The installation of solar panels and heat pumps in UK homes soared in 2023, driving the country to its highest-ever level of domestic low-carbon technology upgrades.
Registered solar photovoltaic (PV) installations rose nearly 30% to a post-subsidy record of 189,826 in 2023, according to the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS).
Similarly, heat-pump installations were up 20%, reaching a record 36,799.
This growth drove a UK record for the total number of domestic renewable electricity and low-carbon heat technologies installations registered by MCS, which reached 229,618.
This brings the total MCS-certified installations of solar PV overall to 1,441,753 since 2009, equivalent to more than 5% of all UK households.
The near-record figure for home solar in 2023 is particularly significant because it came without any government support, whereas previous growth was driven by deadlines under the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) subsidy scheme, which ended in 2019.
Below, Carbon Brief looks at MCS’s installation figures for 2023, picking out some of the most significant domestic developments.
Record clean energy growth
The UK had already recorded its “best-ever” year for renewable energy and low-carbon heat installations before 2023 came to end, as Solar Power Portal reported in December.
While solar PV and air-source heat pumps (ASHP) saw growth in their installation rates in 2023, other clean technologies dropped off somewhat.
By the end of the year, a record total of 229,618 MCS certified installations had been registered (there is the potential for a small change to the total, due to a lag with registrations, MCS told Carbon Brief).
This included a post-subsidy record 189,826 solar PV installations, up by a third from the 138,020 seen in 2022.
Solar Energy UK chief executive Chris Hewett said in a statement:
“Setting a post-subsidy record of almost 190,000 smaller-scale solar PV installations, and approaching the all-time record of 203,000, is truly a moment to celebrate. The solar industry is on a roll, particularly as we start to conclude work on the government-industry Solar Taskforce, whose roadmap for delivering 70GW [gigawatts] of capacity is due to be published in a couple of months.”
The number of MCS-registered ASHP installations grew to a record 36,799 in 2023 from 29,490 a year earlier. (The real number of heat pumps installed in the UK is likely to be higher, as there is currently no mandate for all low-carbon technology deployments to be certified, or reported in a single place.)
Bean Beanland, director for growth at trade association the Heat Pump Federation, tells Carbon Brief the growth in demand for ASHPs was being driven by increasing activity from “early movers”, as well as by the boiler upgrade scheme (BUS) subsidy, which was introduced in 2022 and increased in 2023.
The BUS initially offered a £5,000 grant for those installing an ASHP or biomass boiler and £6,000 for a ground-source heat pump (GSHP). This was raised to £7,500 for both ASHPs and GSHPs in October 2023.
Beanland adds:
“[Following the increase in the grant] one of our members went back to all the consumers who they had quoted during 2023, detailing the increase, but where they had not converted the opportunity. The result was a significant number of contracts, so the additional £2,500 has certainly made a difference.
“In parallel, the whole visibility of the technology is being driven by the likes of Octopus, Good Energy and OVO, with their very high-profile campaigns and the advent of time-of-use tariffs that improve the financial benefits considerably.”
Customers who are able to afford to deploy solar PV, a battery and a heat pump can use such tariffs to reduce operational cost, allowing the heat pump to compete with gas, he adds.
The number of GSHP installations fell from 3,420 to 2,469, while solar-thermal installations nearly halved, falling from 615 to 311.
Beanland says:
“The value of the BUS for ground-source is just far too low. Government has made a conscious decision to go for numbers rather than the highest efficiency by supporting air-source to a much greater extent. This has been compounded now that the BUS levels for air- and ground- are the same.”
The surge in ASHP means that low-carbon heating technologies still saw an overall increase in 2023, rising by 20% year-on-year, as reported by BusinessGreen.
Despite this growth, however, the installation of heat pumps remains a long way from hitting the UK government target of 600,000 installations per year by 2028.
While the MCS dashboard does not provide data on battery storage installations, a recent release from the company states that 2023 was a record-breaking year for the technology. MCS says batteries were the third most popular technology type to be installed in homes by its certified contractor base.
Of the 4,700 certified batteries registered with MCS, 4,400 were installed in 2023, it adds.
With the energy price cap on average domestic energy bills now sitting below £2,000 per year and installation costs having increased with inflation, it is unclear whether the high levels of solar PV installations in 2023 will be maintained this year.
