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
Ocean warming woes
NEAR-RECORD HIGHS: Global ocean temperatures remain “near record temperatures”, according to data from the EU’s Copernicus Earth-monitoring service, which was covered by the Financial Times. Dr Julien Nicolas, a senior scientist at Copernicus, said the warmer-than-usual oceans of 2023 and 2024 were “partly driven” by the El Niño phenomenon, but that the continued highs “underscore the long-term warming trend”. Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald said that a marine heatwave currently stretching across 40m km2 of the south-western Pacific Ocean was “bringing intense heat, extreme rainfall and sea level rise” to the region.
‘UNUSUALLY INTENSE’: The New York Times carried an interactive looking at how marine heatwaves have increased in frequency over the past few decades. It noted that the UK and Irish coasts have “experienced an unusually intense marine heatwave, one of the longest on record” in recent months. It also pointed out that most studies of marine heatwaves focus on a very small number of countries. Dr Dan Smale, a community ecologist at the UK’s Marine Biological Association, told the newspaper: “There are lots of regions around the world where monitoring isn’t as good as other places and so we don’t really know what’s happening.”
‘UNPRECEDENTED HEATWAVE’: Western Australia’s Ningaloo reef has been hit by an “unprecedented heatwave” since August 2024, “turning corals white” across a 1,500km span of reef, the Guardian said. It added that “government scientists are reporting widespread coral death, which they say is the worst bleaching to hit the state…The scale of mortality has left many shocked.” Temperatures on western Australia’s reefs have “reached as high as or higher than ever recorded”, according to Dr James Gilmour, a research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. The Guardian delved into the emotions affecting the scientists who study the reef.
New deforestation rates in Latin America
SETBACK IN BRAZIL: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged 92% in May compared to the same period last year, according to official monitoring data covered by the Associated Press. The data showed 960km2 of forest loss, an area “slightly larger than New York City”, the newswire added. João Paulo Capobianco, executive secretary of Brazil’s ministry of the environment, told the outlet that wildfires have become one of the major drivers of deforestation in the Amazon. He called on countries to support the Tropical Forests Forever fund, a scheme proposed by Brazil to compensate for forest conservation, the article noted.
PERU NOT FALLING BEHIND: Peru lost 4.1m hectares (41,000km2) of forest – an area the size of Switzerland – in the last 40 years, according to a report released by the MapBiomas Peru platform and covered by Mongabay. Agricultural activities lead the list of drivers of deforestation, especially with oil palm and rice plantations, followed by mining, the outlet noted. The report found that the Amazon and the equatorial dry forest are the ecosystems most affected by deforestation, with the latter losing 9% of its territory compared to the 1985 level.
COLOMBIA REDUCES DEFORESTATION: Colombia’s environment ministry announced a decrease in deforestation of 33% early this year, compared to the same period in 2024, the Washington Post reported. The outlet cited Colombia’s environment minister, Lena Estrada, who said deforestation fell from 40,219 hectares (402km2) in early 2024 to 27,000 hectares (270km2) so far this year. The biggest reductions took place in Amazon national parks, due to “community coordination and a crackdown on environmental crime”, the ministry said. The outlet added that the Colombian Amazon holds the highest levels of deforestation in Colombia, accounting for 69% of the country’s deforestation.
Spotlight
Three key takeaways from the UN ocean summit
In this Spotlight, Carbon Brief highlights three key takeaways of the third UN ocean summit.
The third UN Ocean Conference ended last Friday (13 June) after a week of negotiations covering various aspects of the problems faced by the world’s oceans – including pollution, overfishing and the share of the benefits from the use of genetic resources in the high seas.
The summit took place in the French port of Nice and was co-hosted by France and Costa Rica. It brought together 15,000 attendees, including more than 60 heads of state and government.
High Seas Treaty ratifications
The agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), also known as the High Seas Treaty, was adopted in 2023 after 20 years of negotiations.
The treaty aims to “safeguard marine life in international waters”.
