Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
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This week
EU 2040 target
AMBITION: Major EU economies – including Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain – have called for the European Commission to set “an ambitious climate target for 2040”, in a letter obtained by Politico. While the memo does not mention a specific percentage reduction, Politico said “its rhetoric implies…that the countries would back a push to cut at least 90% of the EU’s emissions by 2040”. This is the minimum level recommended by EU science advisers.
TRILLION-EURO TARGET: The memo comes after the Financial Times reported on a draft document from Brussels detailing how the bloc can cut its emissions by 90% by 2040 and reach net-zero by 2050. The document says the EU must invest around €1.5tn a year from 2031 in order to meet its goals, according to the FT, adding that this would unlock savings of up to €2.8tn by lowering demand for fossil-fuel imports. Reuters also covered the draft, reporting that it says that EU fossil-fuel use could drop 80% on 1990 levels by 2040 under the proposals.
BREWING BACKLASH?: Meanwhile, a second Reuters story reported on the results of a cross-EU opinion poll suggesting that populist, right-wing parties could surge in the next set of European elections, which “could make passing ambitious climate change policies harder”. The Guardian also reported on how populist “anti-European” party gains in European elections “could shift the parliament’s balance sharply to the right and jeopardise key pillars of the EU’s agenda including climate action”.
IPCC roadmap
ISTANBUL MEETING: Countries gathered for a four-day meeting in Istanbul to decide on a future roadmap for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the climate science authority responsible for producing reports aimed at helping guide global action on climate change, Carbon Brief reported. At the meeting, governments decided against a new structure for the IPCC’s next “assessment cycle”, committing instead to the traditional set of three “working group” reports and just one “special” report (on cities) over the next five years.
‘NOT THRILLED’: Reacting to the decisions, one scientist told Carbon Brief that she is “not thrilled” by the decision to produce “a whole set of working group reports again”, given they will “not say that much new”. And another said that “waiting until 2028 for the three reports and 2029 for the synthesis is too late to have an impact on decision-making”. They added: “The world will be significantly different by then.”
Around the world
- LNG PERMIT ‘PAUSE’: President Joe Biden today announced a “temporary pause” on approving new export terminals for liquified natural gas (LNG), the Financial Times reported. It said the move was “a blow to a booming industry and…a win [for] climate campaigners”
- SCEPTIC APPOINTMENT: A UK Conservative peer who was previously criticised for claiming that rising temperatures are “likely to be beneficial” has been appointed to a parliamentary committee on climate change, the Guardian reported.
- AMAZON DROUGHT: Climate change was the main driver of the Amazon rainforest’s worst drought in at least half a century, according to a World Weather Attribution analysis.
- ZIM LITHIUM: China has invested more than $1.4bn in Zimbabwe, which holds one of the world’s largest lithium reserves, to secure supplies for electric vehicle manufacturing in the past two years, Climate Home News reported. It added there was a risk that local communities are “missing out” on benefits.
- COAL FIXATION: The Third Pole reported on how India’s push for new coal production could “cast doubt” on its climate targets.
2,195TWh
The amount of power that global nuclear is projected to generate by 2025 – an all-time high, according to an International Energy Agency report covered by the Financial Times.
Latest climate research
- The frequency and extent of concurrent drought and heat events in North America occurring this century is “likely unprecedented” since at least the 16th century, according to a Science Advances paper.
- Spiders may adjust the size of their webs in response to how warming temperatures could affect the size of their prey, new research in Nature Climate Change found.
- A “brief communication” in Nature Climate Change suggested that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could “hamper the ability to adequately describe conditions across the Arctic, thus biassing the view on Arctic 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
A new sector-by-sector analysis for Carbon Brief by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air looked at economic growth driven by investments in clean energy in China in 2023. Clean energies – particularly the so-called “new three” industries: solar power, electric vehicles and batteries – injected 11.4tn yuan ($1.6tn) into China’s economy, accounting for 9% of China’s GDP in 2023. The analysis made use of official figures, industry data and analyst reports. This sector is a “key part not only of China’s energy and climate efforts, but also of its broader economic and industrial policy”.
Spotlight
Gender equality in climate negotiations
This week, Carbon Brief interviews the director of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization on why women are still a minority at UN climate summits.
Last week, the president of Azerbaijan was forced to rejig the organising committee for the COP29 climate summit, after receiving a large backlash for having previously picked an all-male panel.
Carbon Brief analysis shows that COPs have been male-dominated since their inception, with delegates at the most recent summit being 38% female and 62% male.
