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 29 May 2026: Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May | Indian heat deaths | Nigeria’s solar mini-grids
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
UK, Europe and India battle heatwaves
‘MIND-BOGGLING’ MAY: The UK and continental Europe have set “mind-boggingly crazy” temperature records for May amid a deadly heatwave, reported the Financial Times. According to the Associated Press, the UK “smashed a century-old temperature record for the second time in 24 hours on Tuesday”. The newswire added that records “also fell in France, where temperatures reached 36C on Monday in the country’s south-west”. On Wednesday, Portugal hit a record May temperature of 40.3C, said BBC News.
‘BRUTAL REMINDER’: In parts of Italy, the heatwave triggered blackouts, reported Reuters. The heatwave has also been linked to more than a dozen deaths in the UK and France, including from people drowning and suffering heat-related deaths while competing in sporting events, said ABC News. Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said the intense heatwaves were a “brutal reminder” of the cost of global warming, reported Politico. Carbon Brief has in-depth coverage of the record-shattering heatwave.
INDIA’S DEADLY HEAT: In the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, more than 100 people died within three days following an intense heatwave, reported the Khaleej Times. The publication noted that authorities urged people to stay indoors and avoid direct exposure to the heat. Meanwhile, some parts of India are “grappling with power cuts as record-breaking heat has pushed electricity demand to an all-time high”, reported Reuters.
Around the world
- CRUDE DIPS: The International Energy Agency (IEA) said global investments in oil projects will fall below $500bn in 2026, continuing a three-year decline, reported Bloomberg. Carbon Brief’s analysis of the data shows the US’s “data-centre boom” means it is now investing more in fossil-fuel power than China.
- DODGING NET-ZERO: The world’s biggest miner, Australian giant BHP, has backtracked on climate action by halting or delaying projects to cut “vast” amounts of emissions, according to a Guardian investigation.
- SOLAR SLIP: China’s new solar installations dropped for a fourth straight month, reflecting weakening domestic demand, said Bloomberg.
- NO LOGGING: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell last year to its lowest level since 2019, according to a new report, said Agence France-Presse.
- EXECUTIVE ACTION: Puerto Rico’s governor announced a state of emergency to fight a surge in coastal erosion, citing the need to protect natural resources and vulnerable communities, reported the Associated Press.
Four million
The number of homes in the UK with air conditioning, double the figure from three years ago, reported the Guardian. There are 29m households in the UK.
Latest climate research
- Carbon Brief will soon be launching a new fortnightly newsletter focused on climate research. Sign up for free today.
- LGBTQ+ households in the US are “significantly more likely” to face energy poverty and insecurity than the general population | Energy Research & Social Science
- Global rice-paddy greenhouse gas emissions have doubled over the past six decades | Nature Food
- Vegetation greening and human-caused warming are the “main drivers” of a surge in flash floods over the last decade | Science Advances
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
A Carbon Brief investigation has shed light on the impact of weather-related flooding on National Health Service (NHS) facilities across the UK. At least 67 NHS hospital wards, departments and other sites have been forced to temporarily close or relocate due to weather-related flooding. The chart above shows sites of weather-related flooding incidents at NHS facilities. The size of the circles indicates the number of incidents reported at each site.
Spotlight
How solar mini-grids can ‘help boost’ Nigeria’s economy
This week, Carbon Brief covers a new report on Nigeria’s solar mini-grid industry.
Amid the impact of the US-Iran war on the Nigerian economy, a new report has argued that solar-mini grids can help to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and create more than 200,000 jobs.
In Nigeria, Africa’s third-largest economy, the war has led to an increase in energy prices and a decrease in petrol consumption. Petrol is one of the country’s main sources of transport and household fuel. According to one estimate, prices have surged by up to 40% since the conflict commenced in February.
Although the Nigerian treasury has benefited from rising crude oil prices – the country is a major exporter of oil and gas – the impact has been most visible on the wider population.
Rising energy prices “have affected the purchasing power of workers”, Agnes Funmi Sessi, a labour union leader in Lagos, told Carbon Brief.
However, scaling the deployment of solar “mini-grids” could help the country move away from fossil fuels, stimulate rural economies and improve livelihoods, according to the new report authored by the thinktank, the Africa Policy Research Institute.