During the conference, 19 countries ratified the treaty, taking the total to 50 of the 60 countries required for the treaty to enter into force. According to BBC News, dozens of other countries also indicated their intent to ratify the treaty in the near future.
Sara Zelaya, a biologist and the senior advocacy officer for the ecosystems programme at the Inter-American Association for Environmental Defence, said that she hopes the treaty will complement other global governance mechanisms and allow for the fairer use of the “common heritage of mankind” that is the ocean.
She told Carbon Brief:
“For the global south, it brings a little bit of justice – or at least a hope of justice – in the sense of how we are using the resources in the high seas”.
José Julio Casas, technical secretary of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor (CMAR) encompassing Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador, told Carbon Brief that ratification of the agreement would see countries able to restrict the activities that can be implemented in specific areas of the high seas, according to their economic, ecological and social relevance.
New commitments
The conference saw several countries commit to ocean conservation funding.
The European Commission announced the largest investment of the summit, worth €1bn, for ocean conservation, science and sustainable fishing. Germany and New Zealand committed to allocate $115m and $52m, respectively, for conserving and strengthening the ocean governance of their territorial waters.
Several countries also committed to protecting large swathes of their ocean. French Polynesia pledged to create the world’s largest marine protected area, which will encompass around 5m km2 of ocean. Spain said it will establish five new marine protected areas.
Panama and Canada jointly announced the formation of a 37-country coalition called the High Ambition Coalition for a Quiet Ocean, which will focus on addressing ocean noise pollution.
Zelaya said that to make sure that these commitments translate into effective conservation of marine ecosystems, countries should include and prioritise oceans in their public policies and allocate specific budgets for ocean conservation.
The UN Ocean Declaration
At the summit, more than 170 countries adopted the Nice Ocean Action Plan, comprising a political declaration to commit to “urgent action” to protect the world’s oceans and a list of voluntary commitments.
The declaration calls on countries to boost ocean protection, reduce marine pollution, regulate the high seas and provide finance for vulnerable countries and island nations.
Alongside the political declaration are more than 800 voluntary commitments from a range of stakeholders, such as governments, scientists, civil society and UN agencies.
Mongabay reported that the Nice declaration is not legally binding, but “is intended to reflect the willingness of countries to invest more in ocean protection”. However, it added, reducing the use of fossil fuels was left out of the discussions.
Casas told Carbon Brief that governments now need to demonstrate “political commitment”. He said that such commitments are “improving”, but they “must be accompanied by financial support”.
The fourth UN Ocean Conference is to take place in 2028 and will be co-hosted by Chile and South Korea.
News and views
HARVEST AT RISK: UK farmers could face “another terrible harvest” after the country registered its “hottest spring on record and the driest conditions in decades”, according to an analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank, covered by the Press Association. It found that the production of crops, such as wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape, “could once again be near all-time lows”. This year, the UK saw its driest spring in the last 50 years, with rainfall 40% lower than average, the outlet added.
WHALE, WHALE, WHALE: Angelika Lātūfuipeka Tukuʻaho, the princess of Tonga, called for the “recognition of whales as legal persons” during the UN Ocean Summit in Nice, France, last week, Inside Climate News said. Lātūfuipeka Tukuʻaho told the conference: “The time has come to recognise whales not merely as resources, but as sentient beings with inherent rights.” The outlet added that the Pacific island nation could move forward with legislation ensuring this recognition and allowing for “appointing human guardians to represent [whales] in court”. The bill would also seek to ensure whales’ “rights to life, migration, a healthy habitat and cultural protection”, Inside Climate News added.
RED LINES: India has staked out “clear red lines” on certain agricultural export items in its ongoing trade negotiations with the US, Business Standard reported. The outlet outlined three categories for the country’s commodities: “non-negotiable, very sensitive and liberal – based on their economic and political sensitivity”. The outlet said that “no tariff concessions will be entertained” in India on agricultural staples, such as wheat and rice, while “high-value” crops primarily consumed by the higher-income portion of the population would fall under the “liberal” categorisation.
