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Carbon Brief handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
(China Briefing will return on 11 January.)
Key developments
China at COP28
BIG PRESENCE: China’s presence at COP28 this year loomed large, boasting the joint-third largest delegation with more than 1,400 badges issued, Carbon Brief analysis found.
WHO’S WHO: The delegation, headed by ministry of environment and ecology (MEE) vice-minister Zhao Yingmin, featured many high-ranking government officials, including MEE minister Huang Runqiu, special climate envoy and COP veteran Xie Zhenhua, as well as UN under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs Liu Zhenmin, who is expected to replace Xie as climate envoy after COP28.
FULL CALENDAR: China also hosted a jam-packed schedule of side events at its country pavilion, which topics ranging from methane emissions and “green” banking through to overseas energy investments and UK-China cooperation on climate science. Many events were attended by Carbon Brief. “The pavilion is always an interesting place to see what [China] want[s] the world to see about them,” Prof Alex Wang, co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles, tells Carbon Brief. “There’s more information available, there’s more societal involvement than ever before…That may be strategic, but it does also reflect genuine changes on the ground [in China].”
China declines to participate in loss-and-damage fund
EARLY SUCCESS: The opening of COP28 was marked by an agreement to “operationalise” the loss-and-damage fund, which Dr Jennifer Allen at the Earth Negotiations Bulletin termed a “big, big win”. Despite a donation by the United Arab Emirates “put[ting] the spotlight on China”, according to Politico, China did not pledge, with Chinese media coverage of the fund being muted.
EVOLVING RESPONSIBILITIES: China Dialogue quoted Avinash Persaud, Barbados’ special envoy for finance, saying: “79% of the stock of greenhouse gases come from the countries that would be defined as developed in 1992. A big part of the other remaining part of the emissions comes from China. I’m happy for us to think about ‘common, but differentiated responsibilities’ as being a vital principle, but not stuck in some particular point of time in measurement. They should be evolving common, but differentiated responsibilities…That would mean that, at some point, China should be a contributor [to the fund]”.
OTHER MECHANISMS: Yuan Ying, chief China representative at Greenpeace East Asia, argues that criticism of China’s position was misguided. China on a per-capita basis is poorer than the UAE – the only developing country to contribute to the fund – she tells Carbon Brief: “China is pretty clear that [payments from] the loss-and-damage fund will prioritise vulnerable and least developed countries. Meanwhile, China is chipping into other channels and platforms to help other countries cope with climate change, like the south-south cooperation fund and Africa climate summit.” Xie echoed this argument at a press conference on 9 December, saying that China “has been carrying out south-south cooperation” over the past 10 years to help other countries build capacity. (Recent analysis for Carbon Brief also underscores this point.)
Pledge to update 2030 and 2035 targets in 2025
NEW NDC: Early on in the COP28 negotiations, Xie announced that China would release a new nationally determined contribution (NDC) that includes targets for both 2035 and 2030, the year before which China has pledged to peak its carbon emissions. “The Chinese government also attaches great importance to this matter,” Xie said.
REASONING? Li Shuo, director of the China climate hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, attributes two possible motivations to the announcement: “One is ‘don’t ask us again, there won’t be anything new, wait until 2025’. That’s my interpretation. The other is ‘2030 isn’t entirely fixed, we could still enhance the ambitiousness of the 2030 target’.”
PEAKING TIMELINE: Analysis in Carbon Brief shows that China carbon emissions may enter a “structural decline” as early as next year. An early peak could then affect the level of ambition for the 2030 and 2035 targets. Xie also said at the 9 December press conference that “China has moved from dual control of energy to dual control of carbon emissions, which is a strategic shift”. He added: “If this shift is realised by 2025, China will then determine what year we will reach peak carbon and what the absolute amount of peak carbon will be. But this will certainly not [be] 2030, it will be before 2030.”
Impact of Sunnylands
SETTING THE TONE: The Sunnylands statement – itself a positive signal of thawing US-China relations – set “necessary, but insufficient, conditions for success at COP28”, Li previously told Carbon Brief. The statement itself significantly influenced the final outcome. Key language from the document featured in the final global stocktake text, with US climate envoy John Kerry attributing the success of the methane summit (see below) to “the meeting we had in Sunnylands” in his remarks at the event.
RENEWABLES CENTRED: The Sunnylands statement included a call for the US and China to “pursue efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030…so as to accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation”. Nevertheless, China did not sign up to an official pledge to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency. Prof Zou Ji, president of the Energy Foundation China, attributes this to an issue of measurement. He says to Carbon Brief: “ [It has not been clarified which] year should be the base year – should it be 2020 [or] 2022? This might seem technical, but, in the past two years, development of renewables – both globally, but particularly in China – has been greatly boosted. So using different [base years] could be very significant.” Wang says he believes that China’s unwillingness to sign was “due to a line on acknowledging the need to phase out unabated fossil fuels”, which was not acceptable to the country. By contrast, Professor Pan Jiahua, vice-chair of the national expert committee on climate change, member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and director of its Research Center for Sustainable Development plus director of Beijing University of Technology’s Institute of Eco-Civilization Studies, tells Carbon Brief that tripling renewable energy was “not enough” and that countries should be more ambitious.
