Wealthy nations have committed to providing billions of dollars of “climate finance” to developing countries, as part of the global effort to tackle climate change.
At the COP29 climate summit, nations must decide on a new global goal to replace the existing target of $100bn each year.
Delivering this money is widely viewed as important for helping vulnerable nations in the global south and maintaining trust between countries in UN climate talks.
Yet, for decades, climate finance has been plagued by accusations of exaggerated numbers, poor transparency and money going to “questionable” places. Much of this stems from a lack of consensus on what counts as “climate finance”.
Most climate finance comes from the aid budgets of a handful of developed states, including western Europe, the US and Japan. Governments use their own criteria to assess “climate finance”, often prompting criticism from civil society groups and developing countries.
Most climate finance goes towards legitimate causes. However, analysis of the available data reveals examples of countries reporting funds going to, say, fossil fuels and airports. Some donors report finance that may never be spent and others hand out loans that, ultimately, see them making a profit.
These activities are all allowed under the UN climate finance system.
As countries gather to negotiate a new climate-finance target at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Carbon Brief – in no particular order – explores six of the issues that make climate finance such a “wild west”.
- There is no agreed definition of what counts as ‘climate finance’
- Climate-finance accounting is not consistent or transparent
- Some climate finance is not helping to tackle climate change
- Reliance on loans ‘overstates’ climate finance flows
- Countries are reporting money that may never get spent
- Climate finance is used to boost donors’ economic interests
1. There is no agreed definition of what counts as ‘climate finance’
There is no universal agreement on what should, or should not, count towards the international “climate finance” provided by developed countries to developing countries.
Unofficial definitions, including those of the UN Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), broadly agree that climate finance should support activities that cut emissions or help adapt to climate change.
As for the types of finance that should count, nations decided that the $100bn target would cover “a wide variety of sources”, including public money, support via multilateral development banks (MDBs) and private investment spurred by public spending.
However, the kinds of activities and finance streams falling into these broad categories are open to interpretation. In practice, governments of developed countries use their own methodologies and set their own rules when reporting climate finance.
Developed countries also pledged to provide climate finance that is “new and additional” – a term often taken to mean extra funding on top of other aid programmes. However, this framing is contested and, in practice, much of the reported climate finance comes from existing development budgets.
Prof Romain Weikmans, an international climate-finance researcher at the Free University of Brussels, tells Carbon Brief that developed countries have “diverging understandings on what should count as climate finance and on how to count it”. He adds that reporting requirements negotiated at the UN “allow countries to remain vague”.
Many expert analyses have concluded that self-reporting by governments, facing political pressure to act on climate change, contributes to an “overestimation” of total climate finance.
While it was widely reported that, based on OECD data, developed countries met the $100bn target two years late in 2022, Weikmans says the lack of a universal definition “makes it impossible to assess whether the $100bn has been met or not”.
The chart below shows how different assumptions about “climate finance” by key financial organisations lead to divergent estimates of how much has been provided.
Igor Shishlov, head of climate finance at Perspectives Climate Group, tells Carbon Brief that the lack of clarity contributes to an “erosion of trust” in climate negotiations between developed and developing countries.
These tensions have existed since the start of UN climate negotiations in the 1990s. An attempt by COP presidencies in 2015 to “reassure” nations about progress towards the $100bn goal with a special OECD report ended up sparking more disputes.
(A response at the time from the Indian Ministry of Finance – reflected in the chart above – estimated that climate finance was 26 times smaller than the OECD estimate. This was based on money that had been paid out, rather than pledged, from climate funds deemed “new and additional”.)
Efforts since then to agree on a definition have failed. Joe Thwaites, a senior advocate on international climate finance at NRDC, tells Carbon Brief that both developed and developing countries contribute to this deadlock:
“Developed countries oppose a definition that would restrict climate finance to certain financial instruments, while petrostates oppose a definition that would exclude counting funding for fossil-fuel projects as climate finance.”
As countries negotiate the “new collective quantified goal” (NCQG) for climate finance at COP29, observers say it is unlikely that nations will make significant progress on a comprehensive definition.
2. Climate-finance accounting is not consistent or transparent
The systems for climate-finance accounting have been described as full of “inconsistencies” and “discrepancies”, as well as “prone to huge overestimations”.
Joseph Kraus, senior policy director at the ONE Campaign, which has attempted its own assessment of climate finance based on available data, tells Carbon Brief:
“Climate finance accounting is like the wild west: Every climate finance provider makes its own rules about what to count. Predictably, that makes it virtually impossible to get accurate numbers.”
Governments report their climate-finance contributions to three major international bodies: the OECD; the UNFCCC; and, in the case of EU member states, the European Commission.
Most climate finance is drawn from developed countries’ aid budgets and they register their bilateral contributions in the OECD Creditor Reporting System (CRS). Officials then mark projects as being related to climate mitigation or adaptation.
This “Rio marker system” was implemented in 1998 to assess whether aid projects align with the three “Rio Conventions” on climate change, biodiversity and desertification.
The tags were never meant to define the amount of “climate finance” counted under the UN system. They have effectively filled the gap left by the lack of official guidance.
Most developed countries use the data submitted to the OECD CRS to guide what they report as “official” climate finance in reports to the UNFCCC. Only a handful, including the UK and the US, assess projects on a more case-by-case basis.
Governments use the Rio Markers to calculate climate finance in different ways. Most say they count 100% of the projects where climate has been marked as a “principal” objective towards their UNFCCC totals.
Projects where climate is deemed “significant”, implying a partial focus on climate, vary a lot more. Countries state that they report between 30% and 50% of these projects as climate finance.
Analysts have warned that the blanket application of fixed percentages is arbitrary and can lead to figures being inflated. They also note that, in practice, UNFCCC and OECD figures are difficult to compare and do not always match up in the ways countries report them.
The figures for bilateral climate finance that developed countries report to the UNFCCC are used as the basis for the OECD’s annual reports of progress towards the $100bn goal. They are combined with the OECD’s figures for MDBs, multilateral funds and the private sector.
(These are generally cited as the definitive figures for $100bn tracking, although they are contested. The OECD does not provide a breakdown of contributors to the target and its reports are released two years in arrears, making real-time scrutiny difficult.)
While the OECD screens projects reported in its system, it has no power to amend those that have been marked “incorrectly”. Analysis by Development Initiatives of climate-related aid projects found countries, such as France, Japan and Australia, frequently tagged projects that “deviated” from OECD guidance – those that include fossil fuels, for example.
Independent audits in Denmark, the Netherlands and the EU have all found significant evidence of “climate” projects being mislabelled, or their relevance overstated.
