Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Hormuz latest
DELAYED ULTIMATUM: The week started with US president Donald Trump giving Iran 48 hours to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital supply route for oil and gas, or the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants, reported the Guardian. By the end of the week, Reuters was reporting Trump’s statement that he would “pause” the threat of strikes for 10 days, claiming talks with Iran were “going very well”.
CLOGGED SUPPLY: Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, called the ongoing blockage of oil and gas supplies through the Strait “the greatest global energy security threat in history”, according to the Financial Times. A separate article in the Financial Times reported that countries are “facing a cliff-edge as the flow of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Gulf comes to an abrupt end in the next 10 days”.
COAL RESURGENCE: Asian countries are “shifting back to coal” amid disruptions to LNG supplies sparked by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, reported the Associated Press. Similarly, Japan announced plans to allow more use of coal power plants in an effort to boost energy security, noted Bloomberg. Elsewhere, analysts told CNBC how the crisis could “accelerate a shift into renewables” in a “watershed” moment for the energy transition.
UK fallout of Iran war
RENEWABLE HIGHS: The UK’s renewable output hit a record high on Wednesday, “helping to blunt the impact of the Middle East war on power prices”, reported Bloomberg. Meanwhile, the Press Association described a new government announcement on solar panels and heat pumps for all new homes from 2028 as “doubling down on its clean-energy drive in response to the Iran war”. At a household level, the Times reported that UK homeowners are “rush[ing] to install solar panels amid [the] Iran conflict”.
NORTH SEA MYTHS: Using a comment piece in the Sunday Telegraph, Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch led calls predominately coming from right-leaning politicians and media to issue more oil and gas licences in the North Sea. Carbon Brief has published a factcheck exposing nine false or misleading claims about the impact on household bills, emissions and energy security of more North Sea drilling.
Around the world
- CLIMATE PROTECTION: Germany unveiled a plan to help it reach its 2030 climate target and reduce its dependence on “volatile fossil-fuel imports”, reported Reuters.
- DIAGNOSIS: A long-awaited report into the unprecedented blackout that left Spain and Portugal without electricity last April concluded that the “problem did not lie with solar and wind power”, said the Financial Times.
- DELUGED: The US state of Hawaii struggled in the aftermath of “catastrophic flooding” that could cost over $1bn in damages, reported USA Today.
- ARCTIC LOW: Sea ice in the Arctic has tied last year’s record for the lowest-ever peak winter extent, reported Carbon Brief.
91%
The amount of excess heat trapped by the Earth that is stored in the ocean, according to a UN World Meteorological Organization report covered by Agence France-Presse.
Latest climate research
- Extreme events and climate change pose “major threats” to the preservation of underwater cultural heritage, such as sunken ruins, wrecks and archaeological remains | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Human-driven climate change made extreme fires across the Arctic from 2019-21 more than 200 times more likely | Environmental Research Letters
- A county-level study in the US from 2013-24 suggests “higher temperatures are associated with increased risk of police violence” | PLOS One
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
India’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions grew by 0.5% in the second half of 2025 and by just 0.7% in the year as a whole, the slowest rate in more than two decades, according to analysis for Carbon Brief published this week. This marks a sharp slowdown from 4-11% in the preceding four years and is largely explained by increases in steel and cement production being compensated by falling emissions in the power sector. Carbon Brief also took an in-depth look at India’s delayed nationally determined contribution (NDC) published this week, which contains a new target to reduce its emissions intensity to 47% below 2005 levels by 2035.
Spotlight
The IPCC and Indigenous representation
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to researchers about how the UN’s climate science panel can better incorporate Indigenous peoples and their knowledge into its highly influential reports.
From the Quechua people in Latin America to the Oraon Tribe in Asia, Indigenous peoples’ lands cover more than a quarter of Earth’s surface.
Built up over millenia and transferred through generations, Indigenous knowledge is vital in conserving the world’s remaining biodiversity and building climate resilience.
Prof Pasang Yangjee Sherpa is a Sherpa woman from the Mount Everest region in Nepal and an assistant professor of lifeways in Indigenous Asia at the University of British Columbia, Canada.
Her research advocates for the inclusion of Indigenous people and their knowledge in climate science, particularly in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Sherpa told Carbon Brief:
“If we are really interested in planetary health…we have to make sure that Indigenous peoples and Indigenous peoples’ knowledge is also on the table next to physical science and Euro-Western science.”
Ways of knowing
Last month, the IPCC held a workshop in Reading, UK, on engaging diverse knowledge systems in ways that are “inclusive, equitable and aligned with future needs”.
The workshop is expected to produce a set of recommendations, but the report is not yet available and the workshop itself was closed to journalists.
Sherpa was co-author of an independent report that informed the IPCC workshop. The research, funded by Wellcome, combined the team’s experience with a literature review and multilingual “listening sessions” with Indigenous scholars, leaders and thinkers.
