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The year 2024 was marked by violence and elections, as conflicts escalated around the world and billions of voters went to the polls.

However, climate change still made headlines.

Thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles were published over the course of the year, helping shape online discourse around climate change.

Tracking these mentions was Altmetric, an organisation that scores research papers according to the attention they receive online.

To do this, it tracks how often published peer-reviewed research is mentioned online in news articles, as well as on blogs, Wikipedia and on social media platforms such as Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and – in a new addition for 2024 – Bluesky. (Carbon Brief explained how Altmetric’s scoring system works in this article.)

Carbon Brief has parsed the data to compile its annual list of the 25 most talked-about climate-related papers of the past year.

The infographic above highlights the most mentioned climate papers of 2024, while the article analyses the top 25 research papers in greater detail, including the diversity and country affiliation of authors.

Overall, Altmetric’s data reveals the papers which generated the most online buzz in 2024 were – for the fourth year running – associated with Covid-19, with five of the 10 most talked-about papers of the year related to the virus.

However, a number of the most-shared studies were about climate change, from how warming is impacting ocean currents, the economy and timekeeping, through to efforts aimed at mapping historical temperatures using proxy data.

A return from last year’s highs

After a blockbuster year for online mentions of climate science in 2023, last year saw a return to more typical levels.

The most widely shared climate paper of 2024 has a score of 5,414, placing it at the bottom end of the range for top climate papers over the past seven years.

By contrast, the three most talked-about climate papers of 2023 received the highest attention scores recorded across all of Carbon Brief’s annual reviews, which date back to 2015. They clocked scores of 13,886, 8,686 and 7,821.

(For Carbon Brief’s previous Altmetric articles, see the links for 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015.)

The graph below shows how the score given to the top paper in Carbon Brief’s annual review has changed over the past 10 years.

After a standout year in 2023, online mentions of climate papers returned to more typical levels

A spokesperson for Altmetric says the falling popularity of climate papers was not due to any adjustments to its methodology, noting that its scoring system “had not changed”. They tell Carbon Brief that online mentions of papers – across all disciplines – have declined in recent years from a peak in 2020, resulting in lower average scores across the board.

The spokesperson said it was unclear why the average number of mentions had fallen since 2020, but hypothesised that several factors could be at play. This includes a surge of policy citations during the Covid-19 pandemic and changes in how people use social media – such as a decline in posts on public Facebook feeds and a spike in Twitter posts in 2021.

The top 10 climate papers of 2024

  1. Physics-based early warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course
  2. The economic commitment of climate change
  3. 2023 summer warmth unparalleled over the past 2,000 years
  4. The growing inadequacy of an open-ended Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale in a warming world
  5. Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system
  6. Highest ocean heat in four centuries places Great Barrier Reef in danger
  7. Abrupt reduction in shipping emission as an inadvertent geoengineering termination shock produces substantial radiative warming
  8. A global timekeeping problem postponed by global warming
  9. Accelerating glacier volume loss on Juneau Icefield driven by hypsometry and melt-accelerating feedbacks
  10. A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature

Later in this article, Carbon Brief looks at the rest of the top 25, and provides analysis of the most featured journals, as well as the gender diversity and country of origin of authors.

AMOC alarm

The most talked-about climate paper of 2024 is a Science Advances study that finds the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – a system of ocean currents that brings warm water up to Europe from the tropics and beyond – is “on route to tipping”.

The research, titled “Physics-based early warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course”, marks the first time that an AMOC tipping event has been identified in a cutting-edge climate model, in this case the Community Earth System Model.

The study’s Altmetric score of 5,414 shoots it to the top of Carbon Brief’s leaderboard and 1,272 points ahead of the second-placed paper.

However, as illustrated in the graph above, the research is the lowest-scoring climate paper to reach the top of the leaderboard since 2017.

Physics-based warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course

The researchers from the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht describe the paper’s finding as “bad news for the climate system and humanity”. They explain:

“Up until now one could think that AMOC tipping was only a theoretical concept and tipping would disappear as soon as the full climate system, with all its additional feedbacks, was considered.”

The study paints a grisly picture of the consequences of a collapse of AMOC. This includes a 10-30C drop in winter temperatures in northern Europe within a century, and a “drastic change” in rainfall patterns in the Amazon. The paper states:

“These – and many more – impacts of an AMOC collapse have been known for a long time, but thus far have not been shown in a climate model of such high quality.”

