The Brazilian COP30 presidency has published a “Baku to Belém roadmap” on how climate finance could be scaled up to “at least $1.3tn” a year by 2035.
The idea for the roadmap was a late addition to the outcome of COP29 last year, following disappointment over the formal $300bn-per-year climate-finance goal agreed in Baku.
The new document, published ahead of the UN climate talks in Belém, Brazil, says it is not designed to create new financing schemes or mechanisms.
Instead, the roadmap says it provides a “coherent reference framework on existing initiatives, concepts and leverage points to facilitate all actors coming together to scale up climate finance in the short to medium term”.
It details suggested actions across grants, concessional finance, private finance, climate portfolios, capital flows and more, designed to drive up climate finance over the next decade.
Despite geopolitical uncertainty, there is hope that this roadmap can lay out a pathway to the “trillions” in climate finance that developing countries say they need to meet their climate targets.
Countries have divergent views on how to get there, but some notable trends have emerged from the roadmap, which was spearheaded by the Azerbaijani and Brazilian COP presidencies.
Below, Carbon Brief details what the Baku to Belém roadmap is, why it was launched and what the key points within it are.
- Why was the ‘Baku to Belém roadmap’ launched?
- What is the goal of the roadmap?
- What are different countries’ views on climate finance?
- What are the solutions that the roadmap has identified?
- What happens next?
Why was the ‘Baku to Belém roadmap’ launched?
A mounting body of evidence shows that developing countries will need trillions of dollars in the coming years if they are to achieve their climate goals.
While much of this finance will likely be sourced domestically within those countries, a large slice is expected to come from international actors.
This climate finance is part of the “grand bargain” at the heart of the Paris Agreement, whereby developing countries agree to set more ambitious climate plans if they receive financial support from developed countries.
Ahead of COP29, developing countries hoped that the post-2025 climate finance target – known as the new collective quantified goal (NCQG) – would reflect their full “needs and priorities”, as set out in the Paris Agreement.
They also pushed for developed-country parties such as the EU, the US and Japan to contribute a large portion of this finance, preferably on favourable terms such as grants.
They were left largely disappointed, with a final target that fell well short of what many developing countries had been proposing.
The central target agreed at COP29 was “at least” $300bn a year by 2035, with an expectation that developed countries would “take the lead” in providing these funds from “a wide variety of sources”, including private finance.
This goal – which was effectively the successor to the previous $100bn-per-year target – was far short of what developing countries had wanted. However, another key part of the text agreed in Baku alludes to their ambitions, with a loose request that “all actors” scale up finance to at least $1.3tn per year by 2035:
“[The COP] calls on all actors to work together to enable the scaling up of financing to developing country parties for climate action from all public and private sources to at least $1.3tn per year by 2035.”
In contrast to the $300bn target, this $1.3tn figure, which first appeared in a proposal by the African Group in 2021, reflects developing-country demands and needs. It also aligns with influential analysis of developing-country needs by the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance (IHLEG).
Yet, this part of the text lacked binding language and detail on who precisely would be responsible for providing these funds. It has therefore been described by civil-society groups as more of an aspirational “call to action” than a target.
(“Calls on” is the weakest form of words in which UN legal texts can make a request.)
However, the COP29 text contained another relevant decision, added as negotiations drew to a close. It mentioned a “Baku to Belém roadmap to $1.3tn” – a report that could flesh out ways to scale up finance further and help developing countries achieve their climate targets.
The Azerbaijani COP29 presidency and the incoming Brazilian presidency were tasked with assembling this roadmap ahead of COP30 in 2025.
In the months that followed, the presidencies engaged with governments, civil-society groups, businesses and other relevant actors. They gathered information to build a “library of knowledge and best practices”, which could boost climate finance for developing countries.
What is the goal of the roadmap?
The roadmap comes at a difficult time for climate finance, with a particularly “bleak” outlook for public funding from developed countries. Major donors – particularly the US – have made large cuts to their aid budgets, threatening climate spending overseas.
At the same time, private investment has also faltered, with successive economic shocks raising the cost of capital for clean-energy projects in developing countries.
For years, finance experts and development leaders have talked of a “billions to trillions” agenda, suggesting that public money could help to “mobilise” trillions of dollars of private investments that could be used to build low-carbon infrastructure in the global south.
Yet, the “billions to trillions” concept has also faced growing scrutiny, with even the World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill branding it “a fantasy”. Critics have highlighted wider issues constraining developing countries, such as high levels of debt.
The NCQG text from COP29 set out the roadmap’s overarching goal of scaling up annual climate finance to $1.3tn, through means including “grants, concessional and non-debt-creating instruments, and measures to create fiscal space”.
On the current trajectory, financial sources potentially covered by the target could hit around $427bn for developing countries a year by 2035, less than a third of the goal, according to analysis by the thinktank NRDC.
Achieving $1.3tn of finance relies on what one report calls “yet-to-be-defined mechanisms”, which go beyond the ones covered by the $300bn target.
Countries and other relevant parties were asked by the presidencies for their views on “short-term” – actions by 2028 and “medium-to-long term” actions beyond 2028 that could ramp up finance further. They were asked about new sources of finance and thoughts on scaling up adaptation finance, in particular.