“We estimate that, by deploying over 10,000 mini-grids, the sector could create 212,688 direct full-time informal and productive-use jobs across the off-grid and under-grid market segments,” the report said.
A nascent industry
Solar “mini-grids” are small-scale, localised electricity generation and distribution systems powered by solar panels.
The report positioned Nigeria’s mini-grid sector as one of the fastest-growing in Africa, with the country having just 11 mini-grids in 2015 and 155 by 2024, along with at least 42 active developers.
Many of the companies within the sector are young and apply novel local techniques in their deployment of solar technology, the report said.
However, access to finance remains a huge barrier. According to the report, the sector may require up to $8bn to connect 35.4 million people to mini-grids.
“Most Nigerians want solar power in their homes, but it is a capital intensive business for vendors and customers,” Dr Ben Iheagwara, a renewable energy entrepreneur and policy analyst, told Carbon Brief.
The report urged the Nigerian government and its international partners to “attract private capital by de-risking investments and ensuring regulatory clarity and long-term planning”.
Other key recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders include investment in skills development and paying attention to the gender gap.
Powering rural communities
Many rural communities, which make up about 37% of the country, are disconnected from the national grid system, so often have to generate their own electricity through mini-grid systems.
According to Nigeria’s electricity regulator, NERC, a mini-grid is defined as a power generating system with an installed capacity of up to 10 megawatts.
A mini-grid can be powered by fossil fuels such as diesel or petrol, but solar power is now considered a cheaper and cleaner source.
With more than 80 million people lacking access to electricity in Nigeria, solar mini-grids are increasingly viewed as the lowest-cost electrification solution, the report said.
Watch, read, listen
MOVING FORWARD: The Energy Transition Show dug into electricity reform in South Africa, discussing the country’s coal legacy and the role of renewables.
ENERGY POVERTY: In an opinion article for Project Syndicate, executive director of the African Climate Foundation, Saliem Fakir, argued that the energy transition in emerging and developing economies is driven by economics and security rather than emissions targets.
VANISHING CITY: BBC News reported on a coastal community in Nigeria where the ocean has “already swallowed more than half of the town”.
Coming up
- 31 May: Colombia presidential elections
- 31 May-5 June: Global Environment Facility council meeting, Samarkand, Uzbekistan
- 2-5 June: The Venice Agreement for Peatlands workshop, Kisumu, Kenya
Pick of the jobs
- National Oceanography Centre, engagement assistant (external communications) | Salary: £28,254. Location: Southampton, UK
- Dangote Industries, decarbonisation specialist | Salary: Unknown. Location: Lagos, Nigeria
- City of New York, chief decarbonization officer | Salary: $261,469. Location: New York City
- Climate Central, writer and associate editor | Salary: $72,000-$75,000. Location: US (Remote)
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 29 May 2026: Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May | Indian heat deaths | Nigeria’s solar mini-grids appeared first on Carbon Brief.
At the African Development Bank (AfDB) annual meetings this week, several African leaders called for investments in electricity infrastructure which go beyond lighting homes to powering economies.
Applauding the AfDB for its energy programmes like Mission 300 – which aims to provide electricity access to 300 million Africans by 2030 – the Central African Republic’s President Faustin-Archange Touadera said that without power supply “we will not be able to achieve development”.
Speaking alongside him, the Republic of Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso echoed this, saying that “as we need to help our people to turn towards agriculture, to turn towards livestock rearing, we also need to provide power to them.”
As the Mission 300 initiative advances, attention is increasingly shifting from simply connecting households to ensuring that electricity access translates into economic opportunities and livelihoods. That shift is driving the launch of a new Centre of Excellence for Productive Use of Energy being developed under Mission 300 by the philanthropically funded Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP).
-
Kenya seeks regional coordination to build African mineral value chains
Kenyan President William Ruto is the latest African leader to announce an end to raw mineral exports as governments want to add more value to their resources -
Africa needs more than export bans to cash in on critical minerals, experts say
Restricting raw materials exports is well-intentioned but without other policies to foster domestic processing, they can backfire -
Africa records fastest-ever solar growth, as installations jump in 2025
Africa’s solar power installations have increased sharply, driven by utility-scale projects and privately financed rooftop and commercial systems
In an interview with Climate Home News, Carol Koech, GEAPP’s vice president for Africa, said the initiative is designed to ensure that electrification supports income generation, agriculture and local economic development rather than only basic household access.
