India’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions grew by 0.5% in the second half of 2025 and by just 0.7% in the year as a whole, the slowest rate in more than two decades.
This is a sharp slowdown from the growth of 4-11% in the preceding four years and marks the lowest rate of increase since 2001, excluding the impact of Covid in 2020.
This is the second in a new series of half-yearly analysis on India’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement, based on official data for fuel use, industrial production and power output.
Other key findings for 2025 as a whole include:
- Emissions in the power sector fell by 3.8% as record clean-energy growth combined with weak electricity demand.
- New clean-energy capacity in 2025 will add a record 90 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity output each year, double the previous record set in 2024.
- The largest reductions in coal power were in the states leading on wind and solar.
- Oil demand grew by 0.4% and gas fell by 4%, far behind recent growth rates.
- Steel production surged by 8% and cement by 10%.
- In total, CO2 emissions went up slightly year-on-year, as increases from steel and cement outweighed the falls in gas demand and coal power.
- Consumption of imported coal at power plants fell by 20%, while gas imports fell by 6% and net oil imports were flat year-on-year, reducing India’s vulnerability to the impacts of the Iran war.
The analysis shows that India’s power sector is poised for a potential inflection point, where clean-energy additions can meet or exceed the growth in electricity demand.
If clean energy matches expectations, allowing this inflection point to take place, then coal-fired power output and the associated CO2 emissions would see sustained falls.
In addition, oil demand is falling in the petrochemical industry and is expected to slow down in the steel and cement sectors.
Despite these trends, which could signal a lasting slowdown in emissions, India is planning major expansions in its capacity for coal power, petrochemicals and coal-based steel.
The country’s Paris Agreement targets for 2035, which were published yesterday, did not reflect the potential for slower emissions increases or continued clean-energy growth.
The path of India’s CO2 emissions over the coming years depends on how it resolves these apparent contradictions regarding its future demand for fossil fuels.
Slowest growth since 2001
India’s CO2 emissions have been growing rapidly for decades, with annual increases averaging 4.9% per year since 1990 and 4-11% during 2021-24.
However, the recent pace of growth has been slowing down, as shown in the figure below. The 0.7% rise in 2025 was the slowest since 2001, excluding the impact of Covid in 2020.
Beneath the overall rise of just 0.7% in 2025, there were divergent trends in India’s key emitting sectors, with some seeing rapid rises in CO2 and others in historic decline.
This is shown in the figure below, which compares year-on-year changes in emissions during the first and second half of 2025 with the average for 2021-23.
Specifically, emissions fell by 3.8% year-on-year in the power sector, after the first drop in coal-power generation – outside Covid – since 1973. Oil products were more or less flat.
The small increase in 2025 overall was the result of strong growth from steel and cement.
The fall in power-sector emissions is particularly notable, given it was the largest driver of emissions increases in 2021-2023, responsible for half of the total growth.
Across the sectors, the reductions and weak growth in fossil-fuel consumption eased India’s vulnerability to the recent price and supply disruptions taking place in the wake of the attacks on Iran by the US and Israel, as well as Iran’s subsequent retaliation.
Notably, India’s fossil-fuel imports were disproportionately affected by falling demand overall. For example, consumption of imported coal at power plants fell by 20% in 2025.
(Coal imports continued to fall in early 2026. However, the government is reported to be considering the use of an emergency clause that “would force coal power plants that run on imported coal to maximise output ahead of the summer season”, due to the impact of the Iran war on gas supplies.)
According to data from consultancy Kpler, gas imports fell 6% and net oil imports were flat, for the first time since the Covid-induced drop in 2020. The only rise in imports was of coal for steelmaking, which were up by 11% year-on-year in 2025.
Record clean-power growth
There were two key reasons why emissions fell in India’s power sector in 2025.
First, the country added 38 gigawatts (GW) of solar, 6.3GW of wind, 4.0GW of hydropower and 0.6GW of nuclear power in 2025.
The annual electricity generation from this new capacity, calculated based on the average capacity utilisation of each technology, amounts to 90 terawatt hours (TWh). This is twice as much as the clean generation added in 2024, which in itself was a record.