There have already been numerous ideas and programmes put forward for scaling up international climate finance. These include G20-led reforms of the multilateral development banks (MDBs), this year’s International Conference on Financing for Development, as well as UN sovereign debt restructuring efforts.
Accordingly, the Baku to Belém roadmap was also given a remit to “tak[e] into account relevant multilateral initiatives as appropriate”. Parties were also asked for suggestions of organisations and initiatives that should be involved.
Rebecca Thissen from Climate Action Network (CAN) International tells Carbon Brief:
“The roadmap could support the UNFCCC to be sending strong signals to the international community…But also using the convening power that the UNFCCC could have, so bringing those different actors to the table in a more structured and predictable way.”
What are different countries’ views on climate finance?
There were over 227 submissions into the Baku to Belém roadmap, including 38 from countries and party groupings. The remainder came mainly from NGOs, businesses, financial experts and researchers, as shown in the figure below.
The submissions partly reflect what the thinktank C2ES describes as the “pockmarked baggage of the climate finance negotiations”, with many parties demonstrating the same entrenched, often opposing views on climate finance that they have held for decades.
Carbon Brief has captured the submissions by countries and party groupings in the interactive table below, comparing their views on key issues.
There is broad agreement among countries that the roadmap should not reopen the NCQG discussions or involve a new, negotiated outcome at COP30.
However, some parties still call for more accountability in achieving the existing goals.
Latin American countries within the AILAC grouping call for the roadmap to “define concrete milestones for scaling up climate finance”. Egypt goes further, proposing that developed countries alone commit “at least $150bn annually in public concessional finance by 2028”, mainly as grants.
A key divergence in submissions is on which governments and institutions, precisely, should be responsible for scaling finance up to $1.3tn.
Several developing-country groups stress the importance of centring developed countries as the primary contributors, referencing Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement.
The Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) group, which includes India, China and Saudi Arabia, states that “the roadmap must place Article 9.1 as its central pillar”. The G77 and China – a group representing all developing countries – stresses the “additional role developed countries will play in the context of Article 9.1, which is additional to the $300bn”.
Meanwhile, many developed countries focus on what Canada refers to as “a necessary broadening of climate finance” within the roadmap. In practice, this often amounts to a greater push for private finance, as well as “innovative” new sources such as global levies.
While developing countries do not often outright oppose such sources, some of them propose tighter limits. For example, China says “purely commercial investment flows should not be included” in the $1.3tn, which should only count funds “mobilised through public interventions”.
A related dispute centres on the roadmap’s scope, with the EU suggesting it should “extend beyond the UNFCCC framework”.
Parties such as India reject the idea of involving other multilateral fora, such as the G20. This would involve moving beyond the UN climate process, where developed countries have traditionally been the ones responsible for channelling climate finance.
The submissions also show notable differences among developing-country groupings. On the topic of defining what should be counted as “climate finance”, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) opposes the inclusion of funding for fossil-fuel projects, while the Arab Group says it does not support “any exclusionary criteria”.
There is coalescence between parties around other issues, albeit with various subtle differences.
Areas of broad agreement include the importance of more funding for climate adaptation, dealing with “barriers” to funding in developing countries and improving the transparency of climate-finance provision.
The roadmap details some of the potential sources of finance identified within the submissions.
This includes direct budget contributions, which the submissions suggest could generate an additional $197bn in financing; improved rechanneling and new issuances of special drawing rights ($100-500bn per year); carbon pricing ($20-4,900bn, dependent on rate and geographies); and fees on aviation or maritime transport($4-223bn).
Additionally, a range of taxes were identified as candidates for raising new climate finance. These include taxes on specific goods such as luxury fashion, technology and military goods ($34-112bn), financial transactions taxes ($105-327bn), minimum corporate taxes ($165-540bn) and wealth taxes ($200-1,364bn).
In a statement, Rebecca Newsom, global political expert at Greenpeace International, said:
“It’s notable that the roadmap recognises new taxes and levies as key to unlocking public climate finance. Given reported profits from just five international oil and gas giants over the last decade reached almost $800bn, taxing fossil fuel corporations is clearly a huge opportunity to overcome national fiscal constraints.
“The roadmap’s recognition that the UN tax convention provides an opportunity to raise new sources of concessional climate finance is also highly welcome, and is an opportunity governments must now seize.”
What are the solutions that the roadmap has identified?
The roadmap sets out “five action fronts” for reaching $1.3tn by 2035.
These are designed to “help deliver on the at-least-$1.3tn aspiration by strengthening supply, making demand more strategic, and accelerating access and transparency”.
The report titles these five action fronts as “replenishing, rebalancing, rechanneling, revamping and reshaping”.
Within each of these, the roadmap lays out key points to help “transform scientific warning into a global blueprint for cooperation and tangible results”.
The first, “replenishing”, refers to grants, concessional finance and low-cost capital, including multilateral climate funds and MDBs.
It notes that there is a “growing role” for MDBs in advancing climate action, as well as a need for developed countries to achieve “manyfold increases in the delivery of grants and concessional climate finance, including through bilateral and multilateral channels”.
Access to grants and concessional finance is a key enabling factor for an “efficient” flow of public funding, the roadmap notes.