The report explained how Indigenous peoples are disproportionately affected by climate change due to “historical and contemporary colonial processes of territorial dispossession, political exclusion and structural inequality”.
But the inclusion in climate science of Indigenous peoples and their knowledge is not just a justice issue, the report continues:
“Indigenous peoples are not merely vulnerable populations – they are frontline climate leaders whose territorial governance and sciences are essential to understanding and responding to the climate crisis.”
Addressing marginalisation
The report makes some “immediate” recommendations that can be done in the current seventh assessment cycle “to prevent harm, ensure equitable participation and begin redressing historical exclusions”.
These include appointing a minimum of two Indigenous contributing authors per relevant chapter and establishing an ad-hoc Indigenous advisory group.
Looking further ahead, the authors argue the eighth assessment cycle (likely due in the 2030s) requires “institutional transformation” to “reshape governance, methodologies and participation structures”.
Sherpa told Carbon Brief:
“It’s very interesting to me that when you look at the UN and other policymaking spheres, Indigenous peoples from around the world have been actively involved for decades. It’s almost like academia has to catch up to reality, globally.”
Dr Rosario Carmona, also a co-author on the report, is a Chilean anthropologist with the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. She was also part of the scientific steering committee that proposed the IPCC workshop, on behalf of the Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Research in Chile. Carmona told Carbon Brief:
“There are good precedents – and the IPCC works on these precedents – that recognise Indigenous knowledge systems as standalone, that don’t need to be validated [by other types of knowledge].”
Soul-searching
The IPCC has been convening this week in Bangkok, Thailand, to consider, among other things, fundamental questions about how it does things, for what purpose and on what timelines.
Now is a good opportunity for wider change in the IPCC mindset, Carmona told Carbon Brief:
“I feel that there is a critical moment now – and there is a huge awareness and a willingness to do things better.”
Watch, read, listen
CHOKING OF HORMUZ: The New York Times took a look inside the “global, exceptionally critical journey of oil and gas, now upended by war”.
WARMING LIMITS: Writing in the Kathmandu Post, Maheswar Rupakheti, vice-chair of Working Group I of the IPCC, and policy researcher Gobinda Prasad Pokharel explored “climate overshoot”.
REFORM RECKONING: A feature in the Guardian examined how residents of flood-stricken Lincolnshire are growing tired with the climate-sceptic views of their MP, Reform deputy leader Richard Tice.
Coming up
- 22-29 March: COP15 for migratory species, Campo Grande, Brazil
- 23 March-2 April: Third meeting of the preparatory commission for the High Seas Treaty, New York
- 30 March: International Energy Agency energy technology perspectives 2026 report launch
Pick of the jobs
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, secretary | Salary: Unknown Location: Geneva, Switzerland
- International Institute for Sustainable Development, policy adviser, trade and climate change | Salary: Unknown. Location: Manila, Philippines, Jakarta, Indonesia or remote
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, research scholar/modeller – global land carbon cycle and land-use change | Salary: €55,215.00. Location: Laxenburg, Austria
- Beyond Fossil Fuels, energy campaigner in Poland | Salary: €33,000-€37,000. Location: Poland
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 27 Mach 2026: North Sea myths debunked | India’s climate plan | IPCC and Indigenous knowledge appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Aiqun Yu, Christine Shearer and Joe Hittinger work at Global Energy Monitor, a US-based organisation that seeks to provide the worldwide energy transition with transparent data and analysis.
With global oil and gas prices soaring at the start of the Iran war, China quietly broke ground on three major coal-to-gas and coal-to-chemical projects worth roughly $10 billion in two regions with abundant coal resources.
But as a Chinese saying goes, “three feet of ice does not form in a single day”. China’s push to use coal as a substitute for imported oil and gas has been gathering momentum since the Russia-Ukraine war began in 2022, prompting a recalibration of energy security priorities in Beijing and beyond.
The policy raises new concerns, threatening China’s climate goals and growing reputation as a global clean energy leader by creating renewed demand for coal.
A new expansion wave
Over the past three years, China has entered a new cycle of investment in so-called “modern coal chemicals”, differentiated from conventional coal chemicals. Four pathways – coal-to-gas, coal-to-liquids, coal-to-olefins, and coal-to-ethylene glycol – account for the bulk of new modern coal-chemical capacity under development.
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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 -
China’s emissions fall but growing coal-to-chemicals sector raises concern
The fast-rising use of coal in the production of synthetic fuels and plastics could put China’s climate targets at risk despite record additions of renewables, new analysis shows -
Big banks’ lending to coal backers undermines Indonesia’s green plans
Foreign banks involved in Indonesia’s $20-billion Just Energy Transition Partnership have also funded companies working on coal power expansion, a TBIJ and Climate Home News investigation reveals
According to Global Energy Monitor data, proposed and under-construction coal-to-gas capacity is approaching three times current operating capacity. Together, 34 projects under active consideration represent more than 1 trillion yuan ($150 billion) in planned investment and could add roughly 300 million tonnes of annual coal demand if completed, equivalent to South Africa’s entire coal mining capacity.