GOOD VIBES: In the early days of COP28, Chinese state media published several articles highlighting the importance of cooperation with the US. The two countries were often reported to be having hour-long meetings and, in the final days of COP28, rumours circulated that a US-China joint statement was imminent.
WHAT NEXT? Kerry also said at the methane summit that the friendship between him and Xie “was the reason we could work together in Paris, in Glasgow and now in Dubai”. With Xie likely to now be replaced by Liu Zhenmin, there is an important open question about whether Liu will be able to maintain this positive dynamic. (Liu and veteran US negotiator Susan Biniaz were seen together on multiple occasions, while Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s special representative for international climate policy and former Greenpeace co-leader, told the audience that they had held discussions on Germany’s net-zero transition.) And, despite his and Kerry’s respective ages – Xie is 74 and Kerry just turned 80 – Xie said at the 9 December press conference: “We will not leave this field, we will still do our best to promote progress in this field.”
Global stocktake to boost China’s renewables drive
PHASEDOWN NOT PHASEOUT: The final draft of the global stocktake did not refer to a “fossil fuel phase-out”, instead calling for “tripling renewable energy capacity”, “accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power”, using “abatement and removal technologies…particularly in hard-to-abate sectors”, while transitioning away from fossil fuels in a “just, orderly and equitable manner”. All of which aligns with China’s policy priorities.
COMPROMISE: The document was a “compromise text”, Li explains, with the overall language on coal being “very modest”. Pan characterises it in comments to Carbon Brief as “based on a consensus that actions must be taken in line with the 1.5C target”. He argues that the outcome showed that a “negotiated accord…[is] not a solution” and, instead, the global stocktake should shift focus from “restricting” fossil fuels to “accelerating zero-carbon industries”. Meanwhile, Yuan says in a statement the text “will undoubtedly further boost China’s already booming renewable energy sector, accelerate the substitution of coal power and achieve the country’s target of peaking emissions”. However, she adds: “The final text lacks clear and effective implementation pathways.”
TRADE SPATS: China also suggested in its initial submission to the UNFCCC that language be included on “rising unilateralism, protectionism and anti-globalism”. However, the final text saw this watered down to “measures taken to combat climate change, including unilateral ones, should not constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade”. Li points out that “this is actually stronger” than language in the Sunnylands statement, which the Chinese delegation “should be happy about”. The EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) seems to have faded from the text. “I think the consensus is that CBAM is to be discussed at the World Trade Organisation, not at the UN,” Yan Qin, carbon analyst at the London Stock Exchange Group, tells Carbon Brief.
US and China trumpet methane cooperation
ON THE AGENDA: On 2 December, Carbon Brief attended the summit on methane and non-CO2 greenhouse gases, co-hosted by China, the US and UAE. The summit was intended as a strong political signal of US-China cooperation and the importance they both now place on reducing methane emissions. In his remarks at the event, Kerry emphasised the countries’ progress in driving the conversation, noting that methane “was not even talked about in Paris”.
FIRST STEPS: Xie described the summit as an “important step”. However, he argued, China has a “poor foundation” for regulating methane, adding: “We need concrete measures, we need capital support and we also need a feasible technical pathway on how we can join hands to tackle climate change.”
LACK OF TARGETS: As with China’s domestic methane emissions action plan, however, the methane summit did not see any concrete targets for reducing methane. “I hope that we can maintain the momentum,” Li tells Carbon Brief, because, “of [all the] topics they could choose, they chose methane”. It would be frustrating if this level of momentum “still can’t move the ball”, he adds.
Quoted at COP28
FRAMING COP28 BACK HOME: Li Shuo: “We need to recognise the domestic politics…Try to imagine a fistfight at the beginning of COP28. If you’re a general Chinese reader and you see that on the news…Is that helpful for the Chinese leadership?…So I think it’s pretty smart that COP28 had a smooth start [with the operationalisation of the loss-and-damage fund].”
TRADE DISPUTES: Yuan Ying: “We need open, inclusive and collaborative supply chains for renewable energy, then we can work collectively to achieve the targets of tripling renewable energy.”
METHANE EMISSIONS: Prof Alex Wang: “China could target a certain subsection of local leaders, put a lot of pressure on them to get rid of methane and then in two years declare a big success on the international stage…I heard one person mention that [efforts] could be framed in terms of worker safety…[which is] a real black mark in Chinese governance.”
CLIMATE, NATURE AND PEOPLE: Lu Lunyan, WWF China CEO, tells Carbon Brief in a statement: “Protecting nature and modifying agro-food systems is an essential part of effective climate action, but it is unfortunate that countries have failed to adopt the IPCC’s recommendation to include the protection of 30-50% of all ecosystems in the text”.
Read Carbon Brief’s in-depth summary of COP28’s key outcomes of COP28. And Anika Patel, Carbon Brief’s China analyst, will be participating in Carbon Brief’s COP28 webinar tomorrow, 15 December, at 3pm (UK time). Sign up is free.
