Welcome to Carbon Brief’s Cropped.
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
Drought hits food supplies
BLOW TO AFRICA: “The driest February in decades” swept across a swathe of southern Africa, wiping out crops and jeopardising energy supplies, Bloomberg reported. It cited preliminary data suggesting that large parts of Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe had record-low February rainfall last month. The outlet noted that 45% of planted areas in Zambia “have been destroyed” and the president has declared a national disaster. The crop failures have “threatened to send already high food prices surging further”, Bloomberg wrote, noting that in both Zambia and Zimbabwe, prices have risen by about 75% compared to last February. In addition, “dangerously low” water levels in reservoirs in several countries could force the governments to ration power supplies.
‘DIRE NEED OF FOOD’: In the Federated States of Micronesia, in Oceania, thousands of people have been affected by drier-than-normal conditions recorded since December last year, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reported. The news site interviewed Cromwell Bacareza, UNICEF’s Micronesia field office chief, who said that around 16,000 people – 40% of whom are children – “are in dire need of food”. Bacareza told the outlet: “It’s not an isolated incident, but rather a grim reminder for everyone of the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities, particularly the small island states.” RNZ cited the US National Weather Service, which has projected that the current El Niño would continue to worsen weather conditions.
SICILY’S ‘SEVERE DROUGHT’: The southern Italian island of Sicily is also under a “severe drought” due to a lack of winter rains, which has forced dozens of towns to ration water for both agriculture and residential consumption, Reuters reported. The newswire added that the risk to agriculture in Sicily was considered a “particular concern” by the EU’s crop monitoring service. Meanwhile, in the Po valley in northern Italy, rice farmers are still dealing with the impacts of a persistent drought that began in 2022 and devastated 7,500 hectares of rice fields last year alone, according to the Guardian. The outlet noted that Italy accounts for about 50% of the rice produced in the EU, and most of it comes from the Po Valley, where arborio and carnaroli rice – used in risotto – is harvested. The Guardian added that farmers have sought to diversify their crops in response to climate change.
Indigenous peoples driving conservation
INDIGENOUS VOICE: El Mostrador reported that the Chilean government has announced that it will involve Indigenous peoples in developing the country’s adaptation plan for its water sector. It added that “citizen participation” workshops will take place during March and April with the 11 Indigenous peoples legally recognised by Chile. El Mostrador quoted Cristian Núñez Riveros, the director general for water in Chile’s public-works ministry: “This will make it possible to recognise [Indigenous peoples’] interrelationship with water, considering their environment, ways of life and productive activities. It will shed light on the impacts of climate change from their voices, considering their practices and contributions to sustainable water management.”
LEADING CONSERVATION: Indigenous and coastal minority women are at the forefront of efforts to conserve Kenya’s “blue forests”, Inter Press Service reported. The women are restoring mangroves and fish ponds near Tsunza, a southern Kenyan coastal village, after fish disappeared from the area following several oil spills between 2003 and 2006, the newswire reported. Elsewhere, the Indigenous Achuar people in the Ecuadorian Amazon, who fought for more than 40 years to stop oil development in the area, now have solar panels in 12 of their villages, the Washington Post reported. The community had previously had little electricity coverage, but a new project has brought solar electricity to schools and homes and even allowed a switch from petrol boats to solar-powered boats.
‘THE SOLUTION’: Nearly 200 representatives of peasant and Indigenous organisations met at the end of February in south-eastern Mexico to address issues that affect them, including climate change, violence and food sovereignty, EFE Verde reported. The meeting organisers told the news agency that the meeting sought to establish actions to defend their rights in the run-up to the Mexican general elections on 2 June. In an interview with the outlet, Jesús Andrade, a member of a group of farmers’ organisations, said “the solution is peasant agroecology, which can cool the planet”. EFE Verde added that activists, NGOs and communities condemned the murder, disappearance and forced displacement of Indigenous communities by organised crime groups.
Spotlight
Dutch farm visit
In this spotlight, Carbon Brief speaks to John Arink, a Dutch organic farmer, on a media trip organised by Clean Energy Wire.
“When I look at the agricultural system at this moment, we have big problems. It is due to the system that the water is polluted…so we have to change the system.”
