Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Bonn talks wrap up
‘STEEP MOUNTAIN’: As climate negotiations in the German city of Bonn drew to a close on Thursday night, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said that nations had “a very steep mountain to climb” ahead of the COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, later this year, according to Agence France-Presse.
FINANCE DIVIDE: The talks were marked by “polarised views and sharp disagreements”, the Hindustan Times reported. The divide over climate finance was particularly notable, with countries failing to find common ground, despite the expectation they will come up with a new target “for helping poorer countries cut their emissions and protect their societies in a harsher, hotter world”, Reuters explained.
RAISING AMBITION: In its final daily dispatch from the talks in Bonn, Climate Home News covered an event that saw negotiators from the past, present and future COP presidencies – the UAE, Azerbaijan and Brazil – discuss their efforts to boost the ambition of other countries’ climate plans. All three said they will submit new strategies that are aligned with the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5C, but the article noted that none of them plan to stop producing fossil fuels. Carbon Brief has just published an in-depth article on the key takeaways from Bonn.
Europe goes to the polls
GREEN LOSSES: Losses by Green parties in the European parliamentary elections have “raised concerns” about EU climate policies, the Guardian reported. The Associated Press noted significant Green losses in Germany and France, amid a wider “electoral shift to the right”. Nevertheless, Reuters stated that the EU’s Green Deal package of laws would prove “hard to undo” – a point broadly echoed by experts speaking to Carbon Brief.
UK ELECTION: UK parties began launching their election manifestos. The incumbent Conservatives have drawn criticism for their “pragmatic” net-zero policies, according to the Press Association. By contrast, the Liberal Democrats have pledged to bring the UK’s net-zero goal forward to 2045, BusinessGreen reported. Labour, which polling suggests is likely to form the next government, confirmed its goal to bring forward a target to fully decarbonise the electricity grid from 2035 to 2030, according to Edie. Carbon Brief is tracking where all the parties stand on climate, energy and nature.
Around the world
- DROUGHT RIOTS: Riots have erupted over water shortages in the drought-stricken Algerian city of Tiaret, according to the Associated Press. It described the fossil-fuel-rich nation as being in “among the world’s worst-hit regions by climate change”.
- BAN REVERSAL: New Zealand’s right-wing government has announced it will reverse a ban on oil-and-gas exploration brought in by the previous government, Radio New Zealand reported.
- WET FIRES: A record area of Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands has burned in the first half of 2024, as weak rains have disrupted the usual seasonal flooding, BBC News reported.
- DIRTY MONEY: Sources have told Reuters that Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) members intend to launch a plan to end new private-sector financing for coal projects at the COP29 climate summit.
- REJECT YOUR ELDERS: The Swiss parliament has rejected a European Court of Human Rights ruling, which accused the nation of violating the rights of a group of “female climate elders” by enacting weak climate policies, according to the Guardian.
- TRADE WARS: The EU will impose additional levies on electric cars from China next month, taking tariffs to as high as 48%, Bloomberg said.
$1.1-1.3 trillion
The amount of climate finance developing countries at Bonn want developed countries to provide to them every year, according to Climate Home News.
Latest climate research
- The extreme rainfall that hit Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran in April and May this year was made twice as likely by El Niño, according to rapid analysis covered by Carbon Brief. The scientists were unable to determine the role of climate change.
- Nitrous oxide emissions from human activities rose by 40% over the past four decades, partly driven by growing global demand for meat and dairy, according to new research reported on by Carbon Brief.
- Exposure to high and low temperatures during pregnancy and the early years of a child’s life “may have lasting impacts” on brain development, according to new research in Nature Climate Change.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
New Carbon Brief analysis by Dr Zeke Hausfather examined when the world is likely to exceed the 1.5C and 2C limits set out in the Paris Agreement. The chart above shows observed global average temperature from 1850 to 2023 in black, along with a vast array of colours illustrating the wide range of possible futures derived from 37 different climate models. This approach suggests that the world will pass 1.5C around the year 2030, with a range of anywhere from 2028 up to 2036.