Watch, read, listen
CONSEQUENTIAL RELATIONSHIPS: With Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua set to retire after COP28, Foreign Policy looked back on how he and US climate envoy John Kerry forged a bond “over decades of [climate] negotiations”.
DUBAI FIRESIDE: The Wall Street Journal interviewed John Kerry on China’s climate policy and his experience working with Xie Zhenhua.
DECIPHERING COP28: Carbon Brief’s China analyst (and author of this newsletter) Anika Patel spoke on the China-Global South Podcast to break down China’s positions at COP28.
TOP 10: In China Energy Net, Kevin Tu, managing director of Agora Energy Transition China, highlighted 10 issues he was watching out for at COP28.
New science
Rapid attribution of the record-breaking heatwave event in north China in June 2023 and future risks
Environmental Research Letters
The record-breaking heatwave that hit North China over 22-24 June 2023 – in which Beijing reached or exceeded temperatures of 40C for three consecutive days for the first time – was made around 1C hotter due to human-caused climate change, according to a new study. The authors carried out a “rapid attribution study” to assess the role of climate change on the event. They find that by the end of the century, in an intermediate emissions scenario, 2023-like heatwave events in North China could be 5.5 times more likely and 2.9C hotter than those under a 2023 climate. They add that, “even if carbon neutrality is achieved”, 2023-like events could occur at least 1.6 times throughout the remainder of the century and be 0.5C hotter.
Electrifying industrial heating in China
Global Efficiency Intelligence
“Plastic recycling, steel reheating processes, steel production and the ammonia industry are the top four industries in terms of CO2 emissions reduction potential from electrification,” according to a new report. The report “identifies specific processes that could be electrified in the near term with commercially available technologies and analyses the expected changes in energy use, CO2 emissions and energy costs”. The authors recommend “integrating electrification in industrial planning and decision-making establishing industry-specific electrification roadmaps”.
Deploying green hydrogen to decarbonise China’s coal chemical sector
Nature Communications
New research finds that China’s coal chemical production resulted in around 1.1 gigaton CO2 equivalent (GtCO2eq) in 2020 – equal to 9% of national emissions. The authors estimate that emissions from the sector could rise to 1.3 GtCO2eq by 2030, but add that around half of these emissions could be reduced using “solar or wind power-based electrolytic hydrogen and oxygen” to replace coal-based hydrogen and air separation-based oxygen. The paper suggests that the provinces of Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Ningxia and Xinjiang would be “well suited for pilot policies to advance demonstration projects”.
China Briefing is compiled by Anika Patel and edited by Wanyuan Song and Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org.
The post China Briefing 14 December: COP28 special edition appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Nations are “back on track” to adopt a framework for curbing global shipping emissions, following the latest International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) meeting in London, UK.
The proposed “net-zero framework” had been expected to be approved by countries at the IMO towards the end of 2025.
Instead, the Trump administration was accused of “bully-boy” tactics as the US led a concerted effort to reject the framework, leading to its approval being delayed.
Since then, the US, other fossil-fuel producers and some industry groups have called for the framework to be stripped of its carbon-pricing mechanism, or abandoned entirely.
At the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC84) meeting in London, UK, last week, nations tried once again to reach an agreement on the framework.
Opponents said they were trying to seek consensus, but supporters, such as Brazil, the EU and Pacific islands, pointed out the framework was already a “careful balance of interests”.
Liberia and Panama – “flag states” for a third of the world’s commercial shipping – led a counter-proposal, alongside Argentina, which effectively cut carbon pricing from the framework.
Ultimately, however, the meeting ended with a reconfirmation that delegations are committed to rebuilding consensus on global shipping emissions.
The framework survived the negotiations and the committee will now try to adopt it at its December 2026 meeting.
Below, Carbon Brief explains why the framework has proved so contentious, who the major players have been and what the final outcome was at the latest IMO meeting.
- Why was the net-zero framework delayed last year?
- Why do some countries oppose the net-zero framework?
- What ‘alternative frameworks’ were discussed?
- What do supporters of the net-zero framework want?
- What was the final outcome from the IMO meeting?
Why was the net-zero framework delayed last year?
In April 2025, nations at the IMO had agreed on a “net-zero framework” at their MEPC83 meeting in London, despite the US withdrawing halfway through.
Later that year, in October 2025, they failed to formally adopt the framework after a fraught meeting that saw US negotiators accused of “bully-boy tactics”.
The framework was meant to be a practical set of measures to achieve the global net-zero target for shipping, agreed at the IMO in 2023. The target is significant, as international shipping is responsible for more than 2% of emissions and is not covered by the Paris Agreement.
Following a week of negotiations at the April 2025 meeting, the remaining nations had voted on approving a compromise proposal for an emissions levy – effectively a carbon tax on global shipping – and a credit-trading system.
A majority of nations had agreed to this framework that would have set a lower emissions-intensity reduction target of 4% in 2028, rising to 30% in 2035. It had also included an upper target that would have increased from 17% in 2028 to 43% in 2035.
