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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.
Key developments
US-China climate deal paves way for Xi-Biden meeting and COP28
SUNNYLANDS STATEMENT: Following talks between US and Chinese climate envoys John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, the two nations released statements “to jointly tackle global warming by ramping up…renewable energy with the goal of displacing fossil fuels”, the New York Times reported. Both countries pledged to “pursue efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030”, a key goal in COP28 negotiations, it added. The statement backed the “success of COP28”, which Reuters said was “crucial” to coming to a consensus in Dubai. However, while the statement supported a broad political outcome from the “global stocktake” at COP28, there was no agreed language on fossil fuel phaseout, noted Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans on Twitter. The BBC quoted Bernice Lee, distinguished fellow at Chatham House, as saying that it had likely “proven to be too difficult to find the form of language that works for both” on fossil fuels. Similarly, while there were commitments in the statement to hold policy dialogues on energy efficiency, doubling the rate of efficiency improvements by 2030 was not mentioned.
EMISSIONS PEAKING: The two countries “expect meaningful cuts to be made to power sector emissions before 2030”, Bloomberg reported, quoting Joanna Lewis, an expert in international policy at Georgetown University, as saying this implies “a reduction in emissions from China’s coal plants very soon”. (This aligns with recent analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for Carbon Brief, see below.) However, on Twitter, senior Politico climate correspondent Karl Mathiesen spotted a slight difference between the readouts – in the US version, power sector emissions cuts are tied to “this critical decade of the 2020s”, whereas in the Chinese readout, reductions are not linked to any date. Reductions will likely be driven in part by carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), with Chinese energy outlet BJX News reporting that “the two countries aim to promote at least five large-scale [CCUS] cooperation projects in industry and energy…by 2030 in each country”.
‘RESTARTING’ COOPERATION: Kerry and Xie’s meeting was followed by a meeting between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, at which the two leaders discussed maintaining “high-level communications” and cooperating “on trade, agriculture, climate change and artificial intelligence”, Reuters said. Le Monde reported that the US and China will restart bilateral energy dialogues and establish working groups to cover key areas of concern. US treasury secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese vice premier He Lifeng also agreed to improve climate change and global debt relief cooperation in earlier talks, the South China Morning Post reported.
‘Structural decline’ in carbon emissions expected from 2024
2024 DECLINE: In analysis for Carbon Brief, Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at CREA, estimated that China’s carbon emissions “could peak this year before falling into a structural decline” due to “a historic expansion of the country’s low-carbon energy sources”, reported the Guardian. Covering the analysis, Chinese energy news site IN-EN.com said rapid growth in power generation from low-carbon energy sources, a consequent decline in coal’s share of energy consumption and China’s real estate sector downturn “lays the groundwork” for declining emissions. Myllyvirta noted that solar energy saw the “most significant increases”, with 210 gigawatts (GW) of solar power set to be installed this year, the news platform Guancha reported. These record additions are “all but guaranteed to push China’s fossil-fuel electricity generation and CO2 emissions into decline in 2024”, Business Green said in its coverage. Myllyvirta spoke on state broadcaster CGTN to discuss the findings, which were also reported by CNN, Reuters, Bloomberg, Global Times and South China Morning Post.
COAL SPOILER? In a parallel piece in Foreign Policy, Myllyvirta and his co-author Byford Tsang, senior policy advisor at climate thinktank E3G, wrote under the headline: “China pledged to ‘strictly control’ coal. The opposite happened.” Yet Myllyvirta also noted in his analysis for Carbon Brief that a surge in China’s investment in manufacturing capacity for low-carbon technologies is creating an increasingly important interest group in the country, which could affect its approach to domestic and international climate politics. This is “setting the scene for a showdown between the country’s traditional [coal] and newly emerging interest groups”, Agence France-Presse noted in its coverage.
OVERSEAS FREEZE: Meanwhile, China’s two development banks did not make any new energy sector loan commitments in 2022 for “the second year in a row”, according to a new policy brief by the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. In an article for the China Global South Project, co-author Cecilia Springer wrote that this was driven by “ongoing domestic economic woes” and “heightened debt distress in borrowing nations”.
