as reducing emissions, the UN Secretary-General called for measures to adapt vulnerable people to extreme heat. Specifically, he said that buildings should be built and retrofitted for extreme heat and that every city and country should have heat-health action plans and early warning systems. Over 250 cities have joined the UN’s ‘beat the heat’ initiative, he said.
The Portuguese diplomat called for governments and employers to do more to protect their workers from heat, criticising global fashion brands for not setting heat standards for the factories that supply them. “No one should have to risk their life to earn a living,” he said.
The post UN chief warns climate crisis “in overdrive” as El Niño threatens to fuel the fire appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN chief warns climate crisis “in overdrive” as El Niño threatens to fuel the fire
Climate Change
‘Ride the wave of momentum’: Australia announces once-in-a-decade Marine Parks Network review
In response to the federal government announcing its once-in-a-decade review of Australia’s Marine Parks Network, the following lines can be attributed to Elle Lawless, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“Greenpeace Australia Pacific welcomes today’s announcement that the Albanese Government will review Australia’s Commonwealth Marine Parks Network. This is a rare, once-in-a-decade opportunity to strengthen our marine parks and ban industrial fishing in Australia’s marine protected areas.
“Australians would be appalled to know that more than half of Australia’s Marine Parks Network currently allows for extractive industries, like longlining, bottom trawling and oil and gas mining. These so-called ‘protected’ areas were designed to safeguard our beloved ocean wildlife and underwater ecosystems – that is what Australians expect. Damaging industrial industries should not be given a free pass to trawl, fish, drill or extract from our marine parks.”
“With the first Ocean COP just around the corner, and off the back of Australia’s move to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty earlier this year, the Australian government has a unique opportunity to ride the wave of this momentum and solidify itself as a true global ocean leader.
“Greenpeace Australia Pacific is calling for industrial activities to be banned from our protected waters and for at least 30% of Australia’s ocean to be protected as ocean sanctuaries. This review presents a rare opportunity to create more ocean sanctuaries, true blue havens where ocean life can recover, thrive and repopulate the surrounding waters.”
—ENDS—
‘Ride the wave of momentum’: Australia announces once-in-a-decade Marine Parks Network review
In recent days, prominent climate sceptics and rightwing commentators have shared charts on social media incorrectly implying that Europe is having its “quietest” year for wildfires in 2026.
These include Dr Matthew Wielicki, a former University of Alabama geochemist and self-described “professor in exile”, who was recently appointed by the Trump administration to lead the US Global Change Research Program.
However, these charts paint a misleading picture as they are skewed by encompassing the entirety of Russia in the data – including the vast plains of Siberia.
These charts also use data that include fires that are deliberately lit to manage cropland, which is a declining practice across much of Europe.
In this factcheck, Carbon Brief shows that the area burned by wildfires across the European Union in 2026 is second only to 2022 for this time of year.
The latest data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) also shows that France has set a new modern record for area burned and Spain’s wildfire season is among the worst on record.
The fires have displaced more than a third of a million people across south-western Europe, while an impending heatwave has also raised fears of the fires worsening in the coming days.
‘Quietest year’
On 27 July, as wildfires raged across multiple European countries, former Conservative peer and climate-sceptic commentator Matt Ridley posted on Twitter that “2026 is the quietest year for wildfires in Europe by some distance”.
Ridley, who sits on the academic advisory council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a UK-based climate-sceptic lobby group that refuses to reveal the sources of its funding, was responding to an article by Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley.
Stanley’s column, headlined: “Climate change is real – and the right needs to get serious about it”, warned:
“This is no longer a matter of speculation: the wildfires of Europe, pitiless and persistent, are the way we live now.”
Ridley included a chart from Our World In Data, showing the cumulative area burned by wildfires by week for Europe. The chart puts 2026 as having the smallest area for this time of year in a dataset going back to 2012.
Ridley’s post was widely shared by prominent rightwing figures – including Richard Tice, deputy leader of the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform UK party, former Conservative cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and multiple commentators.