The roadmap calls for coordination in the international finance system, bilateral finance that is concessional and low-cost, multilateral climate funds, innovative sources of concessional finance with simplified access pathways and more.
This coordination could be key, with Sarah Colenbrander, director of ODI’s climate and sustainability programme, telling Carbon Brief:
“The bigger risk is probably that some countries will allocate their climate finance differently, so that they can report more money going out the door without a commensurate increase in fiscal effort. For example, they might shift from grants to concessional loans, and from concessional loans to market-rate loans. If the money will be repaid, there is less lift for taxpayers at home.
“Alternatively, countries might focus on using public finance to mobilise private finance that can also count towards the $300bn goal. Private finance has a very important role to play in both mitigation and adaptation, but it is very unlikely to meet the needs of the most vulnerable communities, given their high adaptation investment needs and very limited ability to pay.”
In particular, the roadmap suggests MDBs “intensify their engagement on climate finance through a strategic approach that recognises and amplifies their catalytic role in providing and mobilising capital”.
Second, “rebalancing” refers to fiscal space and debt sustainability. The roadmap calls on creditor countries, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and MDBs to work together to “alleviate onerous debt burdens faced by developing countries”.
The roadmap notes that external debt servicing costs of developing countries have more than doubled since 2014, to $1.7tn per year in 2023.
Developing countries’ net interest payments on public debt reached $921bn in 2024, a 10% increase compared to 2023, it adds.
The roadmap notes the need to “remove barriers and address disenablers faced by developing countries in financing climate action”. It adds that developing countries face at least two- to four-times the borrowing costs of developed countries.
It points to a number of “promising” solutions already being implemented, such as climate-resilient debt clauses and “debt-for-climate swaps” and debt restructuring.
In particular, MDBs, the IMF, UN agencies and regional UN economic commissions could work together to create a “one-stop shop” for assistance in these areas, the roadmap says.
Third, “rechannelling” refers to “transformative” private finance and affordable cost of capital.
It notes that mobilisation of private finance has been “stubborn to scale”: The level of private finance leveraged by official development interventions has grown by 7% per year from 2016 to 2019 and then 16% per year from 2020 to 2023, to reach $46bn.
The roadmap says that “blended finance” can play a role in scaling up climate finance and that private finance for the implementation of “nationally determined contributions” to cutting global emissions (NDCs) and national adaptation plans (NAPs) has “significant potential for growth”.
“Innovative instruments” are listed as a key approach to improving private finance, including “catalytic equity”, guarantees, foreign exchange risk management, securitisation platforms and more.
To support this, the roadmap calls for target-setting and data transparency, along with increasing, coordinating and harmonising guarantee offerings and channelling concessional finance into long-term foreign exchange hedging facilities, along with other actions.
Relying heavily on private finance could pose a risk, Jan Kowalzig, senior policy adviser for climate at Oxfam Germany, tells Carbon Brief, adding:
“The much larger problem, however, is the plan to massively rely on private finance in the future. While private finance has a key role to play to transform economies, [it] cannot replace much-needed public finance, especially for adaptation and for responding to loss and damage.
“Interventions in these sectors often do not generate return to satisfy investors’ expectations. Forcing projects to become profitable can come at great social cost for frontline communities struggling to survive in the worsening climate crisis.”
The roadmap suggests financial institutions move towards “originate-to-distribute” and “originate-to-share” business models, support the development of climate-aligned domestic financial systems and expand investor bases and diverse sources of capital, amongst other proposals.
Fourth is “revamping”, referring to capacity and coordination for scaled climate portfolios. This “demands institutions to manage risks locally, develop project pipelines, ensure country ownership and track progress and impact”.
It notes that “whole-of-government” approaches to the transition can be strengthened, with NDCs and NAPs integrated throughout national investment strategies. Additionally, it points to country-led coordination or platforms as a route for improving investment.
The roadmap suggests readiness support and project preparation as routes to “revamp” climate finance, alongside support to scale, coordinate and tailor capacity building, the development of country platforms and the provision of “predictable and flexible support for investment frameworks”.
The final “R” is “reshaping”, focused on systems and structures for capital flows. It highlights a number of barriers that still remain for capital flows through developing countries, including outdated clauses in investment treaties.
It recommends prudential regulation, interoperability of taxonomies, climate disclosure frameworks and investment treaties, as key actions to support the reshaping of capital flows.
Additionally, the roadmap suggests that credit rating agencies further refine their methodologies, that jurisdictions adopt voluntary disclosure of climate-related financial risks of financial institutions and that climate stress-test requirements are gradually embedded in supervisory reviews and bank risk management.
Beyond the “five [finance] action fronts”, the roadmap sets out five thematic areas, noting that “where and how finance is directed” matters.
These are: adaptation and loss and damage; clean-energy access and transitions; nature and supporting its guardians; agriculture and food systems; and just transitions.
Within each, it sets out some of the key challenges and suggests routes for financial support.
What happens next?
The Baku to Belem roadmap is not a formal part of COP30 negotiations, but there will be a major launch event at the summit.
Beyond that, the final section of the roadmap sets out that this is the “beginning [of] the journey”. It and details suggested short-term contributions (2026-2028), to serve as “initial, practical steps to inform and guide the early implementation of the roadmap”.
