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China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
‘Third Plenum’ called for unleashing tech innovation
FULL STEAM AHEAD: The “Third Plenum”, an important five-yearly political meeting traditionally associated with major economic reforms, concluded in Beijing on 18 July with a call to “make ‘high-quality development’ the guiding force” of the nation’s economy, Bloomberg reported. Policymakers resolved to foster “new quality productive forces” to “promote revolutionary breakthroughs in technology” and “in-depth industrial transformation and upgrading”, with a particular focus on strategic industries such as new energy, Reuters said. (See this issue’s spotlight or the full article on the Carbon Brief website for more on what this means for China’s industrial, energy and climate policy.)
SPECIFIC POLICIES: The full text of the resolutions adopted at the meeting includes several other policy prescriptions related to the energy sector, industry newspaper BJX News reported. These include calls to “deepen reform of the energy management system”, build a “unified national electricity market”, promote “price reforms” in the energy sector, and advancing “market-oriented reform” of the energy sector, it added. Specific policies related to these aims are expected to be released soon.
CLIMATE FOCUS: State news agency Xinhua said that policy goals also include to “improve ecological conservation systems”, take a “coordinated approach” to “carbon emissions reduction” and “actively respond to climate change”. On Twitter, Belinda Schäpe noted that this was the first time carbon emissions reduction has been mentioned in a Third Plenum communique. In an “explanation” of the plenum’s outcome published on the party-affiliated People’s Daily, President Xi Jinping said that China will “improve the mechanism of green and low-carbon development”, adding that “ecological and environmental protection still has shortcomings”.
PROVIDING ‘MIRACLES’: The state-run Science and Technology Daily reported that, in an “important barometer” of economic growth, electricity consumption by solar manufacturing rose 76% year-on-year, while that of new energy vehicle manufacturing grew 39% year-on-year. A commentary published in the People’s Daily by Zhong Yin – a nom de plume indicating that an article represents the view of party leadership – said that innovation and reform will allow China to create “miracles that will impress the world”.
Roadmap for ‘low-carbon transformation’ of coal
‘CLEAN COAL’: China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the nation’s primary economic planning body, and the National Energy Administration (NEA), issued an action plan for the “low carbon transformation” of coal-fired power plants, Bloomberg reported. It added that the government will increase “financial support for projects to reduce emissions at coal power plants” through methods such as burning biomass and green ammonia or using carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS). The plan, the outlet explained, aims to halve the “emissions intensity” – the emissions per unit of electricity generation – of an unspecified number of plants by 2027 compared to 2023 levels. If the 2027 target is achieved, these coal power plants’ emissions intensity will be “close to that of natural gas power generating units”, energy news outlet BJX News said. State news agency Xinhua, which described the plan as a “roadmap”, said it will “create a stronger leading role for the clean and low-carbon transformation of coal power”.
UNCERTAIN IMPACT: Asia Society Policy Institute senior fellow Lauri Myllyvirta noted on LinkedIn that the policy does not state how many plants will be retrofitted or how the state plans on incentivising industry players to do so, which will “determine the direct impact of this policy”. Analysis in the Shuang Tan newsletter argued that the policy is “unlikely to drive industry-wide transformation or attract large-scale investment”, stating that its true purpose may be to “test the selected technologies [CCUS, biomass and green ammonia] at a few carefully chosen coal power units”.
CARBON MARKET: One China-based power analyst told S&P Global that efforts to tackle coal emissions to date had largely been driven by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment’s (MEE) national carbon market (ETS), adding that the new “clean coal” policy “may be a call-out” by the NDRC that the MEE’s ETS targets are “too nice” and the mechanism is “too slow [in financing] these frontier decarbonisation technologies”. London Stock Exchange Group senior carbon analyst Luyue Tan argued on LinkedIn, however, that the ETS, which has been operating for three years as of 16 July, has encouraged greater uptake of emissions reduction technology. She added that its coverage will grow from 5.1bn tonnes of CO2 in 2022 to 8bn tonnes of CO2 in 2025, once the scheme is expanded to also cover the aluminium, cement and iron and steel sectors.
