Renewable energy will overtake coal to become the world’s top source of electricity “by 2026 at the latest”, according to new forecasts from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The rise of renewables is being driven by extremely rapid growth in wind and solar output, which topped 4,000 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2024 and will pass 6,000TWh by 2026.

Wind and solar are increasingly under attack from populist politicians on the right, such as US president Donald Trump and Reform in the UK.

Nevertheless, they will together meet more than 90% of the increase in global electricity demand out to 2026, the IEA says, while modest growth for hydro power will add to renewables’ rise.

With nuclear and gas also reaching record highs by 2026, coal-fired generation is set to decline – driven by falls in China and the EU – meaning that power-sector emissions will decline, too.

The chart below illustrates these profound shifts in the global electricity mix – in particular, the meteoric rise of renewables, driven by wind and solar.

The IEA says that renewables could overtake coal as early as this year, depending on weather-related impacts on the output of wind and hydro capacity.

It adds that the switch will happen by 2026 “at the latest”, when renewables are expected to make up 36% of global power supplies, against just 32% from coal – the fuel’s lowest share in a century.

The share of global electricity generation coming from wind and solar combined will rise from 1% in 2005 and 4% in 2015 to 15% in 2024, 17% in 2025 and nearly 20% in 2026.

The global reduction in coal-fired electricity generation will result from declines in China and the EU, which will only be partially offset by increases in the US, India and other Asian nations.

The IEA attributes the coming decline of coal to “continued renewables growth and higher coal-to-gas switching in multiple regions”. It says gas power will rise by 1.3% this year and next.

For nuclear, the IEA says that the new record output will result from plant restarts in Japan, “robust” output in France and the US, as well as new reactors in China, India and South Korea.

The shift to wind and solar is happening despite global electricity demand being forecast to grow much faster over the next two years – at 3.3% and 3.7%, respectively – than the 2.6% average for 2015-2023.

The IEA says new demand is coming from industry, domestic appliances, growing use of air conditioning, ongoing electrification of heat and transport, as well as the expansion of data centres.

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The post IEA: Renewables will be world’s top power source ‘by 2026’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.

IEA: Renewables will be world’s top power source ‘by 2026’

“Unprecedented” ocean warming could make key habitats “inhospitable” for critically endangered angelsharks, according to new research.

The study, published in Global Change Biology, finds an “abnormal absence” of female sharks in a marine reserve near the Canary Islands throughout the 2022 breeding season.

This occurred during “unusually high” sea surface temperatures across the north-east Atlantic Ocean.

The study notes that the number of days with sea surface temperatures above 22.5C in the reserve nearly tripled over 2018-23.

This is significant, the authors say, because 22.5C is a “possible upper thermal threshold” for female angelsharks to tolerate.

The authors warn that ocean warming has “already altered” angelshark breeding behaviour, adding that the findings show that the species is “more acutely vulnerable” to climate change than previously thought.

Ocean warming

Angelsharks are flat-bodied, ray-like predators that can grow up to 2.4 metres in length.

They are typically found submerged in sandy habitats in the coastal waters of the north-east Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.

They are listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list of threatened species.

The authors note that the angelshark population has “declined substantially” due to “overexploitation” and “coastal habitat degradation”.

In the study, the researchers focus on the La Gaciosa Marine Reserve in the Canary Islands – Spain’s largest marine reserve.

The study notes that the Canary Islands are an “especially important region” for the angelshark and are at the “southernmost” boundary of the species’ distribution. As a result, angelshark populations around the islands have a “possibly lower tolerance for environmental change”, it states.

The researchers add that the north-east Atlantic Ocean is “undergoing rapid warming, characterised by exceptionally high temperatures and record-breaking marine heatwaves”.
As the climate continues to warm, extreme conditions are expected to occur more frequently and for longer, causing disruption to marine life.

The map below shows the historic and existing range of angelshark populations, as well as the locations of the acoustic receivers used to detect angelsharks in the study area.

To explore how climate change in the region is impacting the angelsharks, the researchers focus on “range shift”.

Range shift is when a species migrates to either remain in ideal conditions or avoid sub-optimal environments, according to what they can withstand as the climate changes.

It is one of the most “pervasive” consequences of ocean warming, the study authors say.

Tracking angelsharks

To track the movements of angelsharks, the researchers tagged the fins of 112 animals – 38 males and 74 females – over 2018-22.

These “acoustic tags” emit sound that enabled the researchers to remotely track angelshark locations.

The researchers then used this acoustic data to investigate seasonal and annual changes to angelshark presence at the study site, taking into account the contrast between male and female behaviours.

The researchers also modelled changes to the environment over 2021-23 using a range of variables. These included sea surface temperature (SST), salinity, surface wind speed and SST anomaly – a measure of how temperatures differ from the long-term average.

They also looked at concentrations of chlorophyll a and dissolved oxygen, as well as two variables that act as an indicator for levels of desert dust in the air.