China compensates coal power plants for spare capacity
CAPACITY COMPENSATION: China will give “guaranteed payments” to coal power producers under a new coal capacity compensation mechanism effective 1 January 2024, the country’s top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), announced in a notice released on Friday, Reuters reported. It added that the “widely-anticipated” move aims to ensure the financial viability of “seldom-utilised, backup” coal power and counter challenges with the variability of renewable energy. The mechanism will allow coal power plants to recover their fixed costs through a capacity tariff set at either 30% or 50% of 330 yuan per kilowatt per year through 2025, depending on their location, reported energy news website BJX News. From 2026, provinces will raise the tariff to “no less than 50%” of the 330 yuan benchmark. A representative from the state-owned China Energy Investment Group wrote in power sector outlet Dianlian News that the policy will adjust the role of coal-fired power units in the power system from “being primarily quantity providers to becoming capacity providers”.
REFORM LAG? Economic news outlet Jiemian quoted the NDRC as saying the policy will have a “positive impact on the electricity costs for end-users in the short and long term”. However, the mechanism has major implications for market reforms, Anders Hove, a senior research fellow at Oxford Institute for Energy Studies told Carbon Brief. “The segregation of long-term contracts, spot markets and ancillary services markets already hinders the ability of market prices to convey investment signals,” he said. While the initial policy on a national electricity market design had suggested the possibility of a market-based capacity mechanism, China ultimately chose a flat capacity payment made only to coal, he added. David Fishman, a senior manager at energy consultancy the Lantau Group, posted on Twitter that it “could distort market signals, which would ordinarily force expensive or inefficient generators out of the market”. Still, Reuters quoted Fishman saying: “It adds a lot of flexibility to the grid system and should allow more intermittent generation (like wind or solar) to enter the generation mix without compromising grid stability or energy security.”
Spotlight
What does China’s new methane plan mean for its climate goals?
In November, China published its long-awaited plan to reduce methane emissions. Carbon Brief explores how effective the plan may be for the world’s largest emitter of methane.
What does the plan say?
The plan described China’s approach as to “control methane emissions in a scientific, rational and orderly manner”, with a specific focus on the energy, agriculture and waste sectors.
It included 20 “key tasks” in emissions monitoring, technological innovation, development of policy frameworks, global cooperation and other areas.
During the 15th five year plan period (2026-2030), monitoring and accounting of methane emissions will be “significantly enhanced”, it added. Methane utilisation, emissions control technologies and policy frameworks will be “effectively improved”.
Other notable pledges included that by 2030 oil and gas producers will “strive” to “gradually” eliminate flaring, and utilisation of coal mine methane will reach 6bn cubic metres annually.
(This “corresponds to about 10%” of the coal mining sector’s total methane emissions, said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).)
Where do methane emissions come from in China?
China is responsible for 10% of all human-caused methane emissions, with two estimates in 2021 placing its annual output at 58m tonnes (Mt) and 65Mt respectively, equivalent to 1.7-1.9bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent.
Around 40% of China’s methane emissions are gas that escapes during the mining of coal, according to the Innovative Green Development Program (iGDP), a Chinese thinktank. Another 42% is from agriculture, including livestock and rice cultivation, it said.
Coal mine methane emissions are particularly challenging to detect, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), as they are “diffuse”. It added that abandoned mines, which could contribute “almost one fifth” of global methane emissions, cannot be included in calculations as “reliable data” is often unavailable.
Climate Home reported, however, that according to Global Energy Monitor (GEM) research, “the real figure for coal mine methane is almost double what the government claims”. Shanxi province could emit as much methane from its coal mines as the rest of the world combined, according to GEM.
Why is tackling methane important?
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with around 30 times the warming power of carbon dioxide 100 years after it is emitted. It is responsible for around 30% of the rise in global temperatures since the industrial revolution.
Cutting methane by 30% by 2030 – the target of the global methane pledge – is the “fastest way to reduce near-term warming” and keep 1.5C “within reach”, according to a US and EU factsheet.
Will China’s plan be effective in curbing emissions?
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) wrote on WeChat that it believed “in the long term”, the plan will provide “a clear guiding framework” for methane reduction efforts.
It pointed to the role the plan could play in establishing a monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system that could underpin a carbon pricing methodology for methane.
Dr Chen Meian, program director and senior analyst at iGDP, tells Carbon Brief that some of the “sector-specific targets mentioned in the methane plan can help China to reduce methane emissions” in coalbed methane and other areas.