Reflecting on the wider state of climate-finance accounting, Thwaites tells Carbon Brief:
“I think understanding of climate finance is getting better, both through improvements in official reporting and through greater scrutiny from journalists and civil society. But as those third-party audits have shown, there is much room for improvement.”
All of this is further complicated by the lack of transparency from governments, when reporting their official climate-finance contributions to the UNFCCC. The lack of detail in submissions makes it difficult to assess the relevance of each project for tackling climate change.
For example, NGO FragDenStaat has documented its difficulties evaluating the German government’s claim that its climate finance reached a “record level” in 2022.
Poor transparency makes it difficult for those in developing countries as well. Turkish banks have received millions of dollars in climate finance from Germany and France, but there is little information provided either by the banks or the donors on how it is used.
“Citizens have no access to any information about these public funds,” Özgür Gürbüz, campaign director of the Turkish NGO Ekosfer, tells Carbon Brief.
Sehr Raheja, a programme officer specialising in climate finance at the Centre for Science and Environment in India, tells Carbon Brief:
“Implications…include the inability to clearly hold actors accountable, or even first understand the complete reality of the situation of climate finance for developing countries.”
Such scrutiny is important. The UK has traditionally been viewed as one of the more rigorous climate-finance reporters, but the government loosened its accounting system in 2023 to bring it more in line with those of less strict donors.
In doing so, an independent audit found that the UK added an extra £1.7bn ($2.2bn) to its projected climate finance spending without contributing any new funds, as the chart below shows.
3. Some climate finance is not helping to tackle climate change
Climate-finance databases contain details of tens of thousands of projects operating in developing countries around the world.
Most of these projects have clear links to tackling climate change. They might, for example, support solar power projects in Kenya, the construction of a train line in India, or improving the climate resilience of drought-prone farms in Guatemala.
However, among them are aid projects that may bring benefits to the target countries, but have little or no relevance for tackling climate change. Some could even undermine such efforts, by supporting fossil fuels and carbon-intensive sectors.
Stacy-ann Robinson, a climate-adaptation finance researcher at Emory University in the US state of Georgia, tells Carbon Brief that some climate finance “has been going to questionable places to support objectives that are clearly not related to…reducing vulnerability or increasing resilience”.
Some assessments indicate that “inaccurately” categorised climate projects are relatively common among the largest donors, notably Japan and France. NGOs have also identified many “troubling and high-emitting projects” reported as climate finance by MDBs.
Over the years, researchers and journalists have unearthed climate finance being used to, for example, buy uniforms for park rangers, support anti-terrorism programmes and fund luxury hotels.
However, the overall lack of transparency makes it difficult to ascertain exactly how much money from these “questionable” projects is feeding into the official totals reported to the OECD.
An investigation by Reuters in 2023 uncovered $3bn of finance reported to the UNFCCC that had gone towards “programmes that do little or nothing to ease the effects of climate change”. However, Reuters noted that its review only covered around 10% of countries’ submissions.
Carbon Brief has identified at least $6.5bn of finance attributed to projects involving coal, oil and gas that has been tagged as climate-related in the OECD’s climate-related aid database, over the decade from 2012-2021. If countries have followed their own guidelines for reporting climate finance, much of this money will have been reported to the UNFCCC.
Japan is frequently cited for labelling fossil-fuel finance as climate finance, including billions of dollars for coal- and gas-fired power plants in places such as Bangladesh and Indonesia.
However, Carbon Brief’s assessment of the data reveals that some European countries have also been reporting smaller amounts of fossil fuel-related “climate finance”.
For example, Sweden counted around €5m for a gas-fired power plant in Mozambique between 2012 and 2015, while Germany supported a gas power plant in the Ivory Coast in 2022. In both cases, the governments have confirmed to Carbon Brief that projects marked in the OECD registry were also reported to the UNFCCC.
Defenders of fossil-fuel finance argue that developing countries need investment in cleaner or more efficient fossil-fuel infrastructure – and that this does, in fact, reduce emissions. Others argue that these funds simply should not be labelled as climate-related.
Another example of questionable climate finance comes from the French development finance institution Proparco, which provided a €20m loan to Cabo Verde Airports in 2023, a subsidiary of French construction company Vinci Group.
This project was too recent to have been officially reported to the UNFCCC. However, Proparco has reported that 20% of its financing for the project would lead to “climate co-benefits”, such as “renewable energy investments, the installation of LED lighting and the replacement of air-conditioning systems”.
At the same time, Vinci Group says its other goal is to help Cabo Verde boost tourism through increased traffic at its airports. The company has celebrated “record passenger numbers” at its Cabo Verde airports, where traffic increased by 17% year-on-year in August thanks to rising passenger flows from western Europe.
4. Reliance on loans ‘overstates’ climate finance flows
Most climate finance is delivered as loans to developing countries and their institutions. This is one of the most contentious issues in international climate-finance reporting.
More than half of the bilateral finance committed by wealthy countries – and around three-quarters of the investments by MDBs – comes in the form of loans, as shown by the red bars in the figure below.
In fact, the nations that consistently rank among the largest climate-finance providers – Japan, France and the US – all provide the majority of their climate finance as loans.
Loans have to be paid back, leading to climate finance returning to contributor countries as profits, through repayments plus interest. This has led to accusations by civil society groups that developed countries “overstate” their climate finance by leaning heavily on loans.
Public climate-finance institutions generally offer loans at lower-than-market “concessional” rates, or else with longer repayment periods.
However, Carbon Brief analysis shows that at least $18bn of official climate finance reported by developed countries between 2015 and 2020 – roughly 10% of the total – was “non-concessional”, as the chart below shows. (While less desirable than loans officially described as “concessional”, these public institution loans are still generally offered at better-than-market rates.)
The reliance on loans is especially controversial amid the debt crisis facing many developing countries.
The world’s least-developed countries and small-island developing states collectively spent twice as much repaying debts in 2022 as they received in climate finance, according to analysis by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
There has been considerable pressure from civil society, researchers, developing countries and even UN climate chief Simon Stiell to increase the “concessionality” of climate finance.
NGOs, such as Oxfam, argue that climate-related loans should be reported as “grant equivalents”, rather than at face value. This is a measure of how much the developed-country government is subsidising the loan.
Since 2018, development aid reported in the OECD’s database has been expressed in grant equivalents in order to better communicate the “financial effort” being made by donors.
However, when the OECD reports progress towards the $100bn climate-finance goal, drawing from developed countries’ reports to the UNFCCC, it still uses face-value figures for loans. This is one of the key reasons that developing countries have disputed these figures.
Oxfam releases an annual report that drastically downgrades the OECD figures, primarily by using grant equivalent values. Rather than exceeding the $100bn goal in 2022, the NGO argues that developed countries’ true financial effort only amounted to around $28-35bn that year.