Papers exploring the stability of AMOC have dominated Carbon Brief’s climate science leaderboard in recent years, coming in fourth and second place, respectively, in 2023 and 2021.

Media coverage has been amplified by disagreement over what metrics to use to measure the strength of AMOC. Previous studies have used sea surface temperature to make projections about when the tipping point may occur.

The Science Advances paper reaches its conclusions using a new, “physics-based” early warning signal for the breakdown of the vital ocean currents based on the salinity of water in the southern Atlantic.

Overall, the study racked up 601 news mentions, with the Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Associated Press and CNN all reporting on its findings. It was also featured in 39 blogs, the highest of any paper in the top 25, and was shared more than 3,866 times on Twitter.

Study author Dr René van Westen tells Carbon Brief he believes the paper owes its popularity to its alarming conclusion that AMOC is approaching a tipping point, as well as the detail it offers around the “large-scale changes” and “substantial” climate impacts such an event could trigger. He explains:

“The urgency of the situation, suggesting that we are heading toward this collapse, underscores the need for immediate action to prevent such a scenario. We believe that the combination of these far-reaching climate impacts and the risk of AMOC collapse contributed to the extensive media coverage of our study.”

Economic commitment

The second highest-scoring climate paper of 2024, published in the journal Nature, is “The economic commitment of climate change”. The study has an Altmetric score of 4,142 and clocks in at second in the 2024 rankings.

The economic commitment of climate change

The three-person authorship team, from Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, used 40 years of data on damages from temperature and rainfall from more than 1,600 regions around the world to assess how damages could increase under a warming climate.

They estimate that the world economy is committed to an income reduction of 19% within the next 26 years, regardless of how rapidly humanity now cuts emissions. These damages are six times higher than the mitigation costs required to limit global warming to 2C in the near term, the authors say.

They also warn that climate change is likely to exacerbate existing inequalities, adding:

“The largest losses are committed at lower latitudes in regions with lower cumulative historical emissions and lower present-day income.”

The study was mentioned 55 times on Bluesky. It has also been cited by Wikipedia seven times, including in pages on climate justice and climate change mitigation.

The study’s lead author, Dr Maximilian Kotz, tells Carbon Brief:

“We think we made a helpful contribution by pushing the limits of the spatial scales, climate information and assumptions around long-term persistence which are used in these kinds of studies.”

However, he said the media coverage mainly focused on the final numbers, speculating that “part of the wide interest in the media was likely that these numbers were large”. He told Carbon Brief that, in his experience, it is “normal for the media not to pay much attention to the kind of details a researcher finds important”.

Kotz added that since his study came out, a number of other papers have been published using different approaches, but arriving at similar final numbers.

Record hot summer

Coming in third place is a Nature paper which uses temperatures reconstructed from tree rings to conclude the northern hemisphere summer of 2023 was the hottest in two millennia.

To build a picture of summer temperatures stretching back to AD1, the researchers turn to nine of the longest temperature-sensitive tree ring chronologies in North America and Europe, as well as observational data for 1901-2010.

2023 summer warmth unparalleled over the past 2,000 years

Rest of the top 10

In fourth place, with an Altmetric score of 3,907, is a paper that assesses whether the classification system for tropical cyclone wind speed needs to be expanded to reflect storms’ growing intensity in a warming world. It was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research, “The growing inadequacy of an open-ended Saffir-Simpson hurricane-wind scale in a warming world”, says climate change has led to more intense storms, which could justify a new category on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

Introduced in the 1970s, the scale is used to communicate the risk tropical cyclone winds present to property. Events are ranked from category 1, for storms with winds of 74-95 miles per hour (mph), to category 5 for storms with a wind-speed of 157mph and above.

The study highlights how five tropical cyclones of the last nine years were so intense they could sit in a hypothetical sixth category, which could cover storms with winds of 192mph and above.

The study received more news coverage than any other in this year’s top 25, amassing 720 mentions.

In fifth and sixth place, with scores of 3,757 and 3,248, respectively, are a pair of Nature papers.

The first, “Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system”, finds that by 2050, 10-47% of the Amazon forest will be exposed to “compounding disturbances” that may trigger a tipping point, causing a shift from lush rainforest to dry savannah. Carbon Brief covered the study.

