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.
Snapshot
At the UN general assembly in New York, climate change was one of the main agenda items, with the secretary general convening the first-ever “climate ambition” summit.
As part of a new week-long series, Carbon Brief examined the ins and outs of carbon-offsetting.
A landmark Brazil supreme court ruling on land rights was widely hailed as a “great victory for Indigenous peoples”.
Key developments
UN’s first-ever ‘climate ambition’ summit
‘DANGEROUS AND UNSTABLE’: As part of the UN general assembly in New York, secretary-general António Guterres convened the first-ever “climate ambition” summit, inviting 34 leaders to speak “in recognition of their strong action on climate change”, notably omitting the US, UK, China, India and COP28 hosts the United Arab Emirates, Reuters reported. At the summit, Guterres warned that society was moving “towards a dangerous and unstable world”, citing “distraught farmers watching crops carried away by floods” as one of the “horrendous effects” of unabated fossil-fuel use, according to Politico. Dennis Francis, a diplomat from Trinidad and Tobago, warned the summit of “potential catastrophe” due to sea level rise, adding that “fertile river deltas like the Mississippi, Mekong and Nile – the world’s breadbaskets – are sinking”, a UN News story said.
AMBITION AND ASSISTANCE: Brazil “brought the biggest news to the table” at the summit, Climate Home News wrote, announcing its plan to “undo former president Jair Bolsonaro’s cuts to its climate ambition and strengthen its targets further”. The country now plans to cut emissions by 48% by 2025 and 53% by 2030. Meanwhile, leaders from several island nations castigated rich countries at the general assembly, with Marshall Islands president David Kabua calling for “the establishment of an international financing facility to assist small island and low-lying atoll nations facing natural disasters”, according to a separate Reuters piece. Another event at the general assembly was the first-ever meeting of the Commonwealth environment and climate ministers. At the meeting, the ministers “noted the role of ecosystem-based approaches, ocean action, land restoration and food-systems transformations in climate resilience and sustainable development”, said a press release from the Commonwealth.
HIGH-SEAS SIGNATORIES: Also at the general assembly, 76 nations and the EU signed the high-seas treaty, “signalling interest in ratifying the agreement designed to protect marine biodiversity in international waters”, Mongabay said. The signing marks a “significant step” towards conserving the high seas, which make up around two-thirds of the world’s oceans, the outlet added. Each country must now ratify the treaty according to its own procedures; once 60 nations have done so, the treaty can finally come into force. The Pacific Islands News Association quoted Pacific Ocean commissioner Dr Filimon Manoni, who said that “to be truly paradigm-shifting, we must aim towards universal participation” in the treaty.
Carbon offsets series
NEW SERIES: Carbon Brief examined the topic of carbon-offsetting in a new week-long series of articles delving into the impact, history and controversies of offsets. As part of the series, Aruna Chandrasekhar wrote an in-depth Q&A on ‘biodiversity offsets’, which have been promoted as one of the key ways to support nature conservation and its goals. Biodiversity-offsetting “sits at the heart” of tensions between biodiversity-rich developing countries demanding more public finance and “debt forgiveness” to help them meet biodiversity targets and rich countries rolling out new “nature markets”. The piece discussed the history, concerns and use of these offsets.
ALL THINGS OFFSETS: In the main article of the series, Carbon Brief examined all aspects of carbon-offsetting. The outlet’s international team of journalists explained what offsets are, how they are used by businesses and nations and why they can be a problematic climate solution. It also explored whether the carbon-offsetting system, which one expert described as “deeply broken”, could ever be effectively reformed. This infographic further explained how offsets work by following the journey of a fictional carbon offset purchased on the voluntary market. Elsewhere, a recent report found that rainforest conservation offset projects are not suitable and a different approach should be used to safeguard critical ecosystems, according to the Guardian.
CLOSER LOOK: In a separate Carbon Brief piece, Daisy Dunne and Yanine Quiroz trawled through news stories and investigations into individual carbon-offset projects to create a detailed map showing the global scale of these initiatives. They found that 70% of the articles examined showed evidence of the projects causing harm to Indigenous peoples and local communities. Almost half of the reports found evidence of offset projects overstating their ability to reduce emissions. To round out the week of reporting, Carbon Brief is hosting a free webinar at 3pm UK time tomorrow, Thursday 28 September, where a group of expert panellists will discuss how carbon-offsetting could be reformed. Click here to register.
