A victory for Donald Trump in November’s presidential election could lead to an additional 4bn tonnes of US emissions by 2030 compared with Joe Biden’s plans, Carbon Brief analysis reveals.
This extra 4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) by 2030 would cause global climate damages worth more than $900bn, based on the latest US government valuations.
For context, 4GtCO2e is equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the EU and Japan, or the combined annual total of the world’s 140 lowest-emitting countries.
Put another way, the extra 4GtCO2e from a second Trump term would negate – twice over – all of the savings from deploying wind, solar and other clean technologies around the world over the past five years.
If Trump secures a second term, the US would also very likely miss its global climate pledge by a wide margin, with emissions only falling to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030. The US’s current target under the Paris Agreement is to achieve a 50-52% reduction by 2030.
Carbon Brief’s analysis is based on an aggregation of modelling by various US research groups. It highlights the significant impact of the Biden administration’s climate policies. This includes the Inflation Reduction Act – which Trump has pledged to reverse – along with several other policies.
The findings are subject to uncertainty around economic growth, fuel and technology prices, the market response to incentives and the extent to which Trump is able to roll back Biden’s policies.
The analysis might overstate the impact Trump could have on US emissions, if some of Biden’s policies prove hard to unpick – or if subnational climate action accelerates.
Equally, it might understate Trump’s impact. For example, his pledge to “drill, baby, drill” is not included within the analysis and would likely raise US and global emissions further through the increased extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal.
Also not included are the potential for Biden to add new climate policies if he wins a second term, nor the risk that some of his policies will be weakened, delayed or hit by legal challenges.
Regardless of the precise impact, a second Trump term that successfully dismantles Biden’s climate legacy would likely end any global hopes of keeping global warming below 1.5C.
- The ‘Trump effect’ on US emissions
- How the Biden administration is tackling warming
- What a second-term Trump might do
- The global climate implications of the US election
- How the analysis was carried out
The ‘Trump effect’ on US emissions
US greenhouse gas emissions have been falling steadily since 2005, due to a combination of economic shifts, greater efficiency, the growth of renewables and a shift from coal to gas power.
Since taking office in early 2021, Biden has pledged under the Paris Agreement to accelerate that trend by cutting US emissions to 50-52% below 2005 levels in 2030 and to net-zero in 2050.
He has implemented a long list of policies – most notably the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act – to keep those targets within reach. (See: How the Biden administration is tackling warming.)
In the “Biden” scenario in the figure below (blue line), all federal climate policies currently in place or in the process of being finalised are assumed to continue. The scenario does not include any new climate policies that might be adopted after November’s election.
The administration’s current climate policies are expected to cut US emissions significantly, bringing the country close to meeting its 2030 target range. Nevertheless, a gap remains between projected emissions and those needed to meet the 2030 and 2050 targets (green).
The “Trump” scenario (red line) assumes the IRA and other key Biden administration climate policies are rolled back. It does not include further measures that Trump could take to boost fossil fuels or undermine the progress of clean energy. (See: What a second-term Trump might do.)
For both projections, the shaded area shows the range of results from six different models, with varying assumptions on economic growth, fuel costs and the price of low-carbon technologies.
In total, the analysis suggests that US greenhouse gas emissions would fall to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030 if Trump secures a second term and rolls back Biden’s policies – far short of the 50-52% target. If Biden is reelected, emissions would fall to around 43% below 2005 levels.
In the Trump scenario, annual US greenhouse gas emissions would be around 1GtCO2e higher in 2030 than under Biden, resulting in a cumulative addition of around 4GtCO2e by that year.
Based on the recently updated central estimate of the social cost of carbon from the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) – which stands at some $230 per tonne of CO2 in 2030 – those 4GtCO2e of extra emissions would cause global climate damages worth more $900bn.
To put the additional emissions in context, EU greenhouse gas emissions currently stand at around 3GtCO2e per year, while Japan’s are another 1GtCO2e. If the EU meets its climate goals, then its emissions would fall to 2GtCO2e in 2030 and to below 1GtCO2e in 2040.
Only eight of the world’s nearly 200 countries have emissions that exceed 1GtCO2e per year – and 4GtCO2e is more than the combined yearly total from the 140 lowest-emitting nations.
Expressed another way, the extra 4GtCO2e would be equivalent to double all of the emissions savings secured globally, over the past five years, by deploying wind, solar, electric vehicles, nuclear and heat pumps.
Carbon Brief’s analysis highlights several key points.
First, that Biden’s climate goals for the US in 2030 and 2050 will not be met, without further policy measures after the next election.
This could include additional state-level action, which could yield an additional 4 percentage points of emissions savings by 2030. Added to the “Biden” pathway, this would take US emissions to 47% below 2005 levels – closer to, but still not in line with the 2030 pledge.
Second, despite this policy gap, Biden’s current climate policies go a significant way towards meeting the 2030 target and could be added to in the future.
Third, if Trump is able to remove all of Biden’s key climate policies, then the US is all but guaranteed to miss its targets by a wide margin.
Given the scale of US emissions and its influence on the world, this makes the election crucial to hopes of limiting warming to 1.5C. (See: The global climate implications of the US election.)
Finally, there is policy uncertainty around which policies will be finalised, how strong any final rules will be, what legal challenges they may face and how easy they prove to roll back.
There is also uncertainty – illustrated by the ranges in the chart – around the impact of Biden’s policies, the response of households, business and industry to those measures, and the rate of economic growth, as well as over future prices for fossil fuels and low-carbon technologies.
These uncertainties are partly – but not entirely – captured by the six models underlying the analysis, which have different model structures and input assumptions.
How the Biden administration is tackling warming
In 2015, the then-president Barack Obama pledged a 26-28% reduction in US emissions below 2005 levels by 2025 as an intended “nationally determined contribution” (iNDC) to the Paris Agreement.