The latter were used to incorporate into their model the effect of Calima events – hot and dusty winds that reach the Canary Islands from the Sahara Desert, which raise overall air temperatures.

This “environmental model” allowed the authors to investigate the relationship between angelshark presence within the reserve and changing environmental conditions.

‘Marked absence’

Previous research has linked seasonal angelshark behaviours – such as movement and presence in a certain habitat – to the breeding cycle and, sometimes, environmental factors.

The new study finds that angelshark presence in the study area varies seasonally for both sexes, peaking in November and December. It notes an additional peak in June for female angelsharks, which were also more “consistently present” in the study area throughout the year than males.
Author Dr David Jacoby is a lecturer in zoology at Lancaster University. He explains to Carbon Brief:

“Females will often avoid males outside of the breeding season as mating is pretty violent and energy expensive in sharks. Females consequently are more likely to occur in shallow water [since] males [are more likely to be found] in deeper water.”

The charts below show the relative influence of different environmental variables on predicting male and female shark presence in the study area.

The chart on the left shows how the day of the year has the biggest influence on male angelshark presence, followed by salinity. The chart on the right shows that for female angelsharks, SST – followed by SST anomaly – was the most significant predictor.

The “crux” of the study, according to Jacoby, is that in 2022 – when peak SSTs were higher and those conditions lasted longer – female angelshark numbers were “consistently low”. He tells Carbon Brief:

“The fact that there was this significant warming event in the north-east Atlantic was opportunistic from a research perspective at least, because it provided a natural experiment in which to directly compare behaviour under ‘normal’ versus ‘extreme’ conditions.”

This “marked absence” was especially noticeable during the angelshark breeding season in mid-to-late autumn, the data shows. In contrast, the behaviour of the male sharks did not change.

The charts below illustrate how, in 2022, daily counts of female angelsharks (orange bars in the middle panel) dropped in the unusually warm conditions, while daily counts of male angelsharks (turquoise bars in the bottom panel) remained consistent with previous years.

In the top panel, orange regions indicate periods in which SSTs are between 20.7C and 22.5C and red regions show periods of SSTs above 22.5C.

According to the authors, the presence of female sharks in the study site decreases “rapidly” at SSTs above 20.7C, while the “probability of female presence” is below zero above around 22.5C.

The dotted line at 19.6C shows the temperature of peak female angelshark presence.

The researchers say their findings “strongly” indicate that the low numbers of females during the breeding season in 2022 were linked to the “thermal extremes” that year.

They point to an “upward trend” in peak temperatures and longer duration of hotter periods in their dataset, noting that the number of days where SSTs reached 22.5C more than doubled over the study period.

As a result, the authors identify 22.5C as the “possible upper thermal threshold” for female angelsharks – meaning that the animals will not move into an area at this point.

They warn that regular temperatures of 22.5C could “disrupt” the timing of “key biological events”, such as breeding.

The “unusual” findings, recorded as “disrupted” thermal cues, may be a “window into future climate change impacts”, suggest the authors.

Conservation measures

The authors highlight the need to prioritise further “species-specific” studies that incorporate “real-time environmental and behavioural data” and explore climate impacts by sex.

Improving scientific understanding and prediction of how marine species and ecosystems respond to climate change are “urgent priorities”, they say.

Jacoby adds:

“Angelsharks [are among] the most threatened fishes in the world. Because they rely on the ocean floor to rest and hunt, they are extremely attuned to their local environment. [Ocean warming] could lead to the [local extinction] of this species from the archipelago in a very worst case due to the fact that they are already at their thermal extreme in this location…

“We still don’t really know how warming could impact the complex web of interactions within these coastal ecosystems. It is so hard to engage with a problem if you can’t see it for yourself.”

Dr Hollie Booth is a postdoctoral researcher in the department of biology at the University of Oxford and was not involved in the study. She tells Carbon Brief that although the negative impacts of climate change are “concerning”, overfishing remains “the greatest direct threat” to angelshark populations.

She adds:

“It is good to see empirical evidence of the impacts of climate change on threatened marine species. [The study] indicates how we need to make sure that contributors to climate change are also held accountable for mitigating [these] impacts.”

The post Endangered angelshark faces ‘inhospitable’ breeding sites as ocean warms appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Endangered angelshark faces ‘inhospitable’ breeding sites as ocean warms

US president Donald Trump’s tariffs might only shave 0.3% off global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions this year, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

While the Trump administration is setting back international climate action through policies such as the “one big beautiful bill”, some analysts have argued that his tariffs would inadvertently cut carbon by throwing sand into the engine of the global economy.

However, Carbon Brief’s analysis, based on changing projections of economic growth since the tariffs were announced, shows that this effect is likely to be very limited.

The slew of new tariffs – initially announced on 2 April, dubbed by the president as “liberation day” – might only knock 110-150m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) off global emissions in 2025 (0.3-0.4%), the analysis shows.

