Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Europe’s energy plan
ENERGY CUSHION: On Wednesday, the European Commission set out a package of measures to offset surging energy prices caused by the Iran war, reported Reuters. The draft “actions” include cutting electricity taxes and coordinating the filling of fossil-gas storage this summer, the newswire explained. It added that the package stopped short of “major market interventions”, such as capping gas prices or taxing the windfall profits of energy companies. (Carbon Brief published an interactive table of the 44 actions.)
‘BAD SCENARIO’: The newswire quoted EU energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen, who said to expect higher gas prices for a “couple of years”, adding: “We really do need to get rid of our dependency on gas as fast as possible. So, for us, this means speeding up more clean energy.” Legal proposals to change tax rules are expected in May, the article said, noting: “Tax changes require unanimous approval from EU countries, making them difficult to pass.”
FLIGHT RISK: The 16-page “AccelerateEU” document also includes plans to coordinate on jet fuel and diesel supplies “to fend off a looming shortage”, said Politico. Jorgensen told Sky News that European summer holidays were “very likely” at risk of “flight cancellations or very, very expensive tickets”. The Financial Times reported that German airline Lufthansa has already “cancelled 20,000 flights between May and October to save fuel”.
Around the world
- RENEWABLES RECORD: Renewable energy overtook coal last year to become the world’s largest source of electricity, according to analysis by thinktank Ember, covered by Carbon Brief.
- ‘PRIORITISE UNITY’: France chose to omit climate change from the agenda of a G7 meeting in Paris this week in order to “avoid a row with the US”, said Agence France-Presse.
- CHINA WARNING: China has pledged to “strictly control” coal use and will grade local authorities on how well they meet the country’s climate goals, according to two new policies covered in a Q&A by Carbon Brief.
- ‘DOUBLE DOWN’: The UK government said it will “move…to break [the] link between gas and electricity prices” in response to the spike in fossil-fuel prices, reported Carbon Brief.
- EXTREME HEAT: A report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned that global food systems are being “pushed to the brink” by increasingly common and severe heatwaves on land and at sea, reported the Guardian.
- WHAT’S IN A NAME: In a national vote, Japan selected “kokushobi” – translated as “cruelly hot” – as the new term to describe days that hit 40C, reported BBC News.
£785
The amount that a new electric vehicle is cheaper, on average, than a new petrol car, according to car sales website Autotrader. The Guardian described this as a “significant milestone in Britain’s transition away from fossil fuels”.
Latest climate research
- Climate-driven extremes in temperature and pH put “underwater cultural heritage”, such as shipwrecks in the Taiwan strait, at greater risk of corrosion | Climate Services
- As many as 98% of environmental claims and commitments made by meat and dairy companies over 2021-24 could be categorised as “greenwashing” | PLOS Climate
- Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is “unlikely to generate negative emissions within 150 years” and is “likely to increase electricity costs by ~3.5-fold” | 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
With a strong – or even “super” – El Niño event expected to develop later this year, Carbon Brief estimated that 2026 is on track to be the second-warmest year on record. The prediction puts global average temperature in 2026 at between 1.37C and 1.58C above pre-industrial levels, with a best estimate of 1.47C. This means that 2024 is “virtually certain” to be one of the top-four warmest years, but there is still a 19% chance that 2026 will be the warmest year on record – beating the prior record set in 2024.
Spotlight
Countries mull fossil-fuel transition in Colombia
This week, Carbon Brief reports from a first-of-its-kind summit on transitioning away from fossil fuels being held in Santa Marta, Colombia.
Around 60 countries are arriving in Santa Marta, Colombia today where – against a backdrop of white-sand beaches, rolling forested hills and stifling humidity – they will consider ways to move away from fossil fuels.
The first global summit on transitioning away from fossil fuels comes after a large group of nations campaigned for – but, ultimately, failed – to get all countries to formally agree to a “roadmap” away from coal, oil and gas at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil last November.
The nations gathering in Santa Marta for the summit, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, call themselves the “coalition of the willing”.
Together, they account for one-third of global fossil-fuel demand and one-fifth of global production, according to the Colombian government.
The group includes major oil-and-gas producers such as the UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Norway. Some big emitters – such as the US, China and India – are not expected to attend. (There is a question mark over whether China and India were invited.)
Academics to advise
In a departure from COP summits, the six-day event, from 24-29 April, will begin with a “science pre-conference”, where academics from across the world will present and discuss the latest scientific evidence on ways to transition away from fossil fuels.
Ahead of this, countries attending the talks have already been handed a draft scientific report with “action recommendations”, such as “halting all new fossil-fuel expansion” and “reject[ing] gas as a bridging fuel”, as revealed by Carbon Brief.
The report will be further debated and refined by scientists attending the academic segment of the Santa Marta talks, before a final version is made public towards the end of April, Carbon Brief understands.
