Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
1.5C looms
1.5C EXAMINED: The run of record heat last year suggests the world is close to exceeding the Paris Agreement’s target of limiting global temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, according to two new studies covered by the Press Association. In 2024, annual average temperatures reached 1.5C for the first time. However, the Paris goal is measured as a 20-year average – meaning breaching 1.5C in a single year does not yet show the target has been crossed, the publication noted.
BREACH IN REACH: The first of the two studies “looked at real-world observations of already reached warming levels…and showed that the first single years exceeding each threshold have consistently fallen with the first 20-year period which averaged the same level of warming”, said the newswire. The findings suggest the Paris goal could be crossed within 10 years – unless there are “stringent” emissions cuts, Agence France-Presse reported. This is in-line with recent estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Carbon Brief.
HEAT GOES ON: The second study explored what the run of temperatures above 1.5C from July 2023 to June 2024 could mean for the Paris Agreement, the Independent reported. It continued: “The study shows that having 12 consecutive months above 1.5C means there’s a 76% chance that we’ve already hit that long-term warming threshold under current climate policies. If this trend continues for 18 consecutive months, the research says, the breach of the Paris Agreement threshold will be virtually certain. January 2025 was the 19th month to cross that mark.”
Around the world
- BP SWITCH: According to the Times, BP’s chief executive – under pressure from an activist investor – has pledged to “fundamentally reset” the company’s strategy, which is expected to involve a formal ditching of its target to cut oil and gas output and a further scaling back of its renewables projects.
- 35% RENEWABLE: Under Indonesia’s new electricity plan, the country aims to increase its renewable energy share from 12% to 35% in 2034 by expanding solar, battery, hydro and geothermal capacity, reported Reuters.
- ‘EXISTENTIAL THREAT’: A first-of-its kind German government report found that climate change poses an “existential threat” to the European Union due to its “destabilising and unequal” effects, reported Politico.
- COAL ON A HIGH: As covered by Carbon Brief, China’s construction of coal-fired power plants reached a new 10-year high in 2024, according to a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor.
- ‘100% SUSTAINABLE WOOD’: The UK government agreed a new deal for the Drax power plant – which burns wood pellets to generate electricity – halving its subsidies and requiring all wood to come from “100% sustainable” sources, the Guardian said. Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans had more details.
- INDIA DEALS: Reuters reported that Nigeria is seeking assistance from India with its energy transition plans. Meanwhile, BBC News reported on the US and India agreeing a new deal that will see more American oil and gas imported by Delhi.
57%
The annual increase in second-hand EV sales in the UK from 2023 to 2024, with 188,382 cars changing hands in 2024, reported BusinessGreen.
Latest climate research
- New research in npj Climate Action showed that the more pronounced local climate change effects become, the stronger the relationship between a person’s education level and their level of “climate concern”.
- A new study published in Nature Cities showed that people in more disadvantaged neighbourhoods are more exposed to floods, based on studying nearly 45,000 neighbourhoods in eight Latin American countries between 2000 and 2018.
- Carbon emissions from permafrost “may pose a considerable risk” to climate mitigation efforts, “even if net-zero and negative emissions are achieved”, according to a new study published in Science Advances.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Nearly 95% of countries miss UN climate pledge deadline
Nearly 95% of countries have missed a UN deadline to submit new climate pledges for 2035, Carbon Brief analysis shows. Just 13 of the 195 parties – highlighted on the map above – signed up to the Paris Agreement published their new emissions-cutting plans, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs), by the 10 February deadline. Countries missing the deadline represent 83% of global emissions and nearly 80% of the world’s economy, according to Carbon Brief analysis. The US submitted its NDC under the previous Biden administration and has now announced plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
Spotlight
From faint idea to ‘forest twice the size of London’
This week, Carbon Brief takes you behind the scenes of its recent rapid analysis on UK airport expansion.
At the end of January, Carbon Brief published an analysis showing that a forest “twice the size of London” would be needed to offset the emissions from the UK government’s proposed airport expansion.
It was covered widely in the press, featured on an ITV current affairs show and was cited twice by MPs in UK parliament.
The analysis – by myself, Carbon Brief’s data scientist, and policy correspondent Josh Gabbatiss – came together in just a few days. Below, I explain how we undertook the rapid analysis.
