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
Government ‘work report’ for 2026 announced
LOWER GROWTH: China is aiming for economic growth of 4.5-5% in 2026, reported state-run newspaper China Daily in its coverage of the “government work report” – an outline of China’s policies in 2026 delivered by Chinese premier Li Qiang at the annual “two sessions” meeting of key government and party officials in Beijing. This is the lowest target since 1991, said BBC News, as China “grapples with challenges both at home and abroad”. Li said “geopolitical risks are rising”, noted the Financial Times. The lower GDP target reflects a shift to what Beijing calls “high-quality growth”, said the Guardian.
‘GREEN DEVELOPMENT’: The work report cited the publication of China’s 2035 climate pledge under the Paris Agreement as one of the achievements made last year, noted state-run broadcaster CGTN. Another CGTN article said that “new quality productive forces” also “grew steadily” in 2025, referring to a term that includes “green development”. Financial services firm ING said that the report highlighted priorities for 2026 including “high-quality” and “green development”, as well as domestic consumption, but that it also scaled back China’s consumer “trade-in” policy relative to 2025.
‘LAX’ INTENSITY: The report set a target to cut China’s “carbon intensity” – its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per unit of GDP – by 3.8% in 2026, reported Reuters, which quoted Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air saying this was “alarmingly lax”. He told Carbon Brief that emissions could rise by up to 0.5-1.0% while still meeting this target.
DUAL-CARBON DOUBTS: The work report said that China’s goal of peaking CO2 emissions before 2030 would be “accomplished as planned” and that a system to control the total amount of emissions would also be implemented, said Bloomberg. The report offers little detail on the shift to this system for the “dual control of carbon”, said Greenpeace East Asia’s Yao Zhe in a statement.
TRANSITION FUND: Another China Daily article reported that China will “establish a national fund for low-carbon transition” this year. Citing the work report, it said this fund would be used to “foster new growth drivers such as hydrogen power and green fuels”. The newspaper pointed to other climate-related elements of the report, including promoting the “clean and efficient use of fossil fuels” and “zero-carbon industrial parks”, expanding the coverage of China’s emissions trading system and improving systems for carbon accounting.
Pre-meeting positioning
CARBON ‘CO-BENEFIT’S: The Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) published new air quality standards that could “cut CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions by more than 7bn metric tonnes [over a decade] as a co-benefit”, said the state-run newspaper China Daily. Energy news outlet China Energy Net reported that these co-benefits could come from the new standards “effectively fostering…development of new quality productive forces such as clean energy and new-energy vehicles”, as well as driving low-carbon transitions in the “industrial, energy and transportation” sectors.
GATHERING VIEWS: In a press conference held ahead of the two sessions, MEE spokesperson Pei Xiaofei told Shanghai-based outlet the Paper that 85% of policy proposals submitted to the ministry for the meetings were focused on “building a Beautiful China”, meeting China’s carbon peak and neutrality goals and “tackling pollution”. According to a partial transcript published on the MEE website, MEE atmospheric environment director Li Tianwei said “heavy reliance” on fossil fuels, dominance of heavy industries and “road-centric” transport presented continuing “challenges” for emissions reduction.
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OFFICIAL OUTLOOK: Several director generals of National Energy Administration (NEA) departments published articles on their outlook for the fifteenth five-year plan. Development and planning department head Ren Yuzhi wrote in China Electric Power News that China must “expand the non-fossil energy supply system”, construct a power system “compatible with high proportions of renewable energy” and “promote the peaking of coal and oil consumption”. Head of the new energy and renewable energy department Li Chuangjun argued that the “main” direction for clean energy was “expanding scale, improving quality and ensuring reliable substitution”. The heads of the oil and gas, market regulation and power safety departments also authored articles.
OFFICIAL STATS: Meanwhile, new government statistics showed that China’s energy and industry emissions saw a 0.3% decline in 2025, reported the Financial Times. [The data confirmed earlier analysis for Carbon Brief that also calculated a drop of 0.3%.] The data release also revealed that “solar power generation overtook wind for the first time” in 2025, according to Bloomberg. China’s carbon intensity fell 5.1% in 2025, reported the state-run newspaper China Daily in its coverage of the data. [Carbon Brief put this figure at 4.7%, but the scope of the official data appears to have changed.]
