Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Climate chaos
DEADLY DISASTER: Devastating landslides have killed 167 people, with another 191 missing, in the Wayanad district in Kerala, India, reported the Indian Express. Prime minister Narendra Modi announced compensation of 200,000 Indian rupees (about $2,390) per person for the families of the deceased and 50,000 rupees (about $600) for those injured, the newspaper said.
CLIMATE FACTOR: The Hindustan Times noted that scientists have attributed the landslide to a “combination of climate change, excessive mining and loss of forest cover in the region”. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi called for “mapping of landslide-prone areas and…an action plan to address the growing frequency of natural calamities in the ecologically fragile region”, reported the Independent.
FLASH FLOODS: More than 10,000 people displaced from conflict in Sudan’s Sennar state – alongside other refugee and host communities – have been severely impacted by extreme rainfall and flash floods in Kassala state, reported the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. At least five people have reportedly died, including a child, the report said. Other affected areas include Aj Jazirah, East Darfur and North Kordofan, according to ReliefWeb.
Sizzling Olympics
HEATWAVE GAMES: A rapid attribution analysis found that the “heat dome” striking the Paris Olympics and the “scorching temperatures” across western Europe and North Africa this week would have been “impossible” without the “fossil-fuelled climate crisis”, reported the Guardian. Scientists at the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group said human-caused global warming made the heatwave “2.5C to 3.3C hotter”. Leading climate scientist Dr Friederike Otto told reporters: “Climate change crashed the Olympics on Tuesday.”.
KEEPING COOL: BBC Sport said that organisers used hoses and misters to keep spectators cool at the Paris Olympics. In Marseille, where temperatures reached around 40C, athletes taking part in sailing events wore “ice vests” to try to counteract the heat, the broadcaster added.
TRIATHLON TIMEOUT: The men’s triathlon was postponed due to “unsafe pollution levels” in the Seine following heavy rainfall in the French capital, reported Sky Sports. The organisers blamed the postponement on climate change, with Aurélie Merle – the Paris 2024 director of sports – saying: “We are living in the 21st century where, unfortunately, there are far more meteorological events…which are beyond the control of the organisers.”
Around the world
- UK RENEWABLES: UK energy secretary Ed Miliband announced an increase to this year’s renewable energy auction budget to a record £1.56bn on Wednesday, reported BBC News.
- HARRIS APPROVED: Inside Climate News reported that Kamala Harris has clinched an endorsement from the Green New Deal Network – “a key coalition of progressive, youth-led and environmental justice-focused climate advocates” – which had previously held back its endorsement for president Joe Biden.
- FUND FIGHT: The EU is gearing up to pressure wealthier “emerging” economies, such as China, to pay into the climate fund at the COP29 climate summit, reported Politico. Currently, only countries categorised as “industrialised” under the 1992 UN climate treaty contribute climate finance under the Paris Agreement.
- OFFSETS BLOW: A review by the Science Based Targets initiative, a global auditor of corporate climate targets, has concluded that “various types of carbon credits are ineffective”, reported Bloomberg.
- COP16 SAFE: Reuters reported that “Colombian rebel group” Estado Mayor Central has withdrawn its threat, issued earlier this month, to disrupt the UN biodiversity summit COP16 taking place in October in the Colombian city Cali – as a “gesture of [their] will for peace”.
7,500,000
The methane emissions, in tonnes, from US oil and gas facilities – four times more than the estimates of regulators – which is equivalent to the annual energy needs of over half of US homes, reported the Financial Times.
Latest climate research
- A new research paper published in Nature Communications found that current policies put the world on a trajectory with a 45% chance of crossing tipping points in the Earth system by 2300, even if the global average temperature is brought back to 1.5C later on. Carbon Brief had all the details.
- The UK would gain “benefits” worth £164bn if it meets its 2033-2037 climate targets, said a study published in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences covered by Carbon Brief.
- A new study in BioScience proposed a way to preserve the Earth’s “increasingly threatened” biodiversity on the moon through the creation of a lunar biorepository – a storage facility for biosamples – by developing a system using cryopreserved fish fins.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Deep-sea mining mapped
Carbon Brief published an in-depth explainer this week into what the emerging field of deep-sea mining means for climate change and biodiversity. The map, taken from the article, shows the current designated areas for deep-sea mining exploration, with each of the orange dots representing exploration contracts within four significant zones: Clarion-Clipperton Zone, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Indian Ocean and Northwest Pacific Ocean. The colours indicate the types of deep-sea mineral resources targeted. Polymetallic nodules – formed of iron and manganese silicates and hydroxides – are in green. Polymetallic sulphides – with copper, zinc, lead, iron, silver and gold – are in blue. Cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts – with high cobalt concentration and other rare elements – are in pink.