From 2024, countries will be able to start reporting loans in grant-equivalent amounts to the UNFCCC in the newly introduced “biennial transparency reports” (BTRs) that all nations must file under the Paris Agreement. However, they are not required to do so, meaning it is unlikely that an “official” total for grant-equivalent loans will be available.
5. Countries are reporting money that may never get spent
Climate finance only has an impact when it is provided – or “disbursed” – to people and institutions who can use the money.
Yet some countries, including France, Germany and Denmark, choose not to report the amount of climate finance they have actually provided to developing countries.
Instead, they record the amount they have “committed”, or else a mix of committed and provided sums. These numbers feed into the totals reported by national governments and they count towards the $100bn target, even if the money has not left the donor country.
The OECD defines a commitment as a “firm written obligation by a government or official agency”. Over time, the amount of money provided should match the amount committed.
But between a nation committing money and handing it out, all sorts of things can change, as Mattias Söderberg, global climate lead at the NGO DanChurchAid, tells Carbon Brief:
“In some situations, projects are interrupted. Changes in the context or in the projects or within partners, for example, when there was a coup in Mali, means that committed funds may not be disbursed as planned.”
Climate projects could also collapse because a new government in the donor country decides to cancel the project for political or financial reasons. Other issues, such as shifting exchange rates, can also lead to divergences between committed and disbursed funds.
The reliance on commitments to meet climate-finance targets has drawn criticism. In its 2015 critique of progress towards the $100bn target, the Indian government said it needed “actual disbursements” rather than “promises, pledges or multi-year commitments about promised sums in the future”.
An analysis by ONE Campaign of climate-related aid reported to the OECD found that, of $616bn committed since 2013, data was missing for $69bn of disbursements and another $228bn had not yet been disbursed. (This data is not a direct reflection of “climate finance” under the UN, but it is a rough proxy.)
Some lag between commitments and payments is to be expected. Countries tend to commit to big climate-finance projects and then gradually pay out the money over time.
However, civil society groups have highlighted “significant differences” between committed and provided sums.
In recent years, EU member states have had to start reporting both commitments and disbursements. The chart below shows the sizable gap between the money Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Italy pledge and the amount they provide.
(It is worth noting that there is significant variability. Sweden sometimes provides more finance than it commits, whereas, in two years, France did not report disbursements at all.)
Identifying climate-finance projects that have completely failed to pay out is difficult. Governments are not obliged to report to the UNFCCC when they have provided finance and neither do they have to update the record to reflect any cancellations or changes.
Reuters identified three French climate projects between 2016-2018 – collectively worth half a billion dollars – that had been cancelled. This equates to 4% of France’s climate finance over this period.
“Commitments look better, so more effort is put into reporting them than into tracking actual disbursements,” Kraus from ONE Campaign tells Carbon Brief.
Civil society groups argue that all governments should start reporting disbursements to reduce the risk of “over-reporting”.
6. Climate finance is used to boost donors’ economic interests
Developed nations provide climate finance in a variety of different ways.
In projects that involve building infrastructure, such as windfarms and train lines, companies must be enlisted to work on the engineering and construction. Often, donor governments will work with firms based in their own countries to carry out climate projects.
The French Development Agency (AFD) has reported that the majority of its aid is entrusted to projects involving at least one French “economic actor”, resulting in significant economic benefits for the country.
Meanwhile, one-third of Japanese climate loans are given with the condition that Japanese companies are hired to work on the project, according to Reuters analysis of OECD data.
Stacy-ann Robinson of Emory University notes that this is not a “black-and-white” issue, as sometimes a company from the donor nation will be best placed to carry out the project. However, she notes that it has implications for capacity building in developing countries.
France has committed billions of dollars towards rail infrastructure in developing countries. Given France’s global leadership in the sector, a significant share of these projects have been implemented by French companies.
Project-level data about which companies are awarded contracts is not reported to the UNFCCC. However, one climate-finance project identified by Carbon Brief involves €230m worth of loans provided by AFD for an express regional train in the Senegalese capital, Dakar. This was co-funded with an extra €1bn from development banks.
While the project has clear benefits for the decarbonisation of transport in Dakar, it also helped several French companies expand their activities in the region.
These include Eiffage, which built the infrastructure; Systra, which provided engineering consultancy services; Thales and Engie, which together won a €225m project to design and build the electricity infrastructure for the train; and Alstom, which supplied trains.
Reflecting on this issue, Robinson tells Carbon Brief:
“Perhaps we need regulations around the conditionalities associated with [climate] finance that would reduce the possibility of only French companies, for example, being able to work on these climate-finance projects.”
Another way climate finance might benefit donor nations is through projects that involve hiring consultants and other experts based domestically. One paper notes how such projects can result in money “flowing back to developed countries”.
Previous Carbon Brief analysis found that one-tenth of the climate funds disbursed by the UK between 2010 and 2023 had gone to private consultancies, largely based in the UK.
This article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe. Carbon Brief worked with journalists based in France, Germany, Sweden and Turkey, and they provided input on how different countries have been providing international climate finance.
The post COP29: Six key reasons why international climate finance is a ‘wild west’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
COP29: Six key reasons why international climate finance is a ‘wild west’
Drought and heatwaves occurring together – known as “compound” events – have “surged” across the world since the early 2000s, a new study shows.
Compound drought and heat events (CDHEs) can have devastating effects, creating the ideal conditions for intense wildfires, such as Australia’s “Black Summer” of 2019-20 where bushfires burned 24m hectares and killed 33 people.
The research, published in Science Advances, finds that the increase in CDHEs is predominantly being driven by events that start with a heatwave.
The global area affected by such “heatwave-led” compound events has more than doubled between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, the study says.
The rapid increase in these events over the last 23 years cannot be explained solely by global warming, the authors note.
Since the late 1990s, feedbacks between the land and the atmosphere have become stronger, making heatwaves more likely to trigger drought conditions, they explain.
One of the study authors tells Carbon Brief that societies must pay greater attention to compound events, which can “cause severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and society”.
Compound events
CDHEs are extreme weather events where drought and heatwave conditions occur simultaneously – or shortly after each other – in the same region.
These events are often triggered by large-scale weather patterns, such as “blocking” highs, which can produce “prolonged” hot and dry conditions, according to the study.
Prof Sang-Wook Yeh is one of the study authors and a professor at the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When heatwaves and droughts occur together, the two hazards reinforce each other through land-atmosphere interactions. This amplifies surface heating and soil moisture deficits, making compound events more intense and damaging than single hazards.”
CDHEs can begin with either a heatwave or a drought.