Merz’s many meetings
EXTENDED COOPERATION: China and Germany signed an agreement on climate change during a visit by chancellor Friedrich Merz to Beijing, reported Agence France-Presse. The agreement to “extend” a Sino-German dialogue and cooperation mechanism on “climate change and the green transition” pledged to focus on “energy, industry, energy efficiency and the circular economy”, as well as “further implementing the objectives of the Paris Agreement”, said energy news outlet BJX News. Reuters noted that Germany signed far fewer agreements than the UK or Canada during their own recent visits, quoting Merz as saying that trade dynamics were “not healthy” due to overcapacity.
TECH TOUR: Xi told Merz that Germany’s focus on “technology, innovation and digitalisation…aligns closely with China’s smart, green and integrated development”, reported state news agency Xinhua. Merz later met with the heads of several Chinese technology firms in the eastern city of Hangzhou, including representatives from electric vehicle companies, reported the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP).
OVERCAPACITY OUTCRY: Ahead of Merz’s China visit, EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič called for adapting global trading rules to account for “overcapacities”, “unfair trade policies” and “state subsidies”, said SCMP, quoting Šefčovič as saying Europe was “monitoring very closely the increase of plug-in hybrid Chinese vehicle” exports to the EU. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also called on China to halve state support for industry, noting that industrial policies are “giving rise to international spillovers and pressures” and have had a “negative” impact on China’s economy, according to the Financial Times.
More China news
- ENERGY SECURITY: Chinese refiners have been instructed to “suspend exports of diesel and gasoline” following the outbreak of the Iran war, reported Bloomberg.
- GET THE GAS: China will waive some import charges for certain oil and gas exploration equipment and gas imports to “improve” energy production and “support” gas utilisation, said energy news outlet International Energy Net.
- LAW REVISIONS: The NEA aims to revise the Electricity Law and Renewable Energy Law in 2026, according to economic news outlet Jiemian.
- DIPLOMATIC ENDEAVOURS: The party committee of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in the communist party-affiliated People’s Daily that addressing climate change through “concrete actions” is a major element of its diplomatic strategy.
- SOLAR RUSH: Solar manufacturers are “ramping up production to boost exports” ahead of the cancellation of solar-export rebates in April, reported energy news outlet China Energy Net.
- DOC DROP: The UK has published its climate agreement with China, signed last year, which includes agreements on “offshore windfarms, electricity grids, battery storage, carbon capture and hydrogen”, reported the Daily Telegraph.
Captured
Spotlight
How climate features in China’s 15th five-year plan
China will set a carbon-intensity reduction target of 17% for 2030, according to a draft of the 15th five-year plan – although analysts note changes to the metric’s methodology.
More broadly, the draft represents continuity with China’s “build before breaking” approach to the energy transition.
Below are some of its key implications for China’s energy transition. A full analysis will be published on the Carbon Brief website tomorrow.
‘Active and steady’ advance
Achieving China’s climate targets will remain a key driver of the country’s policies in the next five years from 2026-30, according to the draft 15th five-year plan.
The draft, released this morning, said China will “actively and steadily advance and achieve carbon peaking”, with policymakers continuing to strike a balance between building a “green economy” and ensuring stability.
Five-year plans are one of the most important documents in China’s political system, outlining policy direction for the next five years.
The latest plan covers the years until 2030, before which China has pledged to peak its carbon emissions. (Analysis for Carbon Brief found that emissions have been “flat or falling” since March 2024.)
China will “continue to pursue” its established direction and objectives on climate, Professor Li Zheng, dean of the Tsinghua University Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development (ICCSD), told Carbon Brief.
Carbon-intensity confusion
In the lead-up to the release of the plan, analysts were keenly watching for signals around China’s adoption of a “dual-control of carbon” system that will see targets set for both carbon intensity and total carbon emissions.
