African and Arab nations are calling for a two-year postponement of an agreement on a set of indicators designed to track countries’ progress in adapting to climate change – a deal that is expected to be one of COP30’s flagship outcomes.
As seen in a new draft text on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) issued in Belém on Wednesday, the two groups of countries have raised concerns on some proposed indicators which they argue could unfairly shift financial responsibility for climate adaptation onto developing countries.
They say the indicators which are meant to track progress in adapting to climate change are “not consistent with the Paris Agreement” because they include domestic budgets and national spending as part of adaptation finance.
This risks blurring the line between developing countries’ own money and the international support they are supposed to receive under the Paris accord, they argue. Asking governments to count their own spending towards global adaptation funding could place a further burden on poorer countries’ already limited resources, they fear.
-
COP30 Bulletin Day 1: Host nation Brazil averts agenda row at opening
In a compromise solution, the COP30 presidency will hold consultations on four contentious issues – climate finance, trade measures, 1.5C ambition and transparency of national data -
COP30 Bulletin Day 2: Ethiopia picked as COP32 host, while COP31 standoff continues
African nations backed Ethiopia’s bid to host the 2027 summit over Nigeria’s, while Australia and Türkiye remain deadlocked over next year’s host decision -
COP30 Bulletin Day 3: Brazil tries to find a home for tricky issues
Brazil is trying to craft a compromise package on several contentious issues and has dismissed the idea of a roadmap away from fossil fuels
An additional concern is that the proposed indicators related to expenditure tracking and national budget allocations could undermine countries’ sovereignty on how they spend their fiscal resources.
Africa needs over $50 billion a year to adapt to climate change. In 2019 alone, countries spent 0.95% of their governments’ budgets on adaptation – and in some countries like Botswana and Seychelles, it gobbled up 4% of their GDP, according to the 2023 UN Adaptation Gap Report.
In the new draft text, countries also note that the indicators fail to measure the quality and accessibility of climate finance. Observers told Climate Home News that this is especially key for African nations who want to avoid indicators that could set unrealistic criteria for accessing limited funds or locking them into high interest loans.
Responding to a question from Climate Home News, Richard Muyungi, chair of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) said the indicators must be linked to finance, adding that this funding has to come from the international community so that developing countries are “supported” rather than being forced to use their own money to adapt to climate change.
The AGN wants the indicators to be shaped by government negotiators over the next two years so that they can be made more realistic, fair and reflective of national capacities.
An adviser to a North African government noted that deferring the adoption of the GGA indicators would not stop countries from using them to measure their adaptation progress, even though that would not be reported internationally in a formal way.
Analysts: NDCs have made little difference to projected warming
Last year, Climate Action Tracker (CAT) said the world was on course for 2.6C of global warming.
Since then, over 100 countries have updated their NDC climate targets. Now, CAT says, the world is on course for…still 2.6C.
“In other words, the 2035 NDCs so far submitted don’t change the dial in terms of keeping warming to 1.5˚C,” the analysts concluded.
On the other hand, as New Climate Institute’s Niklas Höhne says, CAT’s 2015 report predicted we were on course for 3.6C of warming. So “the Paris Agreement works”, he argues. Just not enough to hold global warming to its lowest limit of 1.5C, which the UN has now admitted will be exceeded, at least temporarily.
Also released today, Exeter University’s global carbon budget report projects – although with little confidence – that total carbon dioxide emissions in 2025 will be very slightly lower than last year.
While emissions from fossil fuels are likely to rise slightly in 2025 – with a big increase in the US as coal rebounds – emissions from land use look like they will fall.
That’s thanks partly to COP30’s Brazilian hosts, as deforestation rates in the Amazon have declined and are at their lowest level this season since 2014.
London Metropolitan University geography professor Julia Pongratz said this “demonstrates the success that environmental policies can achieve”.
Even if emissions have peaked though, the global average temperature will keep on heating up at least until we reach net zero, when no more greenhouse gas emissions are added to the atmosphere than are taken out by forests and other ways of removing them.
Amnesty study maps fossil fuel threat to health and human rights
From artisanal fishing communities in Brazil to Indigenous land defenders in Canada and coastal communities in Senegal, living near fossil fuel infrastructure is putting the health and human rights of hundreds of millions of people at risk, according to a new report from Amnesty International.
The global rights organisation teamed up with researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder in a mapping exercise showing that at least 2 billion people – a quarter of them children – live within 5km of more than 18,000 fossil fuel operations across 170 countries. Those include oil drilling and fracking sites, gas pipelines and coal power plants.