The science pre-conference will also separately see the launch of a new advisory panel on fossil-fuel transition and a scientifically led roadmap for how Colombia can transition away from fossil fuels, sources tell Carbon Brief.
Alongside the science pre-conference, dialogues will also be held with Indigenous peoples, environmental organisations and other stakeholders.
‘High-level segment’
The science pre-conference will be followed by a “high-level segment” from 28-29 April, where ministers and other policymakers will meet to consider ways to transition away from fossil fuels. (Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro Urrego is expected to speak.)
At the end of the conference, countries are due to release a report featuring a “menu of solutions” for transitioning away from fossil fuels, according to Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres.
This report is, in turn, set to inform a global “roadmap” on transitioning away from fossil fuels being developed by the Brazilian COP30 presidency, which is due to be presented at COP31 in Turkey this November.
The Brazilian COP30 presidency offered to bring forward a “voluntary” fossil-fuel transition “roadmap” outside of the official COP process, after countries failed to formally agree to one during negotiations in Belém.
Watch, read, listen
‘SHADOW DOCKET’: The New York Times obtained the “secret memos” behind the US supreme court’s decision in 2016 to block the Obama administration’s clean-power plan.
EGREGIOUS ENGAGEMENT: DeSmog identified multiple social media accounts in Sri Lanka posting AI-generated “energy policy rage bait” to UK Facebook feeds (as first revealed by Carbon Brief’s Leo Hickman).
CHINA ‘DOMINANCE’: A “Bloomberg originals” video looked at the “race to challenge China’s EV lead”.
Coming up
- 24-29 April: First conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, Santa Marta, Colombia
- 28-29 April: Innovation Zero world congress, London, UK
- 29 April: Stop food waste day
- 6-7 May:GLF Africa 2026: stewarding our rangelands, Nairobi, Kenya
Pick of the jobs
- Natural England, chief executive officer | Salary: circa £130,000. Location: UK
- ETH Zurich, postdoctoral position in climate science | Salary: Unknown. Location: Zurich, Switzerland
- International Energy Agency, partnership manager – clean energy ministerial | Salary: €97,180. Location: Paris, France
- Greenpeace, media diversification press officer | Salary: £48,396-£55,644. Location: London, UK (hybrid)
- Our World In Data, writer | Salary: £80,000-£120,000. Location: Oxford, UK or remote
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 24 April 2026: Europe’s energy-crisis plan | Renewables overtake coal | Colombia’s fossil-fuel summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
A bill, newly passed by legislators, will expand the state’s capacity to enforce limits on health-harming emissions in overburdened communities.
After years of fighting to curb toxic pollution in communities of color, Illinois activists are celebrating a step forward.
In a Years-Long Fight, the Illinois Environmental Justice Movement Gets a Win
The lead attorney for the 22 plaintiffs said the court has “slammed the courthouse doors on children fighting for their lives.”
A federal appeals court has sided with the Trump administration and 19 Republican-led states in a constitutional challenge to several of President Donald Trump’s executive orders designed to boost fossil fuels, concluding that the youth plaintiffs failed to bring a viable case against the federal government. In affirming a lower court’s dismissal of the lawsuit, called Lighthiser v. Trump, the appeals court said that it was not the role of the judiciary to supervise government energy policy.
Appeals Court Affirms Dismissal of Youth Climate Case Against Trump
In 2021, amidst a wave of corporate net-zero targets, a campaign group called Investors for Paris Compliance was set up in British Columbia, aiming to use investor pressure to hold Canadian companies to account on their climate promises.
In the five years since, the group has notched up several wins: pressuring National Bank into providing $20 billion of finance to renewable energy, getting Royal Bank of Canada to improve its green finance labels and persuading 20-25% of investors to regularly back climate proposals at annual general meetings (AGMs) for shareholders.
But last month, the group’s then executive director Matt Price put out a statement saying it was shutting down. Despite some progress, Price explained, his organisation had concluded that “investor accountability has reached its limits”.
Companies and their investors often understand that climate change threatens the economic system, Price said. But, he added, they do not respond adequately because they are worried that, if they do, their competitors will not put in as much effort and could therefore gain a financial advantage.
-
Santa Marta process can confront trade protection for fossil fuels, experts say
Academics at the first fossil fuel phase-out summit urged governments to recognise investor protection treaties as a barrier to the energy transition -
Indonesia’s failing Just Energy Transition Partnership is a cautionary tale
The government has abandoned its plan to shut down a major coal plant, which was a key part of the deal, raising doubts about the donor-backed approach -
After another battery startup bankruptcy, can Europe ever cut reliance on China?
Norway’s Morrow Batteries set out to challenge Chinese producers, but a cash crunch forced it to file for bankruptcy in a setback for European ambitions for clean energy sovereignty
This “tragedy of the commons” situation cannot be fixed by shareholder advocacy, Price said, but instead needs litigation, regulatory action and accountability mechanisms. “Some of our team will take those things on in new initiatives,” he said.