The sequence of these extremes is important, the study says, as they have different drivers and impacts.
For example, in a CDHE where the heatwave was the precursor, increased direct sunshine causes more moisture loss from soils and plants, leading to a drought.
Conversely, in an event where the drought was the precursor, the lack of soil moisture means that less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporation and more goes into warming the Earth’s surface. This produces favourable conditions for heatwaves.
The study shows that the majority of CDHEs globally start out as a drought.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on these events due to the devastating impact they have on agriculture, ecosystems and public health.
In Russia in the summer of 2010, a compound drought-heatwave event – and the associated wildfires – caused the death of nearly 55,000 people, the study notes.
The record-breaking Pacific north-west “heat dome” in 2021 triggered extreme drought conditions that caused “significant declines” in wheat yields, as well as in barley, canola and fruit production in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, says the study.
Increasing events
To assess how CDHEs are changing, the researchers use daily reanalysis data to identify droughts and heatwaves events. (Reanalysis data combines past observations with climate models to create a historical climate record.) Then, using an algorithm, they analyse how these events overlap in both time and space.
The study covers the period from 1980 to 2023 and the world’s land surface, excluding polar regions where CDHEs are rare.
The research finds that the area of land affected by CDHEs has “increased substantially” since the early 2000s.
Heatwave-led events have been the main contributor to this increase, the study says, with their spatial extent rising 110% between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, compared to a 59% increase for drought-led events.
The map below shows the global distribution of CDHEs over 1980-2023. The charts show the percentage of the land surface affected by a heatwave-led CDHE (red) or a drought-led CDHE (yellow) in a given year (left) and relative increase in each CDHE type (right).
The study finds that CDHEs have occurred most frequently in northern South America, the southern US, eastern Europe, central Africa and south Asia.
Threshold passed
The authors explain that the increase in heatwave-led CDHEs is related to rising global temperatures, but that this does not tell the whole story.
In the earlier 22-year period of 1980-2001, the study finds that the spatial extent of heatwave-led CDHEs rises by 1.6% per 1C of global temperature rise. For the more-recent period of 2022-23, this increases “nearly eightfold” to 13.1%.
The change suggests that the rapid increase in the heatwave-led CDHEs occurred after the global average temperature “surpasse[d] a certain temperature threshold”, the paper says.
This threshold is an absolute global average temperature of 14.3C, the authors estimate (based on an 11-year average), which the world passed around the year 2000.
Investigating the recent surge in heatwave-leading CDHEs further, the researchers find a “regime shift” in land-atmosphere dynamics “toward a persistently intensified state after the late 1990s”.
In other words, the way that drier soils drive higher surface temperatures, and vice versa, is becoming stronger, resulting in more heatwave-led compound events.
Daily data
The research has some advantages over other previous studies, Yeh says. For instance, the new work uses daily estimations of CDHEs, compared to monthly data used in past research. This is “important for capturing the detailed occurrence” of these events, says Yeh.
He adds that another advantage of their study is that it distinguishes the sequence of droughts and heatwaves, which allows them to “better understand the differences” in the characteristics of CDHEs.
Dr Meryem Tanarhte is a climate scientist at the University Hassan II in Morocco, and Dr Ruth Cerezo Mota is a climatologist and a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Both scientists, who were not involved in the study, agree that the daily estimations give a clearer picture of how CDHEs are changing.
Cerezo-Mota adds that another major contribution of the study is its global focus. She tells Carbon Brief that in some regions, such as Mexico and Africa, there is a lack of studies on CDHEs:
“Not because the events do not occur, but perhaps because [these regions] do not have all the data or the expertise to do so.”
However, she notes that the reanalysis data used by the study does have limitations with how it represents rainfall in some parts of the world.
Compound impacts
The study notes that if CDHEs continue to intensify – particularly events where heatwaves are the precursors – they could drive declining crop productivity, increased wildfire frequency and severe public health crises.
These impacts could be “much more rapid and severe as global warming continues”, Yeh tells Carbon Brief.
Tanarhte notes that these events can be forecasted up to 10 days ahead in many regions. Furthermore, she says, the strongest impacts can be prevented “through preparedness and adaptation”, including through “water management for agriculture, heatwave mitigation measures and wildfire mitigation”.
The study recommends reassessing current risk management strategies for these compound events. It also suggests incorporating the sequences of drought and heatwaves into compound event analysis frameworks “to enhance climate risk management”.
Cerezo-Mota says that it is clear that the world needs to be prepared for the increased occurrence of these events. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These [risk assessments and strategies] need to be carried out at the local level to understand the complexities of each region.”
The post Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Energy crisis
ENERGY SPIKE: US-Israeli attacks on Iran and subsequent counterattacks across the Middle East have sent energy prices “soaring”, according to Reuters. The newswire reported that the region “accounts for just under a third of global oil production and almost a fifth of gas”. The Guardian noted that shipping traffic through the strait of Hormuz, which normally ferries 20% of the world’s oil, “all but ground to a halt”. The Financial Times reported that attacks by Iran on Middle East energy facilities – notably in Qatar – triggered the “biggest rise in gas prices since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.
‘RISK’ AND ‘BENEFITS’: Bloomberg reported on increases in diesel prices in Europe and the US, speculating that rising fuel costs could be “a risk for president Donald Trump”. US gas producers are “poised to benefit from the big disruption in global supply”, according to CNBC. Indian government sources told the Economic Times that Russia is prepared to “fulfil India’s energy demands”. China Daily quoted experts who said “China’s energy security remains fundamentally unshaken”, thanks to “emergency stockpiles and a wide array of import channels”.
‘ESSENTIAL’ RENEWABLES: Energy analysts said governments should cut their fossil-fuel reliance by investing in renewables, “rather than just seeking non-Gulf oil and gas suppliers”, reported Climate Home News. This message was echoed by UK business secretary Peter Kyle, who said “doubling down on renewables” was “essential” amid “regional instability”, according to the Daily Telegraph.
China’s climate plan
PEAK COAL?: China has set out its next “five-year plan” at the annual “two sessions” meeting of the National People’s Congress, including its climate strategy out to 2030, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. The plan called for China to cut its carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 17% from 2026 to 2030, which “may allow for continued increase in emissions given the rate of GDP growth”, reported Reuters. The newswire added that the plan also had targets to reach peak coal in the next five years and replace 30m tonnes per year of coal with renewables.
ACTIVE YET PRUDENT: Bloomberg described the new plan as “cautious”, stating that it “frustrat[es] hopes for tighter policy that would drive the nation to peak carbon emissions well before president Xi Jinping’s 2030 deadline”. Carbon Brief has just published an in-depth analysis of the plan. China Daily reported that the strategy “highlights measures to promote the climate targets of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030”, which China said it would work towards “actively yet prudently”.