Looking back at the previous five-year plan period, the latest document said China had already achieved a carbon-intensity reduction of 17.7%, just shy of its 18% goal.
Analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), had suggested that China had only cut its carbon intensity by 12% over the past five years.
He told Carbon Brief that the newly reported 17.7% figure is likely due to an “opportunistic” methodological revision to include industrial processes.
The draft 15th five-year plan sets a binding target of another 17% reduction in carbon intensity by 2030. The new methodology means that this leaves space for overall emissions to rise by “3-6% over the next five years”, Myllyvirta said.
The plan also did not set an absolute emissions cap, although Myllyvirta noted that a cap may be announced later in the five-year period, or imposed on select industries via China’s carbon market.
Double in a decade
The five-year plan continued to call for China’s development of a “new energy system that is clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient” by 2030, with continued additions of “wind, solar, hydro and nuclear power”.
It also called for a doubling of “non-fossil energy” in “10 years” – although it did not clarify whether this meant their installed capacity or electricity generation, or what the exact starting point would be.
Research has shown that doubling wind and solar capacity by 2035 in China would be “consistent” with aims to limit global warming to 2C.
But the plan continued to support the “clean and efficient utilisation of fossil fuels” and did not mention either a cap or peaking timeline for coal consumption.
“How quickly carbon intensity is reduced largely depends on how much renewable energy can be supplied,” said Yao Zhe, global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, in a statement.
Meanwhile, clean-energy technologies continue to play a role in upgrading China’s economy, with several “new energy” sectors listed as key to its industrial policy.
Named sectors include smart electric vehicles, “new solar cells”, new-energy storage, hydrogen and nuclear fusion energy.
This comes as the EU outlined measures to limit China’s hold on clean-energy industries.
However, China is unlikely to crack down on clean-tech production capacity, Dr Rebecca Nadin, director of the Centre for Geopolitics of Change at ODI Global, told Carbon Brief.
Instead, she said, Beijing is “prepared to pour investment into these sectors to cement global market share, jobs and technological leverage”.
Watch, read, listen
‘A LOT AT STAKE’: The Penn Project on the Future of US-China Relations held a webinar discussing China’s strength in clean-energy industries and how the US should respond.
KEEPING COAL AFLOAT: Electricity Market Tracker explored the impact of China’s coal “capacity payment” mechanism and what it could mean for the country’s energy transition.
TRACKING PRIORITIES: The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies podcast outlined key energy and climate issues to watch in China in 2026.
FINDING BALANCE: The Asia Society Policy Institute unpacked the drivers behind China’s overcapacity challenges and what a “plausible new equilibrium” might look like.
166.6bn yuan
The direct economic losses ($24.2bn) caused by “floods and geological disasters” in China last year, according to a National Bureau of Statistics data release published by BJX News. China suffered a further 8.6bn yuan ($1.3bn) in losses due to drought, it added.
New science
- Rising greenhouse gas emissions have caused “icing days” – during which the daily maximum temperature is lower than 0C – to become less common, but more intense in China over 1961-2020 | Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmospheres
- “A-share listed companies” in China “significantly enhanced” their carbon emission reductions and green innovation over 2007-22 in response to rising “climate risk”, but did not show a significant change to their “environmental protection” | Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change
Recently published on WeChat
China Briefing is written by Anika Patel and edited by Simon Evans. Simon Evans contributed to the writing of this edition. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 5 March 2026: New five-year climate goals revealed at ‘two sessions’ meeting appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 5 March 2026: New five-year climate goals revealed at ‘two sessions’ meeting
Climate Change
DeBriefed 29 May 2026: Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May | Indian heat deaths | Nigeria’s solar mini-grids
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
UK, Europe and India battle heatwaves
‘MIND-BOGGLING’ MAY: The UK and continental Europe have set “mind-boggingly crazy” temperature records for May amid a deadly heatwave, reported the Financial Times. According to the Associated Press, the UK “smashed a century-old temperature record for the second time in 24 hours on Tuesday”. The newswire added that records “also fell in France, where temperatures reached 36C on Monday in the country’s south-west”. On Wednesday, Portugal hit a record May temperature of 40.3C, said BBC News.