Among the 2 billion people, at least 463 million live within 1km of the sites, exposing them to much higher environmental and health risks, says the report released on Wednesday on the sidelines of COP30.
Exploration, processing, site development, transportation and decommissioning of fossil fuels have led to severe pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as damaging key natural areas, it found, turning communities and ecosystems into “sacrifice zones”.
Studies show that exposure to sites where fossil fuels are produced and used raises the risks of negative health impacts including cancer, heart disease and birth problems, the report adds.
“This report provides yet more evidence of the imperative for states and corporate actors to ’defossilise’ the global economy to mitigate the worst impacts of the climate crisis on human rights,” Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said in a statement.
The study shows that 16% of global fossil fuel infrastructure is sited on Indigenous territories, while around a third of the total overlaps with one or more ‘critical ecosystems’ that are rich in biodiversity or important carbon sinks.
The report warns that, despite governments pledging to transition away from fossil fuels two years ago at COP28, more than 3,500 fossil fuel infrastructure sites are either proposed, in development, or under construction globally.
The researchers estimate that such expansion could put at least 135 million more people at risk. The number of oil and gas projects is set to increase across all continents, it notes, while coal plants and mines are being added mostly in China and India.
Local people are often not consulted by authorities and companies managing the projects nor given enough information about their potential impacts, Amnesty said.
“Most affected groups condemned the power imbalance between their communities and corporate operators, as well as the lack of effective remedy,” said Candy Ofime, researcher and legal advisor on climate justice at Amnesty International.
The post COP30 Bulletin Day 4: African and Arab groups want adaptation indicator delay appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP30 Bulletin Day 4: African and Arab groups want adaptation indicator delay
Climate Change
Cheniere Energy Received $370 Million IRS Windfall for Using LNG as ‘Alternative’ Fuel
The country’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas benefited from what critics say is a questionable IRS interpretation of tax credits.
Cheniere Energy, the largest producer and exporter of U.S. liquefied natural gas, received $370 million from the IRS in the first quarter of 2026, a payout that shipping experts, tax specialists and a U.S. senator say the company never should have received.
Cheniere Energy Received $370 Million IRS Windfall for Using LNG as ‘Alternative’ Fuel
Climate Change
DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Absolute State of the Union
‘DRILL, BABY’: US president Donald Trump “doubled down on his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda” in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, said the Los Angeles Times. He “tout[ed] his support of the fossil-fuel industry and renew[ed] his focus on electricity affordability”, reported the Financial Times. Trump also attacked the “green new scam”, noted Carbon Brief’s SOTU tracker.
COAL REPRIEVE: Earlier in the week, the Trump administration had watered down limits on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, reported the Financial Times. It remains “unclear” if this will be enough to prevent the decline of coal power, said Bloomberg, in the face of lower-cost gas and renewables. Reuters noted that US coal plants are “ageing”.
OIL STAY: The US Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments brought by the oil industry in a “major lawsuit”, reported the New York Times. The newspaper said the firms are attempting to head off dozens of other lawsuits at state level, relating to their role in global warming.
SHIP-SHILLING: The Trump administration is working to “kill” a global carbon levy on shipping “permanently”, reported Politico, after succeeding in delaying the measure late last year. The Guardian said US “bullying” could be “paying off”, after Panama signalled it was reversing its support for the levy in a proposal submitted to the UN shipping body.
Around the world
- RARE EARTHS: The governments of Brazil and India signed a deal on rare earths, said the Times of India, as well as agreeing to collaborate on renewable energy.
- HEAT ROLLBACK: German homes will be allowed to continue installing gas and oil heating, under watered-down government plans covered by Clean Energy Wire.
- BRAZIL FLOODS: At least 53 people died in floods in the state of Minas Gerais, after some areas saw 170mm of rain in a few hours, reported CNN Brasil.
- ITALY’S ATTACK: Italy is calling for the EU to “suspend” its emissions trading system (ETS) ahead of a review later this year, said Politico.
- COOKSTOVE CREDITS: The first-ever carbon credits under the Paris Agreement have been issued to a cookstove project in Myanmar, said Climate Home News.
- SAUDI SOLAR: Turkey has signed a “major” solar deal that will see Saudi firm ACWA building 2 gigawatts in the country, according to Agence France-Presse.
$467 billion
The profits made by five major oil firms since prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago, according to a report by Global Witness covered by BusinessGreen.