Solar Energy UK’s chief communications officer Gareth Simkins says:
“Speculation is always a dangerous game. I think it is reasonable for current deployment rates – around 15,000 a month – to continue. This will not just be retrofits of course – we expect more newbuild homes to carry solar, too.”
Monthly solar installations hit highs
Last year saw monthly installations of rooftop solar PV start to hit the levels seen in 2015, when government subsidies were still available, as shown by the red bars in the figure below.
March 2023 saw 20,073 registered solar PV installations, putting it in the top 10 months seen in the UK. Both 11th and 12th places were claimed by months in 2023 too, with June seeing 18,049 installations and May seeing 17,787 installations.
The rest of the top 10 installation months are dominated by 2011, 2012 and 2015. This was driven largely by subsidy deadlines, with a rush seen ahead of cuts leading to record-high installation periods.
In 2012, the FiT subsidy for solar was cut in half, reducing from 43.3p per kilowatt hour (kWh) to just 21p per kWh. This cut returns from solar electricity from around 7% to 4%, according to the Guardian.
In doing so it almost doubled the payback period for households, with some seeing their £10,000-12,000 solar panels only being in credit after 18 years rather than 10, the Guardian reported at the time.
This change followed then-climate change minister Greg Barker launching a consultation into the subsidies in an effort to avoid the industry falling victim to “boom and bust“.
Following the change, installations fell by nearly 90%, according to Department of Energy and Climate Change figures reported in the Guardian.
Installations dropped from 26,941 in March 2012 to 5,522 in April 2012, according to MCS figures, although there was a further surge later that year.
Throughout 2013, installations remained relatively subdued, growing through 2014 before peaking again in 2015. Installations hit 25,614 in December 2015, but this came ahead of further FiT reduction in February 2016, which sent “shockwaves” through the sector and saw installations drop dramatically
The FiT came to an end in 2019, with the solar export guarantee brought in 2020, which sets a minimum price for electricity exported to the grid.
Following the resulting lull in installations, domestic solar PV has once again been growing. The difference this time is that there is no underlying subsidy driving growth, with rising energy bills and longer-term falls in technology costs making the technology increasingly appealing.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Solar Energy UK’s Simkins says:
“Oddly enough, it shows the success of FiTs in creating a market for solar in the first place, with the industry now standing entirely on its own two feet without government support.”
Installation costs rise
The inflationary impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent energy crisis led to an increase in solar technology costs in 2023.
Consequently, installation costs have risen over recent years, according to MCS. Across every month in 2023, average installation costs sat above £10,000 – the only time in more than a decade that they have reached that level, as shown in the figure below.
This has been impacted by the scale of the installations to a certain extent, with the installation cost per kilowatt (kW) seeing a more limited increase. Across 2022, the average cost of installing solar per kW was £1,804 and in 2023 this rose to £2,020.
Moreover, in some months, solar was actually cheaper per kilowatt (kW) in 2023 than in 2022, MCS data shows.
It is also worth noting that the increase in the cost of solar installations has not been as dramatic as the increase in energy bills over the past couple of years.
The energy crisis drove up domestic energy bills from late 2021, as supply chain squeezes driven in part by the Russian invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices to record highs.
As a result, the default tariff price cap for consumers jumped from £1,277 per year in the six months to March 2022, to £1,971 over that summer, and then to £3,549 over the winter of 2022.
It then surged again to £4,279 over the first quarter of 2023, before it began to fall (the energy price guarantee came into force in October 2022, superseding the rate of the price cap, and limiting domestic energy bills to £2,500 initially).
The surge in domestic energy prices highlighted the exposure of the British energy system to fluctuations in international gas markets. In doing so, it is likely it helped drive uptake of domestic solar – as shown in the figure below – as households looked to cushion themselves from potential future surges.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, solar wholesaler Midsummer’s commercial director Jamie Vaux says installation costs are now coming down.
The high installation costs and long installation lead times in 2022, were driven by demand exceeding supply, he says. With new installers entering the market and mortgage rates and inflation hitting consumer spending, this has started to ease, he adds.
Average installation prices per kW peaked at £2,111 in April 2023, before slowly falling throughout the year.
