Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.
China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
New sector targets in renewable portfolio standard
NEW QUOTAS: China has published the 2025-2026 provincial quotas for renewable energy consumption, which for the first time included sectoral targets for iron and steel, cement, polysilicon and certain types of data centres, industry news outlet BJX News reported, as well as updates to the aluminium sector targets established last year. Bloomberg said that the steel, cement and polysilicon sectors will need to use low-carbon energy to “meet between 25% and 70% of their demand” under the policy. Energy news outlet International Energy Net noted that Sichuan, Yunnan and Qinghai provinces faced the “highest quotas”, at 70%. (For comparison, the average provincial quota is 38%, Carbon Brief calculated. A separate quota for these three provinces that does not include hydropower is much closer to the national average.)

POWER RUSH: In contrast to expectations that renewable installations in China would slow for the rest of 2025, the state-run thinktank State Grid Energy Research Institute estimated that 380 gigawatts (GW) of solar, 140GW of wind power and 120GW of thermal power (likely mostly coal) will be added this year, Bloomberg reported. It noted that the solar figure is “more than 50% higher than forecasts from the leading solar industrial group”. According to NEA data, the estimate implies China will add 182GW in solar, 94GW in wind and 102GW in thermal power between June and December.
MANAGING THE INCREASE: Li Chao, spokesperson for the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told reporters that “large-scale xiaona (消纳) consumption of renewable energy is critical” given rapid capacity growth, according to industry outlet China Energy News, adding that consumption rates continue to exceed 90% – meaning no more than 10% of potential output is being wasted, according to government calculations. However, separate outlet China Energy Net reported that wind and solar utilisation rates (利用率) in some provinces fell below the government-set red line of 90%, due to rapid growth. Dr Muyi Yang, senior energy analyst for Asia at thinktank Ember, told Carbon Brief: “The recent dip in utilisation rates in the western regions is an early warning that [investment in the grid] needs to speed up.”
OPEN ARMS?: Coal power still has “room to grow” during the fifteenth five-year plan period (2026-2030) despite market challenges, China Electricity Council chief expert Chen Zongfa told BJX News. Chen said this was due to the changing “attitude of the government”, which “no longer demonises coal”. The influential State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) pledged to “speed up the construction of thermal power projects” and “ensure the safe and stable supply of coal”, according to China Energy News. Another China Energy News article quoted an NDRC official saying China needed to “ensure the stability of coal supply”. Meanwhile, in a visit to Shanxi, President Xi Jinping told local policymakers to transform the coal industry “from low-end to high-end” while also developing clean-energy, Xinhua said.
Floods and heatwaves
‘INTENSE’ RAINS: Several regions in China, including the southern Henan, Guizhou and Hubei provinces, were hit by “intense rainfall” throughout late June and early July, causing “severe flooding” and several deaths, Bloomberg reported, in an article noting that climate change is “fuelling” extreme weather events. Meanwhile, high temperatures “enveloped China’s eastern seaboard…raising fears of droughts and economic losses”, Reuters said, adding that “extreme heat, which meteorologists link to climate change, has emerged as a major challenge for Chinese policymakers”.
-
Sign up to Carbon Brief’s free “China Briefing” email newsletter. All you need to know about the latest developments relating to China and climate change. Sent to your inbox every Thursday.
NEW WARNINGS: At the launch of the China Blue Book on Climate Change 2025 – a document outlining global and China-specific impacts of climate change – National Climate Center deputy director Xiao Chan stated that the “national average temperature in June was 21.1C”, marking the hottest June since records began, according to business news outlet 21st Century Business Herald. State news agency Xinhua quoted Chen Min, vice-minister of the Ministry of Water Resources, telling reporters that 329 rivers had flooded “above warning levels” as of 4 July. Meanwhile, the government established a new heat-health warning system, which “aims to strengthen public health preparedness amid growing climate challenges”, the state-run newspaper China Daily said.
GRID PRESSURES: Linked to high temperatures along the east coast, the National Energy Administration (NEA) revealed that China’s maximum power demand reached a “record high” of 1,465GW on 4 July, finance news outlet Yicai reported, adding that air-conditioning load “accounted for about 37%” of the peak power grid load in eastern China. Bloomberg said that the grid is “in better shape to take on peak summer demand this year”, following preparations to avoid previous blackouts.