FROM PLEDGES TO ACTION: Experts interviewed by the Brazilian outlet ((o))eco stressed the need to implement Brazil’s national biodiversity strategy and action plan (NBSAP). The NBSAP, which is a plan submitted to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, aims to increase funding and political support for the conservation and sustainable use of Brazil’s biodiversity. Prof Alexander Turra from the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo said that although the NBSAP is aligned with international agreements, Brazil has not “necessarily succeeded” in achieving its strategy, adding that the country “[needs] to make a huge effort to implement it”.
Watch, read, listen
ALREADY MANDATORY: In a video, Deutsche Welle explained how New York City is composting organic waste, now that it has made it mandatory for residents to separate it from their rubbish.
‘SPONGE PARKS’: A NPR podcast addressed how Copenhagen has converted 20 green areas into “sponge parks” to hold rainfall as part of efforts to adapt to climate change.
JUST NATURE: A France24 video reported on how farmers and scientists are working together in western France to re-establish its biodiversity by avoiding chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
BEYOND ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A BBC News article shared drone images revealing the impacts of nickel mining, used for electric vehicle batteries, in one of the most marine-biodiverse zones in Indonesia.
New science
- Sharks are remaining in their summer habitats longer as surface ocean temperatures rise, according to a new study in Conservation Biology. The authors warned that these delays in the sharks’ migrations “may alter local ecosystem dynamics and challenge current management strategies”.
- New research, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, found that the indicators contained within the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s (GBF) monitoring framework cover less than half of the elements of the GBF. The paper also highlights “important next steps to progressively improve the efficacy of the monitoring framework”.
- According to new research in Science Advances, human-driven climate change will remove coral habitat faster than corals can expand into higher-latitude, cooler waters. It found that severe coral cover declines will likely occur over the next 40-80 years, while large-scale expansion “requires centuries”.
In the diary
- 16-26 June: Preparatory meetings ahead of the COP30 climate conference | Bonn, Germany
- 22 June: World Rainforest Day
- 21-29 June: London Climate Action Week | London
- 7-25 July: 30th session of the International Seabed Authority | 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 18 June 2025: High Seas Treaty ratifications; Ocean warming woes; Brazilian deforestation ‘surges’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate Change
DeBriefed 6 February 2026: US secret climate panel ‘unlawful’ | China’s clean energy boon | Can humans reverse nature loss?
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Secrets and layoffs
UNLAWFUL PANEL: A federal judge ruled that the US energy department “violated the law when secretary Chris Wright handpicked five researchers who rejected the scientific consensus on climate change to work in secret on a sweeping government report on global warming”, reported the New York Times. The newspaper explained that a 1972 law “does not allow agencies to recruit or rely on secret groups for the purposes of policymaking”. A Carbon Brief factcheck found more than 100 false or misleading claims in the report.
DARKNESS DESCENDS: The Washington Post reportedly sent layoff notices to “at least 14” of its climate journalists, as part of a wider move from the newspaper’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, to eliminate 300 jobs at the publication, claimed Climate Colored Goggles. After the layoffs, the newspaper will have five journalists left on its award-winning climate desk, according to the substack run by a former climate reporter at the Los Angeles Times. It comes after CBS News laid off most of its climate team in October, it added.
WIND UNBLOCKED: Elsewhere, a separate federal ruling said that a wind project off the coast of New York state can continue, which now means that “all five offshore wind projects halted by the Trump administration in December can resume construction”, said Reuters. Bloomberg added that “Ørsted said it has spent $7bn on the development, which is 45% complete”.
Around the world
- CHANGING TIDES: The EU is “mulling a new strategy” in climate diplomacy after struggling to gather support for “faster, more ambitious action to cut planet-heating emissions” at last year’s UN climate summit COP30, reported Reuters.