Amid ongoing farmer protests across the EU, one farmer in the Netherlands recently showcased the less-intensive future he wants for the agriculture sector.
John Arink, an organic farmer, spoke to Carbon Brief and other media outlets on his farm near the village of Lievelde in the east of the Netherlands, around two hours from Amsterdam.
Arink and his family run a small organic farm, shop, hotel and restaurant. He is a small producer by Dutch standards – the average dairy farm in the country has more than 100 cows. Arink has 50, alongside three pigs and 100 chickens.
Walking around the farm, a rooster crowed in an outdoor enclosure with a solar-powered coop, horned cows looked out from their pen and a group of piglets huddled around their feed.
Arink started out as a more conventional, intensive farmer in the mid-1980s. Then he visited a smaller organic farm and saw how animals could be raised with limited use of chemical fertilisers and antibiotics. He said:
“On my way back home, I thought, well, that’s the direction I want to go with my farm. In the 30 years after that, that’s what we did here.”
The Netherlands – a country around one-third the size of England – is the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural goods, behind the US. Overall in the Netherlands, average farm sizes are getting bigger, but the number of farms is shrinking.
In recent years, the Dutch government had to develop plans to substantially reduce nitrogen emissions from, among other things, manure and chemical fertilisers on farms.
In 2022, the government set targets to cut nitrogen pollution by as much as 70% in some areas by the end of this decade. A voluntary “buy out” scheme for farms is among the measures aimed to reach this goal.
Protests kicked off in 2019 in response to the nitrogen crisis and demonstrations continued over the past few years.
On these protests and the wider farmer outcry across Europe this year, Arink believes that many farmers “cannot look over the hill” to a possible future producing less meat and more plants. He added:
“In Holland, we have some kind of a mantra that says the intensive way of producing milk and meat is very efficient. But it is not when you calculate all of the indirect dues of materials and energy.
“Maybe from the financial point of view, it can be efficient, but we have to look at it in the ecological way. And from that point of view, it’s very inefficient.”
Government formation talks remain ongoing in the Netherlands, months after the country’s general election last November. The next government will be tasked with enforcing the nitrogen reduction measures in the coming years. Arink said:
“That [nitrogen] problem is not to be solved only by farmers, but the whole society.”
News and views
REEF RIFT: Coral reefs around the world are on the brink of a fourth mass bleaching event, which “could see wide swathes of tropical reefs die”, Reuters reported. This follows “months of record-breaking ocean heat fuelled by climate change and the El Niño climate pattern”, the newswire added. Bleaching is triggered by heat stress and “can be devastating for the ocean ecosystem”, Reuters said. Dr Derek Manzello, the coordinator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s coral reef monitoring authority, told the outlet: “We are literally sitting on the cusp of the worst bleaching event in the history of the planet.” Australia’s Great Barrier Reef “lost nearly a third of its corals” during the last global bleaching between 2014 and 2017, the newswire noted.
RISK FACTOR: The EU is planning to delay its deforestation-risk rating system for countries, which was due to take effect at the end of this year, according to the Financial Times. The law aims to prevent the sale of products that have been produced on deforested land. The rules would categorise countries as posing either a low, standard or high risk for deforestation. Three EU officials told the FT that all countries will be listed as “standard risk, to give them more time to adapt”. The newspaper said that the change came after “several governments in Asia, Africa and Latin America complained that the rules would be burdensome, unfair and scare off investors”. The European Commission declined to comment, the FT said. (Read Carbon Brief’s Q&A on the law for more.)
NIGERIA’S ‘BLUE CARBON’: A mangrove-restoration carbon credit project received an early green light in an “oil-rich Nigerian state”, Bloomberg reported. A UK-based company, Serendib Capital, was granted the rights “to restore the mangroves and seagrass beds” on about 9% of land in Delta State, in southern Nigeria. The outlet said that the project developer claimed this “could potentially sequester, or store away, 5.32m tons of carbon each year”. Huge oil companies “have been blamed for much of the damage that’s historically destroyed the area’s wetlands and farms”, Bloomberg added, noting that “they, in turn, could now become some of the biggest buyers of carbon offsets”. Parts of the carbon offset market have “cooled recently amid increasingly sharp criticism from scientists and experts”, the outlet said.