Setting the tone on ‘overcapacity’
MIIT HAUL-UP: In a meeting with solar industry representatives, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) head Li Lecheng said MIIT “will further increase macro-guidance and governance of the industry” in the face of “low-price disorderly competition”, BJX News reported. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) noted that Li also said companies should be “guided” to phase out “outdated production capacity”. In its coverage, Bloomberg noted that it was “unclear” what impact the meeting would have, but that it “highlight[ed] the seriousness with which Beijing views” the issue.
CLEAR SIGNALS: The meeting followed days of signalling from China on the need to crack down on industrial overcapacity, which has been blamed for “flood[ing trading] partners’ markets with artificially low-cost goods”, according to the Financial Times. In late June, the front page of the party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily carried an article under the byline Jin Sheping – used to signal the thoughts of party leadership on economic matters – stating that “rat race competition”, a term linked to overcapacity, would “destroy” industries such as solar, lithium-ion batteries and new-energy vehicles (NEVs). At an economic policy meeting, Xi said China must “govern low-price and disorderly competition…and promote the orderly withdrawal of outdated production capacity”, BJX News said. (He also noted the need to develop more “offshore wind power” and a “unified national market”.) On the same day, ideological journal Qiushi also published an article criticising “rat race competition”. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported, China also “shows signs of tackling” similar overcapacity issues in the NEV industry.
EUROPE UNHAPPY: European policymakers appear unconvinced, however, with top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas telling her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi that China must “put an end to its distortive practices…which pose significant risks to European companies and endanger the reliability of global supply chains”, according to Reuters. It added that the remarks came during meetings aiming to “lay the groundwork for a summit between EU and Chinese leaders” set to take place on 24 July. Meanwhile, the EU is refusing to consider publishing a joint EU-China climate declaration at the leaders’ summit “unless China pledged greater efforts to cut its greenhouse gas emissions”, the Financial Times reported.
BRICS message on climate finance
MITIGATION FUND: The heads of the BRICS nations, a grouping of China and several other global south countries, “demand[ed] that wealthy nations fund mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in poorer nations” at a leaders summit in early July, Reuters said. It added that, while Brazil “urged a global transition away from fossil fuels”, the resulting joint statement “argued that petroleum will continue to play an important role in the global energy mix, particularly in developing economies”. Reacting to the summit, the campaign group WWF said in a press release: “When it comes to climate, the message falls short.”
GLOBAL SOUTH VOICE: The Guardian noted that “Brazilian diplomats see the BRICS alliance as part of an emerging new world order”, noting that the summit featured “pushback against the EU” over “discriminatory protectionist measures under the pretext of environmental concerns”. Brazil also used the summit to ask “China and BRICS member states in the Middle East to be among the seed funders” for long-term financing for conservation, the newspaper said, adding that this did not seem to have been successful. The absence of Xi from the meeting, in a first at a BRICS leaders summit, sparked significant speculation around how valuable China saw the block as being.
Spotlight
Key takeaways from China’s latest climate adaptation progress report
China’s Ministry of Ecology and the Environment (MEE) recently published a report outlining China’s progress last year in adapting to climate change. In this issue, Carbon Brief outlines three key messages from the assessment.
Extreme weather events are becoming more severe
China’s climate was “relatively poor” (偏差) in 2024, the MEE report stated, with several “record-breaking or severely disastrous” extreme weather events.
These include extreme heat and cold, rainfall, typhoons, flooding and severe convective weather.
Weather events have generally worsened year-on-year, the report said. In 2024, China’s average temperature stood at 10.9C – the warmest since modern records began.
Similarly, national average rainfall totalled almost 698 millimetres, up 9% year-on-year. More typhoons made landfall in China in 2024 compared to 2023, of which several had “large disaster impacts”, according to the report.
It added that these events had “serious adverse” socio-economic impacts, noting that extreme weather led to at least 500 deaths or disappearances in 2024. (Statistics for deaths and disappearances were not included in the 2023 edition of the report.)
In 2024, the central government spent more than 2.5bn yuan ($350m) on “natural disaster relief funds”, covering flooding, drought and extreme cold.
Climate-resilient infrastructure still a main focus
Extreme weather is also increasingly damaging infrastructure, the report noted. For example, more than 29m users lost power due to extreme weather.
Much of the report is dedicated to describing China’s efforts to develop infrastructure that can resist or help mitigate the effects of extreme weather events.
Managing “water resources” and water conservation continued to receive a strong focus in the report, which added that, in 2024, “major water conservancy projects continued to be developed to a high quality”.
It also noted that this infrastructure buildout “played a key role” in mitigating the impact of floods in 2024, with thousands of reservoirs nationwide being used to store floodwater.