Vaux explains:
“Essentially, those who had the funds available when the energy crisis hit have already had their installations, and while many still want solar, the rate stopped climbing so steeply and the curve flattened at the same time as more installers were there to meet the demand. It has become more competitive at the installation level, and installation costs have (gradually) fallen as a result.”
There is also currently a glut of solar modules, which could help prices continue to fall and stimulate further update of solar, according to Vaux.
There is currently “a year’s worth of modules already sitting in EU warehouses, and devaluing daily”, Vaux adds, meaning top-tier modules can be bought for a fraction of prices seen in 2022.
Solar Scotland
The area with the overall highest share of households with solar PV installations since the start of MCS data in 2009 is Stirling in Scotland, where 16.7% of households have solar PV (6,994 households).
Perhaps surprisingly, given their poorer insolation rates relative to other parts of the UK, Scottish local authorities appear four times in the top 10, as shown in the figure below.
Scotland’s housing policy means it is mandatory for solar to be fitted on all new build properties, helping to boost installation rates.
In terms of installations completed during 2023, the Isle of Anglesey came out on top, with 1,083 systems added, amounting to 3.5% of households.
The top 10 for last year is dominated by Welsh and Scottish local authorities, with just one English local authority making it into the list – South Cambridgeshire in ninth place.
There are five Scottish local authorities (Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Perth, Moray and Kinross and Midlothian) and four Welsh local authorities (Isle of Anglesey, Ceredigion, Powys and Pembrokeshire).
The 10 local authority areas with the lowest percentage of solar PV installations since 2009 are all in London, with Kensington and Chelsea coming out on top with just 0.4% (or 297) of households having registered solar PV installed, according to MCS.
It is worth noting that due to the density of the households in London and other major cities, they are over-represented in the lowest percentage list for solar installations.
For example, Wandsworth – which comes out as having the tenth lowest rate of just 1.1% of households having solar PV – only has 1,496 installations.
Meanwhile, Torridge in Devon – which has the eighth highest rate of installations in the UK at 12.8% – has 3,899 solar PV installations. While this is more than double the number is Wandsworth, the much larger difference in percentage terms highlights the impact of population size in each local authority area.
The same is broadly true of 2023. While the area last year with the lowest installation rate was Derry City and Strabane, with just 73 installations (0.1% of households), the bottom ten is still dominated by London boroughs, which made up eight of the list.
Detached properties are the most common when it comes to solar PV installations, with 50,8193 of the MCS registered solar PV installations since 2009 (35.2%) having been fitted on detached properties, versus 447,415 on semi-detached, 288,886 on terraced, 187,131 on flats and apartments and 10,100 on other properties.
This means detached properties – which tend to be larger, with more roof area – are over-represented in terms of their share of solar installations, as shown in the figure below.
The post Analysis: Surge in heat pumps and solar drives record for UK homes in 2023 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Surge in heat pumps and solar drives record for UK homes in 2023
Ellen Davies is head of programmes at the African Climate Foundation and is based in Kenya. Wole Hammond is programme officer for adaptation and resilience at the foundation, based in Nigeria.
For generations, African communities have lived on the frontlines of climate disruption, managing erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts and the slow erosion of their livelihoods, which depend on predictable seasons.
When the rains failed across Southern Africa in 2024, it was but the latest chapter of a crisis already long underway. During that season, maize crop failures of 40-80% devastated farming communities in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, where roughly 70% of people depend on rain-fed agriculture. Governments already stretched by debt were forced to raid development budgets, trading long-term growth for emergency relief.
Then came the floods. In early 2026, parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa received over a year’s worth of rain in days. More than 2 million people were affected. In East Africa, drought has displaced nearly 62,000 people in Somalia this year alone, with nearly one in four Somalis now facing acute food insecurity.
This is what climate change looks like on the ground – not parts per million or diplomatic jargon, but whether a school stays open after floods cut off the road, whether a clinic can function in extreme heat, whether a country can still invest in its future when every year brings another disaster bill.
As Nigeria rails at loss and damage “mirage”, fund boss assures money is coming
Africa as a continent contributes the least to global emissions yet bears a disproportionate share of the consequences. Nine of the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change are African. As livelihoods collapse and rural economies fail, migration pressures will intensify, driven by climate change intersecting with poverty, conflict and constrained opportunity.
