Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
This week
John Kerry leaves the climate stage
STEPPING DOWN: John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, will soon leave his role in order to support Joe Biden in the US presidential election later this year, Axios reported. His retirement “comes at a time of political threat to Biden’s climate agenda, with the possibility of a second Trump presidency looming”, the Financial Times noted.
UNCERTAIN FUTURE: Kerry was “key to brokering the crucial 2015 Paris Agreement” and “worked effectively with China despite strained diplomatic ties”, BBC News reported. The New York Times said that the role of climate envoy is a “major diplomatic role that was created especially for him and…will face an uncertain future with his departure”. It added that “no successor has yet been tapped”.
Labour’s climate pledge
GREEN COMMITMENT?: Labour’s £28bn climate investment pledge “was not included in Labour’s…‘campaigning bible’”, the Daily Telegraph reported, throwing the policy “into fresh doubt”. A Labour spokesperson told the newspaper that the party is still committed to the plan despite the omission. But Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves told the Times that the figure might be scaled back, “if Tory spending commitments meant there was less money to spend”.
FACING PRESSURE: Right-leaning media outlets continued to heavily criticise Labour’s climate policy this week. The Daily Telegraph characterised it as “fanciful”, while separate articles in the Sun called the plan a “massive green splurge” and said that Labour might “impose punitive green policies if they get into government”.
ECONOMIC BENEFITS: However, former Conservative MP Chris Skidmore, in an interview with Carbon Brief, said that he believes “the Labour Party’s decision to come out and say that we should be investing in green industries…is the right one”. The possible economic boost from such investment means “there’s an economic case to be won, as well as a values case, at this election”, he added.
Around the world
- DEFORESTATION SLOWING: The Amazon saw deforestation rates fall by nearly 50% in 2023 compared to the previous year, BBC News reported.
- SHELL PRESSURE: 27 investors demanded that Shell improve its environmental targets at its annual meeting, the Financial Times said. Shell will also sell its controversial Nigerian onshore oil business, although it will continue with other oil, gas and solar projects in the country, reported Bloomberg.
- EU 2040 TARGET: The EU is discussing its climate target plan for 2040, with several member states supporting a target of a 90% emissions cut relative to 1990, reported Euractiv.
- FOSSILS AT COP: Azerbaijan released details of 28-strong organising committee for the COP29 climate summit containing no women on Monday, the Guardian reported. On Friday, On Friday, Azerbaijan announced it will make changes to the committee, the Azerbaijani Press Agency reported, although did not provide any further details.
- SNOW DEFICITS: The India Meteorological Department reported “large winter snowfall deficits” in some of India’s northern states, the Third Pole said, adding that the deficits could impact “crucial water-sharing treaties” with other countries.
14.5 million
The number of additional deaths by 2050 that could occur due to the impact of climate change on extreme weather and sea levels, and rising air pollution, according to the World Economic Forum.
Latest climate research
- A new paper in Geoscience Data Journal presented the results of a citizen science project to digitise weather observations recorded in UK Met Office daily weather reports between 1861 and 1875.
- Since 1985, the Greenland ice sheet has lost more than 5,000 square kilometres in area, corresponding to more than 1,000bn tonnes of ice lost, according to a new study in Nature.
- Research in Climatic Change revealed that, following wildfires in California between 2017 and 2021, there was a significant increase in tweets linking wildfires to 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
China’s population shrunk to 1.410 billion from a high of 1.413 billion in 2021, according to data released by China’s national bureau of statistics. Should this trend continue, the ageing of China’s population could “exacerbat[e] structural imbalances” in the country’s economy and slow overall growth, according to Reuters. This could have consequences for energy consumption and, thus, emissions. However, studies disagree on the exact link between ageing and emissions reduction – for example, one study found that population ageing “negatively correlates” with carbon emission intensity, while another argued that household emissions will rise as the population ages, especially in urban areas.
Spotlight
Who is China’s new climate envoy?
This week, Carbon Brief explores what China’s new climate envoy might mean for climate diplomacy.