Brazil Indigenous victory
LAND RIGHTS: Brazil’s supreme court ruled against a “highly controversial time-frame proposal” that would have “stripped Indigenous rights” to land, according to Mongabay. Indigenous chief Arakuã Pataxó told the outlet: “Without a doubt this is a great victory for Indigenous peoples.” The “time-frame thesis”, if approved, would have prevented Indigenous claims to traditional lands that they had not physically occupied before 5 October 1988, when Brazil’s constitution was enacted. Brazil Reports said this would have “overlooked that during Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-85), many Indigenous peoples were persecuted and forced from their lands”, alongside the “obvious challenges” in obtaining proof of land occupation.
TENSIONS RUN ON: The ruling will “reshape the way the state approaches Indigenous land rights in Brazil”, according to the Guardian, setting a precedent that will have “widespread implications for all land-boundary disputes in Brazil”. However, the newspaper said that the ruling will not fully solve long-standing tensions around land conflicts. Indigenous leaders told the newspaper that they remain “anxious about attacks by non-Indigenous tenants”. Farmers said they are also worried about potential conflicts as “frictions emerge when Indigenous ranchers and farmers live in the same region”, the piece noted.
NEW DEAL: Elsewhere, the Cameroon government reached an agreement with the Indigenous Baka people to provide them with “more access to natural resources in the country’s protected forest areas”, Radio France Internationale reported. This expanded on a 2019 deal that gave Baka communities “unfettered access” to two national parks in the south-east of the country, the radio network said. The “original forest dwellers” will now have access to another national park and a wildlife reserve. The country’s minister of forestry and wildlife, Jules Doret Ndongo, said this is “another milestone moment in our efforts to promote the rights of Indigenous people and local communities in the preservation of biodiversity”.
News and views
AG EMERGENCY: Uruguay has extended its agricultural state of emergency until at least the end of the year. The declaration encompasses “livestock, dairy, horticulture, fruit, agriculture, beekeeping, poultry and forestry”, according to the South American news agency MercoPress. The initial declaration was signed on 25 October 2022 due to ongoing drought in much of the country. Uruguayan livestock minister Fernando Mattos said that the country is “on the way to normal rainfall, [but] there is still a long way to go to recover and reach the ideal point”. MercoPress added that the onset of El Niño “is likely to bring above-average rainfall”.
BURNED OUT: Canada’s record-breaking wildfire season – with more than 200 fires still burning across the country – have turned its “vast forests from carbon sink into super-emitter”, the Guardian wrote. The blazes have emitted around 2bn tonnes of CO2, or “triple the country’s annual carbon footprint”, the newspaper said. It added: “Decades of large wildfire and the mass die-off of trees from insects transformed the boreal from carbon sink to source.” Carbon Brief recently attended a US National Academies workshop on measuring greenhouse gas emissions from wildland fires, where experts noted that such emissions are “considered natural and, therefore, are not included in national greenhouse gas inventories”.
FRAUGHT FARM BILL: With the possibility of a US government shutdown looming, “it will be difficult or even impossible for Congress to enact a new farm bill”, Ag Insider wrote. The current bill expires on 30 September – the same day that the government is slated to shut down, although funding for many programmes follows a separate schedule. “There is little peril until dairy subsidies terminate on 31 December,” according to a separate Ag Insider article, which noted that December “is the new target” for the bill’s passage. The farm bill is projected to contain more than $1.5tn of spending, including on nutrition programmes, international aid, conservation work and crop subsidies.
SOMETHING IN THE WATER: The biggest freshwater lake in Ireland and Britain has hit a “crisis point” due to toxic blue-green algae, the Irish Times reported. This cyanobacteria – a type of bacteria that can photosynthesise – has made Lough Neagh “dangerous to anyone or anything that enters the water”, the newspaper added. The “underpinning drivers” of the issue, according to the Northern Ireland department of environment, include “excess nutrients from agricultural and wastewater systems” along with “climate change and the associated weather patterns, with the very warm June, followed by the wet July and August”. The Social Democratic and Labour party launched a motion to recall the devolved government in Northern Ireland, which has been at a standstill since last year, to discuss the “ecological crisis” on Lough Neagh, BBC News said.