Separately, Wielicki also shared a chart on Twitter to imply that wildfires in Europe are declining. Wielicki has previously claimed that the “science is not settled on climate change”.
The charts posted by Ridley and Wielicki both use data from the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS). The GWIS category for “Europe” encompasses all the countries on the continent and includes the whole of Russia.
As a result, Russia accounts for about 74% of the area included in the GWIS definition of “Europe”.
Wildfires in Russia typically account for 80-90% of the burned area in the GWIS Europe dataset. In 2026, fires in Russia are substantially below average. Therefore, including Russia in this comparison creates the false impression that wildfire activity across Europe is unusually low.
Dr Calum Cunningham, a research fellow at the University of Tasmania’s Fire Centre, says that such claims are “highly misleading”, noting that “they rely on aggregating fire activity across an enormous and climatically diverse region”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“A relatively quiet season in Russia can easily mask an exceptionally active season in France or Spain. If the analysis is focused on the regions actually experiencing the current fires, the picture is very different.
“The reality is that western Europe has experienced an extraordinary sequence of climate conditions this year.”
In contrast, the EFFIS provides a subset of wildfire data specifically for the area covered by the 27 nations of the EU, which, therefore, excludes Russia.
Another difference between the two datasets is that GWIS monitors all fires – including those on agricultural land that are intentionally set alight. The burned area as measured by GWIS contains significant cropland area.
By contrast, EFFIS uses land-cover data and other information to filter specifically for forest fires.
Looking at the EU-only data from EFFIS reveals that Europe is far from having its “quietest” year. The bloc’s burned area, as of 29 July, is almost 435,000 hectares (ha) – second only to 2022 for this time of year.
Notably, Wielicki has actually continued to post charts based on GWIS data, even after acknowledging that “includ[ing] all of Russia, including vast areas of Siberia…isn’t a good proxy for Europe”.
French fires
Even looking at EU-wide data misses the scale of this year’s wildfires for some individual countries.
The chart below shows the surge in burned area in France since mid-July.
For much of the first half of the year, the country was having a wildfire season that was only slightly above average in terms of total burned area. However, a notable uptick began in the first week of July.
The third week of the month saw France break its previous cumulative annual record by more than 19,000ha. That gap has widened as the fires continue to burn; as of 29 July, the cumulative burned area in France during 2026 was nearly 24,700ha above the previous record.
The fires in France follow a record-breaking June heatwave that “dried out vegetation across the region, allowing fires to spread quickly”, wrote the New York Times.
On 27 July, French president Emmanuel Macron called a “crisis cabinet meeting” in order to address the fires “ravaging several areas of south-west France”, said France 24.
More than 220,000 people have been evacuated due to the Gironde fire, west of Bordeaux, in “what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation”, reported the Associated Press.
In the Conversation, Cunningham and two other University of Tasmania researchers write that evacuation orders “protec[t] human lives, but makes it more likely houses and other structures will burn if there’s no one to defend them”. They add:
“There is little doubt climate change has made France and Spain’s wildfires worse. They represent yet another reason to redouble our efforts to tackle climate change and stabilise our climate.”
Central Spain scorched
While Spain’s fire season has not broken records in the same way that France’s has, it is on track to be among the worst since EFFIS began reporting data in 2006.
The chart below shows the rapid increase in burned area in Spain since 8 July. The latest data from EFFIS reveal that, as of 29 July, Spain has almost matched its previous record at this point in the year. It is also nearly five times the average area burned for this time of year.
In Spain, the wildfires have been concentrated in the central part of the country, near Madrid.
BBC News reported that the fires outside the capital have burned “an area more than twice as large as the city itself”.
Nearly 90,000 people were forced from their homes in central Spain by the fires, said the Associated Press.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, called the fires a “painful expression” of climate change.
Meanwhile, the UK, French and Spanish governments have issued joint statements this week in response to the fires. The UK/Spain statement begins:
“This summer’s wildfires demonstrated that climate change was now a national security emergency facing Europe and threatening our way of life.”
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The post Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires
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