- FINANCE ‘CUT’: The UK government is planning to cut climate finance by more than a fifth, from £11.6bn over the past five years to £9bn in the next five, according to the Guardian.
- BIG PLANS: India’s 2026 budget included a new $2.2bn funding push for carbon capture technologies, reported Carbon Brief. The budget also outlined support for renewables and the mining and processing of critical minerals.
- MOROCCO FLOODS: More than 140,000 people have been evacuated in Morocco as “heavy rainfall and water releases from overfilled dams led to flooding”, reported the Associated Press.
- CASHFLOW: “Flawed” economic models used by governments and financial bodies “ignor[e] shocks from extreme weather and climate tipping points”, posing the risk of a “global financial crash”, according to a Carbon Tracker report covered by the Guardian.
- HEATING UP: The International Olympic Committee is discussing options to hold future winter games earlier in the year “because of the effects of warmer temperatures”, said the Associated Press.
54%
The increase in new solar capacity installed in Africa over 2024-25 – the continent’s fastest growth on record, according to a Global Solar Council report covered by Bloomberg.
Latest climate research
- Arctic warming significantly postpones the retreat of the Afro-Asian summer monsoon, worsening autumn rainfall | Environmental Research Letters
- “Positive” images of heatwaves reduce the impact of messages about extreme heat, according to a survey of 4,000 US adults | Environmental Communication
- Greenland’s “peripheral” glaciers are projected to lose nearly one-fifth of their total area and almost one-third of their total volume by 2100 under a low-emissions scenario | The Cryosphere
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Solar power, electric vehicles and other clean-energy technologies drove more than a third of the growth in China’s economy in 2025 – and more than 90% of the rise in investment, according to new analysis for Carbon Brief (shown in blue above). Clean-energy sectors contributed a record 15.4tn yuan ($2.1tn) in 2025, some 11.4% of China’s gross domestic product (GDP) – comparable to the economies of Brazil or Canada, the analysis said.
Spotlight
Can humans reverse nature decline?
This week, Carbon Brief travelled to a UN event in Manchester, UK to speak to biodiversity scientists about the chances of reversing nature loss.
Officials from more than 150 countries arrived in Manchester this week to approve a new UN report on how nature underpins economic prosperity.
The meeting comes just four years before nations are due to meet a global target to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, agreed in 2022 under the landmark “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF).
At the sidelines of the meeting, Carbon Brief spoke to a range of scientists about humanity’s chances of meeting the 2030 goal. Their answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Dr David Obura, ecologist and chair of Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
We can’t halt and reverse the decline of every ecosystem. But we can try to “bend the curve” or halt and reverse the drivers of decline. That’s the economic drivers, the indirect drivers and the values shifts we need to have. What the GBF aspires to do, in terms of halting and reversing biodiversity loss, we can put in place the enabling drivers for that by 2030, but we won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point to halt [the loss] of all ecosystems.
Dr Luthando Dziba, executive secretary of IPBES
Countries are due to report on progress by the end of February this year on their national strategies to the Convention on Biological Diversity [CBD]. Once we get that, coupled with a process that is ongoing within the CBD, which is called the global stocktake, I think that’s going to give insights on progress as to whether this is possible to achieve by 2030…Are we on the right trajectory? I think we are and hopefully we will continue to move towards the final destination of having halted biodiversity loss, but also of living in harmony with nature.
Prof Laura Pereira, scientist at the Global Change Institute at Wits University, South Africa
At the global level, I think it’s very unlikely that we’re going to achieve the overall goal of halting biodiversity loss by 2030. That being said, I think we will make substantial inroads towards achieving our longer term targets. There is a lot of hope, but we’ve also got to be very aware that we have not necessarily seen the transformative changes that are going to be needed to really reverse the impacts on biodiversity.
Dr David Cooper, chair of the UK’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee and former executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity
It’s important to look at the GBF as a whole…I think it is possible to achieve those targets, or at least most of them, and to make substantial progress towards them. It is possible, still, to take action to put nature on a path to recovery. We’ll have to increasingly look at the drivers.
