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China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Higher EU tariffs on China-made EVs
TARIFFS DECIDED: The EU has announced additional tariffs of up to 38.1% on electric vehicles (EVs) manufactured in China, with “individual duties” on BYD, Geely and SAIC of 17.4%, 20% and 38.1%, according to Bloomberg. The outlet added that “while the probe targeted Chinese automakers, the higher rates…will hit a range of Western carmakers too”. The Financial Times reported that, given an existing 10% blanket tariff, companies could face total tariffs of “up to almost 50%”. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, an economic thinktank, “an extra 20% tariff on Chinese electric cars would reduce imports by a quarter”, or approximately 125,000 units worth a total of $4bn, based on 2023 figures. Politico quoted Elvire Fabry, senior research fellow at the Jacques Delors Institute, saying “something around 20-30% would give European manufacturers some breathing space to accelerate their investments in the sector and maintain their market share”.
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‘STRONGLY DISSATISFIED’: China said that it “is strongly dissatisfied” by the tariffs, which have “ignored facts and WTO rules”, state news agency Xinhua reported. Foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said China will take “all necessary measures to firmly safeguard its lawful rights and interests”, in comments published by Reuters. Will Roberts, head of automotive research at Rho Motion, wrote in an email that: “European drivers are crying out for affordable EVs and with the news today of sales plateauing in Europe, lower-priced cars will be critical to achieving the transition as planned. Having said that, Chinese manufacturers should be able to absorb some of these lower tariff levels into their padded profit margins.”
EXEMPTIONS EXPIRE: Meanwhile, an exemption on US tariffs for solar products imported from southeast Asia has expired, economic newspaper Caixin reported, causing Chinese solar manufacturer Longi Green Energy Technology to begin preparing to “suspend some production lines at its factories in Malaysia and Vietnam”. Bloomberg added that another Chinese firm, Trina Solar, was “shutting down capacity” in Thailand and Vietnam. Chinese finance newspaper Yicai reported that Trina denied it was permanently ending production, but the outlet also said Chinese-owned production in the region has been heavily impacted.
LOSING PARTNERS?: Chinese EVs in Turkey will also be subject to additional tariffs of 40%, as the Turkish government aims “to halt a possible deterioration of its current account balance and protect domestic automakers”, Reuters said. Elsewhere, the Brazilian government “reiterated [its] aspiration for increased Chinese investments in energy, agriculture and infrastructure sectors, and highlighted the remarkable growth in bilateral trade with China”, the state-run newspaper China Daily reported.
China’s new regulation on ‘new energy integration’
NEW CONSTRUCTION: The NEA issued a notice on new energy integration – the process of accommodating, distributing and balancing renewable energy fed into the grid – on 5 June, state news agency Xinhua reported. It said that the NEA will grant a “green channel” for development of grid infrastructure above 500 kilovolts (kV) to better integrate large solar, hydropower and wind projects, while provincial-level energy departments will be responsible for lower-voltage projects and creating better, more advanced “plans” for integration. Bloomberg said the new document also set a goal of “completing 37 major power lines and starting construction on another 33 by the end of the year”, as well as supporting broader goals to “increase the national target for battery storage capacity by 2025”.
POLICY BACKGROUND: The NEA’s own “interpretation” of the document said the policy is a response to China’s installed capacity of wind power and solar exceeding 1,100 gigawatts by the end of April, creating a “need” to better “adapt [grid development] to the rapid growth of new energy”. An article by Zhang Jianhua, the head of the NEA, published by China Electric Power News the day before the notification was released, also emphasised the “urgent need” to construct a “new electricity system” for “energy security” that includes the utilisation of both fossil fuels and new energy.
IMPROVE UTILISATION: An analysis by International Energy Net (IEN) said another factor behind the new policy is that a number of local governments have cancelled energy storage programs, hampering integration and “forcing” the central government to “intervene”. In addition, the wind and solar integration rate of big projects, such as those in Inner Mongolia, dropped to between 92-94% from January to April 2024, lower than the national average of 96.1%, added IEN. (An analysis by Shanghai-based The Paper said the utilisation rate of solar energy should be above 95%, according to a regulation in 2018, although this target has since been loosened for some regions.) The analysis concluded that establishing a “green channel” and requiring better planning can improve utilisation and allow the construction of China’s “ultra-high voltage” power infrastructure to become “more targeted”.
