Published

1 year ago

December 25, 2024

Alice Rush

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

Voices from China

‘TRUE MULTILATERILIAM’: Although not attending COP29 in person, Chinese president Xi Jinping issued a call for the global south to “work together to practise true multilateralism, and to advocate for an equal and orderly multipolar world and universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalisation”, state-run newspaper China Daily reported.

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CLIMATE FINANCE: Ding Xuexiang, Xi’s “special representative” at COP and China’s executive vice-premier, notably used the UN language of climate finance to describe Chinese overseas aid for the first time (see below). Speaking at a “high level segment” on Tuesday, Ding added that the “complete transformation of growth models is the fundamental solution to climate change”. He also called for “strengthening early-warning systems for all and enhancing climate adaptation capacity” – a ”specific requirement” from Xi, according to state news agency Xinhua.

‘ENHANCED’ ACTION: At a methane summit co-hosted by China and the US, and attended by Carbon Brief, climate envoy Liu Zhenmin said that “co-operation on global climate action will continue to be enhanced.” (See below.) Speaking at China’s large and very busy “pavilion”, Liu said climate change is a global challenge and China, in particular, has experienced more severe extreme weather events recently. He touted investments worth $676bn in energy transformation and said China’s export of wind and solar products had helped the world cut emissions by 810m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

‘PUSHING FORWARD’: Speaking at a separate China pavilion event, Zhao Yingmin, vice minister of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), said that “addressing climate change is a global consensus” and that China is taking the responsibility of “pushing forward green and low-carbon development”. He also emphasised the role of women and young people in tackling climate change, saying “we need to mobilise all forces”.

‘CRITICAL POINT’: Xia Yingxian, director of the climate department of the MEE, commented at a press conference ahead of COP29 that this year is a “critical point for climate-finance negotiations” and that developed countries must “fulfil their commitment”, according to business news outlet 21st Century Business Herald. Back at the COP29 China pavilion, Carbon Brief heard an official speaking on behalf of Xia again supporting multilateral cooperation and saying China had an “unswerving” commitment to climate action. He added that an energy transition covering “all aspects” of society is needed. The official representing Xia closed his remarks in English, saying: “China is very willing to cooperate…to promote a low-carbon and sustainable future.”

STEPPING UP: Wen Hua, deputy director-general of the Department of Resources Conservation and Environmental Protection of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top planner, told the methane event that “China is willing to take a more active role in global climate governance”.

Agenda fight

TRADE CONCERNS: China, on behalf of the BASIC group (Brazil, China, India and South Africa), “submitted a proposal” ahead of COP29 to include “concerns with climate-change related unilateral restrictive trade measures” in the conference’s agenda, Reuters reported. According to the full text of the request, BASIC argued that “unilateral trade-restrictive measures adopted by developed country parties under the guise of climate objectives [have] disproportionate adverse effects on developing country parties”. The text added that parties must “send a clear and strong signal of commitment to multilateralism and global cooperation”.

HORSE-TRADING: The request was largely interpreted as pushback to the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which China has “strongly criticised” in the past. Climate Home News noted that “BASIC countries have long opposed” the CBAM and “made a similar agenda proposal” for COP28. The BASIC request – ultimately shunted into unofficial “presidential consultations” – was at the heart of an “agenda fight” that dominated the first day in Baku. The fight also encompassed a broader, ongoing argument over how to take forward the COP28 pledge on “transitioning away from fossil fuels”, with the LMDC group, including China, opposing this being part of the so-called UAE dialogue.

Climate finance

‘HUGE DIVISIONS’: China entered the “finance COP” under pressure to play an upgraded role in climate finance, as “huge divisions” emerged over how much money should be paid into the “new collective quantified goal” (NCQG) and by whom, the Financial Times reported. Beijing has “firmly rejected” these calls, according to Agence France-Presse, which quoted a Chinese official “warning on Sunday during a closed-door session that the talks should not aim to ‘renegotiate’ existing agreements”. The state-run broadcaster China Global Television Network (CGTN) quoted envoy Liu calling on “developed countries to take the lead in providing financial assistance to developing nations”.

