Published

2 years ago

July 3, 2024

Alice Rush

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.

Key developments

Protecting the Amazon

ILLEGAL FARMING: Illegal cattle ranching is occurring in large areas of Brazil’s Arariboia territory, despite being prohibited on Indigenous lands across the country, a Mongabay investigation revealed. The investigation also found that killings of Guajajara Indigenous people inhabiting the region increased in mid-2023, coinciding with the construction of an unlicensed airstrip near the Buriticupu River. “Our research reveals a pattern of killings of indigenous Guajajara amid the expansion of cattle ranching and illegal logging in and around Arariboia,” Mongabay pointed out.

OTHER THREATS: Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands have already broken records for the number of fires this year, even before the technical start of the fire season, ABC News reported. Speaking to the press, environment minister Marina Silva attributed the fires to human activity, climate change and the prolonged effects of El Niño. At the same time, InfoAmazonia reported on research from the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA), which found that climate change has led to increasingly wetter and drier seasons in the city of Manaus, Brazil, at the confluence of the Negro and Amazon rivers. This poses a threat to the food security of riverine communities and has resulted in increased fish and dolphin deaths, the outlet said. It adds that the Amazon river recorded its lowest level since 1902 in October last year, yet it has also had “severe flooding with increasing frequency in recent years”.

AMAZON FORUM: A march by activists and Indigenous leaders from the nine countries of the Amazon region at the Pan-Amazon Social Forum (FOSPA) called for the defence of the Amazon, Inside Climate News reported. The marchers felt “disconnected” from international negotiations, such as the UN summits on climate change and biodiversity, and argued that government talks “have failed”, the article said. The four-day FOSPA meeting “is one of the few spaces for us to have our own dialogues”, said Vanuza Abacatal, the leader of the Quilombola community in Pará, Brazil. Inter Press Service added that those attending the forum agreed to continue defending Amazonian territories from deforestation and other extractive activities. A Pan-Amazonian women’s rights court was also held and revealed a systematic pattern of dispossession of territories suffered by women and their families, the article noted.

Agri climate impacts

KEY CROPS HIT: Extreme weather is delaying crop planting and impacting yields around the world, Reuters reported. “Vast swathes” of farmland in Russia, China, India and parts of the US recently experienced “extremely hot conditions and below-normal rainfall”, the outlet said. Low rainfall forecast for July and August in the “breadbasket” Black Sea region could “stunt sunflower and corn yields”, the newswire noted. Meanwhile, the Financial Times said that sales of olive oil “plunged” in parts of the Mediterranean due to “steep price rises”. The FT added: “Droughts and heatwaves exacerbated by climate change have knocked olive oil output in Spain, the world’s largest producer, as well as other major producing countries such as Italy and Greece, creating a global shortfall.”

INTENSE RAIN AND DROUGHTS: Thousands of agricultural workers are dealing with the aftermath of a “downpour that lasted a week” in El Salvador and other parts of Central America last month, the Inter Press Service reported. The region “suffers almost year after year from the onslaught of extreme rains or prolonged droughts”, the outlet said. One cattle rancher from El Salvador told the outlet that his herd declined from 150 to 40 in recent years due to heavy rainfall and other extremes. Meanwhile, the Guardian looked at the impact of drought on farmers in the Italian island of Sicily, where “the desert is encroaching” and rainfall has dropped by more than 40% since 2003.

WILTING: In India, recent extreme heat and rainfall impacted a range of crops, including flowers. Mongabay reported that flower vendors are selling less as “erratic rain and heat has led to damaged crops and produce being sold for a lesser price”. A flower seller told the outlet: “In recent years, with excessive rain on some days and regular exposure to water, the life span of flowers has reduced from two-three days to one day.” Context News reported on the “double blow” India’s intense heat has on fruit and vegetable sellers – “more of their produce is spoilt, while buyers stay at home and [are] ordering online”.

Spotlight

Denmark’s new agriculture tax

Last week, Denmark proposed plans for a world-first carbon tax on agriculture by 2030.

New Zealand recently scrapped similar plans for a so-called “burp tax” to cut livestock emissions.

In this spotlight, Carbon Brief explains this tax and what it will mean for Denmark’s climate targets. A full article on this topic will be published on Carbon Brief’s website later this week.

How will Denmark’s meat tax work?

Under the plans, landowners will pay a levy based on their emissions from livestock, fertiliser, forestry and the disturbance of carbon-rich agricultural soils, reports the Copenhagen Post.