China announced more policies on industry emissions
STEEL EMISSIONS: China published an action plan for energy conservation and carbon reduction in the steel industry, aiming to cut emissions by 53m tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) by 2025, Jiemian reported. The plan added that “by the end of 2030…the industry will have “achieve[ing]d significant results in the development of green, low-carbon and high-quality development”. It was one of several industry-specific documents that followed the National Energy Administration (NEA)’s announcement of an industry-wide action plan on the topic at the end of May. China Environment News interviewed a representative of the China Iron and Steel Association, who stated that the steel industry is “expected to be included” in China’s carbon market this year. Dialogue Earth said that the “likely inclusion of the steel, cement and aluminium industries is expected to add 2,000-3,000MtCO2 coverage”. (The market currently covers the power sector’s roughly 5000MtCO2.)
CARBON FOOTPRINT: The government also announced a plan to establish a “carbon footprint management system”, which “will go into effect in 2027, setting standards for measuring carbon emissions for about 100 key products throughout the Chinese economy” that year and may include 200 products by 2030, according to Reuters. The plan was a response to the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which “has set clear rules on the measuring and disclosure of product carbon footprints”, the newswire added. International Energy Net interviewed an official from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, who said the plan “improves domestic rules, promotes convergence with international [efforts], and establishes a unified and standardised carbon footprint management system”.
Spotlight
US-China subnational climate cooperation
The US and China are the world’s two leading CO2 emitters and their cooperation on climate change has often pressaged progress on the international stage. However, climate cooperation could be hit by geopolitical disagreements, such as the ongoing debate over China’s electric vehicles (EV) exports.
In this issue, Carbon Brief looks at recently concluded US-China climate talks and explores the possibilities for continued subnational climate cooperation.
When the US and China signed the Sunnylands statement in late 2023, the two countries agreed to continue the climate conversations this decade.
Last month, the US-China high-level event on subnational climate action was held by the China-California Climate Institute (CCCI) in Berkeley, California.
The event covered various climate-related topics. For example, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the economic planning body under the central government, and the US Department of Energy agreed to cooperate on a carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project, according to a CCCI announcement.
At the regional level, the state of California furthered cooperation with Chinese local governments in the areas of transport, joint climate research, carbon markets and agricultural methane, the CCCI announcement added.
Much of this cooperation started before the Sunnylands statement.
Continued cooperation
In 2022, California and Shanghai jointly established a “green shipping corridor”.
Under the project, two ports – the port of Los Angeles and the port of Shanghai – along with other industry partners, including shipping lines and cargo owners, are aiming to demonstrate the feasibility of deploying “the world’s first zero lifecycle carbon emission container ship” by 2030
“We’re hoping to do something in late summer with the green shipping corridors,” Giles Giovinazzi, senior advisor to the California State Transportation Agency, told Carbon Brief.
He added that “there’s a structured conversation that’s been going on at the local government level” and the state wants more cooperation with China.
Another project being eyed by the California authority is Hainan’s battery-swapping facility for heavy-duty trucks, which are responsible for 20% of transport emissions in the state.
“Regardless of geopolitical issues and ideological issues…we want to be fact based and learn from each other,” Giovinazzi said.
The debate over engagement
Jerry Brown, former governor of California and CCCI chair, echoed this message at the CCCI event. “We are here not because of our differences, but because of the common ground we share and the common threat we face in confronting the climate crisis,” he told attendees.
The event was part of an effort “to build an exchange platform or partnership for the future, no matter what happens to the government’s official conversations,” Hu Min, director and co-founder of the Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress, a Beijing-based thinktank, told Carbon Brief.
However, some of the delegates in Berkeley were less optimistic. Speaking anonymously to offer frank reflections on the event, a number of participants told Carbon Brief they were concerned about trade protectionism raising the cost of renewable energy products and the impact of this on climate action, as well as escalating geopolitical tensions stalling climate cooperation.