On taking office in 2017, the climate-sceptic president Trump then pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement, attracting global opprobrium. He then rolled back or replaced Obama-era climate policies, including the Clean Power Plan, while attempting – unsuccessfully – to prop up coal.
Trump’s successor as president, Joe Biden, campaigned in 2020 on a platform of a “clean energy revolution”. On gaining office in 2021, he immediately rejoined the Paris Agreement and then issued a more ambitious pledge to cut US emissions to 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030.
Biden also pledged to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2035 and joined roughly 150 other countries in committing the US to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 – the global benchmark, if the world is to keep warming below 1.5C.
In order to keep these targets within reach, the Biden administration has ushered in a series of climate policies. Most notable is the 2022 IRA, unexpectedly passed by Congress after a 51-50 Senate vote, with the tie broken by the vice president Kamala Harris.
This has been called the largest package of domestic climate measures in US history. It offers incentives covering a broad swathe of the economy from low-carbon manufacturing to clean energy, electric vehicles, “climate-smart” agriculture and low-carbon hydrogen.
The IRA accounts for the most significant part of the emissions reductions expected as a result of Biden’s climate policies to date and shown by the blue line in the figure above.
It includes grants, loans and tax credits initially estimated to be worth $369bn. However, most of the tax credits are not capped, meaning the overall cost and impact on emissions is uncertain.
In general, cost estimates have risen since its passing, as investments triggered by the bill’s incentives have rolled in, with some now putting its ultimate cost above $1tn.
However, a recent analysis of progress since the bill passed in 2021 shows that while electric vehicle sales are running at the top end of what was expected in earlier modelling of the IRA’s impact, the deployment of clean electricity – in particular, wind power – is falling slightly behind.
(Another recent study looks at the behavioural challenges that could affect the success or failure of the IRA, including as a result of political polarisation. Separately, gas power expansion plans from several major US utilities also pose a challenge to the IRA.)
Other Biden administration initiatives with important implications for US emissions include the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, loans for nuclear power plants and new standards on appliance efficiency issued by the Department of Energy.
Meanwhile, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has finalised rules on methane emissions from oil and gas facilities. It has also proposed – but not yet finalised – rules on vehicle fuel standards, power plant greenhouse gas standards and power plant air pollution.
The administration is now rushing to finalise these rules within the next couple of months, so that they could not be overturned easily after the election using the Congressional Review Act.
The administration is reportedly planning to weaken its proposed vehicle fuel standards. The final version would retain the original aim of having two-thirds of new sales be all-electric by 2032, but would ease the trajectory to reaching that target, according to the New York Times. This would reduce the emissions-cutting impact, relative to what is assumed in the “Biden” scenario.
Separately, the administration is reported to be exempting existing gas-fired units from its proposed power plant emissions rules, focusing for now on existing coal and future gas-fired units. The New York Times quotes EPA administrator Michael Regan saying this will “achieve greater emissions reductions”, but the timescales could also affect the scenario projection.
Meanwhile, Biden has also overseen a rare Senate approval of an international climate treaty, when it ratified the Kigali Amendment on tackling climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons in 2022, with the US EPA issuing related rules the following year.
In addition, Biden’s time in office has seen further state-level action on emissions. This includes California’s clean car standards, as strengthened in 2022 and adopted by six other states.
What a second-term Trump might do
For his part, former president and Republican front-runner Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to roll back his predecessor’s climate policies, just as he did during his first term.
For example, in 2018, the Trump administration lifted Obama-era rules on toxic air pollution from electricity generating and industrial sites – with Biden now moving to reverse the reversal.
Similarly, in 2020, his administration rolled back an Obama-era EPA rule on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. The Biden administration’s methane rule could face a similar fate under a second Trump term.
Trump also has form when it comes to energy efficiency regulations, which he rolled back in 2020.
In November 2023, the Financial Times reported that Trump was “planning to gut” the IRA, increase investment in fossil fuels and roll back regulations to encourage electric vehicles. The newspaper added that Trump had called the IRA the “biggest tax hike in history”.
It quoted Carla Sands, an adviser to Trump, as saying:
“On the first day of a second Trump administration, the president has committed to rolling back every single one of Joe Biden’s job-killing, industry-killing regulations.”
Indeed, Republicans in the US House of Representatives have already made multiple attempts to repeal parts of the IRA. While some analysts think a full repeal of the act is unlikely, it is clear that a second-term Trump could – as Politico put it – ”hobble the climate law”.
A February 2024 commentary from investment firm Trium Capital argues that the impact on IRA will depend not only on whether Trump wins victory in November, but also on whether the Republicans retain control of the House and gain a Senate majority.
Even if the Republicans win all three races, the commentary suggests that some parts of IRA might survive beyond the election. It says that consumer incentives for electric vehicles and home heating are “most at risk”, whereas tax credits for clean energy might only be modified.
Equally, MIT Technology Review says that clean energy and EV tax credits both “appear especially vulnerable, climate policy experts say”. The publication adds:
“Moreover, Trump’s wide-ranging pledges to weaken international institutions, inflame global trade wars, and throw open the nation’s resources to fossil-fuel extraction could have compounding effects on any changes to the IRA, potentially undermining economic growth, the broader investment climate, and prospects for emerging green industries.”
Meanwhile, Trump has also criticised Biden’s infrastructure act and previously revoked California’s ability to set tougher car emissions standards, which are also adopted by other states.
In 2022, the California “waiver” was reinstated by Biden, who also opposed a 2023 Republican bill designed to remove California’s right to regulate. Yet the waiver is now embroiled in legal action brought by Republican states, expected to end up in the Supreme Court.
If he emerges victorious in November, Trump would also “plan to destroy the EPA”, according to a Guardian article published earlier this month. It reported:
“Donald Trump and his advisers have made campaign promises to toss crucial environmental regulations and boost the planet-heating fossil fuel sector. Those plans include systematically dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the federal body with the most power to take on the climate emergency and environmental justice, an array of Trump advisers and allies said.”
