Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Floods and fires
PAKISTAN FLOODS: Torrential rain in northern Pakistan killed almost 400 people over five days, Agence-France Press reported. The rains have caused flooding and landslides that have “swept away entire villages, leaving many residents trapped in the rubble and scores missing”, it added. Bloomberg reported that the monsoon season has killed at least 1,860 people in India and Pakistan, “with flash floods, landslides and inundated cities exposing the region’s growing vulnerability to climate-related disasters”.
HEAVY RAIN IN CHINA: In China’s Inner Mongolia province, 13 people have been killed in floods caused by heavy rains, reported Reuters. It added that “heavy rainfall and severe floods that meteorologists link to climate change” are posing “major challenges”, including “economic losses running into billions”.
SPANISH WILDFIRES: Spain has continued to battle several major wildfires, even as temperatures across the country began to drop, reported the Associated Press. The fires have burned a total area twice the size of London this year, added the Daily Telegraph. The emissions from the wildfires have “surged to their highest levels in at least 23 years”, reported the Independent.
Around the world
- TRUMP REPORT ‘IRREGULARITIES’: A former head at the US Environmental Protection Agency has requested a correction to a recent misleading climate report from the Department of Energy, citing “legal and procedural irregularities”, reported Politico.
- SOARING SOLAR: Solar power generation in Britain has already surpassed the total for 2024, with more than 14 terawatt hours of electricity produced as of 16 August, the Financial Times reported.
- ‘CLASH OF VIEWS’: Incoming president of the COP30 climate summit, Brazilian diplomat André Corrêa do Lago, is preparing for a “clash of views” over how countries should respond to a review of their overdue climate plans, according to Climate Home News.
- TAX CREDITS: The US treasury department has issued guidance that “narrows which wind and solar energy projects” can receive the remaining tax credits set to be “largely eliminated” by the Republicans’ “big beautiful bill”, reported the Hill.
195%
The record increase in UK renewable energy capacity to gain planning permission in the second quarter of this year, when compared to the same period in 2024, reported the Financial Times.
Latest climate research
- The risk of rice production failure across Indian districts could increase by 26%, on average, due to climate change by 2055-84 | Environmental Research Letters
- Newborns across 33 African countries are more likely to die if their mothers are exposed to extreme heat during pregnancy | PNAS Nexus
- More than 13,800 square kilometres of giant panda habitat could “degrade” under a moderate-warming scenario | Global Change Biology
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Clean-energy growth helped China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fall during the first half of the year, despite an increase in electricity demand, new analysis for Carbon Brief found. Emissions in the first half of the year fell by 1% year-on-year, extending a declining trend that started in March 2024, the analysis said. CO2 output fell in China’s power sector by 3%, with the growth in solar power alone matching the rise in electricity demand in the country. Emissions also fell in the building materials, steel and heating industries sectors, the analysis added.
Spotlight
How architecture can support climate-adaptive design
This week, Carbon Brief interviews Prof Alice Moncaster, professor of sustainable construction at the University of the West of England, about how architecture can adapt to the growing pressures of climate change.
Carbon Brief: What are the biggest challenges with designing climate-adaptive buildings?
Alice Moncaster: Climate change is already producing far more frequent and extreme heatwaves across most of the world, as well as more severe storms leading to flash flooding and failing roof and subsurface drainage systems, and long periods of drought, meaning water shortages and shrinking ground leading to cracking buildings.
There are two huge challenges for designing buildings that can physically withstand these extremes. The first is perhaps the easier, which is the design of new buildings. This is critical in developing nations where rapidly increasing and urbanising populations need a parallel expansion in their built environment.
The second is more complex and often seen as less exciting, but is essential to developed countries with a mature building stock and lower or no population growth – how to retrofit our existing buildings from all previous decades to withstand the new weather.
Really, there is a third, less talked about challenge. At the same time as designing and retrofitting for increasingly extreme climates, this major construction programme needs to add the very minimum to greenhouse gas emissions. We cannot just continue to throw money and materials at adaptation because, at the same time, we need to reduce our carbon emissions as much as possible in order to limit further climate change.
CB: There is a lot of focus on air conditioning (AC) currently, but how can the architectural design of a building also help to keep people cool in a warming climate?
AM: This is becoming a huge issue. AC not only uses energy, but adding portable AC units kicks heat out of the building, making the outside even hotter. Passive design strategies have existed for millennia in hotter countries.
These are focused on four approaches.
First, ventilation is increasingly an issue in countries where buildings are constructed to keep the warmth in and, therefore, are built to be airtight. A passive approach is to design in a stack or chimney effect, with an opening at the top of the building, often above a central atrium.
Second, the thermal inertia of a building has long been understood as essential for keeping buildings cool in hot summers. Rather than plasterboard, if wall or floor surfaces are exposed stone, brick or concrete, they will stay cool for many hours longer (as anyone who has been in an old church will know).