Outside the talks, Chinese corporations are contending with rising criticism in the US.
Several Republican members of Congress, including Colorado representative Lauren Boebert, expressed in a letter to US president Joe Biden that they are “concerned that [a meeting in May] between [US climate envoy] John Podesta and Chinese counterparts will further leverage American energy security for empty promises from China’s government”.
Chinese companies have also faced direct opposition to their investments in the US. Battery manufacturer Gotion received protests against its planned factory in Michigan, with residents worrying over “communist influences”. Microvast, a Texas-based battery manufacturer with a Chinese subsidiary, faced similar criticism from Republican lawmakers.
Ford’s use of battery technology from Chinese manufacturer CATL in its Michigan battery plant saw residents lodge concerns about the “plant’s effect on the environment”, as well as concerns about communist influence in the state.
‘California Effect’
Continued US-China climate cooperation is likely to hinge on the outcome of the upcoming presidential election.
Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump mentioned that he would establish at least a 60% tariff on all products imported from China.
(Joe Biden’s Democratic administration recently has announced a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs.)
“We have a possibility of a second Trump administration, [where] presumably bilateral climate talks with China would more or less cease, as they did during his first term,” Scott Moore, director of China programs and strategic initiatives at Penn Global, told Carbon Brief.
But California seems to have been able to avoid such disruption in the past. Despite the Trump administration pulling out of climate action, California maintained climate cooperation with China. The state is viewed as an alternate channel for climate dialogue.
Scott added:
“There is a term: the California Effect, which refers to the state’s emissions standards [being] set higher than the national average for several decades, [thereby] forcing car manufacturers and the federal government to adopt more stringent regulations because the state was such a big market that it wasn’t practical to make cars or set standards that applied just in California.”
Nevertheless, any state could be limited in the actions it could take to tackle emissions under a second Trump term.
As such, California-China subnational climate action is “not a substitute” for national-level cooperation, Scott added.
This Spotlight is by freelance climate journalist Alok Gupta for Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
LIU’S LETTER: China’s climate envoy Liu Zhenmin wrote in the Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily that “China and other developing countries hope that the US will…respect the law of the market and freedom of trade, and join hands with other countries…to address climate change”.
NDC TARGET: The Asia Society Policy Institute’s Lauri Myllyvirta in Dialogue Earth argued that, when China submits its 2035 climate targets next year, it should “commit to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of at least 30%” from their peak level, to remain aligned with the Paris Agreement.
BIGGER PICTURE: Speaking on the Redefining Energy podcast, the Lantau Group’s David Fishman summarised how China’s energy system and energy transition works.
CLIMATE FINANCE: Thinktank the Lowy Institute mapped China’s climate finance to the Pacific and Southeast Asia, finding that it averaged $1.2bn per year between 2015-2021, or 13% of all climate finance to the two regions.
Captured
China’s investment in clean energy is estimated to reach $676bn in 2024, or one-third of such investments worldwide, according to the IEA’s World Energy Investment 2024. This would account for 78.5% of China’s energy investment this year, with fossil fuel investment continuing to remain flat, at $185bn.
New science
Environmental Research Letters
A new study found that the fraction of short-duration extreme precipitation episodes that are compound events “preconditioned” by heatwaves (“CHEPs”) has risen by nearly a fifth between 1979-2021. It concluded: “As short-duration storms may trigger severe flash floods, ample attention should be paid to the escalating risks of CHEPs under climate change.”
Global and Planetary Change
New research quantified the contributions of China’s terrestrial carbon sinks to offsetting CO2 emissions between 2001 and 2060 under different “shared socioeconomic pathways”. It found that, under a low emissions scenario, approximately 50%-80% of China’s emissions could be offset by the terrestrial carbon sink by 2060, while, under high and very high emissions scenarios, only approximately 10% of emissions could be offset. The study “underscores the critical role of terrestrial carbon sink in achieving carbon neutrality in China”, the authors wrote.