The paper cites Project 2025, described as “a presidential agenda put forth by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative organisations”. It also quotes Mandy Gunasekara, Trump’s EPA chief of staff and a contributor to the Project 2025 agenda.
After Trump was elected for the first time, many scientists, politicians and campaigners argued that his presidency would only have a relatively short-term effect on emissions and climate goals.
Many of his first-term efforts to rollback climate rules and boost fossil fuels ended in failure.
While some modelling suggested that his first presidency would delay hitting global emissions targets by a decade, Carbon Brief analysis found that US states and cities might be able to take sufficient steps to meet the country’s then-current climate goal without federal action.
However, another recent Guardian article says that a second-term Trump would be “even more extreme for the environment than his first, according to interviews with multiple Trump allies and advisers”. It adds:
“In contrast to a sometimes chaotic first White House term, they outlined a far more methodical second presidency: driving forward fossil fuel production, sidelining mainstream climate scientists and overturning rules that curb planet-heating emissions.”
Carbon Brief’s “Trump” scenario does not include additional fossil fuel emissions as a result of policies supporting coal, oil and gas production or use, as the success or otherwise of any such efforts are highly uncertain.
In addition, higher US fossil fuel production would not all be consumed domestically and would not increase global demand on a one-for-one basis.
While it would be likely to raise demand and emissions, both domestically and internationally, the precise impact would depend on the response of markets and overseas policymakers.
The global climate implications of the US election
If Biden – or another Democrat – wins the election in November and if his party regains control over the House and Senate, then they could push to implement new climate policies in 2025.
There is a clear need for further policy, if US climate goals are to be met. Moreover, the expiration of a large number of tax cuts at the end of 2025 could present an opportunity to deploy carbon pricing in support of raising revenues – and cutting emissions – according to a recent study.
It suggests that a price on emissions, described as a “carbon fee”, could significantly boost US chances of hitting its 2030 target, even if paired with a partial repeal of the IRA.
(Note that the “Repeal IRA; no new emissions rules” scenario in this study is similar to the “Trump” scenario in Carbon Brief’s analysis. However, the model used in the study finds a relatively weak 2030 emissions impact of the IRA compared with most of the five others, with which it is aggregated by Carbon Brief.)
An additional point of leverage is the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which will put a carbon price on US exports unless they face an equivalent price domestically, according to Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse, speaking at a launch event for the study:
“The 2025 opportunity when the Trump tax cuts collapse [creates] huge room for negotiation. Then you’ve got the CBAM happening in Europe that puts enormous pressure to get a price of carbon, if you want to avoid being tariffed at the EU and UK level.”
Whether a second-term Biden administration would attempt to put a price on carbon or not, it would be likely to push forward new policies in pursuit of US climate targets.
In contrast, a victory for Donald Trump could be expected, at a minimum, to result in full or partial repeal of the IRA and rollbacks of Biden’s climate rules, including power plants, cars and methane.
This is reflected in Carbon Brief’s “Trump” scenario, which would add a cumulative 4GtCO2e to US emissions by 2030, as shown in the figure below.
Moreover, assuming no further policy changes, this cumulative total would continue to climb beyond 2030, reaching 15GtCO2e by 2040 and a huge 27GtCO2e by 2050.
The increases in cumulative emissions under the “Trump” scenario are so large that they would imperil not only the US climate targets, but also global climate goals. (Under the 22nd amendment of the US constitution, Trump would not be allowed to run for a third term.)
In 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sixth assessment report (AR6) said that it would be “impossible” to stay below 1.5C without strengthening current pledges:
“[F]ollowing current NDCs until 2030…[would make] it impossible to limit warming to 1.5C with no or limited overshoot and strongly increas[e] the challenge to likely limit warming to 2C.”
The corollary of this is that if the US – the world’s second-largest emitter – misses its 2030 target by a wide margin, then it would be likely to end any hope of keeping global warming below 1.5C.
How the analysis was carried out
The two scenarios set out in this analysis are based on an aggregation of modelling published by Bistline et al. (2023) and the Rhodium Group (2023).
The first study was explained by the authors in a Carbon Brief guest post. It compares the impact of the IRA using results from 11 separate models, some of which only cover the power sector. Carbon Brief’s analysis uses results from the six models that cover the entire US economy.
The “Trump” scenario is based on the “reference” pathway in this study, corresponding to the average of the six models. The only modification is that the Trump scenario is set to match the Biden scenario below until 2024.
The “Biden” scenario is based on the average IRA pathway from this study, extended using modelling from the Rhodium Group to include the impact of further Biden administration policies.
Carbon Brief’s analysis uses the “mid-emissions” pathway from the Rhodium study’s “federal-only” scenario, which includes the impact of vehicle fuel standards, power plant greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions rules, and energy efficiency regulations.
This additional Rhodium Group modelling is based on draft rules which have not yet been finalised and are subject to change, as well as to potential legal challenge, as discussed above.
The uncertainty shown for the “Trump” and “Biden” scenarios corresponds to the range in the six economy-wide models from Bistline et al. (2023).
Carbon Brief’s analysis does not include any additional post-2025 climate policies that could be adopted by a second Biden administration. Nor does it include the potential impact of pro-fossil fuel policies that could be introduced by a second Trump administration.
Finally, it also does not include additional subnational climate policies that could be introduced, nor does it consider the risk that current or future state action could be hit by federal or legal challenge.
Historical US greenhouse gas emissions are taken from the US EPA inventory through to 2021. Figures for 2022 and 2023 are based on estimated annual changes from the Rhodium Group.
The post Analysis: Trump election win could add 4bn tonnes to US emissions by 2030 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Trump election win could add 4bn tonnes to US emissions by 2030
Candidates are being nominated to take over as the UN secretary general, when António Guterres steps down after nearly a decade in the role at the end of 2026.