The second is a paper looking at how rising ocean temperatures are endangering the Great Barrier Reef. It cautions that without “urgent intervention” the world’s largest coral reef system is at risk of experiencing “temperatures conducive to near-annual coral bleaching” with negative consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem services.

The seventh-placed paper finds a reduction in sulphur emissions from ships – driven by cleaner fuel regulations introduced in 2020 – has led to “substantial radiative warming” that could lead to a “doubling (or more)” of the rate of warming this decade. (Carbon Brief published its own analysis of how low-sulphur shipping rules are affecting global warming in 2023.)

The Communications Earth & Environment study goes on to suggest that marine cloud brightening – a geoengineering technique where marine low clouds are “seeded” with aerosols – may be a “viable” climate solution.

Coming in eighth is a paper which finds that ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica is delaying an observed acceleration of Earth’s rotation, with consequences for global timekeeping.

The Nature paper, “A global timekeeping problem postponed by global warming”, finds the redistribution of mass on Earth as polar ice melts means timekeepers will have to remove a second from global clocks around 2029. If it were not for the acceleration in polar ice melt, this second would have been due for removal by 2026, it says.

Timekeepers are no strangers to tweaking time to adjust for the Earth’s rotation; 27 leap seconds have been added to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) since the 1970s. However, the paper cautions the first-ever removal of a second is set to pose “an unprecedented problem” for computer network timing.

(Similarly, in 25th place is a Proceedings of the National Academy of Science paper that finds melting ice sheets and glaciers are redistributing the planet’s mass, causing days to become longer by milliseconds.)

In ninth place is a Nature Communications paper which finds that rates of glacier area shrinkage on the Juneau ice field, which straddles Alaska and British Columbia, were five times faster over 2015-19 relative to 1948-79.

Rounding out the top 10 is a Science study that uses proxy data to conclude that the Earth’s average surface temperature has varied between 11C and 36C over the past 485m years.

Retracted papers go viral

One of the most shared papers of the year looks into a CO2 “saturation hypothesis” – a popular topic among climate sceptics. The theory contends the atmosphere has reached a CO2 saturation point, which means that additional emissions of the gas will cause little or no further warming.

The paper argues “continued and improved experimental work” is needed to ascertain whether “additionally emitted carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is indeed a greenhouse gas”.

The research, entitled “Climatic consequences of the process of saturation of radiation absorption in gases”, was published by Applications in Engineering Science in March, but subsequently retracted by the editor.

In a retraction notice, Applications in Engineering Science said the rigour and quality of the peer-review process for the paper had been “investigated and confirmed to fall beneath the high standards expected”.

While the paper received just four news mentions, it was widely shared on Twitter, clocking more than 6,000 posts. With a score of 2,661, it would have been the ninth most talked-about climate paper of 2024 had it not been retracted.

UK political commentator and climate sceptic Toby Young, who was recently promoted to the UK House of Lords, shared an article promoting saturation theory in late December that references the research. As of 9 January, his Twitter post had been shared 6,500 times and viewed 128,300 times.

Controversial Covid-19 treatment and vaccination research also received significant attention in 2024, with four of the most talked-about papers of the year – of any topic – retracted by journal editors.

The studies in question – three of which relate to vaccines and one to hydroxychloroquine – would have placed first, third, fourth and sixth in Altmetric’s overall rankings, had they not been withdrawn.

A controversial paper that did make it into the top 25 without being retracted was a study in the journal Geomatics. It argues that a decrease in planetary albedo and variations in “total solar irradiance” explain “100% of the global warming trend” over 2000-23 and 83% of interannual variability in global temperatures.

The authors have previously proposed a theory that global warming is caused by atmospheric pressure – and were caught publishing their papers under pseudonyms, which were their own names spelled backwards.

With only four news mentions, most of the attention from this article came from other sources. A tweet from the study’s lead author prompted a heated discussion and generated thousands of likes and retweets. Overall, the research was mentioned on Twitter 9,599 times.

The study, which came 13th in the overall rankings with a score of 2,096, was also mentioned on 14 blogs, including a number of climate-sceptic websites.

Elsewhere in the top 25

The rest of the top 25 contains a varied mix of papers that were typically well-received by the scientific community, including research on oil and gas system emissions (15th), mortality due to tropical cyclones in the US (16th) and the latest “state of wildfires” update (22nd). 

Paper number 12 finds that a “record-low planetary albedo”, mainly caused by low cloud cover in the northern mid-latitudes and tropics, may have been an important driver of the record-high global temperatures in 2023.