Power generation from solar grew by 30TWh and from wind by 20TWh in 2025, exceeding the 18TWh increase in total output. Hydropower also performed strongly due to high rainfall and capacity additions, with generation growing 21TWh.
Second, growth in total power demand slowed down from 7.4% in 2019-23 to 1% in 2025, which obviously played a major role in the fall in power-sector emissions.
The slow growth was due to both weather – with milder temperatures after 2024 heatwaves reducing the demand for air conditioning – and a more sustained slowdown in demand that had already started in late 2023 and was initially masked by the heatwaves. This slowdown in electricity demand is related to slower growth in industrial output and GDP.
Notably, the increase in clean-power generation from newly added capacity in 2025 was sufficient to cover demand growth of up to 5%. This means that power-sector emissions growth would have slowed down sharply, even if demand had not been flagging.
State-level analysis, shown in the figure below, emphasises the role of clean-energy growth in reducing fossil-powered generation.
The largest reductions in coal-fired power generation took place in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan, the three states that also led the buildout of new solar and wind power.
Power demand is expected to pick up again, with Indian credit-rating agency ICRA projecting growth of 5.0-5.5% in the financial year starting in April 2026.
However, expected clean-energy additions should cover this level of growth.
BloombergNEF projects a 6% year-on-year increase in installed solar capacity in 2026. The government expects wind power capacity to reach 63GW by March 2027, a 10GW increase compared with the end of 2025, indicating a further acceleration of capacity additions compared with the 6GW added in 2025.
Indian utilities are also targeting the completion of construction on 6.8GW of new hydropower capacity, excluding pumped storage, and 1GW of nuclear capacity in 2026.
These capacity additions would deliver additional annual generation of more than 100TWh, enough to cover demand growth of up to 5.8%.
This means that India’s power sector could reach an inflection point this year, where clean-energy growth matches the expected average rise in demand, as shown below.
Over the next five years, ICRA forecasts annual average demand growth of 6.0 to 6.5%.
Yet India is also targeting 500GW non-fossil power generation capacity by the financial year 2029-2030. If achieved, this target would increase non-fossil power generation by enough to cover electricity demand growth of 6.6%, without needing to increase fossil-fuel generation, based on the Central Electricity Authority’s projected power generation.
If the actual growth rate for power demand is lower than this and if the non-fossil capacity target is still reached, then fossil-power generation – and the associated CO2 emissions – would fall in absolute terms from 2025 to financial year 2029-2030.
Battery energy storage is also increasingly affordable and will reduce the need for thermal power capacity in the system.
Oil slows on falling industrial demand
For oil demand, which slowed from 3.9% growth in 2024 to 0.4% in 2025, the key drivers came in the petrochemical and cement industry, where demand fell.
Specifically, demand fell for naphtha, petcoke and other oil products. Naphtha is used as chemical industry feedstock, while petcoke is used mainly in cement production.
Part of the fall in demand was due to an increase in India’s imports of plastics and precursors, which rose by 7% in volume terms, while exports fell.
The increase in imports came almost entirely from China, where the petrochemical industry is expanding, leading to complaints in India of price dumping. Mirroring the shift of plastics production to China, India began exporting large volumes of naphtha to the country.
India’s imports of nitrogen fertilisers also increased sharply, with most of the increase coming from China and Russia, while domestic production fell by 6% in April-September. Fertiliser production is the second-most important use of naphtha.
Petcoke use in cement production fell slightly, by 1%, even as cement production surged, as producers shifted to using more domestic coal in response to rising petcoke prices.
In the transport sector, petrol and diesel growth moderated in 2025, as the slow rebound to the pre-Covid trend in demand had finally played out. In addition, mobility was reduced in 2025 due to heavy monsoon rains in June to August.
Meanwhile, compressed natural gas (CNG) and electric vehicles also cut into the markets for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, eating into petrol and diesel demand, respectively. EV sales grew 16% in 2025 and made up 8% of auto sales, helped by a reduction in the goods and services tax (GST) on EVs from 12% to 5%.
GST reform also reduced diesel consumption in a more surprising way, by eliminating the need for manual inspection of cargoes and cutting long wait-times at interstate border posts.