Since becoming the ninth secretary general on 1 January 2017, Guterres has been a strong advocate for climate action, saying in January 2026:
“We have been outspoken on the urgent need for climate action, demanding ambition and working to rally governments, businesses and civil society.”
According to the UN, his predecessor, Ban Ki-moon, also “fought tirelessly to ensure that climate change stays at the top of the leaders’ agendas”.
Following a call for nominations going out in November last year, member states are currently nominating candidates to be the next secretary general.
To date, six candidates have been nominated by UN member states, with more expected in the coming months.
Below, Carbon Brief looks at the candidates’ views on climate change.
The UN secretary general’s role in climate action
The UN charter describes the secretary general as the organisation’s “chief administrative officer”.
According to the UN, they are a “symbol of UN ideals and a spokesperson for the interests of the world’s peoples, in particular the poor and vulnerable among them”.
It adds that the role is “[e]qual parts diplomat and advocate, civil servant and CEO”.
Over the past two decades, UN secretaries general have used their platform to advance action on climate change.
They have done so both by serving as a “moral authority” on climate change and as mediators in the drive to bring countries together, according to the UN.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general from 2007 to 2016, oversaw and brokered negotiations that culminated in the Paris Agreement, which he described as a “peace pact with the planet”.
Additionally, he pushed for its rapid ratification by member states so it could enter into force in record time compared to other treaties – such as its predecessor the Kyoto Protocol, which took eight years to come into force – with Ban securing an early buy-in from the US and China.
He also worked to mobilise $100bn per year by 2020 in climate financing from developed to developing countries. (The target was, ultimately, met two years late.)
His successor and current secretary general, Guterres, had been Portugal’s prime minister from 1995 to 2002, making him the first former national leader to hold the position.
Guterres served as the UN’s high commissioner for refugees between 2005 and 2015, a period that saw the highest level of human displacement since the second world war.
Guterres was the first secretary general to be elected through the current process, which includes public hearings and anonymous polling. (See: Next steps.)
He was chosen as the successful candidate in 2016, when he was voted in without opposition “in a rare show of unity” by members of the security council.
In his near-decade in office, he has become known for his references to the climate “emergency” and his calls for nations to make rapid emissions cuts.
Describing climate change as a “battle for our lives” and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2021 report as a “code red for humanity”, Guterres has repeatedly demanded immediate action towards limiting global warming to 1.5C.
In 2024, as the world edged closer to hitting 1.5C of warming in an individual year, Guterres said:
“The battle to limit temperature rise to 1.5C will be won or lost in the 2020s – under the watch of leaders today.”
Besides repeatedly urging developed countries to meet their climate-finance obligations, Guterres has also intervened in attempts to resolve gridlocked negotiations at the annual “COP” climate summits.
He is known for his pointed advocacy on phasing out fossil fuels and for regularly convening states to submit more ambitious climate pledges.
The candidates
In the run-up to the UN general assembly in September 2026, nations are putting forward candidates for the secretary general position.
According to Reuters, tradition dictates that the role rotates between regions, with Latin America and the Caribbean next in line.
Thus far, five of the six candidates are from South or Central America: Michelle Bachelet Jeria; Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis; Rafael Mariano Grossi; María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés; and Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett.
The outlier is Macky Sall, a former Senegalese president nominated by the east African nation of Burundi.
Reuters adds that there is an “unwritten rule” that the secretary general never comes from one of the five permanent members of the UN security council – the UK, China, France, Russia and the US – to avoid an over-concentration of power.
In its 80-year history, a woman has never held the position of UN secretary general. Four of the six candidates nominated to date are women.
As shown below, this fact was noted “with regret” by a UN general assembly resolution in 2025, setting out the rules of the process to appoint the next secretary general.
Speaking during the first candidates’ debate, Espinosa Garcés quipped:
“I think, of course, a woman – it’s about time, isn’t it? After 80 years [of the UN’s existence].”
The debate was held in June by the UN Foundation, in collaboration with women’s organisation GWL Voices.
Bachelet, Espinosa and Grynspan took part in person at the event in Geneva, Switzerland.
(Sall sent in a video intervention, played at the beginning of the debate. Grossi was, according to the presenter, “not available” to participate and “chose not to send” a message by video.)
The three candidates were asked by an audience member how they would “ensure the climate governance becomes more equitable in response to those on the front lines of the crisis”, if they were elected as secretary-general.
Bachelet called for increased urgency in tackling climate change. Grynspan highlighted the need for action on adaptation as well as mitigation. Espinosa emphasised the need for a wide range of people to be involved in climate action, from Indigenous people to the financial sector.
The three participants all emphasised the need for finance in their responses. Bachelet, for example, specifically highlighting the need for grant-based finance. She said that “we cannot” keep asking “states that are fighting with a terrible debt” to accept climate-finance loans, which, ultimately, add to their debt. She added:
“They’re drowning and we’re asking them to ask for loans with a debt service that’s so big.”
All six candidates attended the Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity, co-hosted in Geneva by the Ban Ki-moon Foundation, at the end of June, ahead of the scheduling of further debates.
Additionally, for the first time in the selection process, candidates have been asked to voluntarily disclose their funding sources at the time of nomination.
Below, Carbon Brief details the candidates that have been nominated so far, what climate-relevant roles they have held previously and their views on climate change. (The list will be updated as further candidates are announced.)
Michelle Bachelet Jeria
Dr Michelle Bachelet Jeria is a Chilean diplomat, politician and doctor, nominated to be the next UN secretary general by Brazil and Mexico.
Bachelet was the former UN high commissioner for human rights, having served as its seventh commissioner from 2018 to 2022 and as the first director of UN Women.
She originally trained as a doctor – an education that was disrupted by being exiled in 1975 following the Chilean coup d’état led by general Augusto Pinochet – and specialised in paediatrics and public health.
In 1990, she began taking on roles in government bodies, including work in the Ministry of Health. This led her to further study, completing courses in military strategy and continental defence.
