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
Transitioning away?
BIG AUCTION: The US Biden administration raised $382m from the auction of drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico – its largest oil-and-gas lease sale since 2015, according to Reuters. New auctions will not be open until 2025, but possibly under “tighter limits” and with “less territory up for grabs”, Bloomberg noted. It added that this came “just days” after the US pledged at COP28 to “transition away” from fossil fuels.
DISRUPTION: Oil prices surged 3% following attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen on ships in the Red Sea, which prompted BP to pause all shipments, the Times explained. The attacks were part of an “escalating campaign against Israel” since the start of its war on Hamas, the newspaper said. Meanwhile, the Guardian reported that campaigners have launched two legal challenges against the North Sea Rosebank oil project – the UK’s largest untapped oilfield.
COAL DROP: The International Energy Agency (IEA) said that it expected global demand for coal to hit a record high this year, according to the Times. However, it predicted that coal demand will drop next year due to the expansion of renewables in China.
EU climate plans off-track
ROAD TO 2030: EU countries are off track to meet the bloc’s 2030 climate goals, Bloomberg reported, based on a European Commission assessment. It found that current national energy and climate plans would result in a 51% reduction in EU emissions by 2030, falling short of the existing 55% target.
CO2-FREE POWER: Seven European countries have committed to “eliminat[ing]” carbon dioxide-emitting power plants from their electricity systems by 2035”, according to Reuters. The newswire added that the countries account for nearly half of EU power production, mostly due to the inclusion of Germany and France.
Around the world
- CONGO ELECTS: Elections are underway in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), home to one of the world’s largest carbon sinks and minerals that are key for the clean-energy transition, according to Bloomberg. Presidential candidates disagree over plans to hand out oil-and-gas permits in the nation’s vast rainforest, it added.
- CLIMATE MIGRATION: More than 3 million Americans moved between 2000 and 2020 because of the rising risk of flooding due to climate change, according to a new study reported by CBS News.
- RECORD DENGUE: At least 4.2m cases of dengue have been reported across the Americas in 2023, breaking incidence records since 1980, the Spanish outlet Climática reported. The increase has been attributed to changes in the climate that make conditions more favourable for mosquitos that carry the disease, it added.
- AUSSIE EXTREMES: Firefighters tackled dozens of blazes across New South Wales in Australia, including a “giant out-of-control bushfire” in the Pilliga Forest, the Guardian reported. In the north of the country, “record rainfall and dangerous flash flooding” hit parts of Queensland, ABC News said.
- DEADLINE: Canada announced new rules to “effectively end sales” of new fossil fuel-powered passenger cars and trucks by 2035, according to a report in CBC News.
- NEW LEVY: The UK plans to introduce a “carbon border tax” by 2027 to try to protect British manufacturers in high-emitting sectors, such as steel and cement, and match similar efforts in the EU, the Financial Times explained.
$7tn
Annual public and private capital flows into activities that directly harm nature, in sectors including fossil fuels, agriculture and construction, according to the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) State of Finance for Nature 2023 report.
Latest climate research
- The 120m square kilometres that countries have pledged for “land-based” CO2 removal, such as tree planting, could “potentially conflict” with the Global Biodiversity Framework’s target to protect 30% of the world’s land and seas by 2030, according to a Frontiers in Climate paper.
- A study published in Climatic Change outlined how the “climate contrarian” US conservative thinktank the Heartland Institute has adapted its messaging over the course of a decade.
- A new study in Geophysical Research Letters identified an increase in large wildfires across much of the eastern US, including “some of the most populated regions” in the country.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.)
Captured
The most high-profile debate at COP28 concerned the language around fossil fuels in the final text, with parties ultimately settling on “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems”. This was widely regarded as weaker than calls to “phase out” or “phase down” fossil fuels. However, as climate negotiations-watcher Dr Jen Allan pointed out, data from the most recent UNEP Production Gap report “speaks volumes” about this debate. The chart above shows how some of the global-north and Latin American nations that publicly issued calls to cut fossil fuels have domestic plans to increase their production of coal, oil and gas by 2030. (Note that the UK has announced more support for oil-and-gas licences since these figures were compiled and some nations, such as Brazil, expressed support for a phase-out at COP28, but only if it was led by developed countries.)