COP28 GREENWASHING: DeSmog released a guide to the “greenwashing” terms that “the world’s largest food and farming companies will be using to sway debates” at COP28 in Dubai. Making the list are “regenerative agriculture”, which the outlet wrote “has ‘limited potential’ to mitigate climate change”; “sustainable intensification”, which is “the idea that industrial farming can continue to grow…but can do so while causing less damage”; and “nature-based solutions”, which DeSmog wrote is likely to be invoked during negotiations around the global carbon-credit market. In a separate piece, DeSmog examined the “Pathways to Dairy Net-Zero” group, a collaboration between the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and several other “international groups connected to the dairy industry” that focuses on climate change “solutions that can serve the industry”. DeSmog argued that its focus on improving “efficiency”, rather than reducing pollution, “has only enabled it to produce more milk – and with it, more emissions”.
KIWI FARMERS: “Rural voter anger” towards policies to tackle climate change and reduce emissions may bolster a “return of right-wing parties to power” during an upcoming general election in New Zealand, according to Reuters. Rural voters, who had a “flirtation” with the country’s Labour party in 2020, are looking to conservative candidates on 14 October to “unwind or delay” policies such as “planting pine forests on grazing land and taxing livestock methane burps”. Farmers have staged several protests in the past two years against these regulations, Reuters noted. Similar protests in the Netherlands saw a farmers’ party winning “sufficient support to shake up the country’s senate”, the newswire said, acquiring 16 of the 75 senate seats.
Watch, read, listen
SPROUTING: For Hawai’i Magazine, Kevin Allen wrote about the 150-year-old Lahaina Banyan Tree, which is acting as a “ray of hope” for locals devastated by last month’s Maui wildfires.
INCLUSIVE AG: In the Kathmandu Post, two researchers discussed the “multifaceted challenges” facing the agriculture sector in the mid-hills of Nepal, and how they can be addressed through gender-inclusive policies.
BIODIVERSITY CHATS: BBC Sounds podcast, the Life Scientific, spoke to Alexandre Antonelli, the director of science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, about his “life spent in the wild”.
CHARRED: A piece by Max Graham in Grist looked at whether the production of biochar – described as a “focal point” in efforts to turn agriculture into a climate solution – can be scaled up.
New science
Earthworms contribute significantly to global food production
Nature Communications
New research found that earthworms contribute to around 6.5% of the world’s grain production. Researchers looked at maps of earthworm abundance, soil properties and crop yields alongside earthworm-yield responses to estimate the impact these invertebrates have on the global production of key crops. They found that impacts were “especially notable” in the global south – for example, earthworms contributed to 10% of overall grain production in sub-Saharan Africa. The scientists concluded that while the earthworm impact is important, they “suspect that other soil biota may be equally as important and that further study is needed”.
Intentional creation of carbon-rich dark earth soils in the Amazon
Science Advances
Ancient peoples in the Amazon used soil management practices to improve soil fertility and crop productivity, according to a new study. Researchers compared modern fertile soil called “dark earth” to that of ancient times, then used studies of present-day Indigenous practices to propose a model of how dark earth may have formed previously. They found that the “ancient and modern dark earth deposits have similar compositions and spatial distributions”, indicating that the former may have also been intentionally cultivated by Indigenous peoples of the time. The researchers wrote that the study “highlight[s] the value of Indigenous knowledge for sustainable rainforest management”.
Likely impacts of the 2022 heatwave on India’s wheat production
Environmental Research Letters
The spring 2022 heatwave in India reduced wheat production in some regions by up to 15% compared to a normal year, a new study found. The researchers built a statistical model using weather and wheat-production data from 1967-2018 across five Indian states that together produce around 90% of the country’s wheat. The results showed that the heatwave reduced wheat yields by 4.5% on a national scale. The likelihood and intensity of heatwaves are due to continue as a result of climate change, the researchers wrote, so “timely forecasts of their impacts on agriculture are critical”.
In the diary
- 29 September: UN International day of awareness on food loss and waste reduction
- 2-6 October: FAO 30th session of the Asia-Pacific Forestry Commission | Sydney
- 3-6 October: EUROPARC conference 2023 | Leeuwarden, Netherlands
- 3-6 October: UNEP Fifth forum of ministers and environment authorities of Asia Pacific | Colombo, Sri Lanka
- 4-5 October: FAO Rome water dialogues | Rome
- 9-13 October: UNEP Final intergovernmental consultations on nature-based solutions | Nairobi
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 27 September 2023: UN’s ‘climate ambition’ summit; Carbon offsets series; Brazil Indigenous victory appeared first on Carbon Brief.