$1.3 TRILLION: Early on in negotiations, the G77+China negotiating bloc also rejected the proposed text for a NCQG framework, the New Indian Express reported, adding that they called for $1.3tn per year to be provided by developed countries and for “a fresh, equitable text…prioritis[ing] the needs of developing countries and uphold[ing] the principles of equity and ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities’”.

OLIVE BRANCH: In his COP29 speech, vice premier Ding offered an olive branch by telling delegates that China has already “provided and mobilised project funds of more than 177bn yuan ($24.5bn) for developing countries’ climate response”. This is the first time China has used the language of climate finance, Kate Logan, director at the China climate hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), wrote on Twitter. She added that this “plac[ed China’s contributions] on the same order – if not higher than – many developed countries’ efforts” and gave China “teeth in pushing developed countries to do more”.

SOLUTION PROVIDER: Speaking to Carbon Brief in May, Li Shuo, director at ASPI’s China climate hub, said that one possible solution, in his view, was to leverage China’s position as “the biggest solution provider” for low-carbon technologies to encourage it to “provide finance or facilitate investment” in developing countries’ energy transitions, allowing China to find a palatable role for itself in an outer layer of a potential “onion” structure for the NCQG.

US-China climate cooperation

LOOMING SHADOW: China and the US entered COP29 after a series of meetings between climate envoys John Podesta and Liu Zhenmin, but without an equivalent to last year’s Sunnylands statement – a document that “signalled Biden and Xi’s shared intent to address the climate crisis”, according to thinktank the Lowy Institute. Liu told reporters that China is “concerned” about US climate policy under a second Trump administration, although he emphasised that “international multilateral climate cooperation should continue”. Meanwhile, Podesta said in a press conference attended by Carbon Brief that China has an “obligation…to come forward with a 1.5C-aligned, all-greenhouse-gas, economy-wide [NDC climate pledge]”, adding that, on the climate-finance question, expanding the donor base is “long warranted” and that “large emitters must be accountable”. (Ding confirmed in his COP29 address that China’s climate pledge would be economy-wide and cover all greenhouse gases.) However, the New York Times noted that it may be difficult at COP29 to replicate the “key roles” US negotiators have played in “persuading countries like China…to commit to tougher emissions targets”.

CHINA LEADS: As the world awaits a US retreat from the global climate stage, China “appears more committed to the [Paris] agreement than ever”, the Wall Street Journal reported, quoting former climate negotiator Jonathan Pershing saying: “Everyone looks to China now…I think with the US out, China will step up, but in a very different way.” In a press conference watched by Carbon Brief, Yuan Ying, chief China representative at Greenpeace, echoed this message, saying that the US election results should not cause China to “lower their ambition level” and that it should instead fill the “climate leadership vacuum”. ASPI’s Li, speaking at a Carbon Brief event ahead of COP29, said that it is crucial for China to note that its actions in negotiations will send a “strong signal” to the rest of the world on the “future of global climate governance”, adding that “China has invested a lot” in its image as a climate leader.

BRIGHT SPOT: Methane remains one area where US-China cooperation has traction. While China did not make any new announcements at the COP29 summit on methane and non-CO2 greenhouse gases, attended by Carbon Brief, Liu did use the platform to state that “China-US co-operation on enhancing climate action had been effective over the past year”, adding that he “hope[d]” that US-China climate cooperation “will continue to be enhanced”. Ryna Cui, associate research professor and acting director of the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland, told Carbon Brief that both countries underscored their “strong interest to continue [cooperation], especially on issues like methane” at the summit , adding that “strong” channels at the subnational and non-government levels “will become increasingly critical to make engagement [in methane and other areas] more robust” in the years ahead.