Ships that failed to lower their emissions intensity in line with these limits would have needed to purchase “remedial units” for $380 per “tier two” unit. This would have fed into a new IMO “net-zero fund”.
Those who met the lower target, but fell short of the more difficult upper target, would have had to pay into the IMO fund, but at the lower rate of $100 per “tier one” unit.
The number of compliant ships had been expected to grow under this framework, reducing the number of vessels reliant on buying units and helping to reduce emissions intensity by over 40%, as the chart below shows.
The purchase of units to comply with the rules had been expected to raise $10-15bn annually in the initial years of the fund, as well as help with the development of zero and near-zero (ZNZ) greenhouse gas fuels and energy sources, according to thinktank IDDRI.
In turn, the fund would have been used to support developing countries to decarbonise shipping.
A clear majority of 80% of the eligible voters – not including those who abstained or the US – approved the framework at the April 2025 meeting.
The 63 countries that voted in favour included the EU, China, India and Brazil, while those that voted against included major fossil-fuel producers, such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Following this “landmark” agreement, countries had then been expected to formally adopt the framework at the next MEPC session in October 2025.
However, the meeting proved challenging. The US “unequivocally rejected” the proposal and lobbied extensively against adoption, including by threatening governments, individual diplomats and shipping companies with sanctions, visa restrictions, tariffs and port fees.
During the October meeting, the US and its allies pushed for a shift from a “tacit” approval system for the net-zero framework to one that would require explicit acceptance by governments. This would mean it would only come into force if, six months later, two-thirds of nations actively accepted the deal, Climate Home News explained at the time.
Negotiations continued throughout the week before Saudi Arabia called to adjourn the meeting, a move that was passed after it was backed by 57 countries.
As such, the decision on the adoption of the net-zero framework was pushed back by a year.
Among the 63 countries that supported the IMO net-zero framework at MEPC83 in April 2025, 15 supported the adjournment and 10 abstained – showing that some nations that had previously supported the framework had softened on the deal, following lobbying by the US, Saudi Arabia and their allies.
Going into the April 2026 MEPC84 meeting, it was clear that agreement on the framework would not be straightforward. A report ahead of the meeting from University College London (UCL) noted:
“The level of support is noticeably weaker than in April [2025] and likely reflects the effectiveness and efforts made by sides supporting or opposing the net-zero framework over the intervening period.”
In the week ahead of the MEPC84, US IMO delegation lead Wayne Arguin told a meeting that there was a “clear, strong and sizable bloc of countries opposed to the [net-zero framework]” and “no prospect of achieving consensus”, according to Politico.
As the meeting kicked off on 27 April 2026, IMO secretary-general Arsenio Dominguez called on parties to engage in “engage in constructive and pragmatic exchanges”.
Why do some countries oppose the net-zero framework?
A coalition of countries, including the US, Saudi Arabia and various fossil-fuel producers, strongly oppose the IMO net-zero framework that was agreed last year.
They were supported by a wider group of industry bodies and major flag states – countries where many ships are registered – which were instrumental in advancing “alternative frameworks” at the latest meeting. (See: What ‘alternative frameworks’ were discussed?)
Documents submitted ahead of the April 2026 meeting laid out the basis for this opposition, with the US criticising the net-zero framework’s “significant shortcomings”, concluding:
“The most appropriate path forward is to end consideration of the IMO net-zero framework entirely.”
More nuance came in a statement from a group of primarily large fossil-fuel producers, including Saudi Arabia, Russia and Algeria, which was also backed by the US.
It stressed the need for “alternative” frameworks, with an emphasis on achieving consensus, as well as “practicability, equity and trust”. In practice, this meant a system without any carbon pricing, “top-down restrictions” or “international penalties”.
Opposing countries said any outcome should be “technology-neutral”, meaning it should not disadvantage specific fuels, potentially including liquified natural gas (LNG) and other fossil fuels.
These nations also stressed what they claimed were the potential impact of additional net-zero costs on “food and energy security”.
Much of their criticism was based on supposed economic harm that the net-zero framework would cause, particularly in developing countries.
These arguments purported to be about fairness for these countries. Yet some opponents of the framework were also calling for the IMO fund to be abandoned.
If this IMO fund were lost, then developing countries could lose out on a potential source of support for their own maritime decarbonisation, as well as potentially their broader energy transitions.
As well as supporting the fossil-fuel producers’ call for “alternative frameworks”, the UAE filed its own submission questioning the legitimacy of the IMO in establishing a new fund.
The US submission to the IMO stated that the fund would provide “pennies on the dollar compared to the economic hardship” brought about by the framework overall.
US delegates distributed flyers at the IMO meeting, emphasising the financial burden they claimed the framework would place on developing countries. While low-carbon shipping will come with substantial costs, analysts said the US figures were “not credible”.
Campaigners accused the US of “pretending to care about other countries’ economies”, pointing out that the energy crisis – triggered by the US-led war on Iran – is costing the shipping industry billions.
Moreover, they stated that the Trump administration’s new port entry fees would be a far greater financial burden for the global shipping industry than the mooted net-zero rules.