Diesel demand growth was also moderated by a government scheme to replace diesel irrigation pumps, which consume 5% of all diesel in the country, with solar-powered models.
Air pollution rules also played a role in some cities, including the capital Delhi. There, regulations on diesel vehicles resulted in a 13% reduction in sales from a year earlier, continuing the trend observed over the past two years.
Experts attribute lower sales of diesel vehicles to changes in consumer behaviour, following the long-standing ban on diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol models of more than 15 years in the wider Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), as well as a Supreme Court order in August 2025 that stressed the need for vehicles to comply with newer emissions rules.
Finally, aviation fuel demand growth slowed from 10% in 2024 to 3% in 2025, as the return to the pre-Covid trend in rising traffic leveled off.
The most immediate effect of the oil and gas crisis caused by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has been on the supply of liquified petroleum gas (LPG), which in India is used almost solely as cooking fuel.
Shortages have affected households, restaurants and industries. LPG consumption had grown by 6% year-on-year in 2025, in line with the longer-term trend, but is responsible for only 3% India’s CO2 emissions.
The crisis has reportedly also prompted a shift to cooking with electricity, with the sales of induction stoves reportedly surging.
Steel and cement continue to surge
The overall rise in India’s emissions in 2025 was driven by strong growth in output for steel and cement, which went up by 8% and 10%, respectively. The two sectors were responsible for 21% of India’s total CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes in 2025.
India’s steel sector is more polluting than elsewhere, with the CO2 per unit of production – its emissions intensity – being more than 20% higher than the global average.
Two-thirds of steel is used for construction. Strong steel demand in 2025 reflected growth in new housing construction in earlier years, as the market was rebounding from the mid-2010s crash and the Covid pandemic. However, new project launches and sales both declined in 2025.
Domestic steel output growth was attenuated in the first half of the year by increases in steel imports from China, Japan and South Korea. This resulted in the government enacting a temporary blanket tariff in April 2025 for 200 days to curb imports.
As a result, steel output growth accelerated from 6% in January to May to 10% in the rest of the year. In November 2025, when the earlier temporary tariff expired, the government imposed new tariffs on a more targeted list of countries.
It imposed a three-year step-down tariff – 12% in the first year, 11.5% in year two and 11% in year three – to curb imports from China, Vietnam and Nepal, as these countries were found to exceed the thresholds for imports for various steel products.
In spite of the tariffs, the industry is struggling with weak profitability. Output growth has “led to a situation of oversupply”, according to ICRA, resulting in falling profitability and capacity utilisation, particularly at smaller mills, which account for 41% of total steel production.
Delays in construction and infrastructure projects are also weighing down on India’s steel demand, leading to rising inventories and falling prices. This is likely to affect the demand for steel, cement and bitumen in 2026.
Meanwhile, government initiatives could encourage a shift in the type and emissions intensity of steel production. State-backed schemes – particularly programmes to build affordable urban and rural housing – are significant steel demand drivers.
The Ministry of Steel is working on mandates for “green steel” in public procurement as part of a broader Green Steel Mission aimed at decarbonising the sector.
The policy is expected to require government agencies and publicly funded projects to buy lower-emission steel, creating demand for greener production.
Power could be nearing an inflection point
The sharp slowdown in India’s overall CO2 emissions growth has now lasted 18 months, making it increasingly likely that it is not just a blip.
Electricity demand growth slowed down sharply in 2025, which could be taken to imply that the lower growth in CO2 last year was mainly down to fluctuations in power demand.
However, clean-energy growth in 2025 was large enough to have stabilised emissions in the power sector, even if demand growth had been at historical rates.
Now, power-sector emissions could be about to reach an inflection point, with clean-energy additions projected to overtake average rate of electricity demand growth in 2026, for the first time. This already happened in 2025 in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, the highly populated states leading solar and wind development.
If clean-energy growth rates continue and if demand growth stays at expected levels, then clean energy will cover all of the growth in electricity demand. This would mean that electricity generation from fossil fuels would level off or decline.
Given that the power sector was the largest driver of emissions increases in 2021-2023, peaking coal-fired power generation and emissions from the sector would have a major impact on India’s overall fossil-fuel consumption and emissions.