Carbon Brief spoke to Bridget Burns, executive director of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO). Burns has campaigned for more than a decade for the representation of women and the inclusion of gender equality in the climate negotiations outcomes.
Carbon Brief: Why is it important to have equal participation of men and women in the COP29 organising committee?
Bridget Burns: The reason why we need an equal percentage of men and women in the climate change negotiations is a matter of human rights. Representation goes well beyond just gender, [it includes] frontline communities, Indigenous peoples, who also really need to have a voice in decision-making.
The decisions will not necessarily be equitable and or effective [if] they’re not being designed by the entire population who have been impacted by [climate change].
[Women] are facing impacts differently, they have different access needs. But they also have potentially different solutions.
So even though [the COP29 hosts] have added 12 women [to the 28-strong organising committee], the fact that nobody in that room stepped back to say – “Oh! this is an all-male committee” – is deeply worrying.
Gender is just one of the challenges. It’s also a leadership committee that is full of fossil-fuel executives, which is not the type of leadership that we need in charge of the COP.
CB: What is needed to ensure that climate negotiations are really inclusive?
BB: Part of changing the nature of power, and the ways in which it showed up in our system for multiple years, [goes] beyond making room at the table. It’s to allow other folks to step up into leadership and to allow for their voices to be heard. That requires important conversations on ceding power.
There’s a lot of long-term systemic work that needs to happen. At a global level, we still need the decisions, mandates and benchmarks.
CB: Should we be talking about climate policies for women beyond their participation in climate summits?
BB: It’s hard to get gender equality discussed in the climate change negotiations. It’s even harder to take a feminist approach to climate justice. As the women and gender constituency, we always bring a feminist lens – and we’re calling for feminist climate justice.
If you are a country that is pushing for a strong gender action plan – but you are not backing that up with finance for developing countries, and you’re not backing that up with [emissions] reductions – then that’s not a feminist country.
Watch, read, listen
ELFSTEDENTOCHT: BBC Sport reported on how a much-loved skating race across frozen lakes and waterways in the Netherlands could be lost forever because of climate change.
AFRICAN DISCOURSE: In African Arguments, a group of African writers respond to a recent article focused on how “war in the Congo has kept the planet cooler” – noting that such a narrative “renders African people invisible”.
INDIGENOUS MENTAL HEALTH: A podcast by Climate Tracker explored the effects of climate change on Indigenous peoples from Jamaica and Guyana.
Coming up
- 28 January: Finland presidential election
- 29-30 January: G20 first environment and climate sustainability working group meeting, Vila do Conde, Brazil
- 30-31 January: UK Climate Change Committee COP28 key outcomes briefing report
Pick of the jobs
- UK Climate Change Committee, chief executive | Salary: Unknown. Location: UK
- Politico, energy technology reporter | Salary: Unknown. Location: Arlington, US
- Global Canopy, Claudia Comberti research assistant on Brazil and COP30 | Salary: £25,000. Location: Oxford
- The Chancery Lane Project, head of forestry, land and agriculture | Salary: £60,000-80,000. Location: Remote (must have right to work in the UK for at least two years)
The post DeBriefed 26 January 2024: EU eyes ‘ambitious’ 2040 target; IPCC decides on new climate reports; Gender inequality at COPs appeared first on Carbon Brief.
A new storm recovery charge could soon hit Georgia Power customers’ bills, as climate change drives more destructive weather across the state.
Hurricane Helene may be long over, but its costs are poised to land on Georgians’ electricity bills. After the storm killed 37 people in Georgia and caused billions in damage in September 2024, Georgia Power is seeking permission from state regulators to pass recovery costs on to customers.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill says she supports both AI and lowering her constituents’ bills.
With New Jersey’s cost-of-living “crisis” at the center of Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s agenda, her administration has inherited a program that approved a $250 million tax break for an artificial intelligence data center.
Amid Affordability Crisis, New Jersey Hands $250 Million Tax Break to Data Center
Gabrielle Dreyfus is chief scientist at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, Thomas Röckmann is a professor of atmospheric physics and chemistry at Utrecht University, and Lena Höglund Isaksson is a senior research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
This March scientists and policy makers will gather near the site in Italy where methane was first identified 250 years ago to share the latest science on methane and the policy and technology steps needed to rapidly cut methane emissions. The timing is apt.
As new tools transform our understanding of methane emissions and their sources, the evidence they reveal points to a single conclusion: Human-caused methane emissions are still rising, and global action remains far too slow.