Q: What is the Centre of Excellence for Productive Use of Energy aiming to achieve with Mission 300?
A: Mission 300 is increasingly being seen as a job platform and so the role of the Centre of Excellence in translating those electricity connections to jobs. So we want the centre to do four things. First, as a delivery engine, which enables countries to embed a cross-institutional advisor that supports the electrification components, but also other components that are happening in the country.
Second, we want the centre to be an innovation and strategy hub. Today, there’s really no place where you can go to find the state of the industry for productive use of energy across the globe, and we want to make the centre of excellence the place where you can go and get information about what technologies are available, where deployment is happening and how much is being deployed.
(Photo: Lighting Global/SunCulture/World Bank)
The third pillar is to coordinate and mobilise capital. We anticipate the centre coordinating internally within the ecosystem but also mobilising additional financing to help productivity. The last piece is how to scale businesses, enterprises and partnerships around this centre because we anticipate that as we grow this space, new industries will emerge and those industries will need to be supported.
Q: Why is productive use of energy becoming important under Mission 300?
A: Mission 300 gave us a bigger platform to demonstrate that energy is truly an enabler for economic development. It’s not sufficient to just provide a connection, but it is required that that connection truly translates to economic development for the communities that benefit.
We shouldn’t bring electricity and then start thinking about what people can do with it. We need to think about both at the same time and ensure electricity arrives together with the things that will make a difference in people’s lives. Historically, we’ve brought electricity and imagined a miracle would happen, but we know that hasn’t been the case.
The question is how to ensure universal access in the cheapest way while still transforming communities. Some mini-grids have been deployed in places where demand is extremely low, making them too expensive to sustain. But when mini-grids are paired with productive uses, the economics start to change. If businesses currently running on fossil fuel generators move to solar or renewable energy, operating costs fall and the business case for mini-grids becomes much stronger.
Q: How could this work in practice for agriculture and rural communities?
A: I’ll give you a practical example in our pilot country Zambia. Zambia has two programmes, they have the ASCENT programme for energy access and they also have the Zambia agribusiness and trade platform (ZATP). Some of the components of the ZATP programme – which is an agri-business program to help farmers to be productive – have a productive use component but don’t have an energy supply component. So we’re offering things like mills, processing facilities, irrigation and others. In some parts of Zambia, these productive use equipment has been supplied but has not been powered, so communities are not benefiting from that.
So the whole point is if we coordinate where the agribusiness programme is deployed together with where the energy access programme is deployed and layer those two programmes together in one place, then you could solve the energy access problem and solve productive use together and therefore have really meaningful outcomes for communities.
Q: How will the centre help both households and small businesses use electricity productively?
A: The question on whether we should electrify households or businesses is neither here nor there. We need to electrify all. The argument is really once we electrify businesses, the owners of those businesses will be able to pay what they need for their households as well as increase production for their businesses.
Electricity consumption is usually an indicator of economic development and by pushing productive use into households, especially where households are also smallholder farmers, the question becomes: how can electricity access translate to additional economic development for them? If you are connected onto a mini-grid, then you can actually use that connection to run irrigation, put in a dryer, or a cold storage system, whatever you require to improve your income but the fact that you have energy means that you can access productive use. Now, we need to ask ourselves how do these farmers or these households then get access to these appliances, because that’s another barrier.
Q&A: Will subsidy cuts for Chinese clean-tech exports hurt Africa’s solar boom?
The cost of these appliances is usually extremely high, and when you have programmes such as the ZATP running in Zambia, that’s already a public funding approach to making these appliances available and potentially reachable for farmers, either at household level, at farm level or at community level.
Q: How does this complement the already existing Mission 300 national energy compacts designed by countries?
A: Each of the national energy compacts have a productive use component, a pillar that talks about distributed renewable energy, productive use, and clean cooking. This is actually complementing the work of the countries, and this centre is like an available support, back office for countries to tap into as they implement their national energy compacts, if they have specific requirements and support for that pillar three.