FARMERS RALLY ON: “Thousands of angry farmers” threw smoke bombs and lit fires near parliament buildings in Warsaw as EU farmer protests continued, Al Jazeera said. Polish farmers demonstrated against EU rules and “cheap Ukraine imports”, according to the outlet, adding that there were also “tractor blockades on roads across the country”. The country’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, “failed to reach an agreement with Polish farmers to end protests”, Euronews reported. Separately, ITV News said that farmers in Wales lined “thousands of wellies…on the steps of the Senedd [parliament] in protest against the Welsh government’s new farming plans”.
AFRICAN AGRI: A report from civil-society groups criticised a $61bn plan to “industrialise African food systems”, saying it would pose a “significant threat to small-scale farmers”, Mongabay reported. The African Development Bank (AfDB) recently released “agricultural development plans” for 40 African countries, aiming to improve food security and productivity. The groups said the initiative’s “emphasis on principal commodity crops, mechanised farming tools and standardised land tenure systems” push towards agro-industrialisation, Mongabay said. The outlet added that the groups believe this would “increase dependency on multinational corporations for seeds and agrochemicals, and lead to the loss of land and biodiversity”. The AfDB did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment.
COASTAL VILLAGE THREAT: Coastal villages in the east of India that were “hit hard by a super-cyclone” 25 years ago have since experienced “a rise in soil and water salinity and subsequent loss of agricultural land, livelihoods and marriage prospects”, according to the Migration Story. The outlet spoke to residents in the villages of Udaykani and Tandahar about the continuing impacts of the super-cyclone that “lashed” the state of Odisha in 1999, which was the “most intense ever recorded in the northern Indian Ocean”. One villager, Vaidehi Kardi, told the outlet: “When the soil turned salty, our crops shrivelled…Gradually, the water, too, turned salty and our lives withered.”
Watch, read, listen
GREEN BURIALS: In a podcast, National Public Radio examined sustainable burials and how costly they can be for your wallet and the planet.
AN OPTION FOR BELIZE: Inside Climate News looked at a “fevered push” from conservationists to “save what’s left” of the tropical rainforest in Belize through carbon offsets.
‘ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES’: The Diplomat interviewed Prof John McManus, a professor at the University of Miami, to talk about environmental damage in the South China Sea.
‘GREEN GOLD’: In a Financial Times long read, the newspaper’s Brazil bureau chief Bryan Harris explored the agriculture and agribusiness “boomtowns” in the central-west parts of Brazil.
New science
Australia’s Tinderbox Drought: An extreme natural event likely worsened by human-caused climate change
Science Advances
Climate change made low rainfall levels during an “extreme and impactful” drought in Australia from 2017-19 “around six times more likely”, compared to pre-industrial times, new research suggested. This drought “helped create favourable conditions for the most intense and widespread outbreak of forest fires ever recorded in south-east Australia”, the study said. The researchers looked at the characteristics and causes of the “tinderbox drought” in south-east Australia and used modelling to assess how unusual the drought was compared to “natural climate variability”. They found multiple ways in which human-caused climate change may have worsened the drought, but said that other aspects of the drought were “unexpected”.
Bornean tropical forests recovering from logging at risk of regeneration failure
Global Change Biology
When logged forests are restored, they have higher seedling mortality compared to unlogged forests, new research has found. Over a year and a half, researchers examined the diversity, survival and characteristics of more than 5,000 seedlings of 15 species in northern Borneo. Some of the seeds germinated in unlogged forests and some in forests that were logged 30-35 years ago and were subsequently restored either naturally or with restoration techniques such as tree planting. They found that both restoration types had lower species richness and evenness than unlogged forests five-to-six months after the trees began to produce stems.
Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in the UK: carbon storage potential and growth rates
Royal Society Open Science
A new study revealed that giant sequoias planted in the UK can absorb carbon between 2.5 and 20 times faster than other tree species commonly planted on plantations. The researchers used laser scanning to calculate the above-ground biomass and annual biomass accumulation rates of individual giant sequoia trees at three different sites. They found that the UK trees grew at similar rates as those in the US, “varying with climate, management and age”. The study said that giant sequoias are one of the country’s largest tree species and have “undoubted public appeal”. It added that they “represent a small but potentially important addition to the UK’s carbon sequestration efforts”.
