Angola has scaled back its targets for reducing emissions in its new national climate plan, saying it chose “realism and implementability” over the Paris Agreement’s calls for governments to set progressively more ambitious goals.
The African oil-exporting country plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 11% by 2035 from a “business as usual” scenario. That compares to a 24% cut by 2025 in its previous Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which used an earlier baseline year with far lower emissions.
Under the 2015 climate treaty, countries’ NDCs – which should be updated every five years, with the third round since the Paris pact due this year – are meant to represent a progression from the previous one and reflect the “highest possible ambition”.
Citing the country’s struggles to meet previous targets, Angola’s NDC said the level of ambition “must also take into account national circumstances, capabilities and the need for sustainable development, particularly in developing countries such as Angola”.
It said progress on different climate projects to date has been hampered by limited technical capacity, coordination gaps and a lack of financial and technological support, despite strong political will and policies.
-
Turkey’s new climate pledge would control emissions growth, not offer real cuts
The world’s 15th-largest emitter has made progress in boosting clean energy, but it could do much more to decarbonise -
Nigeria gives fossil gas a bigger role as “transition fuel” in climate plan
Officials say the country needs time and money to ramp up renewables, but critics say betting on gas is a risky strategy that could prolong the “oil curse” -
Russia justifies fossil gas use by citing contentious COP28 loophole
In Dubai two years ago, Russia pushed for a clause on “transitional fuels” which its new UN climate plan uses to justify gas consumption
“The targets for the period … have been set to reflect the most realistic and feasible conditions for Angola,” the NDC added. “While the percentage targets are less ambitious than those in the previous NDC, they correspond to a greater absolute reduction” in greenhouse gas emissions, it noted.
At the same time, the country shifted the baseline used to measure future cuts to a far higher level than in its previous NDC, mainly due to upward revision of emissions from changes to land use. That makes the figures difficult to compare, but allows emissions to nearly double from estimated 2015 levels by 2035.
Climate finance gap
Many developing countries, like Angola, split their NDCs into two parts – one that they can achieve with their own domestic resources and an additional effort that depends on them receiving financial support from the international community.
Some NDCs specify the amount of money required to implement the so-called conditional part of their pledges.
Yet, while climate finance mobilised by rich governments and development banks for cutting emissions and adapting to climate change in developing countries rose to nearly $116 billion in 2022, this is far below estimated needs. Experts have also warned that overseas aid cuts could lead to a fall in funding from some donors.
With a 5% unconditional target for reducing emissions and a 6% conditional contribution, Angola estimates it will need about $412 billion to achieve the emissions-cutting goal. It plans to get $48 billion of that from domestic resources and the rest from international support.
The measures it is proposing to reach its 2035 targets include expanding renewable energy and reducing flaring in oil fields, as well as reforestation programmes and more efficient, less carbon-intensive solutions for industry.
“Reflection of realities”
For Angola, there is a further complication, however. Sub-Saharan Africa’s second-biggest crude oil exporter is in the process of graduating from the UN’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs) category, and fears missing out on climate finance targeting the group of the world’s poorest nations as a result.
Despite the Southern African nation’s economic and social development gains, it is saddled with a heavy public debt that was equivalent to almost 70% of its gross domestic product last year.
The new NDC said Angola’s current financial resources were not compatible with the rising ambition set out in the Paris Agreement, adding that the situation could get worse due to the looming loss of certain benefits granted to LDCs such as public development aid.
Panama environment minister backs calls for reform of UN climate process
Giza Gaspar-Martins, a former Angolan climate negotiator who has served as chair of the Least Developed Countries Group in climate talks, said Angola’s updated NDC was simply a “reflection of realities”.
He said the plan includes what the country intends to achieve with domestic resources (unconditionally) and what it can achieve with additional international support (conditionally) and “whether it is a higher number or a lower number, it doesn’t matter, but it is a reflection of realities”.
But other climate experts said that while Angola’s move was understandable, it runs counter to the UN treaty.
Joanna Depledge, a research fellow at the Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance at the University of Cambridge, said Angola’s move was against “the spirit of the Paris Agreement”, but added it should not be judged in the same way as rich countries backing away from their climate targets.
While she noted that – due to the wording used in the treaty – progressively higher targets are not legally binding, “the assumption was that countries must improve their ambition each time”.
In the past decade, countries have not done enough to increase emissions-cutting ambition to the level needed to get the world on a path to limit warming to 1.5C as they agreed to aim for in the Paris Agreement.
To keep the 1.5C goal within reach, countries must reduce emissions by at least 43% from 2019 levels by 2030 – but the last set of NDCs for that target year only represented a 7% reduction, according to a report by the World Resources Institute. It also noted that 23 of those NDCs would not have reduced emissions relative to the initial plan and 42 could not be compared due to insufficient information.