Spotlight
Tuvalu’s plan to be first ‘digital nation’
This week, Carbon Brief reports on how the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu is aiming to become the world’s first digital nation in response to climate change.
Tuvalu, a small nation comprising a group of nine islands in the South Pacific, is among the most vulnerable to climate change. The Guardian has reported that rising sea levels are an “existential threat” for island nations such as Tuvalu. In 2023, a NASA report indicated that sea levels in Tuvalu had risen nearly six inches (15cm) over the past 30 years.
Estimates show that, by 2050, more than half of the land area of Funafuti – the capital – could be flooded.
According to the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, less than 0.03% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the Pacific Island region.
Yet, as Tuvaluan minister Simon Kofe noted in his address to the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021 while standing knee-deep in the sea, “Tuvalu is sinking”. Invoking the issue of climate justice, he said:
“In Tuvalu, we are living with the realities of climate change and sea level rise.”
Rising sea levels in Tuvalu are already “leaching soil, killing crops and spoiling drinking water”. A recent National Geographic article also underscored food security challenges, with cultivating staple crops such as taro, breadfruit and coconut becoming difficult due to seawater infiltration. Flooding has become routine, with intense tides sweeping over the sole airstrip and homes monthly.
Facing the possibility of becoming entirely submerged and uninhabitable, Tuvalu has developed the Future Now project and aims to become the world’s “first digital nation”, existing in the “metaverse”, a virtual reality project started by Facebook.
Digital replicas
Addressing delegates in his COP27 speech, Kofe, standing in front of a digital replica of Te Afualiku, the first island in Tuvalu to be digitised, said:
“As our land disappears, we have no choice but to become the world’s first digital nation.”
This serves as the model for the digital recreation of all Tuvalu’s islands and its landscape, including “the coral atolls and reefs, the lagoon, the porous sandy soil, the palm trees and what is left of the pandanus, breadfruit and taro” – before it potentially physically disappears, he said.
The plan includes using satellite imagery, photographs and drone footage capable of capturing details as fine as grains of sand on the beach and the direction of ocean currents.
Tuvalu has completed a thorough three-dimensional LIDAR scan of all 124 islands and islets and began enhancing its national communications network – laying the groundwork for its digital nation, Kofe told delegates at COP28.
It has also started exploring a digital ID system using blockchain technology to connect the Tuvaluan diaspora, enabling their participation from across the world, the project developers said. This digital platform will allow Tuvaluans to connect, explore their heritage and engage in new business opportunities across various sectors, they added.
Additionally, the project has begun the development of a digital archive of Tuvaluan culture, with contributions from citizens who were encouraged to preserve their most valued personal items to create an evolving record of their heritage.
‘Digital sovereignty’
If Tuvalu’s physical land becomes uninhabitable, it also prompts a discussion of statehood and sovereignty. Under current international law, a defined physical territory is a prerequisite for statehood.
In order to become the first digital nation, Tuvalu – recognising the evolving notion of state sovereignty – redefined statehood through a constitutional amendment in 2022 to say:
“The State of Tuvalu within its historical, cultural and legal framework shall remain in perpetuity in the future, notwithstanding the impacts of climate change or other causes resulting in loss to the physical territory of Tuvalu.”
Tuvalu’s permanent and digital sovereignty is now recognised by 25 countries, with the Pacific Island Forum also redefining its territory, maintaining that its statehood would continue regardless of the impacts of climate change.
Watch, read, listen
GLACIAL MELT: Tortoise Media’s Slow Newscast podcast talked about the “unlikely” climate activists in Switzerland who won a key climate change case, but now face backlash.
SOLARE CANTARE: The Volts podcast spoke with Joel Jean, co-founder and CEO of Swift Solar, to explain all about perovskite solar.
NIGERIA’S ‘OIL CURSE’: A new FT Film explored the challenges facing Nigeria’s oil sector and whether ending fuel subsidies could help to break the “oil curse”.