On 12 January, China announced that career diplomat Liu Zhenmin (pictured) will replace Xie Zhenhua as China’s new special envoy on climate change.
The move was not a complete surprise, with Bloomberg floating the possibility in October 2023.
Liu was clearly positioned as Xie’s successor at COP28. Carbon Brief heard that, in one notable moment, Xie interrupted himself during a speech to claim he was feeling tired, handing the stage to Liu to finish the speech instead.
Does Liu have climate experience?
Liu began his career in the ministry of foreign affairs, rising to vice minister. He was appointed under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs at the United Nations (UN) in 2017.
Much of Liu’s work at the UN included a “climate change and sustainable development” brief, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters on Monday. She added:
“We believe that [he] will continue stepping up dialogue and cooperation with all parties.”
Liu is familiar with climate negotiations, having attended 10 COPs. He was involved in negotiations to develop both the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement, Bloomberg reported.
“Liu was a key driver in landing the Kyoto Protocol,” Yuan Ying, Greenpeace East Asia chief China representative, tells Carbon Brief. “That is a promising piece of experience.”
What does this mean for China’s climate policy?
Bloomberg described Liu as a “non-controversial option” – and his public statements have largely been in line with China’s official positions.
In an interview with Caijing Eleven at the COP28 climate summit, he said that countries must “balance” ambition and pragmatism and that China’s transition away from coal will be “difficult”.
“China is doing real work, especially in the rapid development of renewable energy”, he said, which will gradually replace coal.
“Developed countries still have to take the lead in making changes in order to leave more space for the economic growth of developing countries,” he added.
Nevertheless, his past comments have hinted at areas of personal interest. He wrote two articles arguing that “more must be done to ensure that investments…do not undermine our efforts to address climate change.”
He also described the circular economy as “one of [his] favourite topics during [his] tenure at the UN” during an event on the sidelines of COP28.
Will China cooperate with developed countries on climate?
Liu attended COP28 as a senior adviser to Xie, allowing him to cement relationships with his future counterparts.
He was seen by Carbon Brief in multiple meetings with the US’s John Kerry and Susan Biniaz. German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan confirmed in a COP28 side-event attended by Carbon Brief that she and Liu also held discussions.
Nevertheless, Kerry and Xie’s departure increases uncertainty around future US-China alignment, a dynamic key to breakthroughs at the COPs in Paris, Glasgow and Dubai.
Li Shuo, director of the Asia Society Policy Institute’s China Climate Hub, is not optimistic. He told Politico that “if climate change generates news on the US-China front in 2024[,] it is more likely bad news than good”.
Watch, read, listen
2024 EXPECTATIONS: Carbon Tracker outlined some of the key issues to watch in climate and energy in 2024, including India’s elections, the adoption of climate disclosure rules in the US and the development of the East African crude oil pipeline.
GIGAFACTORY TOUR: The Fully Charged Show gained rare access to one of Chinese battery manufacturer CATL’s gigafactories, taking viewers on a tour of how batteries are made.
PROBLEM-SOLVING: On the BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week, host Kirsty Wark spoke with Our World in Data’s Hannah Ritchie, Bloomberg Green’s Akshat Rathi and the British Antarctic Survey’s Michael Meredith about solutions to tackle climate change.
Coming up
- 24 January: International Energy Agency (IEA) Electricity Market report launch, Paris, France
- 25-26 January: G20 first International Financial Architecture working group meeting, Vila do Conde, Brazil
- 26 January: Tuvalu general elections
Pick of the jobs
- The Centre for Climate Reporting, junior investigations reporter | Salary: £26,000-30,000. Location: Remote
- The Wellcome Trust, policy adviser on climate and health | Salary: £53,527. Location: London
- Environmental Justice Foundation, Taiwan climate campaigner | Salary: NTD 65,000-85,000. Location: EJF Taipei office (hybrid working)
- Power Shift Africa, media and communication associate | Salary: Unknown. Location: Open to Africans of all backgrounds
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org
The post DeBriefed 19 January 2024: John Kerry retires; Uncertainty over UK Labour’s pledge; China’s new climate envoy profiled appeared first on Carbon Brief.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CCL applauds 21 Republicans for supporting clean energy tax credit support
March 12, 2025 – Citizens’ Climate Lobby is very encouraged to see 21 House Republicans sign onto a letter in support of America’s clean energy tax credits.