Analysis by UCL shipping researchers ahead of MEPC84 concluded that the Trump administration would potentially be less able to exert “soft power and influence” at the talks than last year. Additionally, it pointed to a Supreme Court ruling that limited the US’s capacity to impose punitive tariffs.
In practice, the US was less vocal at the talks, choosing to support alternative framework ideas proposed by other IMO members.
What ‘alternative frameworks’ were discussed?
There were two main alternatives to the net-zero framework considered at MEPC84.
Japan suggested some ideas as a “possible basis for discussion”, which included removing the need for ships to pay into an IMO fund when they fail to meet emissions targets.
It also suggested simply relaxing the emissions targets, in order to make them easier for shipping companies to meet.
The second – and more significant – counter-proposal to the net-zero framework was not submitted by the US or its fossil-fuel producer allies.
Instead, it came from Liberia, Panama and Argentina, three countries that have strong political and historical ties with the US.
This was particularly notable given Liberia and Panama’s status as the top two “flags of convenience”, as shown in the chart below. A third of the world’s commercial shipping is registered in these small states, giving them disproportionate significance within the talks.
Their proposal, offered in the spirit of “consensus‑building”, said that only fuels already considered “commercially viable” should be included in the IMO’s carbon-intensity targets.
The Argentina-Liberia-Panama proposal was dismissed by observers as “business-as-usual”, as it removes incentives to develop clean fuels, any substantial means of enforcement and opportunities to raise funds to help developing countries.
Delaine McCullough, director of the shipping programme at the Ocean Conservancy, tells Carbon Brief:
“By removing the mandatory greenhouse gas price, you take away the ability to provide any kind of rewards or other incentives, and you also take away the regulatory incentive, so you just end up where we are today.”
This was the proposal that the net-zero framework’s most prominent opponents, including the US and the Gulf states, rallied around at MEPC84.
Among those also backing the idea during the talks were some developing countries, such as Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, that also said they wanted the IMO outcome to provide them with financial support.
This came in spite of the proposal stating there should be “no establishment of an IMO fund”. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a small-island state delegate tells Carbon Brief:
“Many countries that support the Liberia-Panama-Argentina submission also seek support for transition, capacity-building and mitigation of negative impacts. This support will not be available if [that] approach is taken.”
Some delegates questioned the decision by Liberia and Panama to lead this pushback against the net-zero framework. Both nations had previously supported an emissions levy on shipping, which would have been far more ambitious than the framework they now oppose.
Observers noted ties between nations that opposed the framework and parts of the shipping sector – including US-based interests and LNG assets.
Among the industry voices arguing strongly against the net-zero framework have been the American Bureau of Shipping and a group of international shipping companies and registries – including the national registries of Liberia and Panama.
The latter group voiced “significant concerns” and called for “alternative proposals”. Rather than a domestic entity, the Liberian registry that issued this statement is a privately owned US company.
Reflecting on these issues, Prof Tristan Smith, an energy and transport expert at UCL, wrote on LinkedIn:
“Privately owned registries have leverage over their host governments because one angry shipowner’s personal wealth is more than the flag state’s GDP and governments of low-income countries can’t easily take risks with even small volume revenues.”
Major Greek shipowners, including some with US-linked LNG interests, also opposed the net-zero framework, citing the “absence of support from major and influential states representing a significant share of global tonnage”.
Greece itself had reportedly pushed back against the framework behind the scenes, despite the EU’s public, unified position of support.
What do supporters of the net-zero framework want?
There were many vocal supporters of the net-zero framework at MEPC84, including a broad range of developed and developing countries.
Among them were the EU, Brazil, Mexico, Kenya, Pacific island states, Australia and the UK.
Having supported the net-zero framework last April, but voted to postpone its adoption in October, China expressed support for a carbon-pricing system and an IMO fund in a technical submission issued ahead of MEPC84.
The major shipping nation had remained quiet during the US-Saudi disruption in October last year, so its submission was viewed as a positive for backers of the framework.
Colombia, which was simultaneously hosting a global conference on “transitioning away” from fossil fuels, also emerged as a supporter of the net-zero framework.
There has also been support from some sections of the shipping industry, including a large coalition of ports, logistics companies and clean-fuel providers.
Supportive nations pointed out that the net-zero framework was the result of years of talks and already represented what Pacific island states called a “fragile compromise”. They framed it as the “only politically viable option” for hitting the IMO’s net-zero goal.
Pacific islands and around 50 other nations had originally called for a universal carbon levy on shipping. Ultimately, they were forced to accept the net-zero framework as a compromise, but Pacific islands said they would revert to their call for a levy if they felt the framework was being “watered down”.
The demand for a levy was strongly opposed by numerous countries, including some of the current framework’s supporters, such as Brazil and Australia.
In a bid to revive the net-zero framework, a submission by Brazil sought to “dispel any possible potential misunderstandings”, stressing that the approach is “flexible” and “should not be mistaken for a ‘global tax’”.
