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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
China reaffirmed climate stance
TRUMP WITHDRAWS: A government spokesperson said China’s “resolve and actions to actively respond to climate change will remain unchanged” at a press conference on 21 January. Asked by the New York Times to respond to president Donald Trump withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement again, foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said China was “concerned” and that “China will work with all parties to…promote a global green and low-carbon transition for the shared future of humanity”, state-supporting Global Times reported. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, China’s vice premier Ding Xuexiang reiterated that the world needs to “jointly tackle global challenges”, including climate change and energy security, said the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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BYE BYE BIDEN: Before leaving the White House, outgoing US president Joe Biden urged his successor to “tackle China’s ‘overcapacity’ and dominance in clean-energy supply chains, calling it a competition the US ‘must win’”, SCMP reported. Jennifer Granholm, Biden’s energy secretary, wrote in the New York Times that “it is no secret China wants to dominate the global market” for electric vehicles (EV) under the headline: “China will be thrilled if Trump kills America’s green economy.” One of the Biden administration’s last moves was finalising rules that will “effectively bar nearly all Chinese cars and trucks” from the US, said Reuters. He also barred five Chinese solar companies – allegedly using forced labour in Xinjiang – from entering the US market, reported the New York Times. The move has led to criticism from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which denied the forced labour claims, said BJX News. BBC News reported that tariffs from the US, Canada and the EU could force China to turn to “emerging markets”, but as the new markets “don’t have the same levels of demand…that could impact Chinese businesses that are hoping to expand, in turn hitting suppliers of energy and raw materials”. A comment for Dialogue Earth by analysts at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said emerging markets in the global south are already driving China’s export growth.
New UK, EU-China geopolitical situation
REEVES IN BEIJING: UK chancellor Rachel Reeves visited China between 10-13 January and “secured benefits worth up to £1bn for the UK economy”, reported the Guardian. According to a UK government document, both sides agreed to “deeper cooperation across areas such as financial services, trade, investment and the climate to support secure growth”, while also agreeing on “strengthening the existing UK-China clean energy partnership”. An unbylined comment piece in China’s state-supporting Global Times said that “China-UK relations have shown signs of warming up”. It added that Reeves responded that the UK would “make decisions in our national interest” when asked whether it would follow the US and EU in imposing tariffs on Chinese EVs. Meanwhile, Zheng Zeguang, the Chinese ambassador to the UK, called on both sides to “maintain the momentum and focus on cooperation” at an event in London attended by Carbon Brief.
EU-CHINA TENSIONS: Just before Reeves’ arrival, China had “concluded that the EU’s recent [anti-subsidies] investigations into Chinese enterprises…were ‘unfair and non-transparent’”, SCMP reported. However, Beijing did not confirm whether it would “take any retaliatory measures in light of the probe’s findings”, added the newspaper. Bloomberg reported that the EU was “set to warn” that the bloc is “facing stiffening pressure” from nations including China. China’s president Xi Jinping, nevertheless, told European Council president Antonio Costa that “China has always regarded Europe as an important pole in a multipolar world”, reported Xinhua. In her own Davos speech, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen noted concerns over “a second China shock – because of state-sponsored over-capacity”, but said “we should…strive for mutual benefits in our conversation with China”.
Analysts debate China’s oil demand peak
OIL PEAKING?: As much as 10% of China’s oil-refining capacity could be closed in the next 10 years due to “an earlier-than-expected peak” in oil demand, Reuters reported. Chinese oil imports in 2024 fell 1.9% to 11.04m barrels per day, the “first annual decline in two decades outside of pandemic-induced falls”, another Reuters article said. A Financial Times “big read” – titled “Has China already reached peak oil?” – attributed the decline to China’s property crisis and rising electrification of transport. It quoted the head of oil giant Saudi Aramco claiming plastic and petrochemical demand could sustain demand going forward, but also quoted an International Energy Agency analyst saying the decline in transport oil use would outweigh this. The sale of petrol-powered cars in China “plunged” last year, as sales of all types of EVs rose more than 40%, according to the Associated Press.