She became health minister in March 2000, before becoming the first woman to be the defence minister in Chile and Latin America in 2002.
Bachelet was elected as Chile’s first – and only – woman president, serving two terms: from 2006 to 2010 and 2014 to 2018.
As president and in public office, she consistently framed action on climate change as a human-rights obligation and a preventive tool to mitigate the worst impacts, arguing that “there is no space for [climate] denial”.
During her second term as Chile’s president, the share of renewables in the nation’s energy mix grew from 6% to 17% in four years. Bachelet also enacted South America’s first carbon tax and announced a 70% by 2050 renewable-energy goal, as well as expanding marine protected areas.
Among the range of international positions she has held over the last 20 years, Bachelet was named as the first director of the UN Women agency by former UN secretary general Ban.
Throughout her first term as high commissioner for human rights, Bachelet advocated for the protection of environmental defenders at risk, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as women and girls impacted by climate change.
In a 2022 address to the UN human rights council following devastating fires in the Amazon, Bachelet remarked: “We are burning up our future – literally.” She continued:
“The world has never seen a threat to human rights of this scope. This is not a situation where any country, any institution, any policymaker can stand on the sidelines.
“The economies of all nations; the institutional, political, social and cultural fabric of every State, and the rights of all your people – and future generations – will be impacted.”
In an interview after she stepped down as human rights chief, Bachelet described the “triple planetary crisis – climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss” – as the “worst threat for humanity”.
In February 2026, she “broke new ground” when she was nominated by multiple UN member states – Chile, Mexico and Brazil – for the secretary general position.
However, in March, Chile’s newly sworn-in right-wing government, led by José Antonio Kast, withdrew its backing for Bachelet. Her nomination was dubbed “unviable” and a “mistake” by figures in the new government.
This is the first time a nominating state has withdrawn its support for a candidate. Bachelet’s candidacy is still supported by Brazil and Mexico.
Additionally, more than two dozen Republican US lawmakers accused Bachelet of “prioritis[ing] an extreme abortion agenda” in a letter earlier in 2026. They called for the US to veto her nomination.
She pushed back during a hearing in New York, US, saying that she “will always be by the side of women”.
In her pitch for secretary general, Bachelet calls for “simplify[ing] access to climate funds”, “innovative financial instruments” to address biodiversity loss and climate change and “sustainable responses that ensure climate justice, particularly for developing countries and vulnerable communities”.
She calls for debt relief, “true reform” of the international financial architecture, promoting investment in sustainable infrastructure and accelerating a just energy transition, with special attention to small-island states and least-developed countries. She says:
“From climate change to armed conflict, from growing inequality to technological disruption, the future of the UN will depend on its ability to adapt, renew and lead.”
Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis
Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis is a Costa Rican economist, diplomat and the former vice-president of Costa Rica. The nation backed her nomination.
In 2021, Grynspan became the first woman to be appointed secretary general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
As part of this role, in February 2022, she outlined the UN’s vision for a sustainable recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic that “avoid[s] another lost decade of development for developing countries”.
In July 2022, Grynspan was credited with playing a “central” role in negotiating the Black Sea grain initiative struck between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN.
Brokered on behalf of the UN and as part of the Istanbul agreements, the initiative allowed grain and fertiliser exports blocked by Russia to resume to some of the world’s most food-insecure nations, with global food prices falling 23% in response to the deals.
In her pitch to become secretary general, Grynspan prioritises “durable peace and security” and UN reform as the first two of her three key priorities.
She warns that the world is “sleepwalking into dangerous climate-change scenarios”. Still, she adds that “technology offers new paths to development”, including through clean energy and critical minerals that are becoming “as valuable as oil”.
Grynspan has been especially vocal on the interconnections between climate and debt, observing that “financing is really key for any objective that we set to stick to the 1.5C target”.
Grynspan also supports the Bridgetown Initiative, championed by Barbados’ prime minister, Mia Mottley, to reform the global financial architecture and address debt and climate change, particularly in climate-vulnerable countries.
In her pitch, Grynspan warns that many millions “will continue to live in crushing scarcity and face compounding crises” if current trends continue.
These, she says, include small-island states “hit by cyclones that grow fiercer each year, landlocked nations facing the brunt of rising trade costs [and] developing economies servicing debt while capital moves past them”. She continues:
“Many states, including middle-income countries that are home to most of the world’s poor, struggle to fully access the trade, finance, technology and investment opportunities of the global economy.
“The UN must help widen the pathways to economic opportunities and help remove the structural constraints that stifle people’s potential. Sustainable development is not given, but unleashed.”
Rafael Mariano Grossi
Rafael Mariano Grossi is an Argentine diplomat and has served as the director-general of the UN’s nuclear watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – since 2019.
Grossi was nominated by Argentina in November 2025.
A month later, Iran opposed his candidacy for failing to condemn US-Israeli attacks against “safeguarded, peaceful nuclear facilities”. It has since accused him of political bias and “destructive statements”.
While his “vision statement” for the UN does not directly mention “climate” or “climate change”, he refers to progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as “unfulfilled aspirations”.
Grossi suggests a “grounded, sectoral approach” to the world’s challenges through “collaborative partnerships” with “civil society, the private sector and the scientific community”.
In the statement – his pitch for the secretary general position – Grossi writes:
“Development cooperation must deliver tangible benefits, including access to health care, food, water and energy security, environment, education and real opportunities for a better quality of life, especially in countries facing the greatest challenges. Words must lead to action, and action to impact.”
Grossi takes credit for helping to achieve “global consensus around the need for nuclear power in the energy transition”.
At the UN climate summit COP28 in Dubai in 2023, Grossi delivered a statement saying:
“Net-zero needs nuclear power. The world needs nuclear power to fight climate change and action should be taken to expand the use of this clean energy source and help build a low-carbon bridge to the future.”