Prof Andrew Gonzalez, McGill University professor and co-chair of an IPBES biodiversity monitoring assessment
I think for many of the 23 targets across the GBF, it’s going to be challenging to hit those by 2030. I think we’re looking at a process that’s starting now in earnest as countries [implement steps and measure progress]…You have to align efforts for conserving nature, the economics of protecting nature [and] the social dimensions of that, and who benefits, whose rights are preserved and protected.
Neville Ash, director of the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre
The ambitions in the 2030 targets are very high, so it’s going to be a stretch for many governments to make the actions necessary to achieve those targets, but even if we make all the actions in the next four years, it doesn’t mean we halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. It means we put the action in place to enable that to happen in the future…The important thing at this stage is the urgent action to address the loss of biodiversity, with the result of that finding its way through by the ambition of 2050 of living in harmony with nature.
Prof Pam McElwee, Rutgers University professor and co-chair of an IPBES “nexus assessment” report
If you look at all of the available evidence, it’s pretty clear that we’re going to keep experiencing biodiversity decline. I mean, it’s fairly similar to the 1.5C climate target. We are not going to meet that either. But that doesn’t mean that you slow down the ambition…even though you recognise that we probably won’t meet that specific timebound target, that’s all the more reason to continue to do what we’re doing and, in fact, accelerate action.
Watch, read, listen
OIL IMPACTS: Gas flaring has risen in the Niger Delta since oil and gas major Shell sold its assets in the Nigerian “oil hub”, a Climate Home News investigation found.
LOW SNOW: The Washington Post explored how “climate change is making the Winter Olympics harder to host”.
CULTURE WARS: A Media Confidential podcast examined when climate coverage in the UK became “part of the culture wars”.
Coming up
- 2-8 February: 12th session of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Manchester, UK
- 8 February: Japanese general election
- 8 February: Portugal presidential election
- 11 February: Barbados general election
- 11-12 February: UN climate chief Simon Stiell due to speak in Istanbul, Turkey
Pick of the jobs
- UK Met Office, senior climate science communicator | Salary: £43,081-£46,728. Location: Exeter, UK
- Canadian Red Cross, programme officer, Indigenous operations – disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation | Salary: $56,520-$60,053. Location: Manitoba, Canada
- Aldersgate Group, policy officer | Salary: £33,949-£39,253. Location: London (hybrid)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 6 February 2026: US secret climate panel ‘unlawful’ | China’s clean energy boon | Can humans reverse nature loss? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate Change
China Briefing 5 February 2026: Clean energy’s share of economy | Record renewables | Thawing relations with UK
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
Solar and wind eclipsed coal
‘FIRST TIME IN HISTORY’: China’s total power capacity reached 3,890 gigawatts (GW) in 2025, according to a National Energy Administration (NEA) data release covered by industry news outlet International Energy Net. Of this, it said, solar capacity rose 35% to 1,200GW and wind capacity was up 23% to 640GW, while thermal capacity – which is mostly coal – grew 6% to just over 1,500GW. This marks the “first time in history” that wind and solar capacity has outranked coal capacity in China’s power mix, reported the state-run newspaper China Daily. China’s grid-related energy storage capacity exceeded 213GW in 2025, said state news agency Xinhua. Meanwhile, clean-energy industries “drove more than 90%” of investment growth and more than half of GDP growth last year, said the Guardian in its coverage of new analysis for Carbon Brief. (See more in the spotlight below.)
DAWN FOR SOLAR: Solar power capacity alone may outpace coal in 2026, according to projections by the China Electricity Council (CEC), reported business news outlet 21st Century Business Herald. It added that non-fossil sources could account for 63% of the power mix this year, with coal falling to 31%. Separately, the China Renewable Energy Society said that annual wind-power additions could grow by between 600-980GW over the next five years, with annual additions of 120GW expected until 2028, said industry news outlet China Energy Net. China Energy Net also published the full CEC report.