So the advisers that will be embedded into countries, their role is to coordinate within country programs that are running where energy could make a difference. The advisers will be sourced from the country and so they will make sure that the donor money is coordinated to benefit the country fully. Their role will include going to ministries of agriculture or any related ministries and understanding where they are prioritising programmes that require electrification. In many cases, programmes and money have already been allocated, but this component is about how do we deploy it in a way that it actually truly brings a difference, so those advisers will do that.
Q: How will the centre address financing and private sector investment challenges?
A: What we’re really looking at is different financing mechanisms. In the past, we have provided subsidies and results-based financing to suppliers, distributors and manufacturers to help create markets for productive-use appliances. I see this as one mechanism the centre could use, but the bigger opportunity is aligning public funding across different programmes so that more of it can support productive uses, either through direct funding or subsidies.
Nigerians bet on solar as global oil shock hits wallets and power supplies
When it comes to private sector investment, the reality is that Africa’s energy sector still faces serious constraints. Most private investment has gone into power generation, particularly through independent power producers, and even then that has only been possible in places where the off-takers, usually utilities, are bankable.
To unlock more private capital, countries need the right policies, reforms and regulations, but even more importantly, utilities must become financially viable. If the off-taker is not bankable, then the project is not bankable.
Another major question is how to attract private investment into transmission infrastructure. There are different models being explored, but the reality is that public funding alone is not sufficient to achieve Mission 300, so finding new ways to mobilise private capital will be critical.
The post Q&A: How can African electricity access power jobs not just lightbulbs? appeared first on Climate Home News.
Q&A: How can African electricity access power jobs not just lightbulbs?
The “data-centre boom” is driving a surge in gas investment in the US, pushing its fossil-power spending ahead of China, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
A rapid expansion of data centres across the nation is at the heart of the US tech sector’s plans to continue “dominat[ing]” the global artificial intelligence (AI) industry.
High demand for electricity to power these data centres has led to companies rushing to build new gas-fired power plants across the country.
This trend, combined with “soaring” gas-turbine prices, drove a threefold increase in US gas‑power investment in 2025 – and the IEA expects this to continue throughout 2026.
As the chart below shows, Chinese investment in coal- and gas-fired power is expected to drop this year, amid domestic policy changes and the Iran war sending gas prices spiralling.
Together, these trends mean the IEA expects US investment in fossil-fuelled power plants to overtake China’s in 2026.
The IEA’s latest world energy investment report shows that spending on renewables and electricity grids continues to dominate at the global scale.
In the US, Trump administration policies such as the phase-out of tax credits for renewables has led to the IEA revising its forecast for new wind and solar power downwards.
At the same time, US electricity demand is expected to rise by an average of 2% per year from 2026 to 2030, with data centres contributing half of the overall increase.
This is leading to what the IEA calls an “AI-driven push” to build new gas-power plants in the US, the world’s largest data-centre market and largest gas producer.
Globally, orders for new gas-power plants increased to 130 gigawatts (GW) in 2025 – a 25-year high – and US demand was a “major factor” in this, according to the IEA.
Much of the demand is coming from tech companies in the US seeking to bypass grid connection queues by building “captive” gas-power plants.
As the chart below shows, since the start of 2025 these US captive data centres alone have signed off on more investment in new gas turbines than any country in the world – aside from the US itself.
Overall, investment in grid upgrades, power equipment and electricity generation to support the buildout of data-centre infrastructure around the world hit $105bn in 2025, according to the IEA.
This is more than the total invested in the energy sector across the whole of Africa – a continent where more than 600 million people do not have access to electricity.
The IEA notes that strong demand for gas-power plants for data centres in the US – and, to a lesser extent, the Middle East – is “limiting the availability of turbines for near-term deployment elsewhere in the world”.
The agency also points out that as the tech sector becomes a “major energy investor”, accounting for around 40% of all corporate power-purchase agreements, it is also “underpinning momentum” for emerging clean technologies, such as small modular nuclear reactors and advanced geothermal.
The post AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China appeared first on Carbon Brief.
AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China
DeBriefed 29 May 2026: Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May | Indian heat deaths | Nigeria’s solar mini-grids
Q&A: How can African electricity access power jobs not just lightbulbs?
AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China
-
Climate Change10 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases10 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Renewable Energy7 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Greenhouse Gases11 months ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测