Jennifer Tyler, CCL’s Vice President of Government Affairs, said, “More and more Republican House members are recognizing that clean energy tax credits are benefiting their districts — and that constituents and businesses don’t want to lose them. It’s clear that these policies are delivering real economic value in communities nationwide.”
The letter, led by House Climate Solutions Caucus co-chair Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY-02), was signed by 20 of his fellow House Republicans: Reps. Amodei, Bacon, Bresnahan, Carter, Ciscomani, Evans, Fong, Houchin, Hurd, James, Joyce, Kean, Kiggans, Kim, LaLota, Lawler, Mackenzie, Miller-Meeks, Newhouse and Valadao.
“We have 20-plus members saying, ‘Don’t just think you can repeal these things and have our support’” for the larger budget reconciliation package, Rep. Garbarino told Politico.
That’s a bigger group than the 18 Republicans who sent a similar letter last fall.
In last week’s Conservative Climate Leadership Conference and Lobby Day, 50 right-of-center climate advocates from CCL visited 47 Republican offices on Capitol Hill to reinforce that message.
These grassroots volunteers “found that Republican offices are receptive to the case that these tax credits have spurred unprecedented private investment, driven innovation, and created well-paying jobs across the country,” Tyler added.
CONTACT: Flannery Winchester, CCL Vice President of Communications, 615-337-3642, flannery@citizensclimate.org
###
Citizens’ Climate Lobby is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change. Learn more at citizensclimatelobby.org.
The post CCL applauds 21 Republicans for supporting clean energy tax credit support appeared first on Citizens' Climate Lobby.
CCL applauds 21 Republicans for supporting clean energy tax credit support
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
50 grassroots conservatives visit Capitol Hill to support clean energy tax credits
March 10, 2025 – Last week, conservatives from across America gathered in Washington D.C. for Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s fifth annual Conservative Climate Leadership Conference and Lobby Day.
After receiving communications training from CCL staff, 50 right-of-center volunteers visited 47 Republican offices on March 5.
“I think this is one of the most impactful things that we do,” said Drew Eyerly, CCL’s Action Team Director, in CCL’s national volunteer call sharing highlights and reflections from the event.
Eyerly remarked on Republican offices’ enthusiasm for speaking with CCL volunteers, often giving them more time than originally planned. “They’ll say 10 minutes, and those meetings will turn into 20 to 30 minutes,” he reflected. “Just really, really great conversations.”
Those conversations centered on one main ask: For Republican lawmakers to protect America’s clean energy tax credits.
“As we talk about how competitive American businesses can be in clean energy and how many jobs it can bring to their district, the members are much more open to that discussion,” said Jennifer Tyler, CCL’s Vice President of Government Affairs.
This week, Citizens’ Climate Lobby launched a new action for volunteers around the country to call Republican members of Congress about the clean energy tax credits, reinforcing our recent lobby day message.
Volunteers will be back on Capitol Hill this summer for CCL’s annual Summer Conference and Lobby Day in late July.
CONTACT: Flannery Winchester, CCL Vice President of Communications, 615-337-3642, flannery@citizensclimate.org
###
Citizens’ Climate Lobby is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change. Learn more at citizensclimatelobby.org.
The post 50 grassroots conservatives visit Capitol Hill to support clean energy tax credits appeared first on Citizens' Climate Lobby.