STATE MEDIA VOICE: Xinhua published several energy- and climate-related articles in a series on the 15th five-year plan. One said that becoming a low-carbon energy “powerhouse” will support decarbonisation efforts, strengthen industrial innovation and improve China’s “global competitive edge and standing”. Another stated that coal consumption is “expected” to peak around 2027, with continued “growth” in the power and chemicals sector, while oil has already peaked. A third noted that distributed energy systems better matched the “characteristics of renewable energy” than centralised ones, but warned against “blind” expansion and insufficient supporting infrastructure. Others in the series discussed biodiversity and environmental protection and recycling of clean-energy technology. Meanwhile, the communist party-affiliated People’s Daily said that oil will continue to play a “vital role” in China, even after demand peaks.
Starmer and Xi endorsed clean-energy cooperation
CLIMATE PARTNERSHIP: UK prime minister Keir Starmer and Chinese president Xi Jinping pledged in Beijing to deepen cooperation on “green energy”, reported finance news outlet Caixin. They also agreed to establish a “China-UK high-level climate and nature partnership”, said China Daily. Xi told Starmer that the two countries should “carry out joint research and industrial transformation” in new energy and low-carbon technologies, according to Xinhua. It also cited Xi as saying China “hopes” the UK will provide a “fair” business environment for Chinese companies.
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OCTOPUS OVERSEAS: During the visit, UK power-trading company Octopus Energy and Chinese energy services firm PCG Power announced they would be starting a new joint venture in China, named Bitong Energy, reported industry news outlet PV Magazine. The move “marks a notable direct entry” of a foreign company into China’s “tightly regulated electricity market”, said Caixin.
PUSH AND PULL: UK policymakers also visited Chinese clean-energy technology manufacturer Envision in Shanghai, reported finance news outlet Yicai. It quoted UK business secretary Peter Kyle emphasising that partnering with companies “like Envision” on sustainability is a “really important part of our future”, particularly in terms of job creation in the UK. Trade minister Chris Bryant told Radio Scotland Breakfast that the government will decide on Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Mingyang’s plans for a Scotland factory “soon”. Researchers at the thinktank Oxford Institute for Energy Studies wrote in a guest post for Carbon Brief that greater Chinese competition in Europe’s wind market could “help spur competition in Europe”, if localisation rules and “other guardrails” are applied.
More China news
- LIFE SUPPORT: China will update its coal capacity payment mechanism, which will raise thresholds for coal-fired power plants and expand to cover gas-fired power and pumped and new-energy storage, reported current affairs outlet China News.
- FRONTIER TECH: The world’s “largest compressed-air power storage plant” has begun operating in China, said Bloomberg.
- PARTNERSHIP A ‘MISTAKE’: The EU launched a “foreign subsidies” probe into Chinese wind turbine company Goldwind, said the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra said the bloc must resist China’s pull in clean technologies, according to Bloomberg.
- TRADE SPAT: The World Trade Organization “backed a complaint by China” that the US Inflation Reduction Act “discriminated against” Chinese cleantech exports, said Reuters.
- NEW RULES: China has set “new regulations” for the Waliguan Baseline Observatory, which provides “key scientific references for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”, said the People’s Daily.
Captured
New or reactivated proposals for coal-fired power plants in China totalled 161GW in 2025, according to a new report covered by Carbon Brief.
Spotlight
Clean energy drove China’s economic growth in 2025
New analysis for Carbon Brief finds that clean-energy sectors contributed the equivalent of $2.1tn to China’s economy last year, making it a key driver of growth. However, headwinds in 2026 could restrict growth going forward – especially for the solar sector.
Below is an excerpt from the article, which can be read in full on Carbon Brief’s website.
Solar power, electric vehicles (EVs) and other clean-energy technologies drove more than a third of the growth in China’s economy in 2025 – and more than 90% of the rise in investment.