This, it said, “reduced” the impact of 26 floods on 2,300 cities and towns and 17m mu [slightly more than 1m hectares] of arable land”.
The country is also strengthening its ability to predict future extreme weather events, building more than 10,000 new monitoring and early-warning stations in 2024.
Cities are being encouraged to become more “climate resilient”, with 39 authorised to develop pilot programmes exploring possible solutions.
The report noted that, in 2024, 60 cities were developing “sponge city” projects, using nature-based solutions to absorb, collect or reuse floodwater.
Liu Junyan, project lead for the climate risk project at campaign group Greenpeace East Asia, told Carbon Brief that sponge-city solutions did seem to play a beneficial role during the deadly Henan floods in 2021, where floodwaters receded more quickly in Zhengzhou city than other areas.
“But sponge-city methods are not made to handle the extreme rainfall caused by climate change,” she added.
China’s response is relatively ‘holistic’, but disconnects remain
The MEE report emphasised that China’s overarching climate adaptation strategy covers a broad range of socio-economic impacts.
For example, it mentioned efforts in 2024 to prepare technical guidelines for assessing climate change impacts and risks. Carbon Brief understands that the aim of these efforts is to help provincial governments use more standardised, science-based assessments of climate risk, as well as how they should respond.
The report also noted efforts to develop climate-conscious behaviours, such as campaigns encouraging farmers to use “water-saving” irrigation technologies and guidelines to “enhance public awareness” of potential climate-related health risks.
Liu said China’s approach to adaptation is “holistic”, but added that it remains “top-down”, sometimes causing local needs to go unmet.
Furthermore, the report said China needs to further develop strategies for climate impacts on “urban and rural habitats” and “sensitive” industries such as finance, tourism and energy.
Watch, read, listen
HAWKS AND DOVES: The European Parliament broadcasted a debate on EU-China relations ahead of the upcoming leaders’ summit, in which European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen spoke on electric vehicles, rare earths and overcapacity.
DEFINING MOMENT: Shanghai-based news outlet the Paper interviewed former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon on China’s role in accelerating climate ambition this year.
CLIMATE PATH: Analysts at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s China climate hub spoke on Environment China about China’s latest emissions, clean-energy and climate diplomacy trends.
STUNTING GROWTH: The US-based National Public Radio explored how climate change is affecting China’s tea-growers, with crops “stunted” and farmers struggling with “changing rhythms”.
6%
The electrification rate of China’s transport sector – well below the economy-wide figure of close to 30% – despite the rapid adoption of NEVs, Chen Ji, executive director at China International Capital Corporation, said at the China launch of the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Investment 2025 report, attended by Carbon Brief. Chen added that the low figure was due to the lack of progress in electrifying aviation and heavy-duty trucks.
New science
Increased socioeconomic impacts with future intensifying flash droughts in China
Geophysical Research Letters
A new paper found that “China will experience longer and more severe droughts, exposing 33% of the population and 35% of gross domestic product to risks under a medium-emission scenario”. The authors analysed economic and soil moisture data over 2000-22 to quantify past changes in “flash droughts”, using models to assess future changes under different climate scenarios. The paper found that “droughts are becoming more frequent in some areas, with a twofold increase in frequency in approximately 32% of these areas by the century’s end”. It added that wealthier regions will face greater economic losses due to flash droughts.
Communications Earth & Environment
Rice cultivation in China’s Sanjiang Plain has expanded northeast by more than two million hectares between 2000 and 2020, driving up irrigation demand by 6bn tonnes, according to a new study. The authors analysed data on “rice migration”, finding that rice expansion drove up irrigation by 122% over 2000-20, while an increase in rainfall due to climate change reduced irrigation demand by 22%. The authors said their findings “highlight the urgent need to make integrated strategies balancing crop migration [with] climate change and water resource conservation”.
Climate Change Research
The poorest counties in China are much more likely to experience record-breaking extreme weather events, which may push them “back to poverty”, according to new research published in a Chinese academic journal. The study combines more than twenty models with eight extreme weather indices to assess “patterns of extreme weather across 832 poverty-alleviated counties [as well as] other counties in China”. The authors recommend actions covering “water infrastructure; disaster mitigation; catastrophe insurance; and public awareness and education” to support climate adaptation in these areas.
China Briefing is compiled by Wanyuan Song and Anika Patel. It is edited by Wanyuan Song and Dr Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 10 July 2025: New sector targets; Overcapacity dressing-down; Adaptation scorecard appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 10 July 2025: New sector targets; Overcapacity dressing-down; Adaptation scorecard
Greenhouse Gases
Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.
Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Food inflation on the rise
DELUGE STRIKES FOOD: Extreme rainfall and flooding across the Mediterranean and north Africa has “battered the winter growing regions that feed Europe…threatening food price rises”, reported the Financial Times. Western France has “endured more than 36 days of continuous rain”, while farmers’ associations in Spain’s Andalusia estimate that “20% of all production has been lost”, it added. Policy expert David Barmes told the paper that the “latest storms were part of a wider pattern of climate shocks feeding into food price inflation”.
-
Sign up to Carbon Brief’s free “Cropped” email newsletter. A fortnightly digest of food, land and nature news and views. Sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.
NO BEEF: The UK’s beef farmers, meanwhile, “face a double blow” from climate change as “relentless rain forces them to keep cows indoors”, while last summer’s drought hit hay supplies, said another Financial Times article. At the same time, indoor growers in south England described a 60% increase in electricity standing charges as a “ticking timebomb” that could “force them to raise their prices or stop production, which will further fuel food price inflation”, wrote the Guardian.
‘TINDERBOX’ AND TARIFFS: A study, covered by the Guardian, warned that major extreme weather and other “shocks” could “spark social unrest and even food riots in the UK”. Experts cited “chronic” vulnerabilities, including climate change, low incomes, poor farming policy and “fragile” supply chains that have made the UK’s food system a “tinderbox”. A New York Times explainer noted that while trade could once guard against food supply shocks, barriers such as tariffs and export controls – which are being “increasingly” used by politicians – “can shut off that safety valve”.
El Niño looms
NEW ENSO INDEX: Researchers have developed a new index for calculating El Niño, the large-scale climate pattern that influences global weather and causes “billions in damages by bringing floods to some regions and drought to others”, reported CNN. It added that climate change is making it more difficult for scientists to observe El Niño patterns by warming up the entire ocean. The outlet said that with the new metric, “scientists can now see it earlier and our long-range weather forecasts will be improved for it.”
WARMING WARNING: Meanwhile, the US Climate Prediction Center announced that there is a 60% chance of the current La Niña conditions shifting towards a neutral state over the next few months, with an El Niño likely to follow in late spring, according to Reuters. The Vibes, a Malaysian news outlet, quoted a climate scientist saying: “If the El Niño does materialise, it could possibly push 2026 or 2027 as the warmest year on record, replacing 2024.”
CROP IMPACTS: Reuters noted that neutral conditions lead to “more stable weather and potentially better crop yields”. However, the newswire added, an El Niño state would mean “worsening drought conditions and issues for the next growing season” to Australia. El Niño also “typically brings a poor south-west monsoon to India, including droughts”, reported the Hindu’s Business Line. A 2024 guest post for Carbon Brief explained that El Niño is linked to crop failure in south-eastern Africa and south-east Asia.
News and views
- DAM-AG-ES: Several South Korean farmers filed a lawsuit against the country’s state-owned utility company, “seek[ing] financial compensation for climate-related agricultural damages”, reported United Press International. Meanwhile, a national climate change assessment for the Philippines found that the country “lost up to $219bn in agricultural damages from typhoons, floods and droughts” over 2000-10, according to Eco-Business.
- SCORCHED GRASS: South Africa’s Western Cape province is experiencing “one of the worst droughts in living memory”, which is “scorching grass and killing livestock”, said Reuters. The newswire wrote: “In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.”
- NOUVELLE VEG: New guidelines published under France’s national food, nutrition and climate strategy “urged” citizens to “limit” their meat consumption, reported Euronews. The delayed strategy comes a month after the US government “upended decades of recommendations by touting consumption of red meat and full-fat dairy”, it noted.
- COURTING DISASTER: India’s top green court accepted the findings of a committee that “found no flaws” in greenlighting the Great Nicobar project that “will lead to the felling of a million trees” and translocating corals, reported Mongabay. The court found “no good ground to interfere”, despite “threats to a globally unique biodiversity hotspot” and Indigenous tribes at risk of displacement by the project, wrote Frontline.
- FISH FALLING: A new study found that fish biomass is “falling by 7.2% from as little as 0.1C of warming per decade”, noted the Guardian. While experts also pointed to the role of overfishing in marine life loss, marine ecologist and study lead author Dr Shahar Chaikin told the outlet: “Our research proves exactly what that biological cost [of warming] looks like underwater.”
- TOO HOT FOR COFFEE: According to new analysis by Climate Central, countries where coffee beans are grown “are becoming too hot to cultivate them”, reported the Guardian. The world’s top five coffee-growing countries faced “57 additional days of coffee-harming heat” annually because of climate change, it added.