Spotlight
Fossil fuels, billionaires and weapons: are taxes the solution to climate finance?
Reporting from the UN climate talks in Bonn, Carbon Brief considers proposals to raise much-needed funds for climate action by taxing everything from fossil fuels to bombs.
Developing countries require trillions of dollars to achieve their climate goals and they want developed countries to foot a large chunk of this bill. But, by the most recent count, climate finance from those nations had reached just $116bn in 2022.
In the hunt for climate investment, one option gaining momentum is the idea of new taxes.
Tackling climate change by “making polluters pay” is not a new concept. However, as climate-finance negotiations have stalled at the UN climate talks in Bonn, some provocative ideas have made their way out of NGO reports and into the halls of power.
Tax the rich
Tucked away in the “global stocktake” text that emerged from the COP28 climate summit last year was a reference to “taxation” as an “innovative” source of climate finance.
G20 chair Brazil has taken up this idea, pushing a global “billionaire tax” that could raise around $250bn a year.
Germany and France are among those supporting this tax, arguing it could be a tool to raise climate finance.
COP28 also saw the launch of the International Tax Task Force – a group of countries exploring various levies on fossil fuels, transport and financial transactions.
Speaking to Carbon Brief in Bonn, one of the initiative’s leaders, Ali Mohamed, who is also the African Group chair, said “it’s important that we look at whatever is possible”, given the crises facing the world. He added:
“We hope just to bring together a group of countries that are willing to experiment.”
Some of these ideas are already being discussed at a high level. In particular, negotiators at the UN International Maritime Organisation are considering a shipping-emissions levy.
Oil and bombs
Ahead of Bonn, Bloomberg reported that Azerbaijan, the host of COP29, was considering a new climate fund filled by taxing oil, gas and coal production.
Fossil-fuel levies have already been employed in some countries and have been championed by UN secretary-general António Guterres. Nevertheless, Catherine Abreu, executive director of Destination Zero, told Carbon Brief it is “significant” to see such a fund proposed by the oil-producing COP president. But she added:
“So far, what we’ve heard about Azerbaijan’s proposal makes it sound more like an investment or profit-making scheme than a true climate fund.”
(This idea was further dampened in Bonn by a Politico interview with Yalchin Rafiyev, Azerbaijan’s lead negotiator, in which he suggested that their proposal would not only single out fossil fuel companies – and may consist of voluntary contributions.)
Meanwhile, the Arab Group – led by Saudi Arabia – submitted a proposal at Bonn calling for developed countries to provide $441bn in public spending a year.
Saudi negotiator Mohammad Ayoub went into more detail about how they could achieve this goal, suggesting “a tax on defence companies in developed countries”.
The proposal stood out, not least given Saudi Arabia’s status as the world’s second-largest arms importer. Climate Home News revealed that other taxes proposed by the Arab Group would target “luxury” items, such as fashion and technology.
Iskander Erzini Vernoit, director of the Imal Initiative for Climate and Development, told Carbon Brief the proposal was “a response to the constant refrain, which we hear from the US and others, that there supposedly is not sufficient public finance”.
Tax justice
This all comes against a wider backdrop of calls for “tax justice”. To this end, African nations in particular have been fighting for a new UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.
“This could potentially lead to global tax measures that might target aviation or international financial transactions,” Teresa Anderson, global climate justice lead at ActionAid, told Carbon Brief.
Taxation is not generally regarded as a vote-winner. Yet, as wealthy countries face pressure to commit public money to climate action, Cat Pettengell, executive director of Climate Action Network UK, said “fair taxes and ending harmful subsidies are there for the taking”.
Watch, read, listen
‘COOKING AND COUGHING’: An on-the-ground report by the Associated Press examined how women are increasingly turning to burning firewood for food preparation in Kenya.
FIRE ERA: The Bloomberg Zero podcast explored how the 21st century could be “shaped by destructive fire weather”.
CLIMATE GRIEF: The Climate Pod spoke to climate justice writer Mary Annaïse Heglar about her new book, Troubled Waters, covering themes of climate racism and grief.