For 2026, the tariffs could have a slightly higher impact, but still only 190-300MtCO2 (0.5-0.8%).

Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs included a 10% universal levy on all imported goods, alongside additional “reciprocal tariffs” on a number of countries he claimed had “cheated” the US.

The announcement sent the world’s stock markets into “turmoil”. The move has hit a range of diverse industries, including steel and aluminium, oil and more.

Despite initially saying he had no plans to pause the tariffs, Trump announced on 10 April that he would pause them for 90 days.

This pause was set to come to an end on 9 July, but, just days before this, he announced a further extension to 1 August. On his social-media network, Truth Social, Trump said countries would receive “letters and/or deals” on tariffs in the interim.

More recently, he has signed tariff deals with the European Union and countries such as the UK, Japan, the Philippines and others.

These deals reduce the headline tariff rates relative to the “liberation day” situation, as well as typically including a range of carve-outs and exemptions.

However, they do not end uncertainty over tariff levels and still leave US import levies at their highest levels “since the 1930s”, reducing expectations for trade and growth.

Since returning to office at the beginning of 2025, Trump – a climate sceptic – has rolled back a large number of environmental policies and protections.

Most recently, his “one big beautiful bill” was passed on 4 July, bringing an end to a number of former president Joe Biden’s policies, such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which provided support for electric vehicles, clean-technology manufacturing and more.

In combination with other Trump administration policies, this means the US will breach its now-defunct emissions reduction for 2030 target by a cumulative total of 7bn tonnes of CO2, previous Carbon Brief analysis found.

Nevertheless, numerous people suggested that the economic damage from Trump’s tariffs could “unintentionally” lead to a drop in carbon emissions.

For example, an April 2025 article in the New York Times stated: “Trump’s economic approach may inadvertently reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as consumption slows in response to a global trade war.”

The piece noted that the “reprieve for the planet” was likely to be short-lived, with longer-term impacts potentially hitting clean-energy deployment as international supply chains are hampered.

Similarly, an April 2025 Associated Press article quoted Global Carbon Project head Prof Rob Jackson saying that tariffs “might help the climate in the first year or two”. However, it quoted him continuing that this would come at a high cost and might backfire:

“I would say it might help the climate in the first year or two if we have a downturn in economic activity or a recession, which no one wants. But it will hurt the climate long-term because tariffs impact clean tech more than most other industries because of trade with China.”

Carbon Brief’s analysis shows that the emissions impact, even in the short term, is expected to be minimal.

It assessed the expected emissions impact of reduced global GDP by looking at changes to GDP forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank, before and after Trump’s tariffs announcements.

The OECD suggests the biggest impact from the tariffs, as shown in the chart below.

The medium- to long-term impact of Trump’s trade wars is expected to be negative for climate action. In a recent interview, UK climate envoy Rachel Kyte told Carbon Brief that it created uncertainty and was likely to slow down clean-energy investment. She said:

“Investment flows when everybody feels confident, right?…[I]f I don’t know if the tariff is 10%, 20%, 25%, 56%, whatever, well, let me put it off till the next quarter to make that investment decision.”

Kyte added: “It’s the hesitancy that it puts in the mind of government, but also in the mind of investors and the private sector…[T]he sort of tariff era we’re in, the risk is that it slows down the investment in the clean-energy transition at a time when it needs to speed up.”

Methodology

Carbon Brief estimated the impact of Trump’s tariffs on global GDP by comparing growth forecasts published during June and July 2025 by the IMF World Economic Outlook, OECD Economic Outlook and World Bank Global Economic Prospects against corresponding forecasts published in December 2024 or January 2025, before Trump’s tariff announcements.

While Trump’s tariffs are not the only factor to have changed in these forecasts over the time period in question, they do represent a singular and sudden effect, which would be expected to have a significant impact on the global economic outlook.

The analysis estimates global GDP over 2025/2026 by applying the growth forecasts to historical GDP from the World Bank.

The reductions in forecast global GDP growth are translated into estimated emissions impacts by assuming that the “carbon intensity” of the world’s economy continues to improve at a steady rate, with or without the tariffs. Carbon intensity is the emissions per unit of GDP and has been improving slowly and steadily over many years.

The analysis only considers CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement production. Historical CO2 emissions data is taken from the Global Carbon Budget.

The range of estimated CO2 impacts stems from the varying GDP forecasts of the three different organisations.

For comparison, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has revised down its forecasts for global oil demand growth in 2025 by some 350,000 barrels of oil per day since the start of the year. This is equivalent to cutting global emissions this year by 40MtCO2.

The IEA’s forecasts for global coal demand in 2025 are broadly unchanged since the start of the year, with demand expected to grow 0.2% this year.

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The post Analysis: Trump’s tariffs could cut just 0.3% from global CO2 emissions in 2025 appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Analysis: Trump’s tariffs could cut just 0.3% from global CO2 emissions in 2025