This includes the Azerbaijani and Brazilian presidencies convening an expert group tasked with refining data and developing “concrete financing pathways” to get to $1.3bn in 2035. This will build on the action fronts set out in the roadmap, with the first such report due by October 2026.
Throughout 2026, the presidencies will convene dialogue sessions with parties and stakeholders to discuss how to progress the action fronts over the medium to long term.
The roadmap suggests that to improve predictability, developed countries “could consider” working together on a delivery plan to outline how they expect to achieve the at-least $300bn goal by 2030, as well as other elements of the NCQG.
Additional suggestions in the roadmap are listed in the table below.
(Notably, almost all of these suggestions are made using loose, voluntary language. For example, the roadmap says that developed countries “could” create a delivery plan for their NCQG pathways.)
| Who | What | When |
|---|---|---|
| COP29 and COP30 presidencies | Convene an expert group to develop “concrete financing pathways” | October 2026 |
| COP29 and COP30 presidencies | Convene dialogue sessions with parties and stakeholders | 2026 |
| Developed countries | Creating a delivery plan to set out intended contributions and pathways for NCQG targets | End of 2026 |
| Parties to the Paris Agreement | Request the Standing Committee on Finance to provide an aggregate view on pathways for NCQG | 2027 |
| Governments | Request UN entities to examine and review collaboration options | October 2026 |
| Multilateral climate funds | Report annually on the implementation of their “operational framework” on complementarity and coherence, to enhance cross-fund collaboration. | Annually |
| Multilateral climate funds | Develop monitoring and reporting frameworks and coordination plans, explaining their operations by region, topic and sector | October 2027 |
| Multilateral development banks | Collective report on achieving a new aspirational climate finance target for 2035 | October 2027 |
| Multilateral development banks | Adopt “explicit, ambitious and transparent targets for adaptation and private capital mobilisation” | October 2027 |
| International Monetary Fund | Conduct an assessment of the costs, benefits and feasibility of a new issuance of “special drawing rights” | October 2027 |
| UN regional economic commissions | Develop a study on the potential for expanding debt-for-climate, debt-for-nature and sustainability-linked finance | End of 2027 |
| UNSG-convened working group | Propose a consolidated set of voluntary principles on responsible sovereign borrowing and lending. | October 2026 |
| Crediting rating agencies | Develop a structured dialogue platform with ministries of finance to make progress on refinements to credit rating methodologies. | October 2027 |
| Philanthropies | Expand funding of knowledge hubs | October 2026 |
| UN treaty executive secretariats | Develop a joint report with proposals on economic instruments to support co-benefits and efficiencies | End of 2027 |
| Insurance Development Forum and the V20 | Establish a plan for achieving cheaper and more robust insurance and pre-arranged finance mechanisms for climate disasters | October 2026 |
| Financial Stability Board, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the International Association of Insurance Supervisors | Conduct a joint assessment of whether and how barriers to investment in developing countries could be reduced | October 2027 |
| World’s 100 largest companies | Report annually on how they are contributing towards the implementation of NDCs and NAPs | Annually |
| World’s 100 largest institutional investors | Report annually on how they are contributing towards the implementation of NDCs and NAPs | Annually |
COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev and COP30 president André Aranha Corrêa do Lago conclude in the foreword of the report that while the $1.3bn “journey” is beginning amid “turbulent times”, they are confident that “technological and financial solutions exist”. They add:
“Communities and cities are acting. Families and workers are ready to roll up their sleeves and deliver more action. If resources are strategically redirected and deployed effectively – and if the international financial architecture is reset to fulfil its original purpose of ensuring decent prospects for life – the $1.3tn goal will be an achievable global investment in our present and our future. We are optimistic.”
The post COP30: What does the ‘Baku to Belém roadmap’ mean for climate finance? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
COP30: What does the ‘Baku to Belém roadmap’ mean for climate finance?
Greenhouse Gases
Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.
Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Food inflation on the rise
DELUGE STRIKES FOOD: Extreme rainfall and flooding across the Mediterranean and north Africa has “battered the winter growing regions that feed Europe…threatening food price rises”, reported the Financial Times. Western France has “endured more than 36 days of continuous rain”, while farmers’ associations in Spain’s Andalusia estimate that “20% of all production has been lost”, it added. Policy expert David Barmes told the paper that the “latest storms were part of a wider pattern of climate shocks feeding into food price inflation”.
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NO BEEF: The UK’s beef farmers, meanwhile, “face a double blow” from climate change as “relentless rain forces them to keep cows indoors”, while last summer’s drought hit hay supplies, said another Financial Times article. At the same time, indoor growers in south England described a 60% increase in electricity standing charges as a “ticking timebomb” that could “force them to raise their prices or stop production, which will further fuel food price inflation”, wrote the Guardian.
‘TINDERBOX’ AND TARIFFS: A study, covered by the Guardian, warned that major extreme weather and other “shocks” could “spark social unrest and even food riots in the UK”. Experts cited “chronic” vulnerabilities, including climate change, low incomes, poor farming policy and “fragile” supply chains that have made the UK’s food system a “tinderbox”. A New York Times explainer noted that while trade could once guard against food supply shocks, barriers such as tariffs and export controls – which are being “increasingly” used by politicians – “can shut off that safety valve”.