Coming up
- 13-15 June: G7 summit, Borgo Egnazia, Italy
- 17-20 June: 67th meeting of the Global Environment Fund (GEF) council, Washington DC
- 18-21 June: ICLEI (Local governments for sustainability) World Congress 2024, São Paulo, Brazil
- 19-21 June: G20 third climate and environment sustainability working group meeting, Manaus, Brazil
Pick of the jobs
- UN Climate Summit News, editor (part-time) | Salary: Unknown. Location: Remote
- Greenpeace International, senior scientist | Salary: £43,116-£49,944. Location: Exeter, UK
- WWF Malaysia, forestry manager | Salary: RM5,800-RM6,300. Location: Sabah, Malaysia
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 14 June 2024: Bonn climate talks; When Earth could breach 1.5C; How polluter taxes could raise climate funds appeared first on Carbon Brief.
The launch of the Africa Energy Bank (AEB) has been put back yet again, raising doubts about the institution’s future ability to finance fossil fuel projects – its main objective – as global lenders retreat from such investments over climate concerns, experts told Climate Home News.
The bank, which had been billed to launch in September after a series of delays, is now scheduled to begin operations in November, according to the head of the African Energy Chamber, an advocacy body for the continent’s oil and gas sector.
Even as the world aims to transition away from fossil fuels, many African leaders have made clear they want to continue exploring and extracting the continent’s large oil and gas deposits – estimated at around 125 billion barrels of crude and over 600 trillion cubic feet of gas – to boost economic development.
As a group, Africa sided with a number of powerful oil-and-gas producing nations in blocking progress on negotiations to craft a global roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels at last year’s UN COP30 climate talks, although some countries did individually support the proposal.
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Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks
Plans to build Africa’s second largest oil refinery in ecologically sensitive region criticised as “environmental recklessness” -
Tanzania pushed African nations to oppose fossil fuel transition at COP30
While chairing the African group at the summit, the gas-dependent nation advised the continent’s ministers to block language on transitioning away from fossil fuels
Meanwhile, major projects under development across the continent – including the 1,443-km East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and Dangote’s 700,000-barrel-per-day Kenyan refinery – show that African governments see oil and gas as playing a significant role in meeting their energy and economic needs for many years to come.
In 2022, at a gathering of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization (APPO) in oil-rich Angola, ministers from its member states adopted a resolution to create the Africa Energy Bank to finance projects for the production, use and trade of oil, gas and broader energy sources.
African control over energy resources
An article on the APPO website explains that the bank was conceived as a way to overcome “disenchantment” with fossil fuels among “the international community” which it said had crystallised around the “energy transition” concept.
“If Western countries, after having long taken advantage of the energy sources they now revile to develop, can afford the luxury of abandoning them, this is not the case in Africa,” it adds, noting that many of the continent’s economies are still largely dependent on oil and gas revenues.
A separate web page about the bank, also hosted on APPO’s website, says its objectives include financing the exploration, production and refining of oil and gas, as well as supporting member states in transitioning from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources “while ensuring energy security”.
Said Addi, a former executive with Shell and energy commodities trading house Gunvor, said the new bank was judged necessary because financing for hydrocarbons from many traditional international lenders has become constrained.
In trying to fill this financing gap, Africa is not simply setting up another fund to support oil and gas, he added. “It is also an attempt to give African countries greater control over how their energy resources and infrastructure are financed,” he explained.
Nigeria to host the AEB
The energy bank – a joint initiative of APPO and the African Export–Import Bank (Afreximbank) – has so far suffered several delays and is almost two years behind schedule. The initial plan was to start operations in January 2025, with Nigeria as the host country, but the bank’s opening was delayed to June of that year to allow Nigeria time to finalise the construction of the bank’s headquarters in Abuja.
After the government announced the completion of the offices in late November 2025, a new launch date was set for January 2026, which was moved back to April, June and then September. Now it has shifted again to November, raising concerns that the institution may be losing momentum.