At the conference, a declaration to triple nuclear energy was endorsed by 22 national governments, including the US, France, the UAE and the UK.
More recently, Grossi has described the annual COP summits as “unmanageable” due to their size. According to the National, he has also “said he hoped to bridge the gap between climate agreements and growing energy demands, particularly in developing countries”.
Macky Sall
Macky Sall is a Senegalese politician who served as prime minister from 2004 to 2007 and then president from 2012 to 2024. He has been nominated by Burundi, which is currently the chair of the African Union (AU).
However, Sall’s candidacy has been rejected by other AU states, with Rwanda calling the use of a “silent procedure” to push through consensus on the African candidate for the position “a gross breach of AU rules and regulations”.
In his “vision statement”, Sall says that “peace and security cannot be sustained when the foundations of development are undermined by poverty, inequality, exclusion and climate vulnerability”.
While Sall underlines shortfalls in development financing, he emphasises that a “solidarity-based approach, founded on trust in crisis management, combined with sustained efforts for prevention and strengthening of early warning initiatives and mechanisms” is needed to address the challenges created by climate change.
Although Sall’s 12-year stint as president focused on “reducing power cuts and connecting remote villages to the power grid”, his candidacy is also facing charges of corruption, protestor crackdowns and media repression, according to Al Jazeera.
During the early part of Sall’s presidency, Senegal discovered oil and gas reserves – and the country’s oil exports have since surged from $0.4bn in 2015 to $2.4bn in 2024.
He was supportive of the African oil-and-gas sector, with much of the development of Senegal’s first oil production site undertaken during his term in office.
In 2019, a BBC Africa Eye investigation alleged that a company owned by Aliou Sall – Sall’s brother – received secret payments from businessmen who had obtained licences for two offshore gas blocks that same year. Sall denied the allegations.
María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés
María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés is an Ecuadorian linguist, poet, politician and conservationist. She was nominated by Antigua and Barbuda on 12 May, the only Caribbean state to put forward a candidate in this year’s selection process.
Espinosa was the president of the UN general assembly (UNGA) from 2018 to 2019. She has also served as Ecuador’s minister of foreign affairs twice, as well as its defence minister.
Before her political career, Espinosa was known for her work with Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon and biodiversity conservation.
She established the socio-environmental studies programme at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and served as the regional director for South America at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) from 2005 to 2007.
Espinosa is no stranger to climate talks: she was Ecuador’s chief climate negotiator at UN COPs from Copenhagen in 2009 to Paris in 2015.
In a statement ahead of COP24 in Katowice, Poland, Espinosa – as UNGA president – remarked:
“I clearly remember the long negotiation days; the emotions, the frustrations, the sense of duty fulfilled in Cancun, Johannesburg or Copenhagen; the great hope of Paris. Clearly, we have come a long way, and much has been achieved, but we must rise to the new evidence and the new threats.
“The current climate crisis gives us now the opportunity to show the world that effective, results-oriented multilateralism is not an option but a survival necessity.”
In a 2024 paper, she lists fragmentation, “coordination challenges” and an “implementation deficit” as some of the key hurdles undermining the UN’s global environmental governance framework. She argues that its effectiveness “is significantly compromised by its very structure”.
In the same paper, Espinosa observes that the UNFCCC’s consensus-based decision-making “paradoxically contributes” to challenges in responding to climate change.
In her vision statement, Espinosa says that she plans to encourage a “more coherent international response” to support highly indebted, climate-vulnerable countries.
She states that the UN must act as a platform to strengthen cooperation on energy and support states during energy shocks.
According to Espinosa, “energy security, access, sustainability, trade and strategic autonomy are central to global stability”, with the energy transition “reshaping patterns of dependence and competition”.
She also says critical mineral extraction is being “unevenly distributed and developing at breakneck speed”.
If selected as secretary general, Espinosa plans to establish a “global energy security coordination mechanism” between UN member states and “other key actors” to manage the impacts of global energy shocks. These include impacts on energy access and affordability, food security, development and social stability, according to her nomination statement.
At a special UNGA meeting on climate ambition and sustainable development in 2019, Espinosa warned the gathering:
“We are the last generation that can prevent irreparable damage to our planet. Climate justice is intergenerational justice.”
Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett
Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett is a politician, diplomat, former school teacher and Guyana’s permanent representative to the UN. She was nominated by her home nation on 15 June 2026, becoming the first Indigenous candidate in the current elections.
Rodrigues-Birkett served as Guyana’s minister for Amerindian affairs – the Indigenous population – in 2001 and 2006.
Appointed at the age of 27, Birkett is widely recognised as one of the “architects” of the Amerindian Act of 2006 – a piece of legislation described as “a milestone for Amerindian land rights, not only in Guyana but the western hemisphere”.
The act codified Indigenous land rights, governance and mandates their consent before mining or development projects on communally owned forest land.
In 2008, Birkett was appointed the country’s minister for foreign affairs and trade for two terms, the first and youngest woman of Indigenous descent to rise to the role.
Birkett has served as Guyana’s envoy in the security council in its two-year tenure between 2024 to 2025, supporting statements on the linkages between climate, peace, security and food insecurity.
Between 2015 and 2020, she coordinated the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) work with other UN organisations and its outreach to parliamentarians, particularly in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
In her vision statement for the role, Birkett places a strong emphasis on climate finance and unmet sustainable development goals. She says:
“While trillions exist globally in potential financing, many developing countries continue to struggle with access. There has also been a profound shift in the risk landscape characterised by interconnected threats and climate-related challenges.”
The new secretary general, she says, must work with member states to “champion the implementation of existing commitments”. She adds that “there must be continued support to [m]ember [s]tates as they implement agreed” climate commitments.
If elected, Birkett pledges to use the secretary general’s convening powers to “bring all stakeholders together to address climate impacts and protect the environment”.