Tech and aluminium get ‘green and low carbon’ targets
DATA CENTRE TARGETS: The Chinese government released a new action plan for the “green and low carbon development” of data centres, Xinhua reported. The plan stated that by 2025, China’s data centres will achieve a power usage effectiveness (PUE) – a ratio that describes how much energy is used by the computing equipment – of below 1.5, and will “increase the utilisation rate of renewable energy in data centres by 10% annually”, it added. Energy news outlet International Energy Net said that the plan also includes goals for the centres’ “average PUE and energy carbon efficiency per unit [of computing power]” to reach “internationally advanced levels”.
COORDINATED DEVELOPMENT: In an interview shared by BJX News, an NDRC representative said that data centres, “as an important infrastructure for development of new quality productive forces”’ will be a sector where energy use is expected to grow by 15% per year. The official explained that China will encourage the “coordinated construction of large-scale wind and solar power bases and national [data centre] hubs”, with more data centres to be built in western regions to satisfy computing power demand in eastern China.
ALUMINIUM TRANSITION: China also released an action plan for energy efficiency and reducing emissions in the aluminium industry for 2024 and 2025, International Energy Net reported. The plan, which is linked to the overarching industry plan launched in May, states that construction of new “captive” coal-fired power plants will no longer be permitted and that existing coal-fired plants should be replaced by renewable energy sources, such as “renewable energy-based microgrids”, the energy news outlet said. It added that, according to the plan, the industry will save 2.5m tonnes of standard coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 6.5m tonnes by 2025.
Wind turbines and EV software in the subsidies spotlight
SUBSIDIES: An investigation into Chinese wind turbine companies in Spain, Greece, France, Romania and Bulgaria has been expanded to include those operating in Germany, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported, amid concerns in the EU around China’s subsidisation of its low-carbon technologies sector. Meanwhile, the US may “impose limits on some software made in China” for vehicles, including electric vehicles (EVs), according to Reuters. Separately, E&E News said that China has called on the World Trade Organization (WTO) panel to resolve a dispute over US subsidies for domestically-manufactured EVs under the Inflation Reduction Act, which China argues “artificially sets trade barriers” and pushes “up the cost of green energy transformation”. The WTO said that China has a “lack of transparency” on industrial subsidies in its economy, citing this as a possible cause for the international concerns around “perceived” overcapacity, Bloomberg reported.
BUSINESS AS USUAL: US-based solar manufacturing plants built by Chinese companies will have at least 20 gigawatts of annual production capacity within the next year, enough to serve about half the US market, according to Reuters. By contrast, non-Chinese companies “have found it hard to compete”, with as many as half of their planned US factories possibly failing to come online, the newswire added. Meanwhile, Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Envision may soon sign a deal to build a wind turbine manufacturing plant in Saudi Arabia, “as part of the kingdom’s efforts to localise supply chains”, Bloomberg reported. Another Bloomberg article said that two Chinese solar giants will build manufacturing plants in Saudi Arabia worth $3bn, adding that Chinese vice-premier He Lifeng had previously said the two countries “should expand cooperation in emerging sectors such as renewable energy”.
Spotlight
Q&A: What China’s push for ‘new quality productive forces’ means for climate action
China’s Third Plenum, an eagerly awaited five-yearly meeting traditionally associated with major economic reforms, concluded on 18 July in Beijing.
The official readout calls on policymakers to pursue “high-quality economic development”, in part through “developing new quality productive forces” (NQPF).
NQPF was also listed as a policy priority in the ‘resolution’ released after the plenum. This, the resolution says, includes “pursuing innovation” in the new energy industry, “green” industrial upgrading and improving “environmental protection”.
However, there is significant debate as to whether this push will result in concrete policy outcomes.
In this issue, Carbon Brief unpacks what China’s NQPF drive means for its climate, energy and industrial policy. This analysis is published in full on the Carbon Brief website.