The other significant emitting sector where emissions have been falling in India is the petrochemical industry.
In contrast, the steel industry has continued to increase output, even though it is struggling with profitability and concerns about overcapacity, while demand for steel and cement is expected to cool down this year due to lower growth in construction volumes.
Despite these trends, the country is planning for a major expansion of all of these industries. The government plans to add 85GW of new coal-fired power capacity over the next seven years. The country is also targeting $1tn of investment in the petrochemical industry by 2040, a 50% increase in steel production capacity from 2025 to 2031 and a 25% increase in cement production capacity in the three years from 2026 to 2028.
The planned investment in steelmaking is overwhelmingly coal-based capacity. This will increase the sector’s reliance on metallurgical coal, which is almost entirely imported, as well as running against government ambitions to increase lower-carbon steelmaking.
India’s Cabinet approved new 2035 climate pledges for the country yesterday. The targets are a reduction in carbon intensity – the emissions per unit of GDP – of 47% from 2005 level by 2035 and a non-fossil energy share of 60% in power generation capacity.
The 60% target would already be achieved by 2030, under the Central Electricity Authority’s recent projections. The carbon-intensity target would allow the country’s CO2 emissions growth to accelerate in the next 10 years, compared with the preceding decade, even as the recent clean-energy growth suggests that a substantial slowdown is possible.
If GDP growth averages 7.8%, the rate needed to meet India’s 2047 economic goals, then CO2 emissions could increase at 6% per year from 2025 to 2035 while still meeting the carbon-intensity target, compared with less than 4% growth from 2015 to 2025.
India’s energy and emissions trajectory over the next 5-10 years will depend heavily on how these apparent contradictions are resolved. This is particularly true in the power sector, where clean energy and storage are already set to cover future growth.
About the data
This analysis is based on official monthly data for fuel consumption, industrial production and power generation from different ministries and government institutes.
Coal consumption in thermal power plants is taken from the monthly reports downloaded from the National Power Portal of the Ministry of Power. The data is compiled for the period January 2019 until June 2025. Power generation and capacity by technology and fuel on a monthly basis are sourced from the NITI data portal.
Coal use at steel and cement plants, as well as process emissions from cement production, are estimated using production indices from the index of eight core industries released monthly by the Office of Economic Adviser, assuming that changes in total fossil fuel use follow production volumes.
These production indices were used to scale fuel use by the sectors in 2022. To form a basis for using the indices, monthly coal consumption data for 2022 was constructed for the sectors using the annual total coal and petcoke consumption reported in IEA World Energy Balances and monthly production data in a paper by Robbie Andrew, on monthly CO2 emission accounting for India. Monthly petcoke consumption was available from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell, and coal consumption by the cement industry was calculated by subtracting petcoke use from total fossil fuel use.
Annual cement process emissions up to 2024 were also taken from Robbie Andrew’s work and scaled using the production indices. This approach better approximated changes in energy use and emissions reported in the IEA World Energy Balances, than did the amounts of coal reported to have been dispatched to the sectors, showing that production volumes are the dominant driver of short-term changes in emissions.
For other sectors, including aluminium, auto, chemical and petrochemical, paper and plywood, pharmaceutical, graphite electrode, sugar, textile, mining, traders and others, coal consumption is estimated based on data on despatch of domestic and imported coal to end users from statistical reports and monthly reports by the Ministry of Coal, as consumption data is not available.
Coal consumption by “captive” coal power plants – those supplying power to industrial sites, not to the public electricity network – was calculated based on capacity changes from Global Energy Monitor, assuming constant utilisation, as utilisation has been very stable year-to-year, as calculated from Central Electricity Authority data.
The difference between coal consumption and dispatch is stock changes, which are estimated by assuming that the changes in the amount of coal stored at end user facilities mirror those at coal mines, with end user inventories excluding power, steel and cement assumed to be 70% of those at coal mines, based on comparisons between our data and the IEA World Energy Balances.
Stock changes at mines are estimated as the difference between production at and dispatch from coal mines, as reported by the Ministry of Coal.