Next steps
While parties were encouraged to submit their candidates by April 2026, they can continue to make nominations for the next UN secretary general until the end of July.
At this point, the 15-member security council will begin to discuss the candidates “behind closed doors”.
Candidates will need to clear a “straw poll” vote by the council. These are informal, anonymous ballots to determine the viability of candidates.
Security council members have the option to “encourage” or “discourage” a candidate within these straw polls, as well as state that they have no opinion.
Polls are run numerous times until a consensus is found on a candidate. For example, when Guterres was selected in 2016, it took six straw polls for the council to reach agreement.
The selected candidate is then publicly put to a vote, in which non-permanent members of the council have a single vote and the five permanent members each have a power of veto.
This results in a council “resolution”, recommending the appointment of a candidate. This resolution must secure support from nine out of 15 members and no vetoes to pass.
Subsequently, there is a formal vote by the UN general assembly to endorse the council’s recommendation – although Reuters notes that this final vote has “long been seen as a rubber stamp”.
Ultimately, the security council process is likely to be finalised between August and October, ahead of the general assembly formalising the appointment at the end of the year.
The next secretary general is due to take office on 1 January 2027.
The post Q&A: Where do the UN secretary general candidates stand on climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: Where do the UN secretary general candidates stand on climate change?
Climate Change
In Guatemala, Indigenous women build climate resilience with old and new farming methods
In Guatemala’s southwest region lies a large lake with a storied history.
Lake Atitlán is one of Central America’s most critical local sources of drinking water, and is surrounded by volcanoes, a thriving tourism industry and an ancient Mayan culture. The Sololá region has long been home to Indigenous communities who have been attracted to its fertile land and pristine natural resources.
But in recent years, this site of natural beauty in Guatemala’s highlands has had to contend with the growing impacts of the climate and nature crises. Climate change is disrupting the rain cycle and significant areas of land show signs of erosion and loss of soil fertility. These changes are threatening crop production and pushing local people into food insecurity.
Elena Wason, co-executive director at Natün, a local non-profit supporting Indigenous people, told Climate Home News that community leaders have “identified deforestation and the effects of climate change in their communities as among their greatest concerns”. Forest cover declined by an estimated 12% in the past two years alone.
Women are often the social group most exposed to these changes and Natün has focused its efforts on reviving Indigenous agriculture techniques in a bid to improve climate resilience and empower female farmers.
How to fight drought
The impacts of climate change on Indigenous communities can often lead to further environmental damage as farmers are forced to rely on unsustainable practices, such as cutting down trees to clear more land. This can accelerate water scarcity, soil erosion and ultimately food insecurity.
An ongoing adaptation project led by Natün has sought to reverse these impacts, working with local people to combine modern climate-smart agriculture and ancestral knowledge. The approach involves the use of drought-resistant crops, organic pest management and soil conservation techniques. This is increasingly recognised as an effective way to strengthen climate resilience.
“Our approach is based on soil analysis and the use of locally resilient, endemic tree species, significantly increasing survival rates and ensuring sustainable water availability despite changing rainfall patterns,” Wason explained.
A US$170,000 grant from the Adaptation Fund-UNDP innovation platform (through the AFCIA programme) also allowed it to scale. For example, Natün established over 300 family food gardens – small spaces with shared resources that focus on growing nutrient-rich crops.
The project was built for the long-term by embedding innovation within Indigenous knowledge systems, organic farming and Mayan land stewardship rather than imposing external solutions. In this way, it ensures that communities remain the architects of their own resilience. Diversified revenue streams, including carbon credits and replicable learning kits, further support its longevity.
Nearly all of the typical Mayan gardens are managed by women, with the project training up to 30 women in climate-resilient practices, such as seed bank management. The approach has paid dividends by bolstering local food security and providing almost 19,000 people with sustainable food sources.
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“The project uses locally led innovation by helping to restore sustainable Indigenous Mayan practices, while empowering vulnerable communities and women to build resilience and adapt to climate change and bolster food security,” said Mikko Ollikainen, head of the Adaptation Fund.
“Community-led approaches like these can have profound positive impacts on the directly affected communities and beyond by creating practical scalable solutions,” he added.
Growing incomes
The programme was expanded in 2025 with the creation of over 260 small poultry farms, further diversifying family incomes. The early results have been positive: two-thirds of families with both a garden and poultry now have surplus produce and incomes that have grown by an estimated $61 per month.
“These impacts especially benefit women, who not only make up 75% of programme participants and have taken leadership roles in managing community gardens, but also generally take on the responsibility of providing nutritious food for their families,” said Wason.
The project follows an earlier $5.4 million activity in Guatemala, also funded by the Adaptation Fund, that focused on honey bee production, forest conservation and ancestral knowledge across Suchitepéquez and Sololá. The aim was to empower vulnerable communities and Indigenous populations to adapt to floods and landslides, while enhancing diverse production landscapes and livelihoods.
Advancing women’s rights and empowerment in climate adaptation
That project resulted in 6,093 hectares under forest management and conservation, nearly 1,500 beehives in operation, and 328 family gardens with the purpose of helping women adapt. Utilising such ancestral practices have helped to increase agricultural resilience in the Nahualate River basin, benefiting some 1,125 people.
Enduring benefits
The long-term benefits of the Lake Atitlán project will be in providing communities, especially women, with practical tools to respond to the environmental challenges of drought, storms and deforestation in the Sololá region. These challenges are becoming more pronounced as the climate becomes more extreme and unpredictable.
Guatemala is ranked among the most exposed countries to climate risk. The World Bank estimates that up to 83% of its GDP is generated in areas prone to disasters. As such, it is not only the people around Lake Atitlán who stand to benefit from sustainable farming techniques.
The Natün project is easily replicable by harnessing local knowledge and offering a practical model that can be adapted across Indigenous communities facing similar climate pressures. In a country with an Indigenous population of over 6 million people, this approach will be of importance to many other communities as they face similar existential crises in a warming world.