Coming up
- 6 August: G20 fourth energy transition working group, virtual
- 9 August: International day of the world’s Indigenous peoples
Pick of the jobs
- Harris for President, climate engagement director | Salary: $90,000-$110,000. Location: Wilmington, US
- Ember, climate policy analyst I Salary: AU$78,246. Location: Remote
- Carbon Brief, section editor (science) I Salary: £47,000. Location: UK/hybrid
- Reuters, senior energy correspondent I Salary: Unknown. 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 2 August 2024: Deadly rains from India to Sudan; ‘Fossil-fuelled’ heat hits Olympics; Tuvalu’s plan to be first ‘digital nation’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate Change
DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Bonn talks close
‘SIDE-STEPPING AND STALLING’: UN climate talks in Bonn have ended in “gridlock”, according to Climate Home News. The outlet reported on the failure to balance developing countries’ need for climate-adaptation finance with “richer nations’ desire to move forward” on emissions cuts. It added that both topics were subject to “rule 16”, meaning no agreement could be reached and work will be pushed to the COP31 summit in Turkey. Inside Climate News quoted UN climate executive secretary Simon Stiell, who said the talks had seen “side-stepping and stalling”.
JUST TRANSITION: One “glimmer of hope” came from negotiations on achieving a “just transition”, reported Euronews. The news outlet said negotiators “made headway on operationalising the Belém-Antalya mechanism”, intended to support people in the shift to a low-carbon economy. However, Politico concluded that much of the focus in Bonn had “shift[ed] to efforts outside diplomatic talks – raising questions about the future of global climate negotiations”.
‘ATTACKING SCIENCE’: Agence France-Presse reported on the EU, Switzerland and “dozens of developing nations” warning of “attacks on science” by a “small group of fossil-fuels interests” in Bonn. Table Briefings explained that “the 1.5C target is increasingly being challenged” and the role of the UN climate-science panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – in an upcoming assessment of global climate progress “remains controversial”. See Carbon Brief’s full write-up of the talks for more detail.
US-Iran deal
PRICE DROP: The US and Iran announced that they have reached an interim agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz, reported Bloomberg. Oil prices have fallen, as the “long-awaited deal” began the process of “eas[ing]” the global energy crisis triggered by the conflict, according to the New York Times. The Associated Press noted that high fuel prices will “likely outlast the Iran war”.
‘OIL GLUT’: The Financial Times reported that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast a “glut of oil” emerging next year, if the peace deal holds. The IEA said this would allow countries to build new strategic reserves, as they “review their energy strategies and policies in response to the crisis”, according to Reuters.
‘NEW ERA’: Agence France-Presse reported that oil and gas companies have “few illusions about a return to normal for the Gulf energy industry after more than three months of blockage”. One analyst told the newswire that the war “showed the oil and gas industry that Hormuz risk is no longer just a geopolitical headline”.
Around the world
- OCEAN MONITOR: The Trump administration is “abandoning its plan” to dismantle a $368m ocean monitoring system key for tracking climate change after a “bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill”, reported the New York Times.
- CORAL HAVEN: The New York Times covered preliminary research, presented at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, suggesting there could be three times as many “coral refugia” – where corals are relatively safe from climate change – than previously thought.
- BAD CREDIT: Down to Earth reported that the first carbon credits issued under the Paris Agreement’s new Article 6.4 mechanism are “facing scrutiny over alleged links to institutions controlled by Myanmar’s military junta”.
- OIL BACKTRACK: Reuters reported that oil-and-gas company Equinor has dropped a renewable-energy target and scaled back clean investments, while another Reuters story noted that Shell is selling off its offshore wind assets.
1.1 billion
The number of children facing “at least three overlapping climate hazards”, according to a new Unicef report covered by Agence France-Presse.
Latest climate research
- Including the “permafrost carbon-climate feedback” in climate models increases the chance of exceeding “tipping elements” – such as the Greenland ice sheets, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or Amazon rainforest – by up to 50% | Environmental Research Letters
- The intensity of influenza outbreaks could decline in temperate regions, but increase in tropical areas over the next century, as the climate warms | PNAS Nexus
- European snow cover has declined by 20% for December and January since the start of the industrial era, revealing an “unprecedented ongoing shrinkage of European winters” | Communications Earth & Environment
(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 more than 2m battery electric vehicles (BEVs), 1m “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs) and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are already saving drivers a total of around £3bn a year, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. This amounts to savings of more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs for each BEV driver in the UK. The analysis comes amid reports in UK media this week that the government is considering “watering down” its EV sales targets.