Coal consumption is estimated in two ways, for sectors beyond power, steel and cement. Consumption of domestic coal in these other sectors is taken from the monthly reports by the Ministry of Coal. Their consumption of imported coal is estimated from the total imports of thermal coal reported by consultancy Kpler, by subtracting demand for imports at coal-power plants. The basis for this assumption is that steel and cement industries use little imported thermal coal, according to Ministry of Coal data.
Product-by-product consumption data for petroleum products, as well as gas use by sector, is from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
As the fuel dispatch and consumption data is reported as physical volumes – such as tonnes or litres – calorific values are taken from IEA’s World Energy Balance and CO2 emission factors from 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.
Calorific values are assigned separately to different fuel types, including domestic and imported coal, anthracite and coke, as well as to petrol, diesel and several other oil products.
The post Analysis: India’s CO2 emissions in 2025 grew at slowest rate in two decades appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: India’s CO2 emissions in 2025 grew at slowest rate in two decades
Mohamed Adow is the founder and director of Power Shift Africa.
At London Climate Action Week, electrification moved from the margins of climate policy to the centre of the road to COP31. The launch of the Electrify Now campaign gave fresh momentum to a target floated at the Bonn climate talks: by 2035, electricity should provide 35% of the world’s final energy consumption, up from just over 20% today.
That makes electrification one of the defining tests for this year’s climate summit in Türkiye. If COP31 is to be more than another exercise in negotiating text, it must show how the world can replace fossil fuels in transport, heating, industry and everyday life with clean electricity.
For Africa, this agenda presents both an extraordinary opportunity and an immense challenge.
For decades, the continent has been viewed primarily through the lens of energy poverty. More than 600 million Africans still lack access to electricity. Yet that very deficit also means many African countries are not locked into ageing fossil-fuel infrastructure in the way industrialised economies are. They have the chance to build cleaner energy systems from the outset.
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Iran war fuel shocks threaten Africa’s clean cooking push, IEA says
Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz have hit supplies of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), seen as a cleaner cooking alternative to charcoal and wood -
COP31 leaders unveil global targets, with spotlight on electrification
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EU, UK lead push for electrification as “powerful weapon” against fossil fuels
A group of dozens of countries seeks to build momentum for a COP31 pledge to electrify 35% of global energy use by 2035 as an alternative to fossil fuels
The case for electrification is compelling. Transport, industry and heating account for much of the world’s fossil-fuel consumption. Replacing combustion engines with electric vehicles, diesel generators with renewable power and fossil-fuel heating with electric alternatives is one of the fastest ways to cut emissions while improving energy security. Electric technologies are also far more efficient, and renewable electricity is now the cheapest source of new power across much of the world.
Africa also possesses one of the greatest renewable energy endowments on Earth. The continent possesses some of the world’s best solar resources. Vast wind corridors stretch across North, East and Southern Africa. Geothermal energy is already powering much of Kenya’s electricity system. Hydropower resources remain significant in several regions.
But potential is not the same as progress.
The biggest obstacle is not a lack of sunshine or wind. It is a shortage of investment.
Financial barriers
African countries pay some of the highest borrowing costs in the world despite contributing the least to climate change. Projects that would be commercially viable elsewhere become prohibitively expensive because of high interest rates and perceptions of financial risk. Until the cost of capital falls, many countries will struggle to build the renewable power stations, transmission lines and battery storage needed to electrify their economies.
The electricity itself is another challenge. It is difficult to persuade people to buy electric vehicles or industries to electrify production if power supplies remain unreliable. Many national grids require major investment to expand access, improve reliability and accommodate growing volumes of renewable energy. In rural areas, decentralised solar and battery systems will often provide the quickest route to universal electricity access, but they too require finance and supportive policy frameworks.
Industrial policy matters just as much.
Africa is rich in many of the minerals needed for batteries and clean technologies, yet too often it exports raw materials and imports finished products. If electrification simply creates new markets for imported batteries, electric vehicles and solar equipment, much of the economic opportunity will be lost. The transition should also become a strategy for building African manufacturing, creating skilled jobs and capturing more value from the continent’s own resources.