The effective cost of the tax amounts to 120 Danish kroner (£14) per tonne of CO2 equivalent emitted from 2030, rising to 300 kroner (£34) from 2035 onwards. (As the British Agriculture Bureau explains, the actual costs are higher, but will be reduced by tax breaks.)

The proceeds “are to be pooled in a fund to support the livestock industry’s green transition for at least two years after the tax comes into effect”, says the Guardian.

The tax is just one element of a wider agreement on a “Green Denmark”. This was signed by a Green Tripartite, namely, a three-party agreement between the Danish government, the industry and agricultural sector, and conservation groups.

Danish economy minister Stephanie Lose said the agreement aims to form a “long-term basis for a historic reorganisation and transformation of Denmark’s land and of food and agricultural production”, reports Politico.

Under the agreement, Denmark will convert some agricultural lands to provide more space for nature and biodiversity. It also mandates that the country will set aside carbon-rich lowland soils, pursue afforestation and boost technologies and measures to cut emissions.

All these targets will be financed by a new Denmark’s Green Area Fund, which amounts to 40bn kroner (£4.6bn). Denmark’s government will also use EU agricultural subsidies for technology transition.

The Danish parliament still needs to approve the plan, but Reuters noted that “political experts expect a bill to pass following the broad-based consensus”.

How could this tax help Denmark meet its climate targets?

Agriculture is responsible for around a quarter of Denmark’s greenhouse gas emissions.

A “major part” of these emissions stem from livestock production, according to the country’s most recent national inventory report. The sector also accounts for more than 80% of methane and nitrous oxide emissions, the report says.

Denmark’s climate minister Lars Aagaard said in a statement that agriculture’s high emissions “cannot continue” and that a “great deal of work awaits” to implement the new agriculture measures.

The tax is expected to cut 1.8m tonnes of CO2 in 2030, Bloomberg reports. The proposals will help Denmark meet its 2030 climate goals and “take a big step closer to becoming climate neutral in 2045”, the tax minister Jeppe Bruus said in a statement.

Prof Søren Petersen, a soil microbiologist at Aarhus University in Denmark, agrees that the plan “could lead to substantial reductions in agricultural emissions” if implemented correctly. He tells Carbon Brief:

“It is my impression that there is a real interest in promoting climate-smart solutions and developing solutions that achieve real reductions in emissions.”

News and views

DEFORESTATION: EU politicians are “split” after calls to delay the bloc’s upcoming ban on imported goods that can be linked back to deforested land, Reuters reported. The law requiring “companies and traders placing beef, coffee, palm oil and other products on the EU market to prove their supply chains do not contribute to the destruction of forests” is due to take effect this year, Reuters said. Last week, the European People’s Party environment spokesperson, Peter Liese, called for the law to be delayed and scaled back, describing it as a “bureaucratic monster”. Other EU political parties, including the Socialists & Democrats and the Greens, oppose a delay, Reuters said. The US recently asked the EU to postpone the law, a separate Reuters article noted, joining previous calls from Malaysia and Indonesia.

CONSERVATIONISTS’ PROTESTS: Local and international conservation organisations protested that the Republic of Congo’s Conkouati-Douli national park could be at risk after a Chinese company received an oil and gas exploration licence, according to Down to Earth. Conservationists said the exploration permit would damage the environmental health of “the country’s most biodiverse protected area”, home to endangered species such as the western lowland gorilla and forest elephant, and around 7,000 people “whose livelihoods are dependent on the forest”. They criticised that the decision came after the Congolese government signed a $50m forest protection agreement at last year’s COP28.

MARCH FOR NATURE: Thousands of people marched in London on 22 June to “urge” politicians to tackle the UK’s “wildlife crisis”, the Guardian reported. A rally held after the march heard from naturalist Chris Packham and musician Billy Bragg, the newspaper said, adding that actor Emma Thompson also called on politicians to “act now” on climate change. The Wildlife Trusts, one of the charities supporting the march, claimed that more than 60,000 people attended, urging UK political parties to “restore nature now”. The Guardian noted: “Protesters were calm but the placards they held up revealed an undercurrent of frustration and anger.” (UK voters will cast their ballots in a general election tomorrow.)

CHINESE FERTILISERS: China is imposing restrictions on fertiliser exports, especially urea and phosphates, risking a global price surge for essential crop nutrients, Bloomberg reported. The outlet noted that the Chinese government is protecting the domestic grain market due to the threat of extreme weather events impacting crop production and other challenges faced by farmers – including low grain prices and increased costs. Bloomberg added that in 2023 China was the world’s top exporter of both urea and the most used phosphate.