Emphasising energy transition

TRANSITION PATHWAYS: “Energy transition” has been emphasised by multiple high-level Chinese officials at this year’s COP. At the China pavilion, the Energy Research Institute of the Academy of Macroeconomic Research (ERI), a research thinktank under the supervision of the NDRC, launched its 2024 China energy transition report – a key document illustrating China’s potential energy transition pathways. Lyu Wenbin, head of the institute, told Carbon Brief: “The Chinese government has proposed the ‘dual-carbon’ goal and energy transition is an important part of it. With the goal being clearly set, what we can do for delivering it is to choose the best pathway.” Bai Quan, director of the energy study centre, told Carbon Brief that the biggest difference between the 2023 and 2024 report was the “emphasis on global cooperation”. He said: “Our report has absorbed [energy transition] experiences from different places…We would love to discuss more new ideas with everyone else in the world.”

COAL CRITICISM: The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) executive director Fatih Birol said at the launch of the report that there are few countries that are prepared for the new era of electricity and that China is the “leading one”. However, he cautioned that China “needs to pay attention to its coal-fired power plants sooner than later”, adding that “renewable energy with batteries will be a better solution for China’s energy demands than coal”.

Captured

China sent a delegation of 969 people to COP29, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief, as the country seeks to boost its influence in climate diplomacy. The numbers are lower than they were for COP28, when the China delegation included 1,296 people. Nevertheless, the size of the official “party” delegation, at 190, is double the average party delegation China sent from COP20 to COP27. A further 779 members of the Chinese delegation went to Baku as “overflow” participants.

Watch, read, listen

CHINESE LENDING: A new report by ODI explored recent “diversification of Chinese lending” to infrastructure projects, including energy infrastructure, in African countries.

NCQG: A new article by the Asia Society Policy Institute assessed how China could be incentivised to contribute more to the new COP29 finance goal.

EXPERT VIEWS: Greenovation Hub published a readout from a closed-door session, in which they hosted a number of China’s climate experts to “discuss the mobilisation of climate finance and the strengthening of climate goal setting” ahead of COP29.

NEW ERA: The European Council on Foreign Relations described how the EU could use its “diplomatic and regulatory toolbox” to encourage China to set ambitious climate targets in the absence of “crucial” US climate diplomacy.

$24.5 billion

The amount of money (alternatively, 177bn yuan) China has “provided and mobilised” for “other developing countries” to address climate change since 2016, according to Chinese executive vice-premier and politburo standing committee member Ding Xuexiang in his COP29 address, using UN-speak for climate finance “provided and mobilised” for the first time. It is not clear how this figure, which is lower than other recent estimates of China’s climate finance provision, was calculated.

New science

The 2024 China report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: launching a new low-carbon, healthy journey
The Lancet Public Health

A new report found that “China is faced with an increase in health threats from hot and dry weather conditions, such as heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires”, with the country seeing an average of 16 heatwave exposure days per person in 2023, which “resulted in a 1.9 times surge in heatwave-related deaths”. This is the Lancet’s fifth annual China report. Zhang Shihui, co-first author of the research, told Carbon Brief at COP29 that they noticed China’s action on talking climate-related health problems has become more systematic, but there is still an “urgent need to increase funding, actively promote synergistic governance for pollution reduction and carbon emission abatement, strengthen interdepartmental collaboration, and enhance refined health meteorological services”.

Inequality in agricultural greenhouse gas emissions intensity has risen in rural China from 1993 to 2020
Nature Food

A new study found that the greenhouse gas emissions intensity (GEI) – defined as GHG emissions per unit planting size – in crop production in rural China is falling, but that the inequality in GEI is increasing. The authors used survey data taken from more than 430,000 farming households over 1993-2020 to explore the driving forces of GEI in crop production. They found that overall GEI increased until 2015 and then began dropping, but that inequality in GEI continued to increase 13%.

Fewer than 15% of coal power plant workers in China can easily shift to green jobs by 2060
One Earth

Fewer than 15% of coal power plant workers in China will be able to easily access “green jobs” by 2060, according to new research. The study found that difficulties stand in the way of this transition, such as workers travelling long distances to access “green” job opportunities. The transition rate could be even lower in provinces dominated by coal power, the research found, with just 2% of workers making the move in Shandong province, for example.

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 14 November 2024: COP29 special edition appeared first on Carbon Brief.