Spotlight
Nature talks inch forward
This week, Carbon Brief covers the latest round of negotiations under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which occurred in Rome over 16-19 February.
The penultimate set of biodiversity negotiations before October’s Conference of the Parties ended in Rome last week, leaving plenty of unfinished business.
The CBD’s subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) met in the Italian capital for four days to discuss a range of issues, including biodiversity finance and reviewing progress towards the nature targets agreed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
However, many of the major sticking points – particularly around finance – will have to wait until later this summer, leaving some observers worried about the capacity for delegates to get through a packed agenda at COP17.
The SBI, along with the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA) will both meet in Nairobi, Kenya, later this summer for a final round of talks before COP17 kicks off in Yerevan, Armenia, on 19 October.
Money talks
Finance for nature has long been a sticking point at negotiations under the CBD.
Discussions on a new fund for biodiversity derailed biodiversity talks in Cali, Colombia, in autumn 2024, requiring resumed talks a few months later.
Despite this, finance was barely on the agenda at the SBI meetings in Rome. Delegates discussed three studies on the relationship between debt sustainability and implementation of nature plans, but the more substantive talks are set to take place at the next SBI meeting in Nairobi.
Several parties “highlighted concerns with the imbalance of work” on finance between these SBI talks and the next ones, reported Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB).
Lim Li Ching, senior researcher at Third World Network, noted that tensions around finance permeated every aspect of the talks. She told Carbon Brief:
“If you’re talking about the gender plan of action – if there’s little or no financial resources provided to actually put it into practice and implement it, then it’s [just] paper, right? Same with the reporting requirements and obligations.”
Monitoring and reporting
Closely linked to the issue of finance is the obligations of parties to report on their progress towards the goals and targets of the GBF.
Parties do so through the submission of national reports.
Several parties at the talks pointed to a lack of timely funding for driving delays in their reporting, according to ENB.
A note released by the CBD Secretariat in December said that no parties had submitted their national reports yet; by the time of the SBI meetings, only the EU had. It further noted that just 58 parties had submitted their national biodiversity plans, which were initially meant to be published by COP16, in October 2024.
Linda Krueger, director of biodiversity and infrastructure policy at the environmental not-for-profit Nature Conservancy, told Carbon Brief that despite the sparse submissions, parties are “very focused on the national report preparation”. She added:
“Everybody wants to be able to show that we’re on the path and that there still is a pathway to getting to 2030 that’s positive and largely in the right direction.”
Watch, read, listen
NET LOSS: Nigeria’s marine life is being “threatened” by “ghost gear” – nets and other fishing equipment discarded in the ocean – said Dialogue Earth.
COMEBACK CAUSALITY: A Vox long-read looked at whether Costa Rica’s “payments for ecosystem services” programme helped the country turn a corner on deforestation.
HOMEGROWN GOALS: A Straits Times podcast discussed whether import-dependent Singapore can afford to shelve its goal to produce 30% of its food locally by 2030.
‘RUSTING’ RIVERS: The Financial Times took a closer look at a “strange new force blighting the [Arctic] landscape”: rivers turning rust-orange due to global warming.
New science
- Lakes in the Congo Basin’s peatlands are releasing carbon that is thousands of years old | Nature Geoscience
- Natural non-forest ecosystems – such as grasslands and marshlands – were converted for agriculture at four times the rate of land with tree cover between 2005 and 2020 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Around one-quarter of global tree-cover loss over 2001-22 was driven by cropland expansion, pastures and forest plantations for commodity production | Nature Food
In the diary
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean | Brasília
- 5 March: Nepal general elections
- 9-20 March: First part of the thirty-first session of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) | Kingston, Jamaica
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz.
Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
Greenhouse Gases
Dangerous heat for Tour de France riders only a ‘question of time’
Rising temperatures across France since the mid-1970s is putting Tour de France competitors at “high risk”, according to new research.
The study, published in Scientific Reports, uses 50 years of climate data to calculate the potential heat stress that athletes have been exposed to across a dozen different locations during the world-famous cycling race.
The researchers find that both the severity and frequency of high-heat-stress events have increased across France over recent decades.
But, despite record-setting heatwaves in France, the heat-stress threshold for safe competition has rarely been breached in any particular city on the day the Tour passed through.
(This threshold was set out by cycling’s international governing body in 2024.)
However, the researchers add it is “only a question of time” until this occurs as average temperatures in France continue to rise.