El Niño looms
NEW ENSO INDEX: Researchers have developed a new index for calculating El Niño, the large-scale climate pattern that influences global weather and causes “billions in damages by bringing floods to some regions and drought to others”, reported CNN. It added that climate change is making it more difficult for scientists to observe El Niño patterns by warming up the entire ocean. The outlet said that with the new metric, “scientists can now see it earlier and our long-range weather forecasts will be improved for it.”
WARMING WARNING: Meanwhile, the US Climate Prediction Center announced that there is a 60% chance of the current La Niña conditions shifting towards a neutral state over the next few months, with an El Niño likely to follow in late spring, according to Reuters. The Vibes, a Malaysian news outlet, quoted a climate scientist saying: “If the El Niño does materialise, it could possibly push 2026 or 2027 as the warmest year on record, replacing 2024.”
CROP IMPACTS: Reuters noted that neutral conditions lead to “more stable weather and potentially better crop yields”. However, the newswire added, an El Niño state would mean “worsening drought conditions and issues for the next growing season” to Australia. El Niño also “typically brings a poor south-west monsoon to India, including droughts”, reported the Hindu’s Business Line. A 2024 guest post for Carbon Brief explained that El Niño is linked to crop failure in south-eastern Africa and south-east Asia.
News and views
- DAM-AG-ES: Several South Korean farmers filed a lawsuit against the country’s state-owned utility company, “seek[ing] financial compensation for climate-related agricultural damages”, reported United Press International. Meanwhile, a national climate change assessment for the Philippines found that the country “lost up to $219bn in agricultural damages from typhoons, floods and droughts” over 2000-10, according to Eco-Business.
- SCORCHED GRASS: South Africa’s Western Cape province is experiencing “one of the worst droughts in living memory”, which is “scorching grass and killing livestock”, said Reuters. The newswire wrote: “In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.”
- NOUVELLE VEG: New guidelines published under France’s national food, nutrition and climate strategy “urged” citizens to “limit” their meat consumption, reported Euronews. The delayed strategy comes a month after the US government “upended decades of recommendations by touting consumption of red meat and full-fat dairy”, it noted.
- COURTING DISASTER: India’s top green court accepted the findings of a committee that “found no flaws” in greenlighting the Great Nicobar project that “will lead to the felling of a million trees” and translocating corals, reported Mongabay. The court found “no good ground to interfere”, despite “threats to a globally unique biodiversity hotspot” and Indigenous tribes at risk of displacement by the project, wrote Frontline.
- FISH FALLING: A new study found that fish biomass is “falling by 7.2% from as little as 0.1C of warming per decade”, noted the Guardian. While experts also pointed to the role of overfishing in marine life loss, marine ecologist and study lead author Dr Shahar Chaikin told the outlet: “Our research proves exactly what that biological cost [of warming] looks like underwater.”
- TOO HOT FOR COFFEE: According to new analysis by Climate Central, countries where coffee beans are grown “are becoming too hot to cultivate them”, reported the Guardian. The world’s top five coffee-growing countries faced “57 additional days of coffee-harming heat” annually because of climate change, it added.
Spotlight
Nature talks inch forward
This week, Carbon Brief covers the latest round of negotiations under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which occurred in Rome over 16-19 February.
The penultimate set of biodiversity negotiations before October’s Conference of the Parties ended in Rome last week, leaving plenty of unfinished business.
The CBD’s subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) met in the Italian capital for four days to discuss a range of issues, including biodiversity finance and reviewing progress towards the nature targets agreed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
However, many of the major sticking points – particularly around finance – will have to wait until later this summer, leaving some observers worried about the capacity for delegates to get through a packed agenda at COP17.
The SBI, along with the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA) will both meet in Nairobi, Kenya, later this summer for a final round of talks before COP17 kicks off in Yerevan, Armenia, on 19 October.
Money talks
Finance for nature has long been a sticking point at negotiations under the CBD.
Discussions on a new fund for biodiversity derailed biodiversity talks in Cali, Colombia, in autumn 2024, requiring resumed talks a few months later.
Despite this, finance was barely on the agenda at the SBI meetings in Rome. Delegates discussed three studies on the relationship between debt sustainability and implementation of nature plans, but the more substantive talks are set to take place at the next SBI meeting in Nairobi.
Several parties “highlighted concerns with the imbalance of work” on finance between these SBI talks and the next ones, reported Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB).
Lim Li Ching, senior researcher at Third World Network, noted that tensions around finance permeated every aspect of the talks. She told Carbon Brief:
“If you’re talking about the gender plan of action – if there’s little or no financial resources provided to actually put it into practice and implement it, then it’s [just] paper, right? Same with the reporting requirements and obligations.”
Monitoring and reporting
Closely linked to the issue of finance is the obligations of parties to report on their progress towards the goals and targets of the GBF.
Parties do so through the submission of national reports.
Several parties at the talks pointed to a lack of timely funding for driving delays in their reporting, according to ENB.
A note released by the CBD Secretariat in December said that no parties had submitted their national reports yet; by the time of the SBI meetings, only the EU had. It further noted that just 58 parties had submitted their national biodiversity plans, which were initially meant to be published by COP16, in October 2024.