China Briefing 14 November 2024: COP29 special edition

Greenhouse Gases

DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?

Published

9 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Alice Rush

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

Absolute State of the Union

‘DRILL, BABY’: US president Donald Trump “doubled down on his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda” in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, said the Los Angeles Times. He “tout[ed] his support of the fossil-fuel industry and renew[ed] his focus on electricity affordability”, reported the Financial Times. Trump also attacked the “green new scam”, noted Carbon Brief’s SOTU tracker.

COAL REPRIEVE: Earlier in the week, the Trump administration had watered down limits on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, reported the Financial Times. It remains “unclear” if this will be enough to prevent the decline of coal power, said Bloomberg, in the face of lower-cost gas and renewables. Reuters noted that US coal plants are “ageing”.

OIL STAY: The US Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments brought by the oil industry in a “major lawsuit”, reported the New York Times. The newspaper said the firms are attempting to head off dozens of other lawsuits at state level, relating to their role in global warming.

SHIP-SHILLING: The Trump administration is working to “kill” a global carbon levy on shipping “permanently”, reported Politico, after succeeding in delaying the measure late last year. The Guardian said US “bullying” could be “paying off”, after Panama signalled it was reversing its support for the levy in a proposal submitted to the UN shipping body.

Around the world

RARE EARTHS: The governments of Brazil and India signed a deal on rare earths, said the Times of India, as well as agreeing to collaborate on renewable energy.
HEAT ROLLBACK: German homes will be allowed to continue installing gas and oil heating, under watered-down government plans covered by Clean Energy Wire.
BRAZIL FLOODS: At least 53 people died in floods in the state of Minas Gerais, after some areas saw 170mm of rain in a few hours, reported CNN Brasil.
ITALY’S ATTACK: Italy is calling for the EU to “suspend” its emissions trading system (ETS) ahead of a review later this year, said Politico.
COOKSTOVE CREDITS: The first-ever carbon credits under the Paris Agreement have been issued to a cookstove project in Myanmar, said Climate Home News.
SAUDI SOLAR: Turkey has signed a “major” solar deal that will see Saudi firm ACWA building 2 gigawatts in the country, according to Agence France-Presse.

$467 billion

The profits made by five major oil firms since prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago, according to a report by Global Witness covered by BusinessGreen.

Latest climate research

Claims about the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change, made in a recent US Department of Energy report, are “factually incorrect” | AGU Advances
Large lakes in the Congo Basin are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from “immense ancient stores” | Nature Geoscience
Shared Socioeconomic Pathways – scenarios used regularly in climate modelling – underrepresent “narratives explicitly centring on democratic principles such as participation, accountability and justice” | npj Climate Action

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

The constituency of Richard Tice MP, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of Reform UK, is the second-largest recipient of flood defence spending in England, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Overall, the funding is disproportionately targeted at coastal and urban areas, many of which have Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs.

Spotlight

Is there really a UK ‘greenlash’?

This week, after a historic Green Party byelection win, Carbon Brief looks at whether there really is a “greenlash” against climate policy in the UK.

Over the past year, the UK’s political consensus on climate change has been shattered.

Yet despite a sharp turn against climate action among right-wing politicians and right-leaning media outlets, UK public support for climate action remains strong.

Prof Federica Genovese, who studies climate politics at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief:

“The current ‘war’ on green policy is mostly driven by media and political elites, not by the public.”

Indeed, there is still a greater than two-to-one majority among the UK public in favour of the country’s legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, as shown below.

Steve Akehurst, director of public-opinion research initiative Persuasion UK, also noted the growing divide between the public and “elites”. He told Carbon Brief:

“The biggest movement is, without doubt, in media and elite opinion. There is a bit more polarisation and opposition [to climate action] among voters, but it’s typically no more than 20-25% and mostly confined within core Reform voters.”

Conservative gear shift

For decades, the UK had enjoyed strong, cross-party political support for climate action.

Lord Deben, the Conservative peer and former chair of the Climate Change Committee, told Carbon Brief that the UK’s landmark 2008 Climate Change Act had been born of this cross-party consensus, saying “all parties supported it”.