In 2026, the dangers of fossil fuel dependence have been laid bare like never before. The illegal invasion of Iran has brought pain and destruction to millions across the Middle East and triggered a global energy crisis impacting us all. Communities in the Pacific have been hit especially hard by rising fuel prices, and Australians have seen their cost-of-living woes deepen.
Such moments of crisis and upheaval can lead to positive transformation. But only when leaders act with courage and foresight.
There is no clearer statement of a government’s plans and priorities for the nation than its budget — how it plans to raise money, and what services, communities, and industries it will invest in.
As we count down the days to the 2026-27 Federal Budget, will the Albanese Government deliver a budget for our times? One that starts breaking the shackles of fossil fuels, accelerates the shift to clean energy, protects nature, and sees us work together with other countries towards a safer future for all? Or one that doubles down on coal and gas, locks in more climate chaos, and keeps us beholden to the whims of tyrants and billionaires.
Here’s what we think the moment demands, and what we’ll be looking out for when Treasurer Jim Chalmers steps up to the dispatch box on 12 May.
1. Stop fuelling the fire
2. Make big polluters pay
3. Support everyone to be part of the solution
4. Build the industries of the future
5. Build community resilience
6. Be a better neighbour
7. Protect nature
1. Stop fuelling the fire
In mid-April, Pacific governments and civil society met to redouble their efforts towards a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific. Moving beyond coal, oil and gas is fundamental to limiting warming to 1.5°C — a survival line for vulnerable communities and ecosystems. And as our Head of Pacific, Shiva Gounden, explained, it is “also a path of liberation that frees us from expensive, extractive and polluting fossil fuel imports and uplifts our communities”.
Pacific countries are at the forefront of growing global momentum towards a just transition away from fossil fuels, and it is way past time for Australia to get with the program. It is no longer a question of whether fossil fuel extraction will end, but whether that end will be appropriately managed and see communities supported through the transition, or whether it will be chaotic and disruptive.
So will this budget support the transition away from fossil fuels, or will it continue to prop up coal and gas?
When it comes to sensible moves the government can make right now, one stands out as a genuine low hanging fruit. Mining companies get a full rebate of the excise (or tax) that the rest of us pay on diesel fuel. This lowers their operating costs and acts as a large, ongoing subsidy on fossil fuel production — to the tune of $11 billion a year!
Greenpeace has long called for coal and gas companies to be removed from this outdated scheme, and for the billions in savings to be used to support the clean energy transition and to assist communities with adapting to the impacts of climate change. Will we see the government finally make this long overdue change, or will it once again cave to the fossil fuel lobby?
2. Make big polluters pay
While our communities continue to suffer the escalating costs of climate-fuelled disasters, our Government continues to support a massive expansion of Australia’s export gas industry. Gas is a dangerous fossil fuel, with every tonne of Australian gas adding to the global heating that endangers us all.
Moreover, companies like Santos and Woodside pay very little tax for the privilege of digging up and selling Australians’ natural endowment of fossil gas. Remarkably, the Government currently raises more tax from beer than from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) — the main tax on gas profits.
Momentum has been building to replace or supplement the PRRT with a 25% tax on gas exports. This could raise up to $17 billion a year — funds that, like savings from removing the diesel tax rebate for coal and gas companies, could be spent on supporting the clean energy transition and assisting communities with adapting to worsening fires, floods, heatwaves and other impacts of climate change.
As politicians arrive in Canberra for budget week, they will be confronted by billboards calling for a fair tax on gas exports. The push now has the support of dozens of organisations and a growing number of politicians. Let’s hope the Treasurer seizes this rare window for reform.
3. Support everyone to be part of the solution
As the price of petrol and diesel rises, electric vehicles (EVs) are helping people cut fuel use and save money. However, while EV sales have jumped since the invasion of Iran sent fuel prices rising, they still only make up a fraction of total new car sales. This budget should help more Australians switch to electric vehicles and, even more importantly, enable more Australians to get around by bike, on foot, and on public transport. This means maintaining the EV discount, investing in public and active transport, and removing tax breaks for fuel-hungry utes and vans.