What does NQPF mean?
In January 2024, President Xi Jinping defined NQPF as innovation-led development that creates “a break with traditional economic growth models and development pathways”, resulting in a “high level of technology, efficiency and quality” as well as an “in-depth transformation and upgrading of industry”.
This has led to a “ubiquitous” focus on innovation across official discussions about NQPF, according to the University of Cambridge-affiliated thinktank Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy.
But NQPF is about more than innovation and advanced technology alone. Analysis by the Council on Geostrategy says “while scientific and technological innovation is essential, [China recognises there] needs also to be deeper [economic] reforms”.
Low-carbon development is one of the few named priorities of the otherwise high-level theory. NQPF will provide an “important support for green development”, according to a commentary in the Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily.
“Protecting the ecological environment is to protect productivity and improving the ecological environment is to develop productivity,” it adds.
Why is the concept important?
NQPF represents a holistic approach “designed to address complex, interrelated challenges faced by China and to create a more resilient and dynamic economy”, Dr Muyi Yang, senior electricity policy analyst for China from the thinktank Ember, tells Carbon Brief.
Arthur Kroeber, founding partner and head of research at research firm Gavekal Dragonomics, tells Carbon Brief that NQPF is “the latest iteration of a long-running trend towards industrial policy, technology and intensive growth”.
This is “essentially a new bottle for old wine”, Kroeber adds. “I think what it does do is emphasise the point that there is a national mission” to build China into a technological superpower.
The idea addresses specific anxieties facing China’s leadership. As well as supporting economic growth, strengthening the country’s ability to innovate is part of a broader security drive.
Xi said in his January 2024 speech that he believes China is “still reliant on others for some core technologies…our industry is still not strong enough in spite of its size and falls short of excellence”.
What does this mean for China’s ‘green development’?
A primary aim of NQPF is to expand “strategic emerging industries” and “nurture future industries”, a commentary in the state-run newspaper China Daily argues.
These include a range of low carbon technologies, from electric vehicles (EV) to nuclear fusion. Recent analysis for Carbon Brief found that “clean energy” sectors contributed 11.4tn yuan ($1.6tn) to China’s economy in 2023.
Much of this will be driven by state-coordinated efforts. China Daily says that efforts to cultivate NQPF will “encourage” state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to deploy resources towards target industries.
These efforts are inspired particularly by the success of the EV industry, with several commentaries and articles highlighting its growth in analysis of NQPF.
Using innovation to foster leading expertise across different industries, China hopes, will allow the country to replicate this growth in other industries.
For example, a blog post on CCTV-affiliated WeChat account Yuyuan Tantian draws a link between China’s experience in manufacturing LCD televisions and its later success in developing solar technologies.
But China’s use of state resources to support strategically important industries has recently fuelled anxieties about “overcapacity” in some countries.
There are also concerns around overcapacity domestically. Han Wenxiu, executive deputy director of the Office of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, cautioned officials against “blind conformity and bubbles”.
But given current tensions with the US, Kroeber tells Carbon Brief, China “can’t rely on imports of technology in the same way…It must have an all-of-nation effort to develop its own alternatives.”
In his view, efforts to foster NQPF “could” lead to creation of more capacity, but this may be “unintentional” as “the Europeans and Chinese are actually starting discussions on [resolving concerns around] EVs”.
At the same time, Chinese ministries are highlighting the concept in more concrete policies. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) announced that it will release a “1+N” policy on NQPF, while the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) will establish a centre promoting the concept.
Analysis has said this could signal the MEE “leveraging” the concept to “push through reforms that might otherwise be stymied” by other stakeholders, or improve MOST’s “autonomy” in making innovation policy.
Kroeber says that every policy document “now has to have some reference to NQPF”.
However, he adds, one area to watch is power market reform, as “coordination and the state playing a more leading role” will be crucial to progress.
Yang tells Carbon Brief that NQPF “is far from being purely conceptual”. He says: “I believe more actions in various sectors will come soon to translate it into concrete initiatives and programs.”
