Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Biden’s farewell
HEAVY-HEARTED HANDOVER: Outgoing US president Joe Biden used his final televised speech from the Oval Office to issue warnings about climate change and social media disinformation, BBC News reported. The Democrat pointed to “powerful forces” with “unchecked influence” set on “eliminat[ing]” the steps his government had taken to tackle climate change. This came after a separate valedictory address on Monday – covered by NPR – where Biden called on Donald Trump to carry forward his work on climate.
TRUMP LOOMS: Chris Wright – Trump’s pick to head the US Department of Energy – told senators at a confirmation hearing that he would support all forms of energy, including wind and solar power, and that he believed climate change was a “global challenge that we need to solve”, the New York Times reported. This came after the US Supreme Court said it would not hear an appeal from oil and gas companies trying to block climate lawsuits, according to the Associated Press.
Tragedy in Los Angeles
GRIM RECORDS: As the Los Angeles wildfires continue to burn, officials have confirmed that the death toll has risen to 25, the Los Angeles Times reported. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera noted that the Eaton fire is now the “most destructive and deadliest” wildfire in southern California’s history, while the Palisades fire is the “second most destructive”. Carbon Brief covered the causes, impacts and political and media response to the wildfires.
CLIMATE TO BLAME: A rapid attribution study found that climate change was responsible for around 25% of the “fuel” available for the fires, according to CNN. The research – carried out by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles – said the fires have been “larger and burned hotter than they would have in a world without planet-warming fossil fuel pollution”.
MYTHS SPREAD: As the fires continued to burn, prominent right-wing figures spread “bigoted criticism” about the response to – and cause of – the fires, according to the Guardian, including narratives blaming the fire department’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. France 24 reported that California governor Gavin Newsom accused Elon Musk – leading shareholder of Twitter and Trump confidante – of spreading “lies”.
Around the world
- ZERO MOVEMENT: The Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative suspended all activities after investment giant Blackrock withdrew from the voluntary group last week, reported the Times.
- GRID SPLURGE: Bloomberg reported that China State Grid – the nation’s “largest” power network operator – is gearing up to spend a record 650bn yuan ($89bn) this year, as it looks to “keep pace with surging renewable generation”.
- DRIED-UP RIVERS: The Guardian explained how a “historic” drought in Suriname’s interior has dried up rivers, triggered food and water shortages, and disrupted communities’ access to transport, health care and education.
- BP LAYOFFS: The fossil fuel giant BP announced plans to cut 4,700 jobs, or 5% of its workforce, in a bid to “save costs” and “revive” its share price, reported the Financial Times.
$250-$275 billion
The total estimated economic damage and loss of the Los Angeles wildfires, according to AccuWeather.
Latest climate research
- A study in Geophysical Research Letters found “profound changes” in the seasonal cycle of sea level on the US mid-Atlantic coast. The researchers said that maximum sea level in the area had risen by 82% from 1980-99 to 2000-20.
- Leaks from the Nord Stream gas pipeline in 2022 resulted in the largest amount of methane emitted from a short-term incident on record, according to a new study in Nature.
- A paper in Science Advances found that converting forests into cropland “may be an ineffective climate adaptation strategy for improving nutrition” in Nigeria.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The chart above illustrates the institutional affiliations of the authors of the top 25 most-shared climate papers of 2024, broken down by continent. It shows that 85% of authors of the most-mentioned climate papers of 2024 are affiliated with institutions from the global north, whereas only two authors are from Africa. The findings come from Carbon Brief’s full analysis of the 25 most featured climate-related papers of 2024, which was published this week.
Spotlight
‘Cli-fi’ comes of age
Carbon Brief reports on a new literary prize which aims to grow the climate fiction genre.
It is 2025. Wildfires have scorched southern California, while a right-wing US president has been elected on a ticket to axe “wasteful” government programmes.
This is not a summary of recent news headlines, but the setting of Octavia E Butler’s 1993 novel Parable of the Sower, seen by many as an early classic of the climate fiction – or “cli-fi” – genre.
Thirty years after Butler’s prescient tale was published, cli-fi is rising in prominence.