However, she added, it is “difficult” to set hard targets for cutting emissions by specific amounts, due to challenges in data monitoring, “[which is why] China also listed the improvement of methane emissions MRV” as a key task.
Others are less convinced. The plan is “too ambiguous”, “descriptive” and lacking in quantitative targets, Refinitiv lead carbon analyst Yan Qin told Reuters.
Ember’s methane analyst Anatoli Smirnov told Climate Home that the “only real solution to reduce methane emissions is to close coal mines”. The outlet also quoted CREA’s Myllyvirta saying there is a lack of “political will and buy-in” to curb methane in China.
“I think China is trying to be realistic in target-setting [for its] coal sector emissions,” Chen tells Carbon Brief. She adds that China “used to set ambitious targets” for coalbed methane capture and utilisation in its five-year plans, but that it repeatedly missed them.
She added that it would be important for local governments to “set their own methane plans…tailored to local conditions” and to improve data monitoring.
What does this mean for global cooperation on methane?
A week after the plan was released, the US and Chinese climate envoys John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua issued a declaration on enhancing climate cooperation, known as the “Sunnylands statement”.
It included commitments to establish a working group that will look at several areas of cooperation, including methane emissions, and to create another working group to focus on “building on” their current national methane plans.
In addition, they commit to include “actions/targets” on methane reduction in their next climate pledges under the Paris Agreement, which will also cover other non-CO2 greenhouse gases. They will host, with the UAE, a summit on non-CO2 gases at COP28.
Without the plan’s public release, Li Shuo, director of the China climate hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute told Bloomberg, there “certainly wouldn’t have been further deals”.
However, differences in the sources of the US and China’s methane emissions could hamper cooperation. Dr Teng Fei, deputy director of the Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy at Tsinghua University, told China Dialogue that the main source of EU and US methane emissions is oil and gas, compared to coal mining for China.
Tackling coal mining methane emissions is harder and more costly than oil and gas. This could be why China has not signed up to the global methane pledge, which may be easier for the EU and US to meet, Teng added.
Watch, read, listen
COAL ADDICTION: Michael Davidson, assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego, explained in Foreign Affairs how “the need for energy security, the structure of China’s climate goals and…local interests” keeps China committed to coal, even though it “makes little financial sense”.
SOLAR DEBATE: In a video interview, Wall Street Journal reporter Phred Dvorak outlined how different countries are responding to dropping prices of Chinese solar panels in an effort to protect their own manufacturers.
EV RACE: Bloomberg published a podcast looking into how China became the dominant player in the electric vehicle industry, and what this could mean for the global economy.
GREEN BRI: A symposium summarised in Environmental Politics examined how environmental governance is practised in China’s belt and road initiative (BRI), with focus areas including China’s political mechanisms to “green” the BRI and the dynamics influencing the effectiveness of BRI renewable energy projects.
SUPPLY CHAIN RISKS? The Royal United Services Institute assessed the threat of China’s “near monopoly” of rare earth production and manufacturing of “net zero technologies”, finding that risks are “currently limited by low levels of manufacturing of these technologies in the UK”.
New science
Weather and Climate Extremes
A new study estimated that “compound” extreme weather events under a high-emissions scenario may become “10 times and 14 times more likely” through the mid-21st century and end of the century respectively. The study authors used the compound event of heavy precipitation and heatwaves in China in 2020 to identify the dynamic and thermodynamic factors contributing to the such events. They defined spatially compounding events as those occurring “when multiple connected locations are concurrently affected by the same or different hazards, thus inducing an aggregated impact”.
Global Change Biology
New research investigating recent trends in blooms of microalgal “red tides” and macroalgae in China found that microalgal blooms have been decreasing in frequency since 2003, while macroalgal blooms have generally been rising since 1999. It attributed the growth of macroalgae around China over the past 30 years to “eutrophication, climate change and grazing stress”, which it said indicated “a fundamental change in coastal systems in the region”.
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 16 November: Sunnylands statement; China methane plan; Coal capacity payments appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 16 November: Sunnylands statement; China methane plan; Coal capacity payments
In 2026, the dangers of fossil fuel dependence have been laid bare like never before. The illegal invasion of Iran has brought pain and destruction to millions across the Middle East and triggered a global energy crisis impacting us all. Communities in the Pacific have been hit especially hard by rising fuel prices, and Australians have seen their cost-of-living woes deepen.