Around the world
- EU RULES: The European Commission has proposed new “made in Europe” rules to support domestic low-carbon industries, “against fierce competition from China”, reported Agence France-Presse. Carbon Brief examined what it means for climate efforts.
- RECORD HEAT: The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said there is a 50-60% chance that the El Niño weather pattern could return this year, amplifying the effect of global warming and potentially driving temperatures to “record highs”, according to Euronews.
- FLAGSHIP FUND: The African Development Bank’s “flagship clean energy fund” plans to more than double its financing to $2.5bn for African renewables over the next two years, reported the Associated Press.
- NO WITHDRAWAL: Vanuatu has defied US efforts to force the Pacific-island nation to drop a UN draft resolution calling on the world to implement a landmark International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on climate, according to the Guardian.
98
The number of nations that submitted their national reports on tackling nature loss to the UN on time – just half of the 196 countries that are part of the UN biodiversity treaty – according to analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Sea levels are already “much higher than assumed” in most assessments of the threat posed by sea-level rise, due to “inadequate” modelling assumptions | Nature
- Accelerating human-caused global warming could see the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit crossed before 2030 | Geophysical Research Letters covered by Carbon Brief
- Future “super El Niño events” could “significantly lower” solar power generation due to a reduction in solar irradiance in key regions, such as California and east China | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 fell to 54% below 1990 levels, the baseline year for its legally binding climate goals, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Over the same period, data from the World Bank shows that the UK’s economy has expanded by 95%, meaning that emissions have been decoupling from growth.
Spotlight
Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ community wind turbine
Following the recent launch of the UK government’s local power plan, Carbon Brief visits one of the country’s community-energy success stories.
The Lawrence Weston housing estate is set apart from the main city of Bristol, wedged between the tree-lined grounds of a stately home and a sprawl of warehouses and waste incinerators. It is one of the most deprived areas in the city.
Yet, just across the M5 motorway stands a structure that has brought the spoils of the energy transition directly to this historically forgotten estate – a 4.2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine.
The turbine is owned by local charity Ambition Lawrence Weston and all the profits from its electricity sales – around £100,000 a year – go to the community. In the UK’s local power plan, it was singled out by energy secretary Ed Miliband as a “pioneering” project.
‘Sustainable income’
On a recent visit to the estate by Carbon Brief, Ambition Lawrence Weston’s development manager, Mark Pepper, rattled off the story behind the wind turbine.
In 2012, Pepper and his team were approached by the Bristol Energy Cooperative with a chance to get a slice of the income from a new solar farm. They jumped at the opportunity.
“Austerity measures were kicking in at the time,” Pepper told Carbon Brief. “We needed to generate an income. Our own, sustainable income.”
With the solar farm proving to be a success, the team started to explore other opportunities. This began a decade-long process that saw them navigate the Conservative government’s “ban” on onshore wind, raise £5.5m in funding and, ultimately, erect the turbine in 2023.
Today, the turbine generates electricity equivalent to Lawrence Weston’s 3,000 households and will save 87,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) over its lifetime.
‘Climate by stealth’
Ambition Lawrence Weston’s hub is at the heart of the estate and the list of activities on offer is seemingly endless: birthday parties, kickboxing, a library, woodworking, help with employment and even a pop-up veterinary clinic. All supported, Pepper said, with the help of a steady income from community-owned energy.
The centre itself is kitted out with solar panels, heat pumps and electric-vehicle charging points, making it a living advertisement for the net-zero transition. Pepper noted that the organisation has also helped people with energy costs amid surging global gas prices.
Gesturing to the England flags dangling limply on lamp posts visible from the kitchen window, he said:
“There’s a bit of resentment around immigration and scarcity of materials and provision, so we’re trying to do our bit around community cohesion.”
This includes supper clubs and an interfaith grand iftar during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Anti-immigration sentiment in the UK has often gone hand-in-hand with opposition to climate action. Right-wing politicians and media outlets promote the idea that net-zero policies will cost people a lot of money – and these ideas have cut through with the public.
Pepper told Carbon Brief he is sympathetic to people’s worries about costs and stressed that community energy is the perfect way to win people over:
“I think the only way you can change that is if, instead of being passive consumers…communities are like us and they’re generating an income to offset that.”
From the outset, Pepper stressed that “we weren’t that concerned about climate because we had other, bigger pressures”, adding:
“But, in time, we’ve delivered climate by stealth.”
Watch, read, listen
OIL WATCH: The Guardian has published a “visual guide” with charts and videos showing how the “escalating Iran conflict is driving up oil and gas prices”.
MURDER IN HONDURAS: Ten years on from the murder of Indigenous environmental justice advocate Berta Cáceres, Drilled asked why Honduras is still so dangerous for environmental activists.
TALKING WEATHER: A new film, narrated by actor Michael Sheen and titled You Told Us To Talk About the Weather, aimed to promote conversation about climate change with a blend of “poetry, folk horror and climate storytelling”.
Coming up
- 8 March: Colombia parliamentary election
- 9-19 March: 31st Annual Session of the International Seabed Authority, Kingston, Jamaica
- 11 March: UN Environment Programme state of finance for nature 2026 report launch
Pick of the jobs
- London School of Economics and Political Science, fellow in the social science of sustainability | Salary: £43,277-£51,714. Location: London
- NORCAP, innovative climate finance expert | Salary: Unknown. Location: Kyiv, Ukraine
- WBHM, environmental reporter | Salary: $50,050-$81,330. Location: Birmingham, Alabama, US
- Climate Cabinet, data engineer | Salary: hourly rate of $60-$120 per hour. Location: Remote anywhere in the US
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China’s leadership has published a draft of its 15th five-year plan setting the strategic direction for the nation out to 2030, including support for clean energy and energy security.
The plan sets a target to cut China’s “carbon intensity” by 17% over the five years from 2026-30, but also changes the basis for calculating this key climate metric.
The plan continues to signal support for China’s clean-energy buildout and, in general, contains no major departures from the country’s current approach to the energy transition.
The government reaffirms support for several clean-energy industries, ranging from solar and electric vehicles (EVs) through to hydrogen and “new-energy” storage.
The plan also emphasises China’s willingness to steer climate governance and be seen as a provider of “global public goods”, in the form of affordable clean-energy technologies.
However, while the document says it will “promote the peaking” of coal and oil use, it does not set out a timeline and continues to call for the “clean and efficient” use of coal.
This shows that tensions remain between China’s climate goals and its focus on energy security, leading some analysts to raise concerns about its carbon-cutting ambition.
Below, Carbon Brief outlines the key climate change and energy aspects of the plan, including targets for carbon intensity, non-fossil energy and forestry.