Clean-energy sectors contributed a record 15.4tn yuan ($2.1tn) in 2025, some 11.4% of China’s gross domestic product (GDP)
Analysis shows that China’s clean-energy sectors nearly doubled in real value between 2022-25 and – if they were a country – would now be the 8th-largest economy in the world.
These investments in clean-energy manufacturing represent a large bet on the energy transition in China and overseas, creating an incentive for the government and enterprises to keep the boom going.
However, there is uncertainty about what will happen this year and beyond, particularly due to a new pricing system, worsening industrial “overcapacity” and trade tensions.
Outperforming the wider economy
China’s clean-energy economy continues to grow far more quickly than the wider economy, making an outsized contribution to annual growth.
Without these sectors, China’s GDP would have expanded by 3.5% in 2025 instead of the reported 5.0%, missing the target of “around 5%” growth by a wide margin.
Clean energy made a crucial contribution during a challenging year, when promoting economic growth was the foremost aim for policymakers.
In 2024, EVs and solar had been the largest growth drivers. In 2025, it was EVs and batteries, which delivered 44% of the economic impact and more than half of the growth of the clean-energy industries.
The next largest subsector was clean-power generation, transmission and storage, which made up 40% of the contribution to GDP and 30% of the growth in 2025.
Within the electricity sector, the largest drivers were growth in investment in wind and solar power generation capacity, along with growth in power output from solar and wind, followed by the exports of solar-power equipment and materials.
But investment in solar-panel supply chains, a major growth driver in 2022-23, continued to fall for the second year, as the government made efforts to rein in overcapacity and “irrational” price competition.
Headwinds for solar
Ongoing investment of hundreds of billions of dollars represents a gigantic bet on a continuing global energy transition.
However, developments next year and beyond are unclear, particularly for solar. A new pricing system for renewable power is creating uncertainty, while central government targets have been set far below current rates of clean-electricity additions.
Investment in solar-power generation and solar manufacturing declined in the second half of the year.
The reduction in the prices of clean-energy technology has been so dramatic that when the prices for GDP statistics are updated, the sectors’ contribution to real GDP – adjusted for inflation or, in this case deflation – will be revised down.
Nevertheless, the key economic role of the industry creates a strong motivation to keep the clean-energy boom going. A slowdown in the domestic market could also undermine efforts to stem overcapacity and inflame trade tensions by increasing pressure on exports to absorb supply.
Local governments and state-owned enterprises will also influence the outlook for the sector.
Provincial governments have a lot of leeway in implementing the new electricity markets and contracting systems for renewable power generation. The new five-year plans, to be published this year, will, therefore, be of major importance.
This spotlight was written for Carbon Brief by Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), and Belinda Schaepe, China policy analyst at CREA. CREA China analysts Qi Qin and Chengcheng Qiu contributed research.
Watch, read, listen
PROVINCE INFLUENCE: The Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress, a Beijing-based thinktank, published a report examining the climate-related statements in provincial recommendations for the 15th five-year plan.
‘PIVOT’?: The Outrage + Optimism podcast spoke with the University of Bath’s Dr Yixian Sun about whether China sees itself as a climate leader and what its role in climate negotiations could be going forward.
COOKING FOR CLEAN-TECH: Caixin covered rising demand for China’s “gutter oil” as companies “scramble” to decarbonise.
DON’T GO IT ALONE: China News broadcast the Chinese foreign ministry’s response to the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement, with spokeswoman Mao Ning saying “no country can remain unaffected” by climate change.
$6.8tn
The current size of China’s green-finance economy, including loans, bonds and equity, according to Dr Ma Jun, the Institute of Finance and Sustainability’s president,in a report launch event attended by Carbon Brief. Dr Ma added that “green loans” make up 16% of all loans in China, with some areas seeing them take a 34% share.