Such moments of crisis and upheaval can lead to positive transformation. But only when leaders act with courage and foresight.
There is no clearer statement of a government’s plans and priorities for the nation than its budget — how it plans to raise money, and what services, communities, and industries it will invest in.
As we count down the days to the 2026-27 Federal Budget, will the Albanese Government deliver a budget for our times? One that starts breaking the shackles of fossil fuels, accelerates the shift to clean energy, protects nature, and sees us work together with other countries towards a safer future for all? Or one that doubles down on coal and gas, locks in more climate chaos, and keeps us beholden to the whims of tyrants and billionaires.
Here’s what we think the moment demands, and what we’ll be looking out for when Treasurer Jim Chalmers steps up to the dispatch box on 12 May.
1. Stop fuelling the fire
2. Make big polluters pay
3. Support everyone to be part of the solution
4. Build the industries of the future
5. Build community resilience
6. Be a better neighbour
7. Protect nature
1. Stop fuelling the fire
In mid-April, Pacific governments and civil society met to redouble their efforts towards a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific. Moving beyond coal, oil and gas is fundamental to limiting warming to 1.5°C — a survival line for vulnerable communities and ecosystems. And as our Head of Pacific, Shiva Gounden, explained, it is “also a path of liberation that frees us from expensive, extractive and polluting fossil fuel imports and uplifts our communities”.
Pacific countries are at the forefront of growing global momentum towards a just transition away from fossil fuels, and it is way past time for Australia to get with the program. It is no longer a question of whether fossil fuel extraction will end, but whether that end will be appropriately managed and see communities supported through the transition, or whether it will be chaotic and disruptive.
So will this budget support the transition away from fossil fuels, or will it continue to prop up coal and gas?
When it comes to sensible moves the government can make right now, one stands out as a genuine low hanging fruit. Mining companies get a full rebate of the excise (or tax) that the rest of us pay on diesel fuel. This lowers their operating costs and acts as a large, ongoing subsidy on fossil fuel production — to the tune of $11 billion a year!
Greenpeace has long called for coal and gas companies to be removed from this outdated scheme, and for the billions in savings to be used to support the clean energy transition and to assist communities with adapting to the impacts of climate change. Will we see the government finally make this long overdue change, or will it once again cave to the fossil fuel lobby?
2. Make big polluters pay
While our communities continue to suffer the escalating costs of climate-fuelled disasters, our Government continues to support a massive expansion of Australia’s export gas industry. Gas is a dangerous fossil fuel, with every tonne of Australian gas adding to the global heating that endangers us all.
Moreover, companies like Santos and Woodside pay very little tax for the privilege of digging up and selling Australians’ natural endowment of fossil gas. Remarkably, the Government currently raises more tax from beer than from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) — the main tax on gas profits.
Momentum has been building to replace or supplement the PRRT with a 25% tax on gas exports. This could raise up to $17 billion a year — funds that, like savings from removing the diesel tax rebate for coal and gas companies, could be spent on supporting the clean energy transition and assisting communities with adapting to worsening fires, floods, heatwaves and other impacts of climate change.
As politicians arrive in Canberra for budget week, they will be confronted by billboards calling for a fair tax on gas exports. The push now has the support of dozens of organisations and a growing number of politicians. Let’s hope the Treasurer seizes this rare window for reform.
3. Support everyone to be part of the solution
As the price of petrol and diesel rises, electric vehicles (EVs) are helping people cut fuel use and save money. However, while EV sales have jumped since the invasion of Iran sent fuel prices rising, they still only make up a fraction of total new car sales. This budget should help more Australians switch to electric vehicles and, even more importantly, enable more Australians to get around by bike, on foot, and on public transport. This means maintaining the EV discount, investing in public and active transport, and removing tax breaks for fuel-hungry utes and vans.
Millions of Australians already enjoy the cost-saving benefits of rooftop solar, batteries, and getting off gas. This budget should enable more households, and in particular those on lower incomes, to access these benefits. This means maintaining the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, and building on the Household Energy Upgrades Fund.
4. Build the industries of the future
If we’re to transition away from fossil fuels, we need to be building the clean industries of the future.