Published on 5 December in the journal Science, it is a relatively late entry into the annual rankings. Despite its late publication date, the study tops the charts for Bluesky mentions, gaining 376 mentions in less than one month.

A Communications Earth & Environment study, called “A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet”, sits at number 21, with an Altmetric score of 2,018. The study uses statistical methods to search for a recent acceleration in global warming, and concludes that it is not possible to detect one.

The lead author of the study told Carbon Brief that the findings do not rule out that an acceleration might be occurring. She said that “the point of the paper is that it will take additional years of observations to detect a sustained acceleration”. However, some scientists questioned the utility of the methods used in the study, arguing there is evidence of an acceleration in warming.

At number 23 is a study in the journal Science which evaluates 1,500 climate policies that have been implemented over the past 25 years. The lead author of the study told Carbon Brief that taxes are “the only policy instrument that has been found to cause large emission reductions on their own”. The study received 30 mentions in blogs and more than 200 news mentions.

Some studies receive a lot of attention because they provoke discussion or a significant backlash, which drives up news stories and discussion on social media.

For example, the paper ranking at number 14 is a Nature Climate Change study claiming that the planet has already exceeded the 1.5C warming threshold set under the Paris Agreement.

The authors use proxy data from sea sponges in the Caribbean Sea to create a record of ocean temperatures from AD700 to the present day. They find that warming started 40 years before the IPCC’s pre-industrial baseline period began, and argue that this means “warming is 0.5C higher than [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] estimates”.

However, many experts were critical, warning Carbon Brief that the framing of the study is misleading, and arguing that the finding has no bearing on the Paris Agreement 1.5C limit. One expert, who was also not involved in the study, said that “the way these findings have been communicated is flawed, and has the potential to add unnecessary confusion to public debate on climate change”.

The study received 262 news mentions, with some outlets – including the Guardian and New Scientist – highlighting the disagreements over the study’s framing.

All the final scores for the top 25 climate papers of 2024 can be found in this spreadsheet.

Top journals

Across the top 25 papers in Carbon Brief’s leaderboard this year, Nature features most frequently with seven papers. Nature is perennially high-placed in this analysis, taking first or joint first spot in Carbon Brief’s top 25 six times – 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2015.

In joint-second place this year are Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Communications Earth & Environment with three papers each.

Earth System Science Data has two papers, and there are seven journals that each have one paper.

Journals most frequently appearing in the top 25 climate papers in 2024

Diversity of the top 25

The top 25 climate papers of 2024 cover a wide range of topics and scope. However, analysis of their authors reveals an all-too-familiar lack of diversity. Carbon Brief recorded the gender and country of affiliation for each of these authors. (The methodology used was developed by Carbon Brief for analysis presented in a special 2021 series on climate justice.)

In total, the top 25 climate papers of 2024 have 275 authors. This is fewer than in the past two years, partly due to the absence of the Lancet Countdown report, which typically has more than 100 authors.

The analysis reveals that the authors of the climate papers most featured in the media in 2024 are predominantly men from the global north.

The chart below shows the institutional affiliations of all authors in this analysis, broken down by continent – Europe, North America, Oceania, Asia, South America and Africa.

Chart: 85% of authors of the top 25 climate papers of 2024 are from Europe, North America and Oceania

The analysis shows that 85% of authors are affiliated with institutions from the global north – defined as North America, Europe and Oceania. Meanwhile, only two authors are from Africa.

Further data analysis shows that there are also inequalities within continents. The map below shows the percentage of authors from each country in the analysis, where dark blue indicates a higher percentage. Countries that are not represented by any authors in the analysis are shown in grey.

More than one-quarter of the top 25 climate papers of 2024 are from the US

The top-ranking countries on this map are the US and the UK, with 26% and 18% of the total authors, respectively. Germany ranks third on the list with 15% of the authors.

Meanwhile, only one-third of authors from the top 25 climate papers of 2024 are women. And only five of the 25 papers have a woman as a lead author.

The plot below shows the number of authors from each continent who are men (purple) and women (yellow).

Only one-third of authors from the top 25 climate papers of 2024 are women

The full spreadsheet showing the results of this data analysis can be found here. For more on the biases in climate publishing, see Carbon Brief’s article on the lack of diversity in climate-science research.