Millions of Australians already enjoy the cost-saving benefits of rooftop solar, batteries, and getting off gas. This budget should enable more households, and in particular those on lower incomes, to access these benefits. This means maintaining the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, and building on the Household Energy Upgrades Fund.
4. Build the industries of the future
If we’re to transition away from fossil fuels, we need to be building the clean industries of the future.
No state is more pivotal to Australia’s energy and industrial transformation than Western Australia. The state has unrivaled potential for renewable energy development and for replacing fossil fuel exports with clean exports like green iron. Such industries offer Western Australia the promise of a vibrant economic future, and for Australia to play an outsized positive role in the world’s efforts to reduce emissions.
However, realising this potential will require focussed support from the Federal Government. Among other measures, Greenpeace has recommended establishing the Australasian Green Iron Corporation as a joint venture between the Australian and Western Australian governments, a key trading partner, a major iron ore miner and steel makers. This would unite these central players around the complex task of building a large-scale green iron industry, and unleash Western Australia’s potential as a green industrial powerhouse.
5. Build community resilience
Believe it or not, our Government continues to spend far more on subsidising fossil fuel production — and on clearing up after climate-fuelled disasters — than it does on helping communities and industries reduce disaster costs through practical, proven methods for building their resilience.
Last year, the Government estimated that the cost of recovery from disasters like the devastating 2022 east coast floods on 2019-20 fires will rise to $13.5 billion. For contrast, the Government’s Disaster Ready Fund – the main national source of funding for disaster resilience – invests just $200 million a year in grants to support disaster preparedness and resilience building. This is despite the Government’s own National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) estimating that for every dollar spent on disaster risk reduction, there is a $9.60 return on investment.
By redirecting funds currently spent on subsidising fossil fuel production, the Government can both stop incentivising climate destruction in the first place, and ensure that Australian communities and industries are better protected from worsening climate extremes.
No communities have more to lose from climate damage, or carry more knowledge of practical solutions, than Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The budget should include a dedicated First Nations climate adaptation fund, ensuring First Nations communities can develop solutions on their own terms, and access the support they need with adapting to extreme heat, coastal erosion and other escalating challenges.
6. Be a better neighbour
The global response to climate change depends on the adequate flow of support from developed economies like Australia to lower income nations with shifting to clean energy, adapting to the impacts of climate change, and addressing loss and damage.
Such support is vital to building trust and cooperation, reducing global emissions, and supporting regional and global security by enabling countries to transition away from fossil fuels and build greater resilience.
Despite its central leadership role in this year’s global climate negotiations, our Government is yet to announce its contribution to international climate finance for 2025-2030. Greenpeace recommends a commitment of $11 billion for this five year period, which is aligned with the global goal under the Paris Agreement to triple international climate finance from current levels.
This new commitment should include additional funding to address loss and damage from climate change and a substantial contribution to the Pacific Resilience Facility, ensuring support is accessible to countries and communities that need it most. It should also see Australia get firmly behind the vision of a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific.
7. Protect nature
There is no safe planet without protection of the ecosystems and biodiversity that sustain us and regulate our climate.
Last year the Parliament passed important and long overdue reforms to our national environment laws to ensure better protection for our forests and other critical ecosystems. However, the Government will need to provide sufficient funding to ensure the effective implementation of these reforms.
Greenpeace has recommended $500 million over four years to establish the National Environment Agency — the body responsible for enforcing and monitoring the new laws — and a further $50 million to Environment Information Australia for providing critical information and tools.
Further resourcing will also be required to fulfil the crucial goal of fully protecting 30% of Australian land and seas by 2030. This should include $1 billion towards ending deforestation by enabling farmers and loggers to retool away from destructive practices, $2 billion a year for restoring degraded lands, $5 billion for purchasing and creating new protected areas, and $200 million for expanding domestic and international marine protected areas.
Conclusion
This is not the first time that conflict overseas has triggered an energy crisis, or that a budget has been preceded by a summer of extreme weather disasters, highlighting the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels. What’s different in 2026 is the availability of solutions. Renewable energy is now cheaper and more accessible than ever before. Global momentum is firmly behind the transition away from fossil fuels. The Albanese Government, with its overwhelming majority, has the chance to set our nation up for the future, or keep us stranded in the past. Let’s hope it makes some smart choices.
The 2026 budget test: Will Australia break free from fossil fuels?
Anne Jellema is Executive Director of 350.org.
