Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Record temperatures
RECORD LEVELS: The Copernicus Climate Change Service has warned that extreme weather across the globe is set to continue, following April marking the 11th month in a row where global average temperatures were at record highs, reported the Financial Times. April was 0.67C above the 1991-2020 average for the month and 1.58C above pre-industrial levels, it added.
SURGING SEA TEMPERATURES: Analysis of the Copernicus data by BBC News found that the world’s oceans have broken temperature records every single day over the past year and, on some days, this has been by a “huge margin”. In February and March 2024, sea surface temperatures reached a new global average daily high of 21.09C, according to the analysis.
Climate scientists speak out
PAST 1.5C: A survey by the Guardian has found that the majority of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperature to rise to at least 2.5C above pre-industrial levels by 2100, given the current level of action by countries. The survey of 380 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists found that almost half anticipate 3C of warming, while only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C limit will be met.
EXHAUSTED EXPERTS: In an accompanying piece in the Guardian, the experts shared their views. One scientist from Mexico told the newspaper she felt “hopeless and broken” by the pace of rising climate impacts, while another expert said thinking of the future was “infuriating, distressing, overwhelming”. A separate piece spoke to the female scientists surveyed, a fifth of whom have decided not to have children or to have fewer.
AVOIDING DESPAIR: The Guardian published an editorial alongside the above articles, urging readers not to despair. Although the “future can feel overwhelming and unfixable”, it notes, we need to “build collective awareness, a sense that change is possible and momentum for wider systemic progress”. Additionally, an opinion article by former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres similarly argues that “stubborn optimism may be our only hope”.
Around the world
- BRAZIL FLOODS: Record-breaking floods in southern Brazil have killed more than 105 people and affected more than 1.7 million, with more rain expected, reported O Globo.
- EU AND CHINA TALK TRADE: EU commissioner Ursula von der Leyen has restated readiness to launch a trade war with China over imports of clean energy technologies during a meeting with president Xi Jinping, reported the Guardian. Elsewhere, the South China Morning Post reported that the new climate envoys from China and the US have met for the first time.
- SOUTH ASIA HEATWAVES: Governments across south and south-east Asia have issued health warnings as schools shut and crops fail, as extreme heat continues to grip the region, the Guardian reported. In the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, five people have been killed by forest fires, reported the Hindustan Times.
- AUSTRALIAN GAS: Australia’s government has announced plans to ramp up the extraction and use of gas to “2050 and beyond”, BBC News reported. The prime minister is now facing an internal revolt from his party, the Guardian added.
- KENYA DAY OF MOURNING: Kenya’s president William Ruto has declared a public day of mourning following the deaths of 238 people due to ongoing flooding, which will be marked by tree-planting, reported the Associated Press.
- LONDON MAYOR: Labour’s Sadiq Khan has pledged further “world-leading green action” after winning a historic third term as London Mayor, reported Bloomberg. Khan’s victory came despite speculation his ambitious air pollution and climate measures could turn off voters.
30%
The proportion of global electricity that came from renewables last year – a new record, according to analysis covered by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Fewer cooler days due to climate change could make existing varieties of lychee “unsuitable for cultivation in production areas in southern Taiwan”, a new study in Climate Services said.
- Tornado-producing tropical storms may increase “substantially” in the US by 2050 as climate change worsens, new research in Weather and Climate Extremes found.
- New research published in Nature Climate Change found that the transport of ocean heat through the Bering Strait has a more substantial influence on Arctic warming than previously recognised.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
“Residual emissions” are those that remain once a nation has gone as far as it thinks is possible to cut its emissions. These emissions tend to come from sectors that are considered hard to decarbonise, such as livestock farming and heavy industry. The concept is closely tied with net-zero targets. That is, a country must remove CO2 from the atmosphere that is equivalent in volume to its residual emissions, in order to say it has reached net-zero. A new study covered by Carbon Brief explored national strategies for managing residual emissions. Of the 71 countries examined, just 26 have long-term plans to tackle these emissions. These nations could have residual emissions of up to 2.9bn tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2050, equal to around 5% of total global emissions. Countries include major emitters such as the US, Canada and Australia (as shown in the above chart). The chart shows residual emissions (red) as a share of each nation’s peak emissions (blue) – or its most recent annual emissions, if its emissions have not yet peaked.