Chronic under-funding
Europe is only now beginning to experience, in more limited form, what African communities have navigated for decades with far less fiscal space, thinner insurance coverage and fewer resources for recovery. With El Niño conditions confirmed and a “super” version of the naturally occurring weather pattern possible later this year, the pressure is set to intensify further.
In Africa, climate action is fundamentally a development challenge where adaptation and mitigation must go hand in hand. Building a solar grid and flood-proofing the road that serves it are not separate agendas. Yet for too long, the global climate conversation has prioritised mitigation while leaving adaptation – the work of protecting lives, livelihoods and economies in a changing climate – chronically under-funded.
The result is three compounding gaps. A visibility gap: much of Africa’s adaptation work remains under-documented and under-recognised in global climate narratives. A financing gap: capital does not flow at the scale or speed required to the people and institutions best placed to use it. And a decision-making gap: too many solutions are still designed elsewhere and imported into African contexts, rather than backing African-led platforms to scale what is already working.
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Solutions ready for finance
The solutions exist. Rwanda’s green investment fund has mobilised climate finance at national scale through its own systems. Egypt’s Nexus of Water, Food and Energy programme has shown how integrated planning can stretch limited resources across interdependent systems.
Zambia’s Presidential Irrigation Initiative is building climate-resilient food production from the ground up. In Pata, Senegal, a solar irrigation project has unlocked agricultural production and created jobs, demonstrating how integrated investments in water, energy and livelihoods can deliver resilience and development gains simultaneously.
In South Africa, the African Climate Foundation’s work with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) is supporting district municipalities to assess their climate risks and develop fit-for-purpose Climate Action Plans, building adaptation capacity where it is needed most – at the local level.
These are not pilot projects waiting to be validated. They are working systems waiting for investment.
Closing the gaps requires a decisive shift in posture from global finance, philanthropy and development institutions. It means backing country-led platforms that can prepare, aggregate and finance adaptation projects. It means investing in place-based initiatives grounded in local knowledge.
French court rules Total must revise climate plan to account for all emissions
It means fostering intra- and inter-continental collaboration, so that lessons from Kigali inform decisions in Nairobi and innovations in Lagos reach communities in Dakar. And it means treating adaptation as core economic infrastructure, not charitable relief.
Invest now for future gains
The economic case is clear. Every dollar invested in climate adaptation returns an estimated four dollars in benefits on average – and up to five in the poorest economies. Under-investment in African adaptation is as economically irrational as it is morally unjust.
The world depends on Africa’s food systems, its young workforce – the majority of the continent’s population is under 25 – and its minerals. Several African countries supply a substantial share of the copper, cobalt and other critical materials underpinning the global clean energy transition.
Drought in Zambia has already shown how climate stress can disrupt hydropower, electricity supply and mining output. A transition that depends on African minerals cannot afford to ignore African climate resilience.
The world can continue to under-fund adaptation and pay repeatedly for emergencies, instability and lost development. Or it can invest now in the people, institutions and systems already doing the work on the ground in Africa, not in solutions imported from elsewhere.
Africa has the agency, the knowledge and the platforms. What it needs is the finance to match. A super El Niño will not wait for consensus to form. Neither, frankly, should we.
The post Climate adaptation in Africa needs investment, not imported solutions appeared first on Climate Home News.
Climate adaptation in Africa needs investment, not imported solutions
Climate Change
DeBriefed 26 June 2026: Heat records broken across Europe | London climate action week | Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Record Europe heat
HOTTEST EVER: The UK broke its temperature record for June twice this week, while France recorded its hottest day ever two days in a row, reported the Guardian. The Times reported that temperatures reached 36.7C in Somerset on Thursday, as the “London Ambulance Service had its busiest-ever day for life-threatening emergencies”.
FRANCE FRYING: French newspaper Libération said that temperatures reached as high as 44.3C in the south-western commune of Pissos on Wednesday. Spain also recorded its highest daily average temperature for June, said BBC News. On Thursday, Switzerland also had its hottest June day, when temperatures reached 37C in four locations, reported SwissInfo.
CLIMATE LINK: CNN covered a rapid analysis from the World Weather Attribution service finding that fossil-fuelled climate change has made this heatwave the most severe and widespread in Europe’s history. Carbon Brief covered the broken heat records, explaining the influence of climate change.