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 13 June: EU EV tariffs; Grid buildout; US-China subnational climate cooperation appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 13 June: EU EV tariffs; Grid buildout; US-China subnational climate cooperation
Sydney, Thursday 19 March 2026 — In response to escalating attacks on gas fields in the Middle East, including Israeli strikes on Iran’s giant South Pars gas field and Iranian retaliations on gas fields in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the following lines can be attributed to Solaye Snider, Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“The targeting of gas fields across the Middle East is a perilous escalation that reinforces just how vulnerable our fossil-fuelled world really is.
“Oil and gas have long been used as tools of power and coercion by authoritarian regimes. They cause climate chaos and environmental pollution and they drive conflict and war. The energy security of every nation still hooked on gas, including Australia, is under direct threat.
“For countries that are reliant on gas imports, like Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Korea, this crisis is just getting started. It can take months to restart a gas export facility once it is shut down, meaning the shockwaves of these strikes will be felt for a long time to come.
“It is a gross and tragic injustice that while civilians are killed and lose their homes to this escalating violence, and families struggle with a tightening cost-of-living, gas giants like Woodside and Santos have seen their share prices surge on the prospect of windfall war profits.
“We must break this cycle. Transitioning to local renewable energy is the way to protect Australian households from the inherent volatility of fossil fuels like gas.”
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Images available for download via the Greenpeace Media Library
Media contact: Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lkeller@greenpeace.org
Greenpeace response to escalating attacks on gas fields in Middle East
Climate Change
DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Iran war fallout continues
WORK FROM HOME: The International Energy Agency has advised its member countries to take 10 steps in response to the ongoing energy crisis fuelled by the Iran war, including reducing highway speeds and encouraging people to work from home, said the Guardian. It came after retaliatory attacks between Israel and Iran continued to destroy energy infrastructure in the Middle East, causing energy prices to soar further, said Reuters.
SUPPLY DISRUPTED: The IEA also said it is prepared to make more of its member nations’ 1.4bn-barrel oil reserves available to help ease the impacts of what it called the “biggest supply disruption in the history of the oil market”, reported Bloomberg. The outlet noted that Asian countries have been hit hardest by the shortages, caused by a “near-halt” of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
EU SUMMIT: The energy crisis dominated talks at an EU leaders summit on Thursday, said Politico. Arriving at the summit, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez attacked other European leaders for using the energy crisis as an excuse to “gut climate policies”, according to the EU Observer. The Financial Times said that some European leaders have asked the European Commission to overhaul its flagship emissions trading system (ETS) by summer in response to the energy crisis.
COAL BOOST: In response to the conflict, utility companies in Asia are “boosting coal-fired power generation to cut costs and safeguard energy supply”, said Reuters. UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell told Reuters: “If there was ever a moment to accelerate that energy transition, breaking dependencies which have shackled economies, this is the time.”
Around the world
- WINDFARM WINDFALL: The Trump administration in the US is considering a nearly $1bn settlement with TotalEnergies to cancel the French energy company’s two planned windfarms off the US east coast and have it instead invest in fossil-gas infrastructure in Texas, according to documents seen by the New York Times.
- BUSINESS CLASH: Following “clashes” with the agribusiness sector, Brazil launched its new climate plan, which calls for a 49-58% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2022 levels by 2025 and includes “specific guidelines for different sectors”, reported Folha de Sao Paolo.
- SALES SLUMP: Sales of liquified petroleum gas from India’s state-run oil companies have fallen by 17% this month due to cuts in deliveries to commercial and industrial consumers “amid the widespread logistical bottlenecks triggered by the Iran war”, said the Economic Times.
- CUBAN ENERGY CRISIS: The US imposed an “effective oil blockade” on Cuba, leaving the country facing its “worst energy crisis in decades”, reported the Washington Post. Meanwhile, Chinese exports of solar panels to the island have “skyrocketed” since 2023, it added.
- RECORD HIGHS: An “unprecedented” heatwave in the western and south-western US is “shattering dozens of temperature records” and could lead to drought in California in the coming months, reported the Los Angeles Times.