There are encouraging signs. Ethiopia has pushed aggressively to promote electric mobility while seeking to reduce its dependence on imported oil. Kenya has become a global leader in geothermal electricity and is seeing rapid growth in electric motorcycles. Morocco is building an industrial base around renewable energy and battery supply chains.
Electrification is happening
These examples show that electrification is no longer a distant prospect. But they also remain outliers rather than the norm. For most African countries, unreliable grids, high borrowing costs and limited access to finance still stand in the way of a much broader transformation. That is precisely why the emerging electrification agenda matters.
If the world wants electricity to account for 35% of final energy demand by 2035, then success cannot be measured simply by announcing a global target. It must be measured by whether developing countries have the finance, technology and policy support to make that transition possible.
For Africa, electrification is not only about reducing emissions. It is about determining what kind of development path the world’s youngest and fastest-growing continent will follow.
More than a billion people live in Africa today. By mid-century, that number will be closer to 2.5 billion. This is a continent on the cusp of sweeping economic transformation, with cities expanding, industries growing and hundreds of millions of people rightly demanding the energy, mobility and prosperity long enjoyed elsewhere.
Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks
That development will require vast amounts of power. The question is whether it will be delivered through the old fossil-fuel model of imported oil, gas infrastructure and polluting combustion, or through clean electricity generated from Africa’s own renewable resources.
This matters for Africa. But it also matters for the world. A global transition to electrification cannot succeed if a continent of this scale is locked into a new generation of fossil-fuel dependence. Nor can it be just if Africa is told to decarbonise without being given the finance and technology to build something better.
The choice facing COP31 is therefore not simply whether electrification will happen. It is whether Africa is helped to become an electro-state continent, powering its development through clean electricity, or pushed by neglect into repeating the fossil-fuel pathway that has already destabilised the climate.
For the age of electrification to be a success, COP31 needs to ensure Africa is equipped to shape and accelerate it. If Africa is left behind, the global energy transition will fall behind with it.
The post Africa can lead the Age of Electrification appeared first on Climate Home News.
The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people.
Together, these initiatives would have made up around half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support conservation in the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.
When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge by 12 donors of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.
Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.
Alongside the US and much of Europe, the UK has significantly cut its aid budget in recent years, leading to much of its Congo rainforest spending being cancelled or reappraised.
The government says it still plans to “prioritise” rainforest regions, including the Congo basin, but civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.
COP pledge
At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030. This was backed by more than 140 nations.
The UK also made various funding pledges, including £200m to protect the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.
These commitments target the world’s three largest rainforests, all of which face major forest loss due to threats such as agriculture, logging and climate change.
The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink. Yet, its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.
This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.
Forest cuts
Following successive aid cuts introduced by both the Conservative and then Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.
The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was launched by the UK at COP27. It was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.
CBFA set out to “empower central African nations”, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with support for “community forests” and other measures to curb forest loss.
Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s recent aid cuts, intended to free up money for defence spending.
Its original £90m budget has now been reduced to £18.8m. Government data shows that £15m of this has already been spent.
This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to this latest round of aid cuts.
The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – championed by the previous government and worth at least £12.3m – has been closed, just two years into its seven-year schedule.
Government documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk as the UK scales back its aid budget, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region.
One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”. Officials working on the other, while more optimistic, reported that the project may be forced to operate in fewer countries as the cuts set in.
Documents also reveal the difficulties that come when operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.
‘Breaking promises’
Damian Fleming, a senior director of forests at WWF International tells Carbon Brief:
“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”
In a series of recent parliamentary responses, Chapman revealed that the UK had only spent £39.8m on Congo forest finance, as of 2024. (She declined to provide any information on the Indonesia and Amazon regional goals.)
Despite being presented as the UK’s “contribution” to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029.
Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution so far has been relatively small.
Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, tells Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:
“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world for whom the environment is an existential issue.”
Future targets
The Labour government says it has met the five-year “climate finance” target of £11.6bn that expires this year.
Ministers also say the government has met “and exceeded” the £3bn and £1.5bn sub-goals for “preserving nature” and forests, respectively, within the £11.6bn. These are the funding streams that include support for the Congo basin and other rainforests.