Note: this article is based on a draft published on 5 March and will be updated if any significant changes are made in the final version of the plan, due to be released at the close next week of the “two sessions” meeting taking place in Beijing.
- What is China’s 15th five-year plan?
- What does the plan say about China’s climate action?
- What is China’s new CO2 intensity target?
- Does the plan encourage further clean-energy additions?
- What does the plan signal about coal?
- How will China approach global climate governance in the next five years?
- What else does the plan cover?
What is China’s 15th five-year plan?
Five-year plans are one of the most important documents in China’s political system.
Addressing everything from economic strategy to climate policy, they outline the planned direction for China’s socio-economic development in a five-year period. The 15th five-year plan covers 2026-30.
These plans include several “main goals”. These are largely quantitative indicators that are seen as particularly important to achieve and which provide a foundation for subsequent policies during the five-year period.
The table below outlines some of the key “main goals” from the draft 15th five-year plan.
| Category | Indicator | Indicator in 2025 | Target by 2030 | Cumulative target over 2026-2030 | Characteristic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Economic development | Gross domestic product (GDP) growth (%) | 5 | Maintained within a reasonable range and proposed annually as appropriate. | Anticipatory | |
| ‘Green and low-carbon | Reduction in CO2 emissions per unit of GDP (%) | 17.7 | 17 | Binding | |
| Share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption (%) | 21.7 | 25 | Binding | ||
| Security guarantee | Comprehensive energy production capacity (100m tonnes of standard coal equivalent) |
51.3 | 58 | Binding |
Select list of targets highlighted in the “main goals” section of the draft 15th five-year plan. Source: Draft 15th five-year plan.
Since the 12th five-year plan, covering 2011-2015, these “main goals” have included energy intensity and carbon intensity as two of five key indicators for “green ecology”.
The previous five-year plan, which ran from 2021-2025, introduced the idea of an absolute “cap” on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, although it did not provide an explicit figure in the document. This has been subsequently addressed by a policy on the “dual-control of carbon” issued in 2024.
The latest plan removes the energy-intensity goal and elevates the carbon-intensity goal, but does not set an absolute cap on emissions (see below).
It covers the years until 2030, before which China has pledged to peak its carbon emissions. (Analysis for Carbon Brief found that emissions have been “flat or falling” since March 2024.)
The plans are released at the two sessions, an annual gathering of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). This year, it runs from 4-12 March.
The plans are often relatively high-level, with subsequent topic-specific five-year plans providing more concrete policy guidance.
Policymakers at the National Energy Agency (NEA) have indicated that in the coming years they will release five sector-specific plans for 2026-2030, covering topics such as the “new energy system”, electricity and renewable energy.
There may also be specific five-year plans covering carbon emissions and environmental protection, as well as the coal and nuclear sectors, according to analysts.
Other documents published during the two sessions include an annual government work report, which outlines key targets and policies for the year ahead.
The gathering is attended by thousands of deputies – delegates from across central and local governments, as well as Chinese Communist party members, members of other political parties, academics, industry leaders and other prominent figures.
What does the plan say about China’s climate action?
Achieving China’s climate targets will remain a key driver of the country’s policies in the next five years, according to the draft 15th five-year plan.
It lists the “acceleration” of China’s energy transition as a “major achievement” in the 14th five-year plan period (2021-2025), noting especially how clean-power capacity had overtaken fossil fuels.
The draft says China will “actively and steadily advance and achieve carbon peaking”, with policymakers continuing to strike a balance between building a “green economy” and ensuring stability.
Climate and environment continues to receive its own chapter in the plan. However, the framing and content of this chapter has shifted subtly compared with previous editions, as shown in the table below. For example, unlike previous plans, the first section of this chapter focuses on China’s goal to peak emissions.
| 11th five-year plan (2006-2010) | 12th five-year plan (2011-2015) | 13th five-year plan (2016-2020) | 14th five-year plan (2021-2025) | 15th five-year plan (2026-2030) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chapter title | Part 6: Build a resource-efficient and environmentally-friendly society | Part 6: Green development, building a resource-efficient and environmentally friendly society | Part 10: Ecosystems and the environment | Part 11: Promote green development and facilitate the harmonious coexistence of people and nature | Part 13: Accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development to build a beautiful China |
| Sections | Developing a circular economy | Actively respond to global climate change | Accelerate the development of functional zones | Improve the quality and stability of ecosystems | Actively and steadily advancing and achieving carbon peaking |
| Protecting and restoring natural ecosystems | Strengthen resource conservation and management | Promote economical and intensive resource use | Continue to improve environmental quality | Continuously improving environmental quality | |
| Strengthening environmental protection | Vigorously develop the circular economy | Step up comprehensive environmental governance | Accelerate the green transformation of the development model | Enhancing the diversity, stability, and sustainability of ecosystems | |
| Enhancing resource management | Strengthen environmental protection efforts | Intensify ecological conservation and restoration | Accelerating the formation of green production and lifestyles | ||
| Rational utilisation of marine and climate resources | Promoting ecological conservation and restoration | Respond to global climate change | |||
| Strengthen the development of water conservancy and disaster prevention and mitigation systems | Improve mechanisms for ensuring ecological security | ||||
| Develop green and environmentally-friendly industries |
Title and main sections of the climate and environment-focused chapters in the last five five-year plans. Source: China’s 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th five-year plans.
The climate and environment chapter in the latest plan calls for China to “balance [economic] development and emission reduction” and “ensure the timely achievement of carbon peak targets”.
Under the plan, China will “continue to pursue” its established direction and objectives on climate, Prof Li Zheng, dean of the Tsinghua University Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development (ICCSD), tells Carbon Brief.
What is China’s new CO2 intensity target?
In the lead-up to the release of the plan, analysts were keenly watching for signals around China’s adoption of a system for the “dual-control of carbon”.
This would combine the existing targets for carbon intensity – the CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – with a new cap on China’s total carbon emissions. This would mark a dramatic step for the country, which has never before set itself a binding cap on total emissions.
Policymakers had said last year that this framework would come into effect during the 15th five-year plan period, replacing the previous system for the “dual-control of energy”.
However, the draft 15th five-year plan does not offer further details on when or how both parts of the dual-control of carbon system will be implemented. Instead, it continues to focus on carbon intensity targets alone.
Looking back at the previous five-year plan period, the latest document says China had achieved a carbon-intensity reduction of 17.7%, just shy of its 18% goal.
This is in contrast with calculations by Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which had suggested that China had only cut its carbon intensity by 12% over the past five years.
At the time it was set in 2021, the 18% target had been seen as achievable, with analysts telling Carbon Brief that they expected China to realise reductions of 20% or more.