No state is more pivotal to Australia’s energy and industrial transformation than Western Australia. The state has unrivaled potential for renewable energy development and for replacing fossil fuel exports with clean exports like green iron. Such industries offer Western Australia the promise of a vibrant economic future, and for Australia to play an outsized positive role in the world’s efforts to reduce emissions.
However, realising this potential will require focussed support from the Federal Government. Among other measures, Greenpeace has recommended establishing the Australasian Green Iron Corporation as a joint venture between the Australian and Western Australian governments, a key trading partner, a major iron ore miner and steel makers. This would unite these central players around the complex task of building a large-scale green iron industry, and unleash Western Australia’s potential as a green industrial powerhouse.
5. Build community resilience
Believe it or not, our Government continues to spend far more on subsidising fossil fuel production — and on clearing up after climate-fuelled disasters — than it does on helping communities and industries reduce disaster costs through practical, proven methods for building their resilience.
Last year, the Government estimated that the cost of recovery from disasters like the devastating 2022 east coast floods on 2019-20 fires will rise to $13.5 billion. For contrast, the Government’s Disaster Ready Fund – the main national source of funding for disaster resilience – invests just $200 million a year in grants to support disaster preparedness and resilience building. This is despite the Government’s own National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) estimating that for every dollar spent on disaster risk reduction, there is a $9.60 return on investment.
By redirecting funds currently spent on subsidising fossil fuel production, the Government can both stop incentivising climate destruction in the first place, and ensure that Australian communities and industries are better protected from worsening climate extremes.
No communities have more to lose from climate damage, or carry more knowledge of practical solutions, than Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The budget should include a dedicated First Nations climate adaptation fund, ensuring First Nations communities can develop solutions on their own terms, and access the support they need with adapting to extreme heat, coastal erosion and other escalating challenges.
6. Be a better neighbour
The global response to climate change depends on the adequate flow of support from developed economies like Australia to lower income nations with shifting to clean energy, adapting to the impacts of climate change, and addressing loss and damage.
Such support is vital to building trust and cooperation, reducing global emissions, and supporting regional and global security by enabling countries to transition away from fossil fuels and build greater resilience.
Despite its central leadership role in this year’s global climate negotiations, our Government is yet to announce its contribution to international climate finance for 2025-2030. Greenpeace recommends a commitment of $11 billion for this five year period, which is aligned with the global goal under the Paris Agreement to triple international climate finance from current levels.
This new commitment should include additional funding to address loss and damage from climate change and a substantial contribution to the Pacific Resilience Facility, ensuring support is accessible to countries and communities that need it most. It should also see Australia get firmly behind the vision of a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific.
7. Protect nature
There is no safe planet without protection of the ecosystems and biodiversity that sustain us and regulate our climate.
Last year the Parliament passed important and long overdue reforms to our national environment laws to ensure better protection for our forests and other critical ecosystems. However, the Government will need to provide sufficient funding to ensure the effective implementation of these reforms.
Greenpeace has recommended $500 million over four years to establish the National Environment Agency — the body responsible for enforcing and monitoring the new laws — and a further $50 million to Environment Information Australia for providing critical information and tools.
Further resourcing will also be required to fulfil the crucial goal of fully protecting 30% of Australian land and seas by 2030. This should include $1 billion towards ending deforestation by enabling farmers and loggers to retool away from destructive practices, $2 billion a year for restoring degraded lands, $5 billion for purchasing and creating new protected areas, and $200 million for expanding domestic and international marine protected areas.
Conclusion
This is not the first time that conflict overseas has triggered an energy crisis, or that a budget has been preceded by a summer of extreme weather disasters, highlighting the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels. What’s different in 2026 is the availability of solutions. Renewable energy is now cheaper and more accessible than ever before. Global momentum is firmly behind the transition away from fossil fuels. The Albanese Government, with its overwhelming majority, has the chance to set our nation up for the future, or keep us stranded in the past. Let’s hope it makes some smart choices.
The 2026 budget test: Will Australia break free from fossil fuels?
Anne Jellema is Executive Director of 350.org.
The war on Iran and Lebanon is a deeply unjust and devastating conflict, killing civilians at home, destroying lives, and at the same time sending shockwaves through the global economy. We, at 350.org, have calculated, drawing on price forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Goldman Sachs, just how much that volatility is costing us.