COAL POWER-UP: China’s thermal power generation – largely coal – rose 1.5% in 2024 to 6,340 terawatt-hours (TWh), Reuters reported, “defying “expectations that coal generation was peaking”. However, the aggregate data mask a “very significant breakpoint”, it quoted CREA lead analyst Lauri Myllyvirta saying, as an 11% “spike” in coal-fired power growth in January and February was followed by a plateau from March to November. Total power consumption reached 9,852TWh, up 6.8% year-on-year, BJX News reported. On Twitter, David Fishman, senior manager at consultancy Lantau Group, said growth in power consumption in the past six months of 2024 “was considerably slower than in the [first] half of the year”.
RENEWABLE RECORDS: China has broken its “own records for new wind and solar power installations again” in 2024, reported Reuters. Solar capacity grew to nearly 890 gigawatts (GW), up 45% – or 277GW – year-on-year, Jiemian reported, while wind capacity grew 79GW to around about 520GW. The news outlet added that thermal power “is still the largest source of electricity” in China overall. To “keep pace with surging renewable generation”, China’s State Grid Corporation will spend 650bn yuan ($89bn) – a record amount – on upgrading the nation’s power infrastructure this year, Bloomberg said. It added that most of this would likely go to “ultra-high-voltage power lines” and “smaller networks linking rooftop solar panels”.
Annual environment conference
MEE CONFERENCE: China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) confirmed eight “key tasks” for 2025, including expanding the national carbon market and promoting “green, low-carbon and high-quality development”, at its annual work conference on 14-15 January, reported Shanghai-based media outlet the Paper. The ministry also announced that “approximately 80% of the nation’s crude steel production capacity has undergone either comprehensive ultra-low emission transformations or targeted upgrades in key segments of their production processes”, according to the Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily. At a separate press conference, MEE said it has approved environmental investments worth 980bn yuan ($133bn) in 2024, while pledging to “refine the conviction and sentencing standards for falsifying environmental assessments” within the legal system in China.
EMISSIONS ACCOUNTING: Meanwhile, China released its first “national database of emission factors” for “improving the accuracy” of greenhouse gas emission calculations, Science and Technology Daily reported. It also released the “first batch of carbon footprint accounting rules”, covering steel, cement, EV batteries and 12 other “industrial products”, said China Energy Network.
Spotlight
Q&A: How China became the world’s leading market for energy storage
China is the world’s largest market for energy storage, followed by the US and Europe, according to BloombergNEF. The storage industry has attracted investments worth hundreds of billions of yuan and rapidly developed in recent years.
However, rapid growth has caused other problems, such as “temporary structural overcapacity” and low utilisation.
In this issue, Carbon Brief explores how China has been driving the sector forwards and how it fits into the nation’s wider energy transition. The full article is available on Carbon Brief’s website.
Soaring battery deployment
China is experiencing a renewable energy boom, adding a massive 301 gigawatts (GW) of renewable capacity, including solar, wind and hydro, in 2023 alone – more than the total renewable generating capacity installed in most countries over all time.
However, the country’s power system still struggles to absorb all of the generation, making energy storage – which bridges temporal and geographical gaps between energy supply and demand – a key tool for the country to improve its renewable energy integration.
Pumped hydro storage is the most common utility-scale storage system and has a long history in China. As of 2023, pumped hydro storage surpassed 50GW, making up more than half of the country’s overall storage capacity.
The remaining half is comprised primarily of batteries and emerging technologies, such as compressed air and flywheels, as well as thermal energy.
These technologies, known as the “new type” energy storage in China, have seen rapid growth in recent years. Lithium-ion batteries dominate the “new type” sector.
The deployment of “new type” energy storage capacity almost quadrupled in 2023 in China, increasing to 31.4GW, up from just 8.7 GW in 2022, according to data from the National Energy Administration (NEA).
This means that China surpassed its target of reaching 30GW of the “new type” energy storage by 2025 two years earlier than planned. The goal had been set by the NEA and China’s top economic planner the National Development and Reform Commission, under the 14th “five year plan”.
(Read Carbon Brief’s Q&A: What does China’s 14th ‘five year plan’ mean for climate change?)
High deployment, low usage
To promote battery storage, China has implemented a number of policies, most notably the gradual rollout since 2017 of the “mandatory allocation of energy storage” policy (强制配储政策), which is also known as the “new energy plus storage” model (新能源+储能).