Short on ambition
Angola is not the only country to have submitted an updated NDC in the latest round that fails to raise ambition on climate action, according to researchers.
-
Foreign aid cuts put adaptation finance pledge at risk, NGOs warn
Rich countries’ support for resilience-boosting measures in developing nations may fall far short of their promise to double adaptation finance by this year, says a new report -
Global renewables goal slips off course after Trump, China moves
The IEA downgrades its forecast for renewables growth due to the US cutting renewable tax credits and China’s electricity market reforms
Russia’s new NDC outlines plans to reduce emissions to 33%-35% below 1990 levels by 2035, a goal analysts at the Climate Action Tracker nonprofit said not only fails to reflect “highest ambition”, but marks no real increase at all.
And Turkey, which is bidding to host COP31, recently announced an NDC that would only control emissions rather than reduce them, putting its emissions on track to keep increasing by 2035.
China’s new NDC – while the first time it has set a goal for absolute emissions cuts – is also judged to be easily achievable based on its current performance, with analysts saying it could have offered more.
China unveils underwhelming emissions-cutting target for 2035
Angola’s departure from the LDC category puts it in “a difficult context”, conceded Bill Hare, CEO of global climate science and policy institute Climate Analytics, but said weaker efforts by any country are bad news for the goal to limit global warming to 1.5C.
While the biggest emitters need to do more, “it’s also important that smaller emitters put forward the highest possible ambition,” Hare said, adding that development aid cuts and a fracturing of multilateralism since US President Donald Trump took office are affecting poorer countries in need of climate finance.
Without stronger 2030 and 2035 targets to reduce emissions by all countries, he warned that the chances of limiting warming to 1.5C or even 2C “will start to become very small, leading to massive adverse damages and consequences everywhere”.
The post Angola lowers climate ambition in blow to “spirit” of Paris Agreement appeared first on Climate Home News.
Angola lowers climate ambition in blow to “spirit” of Paris Agreement
A new MIT Global Change Outlook finds current climate policies and economic indicators put the world on track for dangerous warming.
After yet another international climate summit ended last fall without binding commitments to phase out fossil fuels, a leading global climate model is offering a stark forecast for the decades ahead.
Post-COP 30 Modeling Shows World Is Far Off Track for Climate Goals
The head of the United Nations body governing the global shipping industry has said that greenhouse gases from the global shipping industry will fall, whether or not the sector’s “Net Zero Framework” to cut emissions is adopted in October.
Arsenio Dominguez, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization, told a new year’s press conference in London on Friday that, even if governments don’t sign up to the framework later this year as planned, the clean-up of the industry responsible for 3% of global emissions will continue.
“I reiterate my call to industry that the decarbonisation has started. There’s lots of research and development that is ongoing. There’s new plans on alternative fuels like methanol and ammonia that continue to evolve,” he told journalists.
He said he has not heard any government dispute a set of decarbonisation goals agreed in 2023. These include targets to reduce emissions 20-30% on 2008 levels by 2030 and then to reach net zero emissions “by or around, i.e. close to 2050”.
-
US-led alliance wins a year’s delay in adoption of green shipping deal
The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework will be up for approval again in October 2026, after the US and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to vote on it as planned -
Big fishing nations secure last-minute seat to write rules on deep sea conservation
A treaty to protect the high seas entered into force this week with the backing of over 80 countries including late ratifications by Japan, China and Brazil
Dominguez said the 2030 emissions reduction target could be reached, although a goal for shipping to use at least 5% clean fuels by 2030 would be difficult to meet because their cost will remain high until at least the 2030s. The goals agreed in 2023 also included cutting emissions by 70-80% by 2040.
In October 2025, a decision on a proposed framework of practical measures to achieve the goals, which aims to incentivise shipowners to go green by taxing polluting ships and subsidising cleaner ones, was postponed by a year after a narrow vote by governments.
Ahead of that vote, the US threatened governments and their officials with sanctions, tariffs and visa restrictions – and President Donald Trump called the framework a “Green New Scam Tax on Shipping”.
Dominguez said at Friday’s press conference that he had not received any official complaints about the US’s behaviour at last October’s meeting but – without naming names – he called on nations to be “more respectful” at the IMO. He added that he did not think the US would leave the IMO, saying Washington had engaged constructively on the organisation’s budget and plans.
EU urged to clarify ETS position
The European Union – along with Brazil and Pacific island nations – pushed hard for the framework to be adopted in October. Some developing countries were concerned that the EU would retain its charges for polluting ships under its emissions trading scheme (ETS), even if the Net Zero Framework was passed, leading to ships travelling to and from the EU being charged twice.
This was an uncertainty that the US and Saudi Arabia exploited at the meeting to try and win over wavering developing countries. Most African, Asian and Caribbean nations voted for a delay.