A method which combines ventilation with thermal inertia is a “jaali wall”, a perforated stone or brick screen used in some traditional Asian architecture.
Third, shading the outside of the building from the sun is essential. Many Mediterranean buildings include external shutters, which keep the sun off the windows.
The final approach is how the building is used. Bedroom spaces are often moved in hotter countries to cooler areas of the house or even outside.
CB: Do you think there is enough centering of climate-adaptive design within architectural practice currently?
AM: I believe that there is a huge amount of knowledge among our architects and building professionals about climate-adaptive – and climate-mitigating – design, but that it is very hard to make it actually happen.
I think it is partly due to the slow-to-change nature of the construction sector, across skills, materials and supply chains. But I increasingly think that underlying the sector are the powerful vested interests, which means that traditional materials still dominate.
Procurement practices also often do little to support innovation and the understanding of risk has not yet caught up with the very real risk of climate change.
Watch, read, listen
MASS EXTINCTION: A long read in the Guardian questioned whether climate change is leading towards “another Great Dying”.
A GOOD PLANET: On a New Scientist podcast, climate scientists Kate Marvel and Tim Lenton discussed how to fix climate change, quipping: “All of the other planets out there are just complete garbage. The Earth is the only good place.”
COOLED VS COOKED: A guest essay in the New York Times discussed the new American inequality – those who are “cooked” and those who are “cooled” – as extreme heat becomes increasingly common in the US.
Coming up
- 26-29 August: 6th Forum of Ministers and Environment Authorities of Asia Pacific, Fiji
- 24-28 August: World Water Week 2025, Stockholm, Sweden
- 27 August: UN Environment Programme sixth meeting of the open-ended ad hoc group on measurability and indicators, online
Pick of the jobs
- British Antarctic Survey, project manager – Rothera Renewable Energy | Salary: £56,509-£62,159. Location: Cambridge/Antarctica
- ClientEarth, UK environment lawyer | Salary: £56,991. Location: London
- The New York Times, deputy editor, climate desk | Salary: $150,000-$175,000. Location: Hybrid/New York
- Indigenous Climate Action, climate leadership coordinator | Salary: $55,000- $65,000. Location: Remote
- India Climate Collaborative, programme manager – heat | Salary: Unknown. Location: Mumbai/ Delhi/Bengaluru
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 22 August 2025: Pakistan floods; China emissions drop; Climate-adaptive architecture appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 22 August 2025: Pakistan floods; China emissions drop; Climate-adaptive architecture
Climate Change
‘This is a fossil fuel crisis’, Greenpeace tells Senate gas tax Inquiry, citing homegrown renewables as path to energy security
CANBERRA, Tuesday 21 April 2026 — Greenpeace Australia Pacific has slammed gas corporation war profiteering and environmental damage in a scathing Senate hearing today as part of the Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, urging fair taxation of gas corporations and the transition to secure, homegrown renewable energy to protect Australian households and the economy from future energy shocks.
Speaking at the hearing, Greenpeace said the US and Israel’s illegal war on Iran has laid bare the fundamental flaws of an energy system built on fossil fuel extraction, geopolitical power plays and corporate greed, and will be a defining moment for how the world thinks about energy security.
Greenpeace’s submission and full opening remarks can be found here.
Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“This is not an energy crisis, it’s a fossil fuel crisis. The crisis we’re all facing lays bare the dangers of fossil fuel dependence, for our energy security, our communities, and for global peace and stability.
“Gas corporations like Woodside, Santos, Shell and Chevron — the same companies whose CEOs refused to front this Inquiry — are making obscene war profits, using the illegal war on Iran to price gouge, profiteer and push for more gas we don’t need — while people and our environment pay the price.
“Australians are getting smashed by soaring bills and the impacts of climate disasters — gas corporations should be paying their fair share to help this country, instead of sending billions offshore, tax-free.
“But we’re at a turning point — while gas corporations cynically push to open up more of our oceans and land to drilling for fossil fuels, our allies like the UK are doubling down on renewables in response to the fossil fuel crisis. Our trading partners in Asia are making the same reassessment of fossil fuels.
“Which is why the hearing today is crucial: an effective and well-designed tax on the gas industry’s obscene war time profits is a chance to channel funds to people and communities, fast-track the rollout of clean, secure homegrown wind and solar energy, while holding polluters accountable.
“Our dependence on fossil fuels leave us overexposed to the whims of tyrants like Trump — it’s in Australia’s national interest to end the fossil fuel chokehold for good and usher in the era of clean energy security.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
HOW WOODSIDE’S BROWSE GAS PROPOSAL THREATENS SCOTT REEF’S GREEN TURTLES AND PYGMY BLUE WHALES
Woodside’s Browse to NWS gas project is under assessment by the WA and Federal Governments right now. This is a project that involved drilling up to 50 gas wells around Scott Reef off the coast of WA. Gas would be extracted directly underneath Scott Reef and Sandy Islet and pumped through a 900-kilometre subsea pipeline to the NWS gas processing facility.