The war on Iran and Lebanon is a deeply unjust and devastating conflict, killing civilians at home, destroying lives, and at the same time sending shockwaves through the global economy. We, at 350.org, have calculated, drawing on price forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Goldman Sachs, just how much that volatility is costing us.
Even under the IMF’s baseline scenario – a de facto “best case” scenario with a near-term end to the war and related supply chain disruptions – oil and gas price spikes are projected to cost households and businesses globally more than $600 billion by the end of the year. Under the IMF’s “adverse scenario”, with prolonged conflict and sustained price pressures, we estimate those additional costs could exceed $1 trillion, even after accounting for reduced demand.
Which is why we urgently need a power shift. Governments are under growing pressure to respond to rising fuel and food costs and deepening energy poverty. And it’s becoming clearer to both voters and elected officials that fossil dependence is not only expensive and risky, but unnecessary.
People who can are voting with their wallets: sales of solar panels and electric vehicles are increasing sharply in many countries. But the working people who have nothing to spare, ironically, are the ones stuck with using oil and gas that is either exorbitantly expensive or simply impossible to get.
Drain on households and economies
In India, street food vendors can’t get cooking gas and in the Philippines, fishermen can’t afford to take their boats to sea. A quarter of British people say that rising energy tariffs will leave them completely unable to pay their bills. This is the moment for a global push to bring abundant and affordable clean energy to all.
In April, we released Out of Pocket, our new research report on how fossil fuels are draining households and economies. We were surprised by the scale of what we found. For decades, governments have reassured people that energy price spikes are unfortunate but unavoidable – the result of distant conflicts, market forces or geopolitical shocks beyond anyone’s control. But the numbers tell a different story.
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Santa Marta: Ministers grapple with practicalities of fossil fuel phase-out
Around 60 governments that want to make progress on transitioning away from coal, oil and gas are meeting in Colombia to work out how they can do it an equitable way -
Why the transition beyond fossil fuels depends on cities and collective action
Cities will help identify concrete pathways for an equitable shift to clean energy at the Santa Marta conference, with C40 members aiming to halve their fossil fuel use by 2030
What we are living through today is not an energy crisis. It is a fossil fuel crisis. In just the first 50 days of the Middle East conflict, soaring oil and gas prices have siphoned an estimated $158 billion–$166 billion from households and businesses worldwide. That is money extracted directly from people’s pockets and transferred, almost instantly, into fossil fuel company balance sheets. And this figure only captures the immediate impact of price spikes, not the permanent economic drain of fossil dependence. Fossil fuels don’t just cost us once, they cost us over and over again.
First, through our bills. Every time there is a war, an embargo or a supply disruption, fossil fuel prices surge. For ordinary people, this means higher costs for energy, transport and food. Many Global South countries have little or no fiscal space to buffer the shock; instead, workers and families pay the price.
Second, through our taxes. Governments around the world continue to pour vast sums of public money into fossil fuel subsidies. These are often justified as a way to protect the most vulnerable at the petrol pump or in their homes. But in reality, the benefits are overwhelmingly captured by wealthier households and corporations. The poorest 20% receive just a fraction of this support, while public finances are drained.
Third, through climate impacts. New research across more than 24,000 global locations gives a granular account of the true costs of extreme heat, sea level rise and falling agricultural yields. Using this data to update IMF modelling of the social cost of carbon, we found that fossil fuel impacts on health and livelihoods amount to over $9 trillion a year. This is the biggest subsidy of all, because these massive and mounting costs are not charged to Big Oil – they are paid for by governments and households, with the poorest shouldering the lion’s share.
Massive transfer of wealth to fossil fuel industry
Adding up direct subsidies, tax breaks and the unpaid bill for climate damages, the total transfer of wealth from the public to the fossil fuel industry amounts to $12 trillion even in a “normal” year without a global oil shock. That’s more than 50% higher than the IMF has previously estimated, and equivalent to a staggering $23 million a minute.
The fossil fuel industry has become extraordinarily adept at profiting from instability. When conflict drives up prices, companies do not lose, they gain. In the current crisis, oil producers and commodity traders are on track to secure tens of billions of dollars in additional windfall profits, even as households face rising bills and governments struggle to manage the fallout.
Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say
This growing disconnect is impossible to ignore. Investors are advised to buy into fossil fuel firms precisely because of their ability to generate profits in times of crisis. Meanwhile, ordinary people are told to tighten their belts.