Even under the IMF’s baseline scenario – a de facto “best case” scenario with a near-term end to the war and related supply chain disruptions – oil and gas price spikes are projected to cost households and businesses globally more than $600 billion by the end of the year. Under the IMF’s “adverse scenario”, with prolonged conflict and sustained price pressures, we estimate those additional costs could exceed $1 trillion, even after accounting for reduced demand.
Which is why we urgently need a power shift. Governments are under growing pressure to respond to rising fuel and food costs and deepening energy poverty. And it’s becoming clearer to both voters and elected officials that fossil dependence is not only expensive and risky, but unnecessary.
People who can are voting with their wallets: sales of solar panels and electric vehicles are increasing sharply in many countries. But the working people who have nothing to spare, ironically, are the ones stuck with using oil and gas that is either exorbitantly expensive or simply impossible to get.
Drain on households and economies
In India, street food vendors can’t get cooking gas and in the Philippines, fishermen can’t afford to take their boats to sea. A quarter of British people say that rising energy tariffs will leave them completely unable to pay their bills. This is the moment for a global push to bring abundant and affordable clean energy to all.
In April, we released Out of Pocket, our new research report on how fossil fuels are draining households and economies. We were surprised by the scale of what we found. For decades, governments have reassured people that energy price spikes are unfortunate but unavoidable – the result of distant conflicts, market forces or geopolitical shocks beyond anyone’s control. But the numbers tell a different story.
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Santa Marta: Ministers grapple with practicalities of fossil fuel phase-out
Around 60 governments that want to make progress on transitioning away from coal, oil and gas are meeting in Colombia to work out how they can do it an equitable way -
Why the transition beyond fossil fuels depends on cities and collective action
Cities will help identify concrete pathways for an equitable shift to clean energy at the Santa Marta conference, with C40 members aiming to halve their fossil fuel use by 2030
What we are living through today is not an energy crisis. It is a fossil fuel crisis. In just the first 50 days of the Middle East conflict, soaring oil and gas prices have siphoned an estimated $158 billion–$166 billion from households and businesses worldwide. That is money extracted directly from people’s pockets and transferred, almost instantly, into fossil fuel company balance sheets. And this figure only captures the immediate impact of price spikes, not the permanent economic drain of fossil dependence. Fossil fuels don’t just cost us once, they cost us over and over again.
First, through our bills. Every time there is a war, an embargo or a supply disruption, fossil fuel prices surge. For ordinary people, this means higher costs for energy, transport and food. Many Global South countries have little or no fiscal space to buffer the shock; instead, workers and families pay the price.
Second, through our taxes. Governments around the world continue to pour vast sums of public money into fossil fuel subsidies. These are often justified as a way to protect the most vulnerable at the petrol pump or in their homes. But in reality, the benefits are overwhelmingly captured by wealthier households and corporations. The poorest 20% receive just a fraction of this support, while public finances are drained.
Third, through climate impacts. New research across more than 24,000 global locations gives a granular account of the true costs of extreme heat, sea level rise and falling agricultural yields. Using this data to update IMF modelling of the social cost of carbon, we found that fossil fuel impacts on health and livelihoods amount to over $9 trillion a year. This is the biggest subsidy of all, because these massive and mounting costs are not charged to Big Oil – they are paid for by governments and households, with the poorest shouldering the lion’s share.
Massive transfer of wealth to fossil fuel industry
Adding up direct subsidies, tax breaks and the unpaid bill for climate damages, the total transfer of wealth from the public to the fossil fuel industry amounts to $12 trillion even in a “normal” year without a global oil shock. That’s more than 50% higher than the IMF has previously estimated, and equivalent to a staggering $23 million a minute.
The fossil fuel industry has become extraordinarily adept at profiting from instability. When conflict drives up prices, companies do not lose, they gain. In the current crisis, oil producers and commodity traders are on track to secure tens of billions of dollars in additional windfall profits, even as households face rising bills and governments struggle to manage the fallout.
Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say
This growing disconnect is impossible to ignore. Investors are advised to buy into fossil fuel firms precisely because of their ability to generate profits in times of crisis. Meanwhile, ordinary people are told to tighten their belts.
In 2026, unlike during the oil shocks of the 1970s, clean energy is no longer a distant alternative. Now, even more than when gas prices spiked due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, renewables are often the cheapest option available. Solar and wind can be deployed quickly, at scale, and without the volatility that defines fossil fuel markets.
