Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
UK parliament’s climate takeover
MILIBAND SPEECH: UK energy security and net-zero secretary Ed Miliband delivered a “scathing” address to parliament on the “state of the climate and nature” in the UK, Edie reported. Ahead of his speech, Miliband told the Guardian he intends it to become an annual event, adding: “I feel a deep sense of responsibility to the British people to tell them the truth about what we know about the climate and nature crisis.”
RENEWABLES ‘BOOST’: Elsewhere, the government unveiled a strategy for “longer clean power contracts”, reported BusinessGreen, with the aim of “boost[ing] investor confidence” and “curb[ing] consumer costs”. It said the government will amend its “contracts for difference scheme” (CfD), raising contract duration from 15 to 20 years. Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans provided more details.
REFORM U-TURN: The Financial Times reported that the hard-right Reform UK party wrote a letter to “green energy bosses” threatening to “strike down” renewable energy subsidies and “reassess all net-zero related commitments” due to “intolerable costs to the economy”, if successful in the next election. However, deputy leader Richard Tice appeared to backtrack just 24 hours later in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s PM, claiming the letter had been “misread” and that a “contract is a contract”.
Around the world
- NASA DATA: In the US, the Trump administration aborted plans to publish major climate change reports on NASA’s website, the Associated Press reported. This will “make it harder to find major, legally mandated assessments of how climate change is endangering the nation and its people”, the newswire added.
- ‘LANDMARK’ BATTLE: The Australian government has no obligation to protect Torres Strait islanders from the impacts of climate change, concluded a major federal case covered by BBC News. It added that the verdict left community leaders “in shock”.
- ‘FAIR COMPETITION’: The European Union seeks “fair competition” with China on clean energy, Agence France-Press said. However, “tensions are high” ahead of an upcoming summit in Beijing on 24 July, according to the Economist, with electric vehicles a “particular crunch point”.
- MONSOON DEATHS: More than 60 people were killed in 24 hours in ongoing torrential monsoon rains in Pakistan, the nation’s Dawn newspaper reported.
- CANCELLED CELEBRATIONS: Traditional Bastille Day celebrations were cancelled across France due to the risk of fire amid extreme temperatures, Le Monde reported.
£113bn
The potential UK economic losses by 2040 due to stranded fossil-fuel assets, according to a new report covered by Edie.
Latest climate research
- There were a “record number” of compound drought and heatwaves in the Amazon over 2023-4, compared to the period since 1981 | Environmental Research Letters
- The “clean-up” of aerosol emissions in east Asia is likely a “key contributor” to a recent acceleration in global warming | Communications Earth & Environment
- Transformation of abandoned open-pit mines into “solar hubs” could “meet projected 2050 global electricity needs” | Nature Sustainability
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
India has reached a milestone of 50% of its installed electricity capacity coming from “non-fossil fuel” sources (renewables and nuclear) – ahead of its 2030 target under the Paris Agreement, Reuters reported. The newswire said the move “signal[s] accelerating momentum in the country’s clean-energy transition”. A press release from India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy stated that, “despite having one of the lowest per-capita emissions globally, India remains among the few G20 countries that are on track to meet – or even exceed – their NDC commitments”. The research group Climate Action Tracker rates India’s climate pledges as “highly insufficient“.
Spotlight
‘Climate justice and cultural survival’ in Kenya
This week, Carbon Brief interviews Julianna Loshiro, an Indigenous Yaaku activist working in Kenya to conserve nature and her native language.
Carbon Brief: Can you explain who you are, where you come from and the projects you work on?
Julianna Loshiro: I’m a proud Yaaku woman from Mukogodo Forest, north in Laikipia, Kenya, where our language, Yaakunte, and way of life have been passed down through generations. Raised by my grandparents, I was immersed in Indigenous knowledge systems.
Living in the forest is a struggle because of land insecurity. Evictions have been happening to the Ogiek of Mau, the Sengwer community from Cherangany, and even the Yaaku community.
Currently, I am leading efforts to revitalise the Yakuunte language through storytelling, theatre, curriculum development and digital tools. My work is driven by a commitment to cultural resilience and intergenerational justice.
CB: You’ve recently published a book, “Climate Justice is Gender Justice”. Could you outline the key messages that you are trying to get across and also what motivated you to write the book?