‘BRUTAL REMINDER’: In parts of Italy, the heatwave triggered blackouts, reported Reuters. The heatwave has also been linked to more than a dozen deaths in the UK and France, including from people drowning and suffering heat-related deaths while competing in sporting events, said ABC News. Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said the intense heatwaves were a “brutal reminder” of the cost of global warming, reported Politico. Carbon Brief has in-depth coverage of the record-shattering heatwave.
INDIA’S DEADLY HEAT: In the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, more than 100 people died within three days following an intense heatwave, reported the Khaleej Times. The publication noted that authorities urged people to stay indoors and avoid direct exposure to the heat. Meanwhile, some parts of India are “grappling with power cuts as record-breaking heat has pushed electricity demand to an all-time high”, reported Reuters.
Around the world
- CRUDE DIPS: The International Energy Agency (IEA) said global investments in oil projects will fall below $500bn in 2026, continuing a three-year decline, reported Bloomberg. Carbon Brief’s analysis of the data shows the US’s “data-centre boom” means it is now investing more in fossil-fuel power than China.
- DODGING NET-ZERO: The world’s biggest miner, Australian giant BHP, has backtracked on climate action by halting or delaying projects to cut “vast” amounts of emissions, according to a Guardian investigation.
- SOLAR SLIP: China’s new solar installations dropped for a fourth straight month, reflecting weakening domestic demand, said Bloomberg.
- NO LOGGING: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell last year to its lowest level since 2019, according to a new report, said Agence France-Presse.
- EXECUTIVE ACTION: Puerto Rico’s governor announced a state of emergency to fight a surge in coastal erosion, citing the need to protect natural resources and vulnerable communities, reported the Associated Press.
Four million
The number of homes in the UK with air conditioning, double the figure from three years ago, reported the Guardian. There are 29m households in the UK.
Latest climate research
- Carbon Brief will soon be launching a new fortnightly newsletter focused on climate research. Sign up for free today.
- LGBTQ+ households in the US are “significantly more likely” to face energy poverty and insecurity than the general population | Energy Research & Social Science
- Global rice-paddy greenhouse gas emissions have doubled over the past six decades | Nature Food
- Vegetation greening and human-caused warming are the “main drivers” of a surge in flash floods over the last decade | Science Advances
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
A Carbon Brief investigation has shed light on the impact of weather-related flooding on National Health Service (NHS) facilities across the UK. At least 67 NHS hospital wards, departments and other sites have been forced to temporarily close or relocate due to weather-related flooding. The chart above shows sites of weather-related flooding incidents at NHS facilities. The size of the circles indicates the number of incidents reported at each site.
Spotlight
How solar mini-grids can ‘help boost’ Nigeria’s economy
This week, Carbon Brief covers a new report on Nigeria’s solar mini-grid industry.
Amid the impact of the US-Iran war on the Nigerian economy, a new report has argued that solar-mini grids can help to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and create more than 200,000 jobs.
In Nigeria, Africa’s third-largest economy, the war has led to an increase in energy prices and a decrease in petrol consumption. Petrol is one of the country’s main sources of transport and household fuel. According to one estimate, prices have surged by up to 40% since the conflict commenced in February.
Although the Nigerian treasury has benefited from rising crude oil prices – the country is a major exporter of oil and gas – the impact has been most visible on the wider population.
Rising energy prices “have affected the purchasing power of workers”, Agnes Funmi Sessi, a labour union leader in Lagos, told Carbon Brief.
However, scaling the deployment of solar “mini-grids” could help the country move away from fossil fuels, stimulate rural economies and improve livelihoods, according to the new report authored by the thinktank, the Africa Policy Research Institute.
“We estimate that, by deploying over 10,000 mini-grids, the sector could create 212,688 direct full-time informal and productive-use jobs across the off-grid and under-grid market segments,” the report said.
A nascent industry
Solar “mini-grids” are small-scale, localised electricity generation and distribution systems powered by solar panels.