Since their landslide loss at the 2024 election, however, the Conservatives have turned against the UK’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050, which they legislated for in 2019.

Curiously, while opposition to net-zero has surged among Conservative MPs, there is majority support for the target among those that plan to vote for the party, as shown below.

Dr Adam Corner, advisor to the Climate Barometer initiative that tracks public opinion on climate change, told Carbon Brief that those who currently plan to vote Reform are the only segment who “tend to be more opposed to net-zero goals”. He said:

“Despite the rise in hostile media coverage and the collapse of the political consensus, we find that public support for the net-zero by 2050 target is plateauing – not plummeting.”

Reform, which rejects the scientific evidence on global warming and campaigns against net-zero, has been leading the polls for a year. (However, it was comfortably beaten by the Greens in yesterday’s Gorton and Denton byelection.)

Corner acknowledged that “some of the anti-net zero noise…[is] showing up in our data”, adding:

“We see rising concerns about the near-term costs of policies and an uptick in people [falsely] attributing high energy bills to climate initiatives.”

But Akehurst said that, rather than a big fall in public support, there had been a drop in the “salience” of climate action:

“So many other issues [are] competing for their attention.”

UK newspapers published more editorials opposing climate action than supporting it for the first time on record in 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

Global ‘greenlash’?

All of this sits against a challenging global backdrop, in which US president Donald Trump has been repeating climate-sceptic talking points and rolling back related policy.

At the same time, prominent figures have been calling for a change in climate strategy, sold variously as a “reset”, a “pivot”, as “realism”, or as “pragmatism”.

Genovese said that “far-right leaders have succeeded in the past 10 years in capturing net-zero as a poster child of things they are ‘fighting against’”.

She added that “much of this is fodder for conservative media and this whole ecosystem is essentially driving what we call the ‘greenlash’”.

Corner said the “disconnect” between elite views and the wider public “can create problems” – for example, “MPs consistently underestimate support for renewables”. He added:

“There is clearly a risk that the public starts to disengage too, if not enough positive voices are countering the negative ones.”

Watch, read, listen

TRUMP’S ‘PETROSTATE’: The US is becoming a “petrostate” that will be “sicker and poorer”, wrote Financial Times associate editor Rana Forohaar.

RHETORIC VS REALITY: Despite a “political mood [that] has darkened”, there is “more green stuff being installed than ever”, said New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells.
CHINA’S ‘REVOLUTION’: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast reported from China on the “green energy revolution” taking place in the country.

Coming up

2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean, Brasília
3 March: UK spring statement
4-11 March: China’s “two sessions”
5 March: Nepal elections

Pick of the jobs

The Guardian, senior reporter, climate justice | Salary: $123,000-$135,000. Location: New York or Washington DC
China-Global South Project, non-resident fellow, climate change | Salary: Up to $1,000 a month. Location: Remote
University of East Anglia, PhD in mobilising community-based climate action through co-designed sports and wellbeing interventions | Salary: Stipend (unknown amount). Location: Norwich, UK
TABLE and the University of São Paulo, Brazil, postdoctoral researcher in food system narratives | Salary: Unknown. Location: Pirassununga, Brazil

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 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.

DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?

Greenhouse Gases

Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding

Published

11 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Alice Rush

The Lincolnshire constituency held by Richard Tice, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of the hard-right Reform party, has been pledged at least £55m in government funding for flood defences since 2024.

This investment in Boston and Skegness is the second-largest sum for a single constituency from a £1.4bn flood-defence fund for England, Carbon Brief analysis shows.

Flooding is becoming more likely and more extreme in the UK due to climate change.

Yet, for years, governments have failed to spend enough on flood defences to protect people, properties and infrastructure.

The £1.4bn fund is part of the current Labour government’s wider pledge to invest a “record” £7.9bn over a decade on protecting hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from flooding.

As MP for one of England’s most flood-prone regions, Tice has called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.