- VULNERABILITY CONCERNS: Landslides that killed more than 100 people in southern Ethiopia have “renewed concerns about Ethiopia’s vulnerability to climate-related disasters”, said the Addis Standard.
1%
The percentage of England’s land surface that could be devoted to renewables by 2050, according to the long-awaited “land-use framework” released by the UK government this week and covered by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Approaching international climate action by shifting the burden of mitigation onto higher-income countries could avoid 13.5 million premature deaths from air pollution in middle- and lower-income countries by 2050 | The Lancet Global Health
- Beavers can turn the ecosystems surrounding streams into “persistent” sinks of carbon that can sequester an order of magnitude more than non-beaver-modified ecosystems can store | Communications Earth & Environment
- Mobile-phone data from seven diverse countries during the summer heatwaves of 2022-23 showed a “widespread tendency to withdraw into homes” and an increase in out-of-home activities that can offer cooling, such as indoor retail | Environmental Research: Climate
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Carbon Brief this week published a significant update to its map of how climate change is affecting extreme weather events around the world. The map now includes 232 new extreme weather events from studies published in 2024 and 2025. Of these events, 196 were made more severe or more likely to occur by human-driven climate change, 12 were made less severe or less likely to occur and 10 had no discernible human influence. (The remaining 14 studies were inconclusive.)
Spotlight
New Zealand breaks new ground on climate litigation
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to experts about a first-of-its-kind climate lawsuit in New Zealand.
Earlier this week, representatives from two environmentally focused legal advocacy groups challenged the New Zealand government’s climate-action plan in court.
The plaintiffs argued that the measures laid out in the plan are insufficient to achieve the country’s legal obligation to hold global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The case could be “influential” in shaping lawsuits and rulings around the world, one legal expert not involved in the case told Carbon Brief.
Reductions vs removals
The new case contends that there are several issues regarding the New Zealand government’s response to climate change.
One of the key arguments the plaintiffs make is that New Zealand’s second emissions reduction plan, which covers the period from 2026-30, is overreliant on the use of tree-planting to achieve its targets.
When the plan was released in December 2024, it was “immediately clear that it was a pretty lacklustre plan”, Eliza Prestidge Oldfield, senior legal researcher at the Environmental Law Initiative, one of the groups behind the legal case, told Carbon Brief.
The plan called for large-scale planting of pine tree plantations, which are not native to New Zealand and have a high risk of burning. Because of this, there are concerns about how permanent any carbon removal provided by these plantations actually can be, experts told Carbon Brief.
Catherine Higham, senior policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment who was not involved in the case, said:
“The lawyers are arguing that there are real challenges with equating the emissions that you may be able to remove from the atmosphere through afforestation with actual emissions reductions, which are much more certain.”
‘Global dialogue’
While other climate lawsuits elsewhere in the world have also focused on the inadequacy of a government’s plan to meet its stated emissions-reduction targets, this is the first such case that addresses the role of removals head-on.
Lucy Maxwell, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, told Carbon Brief that the lawsuit “builds on a decade of climate litigation” in national, regional and international courts.
Maxwell, who was not involved in the New Zealand case, added that there is a “real global dialogue” between, not just plaintiffs, but national courts as well. She said:
“[National courts] look to common issues that have been decided in other countries. They’re not binding on that court if it’s at the national level, but they are influential.”
Given that many other countries have legal frameworks requiring their governments to create plans outlining the pathway to their long-term climate targets, Prestidge Oldfield told Carbon Brief that other jurisdictions “should be interested in these questions around the level of certainty”.
Higham noted that, even if the case is successful, addressing the plan’s shortfalls will face its own set of challenges. She told Carbon Brief:
“A lot of these decisions are political and they can be politically contentious…Those [measures] have to be put into action through legislation and that is then subject to the usual political process. So that’s where the challenge comes in.”
While she could not speculate on the outcome of the case, Prestidge Oldfield said it was “very heartening” to see that both the judge and the opposing counsel “appreciated how much of a concern climate change is globally”.
She added:
“It’s not a given that the judge would even be interested in climate change.”
Watch, read, listen
COMMON APPROACH: The Heated podcast analysed fossil-fuel advertisements and highlighted the most common deception tactics they employed.