Linda Krueger, director of biodiversity and infrastructure policy at the environmental not-for-profit Nature Conservancy, told Carbon Brief that despite the sparse submissions, parties are “very focused on the national report preparation”. She added:
“Everybody wants to be able to show that we’re on the path and that there still is a pathway to getting to 2030 that’s positive and largely in the right direction.”
Watch, read, listen
NET LOSS: Nigeria’s marine life is being “threatened” by “ghost gear” – nets and other fishing equipment discarded in the ocean – said Dialogue Earth.
COMEBACK CAUSALITY: A Vox long-read looked at whether Costa Rica’s “payments for ecosystem services” programme helped the country turn a corner on deforestation.
HOMEGROWN GOALS: A Straits Times podcast discussed whether import-dependent Singapore can afford to shelve its goal to produce 30% of its food locally by 2030.
‘RUSTING’ RIVERS: The Financial Times took a closer look at a “strange new force blighting the [Arctic] landscape”: rivers turning rust-orange due to global warming.
New science
- Lakes in the Congo Basin’s peatlands are releasing carbon that is thousands of years old | Nature Geoscience
- Natural non-forest ecosystems – such as grasslands and marshlands – were converted for agriculture at four times the rate of land with tree cover between 2005 and 2020 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Around one-quarter of global tree-cover loss over 2001-22 was driven by cropland expansion, pastures and forest plantations for commodity production | Nature Food
In the diary
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean | Brasília
- 5 March: Nepal general elections
- 9-20 March: First part of the thirty-first session of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) | Kingston, Jamaica
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz.
Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
Rising temperatures across France since the mid-1970s is putting Tour de France competitors at “high risk”, according to new research.
The study, published in Scientific Reports, uses 50 years of climate data to calculate the potential heat stress that athletes have been exposed to across a dozen different locations during the world-famous cycling race.
The researchers find that both the severity and frequency of high-heat-stress events have increased across France over recent decades.
But, despite record-setting heatwaves in France, the heat-stress threshold for safe competition has rarely been breached in any particular city on the day the Tour passed through.
(This threshold was set out by cycling’s international governing body in 2024.)
However, the researchers add it is “only a question of time” until this occurs as average temperatures in France continue to rise.
The lead author of the study tells Carbon Brief that, while the race organisers have been fortunate to avoid major heat stress on race days so far, it will be “harder and harder to be lucky” as extreme heat becomes more common.
‘Iconic’
The Tour de France is one of the world’s most storied cycling races and the oldest of Europe’s three major multi-week cycling competitions, or Grand Tours.
Riders cover around 3,500 kilometres (km) of distance and gain up to nearly 55km of altitude over 21 stages, with only two or three rest days throughout the gruelling race.
The researchers selected the Tour de France because it is the “iconic bike race. It is the bike race of bike races,” says Dr Ivana Cvijanovic, a climate scientist at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, who led the new work.
Heat has become a growing problem for the competition in recent years.
In 2022, Alexis Vuillermoz, a French competitor, collapsed at the finish line of the Tour’s ninth stage, leaving in an ambulance and subsequently pulling out of the race entirely.
Two years later, British cyclist Sir Mark Cavendish vomited on his bike during the first stage of the race after struggling with the 36C heat.
The Tour also makes a good case study because it is almost entirely held during the month of July and, while the route itself changes, there are many cities and stages that are repeated from year to year, Cvijanovic adds.
‘Have to be lucky’
The study focuses on the 50-year span between 1974 and 2023.
The researchers select six locations across the country that have commonly hosted the Tour, from the mountain pass of Col du Tourmalet, in the French Pyrenees, to the city of Paris – where the race finishes, along the Champs-Élysées.
These sites represent a broad range of climatic zones: Alpe d’ Huez, Bourdeaux, Col du Tourmalet, Nîmes, Paris and Toulouse.
For each location, they use meteorological reanalysis data from ERA5 and radiant temperature data from ERA5-HEAT to calculate the “wet-bulb globe temperature” (WBGT) for multiple times of day across the month of July each year.
WBGT is a heat-stress index that takes into account temperature, humidity, wind speed and direct sunlight.
Although there is “no exact scientific consensus” on the best heat-stress index to use, WBGT is “one of the rare indicators that has been originally developed based on the actual human response to heat”, Cvijanovic explains.
It is also the one that the International Cycling Union (UCI) – the world governing body for sport cycling – uses to assess risk. A WBGT of 28C or higher is classified as “high risk” by the group.
WBGT is the “gold standard” for assessing heat stress, says Dr Jessica Murfree, director of the ACCESS Research Laboratory and assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Murfree, who was not involved in the new study, adds that the researchers are “doing the right things by conducting their science in alignment with the business practices that are already happening”.
The researchers find that across the 50-year time period, WBGT has been increasing across the entire country – albeit, at different rates. In the north-west of the country, WBGT has increased at an average rate of 0.1C per decade, while in the southern and eastern parts of the country, it has increased by more than 0.5C per decade.
The maps below show the maximum July WBGT for each decade of the analysis (rows) and for hourly increments of the late afternoon (columns). Lower temperatures are shown in lighter greens and yellows, while higher temperatures are shown in darker reds and purples.