In the diary
- 15 March: Third meeting of the informal advisory group on benefit-sharing from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources | Online
- 11-13 March: 11th annual World Ocean Summit and Expo | Lisbon
- 18-29 March: First part of the 29th session of the International Seabed Authority | Kingston, Jamaica
- 21 March: International Day of Forests
- 22 March: World Water Day
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 13 March 2024: Drought hits food supplies; ‘Mass bleaching’ of coral reefs; Industrialising African ag appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate Change
China Briefing 28 May 2026: Deadly rains | China pushes back | Examining China’s carbon intensity metric
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.
China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Several dead as record rainfall hit several provinces
DEADLY DOWNPOUR: Multiple rounds of heavy rainfall have hit central and eastern China, with Agence France-Presse reporting that at least 25 people were killed in the first round, which affected provinces including Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan and Hubei. Shortly afterwards, nine people died in south-western Chongqing province, reported finance news outlet Caixin, after receiving “nearly 300mm of rain in just two hours, a deluge local residents described as the worst in more than 60 years”. The government has dedicated 280m yuan ($41m) to support affected provinces, reported state news agency Xinhua. The Communist party-backed newspaper China Youth Daily reported that more than 20 provinces have been affected so far, with rains expected to continue throughout June.
CLIMATE CONTRIBUTION: National rainfall over 11-23 May was 46% higher than the seasonal norm, said Xinhua. Nearly 500 weather stations nationwide have logged record rainfall levels, according to state-sponsored newspaper Guangming Daily. The rains were described as “quite unusual”, according to Xinhua, with the National Climate Centre’s chief forecaster Gao Hui telling the agency that the heavy rains were caused by a combination of factors. These included a convergence of several climate systems carrying in strong flows of moisture from nearby marine regions, as well as “rapid global warming, compounded by a fast-developing El Niño” increasing the atmosphere’s moisture content.
The EU ‘overcapacity’ debate
‘CONCERNS’ REGISTERED: The EU will debate proposals in June to “step up efforts” to reduce economic reliance on China and protect its industries, including “safeguard investigations” for at-risk sectors and an “overcapacity instrument”, reported Politico. Finance news outlet Yicai said China in turn has registered its “concerns” with the World Trade Organization over the EU’s Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), which includes local content requirements for industries including clean-energy technologies.
PATIENCE ‘WEARING THIN’: A report by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post cited “some observers” as saying a trade war characterised by the EU “clos[ing] its market down to Chinese imports” may be the “only” way in which the EU can get China to fully engage with its concerns. A China Daily editorial states that China’s “patience” over the EU’s “politicisation and over-securitisation of trade and economic issues” is “wearing thin”. An editorial in the state-supporting Global Times says “erecting higher trade barriers” against Chinese cleantech is “clearly unwise”, given the Iran conflict, adding: “China will never sit idly by while the EU unreasonably suppresses Chinese companies.”
MISSING AGREEMENTS: Meanwhile, Bloomberg covered US president Donald Trump’s claims that his counterpart Xi Jinping “likes the idea of buying more US oil”, following Trump’s state visit to China. [None of the Chinese government readouts or press briefings covering trade outcomes have mentioned any energy agreements so far.] Similarly, the “Kremlin said…a general understanding” had been reached on the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline following Russian president Vladimir Putin’s visit to China, according to Reuters, but that there was “no mention of any oil and gas deals among documents signed” during his meeting with Xi. A joint statement published by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said China and Russia will “deepen” cooperation around oil and gas, coal, nuclear and renewable energy, adding that they will “strengthen cooperation in addressing climate change”.
Coal-power generation rose in April
‘INFLEXIBLE’ COAL: Thermal power generation in China “grew for a fourth straight month in April”, rising 3.1% year-on-year in the face of reduced wind and nuclear generation, reported Bloomberg. “Unfavorable weather” was not the only reason for weaker clean-energy generation, wrote Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air lead analyst Lauri Myllyvirta on Bluesky, with “grid congestion due to inflexible operation of coal plants and transmission lines” also a factor. Separately, research by Global Energy Monitor found that Chinese coal-plant developers “requested approval for 51 gigawatts (GW)” of new capacity in January-March 2026, reported Bloomberg.