However, the government had fallen behind on meeting the target.
Last year, ecology and environment minister Huang Runqiu attributed this to the Covid-19 pandemic, extreme weather and trade tensions. He said that China, nevertheless, remained “broadly” on track to meet its 2030 international climate pledge of reducing carbon intensity by more than 65% from 2005 levels.
Myllyvirta tells Carbon Brief that the newly reported figure showing a carbon-intensity reduction of 17.7% is likely due to an “opportunistic” methodological revision. The new methodology now includes industrial process emissions – such as cement and chemicals – as well as the energy sector.
(This is not the first time China has redefined a target, with regulators changing the methodology for energy intensity in 2023.)
For the next five years, the plan sets a target to reduce carbon intensity by 17%, slightly below the previous goal.
However, the change in methodology means that this leaves space for China’s overall emissions to rise by “3-6% over the next five years”, says Myllyvirta. In contrast, he adds that the original methodology would have required a 2% fall in absolute carbon emissions by 2030.
The dashed lines in the chart below show China’s targets for reducing carbon intensity during the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th five-year periods, while the bars show what was achieved under the old (dark blue) and new (light blue) methodology.
The carbon-intensity target is the “clearest signal of Beijing’s climate ambition”, says Li Shuo, director at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s (ASPI) China climate hub.
It also links directly to China’s international pledge – made in 2021 – to cut its carbon intensity to more than 65% below 2005 levels by 2030.
To meet this pledge under the original carbon-intensity methodology, China would have needed to set a target of a 23% reduction within the 15th five-year plan period. However, the country’s more recent 2035 international climate pledge, released last year, did not include a carbon-intensity target.
As such, ASPI’s Li interprets the carbon-intensity target in the draft 15th five-year plan as a “quiet recalibration” that signals “how difficult the original 2030 goal has become”.
Furthermore, the 15th five-year plan does not set an absolute emissions cap.
This leaves “significant ambiguity” over China’s climate plans, says campaign group 350 in a press statement reacting to the draft plan. It explains:
“The plan was widely expected to mark a clearer transition from carbon-intensity targets toward absolute emissions reductions…[but instead] leaves significant ambiguity about how China will translate record renewable deployment into sustained emissions cuts.”
Myllyvirta tells Carbon Brief that this represents a “continuation” of the government’s focus on scaling up clean-energy supply while avoiding setting “strong measurable emission targets”.
He says that he would still expect to see absolute caps being set for power and industrial sectors covered by China’s emissions trading scheme (ETS). In addition, he thinks that an overall absolute emissions cap may still be published later in the five-year period.
Despite the fact that it has yet to be fully implemented, the switch from dual-control of energy to dual-control of carbon represents a “major policy evolution”, Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), tells Carbon Brief. He says that it will allow China to “provide more flexibility for renewable energy expansion while tightening the net on fossil-fuel reliance”.
Does the plan encourage further clean-energy additions?
“How quickly carbon intensity is reduced largely depends on how much renewable energy can be supplied,” says Yao Zhe, global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, in a statement.
The five-year plan continues to call for China’s development of a “new energy system that is clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient” by 2030, with continued additions of “wind, solar, hydro and nuclear power”.
In line with China’s international pledge, it sets a target for raising the share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption to 25% by 2030, up from just under 21.7% in 2025.
The development of “green factories” and “zero-carbon [industrial] parks” has been central to many local governments’ strategies for meeting the non-fossil energy target, according to industry news outlet BJX News. A call to build more of these zero-carbon industrial parks is listed in the five-year plan.
Prof Pan Jiahua, dean of Beijing University of Technology’s Institute of Ecological Civilization, tells Carbon Brief that expanding demand for clean energy through mechanisms such as “green factories” represents an increasingly “bottom-up” and “market-oriented” approach to the energy transition, which will leave “no place for fossil fuels”.
He adds that he is “very much sure that China’s zero-carbon process is being accelerated and fossil fuels are being driven out of the market”, pointing to the rapid adoption of EVs.
The plan says that China will aim to double “non-fossil energy” in 10 years – although it does not clarify whether this means their installed capacity or electricity generation, or what the exact starting year would be.
Research has shown that doubling wind and solar capacity in China between 2025-2035 would be “consistent” with aims to limit global warming to 2C.
While the language “certainly” pushes for greater additions of renewable energy, Yao tells Carbon Brief, it is too “opaque” to be a “direct indication” of the government’s plans for renewable additions.
She adds that “grid stability and healthy, orderly competition” is a higher priority for policymakers than guaranteeing a certain level of capacity additions.
China continues to place emphasis on the need for large-scale clean-energy “bases” and cross-regional power transmission.
The plan says China must develop “clean-energy bases…in the three northern regions” and “integrated hydro-wind-solar complexes” in south-west China.
It specifically encourages construction of “large-scale wind and solar” power bases in desert regions “primarily” for cross-regional power transmission, as well as “major hydropower” projects, including the Yarlung Tsangpo dam in Tibet.
As such, the country should construct “power-transmission corridors” with the capacity to send 420 gigawatts (GW) of electricity from clean-energy bases in western provinces to energy-hungry eastern provinces by 2030, the plan says.
State Grid, China’s largest grid operator, plans to install “another 15 ultra-high voltage [UHV] transmission lines” by 2030, reports Reuters, up from the 45 UHV lines built by last year.
Below are two maps illustrating the interlinkages between clean-energy bases in China in the 15th (top) and 14th (bottom) five-year plan periods.
The yellow dotted areas represent clean energy bases, while the arrows represent cross-regional power transmission. The blue wind-turbine icons represent offshore windfarms and the red cooling tower icons represent coastal nuclear plants.
The 15th five-year plan map shows a consistent approach to the 2021-2025 period. As well as power being transmitted from west to east, China plans for more power to be sent to southern provinces from clean-energy bases in the north-west, while clean-energy bases in the north-east supply China’s eastern coast.
It also maps out “mutual assistance” schemes for power grids in neighbouring provinces.
Offshore wind power should reach 100GW by 2030, while nuclear power should rise to 110GW, according to the plan.
What does the plan signal about coal?
The increased emphasis on grid infrastructure in the draft 15th five-year plan reflects growing concerns from energy planning officials around ensuring China’s energy supply.
Ren Yuzhi, director of the NEA’s development and planning department, wrote ahead of the plan’s release that the “continuous expansion” of China’s energy system has “dramatically increased its complexity”.
He said the NEA felt there was an “urgent need” to enhance the “secure and reliable” replacement of fossil-fuel power with new energy sources, as well as to ensure the system’s “ability to absorb them”.