Latest climate research
- Claims about the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change, made in a recent US Department of Energy report, are “factually incorrect” | AGU Advances
- Large lakes in the Congo Basin are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from “immense ancient stores” | Nature Geoscience
- Shared Socioeconomic Pathways – scenarios used regularly in climate modelling – underrepresent “narratives explicitly centring on democratic principles such as participation, accountability and justice” | npj Climate Action
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The constituency of Richard Tice MP, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of Reform UK, is the second-largest recipient of flood defence spending in England, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Overall, the funding is disproportionately targeted at coastal and urban areas, many of which have Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs.
Spotlight
Is there really a UK ‘greenlash’?
This week, after a historic Green Party byelection win, Carbon Brief looks at whether there really is a “greenlash” against climate policy in the UK.
Over the past year, the UK’s political consensus on climate change has been shattered.
Yet despite a sharp turn against climate action among right-wing politicians and right-leaning media outlets, UK public support for climate action remains strong.
Prof Federica Genovese, who studies climate politics at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief:
“The current ‘war’ on green policy is mostly driven by media and political elites, not by the public.”
Indeed, there is still a greater than two-to-one majority among the UK public in favour of the country’s legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, as shown below.
Steve Akehurst, director of public-opinion research initiative Persuasion UK, also noted the growing divide between the public and “elites”. He told Carbon Brief:
“The biggest movement is, without doubt, in media and elite opinion. There is a bit more polarisation and opposition [to climate action] among voters, but it’s typically no more than 20-25% and mostly confined within core Reform voters.”
Conservative gear shift
For decades, the UK had enjoyed strong, cross-party political support for climate action.
Lord Deben, the Conservative peer and former chair of the Climate Change Committee, told Carbon Brief that the UK’s landmark 2008 Climate Change Act had been born of this cross-party consensus, saying “all parties supported it”.
Since their landslide loss at the 2024 election, however, the Conservatives have turned against the UK’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050, which they legislated for in 2019.
Curiously, while opposition to net-zero has surged among Conservative MPs, there is majority support for the target among those that plan to vote for the party, as shown below.
Dr Adam Corner, advisor to the Climate Barometer initiative that tracks public opinion on climate change, told Carbon Brief that those who currently plan to vote Reform are the only segment who “tend to be more opposed to net-zero goals”. He said:
“Despite the rise in hostile media coverage and the collapse of the political consensus, we find that public support for the net-zero by 2050 target is plateauing – not plummeting.”
Reform, which rejects the scientific evidence on global warming and campaigns against net-zero, has been leading the polls for a year. (However, it was comfortably beaten by the Greens in yesterday’s Gorton and Denton byelection.)
Corner acknowledged that “some of the anti-net zero noise…[is] showing up in our data”, adding:
“We see rising concerns about the near-term costs of policies and an uptick in people [falsely] attributing high energy bills to climate initiatives.”
But Akehurst said that, rather than a big fall in public support, there had been a drop in the “salience” of climate action:
“So many other issues [are] competing for their attention.”
UK newspapers published more editorials opposing climate action than supporting it for the first time on record in 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Global ‘greenlash’?
All of this sits against a challenging global backdrop, in which US president Donald Trump has been repeating climate-sceptic talking points and rolling back related policy.
At the same time, prominent figures have been calling for a change in climate strategy, sold variously as a “reset”, a “pivot”, as “realism”, or as “pragmatism”.
Genovese said that “far-right leaders have succeeded in the past 10 years in capturing net-zero as a poster child of things they are ‘fighting against’”.
She added that “much of this is fodder for conservative media and this whole ecosystem is essentially driving what we call the ‘greenlash’”.
Corner said the “disconnect” between elite views and the wider public “can create problems” – for example, “MPs consistently underestimate support for renewables”. He added:
“There is clearly a risk that the public starts to disengage too, if not enough positive voices are countering the negative ones.”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP’S ‘PETROSTATE’: The US is becoming a “petrostate” that will be “sicker and poorer”, wrote Financial Times associate editor Rana Forohaar.
RHETORIC VS REALITY: Despite a “political mood [that] has darkened”, there is “more green stuff being installed than ever”, said New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells.
CHINA’S ‘REVOLUTION’: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast reported from China on the “green energy revolution” taking place in the country.