In 2026, unlike during the oil shocks of the 1970s, clean energy is no longer a distant alternative. Now, even more than when gas prices spiked due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, renewables are often the cheapest option available. Solar and wind can be deployed quickly, at scale, and without the volatility that defines fossil fuel markets.
How to transition from dirty to clean energy
The solutions are clear. Governments must implement permanent windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies to ensure that extraordinary profits generated during crises are redirected to support households. These revenues can be used to reduce energy bills, invest in public services, and accelerate the rollout of clean energy.
Second, we must shift subsidies away from fossil fuels and towards renewable solutions, particularly those that can be deployed quickly and equitably, such as rooftop and community solar. This is not just about cutting emissions. It is about building a more stable, fair and resilient energy system.
Finally, we need binding plans to phase out fossil fuels altogether, replacing them with homegrown renewable energy that can shield economies from future shocks. Because what the current crisis has made clear is this: as long as we remain dependent on fossil fuels, we remain vulnerable – to conflict, to price volatility and to the escalating impacts of climate change.
The true price of fossil fuels is no longer hidden. It is visible in rising bills, strained public finances and communities pushed to the brink. And it is being paid, every day, by ordinary people around the world.
It’s time for the great power shift.
Full details on the methodology used for this report are available here.
The Great Power Shift is a new campaign by 350.org global campaign to pressure governments to bring down energy bills for good by ending fossil fuel dependence and investing in clean, affordable energy for all
The post What fossil fuels really cost us in a world at war appeared first on Climate Home News.
Computer models that use artificial intelligence (AI) cannot forecast record-breaking weather as well as traditional climate models, according to a new study.
It is well established that AI climate models have surpassed traditional, physics-based climate models for some aspects of weather forecasting.
However, new research published in Science Advances finds that AI models still “underperform” in forecasting record-breaking extreme weather events.
The authors tested how well both AI and traditional weather models could simulate thousands of record-breaking hot, cold and windy events that were recorded in 2018 and 2020.
They find that AI models underestimate both the frequency and intensity of record-breaking events.
A study author tells Carbon Brief that the analysis is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
AI weather forecasts
Extreme weather events, such as floods, heatwaves and storms, drive hundreds of billions of dollars in damages every year through the destruction of cropland, impacts on infrastructure and the loss of human life.
Many governments have developed early warning systems to prepare the general public and mobilise disaster response teams for imminent extreme weather events. These systems have been shown to minimise damages and save lives.
For decades, scientists have used numerical weather prediction models to simulate the weather days, or weeks, in advance.
These models rely on a series of complex equations that reproduce processes in the atmosphere and ocean. The equations are rooted in fundamental laws of physics, based on decades of research by climate scientists. As a result, these models are referred to as “physics-based” models.
However, AI-based climate models are gaining popularity as an alternative for weather forecasting.
Instead of using physics, these models use a statistical approach. Scientists present AI models with a large batch of historical weather data, known as training data, which teaches the model to recognise patterns and make predictions.
To produce a new forecast, the AI model draws on this bank of knowledge and follows the patterns that it knows.
There are many advantages to AI weather forecasts. For example, they use less computing power than physics-based models, because they do not have to run thousands of mathematical equations.
Furthermore, many AI models have been found to perform better than traditional physics-based models at weather forecasts.
However, these models also have drawbacks.
Study author Prof Sebastian Engelke, a professor at the research institute for statistics and information science at the University of Geneva, tells Carbon Brief that AI models “depend strongly on the training data” and are “relatively constrained to the range of this dataset”.
In other words, AI models struggle to simulate brand new weather patterns, instead tending forecast events of a similar strength to those seen before. As a result, it is unclear whether AI models can simulate unprecedented, record-breaking extreme events that, by definition, have never been seen before.
Record-breaking extremes
Extreme weather events are becoming more intense and frequent as the climate warms. Record-shattering extremes – those that break existing records by large margins – are also becoming more regular.
For example, during a 2021 heatwave in north-western US and Canada, local temperature records were broken by up to 5C. According to one study, the heatwave would have been “impossible” without human-caused climate change.
The new study explores how accurately AI and physics-based models can forecast such record-breaking extremes.
First, the authors identified every heat, cold and wind event in 2018 and 2020 that broke a record previously set between 1979 and 2017. (They chose these years due to data availability.) The authors use ERA5 reanalysis data to identify these records.