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SOLAR SLOWDOWN: Total power demand grew 6% year-on-year in April, according to Xinhua. Total capacity rose 14% by the end of April, reported energy news outlet International Energy Net, with China’s total solar-power capacity now exceeding 1,250 gigawatts (GW) and wind reaching 661GW, while thermal capacity rose 7% to 1,556GW. However, the growth rate of new solar installations continued to fall for a “fourth straight month”, said Bloomberg, with 9.5GW added in April 2026 compared to 45.2GW the year before.
POLICY EXPANDS: Meanwhile, the government has expanded its renewable power “direct connection” policy to allow clean-energy generators to supply multiple users directly “through dedicated [power] lines”, rather than just one consumer, reported finance news outlet Caixin. It cited a government official saying the policy is “intended to support cleaner energy use in industrial parks…and other large energy-consuming facilities”, which comprise more than two-thirds of total energy demand. Economic news outlet Jiemian quotes an expert saying the policy enables both “lower electricity prices” and “higher utilisation rates” for renewables, “reducing curtailment rates”.
More China news
- ‘SOLIDARITY AND RESOLVE’: China voted in favour of a UN general assembly resolution to back the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) landmark 2025 opinion on states’ legal obligations to tackle climate change. The Chinese embassy to Vanuatu said on Facebook this displayed its “solidarity and collective resolve”.
- BOND DISCLOSURE: According to a disclosure report by China’s finance ministry, the country raised 6bn yuan in “green sovereign bonds” in 2025, said finance news outlet EastMoney ($884m), of which 700m ($103m) was spent on clean-energy retrofitting.
- WAR ON SAND: The central government has pledged to “improve” and expand its ecological compensation mechanism, including to now provide compensation for building solar farms in desertified areas, said power news outlet BJX News.
- SPACE-BASED SOLAR: Chinese scientists have begun “initial experiments” in a project to “collect [solar] energy in orbit and beam it wirelessly to Earth”, said PV Magazine.
- MINERAL STRATEGY: China has pledged to “accelerate the construction of strategic mineral-reserve sites”, reported Reuters. It will also work with the US on “reasonable” concerns around its rare-earth export controls, Reuters also reported.
Captured
Hydrogen in China continues to be mostly produced from coal, according to a National Energy Administration report. A new Carbon Brief article explored how a series of new policies in China could help scale hydrogen, particularly “green” hydrogen made with renewable power.
Spotlight
China’s new carbon metric leaves Germany-sized gap in its emissions
A major change in the way that China measures its core climate goal has effectively halved the growth in the country’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions over the past five years.
The revised measure of “carbon intensity” implies that China’s emissions have only gone up by 7% from 2020-2025, just half of the 14% rise indicated by previous official statistics.
This spotlight is an excerpt of an analysis explaining how the metric appears to have shifted and its implications for China’s climate goals. The full article can be found on the Carbon Brief website.
Germany-sized gap
Reducing carbon intensity – CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – has been China’s key climate commitment since the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009.
Neither China’s international climate pledges nor other official documents have ever set out a definition of carbon intensity.
However, until this year, it was possible to closely reproduce the reported numbers, based on a straightforward interpretation of what carbon intensity means – combining official GDP data with estimates of emissions from the use of fossil fuels.
Now, the types of emissions that are included in the carbon-intensity metric have changed.
The previous carbon-intensity measure apparently included emissions from the use of fossil fuels to generate energy and as chemical feedstocks, so-called “non-energy uses”. It did not include non-fossil fuel CO2 emissions from industrial processes, such as the production of cement.
Based on reported progress against this old scope, China’s carbon intensity had fallen by 12.4% from 2020-2025, well short of its 18% target under the 14th five-year plan.
Yet the 15th five-year plan reported that China had cut its carbon intensity by 17.7% over the same period, indicating a major shift in which types of emissions are included.
A footnote in China’s latest statistical communique indicates that carbon intensity now includes industrial process emissions and excludes non-energy uses of fossil fuels.
The shift has implications for estimates of the country’s emissions.
China’s total emissions were 11.2bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) in 2020. Based on the original methodology, its fossil-fuel CO2 emissions had grown 14% by 2024, an increase of 1,430m tonnes (MtCO2).