Watch, read, listen
BIG IDEAS: The European Council on Foreign Relations published a book explaining key theoretical concepts in Chinese policy discussions, such as “green industrialism” and “ecological civilisation”.
MARKET REFORM: Caixin carried a transcript of a recent speech by former central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan, in which he argued for a “more responsive pricing system” in China’s power market to boost decarbonisation of the electricity system.
HYDROGEN PIVOT: China News published a video feature of how Lüliang city in coal-rich Shanxi province is betting on hydrogen to power its energy transition.
SPURRING STEEL: A new paper published by the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies explored the challenges of decarbonising China’s steel industry and the domestic and global climate policies that can incentivise a quicker energy transition.
20.8 million
The number of people in China affected by flooding between 1 January and 12 July, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management (MEM). The MEM also announced that, in the first half of this year, heavy rainfall, flooding and landslides caused 21,000 homes to collapse, affected 13.3m hectares of crops and caused 59bn yuan (£6.4bn) in direct economic losses.
New science
Substantial increase in perfluorocarbons CF4 (PFC-14) and C2F6 (PFC-116) emissions in China
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Chinese emissions of the greenhouse gases tetrafluoromethane and hexafluoroethane increased by 78% between 2011 and 2021, according to new research. The authors analysed “atmospheric observations” from nine sites in China, and found that the country’s combined emissions of the two gases reached 78m tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2021. The study found “substantial” emissions from the less-populated western regions of China, likely because they are byproducts from the expanding aluminium industry.
The increasing water stress projected for China could shift the agriculture and manufacturing industry geographically
Communications Earth & Environment
A new study found that water stress will increase in China between 2020 and 2099 under both high and low emission scenarios, mainly due to “decreased water supplies like surface runoff and snow water content”. The authors developed a “water stress prediction index”, which revealed that changes in water stress will mainly be driven by changes in spring and autumn. They added that water stress is likely to be higher in north-western provinces than south-eastern ones. These changes in water stress “could lead to the north-to-south migration of the agriculture sector, manufacturing sector and human population”, the authors warned.
Prioritising forestation in China through incorporating biogeochemical and local biogeophysical effects
Earth’s Future
A new study highlighted the importance of considering the biogeophysical (BGP) effects of forestation – via modification of land surface temperature – as well as the biogeochemical (BGC) effects of carbon sequestration. The authors noted that current forestation policies in China only consider the BGC effect. However, by considering both BGC and BGP effects, the study identified an extra 167.2m hectares (Mha) of potentially suitable area for forestation in China. The paper added that “considering both effects will displace 17.7% (15.3 Mha) of forestation areas determined by considering only the BGC effect under the 2060 forestation target”. The study found that in China, the BGC and BGP effects of forestation “mostly work in synergy” to increase the “overall climate benefits”.
China Briefing is compiled by Wanyuan Song, Anika Patel and Ada Carpenter. It is edited by Wanyuan Song and Dr Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 25 July: ‘Third plenum’ outcomes; ‘Low-carbon’ coal plants; EU probes wind subsidies appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 25 July: ‘Third plenum’ outcomes; ‘Low-carbon’ coal plants; EU probes wind subsidies
The United Nations Secretary-General and foreign ministers from the UK, France and Spain have blamed the deadly wildfires engulfing Europe on climate change, using the disaster to renew calls for faster cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.
António Guterres told journalists on Friday that the “climate crisis is in overdrive”, adding that global heat seen so far is just a “warm up act” as a phenomenon known as El Niño intensifies “adding fuel to a planet already on fire”.
A new World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) report published on Friday predicts that the weather pattern will grow into a “strong event” between now and October, increasing the risk of higher than normal temperatures across much of the world and disrupted rainfalls.
“That risks shattering every seasonal record – and driving even more severe effects worldwide,” Guterres said.