The lead author of the study tells Carbon Brief that, while the race organisers have been fortunate to avoid major heat stress on race days so far, it will be “harder and harder to be lucky” as extreme heat becomes more common.
‘Iconic’
The Tour de France is one of the world’s most storied cycling races and the oldest of Europe’s three major multi-week cycling competitions, or Grand Tours.
Riders cover around 3,500 kilometres (km) of distance and gain up to nearly 55km of altitude over 21 stages, with only two or three rest days throughout the gruelling race.
The researchers selected the Tour de France because it is the “iconic bike race. It is the bike race of bike races,” says Dr Ivana Cvijanovic, a climate scientist at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, who led the new work.
Heat has become a growing problem for the competition in recent years.
In 2022, Alexis Vuillermoz, a French competitor, collapsed at the finish line of the Tour’s ninth stage, leaving in an ambulance and subsequently pulling out of the race entirely.
Two years later, British cyclist Sir Mark Cavendish vomited on his bike during the first stage of the race after struggling with the 36C heat.
The Tour also makes a good case study because it is almost entirely held during the month of July and, while the route itself changes, there are many cities and stages that are repeated from year to year, Cvijanovic adds.
‘Have to be lucky’
The study focuses on the 50-year span between 1974 and 2023.
The researchers select six locations across the country that have commonly hosted the Tour, from the mountain pass of Col du Tourmalet, in the French Pyrenees, to the city of Paris – where the race finishes, along the Champs-Élysées.
These sites represent a broad range of climatic zones: Alpe d’ Huez, Bourdeaux, Col du Tourmalet, Nîmes, Paris and Toulouse.
For each location, they use meteorological reanalysis data from ERA5 and radiant temperature data from ERA5-HEAT to calculate the “wet-bulb globe temperature” (WBGT) for multiple times of day across the month of July each year.
WBGT is a heat-stress index that takes into account temperature, humidity, wind speed and direct sunlight.
Although there is “no exact scientific consensus” on the best heat-stress index to use, WBGT is “one of the rare indicators that has been originally developed based on the actual human response to heat”, Cvijanovic explains.
It is also the one that the International Cycling Union (UCI) – the world governing body for sport cycling – uses to assess risk. A WBGT of 28C or higher is classified as “high risk” by the group.
WBGT is the “gold standard” for assessing heat stress, says Dr Jessica Murfree, director of the ACCESS Research Laboratory and assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Murfree, who was not involved in the new study, adds that the researchers are “doing the right things by conducting their science in alignment with the business practices that are already happening”.
The researchers find that across the 50-year time period, WBGT has been increasing across the entire country – albeit, at different rates. In the north-west of the country, WBGT has increased at an average rate of 0.1C per decade, while in the southern and eastern parts of the country, it has increased by more than 0.5C per decade.
The maps below show the maximum July WBGT for each decade of the analysis (rows) and for hourly increments of the late afternoon (columns). Lower temperatures are shown in lighter greens and yellows, while higher temperatures are shown in darker reds and purples.
Six Tour de France locations analysed in the study are shown as triangles on the maps (clockwise from top): Paris, Alpe d’ Huez, Nîmes, Toulouse, Col du Tourmalet and Bordeaux.
The maps show that the maximum WBGT temperature in the afternoon has surpassed 28C over almost the entire country in the last decade. The notable exceptions to this are the mountainous regions of the Alps and the Pyrenees.
The researchers also find that most of the country has crossed the 28C WBGT threshold – which they describe as “dangerous heat levels” – on at least one July day over the past decade. However, by looking at the WBGT on the day the Tour passed through any of these six locations, they find that the threshold has rarely been breached during the race itself.
For example, the research notes that, since 1974, Paris has seen a WBGT of 28C five times at 3pm in July – but that these events have “so far” not coincided with the cycling race.
The study states that it is “fortunate” that the Tour has so far avoided the worst of the heat-stress.
Cvijanovic says the organisers and competitors have been “lucky” to date. She adds:
“It has worked really well for them so far. But as the frequency of these [extreme heat] events is increasing, it will be harder and harder to be lucky.”
Dr Madeleine Orr, an assistant professor of sport ecology at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the paper was “really well done”, noting that its “methods are good [and its] approach was sound”. She adds:
“[The Tour has] had athletes complain about [the heat]. They’ve had athletes collapse – and still those aren’t the worst conditions. I think that that says a lot about what we consider safe. They’ve still been lucky to not see what unsafe looks like, despite [the heat] having already had impacts.”
Heat safety protocols
In 2024, the UCI set out its first-ever high temperature protocol – a set of guidelines for race organisers to assess athletes’ risk of heat stress.