The UK has funded a variety of projects in line with its forest goals, including mangrove restoration in Indonesia, support for carbon-offsetting projects in Brazil and promoting “forest stewardship” among farmers in Cameroon.
Chapman has stated that the UK will continue to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest, in line with its new plan for aid spending in Africa. The UK even helped to launch a new “call to action” for Congo basin funding at COP30 last year.
The UK government also says it supported the creation of Brazil’s flagship “Tropical Forest Forever Facility” (TFFF). However, so far it has not provided any funding for the facility.
When the government announced a new climate finance pledge for 2026 onwards, it stressed that nature would still be a “focus” and said it would also generate billions in “climate and nature positive investments”. Nevertheless, it dropped the “ring-fenced” amounts for nature and forests that had appeared in its previous pledge.
The UK, alongside other developed countries, has pledged to provide biodiversity finance to developing countries, under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) – a non-binding global pact to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.
Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee of MPs, says “sub-pledges” for nature and forests are a “cost-effective and impactful” way to ensure this finance is provided, alongside climate finance. She tells Carbon Brief that she was “concerned” about the move away from this approach:
“When the minister recently appeared before the international development committee, I was concerned to hear her characterise this shift as a ‘gamble’.”
A government spokesperson tells Carbon Brief:
“We remain committed to providing finance for forests, including in the Congo basin, as a core element of our overall climate funding.”
A shorter version of this article was first published in Cropped, Carbon Brief’s fortnightly newsletter that provides a digest of food, land and nature news, on 15 July 2026. Subscribe for free.
The post UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo appeared first on Carbon Brief.
UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo
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Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid
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Key developments
Global drought and heat
DRY THEN WET: A recent heatwave and months of low rainfall has led to a prolonged drought for Uganda, resulting in at least 16 deaths from hunger and significant crop losses, reported BBC News. Bastille Post Global suggested that “a developing El Niño later this year could bring heavier rainfall to parts of the region, raising the risk of flooding in areas now struggling with drought”.
FUNDING FOOD: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have appealed for $200m in funding to help African nations deal with the impact of El Niño, stated Deutsche Welle. This would target 22 high-risk countries with measures, including “cash transfers, climate-resilient seeds, livestock protection and flood control.” The Guardian explained how El Niño could still “cause a severe shock to global food prices lasting into 2028”.
FARMING FEARS: Extreme weather has devastated agriculture across the world. India saw its driest June in 12 years, reported BBC News, and France has had a “double-digit production” decline, according to Le Monde. The Financial Times reported that farmers in the UK are mitigating the impacts of extreme heat by eliminating “chemicals and intensive ploughing to improve soil quality so it retains water”.
EURO FIRES: Wildfires have spread across Europe, with Spain reporting at least 12 deaths so far, according to the Guardian, and France experiencing road closures, said Reuters. Wildfire Today reported that the most extreme conditions are “across France, Spain and northern Portugal, the Alpine arc extending into northern Italy, the south of the UK and south-east Ireland”. CNN explained how “the climate crisis is driving hotter, drier weather, which is setting the stage for fiercer fire seasons”.
Endangering species
REDEFINING HARM: The Trump administration “reversed decades of longstanding environmental law protecting endangered species…opening up sensitive habitats…to drilling, mining, farming and real estate development”, reported CNN. According to the story, the change “redefines what constitutes ‘harm’” to endangered species, which historically prohibited habitat modification or degradation. Agence France-Presse reported that US environmental groups sued the Trump government over the move, arguing that it had violated “common sense, biological science and federal law”.
OPEN SEASON: Reuters reported that the change “limits the reach of the 50-year-old Endangered Species Act” (ESA), which is a “key regulatory consideration” when granting permits for “oil and gas, mining, electric transmission and other operations on federal lands and water”. Legal scholars told the New York Times the US government “was acting without conducting scientific research into the impact” of the change, while the National Mining Association “applauded the announcement”.
News and views
- INTERNATIONAL WATERS: After a significant delay, the UK ratified the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ), also known as the High Seas Treaty. Oceanographic detailed how this will allow for “marine protected areas across international waters for the first time”, but also stressed that the “hard part” starts now.