Spotlight
The Thames Barrier at 40
Carbon Brief visits London’s Thames Barrier, the second-largest flood defence barrier in the world, as it turns 40-years-old.
With sea levels rising and flood risks increasing, the UK’s Environment Agency (EA) is working to develop the next era of protections for London and the wider Thames Estuary.
On 25 April, Carbon Brief visited the Thames Barrier to discuss its origins and look forward to its next 40 years.
History
In 1953, London and the east coast of England were devastated by the North Sea Flood, which killed more than 300 people and caused an estimated £50m in damage (approximately £5bn in today’s money) in the region.
While, previously, the UK government had broadly taken a reactive approach to floods, progressively raising the walls and banks of the Thames river, this flood made it clear that such an approach was not sustainable.
In response, one of the first ever “rising sector gates” was built across a 520m-long stretch of the River Thames near Woolwich.
The Thames Barrier was designed by Charles Draper of the London-based Rendel, Palmer and Tritton architectural company, who took inspiration from a gas tap on his cooker. He built a working model in 1969, ahead of construction five years later. The barrier started being used in 1982.
On 8 May 1984, the Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the £535m (£2.4bn in today’s money) Thames Barrier, which remains the second-largest flood defence barrier in the world.
Operation
Now, 40 years on, the Thames Barrier continues to protect 1.4 million people and £321bn of property from tidal flooding.
The Thames Barrier includes 10 steel gates positioned across the width of the river that can be rotated to rise out of the water. Once raised, each 3,300-tonne main gate stands as high as a five-story building and is as wide as the opening of London’s iconic Tower Bridge.
Over the past four decades, it has been closed 221 times for flood defence purposes, including a particular spike in 2013-2014 when it was closed 50 times in 13 weeks.
Andy Batchelor, Thames tidal defences operations manager, who started work at the barrier the day the Queen opened it, said in a statement:
“Having witnessed and worked on the Thames Barrier’s opening, I am immensely proud of the protection it has provided London for the past 40 years and will continue to provide for years to come.
“Its reliability and effectiveness demonstrate the sophistication of its design by a very talented group of engineers and the continued maintenance and operation carried out by the barrier team.”
The next 40 years
The Thames Barrier was only designed to last until 2030. However, the EA, which operates and maintains the site, is confident it will continue to run until 2070.
However, sea levels are predicted to rise 1.5m by the end of the century, increasing the potential for a significant tidal flood. Additionally, with England becoming increasingly wet, the barrier is expected to be called on increasingly – about half of the closures to date have been for river flood protection.
If closing the barrier 50 times in a year becomes the norm, it could fail, the EA has warned, as this does not provide the necessary time for workers to maintain it.
As such, the agency is working on preparing for the next era of flood protection.
The agency is planning to work with partners to continuously review the best available options, including building a new barrier or developing more flood storage, and decide on an end-of-century option by 2040.
Meanwhile, from 2021-27, the government is set to invest £5.6bn in creating new flood and coastal defences to protect hundreds of thousands of properties.
Watch, read, listen
THE $9TN QUESTION: A “big read” in the Financial Times explored how governments worldwide are looking to foot the “immense” bill for the green transition.
BIG BRANDS GREEN CLAIMS: BBC Panorama looked at the “green claims” made by the world’s biggest brands, exposing serious flaws and side-effects of their reliance on carbon offsetting.
ASIAN HEATWAVES: On Himal South Asian’s podcast, environmental social scientist and Carbon Brief contributing editor Dr Chandni Singh discussed why the extreme heat facing the subcontinent this summer is unlike the “heat of the past”.
Coming up
- 13 May: Fourth phase of India’s election
- 14 May: International Energy Agency (IEA) conference on clean cooking in Africa, Paris, France
- 15-17 May: UN Environment Programme: Accelerating urban nature-based solutions: A Latin American-European collaboration, Barcelona, Spain
- 15 May-1 June: IEA-COP29 high-level dialogues, Paris, France
Pick of the jobs
- Carbon Brief, journalist internship | Salary: £13.50 per hour and £100 travel expenses. Location: London
- Conservation International, director of African natural climate solutions roadmap | Salary: Unknown. Location: Nairobi, Kenya
- UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, environmental manager | Salary: £69,485-£76,525. Location: Aberdeen, Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh or Salford
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 10 May 2024: 11 months of record heat; Climate scientists ‘hopeless and broken’; 40 years of the Thames Barrier appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Delegates will soon gather in the Turkish resort city of Antalya for UN climate negotiations, against a backdrop of war, energy crisis and climate extremes.