On Friday, Dominguez called on the EU “to clarify their position on the review of the ETS, in order that as we move forward, we actually don’t have two systems that are going to be basically looking for the same the same goal, the same objective.”
He said he would continue to speak to EU member states, “to maintain the conversations in here, rather than move forward into fragmentation, because that will have a very detrimental effect in shipping”. “That would really create difficulties for operators, that would increase the cost, and everybody’s going to suffer from it,” he added.
The IMO’s marine environment protection committee, in which governments discuss climate strategy, will meet in April although the Net Zero Framework is not scheduled to be officially discussed until October.
The post IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay appeared first on Climate Home News.
IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay
Climate Change
DeBriefed 23 January 2026: Trump’s Davos tirade; EU wind and solar milestone; High seas hope
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Trump vs world
TILTING AT ‘WINDMILLS’: At the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Donald Trump was quoted by Reuters as saying – falsely – that China makes almost all of the world’s “windmills”, but he had not “been able to find any windfarms in China”, calling China’s buyers “stupid”. The newswire added that China “defended its wind power development” at Davos, with spokesperson Guo Jiakun saying the country’s efforts to tackle climate change and promote renewable energy in the world are “obvious to all”.
SPEECH FACTCHECKED: The Guardian factchecked Trump’s speech, noting China has more wind capacity than any other country, with 40% of global wind generation in 2024 in China. See Carbon Brief’s chart on this topic, posted on BlueSky by Dr Simon Evans.
GREENLAND GRAB: Trump “abruptly stepped back” from threats to seize Greenland with the use of force or leveraging tariffs, downplaying the dispute as a “small ask” for a “piece of ice”, reported Reuters. The Washington Post noted that, while Trump calls climate change “a hoax”, Greenland’s described value is partly due to Arctic environmental shifts opening up new sea routes. French president Macron slammed the White House’s “new colonial approach”, emphasising that climate and energy security remain European “top priorities”, according to BusinessGreen.
Around the world
- EU MILESTONE: For the first time, wind and solar generated more electricity than fossil fuels in the EU last year, reported Reuters. Wind and solar generated 30% of the EU’s electricity in 2025, just above 29% from plants running on coal, gas and oil, according to data from the thinktank Ember covered by the newswire.
- WARM HOMES: The UK government announced a £15bn plan for rolling out low-carbon technology in homes, such as rooftop solar and heat pumps. Carbon Brief’s newly published analysis has all the details.
- BIG THAW: Braving weather delays that nearly “derail[ed] their mission”, scientists finally set up camp on Antarctica’s thawing Thwaites glacier, reported the New York Times. Over the next few weeks, they will deploy equipment to understand “how this gargantuan glacier is being corroded” by warming ocean waters.
- EVS WELCOME: Germany re-introduced electric vehicle subsidies, open to all manufacturers, including those in China, reported the Financial Times. Tesla and Volvo could be the first to benefit from Canada’s “move to slash import tariffs on made-in-China” EVs, said Bloomberg.
- SOUTHERN AFRICA FLOODS: The death toll from floods in Mozambique went up to 112, reported the African Press Agency on Thursday. Officials cited the “scale of rainfall” – 250mm in 24 hours – as a key driver, it added. Frontline quoted South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, who linked the crisis to climate change.
$307bn
The amount of drought-related damages worldwide per year – intensified by land degradation, groundwater depletion and climate change – according to a new UN “water bankruptcy” report.
Latest climate research
- A researcher examined whether the “ultra rich” could and should pay for climate finance | Climatic Change
- Global deforestation-driven surface warming increased by the “size of Spain” between 1988 and 2016 | One Earth
- Increasing per-capita meat consumption by just one kilogram a year is “linked” to a nearly 2% increase in embedded deforestation elsewhere | Environmental Research Letters
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
For the first time since monitoring began 15 years ago, there were more UK newspaper editorials published in 2025 opposing climate action than those supporting it, Carbon Brief analysis found. The chart shows the number of editorials arguing for more (blue) and less (red) climate action between 2011-2025. Editorials that took a “balanced” view are not represented in the chart. All 98 editorials opposing climate action were in right-leaning outlets, while nearly all 46 in support were in left-leaning and centrist publications. The trend reveals the scale of the net-zero backlash in the UK’s right-leaning press, highlighting the rapid shift away from a political consensus.
Spotlight
Do the oceans hold hope for international law?
This week, Carbon Brief unpacks what a landmark oceans treaty “entering into force” means and, at a time of backtracking and breach, speaks to experts on the future of international law.
As the world tries to digest the US retreat from international environmental law, historic new protections for the ocean were quietly passed without the US on Saturday.
With little fanfare besides a video message from UN chief Antonio Guterres, a binding UN treaty to protect biodiversity in two-thirds of the Earth’s oceans “entered into force”.
What does the treaty mean and do?