For example, Brazil notes that the framework “does not exclude any fuels” and that even existing “bunker” fuels and LNG could be used, as long as carbon intensity targets are met. (Ships could, for example, use carbon capture and storage to meet the goals.)
Michael Mbaru, a low-carbon shipping expert for the Kenya climate special envoy, told a briefing ahead of the conference that the net-zero framework was in developing countries’ interests:
“If the global package unravels, pressure grows for more regional and unilateral measures instead, and this is particularly difficult for African and other developing countries, because fragmented regulation raises compliance, complexity [and] transaction costs.”
In response to the Argentina-Liberia-Panama proposal that opponents of the framework had coalesced around, the Solomon Islands pointed out that, in seeking “consensus”, this group was ignoring the numerous parties that wanted more ambition, rather than less. It stated in a submission:
“There is no reason to expect that a new proposal, that differs from the IMO net-zero framework, would find a majority, much less a consensus.”
Nevertheless, supporters of the net-zero framework also acknowledged that there were some areas where greater clarity might help countries to finalise the details.
These areas include clarifying technical considerations such as: how fuel intensity is calculated; addressing the potential impacts of net-zero rules on food security; the governance of the IMO fund; and regulation of sustainable fuel certification schemes.
Given this, there was broad support for more discussions at an extra “intersessional” meeting later this year, in order to hash out these final details before attempting to approve the net-zero framework once more.
What was the final outcome from the IMO meeting?
Ultimately, the IMO’s net-zero framework was agreed and will now be negotiated further in the uutumn, ahead of the next MEPC meeting in December 2026.
The decision, as well as the general willingness to move forward noted by numerous observers, was broadly welcomed. IMO secretary-general Arsenio Dominguez said:
“We are back on track, but we have to rebuild trust. I encourage you to maintain this momentum through your intersessional work and to prepare submissions that can bring the membership together.”
Over the week of negotiations, nearly 100 delegations took to the floor to voice their opinions on the adoption of the net-zero framework.
Of these, over half were in favour of it, including countries like the EU, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Tuvalu and others.
Others pushed for reopening the framework for substantial changes, including the US, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Liberia and others.
On Friday 1 May, the discussion turned to the terms of reference for further negotiation and countries agreed to move the net-zero forward as the only option in the final outcome text.
Em Fenton, senior director of climate diplomacy at Opportunity Green, tells Carbon Brief:
“The framework has survived, but survival is not a victory and we cannot end up in a cycle of open-ended negotiations. Taking forward consideration of multiple proposals is only acceptable as a bridge, not a destination.
“We must now look forward to moving towards adoption of the framework later this year in a way that maintains urgency and ambition, and delivers justice and equity for countries on the frontlines of climate impacts.”
The IMO committee agreed to establish an intersessional working group to resolve a number of outstanding concerns and “drive broader convergence on a global measure” ahead of the next MEPC meeting.
Member states will be able to submit new amendments and adjustments to complement those already approved.
The two intersessional meetings will take place in September and November, ahead of MEPC85 in December.
Christiaan De Beukelaer, senior lecturer in culture and climate at the University of Melbourne, tells Carbon Brief:
“The ship is mostly built, though it’s obvious that more work needs doing on its interior. Right now, some are trying to finish the build while others are trying to scuttle it.”
The post Q&A: How countries got the global ‘net-zero’ shipping deal ‘back on track’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: How countries got the global ‘net-zero’ shipping deal ‘back on track’
Climate Change
Cropped 6 May 2026: Forest loss falls | Deforestation regulations | Saving ‘India’s Galapagos’
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
Forest loss falls
DRIVER DECLINE: Tropical primary forest loss fell by more than one-third from 2024-25, according to the latest edition of the Global Forest Review. (Primary forests are those that are intact or relatively undisturbed by humans.) The World Resources Institute, which co-produced the report, noted that the loss of these forests is “still 46% higher than [it was] a decade ago”. It attributed much of this year’s decline to a decrease from last year’s “record-breaking year of extreme fires”.
WIDESPREAD COLLABS: Although Brazil had the largest loss in terms of area, deforestation in the country fell by 42% compared to the previous year, reported Agência Brasil. It noted that this was made possible by a governmental task force, “with the participation of civil society, academia, local communities and the private sector”. In Indonesia, Malaysia and Colombia, progress “reflected improved governance, recognition of Indigenous land rights and corporate commitments to deforestation-free production”, said EnviroNews Nigeria.
EXCEEDING THE LIMIT: Despite the decline, the amount of deforestation “still remains ‘far above’ the level required to put the world on track to meet international targets to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030”, said BusinessGreen. It added that “fires present a growing threat that could reverse recent gains”, despite the declines from 2024. Reuters noted: “Agricultural expansion continued to be the biggest driver of forest loss around the world.”
EU deforestation law watered down
UNDER PRESSURE: Following industry pressure, the European Commission decided to “exclude imports of leather from its anti-deforestation law”, according to Reuters. The newswire said: “Leather industry groups have argued that as a by-product of the meat industry, with a relatively low value, leather’s production does not incentivise the cattle farming that drives deforestation.” It added that imported beef is still covered by the law.