The report positioned Nigeria’s mini-grid sector as one of the fastest-growing in Africa, with the country having just 11 mini-grids in 2015 and 155 by 2024, along with at least 42 active developers.
Many of the companies within the sector are young and apply novel local techniques in their deployment of solar technology, the report said.
However, access to finance remains a huge barrier. According to the report, the sector may require up to $8bn to connect 35.4 million people to mini-grids.
“Most Nigerians want solar power in their homes, but it is a capital intensive business for vendors and customers,” Dr Ben Iheagwara, a renewable energy entrepreneur and policy analyst, told Carbon Brief.
The report urged the Nigerian government and its international partners to “attract private capital by de-risking investments and ensuring regulatory clarity and long-term planning”.
Other key recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders include investment in skills development and paying attention to the gender gap.
Powering rural communities
Many rural communities, which make up about 37% of the country, are disconnected from the national grid system, so often have to generate their own electricity through mini-grid systems.
According to Nigeria’s electricity regulator, NERC, a mini-grid is defined as a power generating system with an installed capacity of up to 10 megawatts.
A mini-grid can be powered by fossil fuels such as diesel or petrol, but solar power is now considered a cheaper and cleaner source.
With more than 80 million people lacking access to electricity in Nigeria, solar mini-grids are increasingly viewed as the lowest-cost electrification solution, the report said.
Watch, read, listen
MOVING FORWARD: The Energy Transition Show dug into electricity reform in South Africa, discussing the country’s coal legacy and the role of renewables.
ENERGY POVERTY: In an opinion article for Project Syndicate, executive director of the African Climate Foundation, Saliem Fakir, argued that the energy transition in emerging and developing economies is driven by economics and security rather than emissions targets.
VANISHING CITY: BBC News reported on a coastal community in Nigeria where the ocean has “already swallowed more than half of the town”.
Coming up
- 31 May: Colombia presidential elections
- 31 May-5 June: Global Environment Facility council meeting, Samarkand, Uzbekistan
- 2-5 June: The Venice Agreement for Peatlands workshop, Kisumu, Kenya
Pick of the jobs
- National Oceanography Centre, engagement assistant (external communications) | Salary: £28,254. Location: Southampton, UK
- Dangote Industries, decarbonisation specialist | Salary: Unknown. Location: Lagos, Nigeria
- City of New York, chief decarbonization officer | Salary: $261,469. Location: New York City
- Climate Central, writer and associate editor | Salary: $72,000-$75,000. Location: US (Remote)
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 29 May 2026: Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May | Indian heat deaths | Nigeria’s solar mini-grids appeared first on Carbon Brief.
At the African Development Bank (AfDB) annual meetings this week, several African leaders called for investments in electricity infrastructure which go beyond lighting homes to powering economies.
Applauding the AfDB for its energy programmes like Mission 300 – which aims to provide electricity access to 300 million Africans by 2030 – the Central African Republic’s President Faustin-Archange Touadera said that without power supply “we will not be able to achieve development”.
Speaking alongside him, the Republic of Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso echoed this, saying that “as we need to help our people to turn towards agriculture, to turn towards livestock rearing, we also need to provide power to them.”
As the Mission 300 initiative advances, attention is increasingly shifting from simply connecting households to ensuring that electricity access translates into economic opportunities and livelihoods. That shift is driving the launch of a new Centre of Excellence for Productive Use of Energy being developed under Mission 300 by the philanthropically funded Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP).
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Kenya seeks regional coordination to build African mineral value chains
Kenyan President William Ruto is the latest African leader to announce an end to raw mineral exports as governments want to add more value to their resources -
Africa needs more than export bans to cash in on critical minerals, experts say
Restricting raw materials exports is well-intentioned but without other policies to foster domestic processing, they can backfire -
Africa records fastest-ever solar growth, as installations jump in 2025
Africa’s solar power installations have increased sharply, driven by utility-scale projects and privately financed rooftop and commercial systems
In an interview with Climate Home News, Carol Koech, GEAPP’s vice president for Africa, said the initiative is designed to ensure that electrification supports income generation, agriculture and local economic development rather than only basic household access.