In contrast, the newly reported carbon-intensity figures imply that China’s CO2 emissions only grew by 7% between 2020 and 2025, up just 690MtCO2.
The gap between these figures amounts to 730MtCO2, equivalent to the annual emissions of Germany or South Korea.
Decoding the new methodology
The methodology change could have significant implications, making it important to understand how it is being calculated.
The new scope includes industrial-process emissions. One of the largest sources of these emissions, the cement industry, has been contracting, helping explain the improvement to carbon intensity under the new scope.
In addition, the new scope excludes non-energy use of fossil fuels – largely relating to the chemicals industry – which have seen rapid growth in the past five years.
One way to make the numbers add up would be to assume that the amount of carbon embedded in chemical-industry products has increased by the equivalent of 500MtCO2.
However, the reported output of major chemical-industry products cannot account for this level of embedded carbon.
Neither the change in scope of the carbon-intensity calculation, nor the change in the amount of carbon retained in products, can explain the size of the revision in the newly reported numbers. There must be another explanation.
Either the new scope broadly aligns with the explanation outlined above, but also excludes a subset of the CO2 emissions. Or the scope does not exclude any of the CO2, but there are gaps in the monitoring of some energy or industrial-process emissions.
Either explanation would mean China is not accounting for some of its CO2 emissions.
Implications for China’s targets
This change has the effect of weakening China’s climate targets and introducing more uncertainty into tracking progress.
The new numbers means it will require less effort to hit the 2030 carbon-intensity target in its Paris pledge. This target can now be met even if emissions rise, whereas the previous metric would have required a reduction.
It will also require less effort to hit the carbon-intensity target in China’s 15th five-year plan.
In addition, China would be able to officially meet its target to peak emissions by 2030, even if its overall CO2 emissions do not actually peak. The change could also affect delivery of China’s targets to cut emissions by 2035.
While China may use any definition it wants for carbon intensity under the UN climate framework, retrospective changes or inconsistent accounting could erode the value of its commitments.
Moreover, it will ultimately have to close any gaps in its emissions data and reporting, under the transparency rules of the Paris Agreement.
This spotlight is adapted from an article by Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air lead analyst Lauri Myllyvirta for Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
MINING ACCIDENT: A column in Bloomberg argued that “continuing to veer…toward cleaner [energy] development” could avoid coal-mine accidents such as the one that claimed 82 lives in Shanxi province.
INDONESIAN NICKEL: The European Guanxi Podcast recorded a discussion with Ember’s Dr Muyi Yang about the role China plays in Indonesia’s coal-reliant nickel industry.
INDUSTRIAL HURDLES: A new article in Yicai investigated the reasons why companies are holding back on relocating to zero-carbon industrial parks.
NEGATIVE PRICES: The Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily published a widely-read article on how the emergence of “negative electricity prices” signals a need for a more “coordinated” buildout of clean energy.
163
In billion tonnes, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that China could avoid between 2025-2060 by transitioning to clean energy, according to a new study published by several leading academic institutions in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. Scientists estimate that the remaining global budget for keeping temperatures below 1.5C is 130bn tonnes of CO2.
New science
- Population exposure to heatwave-drought events “increased markedly” across China during between 1961-90 and 1991-2020, driven by a combination of population growth and more frequent heatwave-drought events | Atmospheric Research
- Fossil-fired power generation accounts for three-quarters of China’s total water consumption for energy production | Mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change
Recently published on WeChat
China Briefing is written by Anika Patel, with contributions from Lekai Liu, and edited by Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 28 May 2026: Deadly rains | China pushes back | Examining China’s carbon intensity metric appeared first on Carbon Brief.
A new book examines “renewable portfolio standard” laws and the ways utilities drove the bus.
Not long ago, the rise of U.S. renewable energy was largely tied to state policies that required or encouraged utilities to meet benchmarks for obtaining wind and solar power.
How Utility Companies and States Shaped America’s Clean Energy Transition
Europe has been hit by a searing heatwave, which has shattered temperature records across France, Spain and the UK.
In London, for example, the mercury hit a record high for May of 35.1C at Kew Gardens on Tuesday 26 May, breaking the former record-high May temperature by more than 2C.