‘LONG-OVERDUE’: Meanwhile, a group of UK Parliament members released an open letter calling for “long-overdue regulations to end UK imports linked to illegal deforestation”. Although the forest-risk regulation was introduced in 2021 as part of the Environment Act, “lawmakers have spent the last four years delaying the implementation” of the anti-deforestation rules, according to a Mongabay report from last year.
PROVISIONAL DEAL: The EU-Mercosur deal – a trade agreement between the European bloc and four South American countries – provisionally came into force on 1 May “after 25 years of negotiations”, said Euractiv. The application of the agreement is provisional because members of the European Parliament “referred the deal to the European Court of Justice for a legal review” in January, it added.
News and views
- PACKAGING PLANTATION: Asia Symbol, a China-based pulp and paper company, cleared “vast tracts of Indonesian rainforest home to endangered orangutans…for plantations supplying a maker of ‘carbon-neutral’ packaging”, according to an investigation by Agence France-Presse and the Gecko Project. The company told AFP that it is “committed to its no-deforestation policy”, while the newswire noted that the plantations supplying the paper mill have permits from the Indonesian government.
- SODA MOUNTAIN SOLAR: The California Energy Commission approved a proposed $700m solar power plant in the Mojave Desert after “nearly 20 years” of challenges, reported the San Bernardino Sun. Last month, climate journalist Sammy Roth dove into the history of – and current debate over – the Soda Mountain project on his Substack, Climate Colored Goggles.
- POSITIVE TIPPING POINTS: In a Nature Sustainability perspective piece, Prof Tim Lenton at the University of Exeter argued for the existence of “positive tipping points” – ecological, social or socio-ecological states where feedback loops that “suppor[t] self-propelling nature-positive change can help” achieve nature-recovery goals.
- ‘ACUTE HUNGER’: Nearly eight million people in South Sudan are at risk of “acute food insecurity” in coming months, “fuelled by ethnic conflict, climate change and the spillover of fighting from neighbouring Sudan”, according to Al Jazeera coverage of a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification analysis. Meanwhile, a UN-produced global food crises report showed that “acute hunger” has doubled over the past decade, with two famines declared last year for the first time since the reports began a decade ago.
- SUMMERTIME SADNESS: Production of India’s prized Devgad Alphonso mango “has dropped by 70-90%” this summer, due to both “climate shock” and “ineffective pesticides”, reported the Print. Rich mango farmers in western India staged a “rare protest” demanding compensation for their losses, the outlet added, while a Print comment called for a “shift from compensation to climate-adaptation policies”.
- SEED SUIT: A judge at the Kenyan High Court “declared unconstitutional parts of a law that prohibited farmers from sharing and selling Indigenous seeds” – although the government has appealed the decision, reported Devex. The lawyer who represented the farmers in the suit “said that the ruling could have ripple effects worldwide”, it added.
Spotlight
Saving ‘India’s Galapagos’
This week, Carbon Brief follows the uproar around the Great Nicobar project, after India’s opposition leader visited the biodiversity hotspot, which is at imminent risk of deforestation.
On 30 April, Rahul Gandhi – the head of India’s opposition and grandson of former prime minister Indira Gandhi – posted an Instagram video from the evergreen rainforest on Great Nicobar island, the southernmost point of India’s territory.
The island is the site of a proposed $10bn infrastructure project called the Great Nicobar Island Project, which includes a transhipment port in Galathea Bay, an international airport, a township and a gas and solar-based power plant.
Completion of the project would require the felling of more than a million trees – nearly 130 square kilometres of forest.
Speaking to the camera and dwarfed by gigantic tree trunks, Gandhi said:
“I’m in the middle of what is easily the most beautiful forest I’ve seen in my life.”
As drone footage showed viewers the lush forest canopy, Gandhi told viewers that the primary forest here is so dense, there was simply no way through. He continued by claiming:
“Now I understand why the government did not want me to come…because this is the largest theft of Indian ecological property in history.”
(In February, India’s National Green Tribunal upheld environmental clearances for the project, stating that the government had “considered all possible damage to the ecology and had taken efforts to compensate it”, according to the Hindu. A challenge is pending in the Calcutta High Court. In March, India announced it was raising its forest carbon target in its 2035 climate pledge.)
The provocative video calling for a halt to large-scale deforestation on “India’s Galapagos” has garnered more than 1.4m views and has sparked media debate, smear campaigns and government pushback, defending its strategic importance.
Paradise almost lost?
Barely hours after Gandhi’s video was posted, the Indian government published a press release detailing how environmental and tribal welfare safeguards have been met, despite more evidence to the contrary emerging this week.
Several media outlets – particularly print and independent outlets – have gone to Great Nicobar since 2024 to investigate the project’s impacts on biodiversity, assess its economic viability and corroborate the government’s claims of receiving Indigenous consent.
However, many of the project’s details have been shrouded in secrecy and restrictive conditions, including “gag orders” on scientists, rebuffed right to information requests and missing maps of tribal lands and coral colonies, media investigations have alleged.
For many mainland Indians, Gandhi’s video was a first glimpse of the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve and its 1,800 species, many of them endemic to the islands.