- SCOPE-FREE: The world’s largest meat supplier JBS “scrapped a key climate goal” in its net-zero plan that accounts for its suppliers’ emissions, “which make up the vast bulk of the company’s environmental footprint”, reported the Financial Times. The company told the paper it was difficult to control these “indirect” emissions.
- DEEP TROUBLE: Pacific gray whales are facing a “catastrophic die-off” as sea-ice loss threatens their food sources, said the Guardian. Separately, conservationists warned that more than half of all molluscs that “cluster around underwater vents” could face extinction from deep-sea mining, reported Reuters.
- ETHANOL PUSHBACK: India’s new rules to promote 100% ethanol fuel and make ethanol-blended fuel mandatory at pumps “triggered a political row”, reported the Times of India. While the Indian government defended the push to automobile owners, a Hindu editorial and an Indian Express comment warned against incentivising fuels made from “water-intensive” sugarcane and rice.
- AMAZON ACTION: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell to its lowest level in a decade, but president Lula’s plans to “end illegal deforestation by 2030” could be hampered if he is not re-elected, reported Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, Colombia’s outgoing environment minister warned of greater environmental and climate risk under the incoming government, said the Associated Press.
- WAR WORRIES: The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned of the impact of the Iran war on Africa’s clean cooking efforts as disruption in the strait of Hormuz has stunted supplies and increased prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), explained Climate Home News.
Spotlight
UK ‘discards’ Congo rainforest funding
Amid worldwide cuts to aid spending, Carbon Brief explores how the UK is backtracking on funding for the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.
The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people.
Together, these initiatives would have made up half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support forest conservation in the Congo basin.
When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.
Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.
COP pledge
At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030.
The UK also made various regional funding pledges, including £200m for the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.
All of these rainforests face major forest loss. The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink, but its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.
This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.
Forest cuts
Following successive aid cuts introduced by both Conservative and Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.
The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.
Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s aid cuts. Its £90m budget has been “quietly reduced by 79% to £18.8m”, according to the Times.
This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to aid cuts. The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – worth at least £12.3m – has closed five years early.
Official documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region. One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”.
Documents also show the difficulties operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.
‘Breaking promises’
Damian Fleming, a senior forests director at WWF International told Carbon Brief:
“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”
In a parliamentary response, Chapman said that the UK had spent £39.8m towards its £200m Congo target, as of 2024.
Despite being described as the UK’s contribution to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029. Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution was relatively small.
Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, told Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:
“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world.”
The Labour government says it has met its overarching “climate finance” goals and still intends to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest.
However, civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.
Watch, read, listen
TOXIC TROUBLES: DeSmog unpacked a new report that said Northern Ireland is being turned into a “toxic” pig and poultry farming “sacrifice zone” to satiate the UK’s meat appetite.
NEED TO NOAA: Laid-off scientists from the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) launched Climate.Us – an independent, public-backed version of the climate information website shut down by Trump last year.
DRY FRUIT: A Dialogue Earth long read looked at how climate change is impacting apricot harvests in the “stark, high-altitude desert” region of Ladakh, India.
READING ALOUD: A London Review of Books podcast discussed Robin Wall Kimmerer’s influential book “Braiding Sweetgrass”, weighing its compelling themes and where it veers into “scientific overreach”.
New science
- Climate change could cause Indigenous peoples in the Amazon to lose 28-34% of their plant species and 18-23% of their associated services | Nature
- Biodiversity in forests can act as a “buffer” against compound extreme weather events | Nature Communications
- Zero-deforestation commitments in Indonesia’s palm oil sector have had “no additional impacts” on reducing forest loss | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
In the diary
- 7-15 July: High-level political forum on sustainable development | New York City
- 13-31 July: Meeting of the International Seabed Authority assembly and council | Kingston, Jamaica
- 16 July: International Energy Agency critical minerals outlook 2026, online
- 27 July-1 August: Scientific and technical subsidiary body meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity | Nairobi, Kenya
This edition of Cropped was written by Jess Milligan, Josh Gabbatiss and Aruna Chandrasekhar. Cropped is edited by Dr Giuliana Viglione. This edition was edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org.
The post Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid
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