Multiple people have died as a result of the high temperatures, including 14 people across the UK and France who drowned.
The heatwave was driven by a “heat dome”, in which warm air moving up from northern Africa has become trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe.
Experts have been quick to point out the link between extreme heat and global warming, with one saying it was “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that climate change was making such events “more likely and more severe”.
In this article, Carbon Brief examines the impacts of the heatwave and the role of climate change.
- What is happening with the May heatwave in Europe?
- What is driving the record-shattering heat?
- What are the impacts of the extreme heat?
- How has the media responded?
What is happening with the May heatwave in Europe?
Europe has been hit by “mind-bogglingly crazy” temperature records in May, according to the Financial Times, quoting Peter Thorne, director of the ICARUS Climate Research Centre at Maynooth University in Ireland.
In London, on Tuesday 26 May, temperatures hit a record high for May of 35.1C at Kew Gardens – breaking the previous record of 34.8C, set just the day before.
This was more than 2C above the previous May temperature high of 32.8C recorded in 1922 and again in 1944, reported the Times.
The Associated Press added that the UK capital also recorded a rare “tropical night”, when temperatures did not fall below 20C overnight.
The Daily Telegraph reported that Wales and Northern Ireland also saw record-high temperatures, of 27.4C in Cardiff and 23.4C in Armagh, on Sunday.
As with the UK record, these were quickly surpassed. BBC News reported that temperatures hit 32.9C in Bute Park, Cardiff and 24.5C in Thomastown, County Fermanagh, on Tuesday.
BBC News quoted a spokesperson from the Met Office, who said:
“This heat would be exceptional in the UK even in mid-summer, let alone in May.”
The broadcaster added that the average temperature in the UK at the end of May is usually 14-20C.
The Associated Press reported that temperature records have also fallen across Europe.
This includes in France, where temperatures reached 36C on Monday in the country’s south-west and remained above 20C at night across much of the country. The newspaper Libération declared that “it has never been so hot, so early, in France”.
The Guardian reported that the weather agency Météo France said the heatwave could last through the week and bring temperatures as high as 39C in some areas in the country.
As well as the UK and France, other nations have been seeing temperatures soar. France24 reported that temperatures in Spain were expected to reach 38C, with Italy also facing high temperatures.
The Irish Times reported that the May high-temperature record was broken twice in Ireland on the same day, with 29.7C recorded in Carlow and then 30.5C at Shannon Airport on Tuesday.
Le Monde explained that a “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa is behind the high temperatures across Europe. (See: What is driving the record-breaking heat?)
The Financial Times quoted ICARUS’s Thorne saying that the records being set in Europe, “particularly in the UK and France, are mind-bogglingly crazy”. He added:
“We have more than 100 years of observational records. To break the all-time May record by more than 2C…is hard to comprehend.”
What is driving the record-shattering heat?
The immediate driver of the extreme heat seen over Europe this week is a “heat dome”, according to Politico.
The outlet explained that the phenomenon is driven by “warm air moving up from northern Africa [that] has become trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe”. It added:
“The effect is similar to that of a lid on a pot, with warm air forced downward and baking affected regions with prolonged, blistering heat.”
Spain’s El Correo explained that the phenomenon is “not a simple heatwave”, adding that such “high-pressure systems trapped over Europe are not usually seen before summer”.
However, many publications have linked the severity of the extreme heat to climate change. The Associated Press quoted ICARUS’s Thorne, who said:
“We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that heatwave events such as this have been made more likely and more severe due to climate change arising from our emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.”
The Guardian quoted Dr Chloe Brimicombe, a researcher at the University of Oxford, who said:
“The record-breaking heat is a reminder of how climate change is impacting our lives in the UK. It highlights the urgency of recent calls for heat adaptation.”
France’s Le Figaro described the event as an “unequivocal sign of global warming”.
The Independent reported that the heatwave “has the fingerprints of climate change all over it”. Other outlets, including Inside Climate News and Scientific American, also covered the links between extreme heat and climate change.
BBC News noted that over the last 30 years, Europe has been warming by 0.56C per decade – more than twice the global average.
The outlet quoted Prof Erich Fischer, professor at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, who compared the record-breaking temperatures to setting a new record in sports.