Cli-fi prize
This spring, the inaugural UK Climate Fiction Prize will announce its first winner, awarding £10,000 to a novel that engages with climate change.
Imran Khan, one of the founders of the prize, told Carbon Brief the aim of the prize was to expand a genre that had been growing in recent years. He said:
“We wanted to try to tilt the field in favour of more stories that centre the possibilities of what the future looks like if we start to take climate more seriously – both the good and the bad. We didn’t want it just to be climate dystopias. We wanted to be stories of hope, change and possibility as well.”
The nine books on the longlist make for an eclectic reading list, spanning genres, continents and different planets.
In the mix is the Booker Prize-winning Orbital by Samantha Harvey, a meditation on the beauty and fragility of Earth, told from the vantage point of astronauts circling it. It is facing off against And So I Roar by Abi Daré, which explores themes of climate justice through the eyes of a teenage girl from Nigeria, and The Mars House by Natasha Pulley, a sci-fi novel about the marriage of an Earth refugee and an anti-immigration Martian politician.
Abby Rabinowitz teaches a climate-fiction seminar to dozens of undergraduate engineering students each year at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. She told Carbon Brief that climate fiction had assumed a “more central role in a literary way” since 2018, albeit from a low baseline.
Rabinowitz said she launched the seminar in 2021 after observing that “very few people had dealt seriously with climate change and the climate crisis in fictions, both in literary works and on the screen”. She said:
“The Day After Tomorrow, which came out in 2004, remains the one climate disaster blockbuster that I’m aware of. That was 20 years ago.”
Parable of the Sower is on Rabinowitz’ syllabus, which she said covers “apocalyptic imaginings, speculative fiction storytelling and metaphorical and allegorical treatments of climate change” in books and film. Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry of the Future, Stephen Markley’s The Deluge and Adam McKay’s film Don’t Look Up also feature.
‘Change the story’
There is some debate about whether climate stories inspire action. A 2018 study of US readers found the majority of cli-fi was prompting them to associate climate change with “intensely negative reactions”, which “could prove counterproductive to efforts at environmental engagement”.
However, the research suggests that non-dystopian climate stories with “positive frames” – at the time in shorter supply – might be able to motivate readers to act.
Climate fiction is important, according to Khan, because it can paint a more “vivid” picture of future warming than scientific data, plus “change the story of what is possible”.
Parable of the Sower – which depicts a climate-ravaged world, but also a protagonist with a vision for change – is a case in point, he said:
“It is one of the best examples of… what really good climate fiction can do. It inspires emotions of rage and anger, but also hope and care. Science alone hasn’t solved this issue – and it won’t solve this issue. We need people to care enough to do something.”
Watch, read, listen
COMBUSTIBLE AGE: The New Yorker placed the Los Angeles fires in the context of historic fires that ravaged US cities – and asked what is next in a climate-changed world.
RADIO DADAAB: A stateless journalist told the story of climate refugees in the world’s second-largest refugee camp via a short Environmental Justice Foundation documentary.
NUDGE UNIT: Neuroscientist, science communicator and UCL Climate Action Unit director Kris de Meyer spoke to Your Brain on Climate about how to tell “stories of action”.
Coming up
- 20 January: US presidential inauguration, Washington DC
- 20-24 January: World Economic Forum annual meeting, Davos, Switzerland
- 23 January: International Energy Agency (IEA) heat pumps workshop, online
Pick of the jobs
- Carbon Brief, data analyst | Salary: Unknown. Location: London or remote
- Climate Change Committee, media and communications senior manager | Salary: £59,782-£66,512. Location: London
- Nature Communications, associate or senior editor (ecology) | Salary: associate editor: $80,000, senior editor: $95,000. Location: New York, Jersey City, Philadelphia or London, hybrid
- WWF DRC, conservation manager | Salary: Unknown. Location: Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo
- UK Labour Party, climate change, nature, energy and environmental policy assistant for Barry Gardiner MP | Salary: In line with IPSA pay scales. Location: London
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 17 January 2025: Trump looms; Fossil fuels made LA fires ‘burn hotter’; Has ‘cli-fi’ come of age? 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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