The post Analysis: The climate papers most featured in the media in 2024 appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Analysis: The climate papers most featured in the media in 2024

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Germany election 2025: What the manifestos say on energy and climate change

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A federal election is taking place in Germany on 23 February, following the collapse of the coalition government at the end of last year.

Germans will vote to elect 630 members of the nation’s parliament.

Polling suggests there will be a political shift to the right, with the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the lead and far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) set to make significant gains.

A “traffic light” coalition of parties has ruled since 2021, led by the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), alongside the Green Party and the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

However, successive crises led to its breakup at the end of 2024, when the liberal, free market-oriented FDP split from the rest.

This prompted a vote of no confidence by the German parliament, which, in turn, triggered a snap election several months earlier than previously scheduled.

The coalition government has been plagued by ideological differences, particularly between the FDP and its two centre-left partners.

Climate policies were at the heart of many of the disputes. 

The centre-left SPD and Greens have broadly favoured more public spending on climate issues, while the FDP is opposed to state intervention of any sort.

In the interactive grid below, Carbon Brief tracks the commitments made by each of the main parties in their election manifestos, across a range of issues related to climate and energy.

The parties covered are:

  • Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU): The centre-right CDU and its regional Bavarian “sister party”, CSU, has been the dominant political force in modern Germany and is currently polling highest ahead of the election.
  • Social Democratic Party (SPD): The centre-left SPD has led the ruling coalition in Germany since the last election in 2021 and has traditionally been the other dominant party in the nation’s politics.
  • Green Party: The centre-left and environmentalist Greens have been part of the coalition government since 2021.
  • Free Democratic Party (FDP): The FDP is an economically liberal party that prioritises free markets and privatisation. It was part of the coalition government, but its departure at the end of 2024 ultimately triggered the federal election.
  • Left Party: In recent years, this left-wing, democratic-socialist party has lost much of its support base in the east of the country.
  • Alternative for Germany (AfD): The far-right party has become a major force in the country’s politics over the past decade, particularly in eastern Germany.
  • Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW): The party was only founded last year, as an offshoot of the Left Party, but it has rapidly risen in popularity with a left-wing economic message and a conservative approach to some social and cultural issues.

Each entry in the grid represents a direct quote from a manifesto document.

Net-zero and climate framing

Climate action has become a divisive topic in German politics.

This is evident in the major parties’ manifestos, which range from supporting more ambitious net-zero goals to outright climate scepticism.

Germany is currently aiming to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, with interim targets including a 65% cut by 2030.

Government climate advisors on the Council of Experts on Climate Change have stated that the nation is on track to miss the 2030 target.

Despite starting out with ambitious aims, the coalition’s climate progress has faltered, with the FDP successfully pushing for weaker climate policies. Moreover, a major court ruling curtailed the government’s climate spending by enforcing Germany’s limit on debt. 

Amid these wider tensions, Germany’s two traditionally dominant parties still want to retain the nation’s headline climate target. The CDU, which is leading the polls in the run-up to election day, commits to meeting the Paris Agreement goals in its manifesto, saying its sights are “firmly set” on net-zero by 2045.

The SPD, which is currently third in the polls and likely to end up in coalition with the CDU, also supports the 2045 net-zero target, as well as the interim goals.

However, the two parties differ substantially in their approach to meeting the 2045 target. The CDU prioritises carbon pricing and rejects the tougher policies to decarbonise heating and transport favoured by the SPD. (See: Heating dispute and Combustion engine phaseout.)

Meanwhile, the AfD manifesto repeatedly questions the “supposed scientific consensus” on “man-made climate change”. The party, which is currently second in the polls, “therefore rejects every policy and every tax that is related to alleged climate protection”.

Mainstream German parties across the spectrum have long agreed to a “firewall” against far-right groups, meaning they will not form coalitions with the AfD. However, the CDU recently sparked controversy when it backed an anti-immigration policy with the AfD.

The Green Party also supports the 2045 net-zero target in its manifesto, emphasising Germany’s status as the EU member state with the highest emissions. The Left Party goes further, calling for a 2040 net-zero goal.

As for the FDP, its manifesto argues for the 2045 net-zero goal to be pushed back to 2050, stating that this would align Germany with the EU target. Prior to exiting the coalition government last year, the party had demanded this policy change, claiming that it would be a way to boost the German economy.