50 grassroots conservatives visit Capitol Hill to support clean energy tax credits
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 21 March 2025: Germany’s climate win; Conservatives’ net-zero row-back; Key messages from major UK climate conference
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Germany’s €100bn climate funding
BILLIONS IN FUNDING: Germany’s parliament on Tuesday voted to create a €500bn defence and infrastructure fund and relax “constitutionally-protected debt rules”, the Guardian reported, with “the last-minute backing of the Greens” in return for “guarantees that €100bn of the funds destined for infrastructure would be allocated for climate and economic transformation investments”. The deal came following “clumsy” initial negotiations from Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, Bloomberg said. It reported that the Greens “finally came around” after Merz’s negotiators “conceded to their key demands”, which also included adding Germany’s 2045 climate-neutrality target into the constitution.
TAKING CLIMATE ‘SERIOUSLY’: The Greens said in a statement on social media that the agreement “finally takes the challenges of the future seriously”, according to the New York Times. Paula Piechotta, a member of the Greens in the German Bundestag, told the German newspaper Tagesspiegel that the deal was a “great success for democracy in our country, for sustainability and intergenerational justice”. The newspaper added that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Left party, “unsurprisingly”, criticised the agreement.
UK opposition breaks cross-party climate consensus
BREAKING AWAY: In a speech, Kemi Badenoch, leader of the UK opposition Conservative party, said it was “impossible” for the UK to meet its net-zero target by 2050, marking a “sharp break from years of political consensus”, BBC News reported. She did not offer an alternative target for the goal, the broadcaster said, quoting her telling reporters that if the Conservatives “do find a target is necessary, then yes we will have one”. Badenoch “failed to cite any evidence in support” of her arguments, according to a factcheck published by Carbon Brief, which concluded that much of the existing evidence “contradicts” her claims.
TORY BACKLASH: In response, Conservative former prime minister Theresa May, who was responsible for passing the 2050 target into law, warned the move “will hurt future generations and cost Britons”, the Times reported. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) also criticised the speech, warning that “now is not the time to step back from the opportunities of the green economy”, according to the i newspaper. In the Daily Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard said Badenoch’s “rant comes close to political tragedy”.
Around the world
- CARNEY CUTS: New Canadian prime minister Mark Carney removed the country’s “consumer carbon tax”, CBC News reported, adding that the policy had been a “potent point of attack” for his political opponents.
- GREENPEACE BILL: Greenpeace has been ordered to pay $660m in damages over its protests against the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016, which could “bankrupt its US operations” if upheld, the Financial Times said.
- UK-CHINA FORUM: The UK and China agreed to establish an “annual climate dialogue”, with the first meeting to be held in London later this year, the Times reported.
- CHEQUES AND BALANCES: A US judge has “temporarily barred” attempts by the Trump administration to recoup at least $14bn in “grants issued by the Biden administration for climate and clean-energy projects”, the Washington Post said.
- EXTREME HEAT: “Severe heatwave conditions” have begun affecting several areas across India “unusually early in the season”, the Hindustan Times reported.
- SOUTH AFRICAN SUPPORT: The EU will fill a “$1bn hole” in South African’s “just energy transition partnership” left by the US, the Financial Times reported. The US is also “stalling” $2.6bn of climate finance for South Africa, Bloomberg said.
152
The number of “unprecedented” extreme weather events that occurred in 2024, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate 2024 report. Heatwaves were the most common type of unprecedented events – defined as events “worse than any ever recorded in the region” – followed by “rain or wet spells” and floods.
Latest climate research
- New research in Climate and Development explored how environmental justice featured in the climate action plans of rust-belt cities in the US, finding that few “provided enough details” to determine if it was a priority.
- A new Science Advances study identified “increasing storminess” in the south-western Caribbean, which was attributed to “industrial-age warming”.
- Marine heatwaves are now 5.1 times more frequent and 4.7 times more intense since records began, new research in Communications Earth & Environment found.
(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 UK’s high electricity prices are primarily driven by gas prices, according to an analysis published by Carbon Brief, with the UK typically seeing gas set electricity prices 98% of the time – compared to an average in the EU of 40%.
Spotlight
Chatham House talks climate and resilience
Carbon Brief outlines key takeaways from Chatham House’s climate and energy summit.