He is also one of Reform’s most vocal opponents of climate action and what he calls “net stupid zero”. He denies the scientific consensus on climate change and has claimed, falsely and without evidence, that scientists are “lying”.

Flood defences

Last year, the government said it would invest £2.65bn on flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) schemes in England between April 2024 and March 2026.

This money was intended to protect 66,500 properties from flooding. It is part of a decade-long Labour government plan to spend more than £7.9bn on flood defences.

There has been a consistent shortfall in maintaining England’s flood defences, with the Environment Agency expecting to protect fewer properties by 2027 than it had initially planned.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has attributed this to rising costs, backlogs from previous governments and a lack of capacity. It also points to the strain from “more frequent and severe” weather events, such as storms in recent years that have been amplified by climate change.

However, the CCC also said last year that, if the 2024-26 spending programme is delivered, it would be “slightly closer to the track” of the Environment Agency targets out to 2027.

The government has released constituency-level data on which schemes in England it plans to fund, covering £1.4bn of the 2024-26 investment. The other half of the FCERM spending covers additional measures, from repairing existing defences to advising local authorities.

The map below shows the distribution of spending on FCERM schemes in England over the past two years, highlighting the constituency of Richard Tice.

Map of England showing that Richard Tice's Boston and Skegness constituency is set to receive at least £55m for flood defences between 2024 and 2026 — Flood-defence spending on new and replacement schemes in England in 2024-25 and 2025-26. The government notes that, as Environment Agency accounts have not been finalised and approved, the investment data is “provisional and subject to change”. Some schemes cover multiple constituencies and are not included on the map. Source: Environment Agency FCERM data.

By far the largest sum of money – £85.6m in total – has been committed to a tidal barrier and various other defences in the Somerset constituency of Bridgwater, the seat of Conservative MP Ashley Fox.

Over the first months of 2026, the south-west region has faced significant flooding and Fox has called for more support from the government, citing “climate patterns shifting and rainfall intensifying”.

He has also backed his party’s position that “the 2050 net-zero target is impossible” and called for more fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea.

Tice’s east-coast constituency of Boston and Skegness, which is highly vulnerable to flooding from both rivers and the sea, is set to receive £55m. Among the supported projects are beach defences from Saltfleet to Gibraltar Point and upgrades to pumping stations.

Overall, Boston and Skegness has the second-largest portion of flood-defence funding, as the chart below shows. Constituencies with Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs occupied the other top positions.

Chart showing that Conservative, Reform and Liberal Democrat constituencies are the top recipients of flood defence spending — Top 10 English constituencies by FCERM funding in 2024-25 and 2025-26. Source: Environment Agency FCERM data.

Overall, despite Labour MPs occupying 347 out of England’s 543 constituencies – nearly two-thirds of the total – more than half of the flood-defence funding was distributed to constituencies with non-Labour MPs. This reflects the flood risk in coastal and rural areas that are not traditional Labour strongholds.

Reform funding

While Reform has just eight MPs, representing 1% of the population, its constituencies have been assigned 4% of the flood-defence funding for England.

Nearly all of this money was for Tice’s constituency, although party leader Nigel Farage’s coastal Clacton seat in Kent received £2m.

Reform UK is committed to “scrapping net-zero” and its leadership has expressed firmly climate-sceptic views.

Much has been made of the disconnect between the party’s climate policies and the threat climate change poses to its voters. Various analyses have shown the flood risk in Reform-dominated areas, particularly Lincolnshire.

Tice has rejected climate science, advocated for fossil-fuel production and criticised Environment Agency flood-defence activities. Yet, he has also called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.

This may reflect Tice’s broader approach to climate change. In a 2024 interview with LBC, he said:

“Where you’ve got concerns about sea level defences and sea level rise, guess what? A bit of steel, a bit of cement, some aggregate…and you build some concrete sea level defences. That’s how you deal with rising sea levels.”

While climate adaptation is viewed as vital in a warming world, there are limits on how much societies can adapt and adaptation costs will continue to increase as emissions rise.

The post Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding

Greenhouse Gases

Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate

Published

2 days ago

February 25, 2026

Alice Rush

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