(Germany already revised its net-zero target, bringing it forward by five years, following a supreme court ruling in 2021 that its 2050 goal was insufficient. Moreover, even with a later goal, Germany would still need to align with wider EU targets, meaning its climate policies may not change much due to its “effort sharing” obligations.)

Finally, the BSW is not specific about when the net-zero goal should be achieved, but pushes for a “departure from the wishful thinking of quickly achieving complete climate neutrality”.

It does not reject climate policies outright, stating that climate change should be “taken seriously”. However, it frames many climate policies as being “extremely expensive and often unrealistic”.

Heating dispute

Home heating has become a major political issue in Germany. Along with transport, buildings make up one of the key German sectors that have repeatedly missed their decarbonisation goals, prompting the coalition government to take action.

Towards the end of 2023, the German parliament passed an amendment to the Building Energy Act, meaning that newly installed heating systems had to be powered by at least 65% renewable energy. 

This covered heat pumps, “hydrogen-ready” gas boilers and other low-carbon systems. There are caveats to ensure the law is phased in gradually in different areas and types of homes, starting with new builds.

The amendment had been watered down compared to the coalition’s initial proposal, with allowances for people to keep gas boilers for longer. This followed relentless campaigning by the AfD and the right-leaning tabloid newspaper Bild, which dubbed the policy the “heizhammer” – or “heating hammer”.

There were also attacks from within the coalition, with the FDP criticising the law proposed by its partners in the Greens and SDP. Opponents framed the policy as an excessive burden on consumers.

These disputes are reflected in the election manifestos, with many parties outright rejecting the amended law. The CDU, FDP and AfD all say they would abolish it, as does the populist left BSW.

Meanwhile, the Green Party pledges to provide more government support for the installation of new heating systems by covering up to 70% of the price. The Left Party commits to covering 100% of the cost for low-income households.

(The current law covers 30% of the cost as a starting subsidy, with more available for low-income households and people who replace their boilers before 2028.)

Combustion engine phaseout

Several German political parties are pushing back against the EU-wide ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, which is set to come into effect in 2035.

The CDU says the “ban on combustion engines must be reversed”, while the AfD says the “one-sided preference for electromobility must be stopped immediately”.

(EVs are “likely crucial” for tackling transport emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC].)

The FDP and the BSW also argue that the 2035 phaseout date should be dropped, with less focus on the transition to electric cars. (This is in spite of Germany being the second-biggest manufacturer of electric cars in the world.)

These parties also favour getting rid of supposed “anti-car” policies. For example, they oppose speed limits on the German “autobahns” and support funding for alternative fuels, such as synthetic fuels.

The issue with ending the 2035 ban on new combustion-engine cars is that this policy is set at the EU level. Far-right and centre-right coalitions within the EU, including German parties, have been pushing hard to weaken the ban across the bloc. 

However, the centre-left parties that may end up forming a coalition with the CDU, notably the SPD, stand by the 2035 phaseout date.

There is growing pressure on Germany’s car industry, linked to global competition and slow economic growth. Some German industry figures have stressed the need for consistent policy signals from the government, regarding the transition to electric vehicles.

Clean energy and fossil fuels

Broadly speaking, German parties on the left tend to be more supportive of renewables, while strongly opposing nuclear power. Those on the right are generally more open to nuclear and in some cases coal power.

Germany, which uses more coal than any other EU member state, has a coal power phaseout date of 2038. This is supported by the CDU and the FDP, but the Greens and the Left Party want a quicker phaseout by 2030.

(When the coalition government formed in 2021, the parties agreed to “ideally” move the coal phaseout date to 2030, but this has not happened formally. The SPD manifesto does not include any mention of coal power,)

Only the AfD advocates for the construction of new coal power plants, framing them as filling a gap until new nuclear plants are built.

Last year, Germany closed down its final nuclear reactors, bringing an end to a long-term plan to phase out the power source. However, nuclear power continues to be a politicised topic, with some arguing that its continued use is necessary to ensure the nation’s energy security.

Notably, the CDU suggests in its manifesto that it is open to reviving nuclear power in the future. It proposes an “expert review” around restarting closed plants and advocates for research on advanced nuclear technologies, such as small modular reactors.

Despite this wording, CDU leader Friedrich Merz has conceded that it is unlikely any old reactors will be restarted. This echoes views expressed by German utility companies and energy experts.