Former Shell executive Addi said that if the capital is eventually paid in, the bank becomes operational and its first projects are commercially credible, then the delays will be regarded as normal teething troubles in setting up a multilateral institution. But, he added, scepticism will be justified if it continues to stall.
Uganda may see lower oil revenues than expected as costs rise and demand falls
Baron Lamarré, an oil and gas expert and former Petronas oil trader, said that missing “three deadlines in a row is not normal”, and warned that if the timeline slips again, “the story flips from ‘ambitious institution finding its footing’ to ‘good idea that lost momentum before it found any’.”
The Nigerian government, APPO and Afreximbank did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
The funding challenge
The Africa Energy Bank is targeting base capital of $5 billion, with plans to scale up to $120 billion within five years by mobilising private-sector funds. However, it is expected to start operations with initial seed capital of $500 million.
The funding plan is to have the 18 member countries of the APPO contribute $83 million each to the bank as equity for a combined $1.5 billion. Afreximbank, other non-APPO African countries and investors outside the continent are expected to provide the remaining $3.5 billion.
But even the initial $500 million has not been easy to mobilise. In May, APPO Secretary-General Farid Ghezali called on members to deliver on their pledges towards the startup goal before the end of June. But the delays suggest this may not have been met, with experts saying Africa may be finding it difficult to self-fund its oil and gas projects in the absence of international capital.
Lamarré said every extension of the deadline points to the fact that “raising fossil fuel capital in Africa without the majors and their financing networks is brutally hard”.
Why the global electrification agenda misses the point on Africa’s energy crisis
Since 2020, Western lenders, export credit agencies and insurers have been in steady retreat from African hydrocarbons, he said, while oil majors are divesting their African assets, handing over fields to smaller local operators whose credit ratings are not high enough to borrow cheaply.
Even capital from China and the Gulf, which has partially filled the gap, cannot match the volume, tenor or pricing that Western investors once offered, Lamarré argued.
“If mobilising the first $500 million of seed capital [for the AEB] has taken this long, that’s the clearest signal yet of how steep the climb to $120 billion looks,” he said, noting that the continent’s energy financing gap is as large as $30 billion-$45 billion per year.
Africa’s investment landscape, meanwhile, has been shifting. While foreign direct investment dropped from a 2024 peak, inflows remained roughly one-third above the continent’s long-term average in 2025, according to the 2026 World Investment Report from UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD). They are concentrated in a few sectors including critical minerals needed for renewable energy technologies, battery manufacturing and advanced industrial production.
At the same time, data on global energy investment from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that fossil fuel investment in Africa has declined over the last decade.
“Trojan horse” for fossil fuels
While the Africa Energy Bank struggles to get off the ground, climate campaigners have criticised its primary aim of financing oil and gas on the continent at a time when the world is starting to move away from high-carbon fuels to cleaner alternatives.
Bhekumuzi Dean Bhebhe, founder of Africa Change Lab, described the bank as a “Trojan horse”, arguing that its focus on fossil fuel financing runs counter to the global energy transition and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 goals of sustainable development and inclusive growth.
The energy bank, he warned, “risks locking Africa into a new cycle of debt, dependency and fossil fuel entrenchment”, adding that its financing blueprint does not pave the way for a climate-resilient future. “In truth, it is to deepen the same extractive, carbon-heavy pathways that the continent should be moving away from,” he added.
Ugandan farmers use British court to try to stop East Africa oil pipeline
Kenya-based climate and energy expert Joab Okanda said the AEB’s plan to finance oil and gas is “a misplaced priority” and it should instead back clean energy in line with the policies of some of Africa’s major export markets like Europe.
In addition, the new bank could struggle to mobilise enough resources to advance large-scale oil and gas projects, he added, noting that its proposed $5-billion initial capital is equivalent to the cost of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline alone.
The AEB’s aim of backing more fossil fuels should be flipped “to support countries that are oil-dependent to start working on their transition plans”, Okanda said.
The post Launch of Africa Energy Bank delayed again in blow to oil and gas hopes appeared first on Climate Home News.
Launch of Africa Energy Bank delayed again in blow to oil and gas hopes