The assessment places the potential risk into one of five categories based on the WBGT, ranging from very low to high risk.
The protocol then sets out suggested actions to take in the event of extreme heat, ranging from having athletes complete their warm-ups using ice vests and cold towels to increasing the number of support vehicles providing water and ice.
If the WBGT climbs above the 28C mark, the protocol suggests that organisers modify the start time of the stage, adapt the course to remove particularly hazardous sections – or even cancel the race entirely.
However, Orr notes that many other parts of the race, such as spectator comfort and equipment functioning, may have lower temperatures thresholds that are not accounted for in the protocol, but should also be considered.
Murfree points out that the study’s findings – and the heat protocol itself – are “really focused on adaptation, rather than mitigation”. While this is “to be expected”, she tells Carbon Brief:
“Moving to earlier start times or adjusting the route specifically to avoid these locations that score higher in heat stress doesn’t stop the heat stress. These aren’t climate preventative measures. That, I think, would be a much more difficult conversation to have in the research because of the Tour de France’s intimate relationship with fossil-fuel companies.”
The post Dangerous heat for Tour de France riders only a ‘question of time’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Dangerous heat for Tour de France riders only a ‘question of time’
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 20 February 2026: EU’s ‘3C’ warning | Endangerment repeal’s impact on US emissions | ‘Tree invasion’ fuelled South America’s fires
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Preparing for 3C
NEW ALERT: The EU’s climate advisory board urged countries to prepare for 3C of global warming, reported the Guardian. The outlet quoted Maarten van Aalst, a member of the advisory board, saying that adapting to this future is a “daunting task, but, at the same time, quite a doable task”. The board recommended the creation of “climate risk assessments and investments in protective measures”.
‘INSUFFICIENT’ ACTION: EFE Verde added that the advisory board said that the EU’s adaptation efforts were so far “insufficient, fragmented and reactive” and “belated”. Climate impacts are expected to weaken the bloc’s productivity, put pressure on public budgets and increase security risks, it added.
UNDERWATER: Meanwhile, France faced “unprecedented” flooding this week, reported Le Monde. The flooding has inundated houses, streets and fields and forced the evacuation of around 2,000 people, according to the outlet. The Guardian quoted Monique Barbut, minister for the ecological transition, saying: “People who follow climate issues have been warning us for a long time that events like this will happen more often…In fact, tomorrow has arrived.”
IEA ‘erases’ climate
MISSING PRIORITY: The US has “succeeded” in removing climate change from the main priorities of the International Energy Agency (IEA) during a “tense ministerial meeting” in Paris, reported Politico. It noted that climate change is not listed among the agency’s priorities in the “chair’s summary” released at the end of the two-day summit.
US INTERVENTION: Bloomberg said the meeting marked the first time in nine years the IEA failed to release a communique setting out a unified position on issues – opting instead for the chair’s summary. This came after US energy secretary Chris Wright gave the organisation a one-year deadline to “scrap its support of goals to reduce energy emissions to net-zero” – or risk losing the US as a member, according to Reuters.
Around the world
- ISLAND OBJECTION: The US is pressuring Vanuatu to withdraw a draft resolution supporting an International Court of Justice ruling on climate change, according to Al Jazeera.
- GREENLAND HEAT: The Associated Press reported that Greenland’s capital Nuuk had its hottest January since records began 109 years ago.
- CHINA PRIORITIES: China’s Energy Administration set out its five energy priorities for 2026-2030, including developing a renewable energy plan, said International Energy Net.
- AMAZON REPRIEVE: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has continued to fall into early 2026, extending a downward trend, according to the latest satellite data covered by Mongabay.
- GEZANI DESTRUCTION: Reuters reported the aftermath of the Gezani cyclone, which ripped through Madagascar last week, leaving 59 dead and more than 16,000 displaced people.
20cm
The average rise in global sea levels since 1901, according to a Carbon Brief guest post on the challenges in projecting future rises.
Latest climate research
- Wildfire smoke poses negative impacts on organisms and ecosystems, such as health impacts on air-breathing animals, changes in forests’ carbon storage and coral mortality | Global Ecology and Conservation
- As climate change warms Antarctica throughout the century, the Weddell Sea could see the growth of species such as krill and fish and remain habitable for Emperor penguins | Nature Climate Change
- About 97% of South American lakes have recorded “significant warming” over the past four decades and are expected to experience rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves | Climatic Change
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured

Repealing the US’s landmark “endangerment finding”, along with actions that rely on that finding, will slow the pace of US emissions cuts, according to Rhodium Group visualised by Carbon Brief. US president Donald Trump last week formally repealed the scientific finding that underpins federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, although the move is likely to face legal challenges. Data from the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm, shows that US emissions will drop more slowly without climate regulations. However, even with climate regulations, emissions are expected to drop much slower under Trump than under the previous Joe Biden administration, according to the analysis.