He explained that “if someone beats a world record in high jump, you would expect them to beat it by one centimetre and not suddenly by 20, 30 centimetres”. Similarly, he said that in the case of temperature, you would expect new records to be broken by a fraction of a degree, rather than 2 or 3C.
However, the broadcaster explained that “when a relatively rare weather system, such as this week’s heat dome, comes around in a warming climate, the margin of record can be huge”.
Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, called the heatwave a “brutal reminder of the cost of global warming”, according to Politico.
The Guardian also quotes Stiell, who said:
“The science is clear that human-induced climate change is making these heatwaves more frequent and extreme”.
What are the impacts of the extreme heat?
The heatwave has already been linked to multiple deaths.
This included seven people in France, five of whom died by drowning and two who suffered heat-related deaths while competing in sporting events, said the Guardian.
Separately, the Guardian reported that at least nine people have died in the UK from “water-related incidents” during the heatwave.
France24 reported that “restrictions on outdoor work were imposed in parts of Italy” and that “farmers reported accelerated harvests as temperatures went beyond 30C across [south-west France]”.
The Guardian reported that tennis players at the French Open were “forced to adjust their games while trying to find their best level through obvious discomfort”, amid 33C temperatures in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, on Monday.
CNN added that, in the UK, “a wildfire broke out near Arthur’s Seat, a hill in Edinburgh, Scotland, and hundreds of properties in south-east England were left without water as demand spiked”.
BBC News reported on a warning from a chief nurse that hospitals in the south-west of England were busier than usual amid the heatwave.
BBC News reported that the UK saw a surge in emergency calls on Tuesday. The Daily Telegraph added that “Britain’s roads started melting and rail commuters were left stranded for hours”.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reported on a warning from climate campaigners that the government “urgently” needs to start installing air conditioning units in schools and care homes.
The extreme heat has also affected Europe’s renewable energy generation. Bloomberg said that “the heat dome has blocked clouds and fueled booming solar generation”, but added that “by clearing clouds and calming the atmosphere, the heat dome has had the opposite effect on wind speeds”.
How has the media responded?
The unseasonably high temperatures have caught the attention of news outlets in the UK, France and other affected nations.
Often, news stories were accompanied by photos of people relaxing at the beach, eating ice cream and swimming in the sea.
Such images of “fun in the sun” have often drawn criticism from climate researchers for “misrepresenting” the risks of heatwaves.
This choice of imagery – and the way right-leaning newspapers in the UK tend to focus on the positive aspects of hot weather – was highlighted by journalist and media critic Mic Wright in a Substack post. He wrote:
“Most British newspapers write about extremely hot weather with the tone of a frog in a boiling pot pretending it’s a jacuzzi.”
Despite blanket news coverage of the record heat in media outlets across western Europe, there has been relatively little commentary from their opinion pages.
No major UK newspapers have published editorials about the heat and there has been no space dedicated to it in the comment sections of the largest French and Spanish newspapers.
One exception in UK media was the Daily Mail’s climate-sceptic columnist Richard Littlejohn writing an article mocking heat-safety measures and warnings issued by the Met Office and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
In contrast, the Guardian published an article by Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, warning of the dangers facing the UK as extreme heat becomes “the norm”. He wrote:
“We need, then, to face the fact that life in the 2050s is going to be very different from today, and act now. The sooner we recognise this and begin – as a nation – to prepare and adapt accordingly, the better we will be able to meet these enormous challenges to our everyday lives.”
Oliver Duff, editor-in-chief of the i newspaper, wrote that the UK is “emotionally underprepared”, as a nation, for the heat:
“Worries about climate change are forgotten in the giddy determination to enjoy our brief, unreliable summers, whichever month of the year they deign to visit.”
Writing in the Independent, journalist Kat Brown reflected on the Climate Change Committee’s recent advice to the UK government on adapting to climate change. She stressed the need to “take heatwaves seriously”.
James Wallace, chief executive of the charity River Action, was given a guest column in the Daily Express in which he wrote: “As the nation swelters in record-breaking temperatures, England is sleepwalking into a water crisis.”
In reference to water shortages and increasingly extreme weather, Wallace also emphasised that “this is climate breakdown in real time”.
The post Media reaction: UK and Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May heat and climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Media reaction: UK and Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May heat and climate change
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