El Niño builds on top of an already warming world, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. A WMO scientist, who did not want to be named, told journalists that all the heatwaves and other climate impacts seen so far this year are “before the effects of El Niño are really kicking in at a global scale”.
Fossil fuellling the fires
Fires have broken out across much of Europe but are threatening the most people in the south-west of France near Bordeaux and in Central Spain near Madrid. Nearly a quarter of a million people have been evacuated in France with hundreds of homes destroyed while in Spain 80,000 people have had to leave their homes and at least 13 died in one village.
A scientific study published on Friday by the World Weather Attribution group found that man-made climate change made deadly fires in France twice as likely and those in Spain twenty times more likely. Smaller fires in the UK were not analysed by the study.
UN Climate Change leader Simon Stiell blamed fossil fuels for the fires, as well as storms in Chile and heatwaves in North America and Japan in recent weeks. “The climate alarm is blaring”, he said on Wednesday.
Guterres criticised new fossil fuel production projects and fossil fuel subsidies for causing hardship across the world. Discussing his speech, a senior UN official – who did not want to be named – said the subsidies amounted to trillions of US dollars a year and criticised pension funds and institutional investors, including insurance companies, for continuing to invest in fossil fuel projects.
Asked why world leaders and the public are not prioritising climate action, Guterres said they are distracted by wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan and elsewhere and sometimes forget “other aspects that are a sometimes even more dangerous threat”.
Also the fossil fuel industry and “some countries” are campaigning to pretend that climate change does not exist, he said, adding that the UN should be more active in “naming the situations as they are and the responsibilties as they are and mobilising the public opinion”.
After meetings in Paris and Madrid earlier in the week, the UK’s new foreign minister Ed Miliband issued joint statements with his French and Spanish counterparts – Jean-Noël Barrot and José Manuel Albares Bueno – calling on the world to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.
They promised to do more to reduce emissions and protect their people and encouraged other governments to do the same.
The UK-French statement called on governments to publish UN climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which are aligned with the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit global average temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
According to Climate Action Tracker, only three countries – the UK, Nigeria and Norway – have submitted NDCs with 2035 emissions reduction targets which are compatible with 1.5C. Fifty-two countries – including Egypt, Vietnam and Argentina – have yet to submit an NDC at all.
Defending science
Beyond action on emissions, the ministers also intervened in an ongoing dispute over the timing of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC)’s next flagship assessment.
Miliband and Barrot’s statement said they “underline the importance” of scientific report feeding into governments’ next global stocktake of progress on climate action in two years’ time, calling it a “critical input” to that process.
The timing of this report has been a contentious issue in government negotiations at the IPCC and at June’s climate talks in Bonn. While a group of nations calling themselves the “friends of science” want the report before the stocktake, others like Saudi Arabia and India have argued that this would make the report of a worse quality and less inclusive of developing countries’ scientists.
Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks
The UK-Spanish statement weighed in less explicitly on this issue but said that they “recall the importance of scientific evidence and acknowledge the work of the IPCC in this respect.”
The British and French ministers said they would seek to accelerate reductions of emissions in methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, at COP31 in November. They encouraged governments “to work jointly to develop a marketplace for fossil fuels with near-zero methane intensity.”
Methane leaks from oil, gas and coal production are a major contributor to global warming. Over a 20-year period, methane traps around 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide.
The UK and Spanish statement emphasised the importance of supporting the Global South and underlined the need to mobilise sustainable financing “at scale with the challenge we face”. The previous UK government, in which Miliband was energy minister, cut climate finance to developing countries to pay for increases in military spending.
The UK government led by new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has yet to outline any major changes to climate finance in its two weeks in power but has announced it will convert some finance from grants to loans in order to free up money to subsidise bus travel in England.
More adaptation needed
Guterres said that “it is time to stop treating each disaster as an isolated tragedy and recognise the systemic risk that is unfolding before our eyes.” A recent study found that three-quarters of UK media reports about the British June heatwave did not mention climate change.