Q: What is the Centre of Excellence for Productive Use of Energy aiming to achieve with Mission 300?
A: Mission 300 is increasingly being seen as a job platform and so the role of the Centre of Excellence in translating those electricity connections to jobs. So we want the centre to do four things. First, as a delivery engine, which enables countries to embed a cross-institutional advisor that supports the electrification components, but also other components that are happening in the country.
Second, we want the centre to be an innovation and strategy hub. Today, there’s really no place where you can go to find the state of the industry for productive use of energy across the globe, and we want to make the centre of excellence the place where you can go and get information about what technologies are available, where deployment is happening and how much is being deployed.
(Photo: Lighting Global/SunCulture/World Bank)
The third pillar is to coordinate and mobilise capital. We anticipate the centre coordinating internally within the ecosystem but also mobilising additional financing to help productivity. The last piece is how to scale businesses, enterprises and partnerships around this centre because we anticipate that as we grow this space, new industries will emerge and those industries will need to be supported.
Q: Why is productive use of energy becoming important under Mission 300?
A: Mission 300 gave us a bigger platform to demonstrate that energy is truly an enabler for economic development. It’s not sufficient to just provide a connection, but it is required that that connection truly translates to economic development for the communities that benefit.
We shouldn’t bring electricity and then start thinking about what people can do with it. We need to think about both at the same time and ensure electricity arrives together with the things that will make a difference in people’s lives. Historically, we’ve brought electricity and imagined a miracle would happen, but we know that hasn’t been the case.
The question is how to ensure universal access in the cheapest way while still transforming communities. Some mini-grids have been deployed in places where demand is extremely low, making them too expensive to sustain. But when mini-grids are paired with productive uses, the economics start to change. If businesses currently running on fossil fuel generators move to solar or renewable energy, operating costs fall and the business case for mini-grids becomes much stronger.
Q: How could this work in practice for agriculture and rural communities?
A: I’ll give you a practical example in our pilot country Zambia. Zambia has two programmes, they have the ASCENT programme for energy access and they also have the Zambia agribusiness and trade platform (ZATP). Some of the components of the ZATP programme – which is an agri-business program to help farmers to be productive – have a productive use component but don’t have an energy supply component. So we’re offering things like mills, processing facilities, irrigation and others. In some parts of Zambia, these productive use equipment has been supplied but has not been powered, so communities are not benefiting from that.
So the whole point is if we coordinate where the agribusiness programme is deployed together with where the energy access programme is deployed and layer those two programmes together in one place, then you could solve the energy access problem and solve productive use together and therefore have really meaningful outcomes for communities.
Q: How will the centre help both households and small businesses use electricity productively?
A: The question on whether we should electrify households or businesses is neither here nor there. We need to electrify all. The argument is really once we electrify businesses, the owners of those businesses will be able to pay what they need for their households as well as increase production for their businesses.
Electricity consumption is usually an indicator of economic development and by pushing productive use into households, especially where households are also smallholder farmers, the question becomes: how can electricity access translate to additional economic development for them? If you are connected onto a mini-grid, then you can actually use that connection to run irrigation, put in a dryer, or a cold storage system, whatever you require to improve your income but the fact that you have energy means that you can access productive use. Now, we need to ask ourselves how do these farmers or these households then get access to these appliances, because that’s another barrier.
Q&A: Will subsidy cuts for Chinese clean-tech exports hurt Africa’s solar boom?
The cost of these appliances is usually extremely high, and when you have programmes such as the ZATP running in Zambia, that’s already a public funding approach to making these appliances available and potentially reachable for farmers, either at household level, at farm level or at community level.
Q: How does this complement the already existing Mission 300 national energy compacts designed by countries?
A: Each of the national energy compacts have a productive use component, a pillar that talks about distributed renewable energy, productive use, and clean cooking. This is actually complementing the work of the countries, and this centre is like an available support, back office for countries to tap into as they implement their national energy compacts, if they have specific requirements and support for that pillar three.