Coming up
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean, Brasília
- 3 March: UK spring statement
- 4-11 March: China’s “two sessions”
- 5 March: Nepal elections
Pick of the jobs
- The Guardian, senior reporter, climate justice | Salary: $123,000-$135,000. Location: New York or Washington DC
- China-Global South Project, non-resident fellow, climate change | Salary: Up to $1,000 a month. Location: Remote
- University of East Anglia, PhD in mobilising community-based climate action through co-designed sports and wellbeing interventions | Salary: Stipend (unknown amount). Location: Norwich, UK
- TABLE and the University of São Paulo, Brazil, postdoctoral researcher in food system narratives | Salary: Unknown. Location: Pirassununga, Brazil
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 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Seven Pacific island nations say they will demand heftier levies on global shipping emissions if opponents of a green deal for the industry succeed in reopening negotiations on the stalled accord.
The United States and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to grant final approval to the International Maritime Organization’s Net-Zero Framework (NZF) in October and they are now leading a drive for changes to the deal.
In a joint submission seen by Climate Home News, the seven climate-vulnerable Pacific countries said the framework was already a “fragile compromise”, and vowed to push for a universal levy on all ship emissions, as well as higher fees . The deal currently stipulates that fees will be charged when a vessel’s emissions exceed a certain level.
“For many countries, the NZF represents the absolute limit of what they can accept,” said the unpublished submission by Fiji, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands.
The countries said a universal levy and higher charges on shipping would raise more funds to enable a “just and equitable transition leaving no country behind”. They added, however, that “despite its many shortcomings”, the framework should be adopted later this year.
US allies want exemption for ‘transition fuels’
The previous attempt to adopt the framework failed after governments narrowly voted to postpone it by a year. Ahead of the vote, the US threatened governments and their officials with sanctions, tariffs and visa restrictions – and President Donald Trump called the framework a “Green New Scam Tax on Shipping”.
Since then, Liberia – an African nation with a major low-tax shipping registry headquartered in the US state of Virginia – has proposed a new measure under which, rather than staying fixed under the NZF, ships’ emissions intensity targets change depending on “demonstrated uptake” of both “low-carbon and zero-carbon fuels”.
The proposal places stringent conditions on what fuels are taken into consideration when setting these targets, stressing that the low- and zero-carbon fuels should be “scalable”, not cost more than 15% more than standard marine fuels and should be available at “sufficient ports worldwide”.
This proposal would not “penalise transitional fuels” like natural gas and biofuels, they said. In the last decade, the US has built a host of large liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, which the Trump administration is lobbying other countries to purchase from.
The draft motion, seen by Climate Home News, was co-sponsored by US ally Argentina and also by Panama, a shipping hub whose canal the US has threatened to annex. Both countries voted with the US to postpone the last vote on adopting the framework.
-
IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay
Arsenio Dominguez said the shipping industry’s net zero emissions goal is not in dispute although countries have stalled on adopting a framework to reach it -
US-led alliance wins a year’s delay in adoption of green shipping deal
The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework will be up for approval again in October 2026, after the US and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to vote on it as planned
The IMO’s Panamanian head Arsenio Dominguez told reporters in January that changes to the framework were now possible.
“It is clear from what happened last year that we need to look into the concerns that have been expressed [and] … make sure that they are somehow addressed within the framework,” he said.
Patchwork of levies
While the European Union pushed firmly for the framework’s adoption, two of its shipping-reliant member states – Greece and Cyprus – abstained in October’s vote.
After a meeting between the Greek shipping minister and Saudi Arabia’s energy minister in January, Greece said a “common position” united Greece, Saudi Arabia and the US on the framework.
If the NZF or a similar instrument is not adopted, the IMO has warned that there will be a patchwork of differing regional levies on pollution – like the EU’s emissions trading system for ships visiting its ports – which will be complicated and expensive to comply with.
This would mean that only countries with their own levies and with lots of ships visiting their ports would raise funds, making it harder for other nations to fund green investments in their ports, seafarers and shipping companies. In contrast, under the NZF, revenues would be disbursed by the IMO to all nations based on set criteria.
Anais Rios, shipping policy officer from green campaign group Seas At Risk, told Climate Home News the proposal by the Pacific nations for a levy on all shipping emissions – not just those above a certain threshold – was “the most credible way to meet the IMO’s climate goals”.
“With geopolitics reframing climate policy, asking the IMO to reopen the discussion on the universal levy is the only way to decarbonise shipping whilst bringing revenue to manage impacts fairly,” Rios said.
“It is […] far stronger than the Net-Zero Framework that is currently on offer.”
The post Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen
-
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
Spanish-language misinformation on renewable energy spreads online, report shows
-
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