Heathrow third runway
In January, UK chancellor Rachel Reeves signalled that the UK government was planning to back a third runway at Heathrow airport, along with the expansion of two other London airports, Luton and Gatwick.
We decided to examine what the “climate cost” of such an expansion would be. The UK has so far done little to align its aviation sector with its net-zero target and this seemed like it could make that target even harder to reach.
The question was how should we go about this? Carbon Brief has previously published a guest post showing that airport expansion was not net-zero compatible and others had published more recent emissions analysis. What more could we add?
For a new angle, we wanted to focus on the extra emissions that would result specifically from the expansion of the three airports.
Calculating airport emissions
We noted that Carbon Brief’s guest post had used estimates for the average emissions per passenger to calculate the extra emissions in the year 2050 from the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the UK’s official climate advisers.
But calculating the extra emissions for a single year more than two decades in the future did not feel sufficient because the expansions would be operational years before 2050 – and it is the cumulative that matters for global temperatures.
However, calculating cumulative emissions would require modelling based on airport expansion dates.
Assuming the expansions are fully operational by 2040 and using CCC modelling, I produced the first rough chart (below) using pandas, a data analysis tool designed for the Python coding language.
This showed that the expansion of Heathrow, Luton and Gatwick would produce an extra 81m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) by 2050 (in orange on the chart below).
Forest figures
After calculating the extra emissions from the UK’s planned airport expansion, we decided that we needed to come up with a way of contextualising the number for our readers.
This is a common issue for us at Carbon Brief – how to communicate the scale of emissions. The average person does not necessarily know how to interpret 81m tonnes.
It can help to compare it to something more grounded and visible. In this case, we decided to work out how many trees would be needed to absorb all the extra emissions.
First, I redid the analysis with more accurate information on airport-expansion timelines from the Aviation Environment Federation, an NGO focused on the climate impacts of flying, which updated the total to 92m tonnes.
For converting this to trees, I drew on the methods of a previous analysis to get the emissions absorbed per hectare of forest planted over its lifetime.
From this, and assuming that the new forest is planted in 2028, I could calculate the forest area that would need to be planted so that by 2050 it has offset the extra aviation emissions from 2028 to 2050.
Using this, we got a forest “twice the size of Greater London”.
For more context, I added the historical emissions from the aviation sector and separated out each airport’s contribution in the updated chart (below).
Visualising the headline
The last step of the analysis was to present it in Carbon Brief style. I sent the data to our multimedia team and asked them to add two London-shaped forests to the chart.
Armed with the headline and caption text, the multimedia team turned the data into something visually captivating that could tell the story on its own.
If such work interests you, consider applying for our data-analyst vacancy. Deadline: 9am GMT 17 February
Watch, read, listen
CLIMATE BOWL: Super Bowl viewers in Los Angeles were shown the first-ever climate advert from a nonprofit group, showing the progress of climate change through the timeline of a young girl.
BIG SIX WASHING: A DeSmog investigation outlined how the six largest communication companies present themselves as climate friendly while helping to promote fossil fuels.
‘TOTAL WIPEOUT’: A France24 video report highlighted how some lower altitude ski towns are adapting to their new snow-scarce reality in the face of climate change.
Coming up
- 15-16 February: 38th African Union Summit: assembly of the heads of state, Addis Adaba, Ethiopia
- 17-19 February: UN Environment Programme UrbanShift Africa Forum, Nairobi, Kenya
- 17-21 February: 18th session of the Intersessional Working Group on reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from ships, London
Pick of the jobs
- World Resources Institute, programme lead, Latin America Clean Energy Coalition | Salary: Unknown. Location: Brazil, Mexico or Colombia
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, postdoctoral researcher AMOC | Salary: €4,630 per month. Location: Potsdam, Germany
- Action for the Climate Emergency, director of renewables, UK, | Salary: £80,000-£90,000. Location: Remote, UK
- InfluenceMap, analyst, climate change (India-focused), UK-based | Salary: £29,000. Location: London (hybrid)
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 14 February 2025: Nearly 95% of countries miss UN climate deadline; 1.5C on horizon; Behind-the-scenes of CB analysis appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate Change
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Blazing heat hits Europe
FANNING THE FLAMES: Wildfires “fanned by a heatwave and strong winds” caused havoc across southern Europe, Reuters reported. It added: “Fire has affected nearly 440,000 hectares (1,700 square miles) in the eurozone so far in 2025, double the average for the same period of the year since 2006.” Extreme heat is “breaking temperature records across Europe”, the Guardian said, with several countries reporting readings of around 40C.