How to transition from dirty to clean energy
The solutions are clear. Governments must implement permanent windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies to ensure that extraordinary profits generated during crises are redirected to support households. These revenues can be used to reduce energy bills, invest in public services, and accelerate the rollout of clean energy.
Second, we must shift subsidies away from fossil fuels and towards renewable solutions, particularly those that can be deployed quickly and equitably, such as rooftop and community solar. This is not just about cutting emissions. It is about building a more stable, fair and resilient energy system.
Finally, we need binding plans to phase out fossil fuels altogether, replacing them with homegrown renewable energy that can shield economies from future shocks. Because what the current crisis has made clear is this: as long as we remain dependent on fossil fuels, we remain vulnerable – to conflict, to price volatility and to the escalating impacts of climate change.
The true price of fossil fuels is no longer hidden. It is visible in rising bills, strained public finances and communities pushed to the brink. And it is being paid, every day, by ordinary people around the world.
It’s time for the great power shift.
Full details on the methodology used for this report are available here.
The Great Power Shift is a new campaign by 350.org global campaign to pressure governments to bring down energy bills for good by ending fossil fuel dependence and investing in clean, affordable energy for all
The post What fossil fuels really cost us in a world at war appeared first on Climate Home News.
Computer models that use artificial intelligence (AI) cannot forecast record-breaking weather as well as traditional climate models, according to a new study.
It is well established that AI climate models have surpassed traditional, physics-based climate models for some aspects of weather forecasting.
However, new research published in Science Advances finds that AI models still “underperform” in forecasting record-breaking extreme weather events.
The authors tested how well both AI and traditional weather models could simulate thousands of record-breaking hot, cold and windy events that were recorded in 2018 and 2020.
They find that AI models underestimate both the frequency and intensity of record-breaking events.
A study author tells Carbon Brief that the analysis is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
AI weather forecasts
Extreme weather events, such as floods, heatwaves and storms, drive hundreds of billions of dollars in damages every year through the destruction of cropland, impacts on infrastructure and the loss of human life.
Many governments have developed early warning systems to prepare the general public and mobilise disaster response teams for imminent extreme weather events. These systems have been shown to minimise damages and save lives.
For decades, scientists have used numerical weather prediction models to simulate the weather days, or weeks, in advance.
These models rely on a series of complex equations that reproduce processes in the atmosphere and ocean. The equations are rooted in fundamental laws of physics, based on decades of research by climate scientists. As a result, these models are referred to as “physics-based” models.
However, AI-based climate models are gaining popularity as an alternative for weather forecasting.
Instead of using physics, these models use a statistical approach. Scientists present AI models with a large batch of historical weather data, known as training data, which teaches the model to recognise patterns and make predictions.
To produce a new forecast, the AI model draws on this bank of knowledge and follows the patterns that it knows.
There are many advantages to AI weather forecasts. For example, they use less computing power than physics-based models, because they do not have to run thousands of mathematical equations.
Furthermore, many AI models have been found to perform better than traditional physics-based models at weather forecasts.
However, these models also have drawbacks.
Study author Prof Sebastian Engelke, a professor at the research institute for statistics and information science at the University of Geneva, tells Carbon Brief that AI models “depend strongly on the training data” and are “relatively constrained to the range of this dataset”.
In other words, AI models struggle to simulate brand new weather patterns, instead tending forecast events of a similar strength to those seen before. As a result, it is unclear whether AI models can simulate unprecedented, record-breaking extreme events that, by definition, have never been seen before.
Record-breaking extremes
Extreme weather events are becoming more intense and frequent as the climate warms. Record-shattering extremes – those that break existing records by large margins – are also becoming more regular.
For example, during a 2021 heatwave in north-western US and Canada, local temperature records were broken by up to 5C. According to one study, the heatwave would have been “impossible” without human-caused climate change.
The new study explores how accurately AI and physics-based models can forecast such record-breaking extremes.
First, the authors identified every heat, cold and wind event in 2018 and 2020 that broke a record previously set between 1979 and 2017. (They chose these years due to data availability.) The authors use ERA5 reanalysis data to identify these records.