US OLD-GROWTH FORESTS: The US government advanced plans to “restrict logging within old-growth forests that are increasingly threatened by climate change”, the Associated Press reported. The newswire explained that there will be exceptions for tree-cutting to reduce wildfire risks. A government press release labelled the plan as “the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history”. The proposed amendment to 128 forest land management plans would use science and Indigenous knowledge to guide conservation and restoration efforts of old-growth forests. These ecosystems offset more than 10% of US annual greenhouse gas emissions and comprise 32m acres, according to the White House.

Watch, read, listen

SAHEL PLAN: A Deutsche Welle video discussed progress on Africa’s “Great Green Wall” project, which was “designed to stop land degradation and desertification”.

RIGHTS: During pride month in June, Dialogue Earth interviewed Aurélien Guilabert, a Mexico City-based activist focused on “both LGBTQ+ rights and environmental protection”.

RISING TIDES: The New York Times spoke to scientists and officials in the Maldives to understand how low-lying tropical islands have not yet been lost to rising sea levels and how “some have even grown”.

GROUNDWATER PROBLEM: Under the Surface explores the decline of EU underground freshwater in this interactive piece.

New science

Conservation Imperatives: securing the last unprotected terrestrial sites harbouring irreplaceable biodiversity

Frontiers in Science

Protecting just 1.2% of the world’s land could save the most rare and threatened species from extinction, a study found. The researchers compared data identifying areas with rare and endangered species with current protected area maps to identify unprotected lands. They found that 16,825 of these unprotected sites around the world should be “prioritised for conservation action over the next five years as part of a broader strategy to expand the global protected area network”. They estimated that it would cost $29-46bn annually over the next five years to conserve these “last unprotected sites harbouring rare, range-restricted and threatened species”.

Ecological disturbance alters the adaptive benefits of social ties

Science

Monkeys became less aggressive and more tolerant towards each other after an intense hurricane in Puerto Rico, according to new research. Hurricane Maria hit the north-eastern Caribbean in 2017, killing almost 3,000 people in Puerto Rico. The hurricane also led to “persistent deforestation”, which reduced shade cover and increased animal “exposure to intense heat”, the study said. The researchers looked at a decade of data on rhesus macaques, a species of monkey, on a small island off the coast of Puerto Rico before and after the hurricane to assess any social behaviour changes. They found that the monkeys showed “persistently increased tolerance and decreased aggression toward other monkeys, facilitating access to scarce shade critical for thermoregulation”.

Threat of low-frequency high-intensity floods to global cropland and crop yields

Nature Sustainability

New research highlighted the “urgency” of protecting cropland in “neglected” areas that experience low-frequency, but high-impact floods. Using satellite imagery and data for 3,427 flood events around the world over 2000-21, the researchers found that flooding affected a larger proportion of cropland area in low-frequency flood areas (4.7%) compared to high-frequency flood areas (1.2%). In addition, the study found that the average losses of wheat and rice were greater in low-frequency flood areas, owing to “the higher precipitation anomalies, soil moisture anomalies and greater crop flooding during their growing seasons”.

In the diary

4 July: UK general election
1-5 July: Fifth Global Dialogue on Sustainable Ocean Development | Bali, Indonesia
15 July-2 August: Second part of the 29th Session of the International Seabed Authority Assembly and Council | Kingston, Jamaica

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

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 3 July 2024: Brazil wetlands blaze; Denmark agri carbon tax; Heat and drought hit crops appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Cropped 3 July 2024: Brazil wetlands blaze; Denmark agri carbon tax; Heat and drought hit crops

Climate Change

DeBriefed 29 May 2026: Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May | Indian heat deaths | Nigeria’s solar mini-grids

Published

9 hours ago

May 29, 2026

Alice Rush

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

Map of the UK showing that at least 67 NHS sites have been forced to close due to weather-related flooding since 2021

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.

DeBriefed 29 May 2026: Europe’s ‘mind-boggling’ May | Indian heat deaths | Nigeria’s solar mini-grids

Climate Change

Q&A: How can African electricity access power jobs not just lightbulbs?

Published

10 hours ago

May 29, 2026

Alice Rush

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).

Apr 30, 2026

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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.

Campaigners in Africa are demanding their governments stop the development of fossil fuels on the continent and embrace the opportunities of renewable energy
(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?

Climate Change

AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China

Published

10 hours ago

May 29, 2026

Alice Rush

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.

Annual investment in fossil-fuel power in China and the US, $bn. The figure for 2026 is an IEA estimate, based on current trends. Source: IEA.

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.

Total value of new gas generation final investment decisions by country, region or use-case, between 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, $bn. Source: IEA.

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.