Under the mandate, which applies in dozens of provinces, renewable companies are required to include a certain amount of energy storage capacity alongside new solar and wind generation projects, with the storage allocation rate ranging between 5% to 20%.
Cheaper costs led by technology innovation have also helped the market’s increasing adoption of batteries, Sun Yongping, researcher of emissions trading and vice-dean of the Institute of State Governance at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, told Carbon Brief.
Despite its positive intentions, the mandatory storage policy has had unintended consequences. Notably, a significant portion of the installed storage capacity remains underutilised.
In regions covered by the State Grid – the government-owned operator that runs the majority of the country’s electricity transmission network – more than four-fifths of the storage systems operate less than 10% of the time, with many used only once every two days, according to a Bloomberg report.
Another challenge, according to Guo, is the additional project costs and lack of effective incentives, as many storage facilities were built or rented to fulfil government requirements, but went unused afterwards.
Both Guo and Sun argue that China needs a deeper level of electricity market pricing reforms to create incentives to use storage.
Guo said: “We still hope that each place deploys new energy storage according to its needs and understands its own situation instead of adopting a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.”
‘New driving force’ for economy
Earlier this year, the NEA named the energy storage sector as a “new driving force” for the country’s “new quality productive forces ” (NQPF).
(Read more on Carbon Brief’s Q&A: “What China’s push for ‘new quality productive forces’ means for climate action.”)
Regional governments also saw the economic opportunity in energy storage. Guangdong, for example, aimed to make energy storage a “strategic pillar industry” by 2025.
Meanwhile, Zhejiang, Anhui and Guangdong also have ambitious targets of installing local storage capacity of 3GW each by 2025, according to a recent tally by Greenpeace East Asia, based on government documents.
The booming market has attracted more than 100bn yuan ($14bn) since 2021.
But risks of market turmoil also exist. According to battery industrial information provider Gaogong Industrial Institute, last year China saw more than 70,000 newly registered companies in the sector, which indicated that the market – already seeing fierce competition – may now be undergoing an “overcapacity” period.
Guo said this period of “overcapacity”, however, is “temporary”. She adds:
“There exists a temporary structural overcapacity, as the current expansion of new type energy storage is outpacing the market needs.
“However, if the regional governments could provide more policy support for the application of storage projects, this ‘excess capacity’ due to insufficient market demand could be avoided.”
This Spotlight was written by freelance climate journalist Yuan Ye for Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
CARBON ‘SPIRIT’: Zheng Shanjie, head of China’s top planner National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), wrote a comment for People’s Daily about the “spirit” of the Central Committee of the Communist party, including insisting on the “dual-carbon” goals.
PARIS ‘THREATS’: Caixin published a speech by former Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan arguing that the Paris Agreement faces “mounting threats”, with funding for climate change initiatives “remain[ing] critically insufficient”.
CBAM SOLUTION: A comment for the 21st Century Business Herald by Lin Boqiang, dean at the China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy of Xiamen University, discussed developing China’s carbon market as a response to the EU’s carbon border tariff (CBAM).
US-CHINA CLIMATE: US thinktank the Brookings Institution released a video recording of a panel discussion on the “evolving dynamics of US-China relations on climate change and green technology”.
New science
Maximum carbon uptake potential through progressive management of plantation forests in Guangdong province, China
Communications Earth & Environment
Harvesting young planted forests and then replanting over a 20-year period could sequester 2.5 times more carbon than simply preserving forests, according to new research on China’s Guangdong province. The authors used satellite data, forest growth models and machine learning to identify “key drivers of carbon accumulation”. The study found that the optimal scenario for carbon sequestration, described above, “could yield a potential carbon stock of 0.5 gigatonnes of carbon by 2060, without expanding forest cover”.
Evaluation and future projection of compound extreme events in China using CMIP6 models
Climate change
A new study evaluated the simulation performance of CMIP6 climate models for “six types of compound extreme event” in China. The research found four major results including “the performance of general circulation models (GCMs) in the simulation of extreme temperature indices is better than that for extreme precipitation indices, and positive biases exist in extreme precipitation indices for most models”. It added that the frequency of warm extremes may increase in the future, while cold extremes showed a decreasing trend.
China Briefing is compiled by Wanyuan Song and Anika Patel. It is edited by Wanyuan Song and Dr Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 23 January 2025: China’s climate ‘concern’ over Trump; Peak oil debate; China’s energy storage lead appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during the conflict that broke out in October 2023 has wrecked progress towards adapting the enclave to climate change and left two million Gazans vulnerable to heatwaves, drought and disease, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said in a new climate plan submitted to the United Nations.
Palestine’s third nationally determined contribution (NDC), uploaded to the UN climate body’s website this week, says that while “the aggression on the Gaza Strip did not make the climate worse”, “it removed the housing, water and sanitation systems, health facilities, energy networks, roads and livelihoods through which people absorb a climate they were already struggling with.”
The 91-page document lists the types of infrastructure it says Israel has destroyed and notes how the destruction will worsen the impacts of climate change. It says the bombing of hospitals and rising hunger have make it harder for Gazans to cope with the health impacts of climate-driven heatwaves and waterborne diseases.
The destruction of water tanks, boreholes and desalination plants, meanwhile, have left Gazans struggling with the effects of water shortages and drought, while mass unemployment reduces people’s ability to afford climate-driven price rises. The erasure of most of the Strip’s homes makes it more difficult for people to avoid the sun’s increasing heat, the NDC said.
Many Gazans are now living in the ruins of collapsed buildings or in makeshift shelters and tents that offer little or no protection from high temperatures.
Palestine’s previous goals to cut emissions and adapt to climate change in Gaza, expressed in its last NDC five years ago, were based on a pre-war baseline that “no longer describes anything that exists”, the NDC says. Progress made since 2021 has now been destroyed, it adds.
Green reconstruction of Gaza
Instead of continuing to aim for these adaptation and emissions-reduction goals, the PA is now calling for the green reconstruction of Gaza. It says buildings should be constructed again in an energy-efficient manner with solar panels and served with modern water, waste and transport systems.
While the PA, controlled by the Fatah political party, continues to claim legitimate control of Gaza, the strip was effectively governed by Fatah’s rival Hamas between 2007 and the recent war. Control is now split between Israel and the political wing of Islamist militant group Hamas, after a US-backed ceasefire took effect in October 2025, although a UN-backed committee plans to take over.
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The United Nations, European Union and World Bank have jointly estimated that Gaza needs $71.4 billion of investment in the next two years to recover and build back. This process should be Palestinian-led, they said in April.
But US President Donald Trump has said the US should “take over” and “own” Gaza and redevelop it as the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Israel’s right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel should control the territory with civil administration managed by Palestinians favourable to Israel.
With occupation, targets conditional
In the other part of Palestine, the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority carries out some government functions, but ultimate control rests with Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Because Israel controls planning in most of the West Bank, the NDC argues that the PA cannot pursue all the climate projects it wants. In addition, Israel restricts the movement of PA officials, making data collection difficult, and controls the West Bank’s electricity supply meaning that the PA cannot control whether it comes from dirty or clean sources of energy.
Given this situation, the NDC says that all of Palestine’s new climate targets are conditional but it will aim to reduce emissions 12.8% below a business-as-usual baseline by 2035 and 17.1% by 2040. If the Israeli occupation ends and Palestine regains full sovereignty over its land and resources, it will aim for reductions of 15.1% and 19.1% by 2035 and 2040 respectively under an “independence pathway”.
That could allow, for example, for greater electrification and reducing emissions per unit of growth, the document said.
To achieve the 2035 emissions-reduction target and adapt to the impacts of climate change, the PA says it needs $8.6 billion in total. This funding would be spent on measures like encouraging solar farms and rooftop solar and scaling up solar water heating to cover four-fifths of households. To complement the planned increase in solar power, the authority wants to modernise the electricity grid and install battery storage.
In the transport sector, it aims to promote the uptake of electric vehicles, develop bus rapid transit corridors and scrap old polluting trucks and buses. In Gaza in particular, it wants to deploy 66 electric buses when the conflict ends.
To adapt to climate-driven drought, the NDC includes initiatives to reuse wastewater through treatment plants, build desalination plants in Gaza to remove salt from seawater, and promote irrigation for farmers.
The new climate plan was prepared by Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the governments of Britain and Spain.
The United Nations recognised Palestine’s statehood in 2012 and it joined the UN’s climate convention and signed the Paris climate agreement – which requires countries to submit more ambitious NDCs every five years – in 2016.
The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. But in late 2024, then Israeli climate envoy Gideon Behar told Climate Home News that the war and the resulting environmental destruction in Gaza was the fault of Hamas.
The post Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.
Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change
Solar power generation in the UK reached a new record over the summer of 2026, as temperatures across the nation soared, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Collectively over June, July and August, solar farms and rooftops generated 8.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in the UK*, as shown in the chart below.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Chris Hewett, chief executive of trade association Solar Energy UK welcomed the new record, adding that it was driven by “clear skies and continued growth in deployment”.
This surge in generation took place amid the hottest summer on record in the UK, with five heatwaves between May and August.
Summer 2026 was the sixth sunniest on record, with more than 620 hours of sunshine, according to the Met Office. England and Wales – which experienced the most extreme heat – saw their second-sunniest summers on record.
June 2026 was the hottest June in England since records began in 1884, according to Met Office data, while Wales and the UK as a whole experienced their second-warmest June.
It was the driest July for England and Wales since records began in 1836, with some parts of London seeing no rain at all in the month, while Wisley in Surrey had no rain for 62 days.
In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August.
According to the Met Office, this summer’s record mean temperature was made 130 times more likely by climate change.
Amid these hot and sunny months, solar power generation increased 23% from the same period in 2025. This is double the level of solar generation over the summer of 2021, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
While solar panels can be affected by periods of extreme heat, the longer hours of daylight and higher levels of irradiation over the summer more than offset any efficiency losses.
June, July and August all saw solar set new monthly records for solar generation – July saw the highest solar generation in a calendar month ever, with 3.3TWh meeting 15% of overall electricity demand for the month.
As of the end of August, the total UK solar generation in 2026 stood at 17TWh – 13% higher than the same point in 2025.
The number of solar farms and rooftop installations has grown substantially in recent years, helping to boost generation. Domestic rooftop solar accounts for around 29% of total capacity.
In 2025, the UK’s solar capacity reached 21 gigawatts (GW) by the third quarter of the year, according to UK government figures. This is a jump of 3GW, or 18%, year-on-year, as Carbon Brief reported in January.
(Capacity is the maximum output possible from an electricity generation, whereas generation is what was produced over a certain time period, such as a day, month or year.)
According to the University of Sheffield, the installed solar capacity is now nearly 24GW.
This includes nearly 172,000 solar installations that have been fitted across the UK since the start of 2026, according to recent government figures. In July alone, more than 19,800 rooftop solar panels were installed – the equivalent of one installation every two minutes.
In total, nearly 1.7m households in the UK now have solar panels installed.
Over 26 heatwave days this summer – periods of at least three days when temperatures exceed the Met Office’s county-level heatwave temperature threshold – UK households with rooftop solar panels avoided an estimated £86.7m in electricity costs, according to analysis by Utility Bidder.
Talking about the surge in solar generation this summer, Hewett says:
“[It] not only kept bills down for people with solar and batteries in their homes, but helped keep overall power prices much lower than they would have been if Britain had been relying on more gas generation during the day”.
Despite the record generation, no new half-hourly solar power output record was set in the summer of 2026. This still stands at 15.2 megawatts (MW) on 23 April 2026.
* This article refers to the UK throughout, but strictly relates to the island of Great Britain, made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is part of the separate, all-Ireland electricity system.
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Analysis: Wind and solar power overtake fossil fuels in Germany for first time ever
The post Analysis: UK solar power hits record high over summer 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Farmers around Europe are dealing with the aftermath of a summer of extreme heat, drought and wildfires that were exacerbated by climate change.
Human-caused climate change is increasing the severity and likelihood of many extreme weather events around the world, which is increasing volatility for food producers.
This summer resulted in, for example, shrunken potatoes in the Netherlands, reduced carrot harvests in France, dried-up rice fields in Italy and scorched olive groves in parts of the Mediterranean region.
Global food prices are currently at their highest level since early 2023 due to “heatwaves and energy price dynamics”, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Other factors such as blocked fertiliser supplies in the Strait of Hormuz and high fuel costs have also played a role in this year’s agricultural outputs.
In the six charts below, Carbon Brief provides a snapshot of the impact this summer’s extremes are considered to have had on crop production and yields across Europe.