Spotlight
Oceans rising at UN climate talks
The state of the world’s oceans is inextricably linked to the changing climate – and many delegates at UN climate talks want to see more focus on this issue, reports Carbon Brief.
Oceans are often described as the world’s “greatest ally” against climate change – absorbing 30% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and most of the heat generated by those emissions.
They are also the site of important climate solutions, such as huge offshore windfarms and the shipping industry’s transition to cleaner fuels.
At the same time, the oceans themselves present a growing danger to coastal communities and sea life due to sea level rise, marine heatwaves and ocean acidification.
These diverse issues have led to growing calls within the UN climate process for more focus on oceans. During climate negotiations this week in Bonn – known as SB64 – nations and civil society had a chance to air these views during an “ocean and climate change dialogue”.
‘Elevate action’
Oceans first entered UN climate outcomes in 2019, when the final COP25 negotiated text requested a new “dialogue” on “the ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and adaptation action”.
The following years saw this dialogue established as an annual event. However, the political weight of these discussions has been limited.
COP31 is being co-led by Turkey and Australia, but with Pacific islands playing a supporting role. These small islands sometimes self-identify as “large ocean states”, stressing the ocean’s centrality in their societies.
In Bonn, figures from across the presidency threw their weight behind this issue. Chris Bowen, an Australian minister and incoming COP31 “president of negotiations”, told attendees:
“Australia, Turkey and the Pacific see an important opportunity to elevate ocean-based climate action.”
Strategies and finance
The two-day dialogue in Bonn involved a series of panels, statements and breakout groups.
One of the main topics was how oceans are integrated into national climate plans under the Paris Agreement, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).
Three-quarters of the latest round of NDCs mention oceans, with conservation of “blue carbon” ecosystems the most frequently described action. (Landscapes such as mangroves can both absorb CO2 and protect coastal areas.)
Delegates also discussed alignment with the UN biodiversity process, as well as ocean finance, which currently makes up less than 1% of all climate finance.
(As discussions were taking place in Bonn, country officials also gathered in Mombasa, Kenya for the 11th Our Ocean Conference. Carbon Brief’s associate editor Giuliana Viglione attended the conference and will publish a full summary shortly.)
Developing countries were clear that many of the ocean-related actions in their NDCs would depend on receiving more financial support.
‘Political momentum’
With the backing of the COP31 presidency, delegates were hopeful about where this year’s dialogue could lead.
Charles Hamilton, an advisor for the Bahamas who spoke for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the dialogue, told Carbon Brief that island representatives “are not traveling thousands of miles to just talk and pat ourselves on the back”. He added:
“A dialogue that just remains a dialogue is just more talk – no action.”
Given that, he said “discussions in the dialogue must move into COP decisions and the decisions must be actioned”, noting the importance of finance.
Marina Corrêa, oceans lead at WWF-Brazil, pointed to an upcoming UN climate change Standing Committee on Finance forum as a space to ramp up pressure on ocean finance.
More broadly, she wanted to see the presidencies translate their support into a “leader-level ocean initiative” that could “mainstream” oceans across negotiations.
“We have a really interesting opportunity, in terms of political momentum,” Corrêa told Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
‘HOTTER THAN HELL’: An episode of the BBC’s Rare Earth podcast titled “hotter than hell” considered the issue of extreme heat, with input from experts and “people facing up to the hottest temperatures on the planet”.
NOT BROKEN?: John Drake, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, wrote an essay for Aeon – also re-published as a Guardian “long read” – questioning the framing of ecosystems and climate systems “breaking down”.
ON COURSE: On his Volts podcast, US climate journalist David Roberts interviewed UK climate minister Katie White, quizzing her about whether the UK will “stay the course with its climate plans”.
Coming up
- 20-28 June: London climate action week
- 21 June: Colombia presidential runoff
- 24 June: UK Climate Change Committee progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to parliament
Pick of the jobs
- Mongabay, managing editor – Africa | Salary: Unknown. Location: Global
- Contexte, environment reporter – Brussels | Salary: €45,000-€60,000. Location: Brussels
- Climate 200, communications director | Salary: Unknown. Location: Australia
- Energy Tracker Asia, energy transition correspondent | Salary: $3,000-$4,000 per month. Location: South-east Asia (remote)
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 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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