At COP31, nations will try to find agreement on various issues, including climate finance for developing countries and a global “just transition” towards a cleaner economy.
This summit is unusual due to its joint presidency, which means that Australia is leading the negotiations while Turkey hosts the conference.
Outside the formal negotiations, Turkey is also pushing its own priorities as part of a wider “action agenda”, including electrification, oceans and “green industrialisation”.
In order to track parties’ positions on key negotiating points and wider issues at COP31, Carbon Brief has analysed around 100 documents and captured them in the interactive table below.
The first column shows the countries and UN negotiating blocs, the second shows the topics up for debate and the third indicates specific issues within those topics.
The final column indicates the positions that the parties have expressed on each topic. These range from “priority” – meaning the party is likely to be pushing the issue – to “oppose”, meaning it is likely to push against it.
This is a “living document” that will be updated over the course of COP31.
Please get in touch if you would like to offer additions by emailing policy@carbonbrief.org.
Brief explanations of the key issues and jargon-filled language that permeate the talks can be found below the interactive table.
Just transition
At COP30 in Brazil in 2025, nations agreed to establish a practical mechanism to help drive a “just transition” to a low-carbon economy.
Key aspects of this “Belém-Antalya mechanism” (BAM) – often referred to as the “just transition mechanism” (JTM) – were agreed during the June climate negotiations this year, but many details are missing and dividing lines remain between parties.
Parties have disagreed about the scope of the mechanism and whether it should be tied to the provision of finance.
Nevertheless, following progress in June within the “just transition work programme” (JTWP), civil society groups highlighted that getting the mechanism up and running is a “key expected outcome” from COP31.
Climate finance
Climate finance is always a highly contested issue at UN climate negotiations.
Developing countries have successfully pushed for a “work programme” on climate finance to feature on the conference agenda.
These parties see this programme as a way to pressure developed countries into providing more funding from their public coffers, specifically under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement. Some are even proposing a “burden sharing” arrangement for climate-finance provision.
This comes against a backdrop of major donors cutting their aid budgets and the Trump administration in the US pressuring multilateral development banks (MDBs) to drop their climate objectives.
Developed countries, which have traditionally been responsible for providing finance, would prefer to keep a broader focus on issues such as improving access to existing finance and broadening the range of donors. Some developing countries, such as small-island states, also support these goals.
Nations have also been discussing Article 2.1c of the Paris Agreement under the “Veredas dialogue”. This focuses on making all global “financial flows” consistent with climate action.
Countries have different views about what this involves, with developing countries again hoping to keep the focus on developed countries’ responsibilities to financially support them.
Adaptation and mitigation
At negotiations in June, parties were unable to agree on the details of a “global goal on adaptation” (GGA), which is intended to drive climate adaptation worldwide.
Having agreed at COP30 on a list of 59 “indicators” – ways to assess progress towards the GGA – nations now need to refine these before COP32 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This is a highly technical process that involves a taskforce working out how to use and track these indicators.
Broadly, developing countries stress the importance of finance to fund adaptation efforts, rather than simply to track progress. They also want reassurances about a pledge made last year to “triple adaptation finance”.
At the June climate negotiations, negotiators also failed to make any progress when discussing the mitigation work programme (MWP) – the only formal agenda item that concerns cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Among other things, parties disagreed on whether the MWP should continue running over the next few years, or simply be brought to a close.
Global stocktake and NDCs
Back in 2023, the first “global stocktake” (GST) of the Paris Agreement set out the state of climate action and what needed to be done to set the world on course.
On mitigation, nations agreed to a package of measures, including “transitioning away from fossil fuels”, tripling renewable energy and “halting and reversing deforestation” by 2030.
Some of these outcomes remain contentious among certain parties, particularly large, developing countries and those with economies that rely on fossil-fuel exports.
Developing countries have persistently argued that they need more climate finance to implement the global stocktake outcomes.
Parties were meant to update their climate plans under the Paris Agreement, informed by the first global stocktake, by 2025. These plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), cover the period out to 2035.
So far, only 150 parties – responsible for three-quarters of global emissions – have submitted new NDCs.
Iran, Vietnam, Egypt and Argentina are among those without new NDCs – and the US has