Most projects are in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Ningxia, regions with plentiful coal resources and relatively low mining costs. Xinjiang has emerged as the epicentre of the new boom, accounting for more than half of all proposed modern coal chemical projects.
Why the world abandoned coal chemicals
Coal chemicals are often presented as an emerging industry, but the technologies themselves are more than a century old.
Earlier “conventional” coal chemistry was a byproduct of coking, a process run primarily for iron and steel making. “Modern” coal chemistry instead uses gasification to convert coal into synthesis gas, a versatile building block for fuels, plastics, fertilisers and other chemicals that would traditionally be made from oil or gas.
These modern processes were developed in the early 20th century and expanded during periods of wartime fuel shortages. For example, Germany relied heavily on synthetic fuels during the Second World War while South Africa developed similar technologies in the apartheid era to reduce vulnerability to international sanctions.
Once cheap oil and gas became widely available, however, most countries moved away from coal chemicals, which required large amounts of energy, water and capital investment, and generally produced more pollution and carbon emissions than the conventional alternatives.
Today, only a handful of commercial coal gasification facilities operate outside China.
China has already tested this theory once
The current expansion is not China’s first attempt to build a major coal chemical industry.
A previous boom emerged during the 2010s, driven by many of the same arguments: high oil prices, concerns over energy security and expectations that technological improvements would unlock a new era of coal-based industrial growth.
Brazil jostles for rare earths share as US-China rivalry heats up
The outcome was far from successful. Dozens of projects were proposed, but many were delayed, suspended or scrapped before completion, and there were difficulties among those that did get off the ground.
Three of China’s four operating coal-to-gas projects reportedly spent much of the past decade operating at a loss, and several large coal chemical facilities generated only marginal returns despite government support.
Policy support is driving the revival
Backers say technological improvements have made the industry more competitive than it was a decade ago.
Yet coal chemical projects remain highly dependent on oil and gas prices. When international prices rise, coal-derived products can appear competitive. When prices fall, the economics often deteriorate rapidly.
More than changes in technology, government policy has played a pivotal role in the sector’s revival.
Following power shortages in 2021 and the energy market disruptions that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy security became a national priority. Coal production expanded, particularly in western China, boosted by government support.
China’s solar exports reach “gigantic” record in March as energy crisis bites
A key policy change in 2022 exempted coal used as industrial feedstock from certain energy consumption controls, easing regulatory pressure on coal chemical projects.
The impact of such measures highlights the degree to which coal chemicals depend on expansive and favourable policy treatment to remain viable.
At the same time, the current expansion is creating new demand for an industry confronting structural decline as China races to renewables in electricity generation.
The cost to China’s climate leadership
Converting coal into fuels and petrochemical products also releases substantially more carbon dioxide than conventional oil- and gas-based alternatives, which themselves are a major source of emissions.
Proponents argue that coupling production with green hydrogen and carbon capture could resolve the emissions problem, but the arithmetic doesn’t support this.
Sinopec’s flagship Dalu coal-to-olefins plant, paired with a 10,000 tonne-per-year green hydrogen demonstration, displaces less than 2% of the plant’s annual coal use. Replicating this across the proposed buildout would consume enormous quantities of clean energy just to partially decarbonise an inherently dirty process.
China could instead leverage that same industrial capacity and policy support to lead the development of cleaner chemical pathways, such as green ammonia for fertiliser, bio-based and CO2-derived feedstocks for plastics, and e-fuels or biofuels where liquid fuels are still needed.
Rather than locking in another generation of coal-dependent infrastructure, China should learn from the lessons of the past and seek a cleaner and more viable industrial future.
The post China’s coal-chemicals boom risks repeating the mistakes of the past appeared first on Climate Home News.
China’s coal-chemicals boom risks repeating the mistakes of the past
Welcome to the Project Cosmos homepage.
The project was launched by Carbon Brief in June 2026 following an 18-month research and development effort.
The aim: to build the world’s largest database of climate change research.
Containing more than 1.8 million unique publications linked by 40 million citation relationships, the Cosmos database represents the most complete and expansive mapping of human knowledge on climate change ever assembled.
The articles and visuals below will guide you through how the Cosmos database was built, as well as all the subsequent analysis, including the Cosmos 500 rankings of most cited authors, publications and institutions.
The post Project Cosmos appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/project-cosmos/
This is the vast “cosmos” of academic literature and evidence that underpins humanity’s knowledge of climate change.
Every “star” – all 1.8m of them – represents one of the studies inside Carbon Brief’s Cosmos database.
The coloured “nebulae” and “galaxies” within this cosmos illustrate where clusters of studies share similar citations and, hence, areas of common academic focus.
The post Mapped: Inside Carbon Brief’s Cosmos database of 1.8 million climate studies appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-inside-carbon-briefs-cosmos-database-of-1-8-million-climate-studies/
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