This produced a large sample size of record-breaking events. For the year 2020, the authors identified around 160,000 heat, 33,000 cold and 53,000 wind records, spread across different seasons and world regions.
For their traditional, physics-based model, the authors selected the High RESolution forecast model from the Integrated Forecasting System of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. This is “widely considered as the leading physics-based numerical weather prediction model”, according to the paper.
They also selected three “leading” AI weather models – the GraphCast model from Google Deepmind, Pangu-Weather developed by Huawei Cloud and the Fuxi model, developed by a team from Shanghai.
The authors then assessed how accurately each model could forecast the extremes observed in the year 2020.
Dr Zhongwei Zhang is the lead author on the study and a researcher at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He tells Carbon Brief that many AI weather forecast models were built for “general weather conditions”, as they use all historical weather data to train the models. Meanwhile, forecasting extremes is considered a “secondary task” by the models.
The authors explored a range of different “lead times” – in other words, how far into the future the model is forecasting. For example, a lead time of two days could mean the model uses the weather conditions at midnight on 1 January to simulate weather conditions at midnight on 3 January.
The plot below shows how accurately the models forecasted all extreme events (left) and heat extremes (right) under different lead times. This is measured using “root mean square error” – a metric of how accurate a model is, where a lower value indicates lower error and higher accuracy.
The chart on the left shows how two of the AI models (blue and green) performed better than the physics-based model (black) when forecasting all weather across the year 2020.
However, the chart on the right illustrates how the physics-based model (black) performed better than all three AI models (blue, red and green) when it came to forecasting heat extremes.
The authors note that the performance gap between AI and physics-based models is widest for lower lead times, indicating that AI models have greater difficulty making predictions in the near future.
They find similar results for cold and wind records.
In addition, the authors find that AI models generally “underpredict” temperature during heat records and “overpredict” during cold records.
The study finds that the larger the margin that the record is broken by, the less well the AI model predicts the intensity of the event.
‘Warning shot’
Study author Prof Erich Fischer is a climate scientist at ETH Zurich and a Carbon Brief contributing editor. He tells Carbon Brief that the result is “not unexpected”.
He adds that the analysis is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
The analysis, he continues, is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
AI models are likely to continue to improve, but scientists should “not yet” fully replace traditional forecasting models with AI ones, according to Fischer.
He explains that accurate forecasts are “most needed” in the runup to potential record-breaking extremes, because they are the trigger for early warning systems that help minimise damages caused by extreme weather.
Leonardo Olivetti is a PhD student at Uppsala University, who has published work on AI weather forecasting and was not involved in the study.
He tells Carbon Brief that “many other studies” have identified issues with using AI models for “extremes”, but this paper is novel for its specific focus on extremes.
Olivetti notes that AI models are already used alongside physics-based models at “some of the major weather forecasting centres around the world”. However, the study results suggest “caution against relying too heavily on these [AI] models”, he says.
Prof Martin Schultz, a professor in computational earth system science at the University of Cologne who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the results of the analysis are “very interesting, but not too surprising”.
He adds that the study “justifies the continued use of classical numerical weather models in operational forecasts, in spite of their tremendous computational costs”.
Advances in forecasting
The field of AI weather forecasting is evolving rapidly.
Olivetti notes that the three AI models tested in the study are an “older generation” of AI models. In the last two years, newer “probabilistic” forecast models have emerged that “claim to better capture extremes”, he explains.
The three AI models used in the analysis are “deterministic”, meaning that they only simulate one possible future outcome.
In contrast, study author Engelke tells Carbon Brief that probabilistic models “create several possible future states of the weather” and are therefore more likely to capture record-breaking extremes.
Engelke says it is “important” to evaluate the newer generation of models for their ability to forecast weather extremes.
He adds that this paper has set out a “protocol” for testing the ability of AI models to predict unprecedented extreme events, which he hopes other researchers will go on to use.
The study says that another “promising direction” for future research is to develop models that combine aspects of traditional, physics-based weather forecasts with AI models.
Engelke says this approach would be “best of both worlds”, as it would combine the ability of physics-based models to simulate record-breaking weather with the computational efficiency of AI models.
Dr Kyle Hilburn, a research scientist at Colorado State University, notes that the study does not address extreme rainfall, which he says “presents challenges for both modelling and observing”. This, he says, is an “important” area for future research.
The post Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts
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