Spotlight
How a ‘tree invasion’ helped to fuel South America’s fires
This week, Carbon Brief explores how the “invasion” of non-native tree species helped to fan the flames of forest fires in Argentina and Chile earlier this year.
Since early January, Chile and Argentina have faced large-scale and deadly wildfires, including in Patagonia, which spans both countries.
These fires have been described as “some of the most significant and damaging in the region”, according to a World Weather Attribution (WWA) analysis covered by Carbon Brief.
In both countries, the fires destroyed vast areas of native forests and grasslands, displacing thousands of people. In Chile, the fires resulted in 23 deaths.

Multiple drivers contributed to the spread of the fires, including extended periods of high temperatures, low rainfall and abundant dry vegetation.
The WWA analysis concluded that human-caused climate change made these weather conditions at least three times more likely.
According to the researchers, another contributing factor was the invasion of non-native trees in the regions where the fires occurred.
The risk of non-native forests
In Argentina, the wildfires began on 6 January and persisted until the first week of February. They hit the city of Puerto Patriada and the Los Alerces and Lago Puelo national parks, in the Chubut province, as well as nearby regions.
In these areas, more than 45,000 hectares of native forests – such as Patagonian alerce tree, myrtle, coigüe and ñire – along with scrubland and grasslands, were consumed by the flames, according to the WWA study.
In Chile, forest fires occurred from 17 to 19 January in the Biobío, Ñuble and Araucanía regions.
The fires destroyed more than 40,000 hectares of forest and more than 20,000 hectares of non-native forest plantations, including eucalyptus and Monterey pine.
Dr Javier Grosfeld, a researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in northern Patagonia, told Carbon Brief that these species, introduced to Patagonia for production purposes in the late 20th century, grow quickly and are highly flammable.
Because of this, their presence played a role in helping the fires to spread more quickly and grow larger.
However, that is no reason to “demonise” them, he stressed.
Forest management
For Grosfeld, the problem in northern Patagonia, Argentina, is a significant deficit in the management of forests and forest plantations.
This management should include pruning branches from their base and controlling the spread of non-native species, he added.
A similar situation is happening in Chile, where management of pine and eucalyptus plantations is not regulated. This means there are no “firebreaks” – gaps in vegetation – in place to prevent fire spread, Dr Gabriela Azócar, a researcher at the University of Chile’s Centre for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2), told Carbon Brief.
She noted that, although Mapuche Indigenous communities in central-south Chile are knowledgeable about native species and manage their forests, their insight and participation are not recognised in the country’s fire management and prevention policies.
Grosfeld stated:
“We are seeing the transformation of the Patagonian landscape from forest to scrubland in recent years. There is a lack of preventive forestry measures, as well as prevention and evacuation plans.”
Watch, read, listen
FUTURE FURNACE: A Guardian video explored the “unbearable experience of walking in a heatwave in the future”.
THE FUN SIDE: A Channel 4 News video covered a new wave of climate comedians who are using digital platforms such as TikTok to entertain and raise awareness.
ICE SECRETS: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast explored how scientists study ice cores to understand what the climate was like in ancient times and how to use them to inform climate projections.
Coming up
- 22-27 February: Ocean Sciences Meeting, Glasgow
- 24-26 February: Methane Mitigation Europe Summit 2026, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- 25-27 February: World Sustainable Development Summit 2026, New Delhi, India
Pick of the jobs
- The Climate Reality Project, digital specialist | Salary: $60,000-$61,200. Location: Washington DC
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), science officer in the IPCC Working Group I Technical Support Unit | Salary: Unknown. Location: Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- Energy Transition Partnership, programme management intern | Salary: Unknown. Location: Bangkok, Thailand
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 20 February 2026: EU’s ‘3C’ warning | Endangerment repeal’s impact on US emissions | ‘Tree invasion’ fuelled South America’s fires appeared first on Carbon Brief.
-
Greenhouse Gases7 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Climate Change7 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
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Spanish-language misinformation on renewable energy spreads online, report shows
-
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”
-
Climate Change Videos2 years ago
The toxic gas flares fuelling Nigeria’s climate change – BBC News
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits








