Agriculture and food were very much on the menu at COP28 in Dubai, with both voluntary pledges and negotiated texts beginning to reflect their central role in climate change.
The global stocktake – the “temperature check” of the Paris Agreement – was the primary focus for many at the summit.
But, in addition to the headline agreement to “transition away from fossil fuels”, the stocktake marked the first time that food was mentioned in a major UN climate change negotiated text.
The links between climate change and biodiversity loss also featured throughout the two weeks of negotiations, with several of the major texts referencing the impacts that each has on the other.
Deforestation garnered less attention at COP28 than it had in recent years, but the summit still saw Brazil’s proposal of a new “tropical forests forever” fund.
A pledge on food and agriculture signed by nearly 160 countries was a major feature in the early days of the summit attended by world leaders.
A range of other pledges covering everything from mangrove protection to methane reduction were spread across the two weeks of COP28.
But failure to agree on a text for the Sharm el-Sheikh joint work on implementation of climate action on agriculture and food security was a blemish on the summit from a food-systems perspective, with observers and parties both lamenting the lack of progress a full year into the work’s four-year mandate.
Here, Carbon Brief provides in-depth analysis of all the key outcomes for food, land use and nature in Dubai.
Food, land and nature in COP28 texts
Global stocktake
Ahead of COP28, all eyes were on the first-ever global stocktake (GST).
As part of the Paris Agreement, countries agreed to assess their progress towards climate goals every five years. The review also allows countries to identify gaps in the world’s collective climate action and take steps to correct the global trajectory.
It is a key part of the Paris Agreement’s “ratchet mechanism” for increasing climate ambition.
The summit saw 12 iterations of texts relating to the GST.
The mention of food in the GST was a “landmark moment”, Clement Metivier, acting head of international advocacy at WWF-UK, told Carbon Brief.
Not including food systems – which are responsible for nearly one-third of global emissions – would have been a “missed opportunity”, Metivier added.
But the opportunity was nearly missed, with most mentions of food systems removed in the second set of GST “building blocks”, released on 5 December. Getting food back into the final text took a “true push” from both civil society and governments, Metivier said.
The final text includes six mentions of “food” – two in the preamble and four in the section on adaptation.
Section 55 of the global stocktake addresses resilient food systems. Source: UNFCCC
However, food does not feature at all in the mitigation section of the GST. Patty Fong, programme manager at the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, told Carbon Brief:
“It’s a missed opportunity, given all the focus on fossil fuels, that we didn’t progress as much as we should have [on mitigation in food systems].
“When you look at the specific texts, the ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ refers specifically to energy systems. So this means they’re not addressing where the real expansion is – and where they actually see the growth market – the expansion of oil and gas in the petrochemical sector.”
In addition to the references to food, the global stocktake text references “nature” eight times and “biodiversity” five times.
It “underlines the urgent need” to address the “interlinked global crises of climate change and biodiversity loss”. This mirrors language included in the COP27 Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan.
The text also says that climate change and nature targets should be achieved “in line” with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, agreed at the COP15 nature summit in 2022. This is important, Fong said, because that framework contains stronger language around sustainable agriculture approaches than the GST.
The global stocktake “emphasises” that halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030 will be key to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement – the first time such a pledge has garnered formal recognition under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
It also “notes” the need for “enhanced support and investment, including through financial resources, technology transfer and capacity-building” in order to meet the deforestation goal.
Beyond forests, the GST notes the importance of “ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems”, including the ocean, mountains and the cryosphere. It was crucial that the text included all of those ecosystems, according to Manuel Pulgar Vidal, WWF’s global climate and energy lead.
Pulgar Vidal, who formerly served as Peru’s environment minister and president of COP20, told Carbon Brief:
“There’s a good reference to ecological integrity in the preamble of the current text.”
Rhiannon Niven, a global climate change policy coordinator at BirdLife International, celebrated the inclusion of that term in the GST’s preamble, but said that it should have been included in the operational part of the text as well. She told Carbon Brief:
“That’s really critical to make sure that [the functionality of ecosystems] happens.”
Niven praised the rights-based approach the text takes towards ecosystem conservation and restoration, as well as its call for a monitoring system to track and evaluate implementation of adaptation measures by 2030. However, the lack of specific finance for these efforts – only a recognition of the “urgent need” to scale up such finance – concerns her, she said.
The final GST text also underlines the “vital importance of protecting, conserving, restoring and sustainably using nature and ecosystems for effective and sustainable climate action”, she added.
On 4 December, while GST negotiations were ongoing, ministers from Colombia, Germany and Granada were among the signatories of an open letter calling for the GST to lead to more collaboration on implementing nature-based solutions and/or ecosystem-based approaches.
Nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based approaches are specifically mentioned in section 55 of the GST, which “encourages” their implementation, alongside other “solutions” such as sustainable agriculture and land-use management.
They also feature under section 63, which “urges” countries to increase ambition and speed-up action to achieve a number of targets by 2030, including accelerating the use of ecosystem-based adaptation and nature-based solutions. (See Nature-based solutions for more on how they featured at COP28.)
The text contains nine mentions of Indigenous peoples – “but it doesn’t address direct financing for them”, Diego Casaes, campaign director for Indigenous rights at Avaaz, said.
Casaes told Carbon Brief that having such language in the GST was important, but called it “very shallow”, noting that it did not adopt some of the language recommended by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
For example, free, prior and informed consent – when Indigenous peoples engage as negotiators in projects impacting their lands and provide their consent – is crucial when implementing infrastructure and energy projects, expanding protected areas or operating carbon markets in Indigenous territories, Casaes told Carbon Brief:
“That right is not included in the text because it creates an obligation that parties very much do not want to see in a climate decision. They prefer to use language that’s much softer and weaker.”
During a Climate Action Network press briefing, Eriel Deranger, executive director of Indigenous Climate Action and member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in northern Alberta, Canada, agreed that the GST should use “a robust language to hold states accountable to meet their goals”. (See Indigenous recognition and rights.)
Helen Biangalen-Magata, Kadaclan Indigenous rights advocate of the Mountain province in the Philippines, explained:
“If we get legal recognition within the GST, [Indigenous peoples] could make it into national reports and plans and see financing flowing to the local level.”
On non-carbon dioxide (CO2) greenhouse gases, the final text calls for “accelerating and substantially reducing” emissions, “in particular methane emissions by 2030”.
A previous GST draft, released on 8 December, had included an option calling upon countries to “take further actions” to reduce non-CO2 emissions “in order to reduce methane emissions globally by at least 30% by 2030 and 40% by 2035”.
It also mentioned reducing nitrous oxide emissions by at least 13% by 2030 and 18% by 2035, and cutting fluorinated gases by at least 81% by 2035.
However, these numerical targets were all removed from the GST by the time the gavel fell. The final stocktake does not specifically mention other non-CO2 gases, aside from methane. (See Methane and non-CO2 gases.)
Global goal on adaptation
Another main component of the COP28 talks was the global goal on adaptation (GGA).
The GGA is a “framework” that is meant to help guide parties in building resilience to climate change – long a priority for the most climate-vulnerable nations.
Established by the Paris Agreement, the GGA received little notice at UNFCCC negotiations until COP26 in Glasgow. There, it was given a two-year mandate to “jump-start” the goal.
Food, ecosystems and nature featured several times within the GGA.
Section nine of the text “urges” parties to “increase ambition and enhance adaptation action” towards a series of targets, including reducing water scarcity, reducing the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and “increasing sustainable and regenerative production and equitable access to adequate food and nutrition for all”.
The global goal on adaptation “urges” parties to increase their ambition on a series of targets. Source: UNFCCC
The language surrounding food in the adaptation section of the GST “basically mirrors” the language in the GGA, Fong pointed out.
In the GGA, nature-based solutions appear twice in a broadly similar way to their inclusion in the global stocktake.
Section nine calls for parties to accelerate the use of ecosystem-based adaptation and nature-based solutions. And section 14 emphasises that adaptation action should be continuous and guided by the “best available science”, alongside making use of ecosystem-based adaptation and nature-based solutions.
Nature-based solutions appear in the global stocktake. Source: UNFCCC
Section 14 also recognises the contributions of traditional and Indigenous knowledge. The “worldviews and values” of Indigenous peoples are also referenced in section eight of the agreement.
The GGA “does have good language” on Indigenous knowledge, equity and livelihoods, Fong said. Another section of the text “encourages the ethical and equitable engagement” with Indigenous peoples and “recognises” their roles as stewards of nature.
The global goal on adaptation recognises the leadership of Indigenous peoples and encourages equity in engagement with them. Source: UNFCCC
The recognition of water and water-related ecosystems in the GST and the GGA was welcomed by Wetlands International, an international civil-society organisation dedicated to conserving and restoring wetlands.
Francesca Antonelli, head of rivers and lakes at Wetlands International, told Carbon Brief:
“Historically, freshwater ecosystems have been quite neglected by these big conventions. This has been the very first [COP with a] focus also on water, which is something we very welcome.”
Overall, Antonelli said that the fact that water-related ecosystems are in the GST and the GGA “creates a favourable condition for these ecosystems to be embedded” into national climate and biodiversity plans.
Both the GST and the GGA also recognise the risks of transboundary climate impacts in nature, while the GGA suggests a “climate-informed transboundary management” to prevent “cascading risks”.
Sharm el-Sheikh joint work on agriculture and food security
The Sharm el-Sheikh joint work on implementation of climate action on agriculture and food security (SSJW), agreed at COP27 last year, is the only formal UNFCCC workstream to address agriculture and food systems.
SSJW is the successor to the Koronivia joint work for agriculture, which was established at COP23 in Bonn, in 2017.
The goal of the SSJW negotiations at COP28 was to establish a roadmap for the joint work.
There were three main elements to this: to agree on a set of topics for the three mandated workshops to be held under the joint work; to establish the online portal for submissions under the workshops; and to determine how the work itself should be carried out and synthesised.
Under the SSJW, as with Koronivia before it, a series of workshops brings together a wide range of voices on a particular topic, with each workshop resulting in a synthesis report.
Such reports are “a form of recommendation”, said Marie Cosquer, co-coordinator of the Climate Action Network’s agriculture working group and advocacy analyst at Action against Hunger. She added:
“Even if it’s sometimes very top line, it’s still a political signal for countries to orient and define their food-systems policies.”
On the first day of the negotiations, some developed countries suggested that it would be more constructive to start with a clean sheet, having failed to come to a consensus at the last session of the subsidiary bodies in Bonn. But developing countries supported using the informal note prepared in Bonn in June as the basis of negotiations.
As a result, the negotiations began “very blocked”, Cosquer said. She told Carbon Brief:
“We were really disappointed to see that nothing has moved since Bonn.”
Parties reportedly “lamented” the lack of progress in the negotiating rooms over the course of the first several days, with some noting that the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture (See: Food systems transformation) gave added weight and urgency to the work being done there. Both parties and observers said they lamented that one year of the SSJW mandate had already passed, with nothing to show for it.
There were two elements “gluing up” the negotiations, said Teresa Anderson, global climate justice lead at ActionAid. She told Carbon Brief:
“One is the process and the bureaucracy entailed in making outcomes. And one is the content – and, of course, we need the right bureaucracy, we need the right systems in place, in order to have the right conversations about the content.”
The G77 plus China negotiating bloc put forward a proposal for a “coordination group”, which would help facilitate implementation of the joint work. Developed countries expressed concerns over what that group would achieve and the costs it would incur to implement additional meetings.
Anderson noted that it was clear that changes needed to be made in the process in order to begin to effectively implement the joint work, but “developing countries hadn’t proven to developed countries that this [coordination group] is really the right structure to solve the problem”.
As the negotiations progressed, the coordination group remained the major sticking point.
Million Belay, the general coordinator of Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa and a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, told Carbon Brief:
“The G77 plus China are saying: ‘No. [We have] coordination or there is no negotiation.’”
As the negotiations neared a “critical moment”, US negotiators attempted to bridge the gap between the G77 plus China and the EU, Belay said. He added that the US taking this role was “surprising, because mostly they are a bridge breaker, not a bridge maker”.
Negotiators met several times in both informal and “informal-informal” consultations on 5 December without moving forward. At the final consultation that night, both global north and global south countries expressed their disappointment over the failure to come to an agreement.
Ultimately, the SSJW negotiations ended with a procedural text. This “essentially means, ‘we talked, we’ll talk again’”, Anderson told Carbon Brief. She continued:
“There’s a long, bloated, confusing text now, with everybody’s pet pieces and pet hates all in there. That’s now being recorded as an informal note, which means that it can be picked up to be discussed again next year.”
The draft decision on the Sharm el-Sheikh joint work on agriculture and food security. Source: UNFCCC
The informal note that will be forwarded to Bonn next year has no legal status and may or may not be used as the basis of the next round of negotiations.
Annex I of the informal note contains a still-bracketed decision to establish a coordination group to “facilitate the Sharm el-Sheikh joint work…for the duration of the mandate established” at COP27.
Annex II lays out the seven proposed topics for the three workshops, with two options for each of the first two workshops and three for the final one:
- Scaling up means of implementation, including finance, technology development and transfer and capacity-building.
- Risk management, including early-warning systems for food security.
- Approaches to sustainable agriculture and food security.
- Holistic approaches to agriculture and food security.
- Fisheries and aquaculture.
- Understanding sustainable food systems through climate action.
- Measuring, monitoring, reporting and verifying climate action for agriculture and food security.
Clement Metivier, acting head of international advocacy at WWF-UK, told Carbon Brief:
“Having a dedicated workstream on agriculture is great, to have some focused work on that specific topic. But now we need to build the connections between this workstream – that is obviously very different from all the others – and the rest of the climate process.
“The key word is implementation. And the big question is: how can the UNFCCC actually help with implementation at the national and even the local level? When we talk about agriculture and food security, this is very much about local issues and very concrete solutions. And, obviously, this [COP] process is very different from implementation on the ground.”
Nature finance
Carbon markets and Article 6
Article 6 of the Paris Agreement covers carbon markets and other “cooperative approaches” that countries can use to meet their climate targets.
“Voluntary” carbon markets – those that sit outside the UN climate regime – have long been viewed by some as a lawless “wild west”. This year, in particular, voluntary carbon markets and forest carbon offsets have been under intense scrutiny, courtesy of several high-profile investigations examining whether they deliver on their stated carbon-saving goals and their impacts on biodiversity and local communities.
In the weeks leading up to COP28, for instance, a host of news outlets reported on a “new scramble for Africa”, in which a UAE sheikh with no previous nature conservation experience was striking carbon market deals across the continent. One of the deals reportedly covers one-fifth of Zimbabwe’s land mass.
Potential climate impacts on the ecosystems expected to remove this carbon have also brought to the fore fears that any carbon gains polluters are counting on could go up in smoke because of wildfire risks.
Some countries are opposed to the idea of carbon markets in principle, while offsetting is central to the climate policies of others. As a result, Article 6 negotiations are often contentious, reaching a head in Madrid at COP25, where countries failed to agree on rules that could “make or break” the entire Paris Agreement.
The following year, at COP26 in Glasgow, countries agreed on rules for bilateral carbon trading between countries under Article 6.2, on an international carbon market under Article 6.4 and on “non-market approaches” under Article 6.8.
With the rules written, the International Emissions Trading Agency (IETA) hoped that countries would put “politicised” bickering behind and operationalise the new market and 6.2 mechanism at COP28.
In Dubai, however, countries failed to reach an agreement on Article 6.2 and Article 6.4. Both of those were subject to “rule 16”, meaning talks will resume next year.
However, an agreement on Article 6.8 was reached and seen as a “victory” by some for ecosystem-based approaches that put local actors at their heart.
Many observers told Carbon Brief that “no deal was better than a bad deal” on Article 6.2 and 6.4.
NGO Carbon Market Watch commented that, if the draft decisions at COP28 had passed, Article 6 would have “torpedo[ed]” the Paris Agreement.
However, not passing the deal or developing robust safeguard tools was also worrying to many.
According to the IETA, 50 countries have already signed memoranda of understanding, implementation agreements or pilot projects related to Article 6. Over the last year, the first three deals to transfer emissions cuts under Article 6.2 have been authorised by Ghana, Thailand and Vanuatu to help Switzerland meet its climate targets.
Trishant Dev, climate change programme officer at the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, told Carbon Brief:
“Countries have already begun drawing up activities and seeking out bilateral deals under Article 6.2 and will end up drawing guidelines from the voluntary carbon market, locking in bad decisions until UN-backed rules are in place.”
Article 6.2
Coming soon.
Article 6.4
Coming soon.
CDM Transition
Coming soon.
Article 6.8
Coming soon.
Biodiversity and voluntary carbon markets
Coming soon.
Debt-for-nature swaps
Coming soon.
Biodiversity and the road to COP16
COP28 hosted an unprecedented number of high-level events on the links between climate change and nature loss.
This round of climate talks was the first to take place since countries agreed to a landmark new nature deal at the COP15 biodiversity summit, known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), in December 2022.
Because of this, many of the new initiatives and pledges announced were focused on how countries can better integrate actions to meet the goals of both the GBF and the Paris Agreement.
In a first-of-its-kind initiative, COP28 president UAE and COP15 president China released a Joint Statement on Climate, Nature and People.
It was initially signed by Belize, Brazil, Cape Verde, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, France, Germany, Ghana, Indonesia, Norway, Palau, Rwanda, Samoa, Senegal, Seychelles, Spain, the UK and the US, according to a statement emailed to Carbon Brief.
The statement “recognised” that climate change poses a large threat to biodiversity and “noted” that the “continued loss and degradation of nature increases climate vulnerability”. (See Carbon Brief’s in-depth piece on the links between climate change and nature loss.)
The countries also pledged to ensure “comprehensiveness and coherence” between their next national climate pledges (“nationally determined contributions” or “NDCs”), due to be submitted before COP30 in 2025, and their next national nature plans (“national biodiversity strategies and action plans” or “NBSAPs”), due to be submitted before COP16 next year.
Rita El Zaghloul, a former biodiversity negotiator for Costa Rica who now directs the secretariat for the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HACN&P), a group of 118 nations that have pledged to protect 30% of Earth by 2030 (“30 by 30”), told Carbon Brief that this commitment could lead to more countries including nature in their NDCs. She said:
“Some countries are already doing that. In the case of Costa Rica, they already include nature goals in their NDCs. The goal is that more and more NDCs and NBSAPs talk to each other.”
The joint statement was launched at a ministerial event attended by more than 15 country ministers. This was one of several high-level events on the summit’s “nature day” on 9 December, El Zaghloul noted:
“This was the first time we were engaging on 30 by 30 within a UNFCCC COP. Last year, there were conversations happening, but we didn’t have any ministerial or high-level events. Here we saw a lot of interest from ministers and they took time to be at the events. I think this is testament to the importance of nature – even if we are at a UNFCCC COP.”
Elsewhere on nature day, China surprised delegates by announcing that it was joining the HACN&P. The announcement came from COP15 president and China environment minister Huang Runqiu via videolink at a high-level session on 30 by 30.
El Zaghloul told Carbon Brief that the announcement came after more than two years of talks with China, who were initially reluctant to join the initiative while still maintaining the “neutral” role of COP15 president. She added:
“It’s extremely important. It’s one of the most megadiverse countries and the role of China in the adoption of the GBF was extremely important.”
Nature day also saw El Zaghloul launch a new “30 by 30 solutions toolkit” and a financial and technical “matchmaking” service, with the aim of giving all countries the help they need to protect 30% of their land and seas by 2030. El Zaghloul explained:
“Because it was HACN&P that started the 30 by 30 movement, it is also our responsibility to ensure that countries have the sufficient support and tools to meet the target. We know that it is an ambitious target, because we have to move from approximately 17% on land and 8% on oceans [that is currently protected] to 30% on both. Many of the megadiverse countries are developing countries and small island developing states, so we need to provide them with the tools.”
Near the end of the summit, Colombia surprised delegates by announcing it intends to host the next biodiversity summit, COP16, in 2024. (Previous host Turkey was forced to withdraw following the economic impact of earthquakes in the country.)
It came after Colombia sought to carve itself out as a high-ambition leader on both climate and biodiversity issues at the summit. For example, it became the first major oil producer to sign the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty and co-launched a global review of how sovereign debt is stymying climate and nature progress.
Food systems transformations
The World Climate Action Summit on 1 December kicked off with the release of the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action, signed by 134 parties. (By 14 December, the declaration had garnered an additional 24 signatures and two further endorsements.)
At the release event, UAE climate and environment minister Mariam Almheiri noted that those signatories collectively represent more than three-quarters of the world’s total food systems emissions.
![Giuliana A. Viglione, PhD @GAViglione tweet. Text: UAE climate + enviro minister announces the emirates declaration, to wide applause at #COP28. 130+ countries have signed on to a declaration that includes: - recognition of climate impacts on agriculture [and] - intention to integrate food systems into NDCs by 2025.](https://breakingclimatechange.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/twitter.com_GAViglione_status_1730544014867181779_s20-1-920x1024-1.png)
The headline of the declaration was a commitment to include agriculture and food systems into countries’ NDCs and other national plans “before the convening of COP30”. Many observers, NGOs and food-systems experts told Carbon Brief that the pledge to integrate food into national policy was a welcome one – as long as there was follow-through from governments.
But some rued the lack of attention paid in the declaration to the links between fossil fuels and agriculture, plus the pressing need to phase out fossil fuels. Marie Cosquer, co-coordinator of the Climate Action Network’s agriculture working group and advocacy analyst at Action against Hunger, told Carbon Brief:
“All the declarations, all this flurry of engagements, it’s diverting attention from the actual multilateral process and the fact that we need a strong GST [global stocktake] at the end of the next week, and a fossil-fuel phase-out.”
Million Belay, the general coordinator of Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa and a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, told Carbon Brief:
“There are some good elements there – it’s about transformation…But there’s heavy reliance on ‘technology will solve the problem’ kind of thinking…What kind of technology? Who owns the technology?”
At the same time, the lack of specific elements in the declaration was necessary for it to garner such wide support, said Ed Davey, partnerships director at the Food and Land Use Coalition. He told Carbon Brief:
“[These declarations] are not as important as the negotiated outcome and they never will be…[But] they are a way of signalling that something is important.”
Prof Tim Benton, research director at Chatham House, added that “to get 100-and-something countries to sign up, you can’t be too demanding of the hurdles that they have to go over”.
More than 200 non-state actors, such as research institutions, farmers’ groups and philanthropies, signed an accompanying Call to Action for Food-Systems Transformation, released on the same day. That document included a call for “transitioning away from fossil fuel use within food systems”.
Several financial pledges accompanied the food-systems announcements, including $890m to the research consortium CGIAR, $57m from the Bezos Earth Fund for food systems transformation and approximately $47m from Norway towards adaptation, largely for smallholder farmers.
COP28’s thematic food day, 10 December, saw the launch of the Alliance of Champions for Food Systems Transformation, akin to the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance. Co-chairs Brazil, Norway and Sierra Leone were joined by Cambodia and Rwanda as the founding members of the alliance.
The five governments that make up the alliance have committed to “reorienting policies, practices and investment priorities to deliver better food systems outcomes for people, nature and climate”, according to a press release.
Benton described the Alliance of Champions as “raising the ceiling” on food systems transformation, whereas the Emirates Declaration “raise[d] the floor of ambition”. He told Carbon Brief:
“It’s not just the countries developing their own plans for food-systems transition, but it is also the ability of a group of countries to change the political space and change the political dynamics at negotiations such as this.”
Also on food day, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released a “global roadmap” for achieving food security without crossing the 1.5C threshold. The roadmap is the first in a series of three, with one set to be released at each of the two subsequent COPs.
The creation of such a roadmap – akin to the International Energy Agency’s Net Zero Roadmap – was a “good step forward”, said Patty Fong, programme manager at the Global Alliance for the Future of Food. But, she added, the roadmap is “problematic for many reasons”, including promotion of bioenergy and a lack of attention to the links between fossil fuels and agriculture. She told Carbon Brief:
“[The roadmap is] basically promoting efficiency first, rather than wholesale transformation. And, if we’re trying to look at trying to get to the Paris Agreement, just a series of incremental steps that prioritises efficiency won’t get us to 1.5C.”
Fong said she hopes the FAO will “integrate an iterative process” and engage with a wide range of stakeholders in producing the next report, which is set to cover implementation pathways.
Overall, there was a lack of attention paid to the demand side of food systems due to the economic implications of reducing consumption, Benton said. He told Carbon Brief:
“Ultimately, you get to the point where it’s bloody obvious that the [growth in consumption demand] can’t carry on forever in a world that’s becoming increasingly limiting in terms of climate impacts, as well as biodiversity loss, and so on. But there is still this internal ideological logic that the future is about economic growth.”
The final text of the global stocktake does reference the need to transition to sustainable patterns of consumption, which Fong described as an “inroad” into addressing diets and the consumption side of food systems. But, she added, “it doesn’t mention it specifically”.
Methane and non-CO2 gases
Methane – the short-lived but potent greenhouse gas – featured heavily in pledges and voluntary finance pushes at COP28.
However, most announcements focused on methane from fossil-fuel production, rather than food systems and agriculture.
Vox noted that few of the COP28 methane actions “include the largest driver of methane pollution: the food we eat”. (See: Food systems transformations for more details on how food featured at COP28.)
The US, China and UAE held a summit on methane and other non-CO2 gases on 2 December in Dubai. At the event, the host nation called for countries to submit their next round of national climate plans (“nationally determined contributions”, or “NDCs”) and to ensure they are economy-wide and cover all greenhouse gases.
Speaking to reporters at the UAE pavilion on 8 December, the US agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, told Carbon Brief that there are a lot of “economic reasons” for US agriculture to embrace methane reduction.
Investing in new technologies, tackling food waste and providing resources to help reduce agricultural methane are all important parts of wider methane-reduction efforts, he added.
Agriculture accounts for more human-caused methane emissions than the energy sector, according to the International Energy Agency.
On 5 December at COP28, six major food companies, including Danone, Nestlé and Kraft Heinz, alongside the US nonprofit the Environmental Defense Fund launched the Dairy Methane Action Alliance.
Under this, the companies committed to report on – and reduce – their methane emissions.
They pledged to release information on methane emissions within their dairy supply chains and to put in place a methane action plan by the end of 2024.
On the funding side, governments and the private sector pledged more than $1bn in recent grant funding for methane reduction “in support” of a “methane finance sprint” launched by US president Joe Biden earlier this year, according to the US government.
The US says that this more than triples the current level of yearly methane grant funding. It will be used to slash methane emissions around the world across all sectors, with a particular focus on lower-income countries.
Philanthropies such as the Bezos Earth Fund will also invest $450m over the next three years to target methane emissions, Reuters reported.
Further funding was announced through the Global Methane Hub, which said that more than $200m in public and private funds will be put towards research into reducing methane from livestock. The money came from public and private funders, including Danone.
Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and three other countries signed up to the Global Methane Pledge, which commits to reducing methane emissions worldwide by 30% by 2030. This has now been signed by 155 countries since it was first announced at COP26 in 2021.
Dozens of companies also signed up to the Oil and Gas Decarbonisation Charter, flagged months in advance, to speed up decarbonisation of the oil and gas industry, to end routine flaring and to “zero-out” methane emissions by 2030.
Dr Stephen Cornelius, the deputy global climate and energy lead at WWF, told Carbon Brief that action to reduce flaring in particular is “the sort of thing [companies] should be doing anyway” for environmental and economic reasons.
Indigenous recognition and rights
Indigenous representatives from across the world raised their voices at COP28 to demand the protection of their rights within the climate negotiations and, in particular, the global stocktake.
At a Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) press briefing, Indigenous women called for urgent action to protect the Amazon rainforest. They said the rainforest is in a “dire crisis” due to the combination of deforestation, biodiversity loss, “devastating assaults” on their rights committed by government leaders and gender violence caused by extractive industries.
Célia Xakriabák, an Indigenous activist and member of the legislature in Minas Gerais, Brazil, denounced the burning alive of Indigenous people in Guaraní-Kaiowá territory weeks ago. In the Yanomami territory, young women suffer physical and sexual violence, she said. Xakriabák told the press:
“The Amazon is a woman, all of our biomes are women, and so the healing [of the planet] also takes place through us.”
At the briefing, the women urged global leaders to stop the assassinations of Indigenous environmental defenders and to halt mining and oil extraction in Indigenous territories.
Elsewhere at COP28, Indigenous representatives from North America noted that climate change has driven “exacerbated impacts” in their territories. They also took a stand against Article 6 and what they termed “false solutions” to climate change, such as carbon dioxide removal and carbon capture and storage.
Eriel Deranger, executive director of Indigenous Climate Action and member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in northern Alberta, Canada, said species can no longer thrive in her Arctic community. She said:
“We are part of those species. We cannot tolerate weak policies.”
At that press conference, Indigenous peoples organisations expressed “serious concerns” about Article 6, since carbon markets have “far-reaching negative effects”, such as double-counting and pollution. (See: Carbon markets and Article 6.)
They also questioned the use of non-market-based approaches, which could allow the private sector to finance environmental services, debt-for-nature swaps and technology transfers.
In an opening statement, the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change – the caucus for Indigenous peoples in the UNFCCC – warned that carbon markets and offsets “do not cut emissions” and “instead create new forms of colonisation, militarisation, criminalisation and land loss”. The forum instead called for parties to commit to the 1.5C target and a phase-out of fossil fuels.
Alongside nine Pacific Island nations, including Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Tonga and Fiji, Indigenous peoples called for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty to end coal, oil and gas expansion.
For Indigenous peoples, it was important that the negotiations at COP28 took a human-rights approach, Deranger said during a Climate Action Network briefing.
Only eight countries, including Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nepal and Panama, directly recognised Indigenous peoples’ rights within the second submission of their NDCs.
Moreover, reports have revealed the lack of climate finance flowing to these communities. Only 2.1% of the $1.7bn pledged to Indigenous peoples at COP26 in Glasgow reached them directly, according to the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities. Meanwhile, the UN Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples could only finance the participation of 15 Indigenous leaders at COP28 – out of 700 applications.
Helen Biangalen-Magata, Kadaclan Indigenous rights advocate of the Mountain Province in the Philippines, said that Indigenous peoples welcomed the new pledges to scale up climate finance, including the loss-and-damage fund and the adaptation fund, but she cautioned that those resources have not made it to Indigenous peoples and called on financial operating entities to be transparent about how the money is being invested.
Deforestation pledges
Several new measures to tackle deforestation were announced by countries at COP28.
Brazil, which will host COP30 as the “tropical forests COP” in 2025, turned heads by announcing a new “tropical forests forever” fund proposal on 1 December.
Launched by environment minister Marina Silva and finance minister Fernando Haddad, the proposal aims to provide 80 tropical countries with finance to help maintain trees, with annual payments based on hectares conserved or restored, according to Reuters.
The newswire added that Brazil hopes to raise $250bn for the fund from sovereign wealth funds and other investors, including the oil industry.
According to Deutsche Welle, Silva said when announcing the initiative:
“It’s a very creative proposal. We want to create conditions for developed countries to protect the forest without it being charity. They will get a return.”
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Fran Price, global forest lead at WWF, said the initiative, while lacking detail, is “the kind of thinking we need”. She added:
“We need new finance mechanisms. Existing [climate finance] mechanisms aren’t well-suited for protecting forests. And we need more mechanisms that are being designed in global-south governments.”
Elsewhere, French president Emmanuel Macron used his appearance at the summit on 1 and 2 December to confirm funding for three forest finance packages, including $100m for Papua New Guinea, $60m for the Democratic Republic of Congo and $50m for the Republic of Congo, according to the COP28 presidency.
At least some of this funding will come from “verifiable carbon credit transactions”. (Read Carbon Brief’s recent in-depth explainer on the current risks and pitfalls associated with carbon offsets.)
The UK pledged an additional $38m to Brazil’s Amazon fund on 2 December. According to the South Atlantic newswire MercoPress, this makes the UK one of the top three contributors to the fund.
Later on, UK environment secretary Steve Barclay arrived to tout the country’s pledge to ban the sale of products with illegal deforestation in their supply chains. At the summit, his department announced that the rules would apply to palm oil, cocoa, beef, leather and soya.
Reacting to the news, Clare Oxborrow, forests campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said:
“It’s certainly positive that some of the biggest drivers of deforestation, such as beef, soya, palm oil and cocoa, are covered by the new law. But products linked to illegal deforestation won’t be eradicated from UK supermarkets completely unless all high-risk commodities, including coffee, rubber and maize, are captured by the legislation.
“What’s more, the proposed law only accounts for illegal deforestation, which is notoriously difficult to determine and could see some countries weakening their own protections to reduce the number of products impacted by the ban.”
On Twitter, Prof Simon Lewis, a global change scientist from the University of Leeds and University College London, noted that there was a “striking contrast” between the ambition of Brazil’s tropical forests forever initiative and the smaller packages announced by individual countries.
On COP28’s “nature day”, the presidency held an event to showcase progress from the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership, an alliance of 26 countries pledging to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030 that was launched at COP27.
(The initiative is designed to build on the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, made the previous year at COP26. However, as Climate Home News noted during COP27, the initial agreement had the backing of 145 nations representing over 90% of the world’s forests – suggesting most nations declined to up their deforestation commitments by signing on to the new initiative.)
This event saw a number of new small announcements and updates.
This included a coalition of 17 countries committing to advancing policies to support “low-carbon construction and increase the use of wood from sustainably managed forests in the built environment”.
The coalition includes Australia, Canada, the Republic of Congo, Costa Rica, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Norway, Pakistan, Sweden, the UK and US.
The event also saw 15 governments launch a “roadmap” for scaling investment in forest carbon offsets.
Speaking at a press conference on 10 December, Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, said that “carbon markets have failed to deliver” for Indigenous people and local communities, adding:
“We do not have time for faulty expansions.”
Ecosystem restoration
Experts and civil-society groups at COP28 pushed for the global stocktake to recognise the role of ecosystems in addressing climate change.
Conservation of around 30 to 50% of land, freshwater and ocean ecosystems will help protect biodiversity, reduce disaster risk and maintain ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, according to the sixth assessment report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (See: Biodiversity and the road to COP16.)
Although fossil fuel phase-out was central to the negotiations, protecting and restoring ecosystems is just as important in addressing climate change, Rhiannon Niven, global climate change policy coordinator at BirdLife International, told Carbon Brief.
Several political pledges on ecosystem restoration were made at COP28.
On nature day, 18 countries, including Belize, Costa Rica, Germany, the UK and US, issued a Joint Statement on Climate, Nature and People to support the use of ecosystem-based approaches and the implementation of land-restoration plans.
COP28 also saw updates of two global commitments to restoring ecosystems: the Mangrove Breakthrough and the Freshwater Challenge, which focuses on rivers and wetlands.
The Mangrove Breakthrough – a global pledge made at COP27 to restore and protect 15m hectares of mangroves by 2030 – released a financial roadmap towards fulfilling the pledge. It estimated that around $4bn is needed by 2030 to “secure the future” of mangroves.
The Freshwater Challenge announced that another 30 countries, including the UK, Canada, the US and UAE, had joined the initiative. The Freshwater Challenge is a call to restore 30% of Earth’s degraded freshwater ecosystems by 2030 and was launched by six countries, including Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mexico, at the UN Water Conference earlier this year.
At a side event on high-carbon ecosystems, Femke Tonneijck, from Wetlands International, called for a “global peatland push” to similarly conserve and finance peatlands.
On 2 December, Siaosi ‘Ofakivahafolau Sovaleni, the prime minister of Tonga, announced the Unlocking Blue Pacific Prosperity initiative. The goal of the initiative is to protect 30% of the “Blue Pacific Continent” by 2030.
The announcement was accompanied by up to $100m of finance from the Bezos Earth Fund for marine conservation in Pacific small island developing states. The Global Environment Facility also “offered” $125m towards implementing marine protected areas in the Pacific, Bloomberg reported.
That same day, several philanthropies announced $250m of new funding for the Ocean Climate Resilience Alliance, focused on protecting “vulnerable marine areas, ocean-based mitigation efforts and research on climate impacts”.
At a WWF press conference on 8 December, Dr Stephanie Roe, global climate and energy lead scientist at WWF International and a lead author on the IPCC AR6 report on mitigation, noted that there is a gap in finance for nature. She added that there needs to be funding mechanisms from different stakeholders for conservation, sustainable management and restoration. She also called for removing harmful subsidies to nature.
Francesca Antonelli, head of rivers and lakes at Wetlands International, told Carbon Brief that since the political pledges announced at COP28 are not legally binding, countries will require “a bit of time” to create plans for how they will implement their measures to restore and conserve ecosystems.
Nature-based solutions
At COP27 last year, for the first time, the COP “cover decision” mentioned nature-based solutions – referring to the use of nature and ecosystems to help mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts.
The controversial concept was also a dividing issue for many countries at the UN biodiversity summit COP15, held in Montreal last December.
At COP28, Carbon Brief understands that while some countries preferred the term “ecosystem-based approaches” over “nature-based solutions”, or vice versa, few were staunchly against the concept in principle.
Leila Yassine, a global advocacy manager for nature at the global nonprofit the Rainforest Alliance, said that while nature-based solutions are “good for mitigation [and] adaptation”, their value for biodiversity and people can often be overlooked at climate COPs. She told Carbon Brief:
“It’s great to look at ecosystems and nature-based solutions from a climate perspective as well, but we shouldn’t forget that within there, there’s nature. And nature is also biodiversity and it’s also land.
“Nature-based solutions are always looked into as a tool, like nature is a tool for mitigation. But it’s not only this…We want to preserve ecosystems because they have multiple benefits [and] I think sometimes this doesn’t transpire enough in the global stocktake and the final text.”
Nature-based solutions are often a key component in countries’ plans for climate adaptation and mitigation, featuring in 57 countries’ national climate pledges under the Paris Agreement, according to data from ClimateWatch.
On 30 November, Honduras’ opening statement at COP, issued on behalf of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, “reiterated the importance” of nature-based solutions and called for a consistent reporting methodology across industries, according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.
As part of a raft of nature announcements at COP28, more than 150 companies and financial institutions said they would increase investments in nature-based solutions.
Speaking to a small group of reporters in Dubai, including Carbon Brief, Rhiannon Niven, global climate change policy coordinator at BirdLife International, said that it is a “massive win” to see these approaches included in the global stocktake. (See: Global stocktake.)
Biofuels
While the COP28 presidency promised that food would be at the heart of negotiations, biofuels were expected to get considerable attention at COP28, driven partly by a Global Biofuels Alliance launched by India at the G20 summit in September and backed by the US, Brazil and the UAE.
India’s prime minister Narendra Modi referred to the alliance in his speech at the COP28 opening ceremony on 1 December, highlighting the country’s contributions to global climate action. The country’s climate minister, Bhupendra Yadav, also referenced the alliance in India’s national statement to COP28.
Yesterday, the spotlight on the Global Biofuels Alliance at COP28, culminated in a spectacular display on the Burj Khalifa at 8:40pm#GlobalBiofuelsAllianceAtCOP28 #GBAatCOP28 pic.twitter.com/y7gUSDp327
— Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (@PetroleumMin) December 4, 2023
Although low-carbon fuels, including biofuels, are cited in the mitigation section of the stocktake as part of the solution towards reducing emissions in “this critical decade”, many experts caution that emissions from biofuels underestimate their land-use footprint.
One recent study found that CO2 emissions from biofuels exceed those of fossil diesel, under current land-regulation policies. Heated debates on using food as fuel have also continued in the face of war and record levels of hunger around the world.
Undaunted, the biofuel industry had a significant footprint at COP28.
In an interview with the Financial Times at COP28, ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods said that UN climate talks “have focused on renewable energy for too long”, neglecting the role to be played by biofuels, hydrogen and carbon capture. COP28 marked the first known time an ExxonMobil chief executive attended a COP.
Carbon Brief analysed the COP28 participant lists and found that Brazil, Libya, Slovakia and Madagascar all sent delegates involved in work on biofuels.
Executives with the Brazilian Biofuels Producers Association and Acelen Renewables were registered as part of Brazil’s “party overflow”, NNPC Equity Biofuels Company with Nigeria’s, MHP with Ukraine’s and lobby group Ethanol Europe with Hungary’s.
At a special “Majlis” – an Arabic word for a sitting room – convened on 10 December to resolve the negotiating logjams between parties, COP president Al Jaber also spoke of the need to “increas[e] the availability of biofuels” in order to keep 1.5C within reach.
In a press briefing that Carbon Brief attended on 10 December, US agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack said that the aviation industry wanted an “acceleration of the production of biofuels” derived from a variety of feedstocks. He added:
“It’s not just the farmers who are asking for this, the airlines are asking for it. The reality is as great as electric vehicles are, we’re not likely to have battery-powered planes or hydrogen-powered planes flying long-distance in the foreseeable future.
“If the aviation industry in the US is going to be competitive and sustainable, they have to have low-carbon fuels and low-carbon feedstocks.”
Greenwashing and lobbying by ‘big ag’
Coming soon.
The post COP28: Key outcomes for food, forests, land and nature at the UN climate talks in Dubai appeared first on Carbon Brief.
COP28: Key outcomes for food, forests, land and nature at the UN climate talks in Dubai
The global goal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 “will not be achieved” unless action by countries “accelerates rapidly”, says a draft UN report.
Countries are falling short on 22 of the 23 targets for 2030 they set under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature”.
That is according to a draft version of a global report prepared by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), published on 26 July.
The report will be finalised ahead of the next nature summit, COP17, taking place in Armenia in October of this year.
The second draft of the global report has undergone “peer review”, but will still be subject to “technical edits” before being formally published ahead of COP17.
The final version will inform a global review of countries’ progress towards meeting the world’s 2030 nature goals, which will take place in Armenia.
Below, Carbon Brief explains why the report has been produced and what it says about countries’ progress in areas such as restoring ecosystems and raising funds for biodiversity.
Global report
In Montreal, Canada, in 2022, nearly every country in the world agreed to the GBF. The overall “mission” of the framework is to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. Its “vision” is to bring the world into “harmony with nature” by 2050.
The GBF includes a list of 23 targets for 2030. They cover an expansive range of topics, from restoring ecosystems, to addressing pollution and providing developing nations with finance to help cover the costs of protecting nature.
As part of the GBF and its underlying documents, countries agreed to a schedule for monitoring their progress towards achieving the 2030 targets.
This included the preparation of a “global report” of progress coordinated by the CBD, which will inform a “global review” undertaken by countries at COP17.
The global report draws on countries’ national reports, which were due to be submitted to the UN in February of this year. It also draws on countries’ national nature plans, known as “national biodiversity strategies and action plans” (NBSAPS) and national targets, which were both due in 2024.
Not all countries have met the call to publish these documents and targets. According to the UN, 45% of countries published NBSAPs in time to be considered for the report, 83% had submitted at least one national target and 66% had produced their new national report.
The first draft of the global report was published on 29 June 2026. This draft was subject to a “peer review process”, which invited countries and observers, such as NGOs and businesses, to submit comments on all aspects of the report.
The second draft, which has been revised based on the peer review, was published on Sunday 26 July. (This was just ahead of COP17 preparatory talks being held in Nairobi from 27 July to 1 August.)
A final version of the global report will be formally published ahead of COP17, which will take place from 19-30 October.
Overall findings
The second draft of the global report says that the GBF has led to “unprecedented” interest in tackling biodiversity loss, but adds:
“However, unless collective implementation accelerates rapidly, the 2030 targets and mission will not be achieved.”
It says that countries have taken some action to address all 23 targets, but that “no target presents a fully positive picture”.
(The first draft has slightly softer language. It “concludes that the world is not yet on track to collectively meet the global ambitions that the parties to the convention set when they adopted the framework”.)
The report identifies “two distinct gaps in progress”, relating to ambition and implementation.
First, that the national targets and plans submitted by countries “do not yet fully reflect the scope and level of ambition” of the global targets in the GBF.
Second, countries are not taking sufficient action to achieve their targets, according to the report.
It adds that progress is “particularly lagging” for addressing the “indirect drivers of biodiversity loss”, such as harmful business practices and government subsidies promoting them.
In addition, countries are showing “consistent gaps” in making progress on taking action to protect “marine, coastal and inland water ecosystems”.
The report produces a “scorecard” assessing countries’ progress towards meeting each of the 23 targets of the GBF.
The scorecard includes an “overall score” of between 0 and 1 for each target. This is calculated by considering countries’ self-reported progress in their plans and targets, as well as an assessment of progress based on a set of agreed indicators.
The results are split into four categories: 0-0.25 is red, 0.25-0.5 is orange, 0.5-0.75 is yellow and 0.75-1 is green.
The report gives a “green” score for just one target, indicating overall positive progress. This is target 8, on “minimising” the impact of climate change on biodiversity, including through mitigation and adaptation.
Elsewhere, the draft says that countries have “reported gaps in the scale and timely provision” of “financial resources, capacity-building and development, technical and scientific cooperation, access to and transfer of technology, and knowledge sharing”. It adds:
“These barriers can result in uneven capacities and cause specific technical and financial constraints for all parties, but particularly for developing-country parties. It is likely these constraints are even more pressing for least developed countries and small island developing states.”
Protecting and restoring nature
Target 3 of the GBF is for countries to protect “30% of Earth’s land and sea for nature” by the end of the decade.
This commitment – referred to as “30 by 30” – is widely considered the flagship target of the agreement.
The report says that countries are making “progress in expanding and managing protected areas, especially for marine and coastal areas”. But it adds that “current ambition and implementation remain insufficient to fully achieve all aspects of the target”.
It continues that, according to countries’ available national targets, “monitoring and reporting of some elements of the target remains low”. This includes “those relating to equitable governance of protected areas” and “recognition of Indigenous and local territories”.
The report adds that countries “face significant challenges in implementation, particularly related to lack of finance and capacity”.
(An investigation by Carbon Brief and the Guardian in 2025 revealed that more than half of nations that have submitted UN biodiversity plans do not commit to “30 by 30” within their borders.)
Another conservation measure included in the GBF is target 2, which aims to ensure that at least 30% of land and sea areas are under restoration by 2030.
The report says that “restoration efforts are expanding”. However, it says that “current commitments to restore areas and implementation of those commitments remain below the level required” to achieve target 2.
It adds that countries’ national targets are “generally well aligned with target 2”, but that “addressing the effectiveness of restoration efforts is often absent”.
Moreover, the report adds that monitoring of progress is “constrained by inconsistent definitions and monitoring approaches for ecosystem degradation and restoration”.
Another “major barrier” is a lack of available finance for developing countries looking to restore ecosystems, it says.
Climate and biodiversity links
Target 8 of the GBF is the only one to specifically address climate change, one of the major drivers of biodiversity loss.
It says countries should “minimise the impact of climate change” on biodiversity through mitigation and adaptation, including “nature-based solutions” and “ecosystem-based approaches”.
Target 8 was the only one to achieve a “green” marking in the report’s scorecard of progress (see: Overall findings).
The report says that actions to make biodiversity more resilient against climate change are “progressing”. Yet “implementation remains constrained by data gaps, limited means of implementation and the need for stronger coherence between biodiversity, climate and disaster risk reduction planning”.
It continues that countries’ national targets “generally” show “good alignment” with target 8, across “all elements apart from efforts to minimise the impacts of ocean acidification”.
It adds that the deployment of nature-based solutions and ecosystem restoration is not yet at a “sufficient scale”.
Subsidies
Overall progress is “insufficient” on target 18, which calls on countries to identify subsidies and other incentives that are harmful for biodiversity by 2025, says the GBF report.
It also outlines that nations should “eliminate, phase out or reform” these subsidies in a “proportionate” way, reducing them by at least $500bn per year by 2030.
Countries should first target the “most harmful” incentives, while simultaneously scaling up positive incentives for nature, it adds.
The report finds that countries have made some progress in assessing, compiling inventories and commissioning studies on harmful subsidies.
But issues remain, such as incomplete data and the lack of agreed definitions on which subsidies are deemed “harmful”.
Several national reports also note “entrenched interests and political barriers to subsidy reform”, says the report.
Only one-quarter of countries’ national targets that are “highly aligned” with target 18 are “on track” to be met, it finds. Most show “insufficient progress”.
It notes that 38% of countries have addressed the 2025 aim to identify harmful subsidies in their national targets “to some extent”.
Countries’ national reports do not “provide a sufficient basis to determine” whether this goal was met, says the report, but available evidence “suggests” that it was not.
Recent analysis by Carbon Brief found that just 16% of the 134 national reports submitted so far appear to meet the aim.
The report outlines that half of countries have set national targets addressing plans to eliminate, phase out or reform harmful incentives. Almost 60% mention scaling up positive incentives, it adds.
Just 27%, however, address the issue of reducing subsidies by at least $500bn annually by 2030. Also, only 5% set quantitative national targets to reduce subsidies.
There are two headline “indicators” to measure progress on target 18. The first shows that 30% of countries have outlined information on their nature-positive incentives.
The second indicator shows that 22 countries submitted the value of their biodiversity-harmful subsidies, which amounted to a total of $268bn spent on harmful subsidies over 2022 to 2025 – averaging $67bn each year.
Carbon Brief’s analysis had identified an estimated $270bn each year, based on a wider list of submissions from 32 countries. (More countries submitted national reports since the CBD’s deadline to be included in the global report in February.)
All of these figures remain well below the estimated trillions of US dollars spent annually.
The report notes that different methodologies could lead to global subsidy estimate “inconsistencies”, meaning that reported values are likely “underestimates”.
The amount of positive incentives in place is also likely underestimated, it adds.
The report says that harmful subsidies may have declined by around 20% in recent years, based on figures consistently reported by a minority of countries over 2022-24.
Despite this, the total value of subsidies “remains higher than the resources that parties reported mobilising for biodiversity”. (See: Mobilising finance.)
Mobilising finance
Overall progress on raising biodiversity finance has been “insufficient”, according to the report.
Goal D of the GBF, shown below, states that countries must close a $700bn biodiversity gap by 2030 through ending harmful subsidies ($500bn per year) and mobilising resources from the global north to south ($200bn per year).
This target aims to raise “at least $200bn per year” by 2030 from “all sources”, including domestic, international, public and private funding.
In all, countries reported raising a cumulative total of $186.4bn over four years, according to the report.
While it adds that it “is still too early to conclude”, the report states that the total finance mobilised so far “falls far short” of what is needed to close the biodiversity finance gap.
Target 19, shown below, states that developed countries and others should boost finance for nature to “at least $20bn” per year by 2025 and “at least $30bn” by 2030. This falls to developed countries and others that “voluntarily assume” the obligation of contributing.
However, the report suggests that the milestone of raising “at least $20bn per year by 2025” was “likely not achieved”.
Between 2020 and 2023, reporting countries cumulatively raised just $17.7bn in international public funding for biodiversity, according to the report.
This amounts to an average of $4.4bn per year between 2020-23, with the total touching its highest at $5.2bn in 2023.
The report cautions that this figure “should be read as a minimum”, as it does not account for all potential flows of biodiversity finance.
Both estimates “fall below the $20bn milestone”, although the report adds that a “definitive assessment will only be possible” once data for 2024 and 2025 are included.
An earlier draft of the report included language noting that biodiversity-related “official development assistance” remains “well below the agreed 2025 milestone”. This was cut from the summary in this latest iteration of the report.
References to the OECD reporting a “shortfall in funding” and projecting “a decrease for 2024 and 2025” – suggesting the $20bn target was “unlikely to be met” – were also removed from the latest draft.
The chart below shows how international public funding for biodiversity has varied from 2020 to 2023, according to the report.
By comparison, domestic spending makes the largest cumulative contribution to biodiversity finance, at ($135.9bn) over the four years. However, spending has “declined” as a share of GDP. It also notes that spending varies “greatly”, from 0.1% to 2.7% of GDP.
According to the report, many countries highlighted that national budget allocations for biodiversity are “far too low” and that biodiversity “frequently loses out to competing development priorities”, including “defence, food security and infrastructure”.
At COP15 in Montreal, the EU and several other countries pushed for the inclusion of “all sources” of finance in the final text – including private finance and “innovative” schemes.
Private and “innovative” biodiversity finance – which spans a plethora of sources such biodiversity offsets and debt-for-nature swaps – was eventually included in target 19.
The report, however, notes that private finance “peaked in 2021 and fell afterwards” and “remains particularly undeveloped”, with a cumulative total of $32.7bn between 2020-23.
At the same time, the report notes that only 26% of all countries had reported data on private biodiversity finance, making it harder to assess funding declines in 2022 and 2023.
Genetic resources
The report finds there has been limited progress on sharing genetic biodiversity data.
”Digital sequence information” (DSI) refers to genetic data derived from biodiversity, which is often sourced from species in biodiversity-rich developing countries.
These countries have long called for an international mechanism to ensure that the benefits of DSI are shared fairly with the people living where the resources were “discovered”, including Indigenous communities.
At COP16, countries agreed to the first-ever global fund, called the Cali Fund, for companies profiting from genetic data to contribute to conservation goals on a voluntary basis.
However, experts have cautioned that much rests on whether countries develop strong national laws to support the COP16 agreement. This could include incentivising companies in their regions to contribute to the fund.
In the GBF, target 13 and goal C address elements of DSI, including the sharing of benefits from genetic resources and their digital derivatives.
According to the report, 79% of countries submitted national targets that address legal, policy and administrative measures to enable benefit-sharing from DSI. Some 71% included measures to facilitate access to genetic resources.
The report finds that the “strongest progress” has been in developing laws and policies, which are now at an intermediate stage.
The “most fundamental regulatory barrier”, according to many countries cited, is the lack of a “dedicated” national framework to enable access to genetic resources and share benefits with communities.
This would involve enacting laws compatible with the GBF, setting up digital registries to catalogue and trace genetic resources, as well as implementing tracking systems to monitor how they are used. It would also include a financial mechanism to pay communities for the use of their traditional knowledge.
Progress in monitoring monetary and non-monetary benefits from DSI is “much weaker” and is “particularly limited” for measures related to the Cali fund.
According to the report, most parties have “no monitoring systems [for evaluating benefits from genetic resources] in place, or [are] still developing them”. It says they add that the benefits from genetic resources are hard to track “across borders and along value chains through to the final product”.
For those that have tracked benefits, it says that countries reported a cumulative $6.9m in receipts from the use of genetic resources between 2022 and 2025. It adds that “several parties reported that they had received no monetary benefits” to date.
Countries also reported more than 960 non-monetary benefits, ranging from technical training to research participation. The report cautions that these “fluctuated over time rather than increasing consistently, and cannot be seen as indicative of global benefit-sharing”.
In December 2025, Carbon Brief reported that the Cali fund had received only one contribution of $1,000 as an “icebreaker”. No other major companies have stepped up to fill the fund.
Meanwhile, the report states that the formal protection of traditional knowledge held by Indigenous peoples and local communities remained “underdeveloped”.
It says that a “significant number” of countries raised concerns about gaps in recognition of Indigenous peoples’ rights and dedicated registries to document their traditional knowledge.
The report says it is not yet possible to assess progress towards goal C:
“To date it is not possible to comment on whether benefits are being shared fairly and equitably nor on the role played by traditional knowledge and Indigenous peoples and local communities. Therefore, progress towards goal C cannot yet be assessed.”
Pollution
Target 7 of the GBF focuses on tackling pollution from pesticides, chemicals, plastic and other sources.
It calls for countries to reduce pollution risks and negative impacts “from all sources” to “levels that are not harmful” to biodiversity and ecosystems by 2030.
It also aims to reduce excess nutrients in the environment and overall risks from pesticides and hazardous chemicals by “at least half”.
The draft report finds that there is no significant change or insufficient progress on 60% of national targets categorised as being highly aligned with target 7. Only one-third of these national targets (35%) are on track to be achieved by 2030.
On average, it says countries have addressed around half of the various elements of target 7 “to some extent” in their national targets.
The most frequently-mentioned aspect of the target – addressed by 72% of countries – refers to reducing pollution from all sources by 2030.
One headline indicator related to target 7 focuses on the concentration of pesticides in the environment.
Just five countries out of 125 submitted estimates on this, according to the report. It says only one country has met the aim of halving the overall risk from pesticides on a national basis so far.
Measures to address plastic pollution are the most frequently reported actions by countries in relation to this target, including bans on single-use bags and straws.
A number of countries in Europe and Asia have also implemented measures to reduce nutrient losses from fertilisers and slurry.
A “major challenge” for countries in advancing pollution aims is “effectively and fairly considering and managing impacts on food security and livelihoods”, according to the report.
Several countries point to a lack of national funding to implement measures towards achieving this target.
Some developing countries also list poor wastewater-treatment infrastructure as a “persistent challenge” on this issue.
Invasive species
Invasive alien species refers to those that have moved to and become established in a region outside their natural habitat, as a result of human activities. This has negative impacts for local biodiversity and ecosystems.
Target 6 of the GBF calls for countries to, among other things, reduce the rates of introduction and establishment of invasive alien species by 50% by 2030.
The draft report says countries are “taking action” on this target, but progress is “difficult to assess”.
Two-thirds of national targets aligned with target 6 show “no significant progress or insufficient progress”, it finds. Fewer than one-third are on track to be achieved by 2030 and just 1% of these national targets have already been achieved.
But most countries have made progress in putting in place measures to manage invasive species – mostly focusing on reducing the introduction rate and impact of species.
Countries have addressed around half of the different elements of the invasive species target “to some extent” in their national targets, finds the report.
But fewer than one-third (30%) have set national targets that put a numeric goal on reducing invasive species.
Island biosecurity programmes and measures to intercept invasive species at country borders are among the actions countries have put in place to tackle the issue.
The report lists some barriers countries say stand in the way of achieving the target. These include a lack of baseline data from which to measure a 50% reduction rate, poor early-detection systems and a lack of funding for long-term reduction efforts.
Some countries also cite capacity and technical challenges in monitoring invasive species, according to the report.
They say many of these species “go unnoticed for years before impacts become apparent”, it adds, with countries arguing that setting a specific reduction target is “challenging”.
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The post World falling short on 22 of 23 nature targets for 2030, says draft UN report appeared first on Carbon Brief.
World falling short on 22 of 23 nature targets for 2030, says draft UN report
Rising temperatures are redistributing the risk of childhood malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in areas of “new risk” in the east and south of the continent, but also “relief hotspots” in western Africa.
This is according to a new study, published in Nature, which provides the “most comprehensive look to date at the impact of climate change on any infectious disease”.
The research finds that since the year 1900, climate change has resulted in one extra case of malaria for every 1,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa on average.
Over the 21st century, climate change is expected to drive down malaria rates across the continent on average, as temperatures rise above the optimum range for mosquitoes.
However, the authors emphasise that continent-wide averages hide more detailed local trends.
They find that cooler parts of Africa face an increase in malaria risk, as rising temperatures have made the regions more suitable for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, while warmer regions see a suppression in malaria cases.
The lead author tells Carbon Brief that this is the first study to use “attribution” – a field of climate science which uses models to compare conditions in a world with global warming to one without – to assess the impact of climate change on malaria.
The study also reveals that climate change is not the main driver of shifting malaria risk in Africa, with public health measures and government policy making a more significant impact.
The “most important” message from the study, according to another expert, is that to eliminate malaria entirely, “effective surveillance, prevention and treatment remain substantially more influential – and more actionable – than climate change alone”.
Childhood malaria
Malaria kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 610,000 people died due to the disease in 2024.
The disease is transmitted to humans by bites from mosquitoes infected with the malaria parasite. Malaria spreads most rapidly in warm, wet regions, where the parasite-carrying mosquitoes can live and breed.
However, malaria is preventable. A total of 42 countries – mainly in Europe and the Americas – have eliminated the disease entirely through a combination of measures including insecticide use, draining the swamplands that provide breeding habitats for mosquitoes and improving basic healthcare services .Global mortality from malaria declined by 90% over the 20th century.
Today, the vast majority of malaria cases are recorded in Africa, which was home to 95% of malaria cases and deaths in 2024. Children under the age of five make up three-quarters of all African malaria deaths.
The malaria-causing parasite can be detected using a blood test. Over the last century, scientists, government officials and healthcare professionals have collected thousands of blood samples from people across sub-Saharan Africa and tested for the presence of the malaria parasite.
In 2017, scientists brought together more than 50,000 samples collected from sub-Saharan Africa over 1900-2016. This data provides a “snapshot” of the amount of malaria in the population in any year in the last century the study explains.
Dr Colin Carlson is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale school of public health and lead author of the study. He tells Carbon Brief that malaria in Africa is “extraordinarily well documented”, as a result of academic interest and colonial rule in the continent.
The size and quality of the malaria dataset are “exceptionally rare”, Carlson says. He explains that the dataset stretches back to before the impacts of human-caused climate change were strongly felt, making it “extraordinarily” valuable for this analysis.
The chart below shows the percentage of children between two and 10 years old who tested positive for the malaria parasite over 1900-2016. Each dot indicates one blood test result and the pink vertical bars indicate periods of “successful malaria prevention intervention”, such as the 1955-69 global malaria eradication programme.
Attribution
The authors use the blood test survey data to develop a statistical model separating out the climatic, social and economic factors that affect malaria, such as temperature, rainfall, economic development, healthcare and population changes. This allows the authors to isolate the effects of the climate on malaria.
They find that malaria prevalence in children peaks when average monthly temperatures reach 24.9C, dropping off in warmer and cooler climates.
Mosquitoes also need stagnant or slow-moving water in which to lay their eggs. The authors find that periods of drought tend to decrease malaria prevalence one-to-two months later, whereas floods increase prevalence two-to-three months later. However, they conclude that rainfall is “less important than temperature” in predicting malaria rates.
They then combine the statistical models with climate models, to simulate childhood malaria rates in a range of past and future climates.
First, the authors simulate malaria rates in the present day, by running the models using the climate of 2000-14. They then carry out the same analysis, using the climate of a hypothetical world without human-caused climate change.
By comparing the two, the authors were able to attribute the impact of climate change on malaria rates across Africa.
The link between climate change and malaria in Africa is complex and “surprisingly contentious”, according to the authors. For example, they write that “malaria resurgence in the east African highlands became a particular point of contention, with over a dozen studies arguing for or against climate change as a substantial driver”.
It adds:
“Today, malaria experts generally agree that climate change has contributed to elevational shifts in malaria epidemics and the geographical ranges of mosquito vectors. However, the cumulative effect of climate change on the burden of malaria is still an open question.”
Lead author Carlson says this paper is “one of the first impact attributions on infectious disease” and the first attribution study on climate change and malaria. He adds:
“I think it’s the most clarity we’ve had on the malaria question.”
Dr Teresa Yamana, an associate research scientist at Columbia University, who was not involved in the study, praises its “rigorous” methodology. She tells Carbon Brief that the work “demonstrates the potential of climate attribution methods to quantify the impacts of climate change on infectious diseases”.
Warming world
The findings show that “climate change isn’t just making malaria worse or better – it’s moving it, says study author Prof Tamma Carleton, an assistant professor at UC Berkeley:
“Whether a place sees elevated malaria risks or reduced burdens under climate change depends on how hot it is today. We see relief in the hotspots and new risk nearly everywhere else.”
For example, in the Ethiopian highlands, low temperatures – which are unsuitable for mosquitoes to live and breed – have historically limited the spread of malaria. However, the region has seen childhood malaria rates increase by more than eight cases per 1,000 children since the year 1900 as rising temperatures have allowed the insects to expand their habitat.
The authors also found a similar increase in malaria prevalence in cooler southern African countries.
In contrast, global warming is pushing average temperatures above the ideal range for mosquitoes in many hotter parts of Africa, driving down malaria rates. The authors find that in western Africa, climate change has caused a reduction of four malaria cases per 1,000 children per year by 2014, reducing prevalence by 1-2%.
Overall, climate change has resulted in one extra case of malaria for every 1,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa since the year 1900, the study says.
The authors also run their models for three future climate scenarios: low (SSP1-2.6), intermediate (SSP2-4.5) and very-high (SSP5-8.5) emissions pathways. Comparing these to the present-day model results shows how climate change could affect malaria cases over the coming century.
They find that the trends observed so far will largely continue into the future – meaning climate change will lower the prevalence of malaria in warm regions and increase the prevalence in cool regions.
The study concludes that under the intermediate scenario, which is broadly in line with current climate policies, warming will drive down childhood malaria cases by about three cases per 1,000 children in central Africa and 16 cases per 1,000 children in west Africa by the end of the century.
By contrast, cases could increase by around 20% over the same period in regions such as the Rift Valley and coastal southern Africa – a rise of 30 cases per 1,000 children.
The maps below show changes in childhood malaria prevalence due to climate change in today’s climate (left) and the climate of 2096-2100 under the intermediate scenario (right).
Red indicates an increase in malaria prevalence and blue indicates a decrease. Greyer colours indicate greater uncertainty in the model results. White indicates regions where no data was collected.
Carlson tells Carbon Brief that this is “the first study to really confidently answer the highland East Africa debate”.
Eradicating malaria
Healthcare workers, governments and scientists have been working to eliminate malaria for decades.
On average, the authors find that climate change will reduce the prevalence of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, as temperatures rise above the optimum range for mosquitoes. This effect is more pronounced at higher warming levels.
Under the low emissions scenario, about 1 case per 1,000 children will be averted by the end of the century. Meanwhile under the highest emissions scenario, average prevalence falls by 20 cases per 1,000 children, marking a 9% reduction.
The graph below shows childhood malaria rates over 1990-2024 in the historical climate (blue) and in a world without climate change (grey). These estimates are shown relative to baseline prevalence across 1901-30.
After the year 2014, the plot shows projected future changes in malaria prevalence, relative to a 2015-20 baseline, in the low (purple), intermediate (pink) and high (green) scenarios.
Carlson emphasises that this does not mean that climate change is “good news” for healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa. He explains that climate change will bring a wide range of negative health impacts that will strain healthcare systems, adding:
“A world that is too hot for malaria is not a good world for the health of children.”
He also notes that climate change is “not the primary driving factor of malaria dynamics”. For example, he notes that malaria prevalence fell over 2000-15, by about 16 percentage points, after the disease was identified as a “critical global target of the Millennium Development Goals”.
This reduction is 200 times greater than the increase seen so far because of climate change, Carlson says. He adds:
“It would not be tremendously hard both to keep malaria out of new places and to eliminate it where it is maybe going to get a little bit of an assist from climate change.”
Dr Adugna Woyessa is a senior researcher at the Ethiopian Public Health Institute and was not involved in the study. He has previously carried out research on malaria in eastern Africa.
Woyessa praises the study, telling Carbon Brief that the research could bring about a “paradigm shift” in efforts to eliminate malaria. He argues that the study is a “tool for engaging giant development partners”, adding that “future work will be needed to situate these global trends in local contexts”.
Dr Janey Messina is an associate professor in the school of geography and the environment at the University of Oxford and was also not involved in the study. She praises the paper’s “strong” method.
However, she cautions that the findings “should not be interpreted as forecasts of total future malaria burden”, because they only model the impact of climate change on malaria, while excluding “social, demographic and public-health determinants”, such as inequality, migration, conflict and changing access to malaria interventions.
She adds:
“One of the paper’s most important messages is this: effective surveillance, prevention and treatment remain substantially more influential – and more actionable – than climate change alone.”
Carlson, C. et al. (2026) The past and future impact of climate change on childhood malaria in Africa, Nature, doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10840-w
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The post Climate change is driving a ‘shift’ in childhood malaria risk across Africa appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate change is driving a ‘shift’ in childhood malaria risk across Africa
China has released its “15th five-year plan for the development of renewable energy”, outlining key targets and policies for the sector in 2026-2030.
A key focus of the plan is boosting renewable generation and consumption as a share of China’s overall energy mix.
It calls for continued capacity additions of wind and solar – albeit at lower levels than previous years – as well as hydropower, biomass and other clean-energy sources.
Specifically, China will aim to install 3,500 gigawatts (GW) of renewables capacity by 2030, 2,800GW will be wind and solar.
The country had previously pledged to install 1,200GW of wind and solar by 2030, a goal that China met six years early.
Another major theme is the provision of wind and solar supply that is “dependable” and “grid-friendly”.
Setting a target for “dependable output” from wind and solar could help to entrench their role as a provider of “energy security”, according to analysts.
The government also aims to boost renewables consumption by developing non-power uses of renewable energy, in sectors such as steel and chemicals.
Below, Carbon Brief examines the key targets and policies outlined in the five-year plan and what they mean for China’s energy transition.
- Why are China’s five-year plans important?
- What overarching renewables targets are in the plan?
- Why does the plan focus on ‘firm capacity’ for renewables?
- What does the plan say about ‘distributed’ energy?
- What does the plan say about non-electricity use of renewables?
- What does the plan say about China’s cleantech dominance?
Why are China’s five-year plans important?
Five-year plans are key to China’s political system. An overarching plan, covering all socioeconomic issues of importance to policy leaders, is published at the beginning of each five-year cycle.
The plan for the 15th five-year period (2026-2030) was published in March 2026.
It includes what the government considers to be the most important targets and policy signals for climate and energy. For example, binding targets for carbon intensity, the share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption and total energy production capacity.
Following this overarching document, five-year plans focused on specific sectors or themes are then published over the course of the five-year plan period.
This year, the government has already published several five-year plans related to energy and climate change. One covers the development of the “new-type” energy sector more broadly. Another wraps climate goals together with other environmental targets under the “Beautiful China” programme.
By contrast, the renewables five-year plan focuses specifically on the development of hydropower, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and wave energy.
It was published in late July by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top economic planning agency, and the National Energy Administration (NEA).
It covers topics including capacity and generation targets, as well as efforts to increase integration and reliability of wind and solar. It also has policies to encourage “non-power use” of renewable energy and ways to strengthen innovation of clean-energy technologies.
What overarching renewables targets are in the plan?
China will aim to install 3,500 gigawatts (GW) of renewables capacity by 2030, according to the five-year plan.
Of this, 2,800GW will be wind and solar – a pledge reiterated from China’s action plan for peaking carbon emissions, which was released earlier this month.
The goal more than doubles a previous 2030 target for wind and solar to reach 1,200GW, which China met six years early.
As of June 2026, the country has installed just under 2,000GW of wind and solar capacity, as well as 454GW of hydropower. Biomass, geothermal and wave energy hold very small shares of the overall energy mix.
As such, China would need to build 160GW of wind and solar each year – and just under 220GW of renewable capacity in total – to meet the targets.
The country installed 277GW of new solar alone in 2024 – and 315GW in 2025.
A key part of meeting the targets will be the development of large-scale clean-energy bases in China’s northern regions. These will generate power to be exported elsewhere via ultra-high voltage lines. The plan also encourages greater “local consumption” and installations of distributed energy (see below).
The plan says that further research will be directed at increasing the renewable share of electricity generated by these large-scale energy bases to 100%.
A recent report by the thinktank Global Energy Monitor (GEM) finds that output from these bases “continues to be paired with coal-fired generation in the name of balancing and system flexibility”. It says that currently, coal generates 42% of the power transmitted to the rest of the country from these bases.
China will also add more hydropower, says the plan, with capacity rising from 448GW in 2025 to 570GW in 2030. Some 160GW of this will be pumped-storage hydropower.
Meanwhile, the plan sets a target for renewable power generation to reach 6,000 terawatt-hours (TWh), 4,000TWh of which would come from wind and solar.
This would be a 50% increase in five years as renewables generated just under 4,000TWh of electricity in 2025, according to the National Energy Administration.
By 2030, the plan says that total consumption of renewable energy will stand at 1.8bn tonnes of coal equivalent (Gtce).
This would be up from 1.2Gtce in 2025, which represented about one-fifth of China’s total energy consumption of 6.2Gtce that year.
The renewable targets in the plan are lower than those suggested in a recent study by high-profile Chinese scholars.
The study, from the department of energy and power engineering and the Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development at Tsinghua University in Beijing, assessed the “likelihood of China attaining its carbon peak” under different pathways.
It found that, in order to meet its climate commitments, China would need to either install more than 4,000GW of “non-fossil energy capacity” before 2030, or to “maintain a total energy consumption” below 6.5Gtce.
The table below outlines some of the key renewables targets for 2030, as specified in the plan.
| Key targets for 2030, adapted from 15th five-year plan for renewable energy | |||
| Type | 2025 | 2030 | Percentage change |
| Renewable energy use | 1.2Gtce | 1.8Gtce | 53% |
| Total renewables capacity | 2,340GW | 3,500GW | 50% |
| Wind and solar capacity | 1,840GW | More than 2,800GW | 52% |
| Of which: Solar thermal | 1.8GW | 15GW | 733% |
| Hydro capacity | 450GW | 570GW | 27% |
| Of which: Pumped storage hydropower | 66GW | 160GW | 142% |
| Wave energy | – | 0.4GW | – |
| Renewable generation | 4,000TWh | 6,000TWh | 50% |
| Of which: Wind and solar | 2,300TWh | 4,000TWh | 74% |
| Non-electricity use | 60Mtce | 150Mtce | 150% |
| Renewable hydrogen | 0.25Mt | 2Mt | 700% |
Why does the plan focus on ‘firm capacity’ for renewables?
As well as increasing the overall size of China’s renewable power supply, the country must also maintain an “uninterrupted and reliable power supply”, officials from the NDRC and NEA told state news agency Xinhua in coverage of the new plan.
To support this goal, the plan says that the development of renewables will “enter a new stage”. This will mean that “improving quality and serving as a reliable alternative” to fossil fuels will be as important as “expanding scale”.
The plan, therefore, proposes targets for the “firm capacity” from wind and solar (置信出力). This is the amount plants or grids can be relied on to produce during critical supply periods, in conjunction with on-site storage.
The target for wind is a firm capacity of at least 11% of total installed capacity by 2030, while the equivalent goal for solar is 6%.
Wind and solar will also be expected to supply more than 20% of total demand in peak periods during the summer and winter evenings, says the plan. It expects “reliable peak-shaving capacity from renewable sources” to reach more than 300GW.
The new targets are a “positive move”, says Yao Zhe, global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, as it “only applies during peak load and critical supply periods, when coal power is typically used to stabilise the power supply”.
She adds that this could, theoretically, “prevent the construction of new coal-fired power projects that are proposed and approved for the reason of meeting peak demand”.
The new metrics mark a change in focus, says Lyu Wenbin, director general of the Energy Research Institute – a state thinktank under the NDRC – in an “explanatory reading” posted on BJX News. He says it “marks a shift in renewable energy development from the mere pursuit of installed capacity to…also taking into account system support capabilities”.
The plan pledges to “accelerate the construction of grid-friendly wind and solar power stations”. It says this will enhance “reliable peak-load generation” and strengthen renewables’ ability to ensure “safe and stable operation” of the grid.
It says this will particularly be a focus in the energy-hungry east, central and south areas of China.
It sets out a slightly different focus for areas that already have a high share of renewables in their power mix, such as north-west China. Here, the aim will be to develop wind and solar parks that are “capable of providing voltage, frequency and inertia support”.
“This is a real challenge”, says James Norman, research analyst at GEM. He says these challenges are particularly acute in some circumstances:
“[For example], when the share of wind and solar is very high, relatively few synchronous generators (like coal) are online or large volumes of electricity are being transferred through high voltage DC lines.”
The plan mentions many technological solutions to address the problem, he tells Carbon Brief. However, he adds, there are no quantitative details for the issue. For example, he notes there is no target for “how many gigawatts of wind and solar must gain grid-forming capability”. This is in contrast to the goals for overall renewables capacity or generation.
Norman was a co-author on the recent GEM report, which identified further barriers to renewable uptake. It said these include transmission bottlenecks, alongside systemic features such as dispatching and power-contract mechanisms.
As a result, said the report, renewable power – especially solar – is increasingly being “curtailed”, particularly in north-western and northern provinces.
Yao also notes that the plan does not “spell out specific measures to address systemic constraints” around the electricity grid and the role of coal in the power sector.
“I interpret this as evidence that the vested interests are still strong in the policy debate,” she adds.
What does the plan say about ‘distributed’ energy?
Alongside gigawatt-scale clean-energy megabases, China also aims to expand construction of “distributed” energy. This means smaller-scale installations, such as rooftop solar.
More than 300GW of “distributed new energy” is to be added over 2026-30, some 60GW per year.
The plan aims for distributed new energy to be adopted in sectors such as industry, transport, buildings and agriculture.
Applications include the use of distributed solar and wind in industrial parks, coal mines and oilfields, as well as encouraging residents to install solar panels on buildings and developing rural clean-energy grids.
In some regions, distributed solar and wind is “likely to meet a large proportion of local demand”, says Prof Pan Jiahua at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou). He tells Carbon Brief that micro- and mini-grids using such resources will be particularly important in central and coastal China.
The 60GW annual target for new distributed energy is not “overly ambitious”, says Isadora Wang, head of China at the thinktank Transition Asia. She tells Carbon Brief that distributed solar additions, alone, exceeded 100GW in both 2024 and 2025.
Cosimo Ries, analyst at the consultancy Trivium China, agrees that the target is reachable. The biggest question mark, he tells Carbon Brief, is whether it will continue to make sense for industry and utilities to build distributed power at the volumes seen during the 14th five-year plan period.
He adds that market conditions for distributed solar have deteriorated sharply over the past two years. He says a range of factors have hit investor confidence:
“[Distributed solar faces] growing exposure to market trading, worsening returns in spot markets, growing risks of curtailment and new policies limiting or forbidding the selling of power back to the grid.”
What does the plan say about non-electricity use of renewables?
The plan also sets goals for renewable energy’s role in “non-electricity use”.
This means using renewable energy for purposes other than generating electricity, through converting it to other forms, such as heat or mechanical energy.
The government is aiming for non-power use to nearly triple from 60m tonnes of coal equivalent (Mtce) in 2025 to 150Mtce in 2030.
Ries tells Carbon Brief that he thinks this target is “one of the main highlights” of the plan. However, he notes that limited available data means it is hard to assess the level of its ambition. He adds that, given the relative conservatism of China’s other recent clean-energy targets, this one may also be met relatively easily.
Key applications for non-power use of renewables include “green hydrogen, ammonia and methanol”, says the plan. It also points to using wind and solar for heat, as well as to biomass and geothermal for heating and cooling.
Green hydrogen, ammonia and methanol are the “centrepiece” of the non-power push, according to state-owned newspaper Economic Information Daily.
For hydrogen alone, China plans to scale up renewable hydrogen production to 2m tonnes in 2030, up from 250,000 tonnes in 2025.
Today, non-power use of renewables accounts for only around 1% of China’s total energy consumption, NEA and NDRC officials said in a Q&A. They added that there is “considerable room for growth” in sectors such as industry, transport and buildings.
Potential new applications include the use of wind and solar for heat. This could see the use of centralised wind and solar heating stations in the chemicals, textiles, pharmaceuticals, papermaking and food sectors.
New projects in the steel and cement sectors should use locally-generated wind and solar to power electric-arc furnaces and kilns, adds the plan.
Wang tells Carbon Brief that she believes the naming of individual sectors is a “clear indication” that they will be included in China’s renewable consumption quotas. These already cover aluminium and other heavy industry sectors.
She adds that power and heat demand from the named sectors may help absorb distributed renewable energy. It will also serve as a testing ground for matching demand with supply through increased grid flexibility and power price reforms.
To Ries, the growing focus on non-power use signals that China’s decarbonisation efforts are “now entering deeper waters”. That means regulators are turning from easier-to-abate sectors, such as aluminium, to more challenging industries, such as steel.
The plan could create a “second growth curve” for the new-energy industry, says He Zhao, in a commentary for China Power News Net. He, the vice-president of the China Electric Power Planning and Engineering Institute (EPPEI). says this might begin with non-power use, before shifting to fuel, feedstock and heat substitution.
What does the plan say about China’s cleantech dominance?
The next five years is a prime opportunity for China to “consolidate our leading position across the entire industrial chain” for clean-energy technologies, says the plan.
It adds that the government will “strengthen technological innovation” and accelerate the roll-out of new applications of artificial intelligence in China’s renewable-energy system.
A particular focus for new R&D will be “cutting-edge, original and disruptive technologies”. It also points to technologies that “enhance the reliability of renewable energy” as a substitute for fossil fuels.
The plan names technologies for further development. For wind power, these include “reliable and low-cost” blades, ultra-tall towers and new types of floating platforms. It also mentions the development of “high-altitude wind power”. For solar, it points to the development of perovskite and other “high efficiency” solar cells, as well as space-solar technologies.
The plan also pledges to develop a power market that supports the “full entry” of renewable-energy companies. It underscores that companies should plan for an increasingly market-based and competitive environment.
Meanwhile, the government will also deepen cooperation with other countries on clean energy and “advance” global climate cooperation, it says.
A priority will be “strengthening” international coordination on investment and development in “green energy projects”. Another is “actively promoting the free circulation of China’s high-quality green technologies and products in global markets”.
Chinese exports of clean-energy technologies have been surging, especially since the closure of the strait of Hormuz.
At the same time, Chinese investment in clean-energy projects in Belt and Road Initiative member states totalled $20bn in the first half of 2026. This is also driven by the crisis.
The US, EU and others have launched tariffs and pricing mechanisms to curb imports of Chinese cleantech. This has contributed to pushback from China, against what it and others refer to as “unilateral trade measures”.
China is transitioning from a “major energy nation” (能源大国) to an “energy powerhouse” (能源强国), writes the Energy Research Institute’s Lyu in his explanatory reading. He says this will enable China to increasingly shift to building “systemic” advantages in developing clean-energy technologies.
He continues that, from 2026-2030, China will “move to the very forefront of the global stage” on clean energy, “venturing into uncharted territory”. This will create both “major new challenges and significant opportunities” for the country, he adds.
The post Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ for renewables mean for climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ for renewables mean for climate change?
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