As well as reducing emissions, the UN Secretary-General called for measures to adapt vulnerable people to extreme heat. Specifically, he said that buildings should be built and retrofitted for extreme heat and that every city and country should have heat-health action plans and early warning systems. Over 250 cities have joined the UN’s ‘beat the heat’ initiative, he said.
The Portuguese diplomat called for governments and employers to do more to protect their workers from heat, criticising global fashion brands for not setting heat standards for the factories that supply them. “No one should have to risk their life to earn a living,” he said.
The post UN chief warns climate crisis “in overdrive” as El Niño threatens to fuel the fire appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN chief warns climate crisis “in overdrive” as El Niño threatens to fuel the fire
Climate Change
‘Ride the wave of momentum’: Australia announces once-in-a-decade Marine Parks Network review
In response to the federal government announcing its once-in-a-decade review of Australia’s Marine Parks Network, the following lines can be attributed to Elle Lawless, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“Greenpeace Australia Pacific welcomes today’s announcement that the Albanese Government will review Australia’s Commonwealth Marine Parks Network. This is a rare, once-in-a-decade opportunity to strengthen our marine parks and ban industrial fishing in Australia’s marine protected areas.
“Australians would be appalled to know that more than half of Australia’s Marine Parks Network currently allows for extractive industries, like longlining, bottom trawling and oil and gas mining. These so-called ‘protected’ areas were designed to safeguard our beloved ocean wildlife and underwater ecosystems – that is what Australians expect. Damaging industrial industries should not be given a free pass to trawl, fish, drill or extract from our marine parks.”
“With the first Ocean COP just around the corner, and off the back of Australia’s move to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty earlier this year, the Australian government has a unique opportunity to ride the wave of this momentum and solidify itself as a true global ocean leader.
“Greenpeace Australia Pacific is calling for industrial activities to be banned from our protected waters and for at least 30% of Australia’s ocean to be protected as ocean sanctuaries. This review presents a rare opportunity to create more ocean sanctuaries, true blue havens where ocean life can recover, thrive and repopulate the surrounding waters.”
—ENDS—
‘Ride the wave of momentum’: Australia announces once-in-a-decade Marine Parks Network review
In recent days, prominent climate sceptics and rightwing commentators have shared charts on social media incorrectly implying that Europe is having its “quietest” year for wildfires in 2026.
These include Dr Matthew Wielicki, a former University of Alabama geochemist and self-described “professor in exile”, who was recently appointed by the Trump administration to lead the US Global Change Research Program.
However, these charts paint a misleading picture as they are skewed by encompassing the entirety of Russia in the data – including the vast plains of Siberia.
These charts also use data that include fires that are deliberately lit to manage cropland, which is a declining practice across much of Europe.
In this factcheck, Carbon Brief shows that the area burned by wildfires across the European Union in 2026 is second only to 2022 for this time of year.
The latest data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) also shows that France has set a new modern record for area burned and Spain’s wildfire season is among the worst on record.
The fires have displaced more than a third of a million people across south-western Europe, while an impending heatwave has also raised fears of the fires worsening in the coming days.
‘Quietest year’
On 27 July, as wildfires raged across multiple European countries, former Conservative peer and climate-sceptic commentator Matt Ridley posted on Twitter that “2026 is the quietest year for wildfires in Europe by some distance”.
Ridley, who sits on the academic advisory council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a UK-based climate-sceptic lobby group that refuses to reveal the sources of its funding, was responding to an article by Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley.
Stanley’s column, headlined: “Climate change is real – and the right needs to get serious about it”, warned:
“This is no longer a matter of speculation: the wildfires of Europe, pitiless and persistent, are the way we live now.”
Ridley included a chart from Our World In Data, showing the cumulative area burned by wildfires by week for Europe. The chart puts 2026 as having the smallest area for this time of year in a dataset going back to 2012.
Ridley’s post was widely shared by prominent rightwing figures – including Richard Tice, deputy leader of the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform UK party, former Conservative cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and multiple commentators.