THREAT ASSESSMENT: Mongabay mapped the potential threat that oil extraction poses to Venezuela’s ecosystems, including the Amazon rainforest and its coral reefs.
SALT LAKES? GREAT!: High Country News interviewed journalist Dr Caroline Tracey about her new book on saline lakes – such as Utah’s Great Salt Lake – the threats that face them and what they can teach us.
Coming up
- 23 March-2 April: Third meeting of the preparatory commission for the High Seas Treaty, New York
- 24-27 March: 64th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bangkok
- 26-29 March: 14th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, Yaoundé, Cameroon
Pick of the jobs
- International Centre of Research for the Environment and Development (CIRAD), IPCC chapter scientist | Salary: €3,200-3,750 per month. Location: Nogent-sur-Marne, France
- Avaaz, chief of staff | Salary: Dependent on location. Location: Remote, with preferred time zones
- Green Party, social media officer | Salary: £31,592-£32,192. Location: Remote or Westminster, UK
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 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Around 300 scientists, civil servants, journalists and climate experts took part in the 11th annual Carbon Brief quiz on Wednesday 18 March 2026.
For the second time, this year’s quiz was hosted by Octopus Energy at its headquarters in central London.
In total, 39 teams participated – 25 teams in person and 14 teams joining via Zoom.
Competing teams reflected a wide range of climate change and energy professionals. The list included journalists, civil servants, climate campaigners, policy advisers, energy experts and scientists.
Organisations represented included: Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in India; New Scientist; the Times; Business Green; the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources (BSEER), UCL; Verisk Maplecroft; BBC; World Weather Attribution; Grantham Institute at Imperial; DESNZ; WWF; European Climate Foundation (ECF); the ENDS Report; C40 Cities; Ricardo; Met Office; Meliore; E3G; Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI); Energy Transitions Commission; Carbon Tracker; Ember; Royal Meteorological Society; Civil Service Climate and Environment Network (CSCEN); Changing Markets Foundation; Cerulogy; Oxford Sustainable Law Programme; Université de Lausanne; University of Exeter; Centre for Environment and Sustainability, University of Surrey; UK Parliament; Skeptical Science; ECIU (Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit); Octopus Energy; DeSmog; Department for Transport and Royal School of Mines.
Teams were tested with five rounds of questions – general knowledge, policy, science and two picture rounds. (See the slideshow of the questions and answers below).
After two hours of playing, this year’s winners were announced.
Comprised of players from the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in India, last time’s second place team, “Emissions Impossible” won the coveted Carbon Brief trophy with a total score of 76 out of 100 available points.
In joint second place, with 59 points, were the “Potato-sized nodules”, a mixed team of journalists from New Scientist, the Times and Business Green.
Sharing second place, after leading at the half-way point, were “You cannot BSEERious” from the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources at UCL.
In fourth place, with 57 points, were “Risky Quizness”, from Verisk Maplecroft.
A certificate was awarded to the BBC for the best team name, as voted for by Carbon Brief staff: “High hopes [low confidence]”.
See the full leaderboard:
All the questions and answers from this year’s quiz can be found in this PDF document.
This year’s trickiest round was picture round two, which asked teams to match the quote to the author, with an average score of 5.9 out of 20 available points.
No team correctly guessed that “Chris Funk: Drought, Flood, Fire” was the source of the quote: “How greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere is pretty straightforward. It is really important that we understand this. But almost nobody does, because it is not something that we are taught in school.”
Science was the second hardest round, earning an average score of 6.1 points out of 20.
No team correctly guessed “religious leaders” as the least trustworthy source of climate information, according to a 2025 study using public polling from seven global south countries.
The highest-scoring round was general knowledge, with an average of 13.8 out of 20 questions answered correctly.
Carbon Brief would like to thank all the teams who took part and we look forward to hosting the quiz again in the spring of 2027.
If you would like to participate in next year’s quiz, please contact us in advance at quiz AT carbonbrief DOT org.
Photos by Kerry Cleaver
The post The Carbon Brief Quiz 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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