Six Tour de France locations analysed in the study are shown as triangles on the maps (clockwise from top): Paris, Alpe d’ Huez, Nîmes, Toulouse, Col du Tourmalet and Bordeaux.
The maps show that the maximum WBGT temperature in the afternoon has surpassed 28C over almost the entire country in the last decade. The notable exceptions to this are the mountainous regions of the Alps and the Pyrenees.
The researchers also find that most of the country has crossed the 28C WBGT threshold – which they describe as “dangerous heat levels” – on at least one July day over the past decade. However, by looking at the WBGT on the day the Tour passed through any of these six locations, they find that the threshold has rarely been breached during the race itself.
For example, the research notes that, since 1974, Paris has seen a WBGT of 28C five times at 3pm in July – but that these events have “so far” not coincided with the cycling race.
The study states that it is “fortunate” that the Tour has so far avoided the worst of the heat-stress.
Cvijanovic says the organisers and competitors have been “lucky” to date. She adds:
“It has worked really well for them so far. But as the frequency of these [extreme heat] events is increasing, it will be harder and harder to be lucky.”
Dr Madeleine Orr, an assistant professor of sport ecology at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the paper was “really well done”, noting that its “methods are good [and its] approach was sound”. She adds:
“[The Tour has] had athletes complain about [the heat]. They’ve had athletes collapse – and still those aren’t the worst conditions. I think that that says a lot about what we consider safe. They’ve still been lucky to not see what unsafe looks like, despite [the heat] having already had impacts.”
Heat safety protocols
In 2024, the UCI set out its first-ever high temperature protocol – a set of guidelines for race organisers to assess athletes’ risk of heat stress.
The assessment places the potential risk into one of five categories based on the WBGT, ranging from very low to high risk.
The protocol then sets out suggested actions to take in the event of extreme heat, ranging from having athletes complete their warm-ups using ice vests and cold towels to increasing the number of support vehicles providing water and ice.
If the WBGT climbs above the 28C mark, the protocol suggests that organisers modify the start time of the stage, adapt the course to remove particularly hazardous sections – or even cancel the race entirely.
However, Orr notes that many other parts of the race, such as spectator comfort and equipment functioning, may have lower temperatures thresholds that are not accounted for in the protocol, but should also be considered.
Murfree points out that the study’s findings – and the heat protocol itself – are “really focused on adaptation, rather than mitigation”. While this is “to be expected”, she tells Carbon Brief:
“Moving to earlier start times or adjusting the route specifically to avoid these locations that score higher in heat stress doesn’t stop the heat stress. These aren’t climate preventative measures. That, I think, would be a much more difficult conversation to have in the research because of the Tour de France’s intimate relationship with fossil-fuel companies.”
The post Dangerous heat for Tour de France riders only a ‘question of time’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Dangerous heat for Tour de France riders only a ‘question of time’
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 20 February 2026: EU’s ‘3C’ warning | Endangerment repeal’s impact on US emissions | ‘Tree invasion’ fuelled South America’s fires
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Preparing for 3C
NEW ALERT: The EU’s climate advisory board urged countries to prepare for 3C of global warming, reported the Guardian. The outlet quoted Maarten van Aalst, a member of the advisory board, saying that adapting to this future is a “daunting task, but, at the same time, quite a doable task”. The board recommended the creation of “climate risk assessments and investments in protective measures”.
‘INSUFFICIENT’ ACTION: EFE Verde added that the advisory board said that the EU’s adaptation efforts were so far “insufficient, fragmented and reactive” and “belated”. Climate impacts are expected to weaken the bloc’s productivity, put pressure on public budgets and increase security risks, it added.
UNDERWATER: Meanwhile, France faced “unprecedented” flooding this week, reported Le Monde. The flooding has inundated houses, streets and fields and forced the evacuation of around 2,000 people, according to the outlet. The Guardian quoted Monique Barbut, minister for the ecological transition, saying: “People who follow climate issues have been warning us for a long time that events like this will happen more often…In fact, tomorrow has arrived.”
IEA ‘erases’ climate
MISSING PRIORITY: The US has “succeeded” in removing climate change from the main priorities of the International Energy Agency (IEA) during a “tense ministerial meeting” in Paris, reported Politico. It noted that climate change is not listed among the agency’s priorities in the “chair’s summary” released at the end of the two-day summit.
US INTERVENTION: Bloomberg said the meeting marked the first time in nine years the IEA failed to release a communique setting out a unified position on issues – opting instead for the chair’s summary. This came after US energy secretary Chris Wright gave the organisation a one-year deadline to “scrap its support of goals to reduce energy emissions to net-zero” – or risk losing the US as a member, according to Reuters.
Around the world
- ISLAND OBJECTION: The US is pressuring Vanuatu to withdraw a draft resolution supporting an International Court of Justice ruling on climate change, according to Al Jazeera.
- GREENLAND HEAT: The Associated Press reported that Greenland’s capital Nuuk had its hottest January since records began 109 years ago.
- CHINA PRIORITIES: China’s Energy Administration set out its five energy priorities for 2026-2030, including developing a renewable energy plan, said International Energy Net.