This produced a large sample size of record-breaking events. For the year 2020, the authors identified around 160,000 heat, 33,000 cold and 53,000 wind records, spread across different seasons and world regions.
For their traditional, physics-based model, the authors selected the High RESolution forecast model from the Integrated Forecasting System of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. This is “widely considered as the leading physics-based numerical weather prediction model”, according to the paper.
They also selected three “leading” AI weather models – the GraphCast model from Google Deepmind, Pangu-Weather developed by Huawei Cloud and the Fuxi model, developed by a team from Shanghai.
The authors then assessed how accurately each model could forecast the extremes observed in the year 2020.
Dr Zhongwei Zhang is the lead author on the study and a researcher at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He tells Carbon Brief that many AI weather forecast models were built for “general weather conditions”, as they use all historical weather data to train the models. Meanwhile, forecasting extremes is considered a “secondary task” by the models.
The authors explored a range of different “lead times” – in other words, how far into the future the model is forecasting. For example, a lead time of two days could mean the model uses the weather conditions at midnight on 1 January to simulate weather conditions at midnight on 3 January.
The plot below shows how accurately the models forecasted all extreme events (left) and heat extremes (right) under different lead times. This is measured using “root mean square error” – a metric of how accurate a model is, where a lower value indicates lower error and higher accuracy.
The chart on the left shows how two of the AI models (blue and green) performed better than the physics-based model (black) when forecasting all weather across the year 2020.
However, the chart on the right illustrates how the physics-based model (black) performed better than all three AI models (blue, red and green) when it came to forecasting heat extremes.
The authors note that the performance gap between AI and physics-based models is widest for lower lead times, indicating that AI models have greater difficulty making predictions in the near future.
They find similar results for cold and wind records.
In addition, the authors find that AI models generally “underpredict” temperature during heat records and “overpredict” during cold records.
The study finds that the larger the margin that the record is broken by, the less well the AI model predicts the intensity of the event.
‘Warning shot’
Study author Prof Erich Fischer is a climate scientist at ETH Zurich and a Carbon Brief contributing editor. He tells Carbon Brief that the result is “not unexpected”.
He adds that the analysis is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
The analysis, he continues, is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
AI models are likely to continue to improve, but scientists should “not yet” fully replace traditional forecasting models with AI ones, according to Fischer.
He explains that accurate forecasts are “most needed” in the runup to potential record-breaking extremes, because they are the trigger for early warning systems that help minimise damages caused by extreme weather.
Leonardo Olivetti is a PhD student at Uppsala University, who has published work on AI weather forecasting and was not involved in the study.
He tells Carbon Brief that “many other studies” have identified issues with using AI models for “extremes”, but this paper is novel for its specific focus on extremes.
Olivetti notes that AI models are already used alongside physics-based models at “some of the major weather forecasting centres around the world”. However, the study results suggest “caution against relying too heavily on these [AI] models”, he says.
Prof Martin Schultz, a professor in computational earth system science at the University of Cologne who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the results of the analysis are “very interesting, but not too surprising”.
He adds that the study “justifies the continued use of classical numerical weather models in operational forecasts, in spite of their tremendous computational costs”.
Advances in forecasting
The field of AI weather forecasting is evolving rapidly.
Olivetti notes that the three AI models tested in the study are an “older generation” of AI models. In the last two years, newer “probabilistic” forecast models have emerged that “claim to better capture extremes”, he explains.
The three AI models used in the analysis are “deterministic”, meaning that they only simulate one possible future outcome.
In contrast, study author Engelke tells Carbon Brief that probabilistic models “create several possible future states of the weather” and are therefore more likely to capture record-breaking extremes.
Engelke says it is “important” to evaluate the newer generation of models for their ability to forecast weather extremes.
He adds that this paper has set out a “protocol” for testing the ability of AI models to predict unprecedented extreme events, which he hopes other researchers will go on to use.
The study says that another “promising direction” for future research is to develop models that combine aspects of traditional, physics-based weather forecasts with AI models.
Engelke says this approach would be “best of both worlds”, as it would combine the ability of physics-based models to simulate record-breaking weather with the computational efficiency of AI models.
Dr Kyle Hilburn, a research scientist at Colorado State University, notes that the study does not address extreme rainfall, which he says “presents challenges for both modelling and observing”. This, he says, is an “important” area for future research.
The post Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts
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