Both the CDU and the SPD support the expansion of renewables in their manifestos. The Greens include a specific target to achieve a net-zero electricity grid by 2035. By contrast, the AfD calls for an end to wind power expansion, in favour of other technologies.

Finally, both the far-right AfD and the BSW say the German government should repair the damaged Nord Stream pipelines in order to import what the BSW refers to as “cheap” gas from Russia. (The Baltic Sea pipelines were blown up in 2022 under mysterious circumstances.)

Germany has tried to wean itself off Russian gas since the country’s invasion of Ukraine, with considerable success. However, both the AfD and the BSW are more open to cooperating with Russia, and less supportive of Ukraine, than mainstream German parties.

The post Germany election 2025: What the manifestos say on energy and climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Germany election 2025: What the manifestos say on energy and climate change

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Guest post: How atmospheric rivers are bringing rain to West Antarctica 

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“Atmospheric rivers” are bringing rain to the frozen slopes of the West Antarctic ice sheet, hitting the ice shelves that play a major role in holding back rapidly retreating glaciers.

In a new study, my colleagues and I show how rain is occurring in sub-zero temperatures due to these “rivers in the sky” – long, narrow plumes of air which transport heat and moisture from the tropics to the mid-latitudes and poles.

Rain in Antarctica is significant, not only because it is a stark indicator of climate change, but because it remains an under-studied phenomenon which could impact ice shelves.

Ice shelves in Antarctica are important gatekeepers of sea level rise.

They act as a buffer for glaciers that flow off the vast ice sheet, slowing the rate at which ice is released into the ocean.

In the study, we explore the causes of rain falling on ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea embayment region, which stand in front of the critically important Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers.

Researchers have warned the collapse of ice shelves in this region could trigger the loss of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet over several centuries.

Rivers in the sky

Atmospheric rivers are typically associated with bringing extreme rainfall to the mid-latitudes, but, in the frigid Antarctic, they can deliver metres of snow in just a few days. 

In West Antarctica, atmospheric rivers deliver a disproportionate quantity of the year’s snowfall. Research shows they account for around 13% of annual snowfall totals, despite occurring on just a few days per year.

But what makes atmospheric rivers in Antarctica so interesting is that snow is only part of the story. In extreme cases, they can also bring rain.

To explore how extreme precipitation affects the Amundsen Sea embayment region, we focused on two events associated with atmospheric rivers in 2020. The summer case took place over a week in February and the winter case over six days in June.

We used three regional climate models to simulate the two extreme weather events around the Thwaites and Pine Island ice shelves, then compared the results with snowfall observations.

During both the winter and summer cases, we find that atmospheric rivers dumped tens of metres of snow over the course of a week or so.

Meanwhile, the quantities of rain driven by these events were not insignificant. We observed up to 30mm of rain on parts of the Thwaites ice shelf in summer and up to 9mm in winter.

Amundsen sea, map.
A map of the Amundsen Sea embayment region in West Antarctica. Source: Produced by the British Antarctic Survey’s Mapping and Geographic Information Centre, 2025.

A mountain to climb

Antarctica’s cold climate and steep, icy topography make it unique. It also makes the region prone to rain in sub-zero temperatures.

The first reason for this is the foehn effect, which is when air forced over a mountain range warms as it descends on the downward slope.

Commonly observed across Antarctica, it is an important cause of melting over ice shelves on the Antarctic peninsula, the northernmost point of the continent. 

When air passes over the mountainous terrain of the West Antarctic ice sheet during atmospheric river events, temperatures near the surface of the ice shelves can climb above the melting point of 0C.

This can accentuate the formation of rain and drizzle that stays liquid below 0C – also known as “supercooled drizzle”.

Another factor which leads to liquid drizzle, rather than snow, in sub-zero conditions is a lack of dust and dirt – particles which are usually needed to trigger the formation of ice crystals in clouds.

In the pristine Antarctic, these particles – which act as “ice nuclei” – are few and far between. That means that pure liquid water can exist even when temperatures are below 0C.

The origins of rain over ice shelves

It is easy to assume that rain that reaches the surface in Antarctica is just snow that has melted after falling through a warm layer of air caused by the foehn effect. Indeed, this is what we initially supposed.

But our research shows that more rain reaches the surface of Antarctica when the air near the ground is within a few degrees of freezing.

At times when the foehn effect is strongest, there is often little or no rainfall, because it evaporates before it gets a chance to reach the surface.