Chatham House, the UK’s leading international affairs thinktank, held its annual summit on climate and energy on 18-19 March. This year’s theme was: “Securing a resilient future.”
Carbon Brief attended the conference, where speakers including COP30 CEO Ana Toni, UK climate envoy Rachel Kyte and Moroccan minister for energy transition and sustainable development Leila Benali shared their thoughts on encouraging and enacting climate action.
Climate backlash
A sense of urgency permeated discussions at the summit, underpinned by concerns over growing anti-climate narratives.
Toni argued climate scepticism proves climate action is on the right track.
She said: “First people ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you – and this is where we are – then we win.”
Other speakers said that increasing support for climate action by building new norms and creating overlapping interests could also be effective strategies.
Former US climate envoy Todd Stern pointed to increasing adoption of electric vehicles, while ClientEarth CEO Laura Clarke raised the example of community-owned renewable power.
Fretting over finance
Clean Earth Gambia founder Fatou Jeng warned that climate finance, as ever likely to be an important issue at COP30, has “not progressed much”.
“Blended finance” – using public money to leverage private funds – was heavily criticised in several panels. Ben Parsons, a partner at consultancy firm Oaklin, noted that only 72 such deals were agreed in 2024.
Speakers agreed that innovative mechanisms to derisk climate finance were needed, with Morocco’s Benali critiquing “exclusive” and inflexible private financing options.
Ndongo Samba Sylla, head of research and policy at International Development Economics Associates, argued that using local currencies would significantly boost climate finance.
Resilience through renewables
A key benefit of the UK’s “climate leadership”, Kyte argued, is that the energy transition will “make British people more secure”.
Parsons said the argument – recently deployed by Conservative leader Badenoch – that the energy transition replaced reliance on Russian fossil fuels with reliance on Chinese technology was incorrect.
“Fossil fuels are fuel – they require constant replenishment. Renewables are infrastructure,” he said, adding that arguably the UK should be accelerating its deployment of clean-energy technology.
On cybersecurity challenges in renewable power systems, Alex Schoch, vice president and group director of flexibility and electrification at Octopus Energy, argued that the key issue is how renewable energy “hardware” is managed, rather than where it is sourced from.
Parsons agreed, noting that the UK’s current power system has “plenty of cybersecurity vulnerabilities in it today”.
He said: “We have to make sure we’re putting [cybersecurity strategies] in place…But I don’t think that goes hand in hand with thinking we should avoid buying renewables from certain parts of the world.”
In a session on energy security in war-time Ukraine, held under the Chatham House rule, participants noted that the country was a case study for the importance of energy security.
Speakers said that since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, attacks on thermal power plants have seen growing use of low-carbon energy – particularly distributed solar.
Watch, read, listen
ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: The Columbia Energy Exchange podcast explored how the new Trump government underpinned discussions at the energy industry event CERAWeek.
‘CONFLICT BLINDSPOT’: A new report by ODI found that “less than 10% of international climate finance” in 2022 went to fragile and conflict-affected countries.
METHANE INACTION: Leading supermarkets in the global north are “failing to address the methane pollution in their supply chains”, according to a study covered by Desmog.
Coming up
- 24-26 March: 16th Petersberg Climate Dialogue, Berlin, Germany
- 24-26 March: IPCC lead author meeting for methodology report on inventories for short-lived climate forcers, Bilbao, Spain
- 24-28 March: 20th session of the UN FAO commission on genetic resources for food and agriculture, Rome, Italy
- 25 – 28 March:First G20 climate and environment sustainability working group meeting, online
Pick of the jobs
- ClientEarth, lawyer or legal consultant, energy systems, Asia | Salary: 455m-585m Indonesian rupiah. Location: Jakarta
- European External Action Service, policy officer for green diplomacy | Salary: Unknown. Location: Brussels
- Bloomberg, climate reporter | Salary: Unknown. Location: Hong Kong
- The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, project manager | Salary: £42,679-£51,000. 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 21 March 2025: Germany’s climate win; Conservatives’ net-zero row-back; Key messages from major UK climate conference appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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