‘Electrifying’ London talks
‘LONDON COOKING’: In a sweltering, packed-out event at London climate action week, UN chief António Guterres quipped that “London is not just calling, it’s cooking”, reported Edie. Guterres also used his address to release a “global call to action on methane” and to call on artificial intelligence companies to reveal their environmental impact and source their power solely from renewables by 2030, said the publication.
‘ELECTRIFY NOW’: Elsewhere, dozens of governments, led by the EU and the UK, committed to throwing “their political weight” behind a rapid electrification of the world’s economy, according to Climate Home News. A high-level summit in London’s Mansion House saw energy ministers and business leaders, joined by Guterres, in “calling for faster action to curb demand for oil, coal and gas by powering homes, industry and transport with clean electricity”.
FOSSIL TRANSITION: At the same event, ministers from Colombia and the Netherlands, the co-hosts of the world’s first summit on transitioning away from fossil fuels in April, unveiled a report on their key takeaways. It comes after the current Colombian government has been ousted by a presidential election defeat to a fossil-fuel-supporting Trump ally. Carbon Brief examined what this could mean for the world’s energy transition.
Around the world
- UK TARGET: The UK parliament has approved its “seventh carbon budget”, aimed at cutting emissions 87% below 1990 levels by 2040.
- TOTAL ACCOUNTABILITY: A French court has ordered oil-and-gas giant TotalEnergies to account for the emissions from the use of its products, following a case brought by a climate NGO, reported Le Monde.
- METHANE RULES: The US, Qatar and other major energy exporters have urged the EU to “rewrite planned methane emissions” rules for oil-and-gas imports, saying that the policy could disrupt fuel supplies to Europe, according to Reuters.
- CHINA MESSAGE: China’s special envoy for climate change, Liu Zhenmin, said at the World Economic Forum that energy shortages triggered by the Iran war should be a “lesson to countries to accelerate their energy transitions”, reported Bloomberg.
- US WEBSITE REVIVED: Former US government workers have “recreated a valuable climate-science website” shut down by the Trump administration last year, said the New York Times.
6,600 animals
The number of livestock that perished in transport during heat in England and Wales from June to August 2025, double the number killed the year before, reported Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Some world regions are experiencing up to 50 additional heat stress days annually, when compared to 1950 | Nature Climate Change
- Projections of national land-use emissions to 2100 suggest the strongest “carbon sinks” will be in China and Indonesia, whereas Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo will “dominate global sources” | Nature
- Most carbon-offset projects relying on “avoided deforestation” have “mixed, negligible or negative impacts relative to control areas” | Nature Climate Change
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The UK government’s official climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), has released its latest progress report, emphasising that faster electrification is the best way to secure lower energy bills and stronger energy security. Electrification has shot up the agenda in recent months, with the COP31 presidency calling for countries to back a global goal for 35% of “final” energy to come from electricity by 2035. The text of the CCC’s latest report uses the word “electrification” far more often than previous editions, as shown in the figure above. See Carbon Brief’s in-depth breakdown of the CCC’s latest advice.
Spotlight
Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’
Carbon Brief explains how it built a major new database of climate science research and unveils a new ranking of the 500 most highly cited publications, authors and institutions in climate science.
This week, Carbon Brief launched Project Cosmos – the world’s largest and most complete database of climate change research.
The database features more than 1.8m academic papers, books and reports, capturing the vast body of human knowledge about climate change that has accumulated over more than a century of academic study.
The climate science “universe” is based on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which are recognised as the world’s most authoritative summaries of the latest climate science.
Since its first report was published in 1990, humanity’s knowledge about human-caused climate change has ballooned. The IPCC has published six sets of reports in total – each one longer than the last.
In total, IPCC reports reference more than 100,000 other papers, books and reports. This is the core of our climate science universe. Carbon Brief then built on this core, by looking at four other sources of data. Read more about how the Cosmos database was created here.
Every single publication in the Cosmos database is linked to at least one other through references. Visualising these links reveals a “galaxy” of references.
In the image above, each colour and cluster reveals different topics and densities of research. Explore the galaxy in an interactive map.
Cosmos 500
As part of an initial wave of preliminary analysis to demonstrate the scope of the Project Cosmos database, Carbon Brief has ranked the 500 most highly cited publications, authors and institutions in the database.
The most highly cited climate scientist is Prof Philippe Ciais, who has spent almost four decades researching the planet’s carbon cycle – and the ways in which humans have been impacting its balance. Carbon Brief recently interviewed Ciais in Paris.