Meanwhile, broader concerns around energy security have heightened calls for coal capacity to remain in the system as a “ballast stone”.
The plan continues to support the “clean and efficient utilisation of fossil fuels” and does not mention either a cap or peaking timeline for coal consumption.
Xi had previously told fellow world leaders that China would “strictly control” coal-fired power and phase down coal consumption in the 15th five-year plan period.
The “geopolitical situation is increasing energy security concerns” at all levels of government, said the Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress in a note responding to the draft plan, adding that this was creating “uncertainty over coal reduction”.
Ahead of its publication, there were questions around whether the plan would set a peaking deadline for oil and coal. An article posted by state news agency Xinhua last month, examining recommendations for the plan from top policymakers, stated that coal consumption would plateau from “around 2027”, while oil would peak “around 2026”.
However, the plan does not lay out exact years by which the two fossil fuels should peak, only saying that China will “promote the peaking of coal and oil consumption”.
There are similarly no mentions of phasing out coal in general, in line with existing policy.
Nevertheless, there is a heavy emphasis on retrofitting coal-fired power plants. The plan calls for the establishment of “demonstration projects” for coal-plant retrofitting, such as through co-firing with biomass or “green ammonia”.
Such retrofitting could incentivise lower utilisation of coal plants – and thus lower emissions – if they are used to flexibly meet peaks in demand and to cover gaps in clean-energy output, instead of providing a steady and significant share of generation.
The plan also calls for officials to “fully implement low-carbon retrofitting projects for coal-chemical industries”, which have been a notable source of emissions growth in the past year.
However, the coal-chemicals sector will likely remain a key source of demand for China’s coal mining industry, with coal-to-oil and coal-to-gas bases listed as a “key area” for enhancing the country’s “security capabilities”.
Meanwhile, coal-fired boilers and industrial kilns in the paper industry, food processing and textiles should be replaced with “clean” alternatives to the equivalent of 30m tonnes of coal consumption per year, it says.
“China continues to scale up clean energy at an extraordinary pace, but the plan still avoids committing to strong measurable constraints on emissions or fossil fuel use”, says Joseph Dellatte, head of energy and climate studies at the Institut Montaigne. He adds:
“The logic remains supply-driven: deploy massive amounts of clean energy and assume emissions will eventually decline.”
How will China approach global climate governance in the next five years?
Meanwhile, clean-energy technologies continue to play a role in upgrading China’s economy, with several “new energy” sectors listed as key to its industrial policy.
Named sectors include smart EVs, “new solar cells”, new-energy storage, hydrogen and nuclear fusion energy.
“China’s clean-technology development – rather than traditional administrative climate controls – is increasingly becoming the primary driver of emissions reduction,” says ASPI’s Li. He adds that strengthening China’s clean-energy sectors means “more closely aligning Beijing’s economic ambitions with its climate objectives”.
Analysis for Carbon Brief shows that clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025, representing around 11% of China’s whole economy.
The continued support for these sectors in the draft five-year plan comes as the EU outlined its own measures intended to limit China’s hold on clean-energy industries, driven by accusations of “unfair competition” from Chinese firms.
China is unlikely to crack down on clean-tech production capacity, Dr Rebecca Nadin, director of the Centre for Geopolitics of Change at ODI Global, tells Carbon Brief. She says:
“Beijing is treating overcapacity in solar and smart EVs as a strategic choice, not a policy error…and is prepared to pour investment into these sectors to cement global market share, jobs and technological leverage.”
Dellatte echoes these comments, noting that it is “striking” that the plan “barely addresses the issue of industrial overcapacity in clean technologies”, with the focus firmly on “scaling production and deployment”.
At the same time, China is actively positioning itself to be a prominent voice in climate diplomacy and a champion of proactive climate action.
This is clear from the first line in a section on providing “global public goods”. It says:
“As a responsible major country, China will play a more active role in addressing global challenges such as climate change.”
The plan notes that China will “actively participate in and steer [引领] global climate governance”, in line with the principle of “common,but differentiated responsibilities”.
This echoes similar language from last year’s government work report, Yao tells Carbon Brief, demonstrating a “clear willingness” to guide global negotiations. But she notes that this “remains an aspiration that’s yet to be made concrete”. She adds:
“China has always favored collective leadership, so its vision of leadership is never a lone one.”
The country will “deepen south-south cooperation on climate change”, the plan says. In an earlier section on “opening up”, it also notes that China will explore “new avenues for collaboration in green development” with global partners as part of its “Belt and Road Initiative”.
China is “doubling down” on a narrative that it is a “responsible major power” and “champion of south-south climate cooperation”, Nadin says, such as by “presenting its clean‑tech exports and finance as global public goods”. She says:
“China will arrive at future COPs casting itself as the indispensable climate leader for the global south…even though its new five‑year plan still puts growth, energy security and coal ahead of faster emissions cuts at home.”
What else does the plan cover?
The impact of extreme weather – particularly floods – remains a key concern in the plan.
China must “refine” its climate adaptation framework and “enhance its resilience to climate change, particularly extreme-weather events”, it says.
China also aims to “strengthen construction of a national water network” over the next five years in order to help prevent floods and droughts.
An article published a few days before the plan in the state-run newspaper China Daily noted that, “as global warming intensifies, extreme weather events – including torrential rains, severe convective storms, and typhoons – have become more frequent, widespread and severe”.
The plan also touches on critical minerals used for low-carbon technologies. These will likely remain a geopolitical flashpoint, with China saying it will focus during the next five years on “intensifying” exploration and “establishing” a reserve for critical minerals. This reserve will focus on “scarce” energy minerals and critical minerals, as well as other “advantageous mineral resources”.
Dellatte says that this could mean the “competition in the energy transition will increasingly be about control over mineral supply chains”.
Other low-carbon policies listed in the five-year plan include expanding coverage of China’s mandatory carbon market and further developing its voluntary carbon market.
China will “strengthen monitoring and control” of non-CO2 greenhouse gases, the plan says, as well as implementing projects “targeting methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons” in sectors such as coal mining, agriculture and chemicals.
This will create “capacity” for reducing emissions by 30m tonnes of CO2 equivalent, it adds.
Meanwhile, China will develop rules for carbon footprint accounting and push for internationally recognised accounting standards.
It will enhance reform of power markets over the next five years and improve the trading mechanism for green electricity certificates.
It will also “promote” adoption of low-carbon lifestyles and decarbonisation of transport, as well as working to advance electrification of freight and shipping.
The post Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ mean for climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ mean for climate change?
-
Greenhouse Gases7 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Climate Change7 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change Videos2 years ago
The toxic gas flares fuelling Nigeria’s climate change – BBC News
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Renewable Energy5 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?