Adam Wentworth is a freelance journalist based in Brighton, UK.
The post In Guatemala, Indigenous women build climate resilience with old and new farming methods appeared first on Climate Home News.
In Guatemala, Indigenous women build climate resilience with old and new farming methods
The World Bank has scrapped its headline climate finance target under pressure from the Trump administration, but experts believe the survival of its wider climate programme should preserve support for clean energy and resilience in developing nations.
Following tense negotiations between its government shareholders, the global lender announced this week it would extend its Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) while “retiring” its commitment to direct 45% of its financing to projects with climate benefits – a target it has already met.
“It could have been a lot worse,” said Danny Scull, a senior policy advisor at think-tank E3G. “I would have loved to see the most ambitious outcome possible, but it is far less likely we’ll see a scenario where the bank all of a sudden reverses its current trajectory and starts delivering less on climate,” he added.
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Introduced in 2021, the CCAP has been credited with overhauling the World Bank’s approach to climate finance after years of criticism over the development finance institution’s lukewarm support for cutting planet-heating emissions and building resilience to extreme weather and rising seas.
Since the CCAP began, the World Bank’s climate finance nearly doubled to $39.2 billion in 2025, with 48% of its financing showing climate “co-benefits” and exceeding the target first set at COP28.
US attack partially rebuffed
With the CCAP due to lapse at the end of June, the US – the World Bank’s largest shareholder – mounted a campaign for the lender to axe the programme entirely. Last April, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly welcomed the plan’s upcoming expiration, urging the bank to “shift its myopic focus on climate” and abandon its “distortionary” 45% climate finance target.
But Washington was left increasingly isolated during protracted negotiations in recent months as both European governments and a wide-ranging coalition of developing countries held firm on the plan’s extension, sources with knowledge of the discussions told Climate Home News.
In May, executive directors representing a bloc of nearly 100 countries, including China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Russia, sent a letter to the World Bank’s board requesting the CCAP be extended and calling for an independent review of the programme.
While the US had previously seemed unwilling to compromise with its European counterparts, that intervention got it to “back off from its most extreme positions”, E3G’s Scull said.
Focus on “outcomes”
In its statement on Monday, the World Bank Group said it would place less weight on the amount of money flowing into projects with climate benefits and shift its focus to “outcomes”, including indicators such as greenhouse gas emissions avoided and the number of people better shielded from climate risks.
The UK’s international development minister, Jenny Chapman, said in a post on LinkedIn this week that the extension of the CCAP is “a critical step forward”, adding that the stronger emphasis on results “is essential to ensure maximum impact, and the UK will hold the Bank to account to ensure delivery”.
Despite ditching its headline goal, the international lender is still expected to keep counting the volumes of climate finance for the vast majority of its activities. That’s because the individual entities belonging to the group continue to have their own climate targets embedded in their current mandates.
World Bank climate funding greens African hotels while fishermen sink
For example, the International Development Association (IDA), which supports the world’s poorest nations, has committed to providing 45% of its funding to climate-related activities until 2028. And its larger lending arm, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), should keep aiming for 30% of its financing to have climate benefits.
Joe Thwaites, a climate finance expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said these targets “can be a backstop against the bottom falling out”. “Client countries are emphasising that they want to see more investments in clean energy and resilience,” he added.
No major change expected
The World Bank’s provision of climate finance is also crucial for wealthy countries’ efforts to meet a commitment to provide $300 billion a year for developing countries by 2035 under the new UN climate goal agreed at COP29 in 2024.
That year, multilateral development banks (MDBs) accounted for around half of all climate finance provided by developed countries under the previous $100-billion-a-year goal, according to calculations by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
UK development minister Chapman said this week that the bank “must continue to meet the expectations of the wider international community, including those set out at COP29”. There, MDBs said that by 2030, their annual joint climate financing for low- and middle-income countries would reach an estimated $120 billion.
Fractious COP29 lands $300bn climate finance goal, dashing hopes of the poorest
Rajneesh Bhuee, just transition lead at campaign group Recourse, said it was a “blow” that the World Bank’s headline target had been dropped, but she doesn’t expect to see climate financing reducing – at least in the short term.
“This is the [bank] management’s way of alleviating pressure from the US and ensuring they can have some sort of calm internally,” she told Climate Home News.
Thwaites said shareholder countries should hold the bank’s leadership accountable for delivering what countries have “agreed and need” on climate action.
“If World Bank climate finance does start to fall, donors should focus their support on other international financial institutions that continue to prioritise climate,” he added.
IMF also steps back from climate focus
Regional development banks outside of the Americas may be under less pressure to water down their climate mission. But the World Bank’s sister institution – the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – has seen its enthusiasm for climate action ebb, according to a report released in June by its official watchdog, the Independent Evaluation Office.
The report said that in 2021, the fund placed great emphasis on tackling climate change, as shown by its flagship climate strategy published that year and the establishment of the Resilience and Security Trust in 2022.
But in the last year or so, it found “decreasing emphasis on climate-related issues” which coincided with IMF cost-cutting, “emerging geopolitical challenges” and reduced support for climate action from some unnamed IMF member countries.
Last year, US finance minister Bessent accused the IMF of “mission creep”, accusing it of spending too much time on climate action, gender and social issues.
The evaluation report found that the focus on climate change among the IMF’s management and executive board has weakened, and its flagship reports have not included any climate-related chapters since 2023. IMF head Kristalina Georgieva and other managers mentioned climate-related terms in speeches and statements to the board far less in 2025 than the preceding years, it noted.
While most of the nearly 700 IMF’s staff surveyed welcomed the swing away from climate work, others bemoaned it and felt “self censored” when working to promote awareness of the risks of climate change to the global economy – which the IMF is tasked with protecting.
The post World Bank’s climate work can endure without finance target, experts say appeared first on Climate Home News.
World Bank’s climate work can endure without finance target, experts say
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