JL: My book is an extension of our ancestral wisdom. Every chapter echoes the values and land-based knowledge that I grew up with in the Mukogodo forest. It is an urgent call to centre Indigenous knowledge in the climate conversation and to understand justice through the lens of lived experience. I wrote this book to amplify the stories and wisdom that often go unheard, especially from rural Indigenous communities.
One of the key ideas I share is that climate solutions are not just scientific, they are also cultural, emotional and relational. The book reflects how climate change impacts everyday lives and how different genders experience this crisis differently, but it also shows how we can heal by listening to those closest to the land.
Writing the book was a way of sharing our Yaaku worldview with the wider world, where nature is family and language is spirit. Culture is a form of resistance. So, by linking climate justice with our cultural survival, I am showing that language and environmental conservation are deeply intertwined. If we lose one, we risk losing the other. This book is a living testimony that our Indigenous identity is key to the future of our planet.
CB: Your book promotion also references the organisation, Indigenous Young Moms, for which you serve as project manager. What perspectives does motherhood lend to efforts to achieve both climate and gender justice?
JL: Motherhood sharpens our sense of urgency and hope. As an indigenous young mother, I don’t just see climate change in statistics, I see it in the drying rivers, the struggling bees and the questions my child will ask tomorrow.
Climate justice is gender justice because it demands that we account for these differences. It means dismantling systems that exclude women, men, non-binary and gender-diverse people from decisions, and it is Indigenous women who often lead the way.
CB: What has been missing from the conversation around preserving Indigenous cultural heritage and empowering Indigenous communities? How do you see your book filling this gap?
JL: Indigenous systems are too often ignored in development efforts. As a Yaaku woman, I have felt the silence imposed on both my language and my gender. We need to create solutions led by Indigenous people. We must be trusted as experts and storytellers in this journey.
Now, it is young people bringing positive and impactful solutions, at the grassroots level, and to even bigger platforms, like speaking at Indigenous caucuses. We’re really happy to see individuals and organisations holding out their hands to us. It’s really moving because it’s been hard for our voices to be heard.
Watch, read, listen
FRUITS OF LABOUR: Migration Story highlighted the “daily struggle” of informal workers in Asia’s “largest wholesale fruit and vegetable market” as they endure the economics of heat stress.
COMMODIFICATION: Indigenous storyteller Nina Gualinga, in a Guardian documentary, explored the “extractivism” associated with “spiritual healing in the Amazon”.
HOLIDAY HEATWAVES: In the BBC’s The Climate Question podcast, host Graihagh Jackson asked how more frequent extreme temperatures will transform the travel industry.
Coming up
- 14-23 July: High-level political forum on sustainable development, New York
- 19 July: Tasmanian state election, Australia
- 21-22 July: International Conference on Climate Leadership, Harbin, China
- 24-25 July: EU-China summit, Beijing, China
Pick of the jobs
- Ember, digital communications intern | Salary: £25,207. Location: Remote
- Sequoia Climate Foundation, programme manager | Salary: $185,000-$190,000. Location: Irvine, California (hybrid)
- Australian National University, research fellow | Salary: $118,632-$134,507. Location: Canberra, Australia
- WWF, head of policy (climate) | Salary: £56,297-£65,680. Location: Woking, UK
- The Conversation, commissioning editor, environment | Salary: £34,000-£40,000. Location: London (hybrid)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 18 July 2025: India’s clean-energy milestone; Climate reaches UK parliament; Conserving trees and culture in Kenya appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China’s rapidly-expanding clean energy generation and deepening electrification has made the country more resilient to energy shocks, bolstering its position ahead of the COP31 climate talks in Türkiye, where speeding up the world’s electrification is set to dominate.
The growth of China’s renewable energy capacity protected it from the economic fallout from the energy crisis triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, according to analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) published on Thursday.
As oil and gas stopped flowing through the key fossil fuel trade route, leading prices to soar, China’s crude oil imports – the largest in the world – fell sharply, leading the country to start drawing down on its reserves and curbing its exports of petroleum products.
“Yet, the import reduction did not produce the economic and social disruption in China one might normally expect from a shock of this scale,” the report found.
As temporary adjustment cushioned the oil-import shock, clean power and the electrification of the transport sector buffered the economic costs.
The rise of renewable energy and nuclear power have reduced China’s fossil fuel imports bill by more than $9 billion since 2020, more than any other country, according to CREA.
“China remains exposed to imported fuels, particularly where oil is used as a chemical feedstock, but reducing fossil-fuel demand already contributes to energy security,” said Qi Qin, the report’s author.