HUMAN TOLL: At least three people have died in the wildfires erupting across Spain, Turkey and Albania, France24 said, adding that the fires have “displaced thousands in Greece and Albania”. Le Monde reported that a child in Italy “died of heatstroke”, while thousands were evacuated from Spain and firefighters “battled three large wildfires” in Portugal.
UK WILDFIRE RISK: The UK saw temperatures as high as 33.4C this week as England “entered its fourth heatwave”, BBC News said. The high heat is causing “nationally significant” water shortfalls, it added, “hitting farms, damaging wildlife and increasing wildfires”. The Daily Mirror noted that these conditions “could last until mid-autumn”. Scientists warn the UK faces possible “firewaves” due to climate change, BBC News also reported.
Around the world
- GRID PRESSURES: Iraq suffered a “near nationwide blackout” as elevated power demand – due to extreme temperatures of around 50C – triggered a transmission line failure, Bloomberg reported.
- ‘DIRE’ DOWN UNDER: The Australian government is keeping a climate risk assessment that contains “dire” implications for the continent “under wraps”, the Australian Financial Review said.
- EXTREME RAINFALL: Mexico City is “seeing one of its heaviest rainy seasons in years”, the Washington Post said. Downpours in the Japanese island of Kyushu “caused flooding and mudslides”, according to Politico. In Kashmir, flash floods killed 56 and left “scores missing”, the Associated Press said.
- SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION: China and Brazil agreed to “ensure the success” of COP30 in a recent phone call, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
- PLASTIC ‘DEADLOCK’: Talks on a plastic pollution treaty have failed again at a summit in Geneva, according to the Guardian, with countries “deadlocked” on whether it should include “curbs on production and toxic chemicals”.
15
The number of times by which the most ethnically-diverse areas in England are more likely to experience extreme heat than its “least diverse” areas, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- As many as 13 minerals critical for low-carbon energy may face shortages under 2C pathways | Nature Climate Change
- A “scoping review” examined the impact of climate change on poor sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa | PLOS One
- A UK university cut the carbon footprint of its weekly canteen menu by 31% “without students noticing” | Nature Food
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Factchecking Trump’s climate report
A report commissioned by the US government to justify rolling back climate regulations contains “at least 100 false or misleading statements”, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists. The report, compiled in two months by five hand-picked researchers, inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed” and misleadingly states that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”80
Spotlight
Does Xi Jinping care about climate change?
This week, Carbon Brief unpacks new research on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s policy priorities.
On this day in 2005, Xi Jinping, a local official in eastern China, made an unplanned speech when touring a small village – a rare occurrence in China’s highly-choreographed political culture.
In it, he observed that “lucid waters and lush mountains are mountains of silver and gold” – that is, the environment cannot be sacrificed for the sake of growth.
(The full text of the speech is not available, although Xi discussed the concept in a brief newspaper column – see below – a few days later.)
In a time where most government officials were laser-focused on delivering economic growth, this message was highly unusual.
Forward-thinking on environment
As a local official in the early 2000s, Xi endorsed the concept of “green GDP”, which integrates the value of natural resources and the environment into GDP calculations.
He also penned a regular newspaper column, 22 of which discussed environmental protection – although “climate change” was never mentioned.
This focus carried over to China’s national agenda when Xi became president.
New research from the Asia Society Policy Institute tracked policies in which Xi is reported by state media to have “personally” taken action.
It found that environmental protection is one of six topics in which he is often said to have directly steered policymaking.
Such policies include guidelines to build a “Beautiful China”, the creation of an environmental protection inspection team and the “three-north shelterbelt” afforestation programme.
“It’s important to know what Xi’s priorities are because the top leader wields outsized influence in the Chinese political system,” Neil Thomas, Asia Society Policy Institute fellow and report co-author, told Carbon Brief.
Local policymakers are “more likely” to invest resources in addressing policies they know have Xi’s attention, to increase their chances for promotion, he added.
What about climate and energy?
However, the research noted, climate and energy policies have not been publicised as bearing Xi’s personal touch.
“I think Xi prioritises environmental protection more than climate change because reducing pollution is an issue of social stability,” Thomas said, noting that “smoggy skies and polluted rivers” were more visible and more likely to trigger civil society pushback than gradual temperature increases.