However, we saw rain falling well above the warm layer of air near the surface, where temperatures were universally below 0C – and, in some cases, as low as -11C.

Rare rain

Rain in Antarctica is a rare occurrence. The region’s normally frigid temperatures mean that most precipitation over the continent falls as snow.

However, exactly how rare rain is in the region remains relatively unknown, because there are virtually zero measurements of rainfall in Antarctica.

There are a number of reasons for this – rain falls infrequently, and it is very difficult to measure in the hostile Antarctic environment.

Our results show that extreme events such as atmospheric rivers can bring rain. And it is likely that rain will become a more common occurrence in the future as temperatures rise and extreme weather events occur more frequently.

However, until rain starts being measured in Antarctica, scientists will have to rely entirely on models to predict rain, as we did in this research.

It is also not yet known exactly how rain could impact ice in Antarctica.

We do know that rain falling on snow darkens the surface, which can enhance melting, leading to greater ice losses. Meanwhile, rain that refreezes in the snowpack or trickles to the base of the ice can change the way that glaciers flow, impacting the resilience of ice shelves to fracture.

So, if we want to understand the future of the frozen continent, we need to start thinking about rain too. Because while rain may be rare now, it may not be for long.

The post Guest post: How atmospheric rivers are bringing rain to West Antarctica  appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Guest post: How atmospheric rivers are bringing rain to West Antarctica 

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Colombia’s COP16 presidency in suspense as minister resigns

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Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s minister of environment since 2022 and president of the COP16 UN biodiversity negotiations, has announced she will step down from government, but has asked President Gustavo Petro to let her stay in her post to conclude the UN nature talks later in February.

In her resignation letter, addressed to the president and dated February 8, Muhamad said she was quitting as a minister but urged him to consider “the need to conclude COP16” – the summit left unfinished in Colombia last year and now scheduled to resume from February 25 to 27 in Rome.

“I’ve led the complex negotiations in progress and I exercise the role of president (of the COP). Therefore, if you so decide, this resignation could be made effective from March 3,” the letter reads.

Muhamad has been one of the most vocal opponents of the recent appointment of former senator Armando Benedetti as Petro’s chief of staff. Benedetti has faced allegations of domestic abuse and corruption, and was previously fired as ambassador to Venezuela by Petro himself.

In a televised session of the council of ministers held last week, Muhamad heavily opposed Benedetti’s appointment and threatened to resign if he remained in the cabinet. “As a feminist and as a woman, I cannot sit at this table of our progressive project with Armando Benedetti,” she told Petro.

According to Oscar Soria, veteran biodiversity campaigner and CEO of think-tank The Common Initiative, the Colombian government is likely to keep Muhamad as COP president, but her resignation could have a negative impact on the talks.

“To have a good result in Rome, proactive and energetic diplomatic work by the presidency was needed in the last months. However, some key issues have not been discussed recently. The internal political crisis (in Colombia) has likely been a great distraction,” Soria told Climate Home.

Since Muhamad’s announcement, several other ministers have also resigned, leading Petro to place all of his cabinet on hold and asking for “protocolary resignations” from every member.

“It’s not clear how much support from the president and ministers (Muhamad) can count on when her counterparts from other countries need to be approached by the Colombian foreign service,” Soria added.

Upcoming nature talks

The COP16 biodiversity negotiations are set to resume later this month, with important decisions coming up on finance for nature and a monitoring framework to track progress on nature restoration. These decisions were left pending after negotiators ran out of time in Cali, Colombia, last year.

One of the most pressing issues is the future of the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF), which currently sits under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) until 2030. Some developing countries have called for the creation of a new fund, citing barriers at the GEF to access the funds.

Observers said COP16 could play an important role in the future of biodiversity finance, especially as the new US president, Donald Trump, cuts development funding for climate and nature projects.

“In Rome, countries must give a firm response to the measures and visions promoted by the Trump administration, reaffirming [their] commitment to protecting biodiversity,” said Karla Maas, campaigner at Climate Action Network (CAN) Latin America.

“This implies guaranteeing public resources for conservation instead of depending on the will of private actors or philanthropy,” Maas added.

(Reporting by Sebastian Rodriguez; editing by Megan Rowling)

The post Colombia’s COP16 presidency in suspense as minister resigns appeared first on Climate Home News.

Colombia’s COP16 presidency in suspense as minister resigns

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