Separately, Wielicki also shared a chart on Twitter to imply that wildfires in Europe are declining. Wielicki has previously claimed that the “science is not settled on climate change”.
The charts posted by Ridley and Wielicki both use data from the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS). The GWIS category for “Europe” encompasses all the countries on the continent and includes the whole of Russia.
As a result, Russia accounts for about 74% of the area included in the GWIS definition of “Europe”.
Wildfires in Russia typically account for 80-90% of the burned area in the GWIS Europe dataset. In 2026, fires in Russia are substantially below average. Therefore, including Russia in this comparison creates the false impression that wildfire activity across Europe is unusually low.
Dr Calum Cunningham, a research fellow at the University of Tasmania’s Fire Centre, says that such claims are “highly misleading”, noting that “they rely on aggregating fire activity across an enormous and climatically diverse region”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“A relatively quiet season in Russia can easily mask an exceptionally active season in France or Spain. If the analysis is focused on the regions actually experiencing the current fires, the picture is very different.
“The reality is that western Europe has experienced an extraordinary sequence of climate conditions this year.”
In contrast, the EFFIS provides a subset of wildfire data specifically for the area covered by the 27 nations of the EU, which, therefore, excludes Russia.
Another difference between the two datasets is that GWIS monitors all fires – including those on agricultural land that are intentionally set alight. The burned area as measured by GWIS contains significant cropland area.
By contrast, EFFIS uses land-cover data and other information to filter specifically for forest fires.
Looking at the EU-only data from EFFIS reveals that Europe is far from having its “quietest” year. The bloc’s burned area, as of 29 July, is almost 435,000 hectares (ha) – second only to 2022 for this time of year.
Notably, Wielicki has actually continued to post charts based on GWIS data, even after acknowledging that “includ[ing] all of Russia, including vast areas of Siberia…isn’t a good proxy for Europe”.
French fires
Even looking at EU-wide data misses the scale of this year’s wildfires for some individual countries.
The chart below shows the surge in burned area in France since mid-July.
For much of the first half of the year, the country was having a wildfire season that was only slightly above average in terms of total burned area. However, a notable uptick began in the first week of July.
The third week of the month saw France break its previous cumulative annual record by more than 19,000ha. That gap has widened as the fires continue to burn; as of 29 July, the cumulative burned area in France during 2026 was nearly 24,700ha above the previous record.
The fires in France follow a record-breaking June heatwave that “dried out vegetation across the region, allowing fires to spread quickly”, wrote the New York Times.
On 27 July, French president Emmanuel Macron called a “crisis cabinet meeting” in order to address the fires “ravaging several areas of south-west France”, said France 24.
More than 220,000 people have been evacuated due to the Gironde fire, west of Bordeaux, in “what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation”, reported the Associated Press.
In the Conversation, Cunningham and two other University of Tasmania researchers write that evacuation orders “protec[t] human lives, but makes it more likely houses and other structures will burn if there’s no one to defend them”. They add:
“There is little doubt climate change has made France and Spain’s wildfires worse. They represent yet another reason to redouble our efforts to tackle climate change and stabilise our climate.”
Central Spain scorched
While Spain’s fire season has not broken records in the same way that France’s has, it is on track to be among the worst since EFFIS began reporting data in 2006.
The chart below shows the rapid increase in burned area in Spain since 8 July. The latest data from EFFIS reveal that, as of 29 July, Spain has almost matched its previous record at this point in the year. It is also nearly five times the average area burned for this time of year.
In Spain, the wildfires have been concentrated in the central part of the country, near Madrid.
BBC News reported that the fires outside the capital have burned “an area more than twice as large as the city itself”.
Nearly 90,000 people were forced from their homes in central Spain by the fires, said the Associated Press.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, called the fires a “painful expression” of climate change.
Meanwhile, the UK, French and Spanish governments have issued joint statements this week in response to the fires. The UK/Spain statement begins:
“This summer’s wildfires demonstrated that climate change was now a national security emergency facing Europe and threatening our way of life.”
Related
The post Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires
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