The paper also said topics might not be linked to Xi personally when they are “too technical” or “politically sensitive”.
For example, Xi’s landmark decision for China to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 is widely reported as having only been made after climate modelling – facilitated by former climate envoy Xie Zhenhua – showed that this goal was achievable.
Prior to this, Xi had never spoken publicly about carbon neutrality.
Prof Alex Wang, a University of California, Los Angeles professor of law not involved in the research, noted that emphasising Xi’s personal attention may signal “top” political priorities, but not necessarily Xi’s “personal interests”.
By not emphasising climate, he said, Xi may be trying to avoid “pushing the system to overprioritise climate to the exclusion of the other priorities”.
There are other ways to know where climate ranks on the policy agenda, Thomas noted:
“Climate watchers should look at what Xi says, what Xi does and what policies Xi authorises in the name of the ‘central committee’. Is Xi talking more about climate? Is Xi establishing institutions and convening meetings that focus on climate? Is climate becoming a more prominent theme in top-level documents?”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP EFFECT: The Columbia Energy Exchange podcast examined how pressure from US tariffs could affect India’s clean energy transition.
NAMIBIAN ‘DESTRUCTION’: The National Observer investigated the failure to address “human rights abuses and environmental destruction” claims against a Canadian oil company in Namibia.
‘RED AI’: The Network for the Digital Economy and the Environment studied the state of current research on “Red AI”, or the “negative environmental implications of AI”.
Coming up
- 17 August: Bolivian general elections
- 18-29 August: Preparatory talks on the entry into force of the “High Seas Treaty”, New York
- 18-22 August: Y20 Summit, Johannesburg
- 21 August: Advancing the “Africa clean air programme” through Africa-Asia collaboration, Yokohama
Pick of the jobs
- Lancaster Environment Centre, senior research associate: JUST Centre | Salary: £39,355-£45,413. Location: Lancaster, UK
- Environmental Justice Foundation, communications and media officer, Francophone Africa | Salary: XOF600,000-XOF800,000. Location: Dakar, Senegal
- Politico, energy & climate editor | Salary: Unknown. Location: Brussels, Belgium
- EnviroCatalysts, meteorologist | Salary: Unknown. Location: New Delhi, India
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 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Climate Change
New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit
The specter of a “gas-for-wind” compromise between the governor and the White House is drawing the ire of residents as a deadline looms.
Hundreds of New Yorkers rallied against new natural gas pipelines in their state as a deadline loomed for the public to comment on a revived proposal to expand the gas pipeline that supplies downstate New York.
New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit
A “critical assessment” report commissioned by the Trump administration to justify a rollback of US climate regulations contains at least 100 false or misleading statements, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists.
The report – “A critical review of impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the US climate” – was published by the US Department of Energy (DoE) on 23 July, just days before the government laid out plans to revoke a scientific finding used as the legal basis for emissions regulation.
The executive summary of the controversial report inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed”.
It also states misleadingly that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”.
Compiled in just two months by five “independent” researchers hand-selected by the climate-sceptic US secretary of energy Chris Wright, the document has sparked fierce criticism from climate scientists, who have pointed to factual errors, misrepresentation of research, messy citations and the cherry-picking of data.
Experts have also noted the authors’ track record of promoting views at odds with the mainstream understanding of climate science.
Wright’s department claims the report – which is currently open to public comment as part of a 30-day review – underwent an “internal peer-review period amongst [the] DoE’s scientific research community”.
The report is designed to provide a scientific underpinning to one flank of the Trump administration’s plans to rescind a finding that serves as the legal prerequisite for federal emissions regulation. (The second flank is about legal authority to regulate emissions.)
The “endangerment finding” – enacted by the Obama administration in 2009 – states that six greenhouse gases are contributing to the net-negative impacts of climate change and, thus, put the public in danger.
In a press release on 29 July, the US Environmental Protection Agency said “updated studies and information” set out in the new report would “challenge the assumptions” of the 2009 finding.
Carbon Brief asked a wide range of climate scientists, including those cited in the “critical review” itself, to factcheck the report’s various claims and statements.
The post Factcheck: Trump’s climate report includes more than 100 false or misleading claims appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-trumps-climate-report-includes-more-than-100-false-or-misleading-claims/
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