This is the central finding of the latest Global Methane Status Report. Four years into the Global Methane Pledge, which aims for a 30% cut in global emissions by 2030, the good news is that the pledge has increased mitigation ambition under national plans, which, if fully implemented, could result in the largest and most sustained decline in methane emissions since the Industrial Revolution.
The bad news is this is still short of the 30% target. The decisive question is whether governments will move quickly enough to turn that bend into the steep decline required to pump the brake on global warming.
What the data really show
Assessing progress requires comparing three benchmarks: the level of emissions today relative to 2020, the trajectory projected in 2021 before methane received significant policy focus, and the level required by 2030 to meet the pledge.
The latest data show that global methane emissions in 2025 are higher than in 2020 but not as high as previously expected. In 2021, emissions were projected to rise by about 9% between 2020 and 2030. Updated analysis places that increase closer to 5%. This change is driven by factors such as slower than expected growth in unconventional gas production between 2020 and 2024 and lower than expected waste emissions in several regions.
Gas flaring soars in Niger Delta post-Shell, afflicting communities
This updated trajectory still does not deliver the reductions required, but it does indicate that the curve is beginning to bend. More importantly, the commitments already outlined in countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions and Methane Action Plans would, if fully implemented, produce an 8% reduction in global methane emissions between 2020 and 2030. This would turn the current increase into a sustained decline. While still insufficient to reach the Global Methane Pledge target of a 30% cut, it would represent historical progress.
Solutions are known and ready
Scientific assessments consistently show that the technical potential to meet the pledge exists. The gap lies not in technology, but in implementation.
The energy sector accounts for approximately 70% of total technical methane reduction potential between 2020 and 2030. Proven measures include recovering associated petroleum gas in oil production, regular leak detection and repair across oil and gas supply chains, and installing ventilation air oxidation technologies in underground coal mines. Many of these options are low cost or profitable. Yet current commitments would achieve only one third of the maximum technically feasible reductions in this sector.
Recent COP hosts Brazil and Azerbaijan linked to “super-emitting” methane plumes
Agriculture and waste also provide opportunities. Rice emissions can be reduced through improved water management, low-emission hybrids and soil amendments. While innovations in technology and practices hold promise in the longer term, near-term potential in livestock is more constrained and trends in global diets may counteract gains.
Waste sector emissions had been expected to increase more rapidly, but improvements in waste management in several regions over the past two decades have moderated this rise. Long-term mitigation in this sector requires immediate investment in improved landfills and circular waste systems, as emissions from waste already deposited will persist in the short term.
New measurement tools
Methane monitoring capacity has expanded significantly. Satellite-based systems can now identify methane super-emitters. Ground-based sensors are becoming more accessible and can provide real-time data. These developments improve national inventories and can strengthen accountability.
However, policy action does not need to wait for perfect measurement. Current scientific understanding of source magnitudes and mitigation effectiveness is sufficient to achieve a 30% reduction between 2020 and 2030. Many of the largest reductions in oil, gas and coal can be delivered through binding technology standards that do not require high precision quantification of emissions.
The decisive years ahead
The next 2 years will be critical for determining whether existing commitments translate into emissions reductions consistent with the Global Methane Pledge.
Governments should prioritise adoption of an effective international methane performance standard for oil and gas, including through the EU Methane Regulation, and expand the reach of such standards through voluntary buyers’ clubs. National and regional authorities should introduce binding technology standards for oil, gas and coal to ensure that voluntary agreements are backed by legal requirements.
One approach to promoting better progress on methane is to develop a binding methane agreement, starting with the oil and gas sector, as suggested by Barbados’ PM Mia Mottley and other leaders. Countries must also address the deeper challenge of political and economic dependence on fossil fuels, which continues to slow progress. Without a dual strategy of reducing methane and deep decarbonisation, it will not be possible to meet the Paris Agreement objectives.
Mottley’s “legally binding” methane pact faces barriers, but smaller steps possible
The next four years will determine whether available technologies, scientific evidence and political leadership align to deliver a rapid transition toward near-zero methane energy systems, holistic and equity-based lower emission agricultural systems and circular waste management strategies that eliminate methane release. These years will also determine whether the world captures the near-term climate benefits of methane abatement or locks in higher long-term costs and risks.
The Global Methane Status Report shows that the world is beginning to change course. Delivering the sharper downward trajectory now required is a test of political will. As scientists, we have laid out the evidence. Leaders must now act on it.
The post Curbing methane is the fastest way to slow warming – but we’re off the pace appeared first on Climate Home News.
Curbing methane is the fastest way to slow warming – but we’re off the pace
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