Turtle walker
Among the most charismatic and vulnerable are Great Nicobar’s sea turtles: leatherbacks, hawksbills and Olive Ridleys.
In an era before Instagram, biologist Satish Bhaskar surveyed over 4,000km of India’s coastline on foot from 1977-96 to document sea turtle nesting sites. Bhaskar laid the groundwork – and established the baseline – for Great Nicobar’s biodiversity and turtle conservation in India.
With only a transistor radio for company, Bhaskar would “maroon himself” on these islands for months at a time to measure tracks in the sand, count eggs and nests and wait for sightings of leatherback sea turtles, which can grow up to 2.7 metres long and weigh up to half a tonne.
From 1991-92, Bhaskar recorded more than 800 leatherback turtle nests on Great Nicobar Island alone. He identified Port Campbell Bay – where Gandhi met Nicobarese leaders last week – as a critical, irreplaceable turtle-nesting beach during his surveys.
“I’m glad I did what I did,” said the soft-spoken biologist in the 2025 documentary Turtle Walker, which recreates his early years on the island. Sadly, this new footage of Nicobar’s coastal reefs, mangroves and evergreen forests – is still only accessible to film festival audiences in India.
Can more visual, vocal and felt evidence shift the debate on deforestation in India? Experts told Carbon Brief that remains to be seen, but Gandhi’s video has brought “tremendous attention” back to the project, and brought in unlikely allies asking important questions.
Watch, read, listen
GO FISH: BBC News explored how climate change is “threaten[ing] the economic backbone” of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati – its tuna fisheries.
LIFE AFTER COWS: The New York Times profiled Butter Ridge’s dairy farmers selling their generations-old Pennsylvania farm in the face of looming tariffs and “surging” input costs.
C FOR COMMODITY: On the Wilder podcast, Sue Pritchard – chief executive of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission – explored the “invisible forces” shaping modern food systems.
WAR FALLOUT: From oil spills to contaminated soil, Wired took a closer look at how the war on Iran is impacting the environment in “unseen ways”.
New science
- Commercial bottom-trawling fishing costs Europe nearly €16bn per year, mainly due to the release of carbon from ocean sediments | Ocean & Coastal Management
- A combination of global warming of 1.5-1.9C and deforestation of 22-28% could drive the Amazon to “system-wide changes” | Nature
- By 2050, 74% of the current habitats of all land mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians could be exposed to heatwaves under a high-emissions scenario | Nature Ecology & Evolution
In the diary
- 11-15 May: 21st session of the UN Forum on Forests | New York City
- 11 to 15 May: Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) regional conference for Europe | Dushanbe, Tajikistan
- 13 May: Webinar on the State of Forests report from the World Resources Institute | Online
- 22 May: International day for biological diversity
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyerand Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 6 May 2026: Forest loss falls | Deforestation regulations | Saving ‘India’s Galapagos’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 6 May 2026: Forest loss falls | Deforestation regulations | Saving ‘India’s Galapagos’
Climate Change
Analysis: Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began
The UK has avoided the need for gas imports worth £1.7bn since the start of the Iran war, as a result of record electricity generation from wind and solar, reveals Carbon Brief analysis.
The surge in wind and solar output is cutting the need for gas-fired generation, which has been nearly a third lower than last year and fell to record lows in both March and April 2026.
The figure below shows that wind and solar have generated a record 21 terawatt hours (TWh) on the island of Great Britain since the end of February 2026, when the US and Israel first attacked Iran.
Amid another fossil-fuel price crisis, the record wind and solar output since the start of the Iran war avoided the need to import 41TWh of gas – roughly 34 tankers of liquified natural gas (LNG).
Importing those 34 tankers of LNG would have cost around £1.7bn, given the high gas prices triggered by the conflict.
At the same time, record wind and solar helped to cut electricity generation from gas by around a third year-on-year to the lowest levels ever recorded for the months of March and April, as shown in the figure below.
Together, wind and solar have generated more than twice as much electricity as fossil fuels over the period since the Iran war began. The country’s electricity mix has now flipped: a decade ago, fossil fuels were generating more than four times as much electricity as wind and solar.
Indeed, wind and solar have generated more electricity than fossil fuels for a record 15 months in a row. As shown in the figure below, this included a full winter season for the first time in 2025-26.
This meant that gas was setting the price of electricity roughly 25% less often in both March 2026 and April 2026 than in the same month in 2022, when fossil-fuel prices spiked after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
April 2026 also marked a series of other records for the GB electricity system.
For half an hour between 15.30 and 16:00 on 22 April, a record 98.8% of the electricity feeding into the country’s main “transmission” grid came from zero-carbon sources, according to the National Energy System Operator (NESO).
In addition, solar generation hit a series of new record-highs, ultimately reaching 15.4 gigawatts (GW) on the afternoon of 23 April. Wind set a new record of 23.9GW on 25 March.
The post Analysis: Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began
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Cropped 6 May 2026: Forest loss falls | Deforestation regulations | Saving ‘India’s Galapagos’
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