New science
- China’s official emissions inventories have overestimated its hydrofluorocarbon emissions by an average of 117m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (mtCO2e) every year since 2017 | Nature Geoscience
- “Intensified forest management efforts” in China from 2010 onwards have been linked to an acceleration in carbon absorption by plants and soils | Communications Earth and Environment
Recently published on WeChat
China Briefing is written by Anika Patel and edited by Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 5 February 2026: Clean energy’s share of economy | Record renewables | Thawing relations with UK appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Under pressure from Congress, President Donald Trump quietly signed into law a funding package that provides billions of dollars more in foreign assistance spending than he had originally wanted to for the fiscal year between October 2025 and September 2026.
The legislation allocates $50 billion, $9 billion less than the level agreed the previous year under President Biden but $19 billion more than Trump proposed, restoring health and humanitarian aid spending to near pre-Trump levels.
Democratic Senator Patty Murray, vice-chair of the committee on appropriations, said that “while including some programmatic funding cuts, the bill rejects the Trump administration’s evisceration of US foreign assistance programmes”.
But, with climate a divisive issue in the US, spending on dedicated climate programmes was largely absent. Clarence Edwards, executive director of E3G’s US office, told Climate Home News that “the era of large US government investment in climate policy is over, at least for the foreseeable future”.
The package ruled out any support for the Climate Investment Funds’ Clean Technology Fund, which supports low-carbon technologies in developing countries and had received $150 million from the US in the previous fiscal year.
The US also made no pledge to the Africa Development Fund (ADF) – a mechanism run by the African Development Bank that provides grants and low-interest loans to the poorest African nations. A government spokesperson told Reuters that decision reflected concerns that “like too many other institutions, the ADF has adopted a disproportionate focus on climate change, gender, and social issues”.
GEF spared from cuts
Trump did, however, agree to Congress’s request to make $150 million – more than last year – available for the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which tackles environmental issues like biodiversity loss, land degradation and climate change.
Edwards said that GEF funding “survived due to Congressional pushback and a refocus on non-climate priorities like biodiversity, plastics and ocean ecosystems, per US Treasury guidance”.
Congress also pressured Trump into giving $54 million to the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development. Its goals include helping small-scale farmers adapt to climate change and reduce emissions.
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Without any pressure from Congress, Trump approved tens of millions of dollars each for multilateral development banks in Asia, Africa and Europe and just over a billion dollars for the World Bank’s International Development Association, which funds development projects in the world’s poorest countries.
As most of these banks have climate programmes and goals, much of this money is likely to be spent on climate action. The largest lender, the World Bank, aims to devote 45% of its finance to climate programmes, although, as Climate Home News has reported, its definition of climate spending is considered too loose by some analysts.
The bill also earmarks $830 million – nearly triple what Trump originally wanted – for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a George W. Bush-era institution that has increasingly backed climate-focussed projects like transmission lines to bring clean hydropower to cities in Nepal.
No funding boost for DFC
While Congress largely increased spending, it rejected Trump’s call for nearly $4 billion for the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), granting just under $1 billion instead – similar to previous years.
Under Biden, there had been a push to get the DFC to support clean energy projects. But the Trump administration ended DFC’s support for projects like South Africa’s clean energy transition.
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At a recent board meeting, the DFC’s board – now dominated by Trump administration officials – approved US financial support for Chevron Mediterranean Limited, the developers of an Israeli gas field.
Kate DeAngelis, deputy director at Friends of the Earth US told Climate Home News it was good for the climate that Trump had not been able to boost the DFC’s budget. “DFC seems set up to focus mainly on the dirtiest deals without any focus on development,” she said.
US Congressional elections in November could lead to Democrats retaking control of one or both houses of Congress. Edwards said that “Democratic gains might restore funding [in the next fiscal year], while Republican holds would likely extend cuts”.
But he warned that “budgetary pressures and a murky economic environment don’t hold promise of increases in US funding for foreign assistance and climate programs, regardless of which party controls Congress”.
The post Congress rescues aid budget from Trump’s “evisceration” but climate misses out appeared first on Climate Home News.
Congress rescues aid budget from Trump’s “evisceration” but climate misses out
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