Price’s words echo the findings of a London School of Economics (LSE) report published last month, based on workshops with asset owners and managers in New York, Amsterdam, London and Singapore.
Government policy key
The LSE report noted that “action by investors on climate change is severely constrained by their duties, the limited tools at their disposal and the pathways of technology development”. To be effective, pressure from climate-conscious investors must be coupled with government policy that incentivises green investment and technological innovation, the authors concluded.
An investigation by the Guardian recently found that, despite overwhelming shareholder support for its climate action plan, Australian mining company BHP has carried on buying polluting diesel trucks instead of electric ones. The Australian government subsidises diesel, saving BHP hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
As EU acts to stop greenwash, funds drop climate claims from their names
Lindsey Stewart, director of institutional insights for investment research firm Morningstar, told Climate Home News that investor activism does work but it “doesn’t do everything that people expected it to do towards the beginning of the 2020s”.
“There is a limit to what can be achieved by minority shareholders exercising their votes and engaging with companies. Quite a lot, it does seem, is reliant on the legal and regulatory framework,” he said, adding that the closure of Investors for Paris Compliance shows this “realisation is sinking in a lot more than perhaps it was in 2020, 2021, 2022”.
Decline of investor activism
Stewart said that in the early 2020s, investor activists were pushing companies for “things that were sort of already on the regulatory conveyor belt anyway”, like companies setting targets for their operational (Scope 1 and 2) emissions, disclosing their carbon footprints, and assessing their exposure to risk from climate change.
With this low-hanging fruit picked, green-minded investors have moved on to make demands that are more controversial and have received less support from other investors, he said. He gave examples of just transition reporting, green capital expenditure financing ratios for banks and disclosing emissions from the use of products a company sells, known as Scope 3 emissions.
On top of this, Stewart said, there has been pressure from the “right-wing political establishment in the US” against investors taking climate change into consideration. BlackRock, which manages $9.5 trillion of assets, has walked back its climate commitments after pressure from US Republicans.
More fundamentally, Stewart described the idea that fossil fuel majors would dismantle their oil and gas business and transform into renewables companies as a “pipe dream on the part of environmentalists”. “Why would they have the skill or capability, or even the stakeholder backing, to completely transform a business of that size?” he asked.
Shareholder activism is only possible at privately owned and listed companies, while most investment in oil and gas is now coming from state-owned companies, like Saudi Arabia’s Aramco. In 2025, less than a quarter of investment was from oil majors like BP and Shell.
Business backlash shows power
Yet despite the uphill climb, Mark van Baal defends shareholder activism. He runs an Amsterdam-based campaign group called Follow This, which has tried to get investors to vote for pro-climate resolutions at the AGMs of oil and gas multinationals.
He accepts that success peaked around 2021, but says the effort oil and gas firms are now putting into winning over shareholders and discouraging pro-climate resolutions – which he characterised as “the Empire Strikes Back” – shows the power of shareholder activism, which was previously underestimated.
In January 2024, ExxonMobil sued Follow This, aiming to block the group’s climate resolution. Fearing the case would end up in the Supreme Court, where conservative judges could set an anti-climate precedent, Follow This withdrew the resolution.
But, said van Baal, although the legal battle created a “chilling effect among investors”, it is a “proof point that shareholder pressure works and that they’re really afraid of the shareholders”.
Vote, don’t sell
Stewart and van Baal both agreed that selling, or threatening to sell off shares is not an effective way to change a company’s behaviour.
It allows less climate-conscious investors to buy the shares, they said, adding that there is no evidence that threats to sell shares and therefore lower the valuation over climate concerns have influenced company management.
Van Baal said the share price is set by short-term traders, not long-term shareholders like the pension funds he works with.
How Shell is still benefiting from offloaded Niger Delta oil assets
Nonetheless, investors’ engagement should be forceful, van Baal insisted – and not just within their comfort zone of talking to management about sustainability behind closed doors without voting for it at AGMs. “Shareholder democracy is the only democracy where voting is called escalation,” he said.
The Follow This website says that only investors can stop fossil fuel companies destroying the planet. “Marches didn’t change their minds. Lawsuits didn’t stop them. But shareholders can,” it trumpets.
But van Baal told Climate Home News this wording is “too strong” and may have to be revised, adding that shareholder activism just “fits me more than gluing myself to roads” and is a tactic he “stumbled on” 11 years ago.
Legal, political and investor activism can reinforce each other, he added. When Friends of the Earth sued Shell alleging inadequate climate action, for example, the green group’s lawyers cited the company’s rejection of a Follow This resolution as evidence. “The pressure needs to come from all sides,” van Baal said.
The post Investor climate group closes down, blaming “limits” of shareholder activism appeared first on Climate Home News.
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