The US tops the tables for the most highly cited authors and institutions. Almost half of the 500 most highly-cited authors are from US institutions. This raises particular concerns for the future of climate science, as US climate scientists and institutions are coming under attack under the Trump administration.
Experts from global south countries account for only 4% of all authors in the Cosmos 500. China stands out as the most highly-cited global south country. Meanwhile, only 10% of authors in the Cosmos 500 are women.
There are many possibilities for future avenues of research using the Cosmos database. Over time, the database could be used to reveal, for example, how interest in different areas of climate science has changed over time, plus identify potential knowledge gaps and, thus, opportunities for future research.
Carbon Brief invites researchers – including academics, journalists and analysts – to submit their own proposals for co-authored studies, literature reviews and analytical projects. Proposals should be sent to cosmos AT carbonbrief DOT org.
This spotlight first appeared in Cited, Carbon Brief’s new fortnightly newsletter focused on climate research. Sign up for free.
Watch, read, listen
‘DOOMSDAY CULT’: OpenDemocracy reported on a “religious cult” spreading climate misinformation in “parliaments” and at “COP summits”.
‘WEDGES’ EXAMINED: ProPublica and Drilled released an investigation into how oil executives worked to influence a climate research paper from Princeton University known as “wedges”.
‘1976 to 2056’: A 30-minute YouTube video from the Met Office had climate scientists explaining how current UK temperatures compare to the infamous 1976 heatwave, and how extremes could worsen by 2056.
Coming up
- 29-30 June: Hamburg sustainability conference, Hamburg, Germany
- 29-30 June: Seventh global conference on climate and sustainable development goals synergies, Bangkok, Thailand
- 29-30 June: 11th annual global conference on energy efficiency, Montreal, Canada
Pick of the jobs
- Drilled, series editor | Salary: $4,000 a month (six-month contract). Location: US
- Met Office, ocean climate science manager | Salary: £54,515-£58,582. Location: Exeter, UK
- Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, research officer (climate science and law) | Salary: £43,277-£55,497. Location: London
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 26 June 2026: Heat records broken across Europe | London climate action week | Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Over the last four years, Colombia has emerged as one of the most vocal advocates for the world to transition away from fossil fuels.
Under the leadership of leftist politician and economist Gustavo Petro, it became the first major oil-and-gas producer to commit to halting all new fossil-fuel expansion.
In April, the nation hosted a first-of-its-kind meeting of countries on transitioning away from fossil fuels, alongside the Netherlands, in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta.
The meeting concluded with a promise for a new “Santa Marta process” spearheaded by Colombia and the Netherlands, a movement of countries that would continue to push for a transition away from fossil fuels at home – and at international climate talks.
But on 21 June, an ally of Petro suffered defeat in a presidential election runoff against Abelardo de la Espriella, a hard-right populist and favourite of US president Donald Trump, who has pledged to boost oil production and pursue “fracking to the max”.
Below, Carbon Brief examines what the loss could mean for Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels, as well as international efforts to transition away from coal, oil and gas, including at the COP31 climate summit in Turkey in November.
- How could the election defeat change Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels?
- How could it affect international efforts to transition away from fossil fuels?
- How could efforts to transition away from fossil fuels feature at COP31?
How could the election defeat change Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels?
In 2022, Petro became Colombia’s first left-wing president in recent history.
Under his leadership, Colombia became the first major oil producer and exporter to halt all new fossil-fuel expansion, boosted renewable energy and saw a sustained decline in deforestation.
At the COP28 summit in 2023, Petro announced that Colombia would become the first major oil exporter to sign the fossil-fuel non-proliferation treaty, a pact to legally control fossil-fuel production and use.
Successive Colombian environment ministers became among the most vocal supporters of transitioning away from fossil fuels at UN climate talks.
This included former minister Susana Muhamad, a political scientist and environmentalist who stepped in to lead the most recent UN biodiversity summit in 2024 after original host Turkey was forced to withdraw following earthquakes.
She was succeeded by Irene Vélez Torres, a former academic who led calls for a “fossil-fuel roadmap” to be part of the formal outcome at the COP30 summit in 2025.
At the sidelines of COP30, Vélez Torres and Netherlands climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven announced plans to co-host a first-of-its-kind summit on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Colombia in April 2026.