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
France, in particular, will see heavy losses in the amount of cereals – such as wheat, barley and oats – it produces this year, according to European Commission data.
French cereal production is expected to drop by almost 8 megatonnes (Mt) in 2026, compared to 2025.
The chart above shows that most European countries, aside from Bulgaria, will also see production losses this year.
Germany is due to see the second-largest losses in production, dropping by almost 4Mt compared to 2025.
Prof Til Feike, a cropping systems expert at the Julius Kühn-Institut, says many areas in Germany and Austria, as with other parts of Europe, have been “hit hard by a long-lasting dry period in combination with record-high heatwaves”.
This has resulted in dry grassland for animals and lower yields of maize, which is a “key fodder crop” for livestock. He tells Carbon Brief:
“In the long run, farming must adapt better to more extreme weather conditions, not only heat and drought, but also prolonged wet periods. So, there is no one-fits-all solution for climate change adaptation.”
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
Heat and a lack of water have “substantially worsened” crop expectations this summer in western and most of central Europe, according to a recent bulletin from the EU Joint Research Centre.
Yields are expected to be “significantly reduced”, with local crop failures “likely” in areas such as France, southern Germany, northern and central Italy, and Hungary, it added.
The chart below shows that yields of cereal grains – which, here, refers to the tonnes of a grain grown per hectare of land – are expected to fall in most EU countries in 2026.
Slovakia, Austria and Hungary are expected to see the largest declines in cereal yields, reducing by more than one tonne per hectare in 2026 compared to 2025.
The recent EU bulletin noted that irrigated crops performed well in Portugal this summer – the country with the largest yield increases. Other crops relying on rainfall showed growing signs of heat stress, it added.
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
The record heatwave that hit many parts of Europe in June contributed to an estimated €2-2.3bn in cumulative grain production losses, as shown in the chart below.
The intense June heat in western Europe would have been “virtually impossible” just 50 years ago, according to a rapid climate attribution study. It was the region’s hottest June on record.
The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank analysed June and July 2026 grain forecasts from Coceral, a European grain traders association.
ECIU estimated lost supply by multiplying the change in tonnes of grains between these two months by prices for harvest delivery in 28 European countries.
Major grain producers France, Germany, Hungary and Spain accounted for 86% of the lost revenue, according to the ECIU.
Extreme heat is also expected to have a wider economic impact across the continent. Analysis from Triodos Bank found that this summer’s extreme weather could reduce the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) by around 1% this year, or around €180bn.
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
If current trends continue, the average yields for cereals and oilseeds will result in the UK’s worst harvest since detailed records began in 1984, according to ECIU.
Barley yields could fall by 15%, oats by 14% and wheat yields by 6% year-on-year, according to 2026 harvest surveys from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, a non-departmental public body that provides agricultural data to the UK government.
ECIU said that, even if the situation improves, this year is still expected to be one of the five worst harvests on record. This means that four of the five worst harvests in the UK have occurred in the past decade.
Consumers will likely see higher prices and/or smaller vegetables in supermarkets as a result, Tim O’Malley, chairman of UK company Nationwide Produce, told BBC News in August.
Other crops, such as berries, have grown successfully in the extreme heat. But the Guardian noted fears this could dip later this year “as plants become exhausted from heavy cropping during the heatwave”.
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
France has been acutely affected by this summer’s extreme weather, with more than 7,300 excess deaths during heatwaves and a record number of weather stations recording temperatures of above 40C.
The country is the EU’s largest agricultural producer, but heat, drought and wildfires have affected many crops.
The chart below shows that maize production is set to drop by more than one-third (35%) year-on-year.
This could result in France’s lowest maize production since 1980, according to data from Agreste, the country’s agriculture ministry’s statistics service.
Due to the heat, “record-early” grape harvests have also been recorded in various parts of the nation since mid-July, reported Le Monde. In some cases, this means “smaller, less juicy grapes, which will yield less wine”, explained the newspaper.
6. Declines in EU grains since 2025
Overall in the EU, data and projections indicate declines in the output of cereal grains this year.
Cereal production is set to fall by 9% compared to 2025, according to the European Commission.
Just one year in the past decade – 2024 – recorded lower production levels.
Maize production is set to be particularly affected, with projections indicating a 13% drop, to 52Mt – the lowest level in the EU since 2007.
The post How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts
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