- AMAZON REPRIEVE: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has continued to fall into early 2026, extending a downward trend, according to the latest satellite data covered by Mongabay.
- GEZANI DESTRUCTION: Reuters reported the aftermath of the Gezani cyclone, which ripped through Madagascar last week, leaving 59 dead and more than 16,000 displaced people.
20cm
The average rise in global sea levels since 1901, according to a Carbon Brief guest post on the challenges in projecting future rises.
Latest climate research
- Wildfire smoke poses negative impacts on organisms and ecosystems, such as health impacts on air-breathing animals, changes in forests’ carbon storage and coral mortality | Global Ecology and Conservation
- As climate change warms Antarctica throughout the century, the Weddell Sea could see the growth of species such as krill and fish and remain habitable for Emperor penguins | Nature Climate Change
- About 97% of South American lakes have recorded “significant warming” over the past four decades and are expected to experience rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves | Climatic Change
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Repealing the US’s landmark “endangerment finding”, along with actions that rely on that finding, will slow the pace of US emissions cuts, according to Rhodium Group visualised by Carbon Brief. US president Donald Trump last week formally repealed the scientific finding that underpins federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, although the move is likely to face legal challenges. Data from the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm, shows that US emissions will drop more slowly without climate regulations. However, even with climate regulations, emissions are expected to drop much slower under Trump than under the previous Joe Biden administration, according to the analysis.
Spotlight
How a ‘tree invasion’ helped to fuel South America’s fires
This week, Carbon Brief explores how the “invasion” of non-native tree species helped to fan the flames of forest fires in Argentina and Chile earlier this year.
Since early January, Chile and Argentina have faced large-scale and deadly wildfires, including in Patagonia, which spans both countries.
These fires have been described as “some of the most significant and damaging in the region”, according to a World Weather Attribution (WWA) analysis covered by Carbon Brief.
In both countries, the fires destroyed vast areas of native forests and grasslands, displacing thousands of people. In Chile, the fires resulted in 23 deaths.
Multiple drivers contributed to the spread of the fires, including extended periods of high temperatures, low rainfall and abundant dry vegetation.
The WWA analysis concluded that human-caused climate change made these weather conditions at least three times more likely.
According to the researchers, another contributing factor was the invasion of non-native trees in the regions where the fires occurred.
The risk of non-native forests
In Argentina, the wildfires began on 6 January and persisted until the first week of February. They hit the city of Puerto Patriada and the Los Alerces and Lago Puelo national parks, in the Chubut province, as well as nearby regions.
In these areas, more than 45,000 hectares of native forests – such as Patagonian alerce tree, myrtle, coigüe and ñire – along with scrubland and grasslands, were consumed by the flames, according to the WWA study.
In Chile, forest fires occurred from 17 to 19 January in the Biobío, Ñuble and Araucanía regions.
The fires destroyed more than 40,000 hectares of forest and more than 20,000 hectares of non-native forest plantations, including eucalyptus and Monterey pine.
Dr Javier Grosfeld, a researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in northern Patagonia, told Carbon Brief that these species, introduced to Patagonia for production purposes in the late 20th century, grow quickly and are highly flammable.
Because of this, their presence played a role in helping the fires to spread more quickly and grow larger.
However, that is no reason to “demonise” them, he stressed.
Forest management
For Grosfeld, the problem in northern Patagonia, Argentina, is a significant deficit in the management of forests and forest plantations.
This management should include pruning branches from their base and controlling the spread of non-native species, he added.
A similar situation is happening in Chile, where management of pine and eucalyptus plantations is not regulated. This means there are no “firebreaks” – gaps in vegetation – in place to prevent fire spread, Dr Gabriela Azócar, a researcher at the University of Chile’s Centre for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2), told Carbon Brief.
She noted that, although Mapuche Indigenous communities in central-south Chile are knowledgeable about native species and manage their forests, their insight and participation are not recognised in the country’s fire management and prevention policies.
Grosfeld stated:
“We are seeing the transformation of the Patagonian landscape from forest to scrubland in recent years. There is a lack of preventive forestry measures, as well as prevention and evacuation plans.”
Watch, read, listen
FUTURE FURNACE: A Guardian video explored the “unbearable experience of walking in a heatwave in the future”.
THE FUN SIDE: A Channel 4 News video covered a new wave of climate comedians who are using digital platforms such as TikTok to entertain and raise awareness.
ICE SECRETS: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast explored how scientists study ice cores to understand what the climate was like in ancient times and how to use them to inform climate projections.
Coming up
- 22-27 February: Ocean Sciences Meeting, Glasgow
- 24-26 February: Methane Mitigation Europe Summit 2026, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- 25-27 February: World Sustainable Development Summit 2026, New Delhi, India
Pick of the jobs
- The Climate Reality Project, digital specialist | Salary: $60,000-$61,200. Location: Washington DC
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), science officer in the IPCC Working Group I Technical Support Unit | Salary: Unknown. Location: Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- Energy Transition Partnership, programme management intern | Salary: Unknown. Location: Bangkok, Thailand
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 20 February 2026: EU’s ‘3C’ warning | Endangerment repeal’s impact on US emissions | ‘Tree invasion’ fuelled South America’s fires appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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