(In the end, countries failed to agree to a formally negotiated “fossil-fuel roadmap” at COP30. However, the Brazilian COP30 presidency promised to bring forward a voluntary roadmap instead, informed by the Santa Marta summit.)
Some 57 countries – representing one-third of the world’s economy – participated in the event, with officials describing it as “refreshing”, “highly successful” and “groundbreaking”, according to Carbon Brief’s reporting from Colombia.
The meeting concluded with a range of outcomes, including a second fossil-fuel transition summit to be co-hosted by Tuvalu and Ireland in 2027.
In stark contrast to Petro’s government, new hard-right populist president Abelardo de la Espriella has promised to quickly boost new fossil-fuel and mining projects, including by “fracking to the max”.
De la Espriella has also promised to build 10 “mega prisons” inside Colombia’s Amazon rainforest.
He has not yet commented on whether he will withdraw Colombia from Santa Marta’s “coalition of the willing”.
How could it affect international efforts to transition away from fossil fuels?
Just two days after the Colombian government’s election defeat, environment minister Vélez Torres took to the stage at London climate action week, alongside Netherlands climate minister van Veldhoven, to present a report on key takeaways from the Santa Marta summit.
The report, written before the election loss, speaks of an ongoing “Santa Marta process” to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels. It says that this will be coordinated by Colombia and the Netherlands, along with the two appointed co-hosts of the second conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, Tuvalu and Ireland.
Acknowledging that this was likely to be one of her last addresses as Colombia’s environment minister, Vélez Torres told the audience that, going forward, the Santa Marta process must be resilient to “political setbacks”.
At the sidelines of the event, Vélez Torres told Carbon Brief that the work her government has done “cannot be erased”, despite a change in power. She said:
“Right now, we are facing the dark nights, this will really shift the politics in terms of energy position and environmental protection. But we are certain that our legacy will continue. It goes beyond governments.”
Dutch minister van Veldhoven told Carbon Brief that the plan for the “Santa Marta process” is to hold fossil-fuel transition summits in a different country every year, with two new co-hosts each time. This could help weather political shocks, she said:
“We know that every couple of years there will be elections. That is why [we have] the idea of rotating presidencies and chairmanships…while we make sure we make use of existing secretariats and organisations that are not subject to political changes every couple of years.
“In that combination, we hope to create a historic legacy and continue to drive the process forward, but also [create space for] a new energy from two new countries every year that bring their own perspective and their own dynamic.”
Although new countries could drive the process forward without Colombia, there are few major oil producers that have shown the same level of commitment to transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Ana Toni, an economist and CEO of the COP30 summit in Brazil, told Carbon Brief at London climate action week that the world will “miss the leadership of Colombia”, but added:
“Not one country will stop this movement. All countries need to chip in. There isn’t one leader for this topic. Everybody needs to join forces.”
How could efforts to transition away from fossil fuels feature at COP31?
At London climate action week, Colombia and the Netherlands presented their Santa Marta report to the Brazilian COP30 presidency.
The COP30 presidency is due to release a voluntary international “fossil-fuel roadmap” ahead of COP31 in Turkey in November, which it has promised will be informed by the takeaways from Santa Marta.
Speaking at the sidelines of London climate action week, Colombia and the Netherlands added that they have had “constructive” conversations with the COP31 co-presidencies, Australia and Turkey, about how to incorporate the discussions from Santa Marta.
Colombian environment minister Irene Vélez Torres told a small group of journalists:
“We had this very interesting conversation with COP31 and they were clearly open to suggestions about what is needed in the discussion in Turkey, and we were explicit about the need to engage with the phasing out of fossil fuels.”
However, both Colombia and the Netherlands added that they were unsure of how this might work in practice.
When asked about whether the Santa Marta discussions could be incorporated into formal COP texts, they were keen to emphasise that all the conversations in Colombia were specifically not negotiations.
They added that they were unsure of whether the group of 57 countries that gathered in Santa Marta would appear as a collective at press conferences or events at the COP31 summit.
The post Q&A: What change of power in Colombia could mean for world’s fossil-fuel transition appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What change of power in Colombia could mean for world’s fossil-fuel transition
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Q&A: What change of power in Colombia could mean for world’s fossil-fuel transition
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