Spotlight
How climate change could reduce the ‘value’ of nature
Carbon Brief unpacks a new study, which investigated how climate-induced biome shifts could exacerbate global inequalities.
Is it possible to put a price on nature?
The natural world underpins the fundamental needs of life, such as food, clean air, water and the materials to build shelter. And each of these components has a measurable impact on the global economy.
Analysis from the World Economic Forum suggests that “$44tn of economic value generation – more than half the world’s total GDP – is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services”.
So what does climate change mean for the global economy?
A new study, published this week in Nature, assessed how “climate change-induced shifts in terrestrial vegetation cover” could impact the economy over the coming century. The authors found that, as the planet warms, many biomes such as grasslands and forests are shifting northward. They also highlight a “partial replacement of grasslands with forests” in many regions.
Using data from the World Bank, the authors analysed the contribution of grassland and forest biomes on different countries’ GDP. Their analysis covered products such as timber, as well as less-tangible benefits including “forest-related recreational services” and the “inherent value of protected areas”.
The paper suggested that by the end of the century, under the SSP2-6.0 scenario (which projects warming of around 3.8C by 2100), ecosystem shifts will reduce the financial benefits provided by nature by more than 9%. However, this change is not spread uniformly across the planet.
The authors found that as developing countries are “more reliant on natural capital” than their wealthier counterparts, they will be hit the hardest by the changing ecosystems. The bottom 50% of the countries, in terms of GDP per capita, will bear around 90% of the damages, the paper noted. Meanwhile, the top 10% only face 2% of the losses.
Dr Bernardo Bastien-Olvera – a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography – is the lead author of the study. He told Carbon Brief that some countries, including Australia, the US, Turkey, China, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, may see small benefits from shifting ecosystems. However, he added that these are “minimal”, amounting to only around 3% of the countries’ GDP.
“Our study challenges the common perception that forests are inherently more beneficial than grasslands,” said Bastien-Olvera. He told Carbon Brief that “each ecosystem type holds unique values, and the loss of one cannot be fully compensated by the introduction of another”.
Watch, read, listen
‘CARBON FOOTPRINT’: This week, NPR’s On Point podcast spoke to Prof Geoffrey Supran and climate journalist Amy Westervelt about the origins of the “carbon footprint” and Big Oil’s role in popularising a concept that “individualises the climate crisis”.
DECARBONISING DEVELOPMENT: With the dust finally settling on news from Dubai, Tim Sahay interviewed Navroz Dubash for Phenomenal World on COP28’s hits and misses and what the “developmentalist turn” of climate politics means for an unequal world.
TRANSITION TENSIONS: After reporting on farmers, miners, drivers and others in the EU and UK who shared “a burning sense they weren’t being heard” by policymakers, Politico’s Karl Mathiesen wrote that “the success of the green revolution will depend on… taking into consideration those who will bear its greatest costs”.
Coming up
- 8-9 January: Sustainability Forum Middle East (SFME) 2024, Manama, Bahrain
- 15-19 January: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2024, Davos, Switzerland
- 18 January: US C3E Women in clean energy seminar series, virtual event
Pick of the jobs
- BBC Scotland News, senior journalist – producer, in the environment, science and weather team | Salary: unknown. Location: Scotland
- Carbon Tracker, events and communications officer | Salary: Up to £38,000. Location: London, UK, hybrid working
- Gaia Talent, senior environmental scientist | Salary: £60,000. Location: Cork, Dublin, Carlow, Ireland
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org
The post DeBriefed 21 December 2023: Major oil auction in US; EU missing targets; Climate change threatens nature’s ‘unique values’ 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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