The view from Beijing: vindicated
CREA’s analysis found the roll-out of electric vehicles (EVs) displaced 38 million tonnes of oil equivalent between March and August, equivalent to around 13% of China’s crude oil imports in the same period the previous year.
China’s ongoing reliance on coal-fired power plants also protected the country against oil and gas supply disruptions, although coal power generation remained broadly flat in the six months since the start of the Iran war, according to the report.
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Canada, EU agree deeper cooperation on energy and cleantech supply chains
Both sides have pledged to strengthen investment and trade cooperation to make cleantech supply chains more resilient to shocks -
Africa launches long-delayed energy bank to finance fossil fuel projects
The Africa Energy Bank’s main aim is financing oil and gas projects, underscoring support among many African governments for continued fossil fuel development
Li Shuo, director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told Climate home News that China’s all-of-the-above approach to energy development has provided the country with the strategic flexibility to face the oil shock.
“While China has often been criticised in previous years for moving too slowly away from coal, this year’s global energy market volatility has given Chinese policymakers a renewed sense of confidence. There is a growing sentiment in Beijing that recent events have vindicated China’s energy strategy as both prudent and pragmatic,” he said.
Can China support the electrification pledge?
Despite its vast cleantech build-out and rapid electrification boosting its energy resilience, China has stopped short of endorsing an initiative by COP31 host Türkiye to increase the global share of electricity to 35% in final energy use by 2035.
Li Gao, vice minister at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, who will lead the Chinese delegation at COP31, told a press conference the electrification target was in line with Chinese policy. “We believe that increasing electrification levels will help promote a green and low-carbon energy transition and address climate change,” he said.
China’s position on the electrification initiative is one of the major questions hanging over the COP31 talks beginning in Antalya next week.
“What is clear is that China has the most to gain from accelerated electrification because of their manufacturing capabilities,” said Bruce Douglas, CEO of the Global Renewables Alliance.
In 2026 alone, China’s exports of solar panels, batteries, EV and other cleantech are on track to avoid emissions equivalent to Brazil’s annual emissions.
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China’s industrial engine starts to break its fossil fuel habit
Despite a rebound in coal generation this year, clean energy from wind and solar is gaining ground on the fossil fuels that have powered decades of industry growth -
COP31 electrification pledge leaves out clean power commitment
Campaigners and experts say the goal’s effectiveness in reducing emissions may be limited unless countries agree to meet it using only clean energy
Türkiye’s proposal doesn’t include a commitment to produce the power from clean energy, nor does it explicitly link electrification to the transition away from fossil fuels – issues on which the EU has signalled it is ready to push back.
But Chinese analysts say Beijing is unlikely to support linking a global electrification goal to commitments on phasing out fossil fuels.
Former French climate envoy Laurence Tubiana, the outgoing CEO of the European Climate Foundation, told Climate Home News that the EU and developed countries such as Brazil – which is influential within the BRICS group of large emerging economies – have a responsibility to push China to show leadership in the talks.
Driving the world’s electrification
The electrification of the Chinese economy has outpaced that of any other major economy.
In the US and the EU, the share of electrification has stagnated just above 20%. In China, it has doubled since 2005, reaching close to 30% in 2025.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects China will remain the single largest driver of global electricity demand growth through to 2030, as it electrifies its manufacturing sector as well as growing demand for cooling and EV charging.
Over the next five years, the IEA forecasts that China will increase its electricity consumption by as much as the total electricity consumption of the EU today.
In August, the Chinese government set a target to boost the share of electricity in its final energy consumption to 35% by 2030 – five years ahead of Türkiye’s proposed goal.
From laggard to frontrunner
Clean-power growth and electrification could meet all of China’s rising power demand, according to CREA. By 2030, this would mean renewable and nuclear energy could reach 54% of power generation – exceeding China’s target to generate half its electricity from non-fossil sources by the end of the decade.
Clean electricity already met all of China’s demand growth in 2025. “The challenge lies in sustaining such growth over several years,” said Qin.
From Beijing’s perspective, the global targets such as the electrification pledge “no longer appear particularly ambitious or threatening”, said Li, of the Asia Society Policy Institute.
“China, long perceived as a climate laggard, is increasingly moving ahead of countries in the Global North. A global ceiling target is increasingly only a floor for China,” he emphasised.
The post Clean power shields China from oil shock more than any other country appeared first on Climate Home News.
Clean power shields China from oil shock more than any other country