So the advisers that will be embedded into countries, their role is to coordinate within country programs that are running where energy could make a difference. The advisers will be sourced from the country and so they will make sure that the donor money is coordinated to benefit the country fully. Their role will include going to ministries of agriculture or any related ministries and understanding where they are prioritising programmes that require electrification. In many cases, programmes and money have already been allocated, but this component is about how do we deploy it in a way that it actually truly brings a difference, so those advisers will do that.
Q: How will the centre address financing and private sector investment challenges?
A: What we’re really looking at is different financing mechanisms. In the past, we have provided subsidies and results-based financing to suppliers, distributors and manufacturers to help create markets for productive-use appliances. I see this as one mechanism the centre could use, but the bigger opportunity is aligning public funding across different programmes so that more of it can support productive uses, either through direct funding or subsidies.
Nigerians bet on solar as global oil shock hits wallets and power supplies
When it comes to private sector investment, the reality is that Africa’s energy sector still faces serious constraints. Most private investment has gone into power generation, particularly through independent power producers, and even then that has only been possible in places where the off-takers, usually utilities, are bankable.
To unlock more private capital, countries need the right policies, reforms and regulations, but even more importantly, utilities must become financially viable. If the off-taker is not bankable, then the project is not bankable.
Another major question is how to attract private investment into transmission infrastructure. There are different models being explored, but the reality is that public funding alone is not sufficient to achieve Mission 300, so finding new ways to mobilise private capital will be critical.
The post Q&A: How can African electricity access power jobs not just lightbulbs? appeared first on Climate Home News.
Q&A: How can African electricity access power jobs not just lightbulbs?
The “data-centre boom” is driving a surge in gas investment in the US, pushing its fossil-power spending ahead of China, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
A rapid expansion of data centres across the nation is at the heart of the US tech sector’s plans to continue “dominat[ing]” the global artificial intelligence (AI) industry.
High demand for electricity to power these data centres has led to companies rushing to build new gas-fired power plants across the country.
This trend, combined with “soaring” gas-turbine prices, drove a threefold increase in US gas‑power investment in 2025 – and the IEA expects this to continue throughout 2026.
As the chart below shows, Chinese investment in coal- and gas-fired power is expected to drop this year, amid domestic policy changes and the Iran war sending gas prices spiralling.
Together, these trends mean the IEA expects US investment in fossil-fuelled power plants to overtake China’s in 2026.
The IEA’s latest world energy investment report shows that spending on renewables and electricity grids continues to dominate at the global scale.
In the US, Trump administration policies such as the phase-out of tax credits for renewables has led to the IEA revising its forecast for new wind and solar power downwards.
At the same time, US electricity demand is expected to rise by an average of 2% per year from 2026 to 2030, with data centres contributing half of the overall increase.
This is leading to what the IEA calls an “AI-driven push” to build new gas-power plants in the US, the world’s largest data-centre market and largest gas producer.
Globally, orders for new gas-power plants increased to 130 gigawatts (GW) in 2025 – a 25-year high – and US demand was a “major factor” in this, according to the IEA.
Much of the demand is coming from tech companies in the US seeking to bypass grid connection queues by building “captive” gas-power plants.
As the chart below shows, since the start of 2025 these US captive data centres alone have signed off on more investment in new gas turbines than any country in the world – aside from the US itself.
Overall, investment in grid upgrades, power equipment and electricity generation to support the buildout of data-centre infrastructure around the world hit $105bn in 2025, according to the IEA.
This is more than the total invested in the energy sector across the whole of Africa – a continent where more than 600 million people do not have access to electricity.
The IEA notes that strong demand for gas-power plants for data centres in the US – and, to a lesser extent, the Middle East – is “limiting the availability of turbines for near-term deployment elsewhere in the world”.
The agency also points out that as the tech sector becomes a “major energy investor”, accounting for around 40% of all corporate power-purchase agreements, it is also “underpinning momentum” for emerging clean technologies, such as small modular nuclear reactors and advanced geothermal.
The post AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China appeared first on Carbon Brief.
AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China
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Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
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Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
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Renewable Energy7 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
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Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
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Greenhouse Gases11 months ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测