Woodside’s Browse gas project’s impact on Scott Reef’s marine habitats?
Scott Reef is one of Australia’s most ecologically significant marine environments, where green turtles breed, pygmy blue whales feed, and an array of at-risk species, including sharks, dolphins, whale sharks, rays, sawfish and sea snakes thrive. It is home to many threatened species, including some found nowhere else on Earth or in genetically isolated groups, magnifying its importance from a conservation perspective.
This delicate reef’s ecosystem faces multiple threats if Woodside’s Proposed Project goes ahead, including seismic blasting, gas flaring, noise pollution, artificial lighting, pipe laying and fast-moving vessels. The reef also faces the risk of a gas well blowout, which could have catastrophic and irreversible consequences for the region’s reefs and marine parks.
Woodside’s woeful marine impacts management plan
To secure their approvals, Woodside had to develop a plan for how they would manage the significant risks to threatened green turtles and endangered pygmy blue whales if the project proceeds. We’ve had two independent scientists provide a technical assessment of Woodsides management plan for whales and turtles and their findings are gobsmacking.
Their assessment found that Woodsides management plans for these species misrepresents or does not assess the risks the Browse project poses to Scott Reef’s pygmy blue whales and green turtles. They’ve also surmised that if the project goes ahead the impacts contradict the Australian government’s own recovery plan for turtles and Conservation Management Plan (CMP) for Blue Whales.
The State and Federal Governments now have the opportunity to define their legacies on nature protection and save Scott Reef from Woodside’s dirty gas.
Technical Assessment of Woodside’s Browse Pygmy Blue Whale Management Plan
Prepared for Greenpeace Australia Pacific by Dr Ben Fitzpatrick of Oceanwise Australia with Dr Olaf Meynecke of Griffith University.
The full technical assessment is available HERE
Scott Reef is a vital feeding, foraging and resting habitat for pygmy blue whales.
Pygmy blue whales feed, forage and rest in the Scott Reef region every year. Scott Reef is recognised as a Biologically Important Area for the pygmy blue whale and is an important stop-over on their annual migration.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could delay or prevent the population recovery of the endangered pygmy blue whales that rely on Scott Reef, heightening their extinction risk.
- Woodside’s management plan claims of “no credible threat of significant impacts” are not supported by scientific evidence.
- The management plan relies on outdated whale population information.
- Woodside has claimed it is unclear whether Scott Reef is a foraging habitat for pygmy blue whales, despite the presence of pygmy blue whales and significant concentrations of krill being documented in the area.
- The PBWMP ignores the impacts of industrial noise on whale-to-whale communication. This is especially concerning as mother-calf pairs migrate through the Scott Reef Biologically Important Area shortly after calves are born. Mother-calf pairs rely on continuous, uninterrupted communications to maintain their connection.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could delay or prevent the population recovery of the endangered pygmy blue whales that rely on Scott Reef, heightening their extinction risk.
Technical Assessment of Woodside’s Browse Turtle Management Plan
Prepared for Greenpeace Australia Pacific by Dr Ben Fitzpatrick of Oceanwise Australia.
The full technical assessment is available HERE
Scott Reef is a vital nesting ground for unique green turtles.
The green turtles that nest at Scott Reef’s low-lying Sandy Islet sand cay and nearby Browse Island are genetically unique and are classified as ‘Extremely Vulnerable’ in Australia’s Recovery Plan for Marine Turtles.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could make Scott Reef’s unique green turtles extinct.
- The Browse project would operate within 20 kilometres of nesting habitat that’s critical to the survival of Scott Reef’s genetically unique and vulnerable green turtle population.
- Woodside’s Browse Turtle Management Plan (TMP) misrepresents the risks the Browse project poses to Scott Reef’s green turtles.
- Claims in Woodside’s TMP about Scott Reef’s green turtle population size, nesting success and hatchling numbers are not backed by scientific evidence.
- The TMP proposes gathering updated data after the Browse project is approved.
- Woodside’s TMP proposes adding sand sourced elsewhere to Sandy Islet to counter subsidence and erosion, but fails to properly assess the associated risks.
To save Scott Reef and protect our oceans and animals, the State and Federal Governments must reject Browse.
Technical Assessment of Woodside’s Browse Pygmy Blue Whale Management Plan
To secure their approvals, Woodside had to develop a plan for how they would manage the significant risks to threatened green turtles if the project proceeds. We’ve had two independent scientists provide a technical assessment of Woodside’s management plan for whales and turtles and their findings are gobsmacking.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could make Scott Reef’s unique green turtles extinct.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could delay or prevent the population recovery of the endangered pygmy blue whales that rely on Scott Reef, heightening their extinction risk.
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