The High Seas Treaty – formally known as the “biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction”, or “BBNJ” agreement – obliges countries to act in the “common heritage of humankind”, setting aside self-interest to protect biodiversity in international waters. (See Carbon Brief’s in-depth explainer on what the treaty means for climate change).
Agreed in 2023, it requires states to undertake rigorous impact assessments to rein in pollution and share benefits from marine genetic resources with coastal communities and countries. States can also propose marine protected areas to help the ocean – and life within it – become more resilient to “stressors”, such as climate change and ocean acidification.
“It’s a beacon of hope in a very dark place,” Dr Siva Thambisetty, an intellectual property expert at the London School of Economics and an adviser to developing countries at UN environmental negotiations, told Carbon Brief.
Who has signed the agreement?
Buoyed by a wave of commitments at last year’s UN Oceans conference in France, the High Seas treaty has been signed by 145 states, with 84 nations ratifying it into domestic law.
“The speed at which [BBNJ] went from treaty adoption to entering into force is remarkable for an agreement of its scope and impact,” said Nichola Clark, from the NGO Pew Trusts, when ratification crossed the 60-country threshold for it to enter into force last September.
For a legally binding treaty, two years to enter into force is quick. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol – which the US rejected in 2001 – took eight years.
While many operative parts of the BBNJ underline respect for “national sovereignty”, experts say it applies to an area outside national borders, giving territorial states a reason to get on board, even if it has implications for the rest of the oceans.
What is US involvement with the treaty?
The US is not a party to the BBNJ’s parent Law of the Sea, or a member of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) overseeing deep-sea mining.
This has meant that it cannot bid for permits to scour the ocean floor for critical minerals. China and Russia still lead the world in the number of deep-sea exploration contracts. (See Carbon Brief’s explainer on deep-sea mining).
In April 2025, the Biden administration issued an executive order to “unleash America’s offshore critical minerals and resources”, drawing a warning from the ISA.
This Tuesday, the Trump administration published a new rule to “fast-track deep-sea mining” outside its territorial waters without “environmental oversight”, reported Agence France-Presse.
Prof Lavanya Rajamani, an expert in international environmental law at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief that, while dealing with US unilateralism and “self-interest” is not new to the environmental movement, the way “in which they’re pursuing that self-interest – this time on their own, without any legal justification” has changed. She continued:
“We have to see this not as a remaking of international law, but as a flagrant breach of international law.”
While this is a “testing moment”, Rajamani believes that other states contending with a “powerful, idiosyncratic and unpredictable actor” are not “giving up on decades of multilateralism…they just asking how they might address this moment without fundamentally destabilising” the international legal order.
What next for the treaty?
Last Friday, China announced its bid to host the BBNJ treaty’s secretariat in Xiamen – “a coastal hub that sits on the Taiwan Strait”, reported the South China Morning Post.
China and Brussels currently vie as the strongest contenders for the seat of global ocean governance, given that Chile made its hosting offer days before the country elected a far-right president.
To Thambisetty, preparatory BBNJ meetings in March can serve as an important “pocket of sanity” in a turbulent world. She concluded:
“The rest of us have to find a way to navigate the international order. We have to work towards better times.”
Watch, read, listen
OWN GOAL: For Backchannel, Zimbabwean climate campaigner Trust Chikodzo called for Total Energies to end its “image laundering” at the Africa Cup of Nations.
MATERIAL WORLD: In a book review for the Baffler, Thea Riofrancos followed the “unexpected genealogy” of the “energy transition” outlined in Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s More and More and More: An All-Consuming History.
REALTY BITES: Inside Climate News profiled Californian climate policy expert Neil Matouka, who built a plugin to display climate risk data that real-estate site Zillow removed from home listings.
Coming up
- 26 January: International day of clean energy
- 27 January: India-EU summit, New Delhi
- 31 January: Submit inputs on food systems and climate change for a report by the UN special rapporteur on climate change
- 1 February: Costa Rica elections
Pick of the jobs
- British Antarctic Survey, boating officer | Salary: £31,183. Location: UK and Antarctica
- National Centre for Climate Research at the Danish Meteorological Institute, climate science leader | Salary: NA. Location: Copenhagen, with possible travel to Skrydstrup, Karup and Nuuk
- Mongabay, journalism fellows | Stipend: $500 per month for 6 months. Location: Remote
- Climate Change Committee, carbon budgets analyst | Salary: £47,007-£51,642. Location: London
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 23 January 2026: Trump’s Davos tirade; EU wind and solar milestone; High seas hope appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 23 January 2026: Trump’s Davos tirade; EU wind and solar milestone; High seas hope
-
Climate Change6 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases6 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Spanish-language misinformation on renewable energy spreads online, report shows
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Climate Change Videos2 years ago
The toxic gas flares fuelling Nigeria’s climate change – BBC News
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits