Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Nature in the balance
AMAZON RECOVERY: Brazil and France have launched a €1bn “green” investment plan for the Amazon at a meeting in Belem, the city that will host the UN climate summit COP30 in 2025, Le Monde reported. The four-year plan aims to create a carbon market that will help prevent deforestation in the Brazilian and Guyanase Amazon, Le Monde said. It also includes support for Indigenous communities, Deutsche Welle reported.
‘HUGE DEADLOCK’: Meanwhile, the EU’s flagship nature restoration law is on the “verge of collapse”, according to the Guardian. The law was due to be passed by EU member states this week, but the vote was shelved after Hungary withdrew its support at the last minute, reported the Associated Press. Carbon Brief has an in-depth explainer on the EU’s restoration law.
NATURE’S RIGHT: Aruba could become the second country in the world, after Ecuador, to enshrine the rights of nature in its constitution, Inside Climate News reported. The country’s nature minister has put forward a draft amendment to the constitution, which is due to be reviewed by the country’s advisory council in April, said the outlet.
China under pressure
CHINA-US DISPUTE: The US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has “warned China not to flood the world with cheap clean-energy exports, saying they would distort global markets and harm workers”, the Financial Times reported. Speaking from a solar manufacturer in Georgia ahead of a two-day trip to China, Yellen said she would make “overcapacity” a “key issue” in her discussions with Beijing, according to the FT.
‘DISCRIMINATORY’ SUBSIDIES: It comes after China lodged a complaint against “discriminatory” subsidies from the US for electric vehicles at the World Trade Organisation, reported the South China Morning Post. The complaint relates to terms within the US Inflation Reduction Act that require EVs to undergo final assembly in the US to qualify for subsidy, the newspaper said. The Associated Press suggested that the case would “likely go nowhere”, even if the WTO rules in favour of China.
XI’S PLAN: In a frontpage long-read, the Financial Times dug deeper into slowing economic growth in China and whether president Xi Jinping’s plan centred on growing China’s clean manufacturing industries can succeed. With weakening domestic demand, this strategy relies increasingly on exporting more of these goods abroad and, as a professor told the newspaper, “the rest of the world is unlikely to [accommodate] that”.
Around the world
- ‘HISTORIC MILESTONE’: India has produced more than 1bn tonnes of coal and lignite in the current financial year that ends in a few days, according to Hindu BusinessLine, with the country’s coal minister calling it a “historic milestone in India’s quest for energy security”.
- ‘MAJOR CHANGES’: Bassirou Diomaye Faye is set to be Senegal’s new president, after a campaign where he vowed to improve control over the country’s natural resources and prevent “economic enslavement”, France24 reported. JeuneAfrique noted that, as part of this, he has promised to renegotiate oil and gas contracts.
- MAC AND CHEESE: The US energy agency has announced $6bn in funding for 33 industrial projects, including new heat pumps at mac-and-cheese factories, the New York Times reported.
- ‘DIRE SITUATION’: UNICEF has estimated that 45 million children in south and eastern Africa are experiencing severe food insecurity, which has been exacerbated by climate change, according to AllAfrica.
- BOOZE IN TROUBLE: BBC News reported on attempts to rescue the UK pint from the threat of climate change, with hop yields down by 20% last year. Meanwhile, the Daily Mail covered a study that suggests winemaking in southern Europe could be reduced by 90% due to climate change.
- NEW CHIEF: Singapore has a new inaugural climate action ambassador, who will represent the country at international climate discussions, reported EcoBusiness.
52%
The percentage of European voters that think tackling climate change is a priority, according to a new Euronews poll of 25,916 people across 18 countries.
Latest climate research
- A study in Nature Communications Earth and Environment found that global inflation could increase 0.3-1.2 percentage points per year by 2035 solely due to climate change impacts, with even greater inflationary impacts on food prices.
- Poorer and more densely populated neighbourhoods in New Delhi, India are more likely to face the “compounded effects” of extreme heat and dengue fever than those in richer and less densely-populated neighbourhoods, according to a new study in PLOS Climate.
- Australian soils could flip from being a net absorber of carbon dioxide to being a net emitter as the climate continues to warm, said a new study published in NPJ Climate and Atmospheric Science.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.)
Captured
A large percentage of the world’s new oil and gas developments since 2022 are from companies that have set net-zero emissions targets, such as TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil, according to Carbon Brief analysis of a new report from Global Energy Monitor. Carbon Brief has estimated that both TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil could generate roughly 1,000m tonnes of CO2 each with their expansion plans, which is equivalent to Japan’s annual total.
Spotlight
How lifestyle changes could help the EU reach net-zero
This week, Carbon Brief explores an underreported pathway to net-zero in the EU that highlights the potential additional benefits enabled by lifestyle changes.
Last month, the EU set a new intermediary target to reduce emissions by at least 90% by 2040, relative to 1990 levels.
Buried within the impact assessment released with the announcement, there was a unique scenario called “LIFE” that offers an alternative pathway to reach the EU’s new target largely through lifestyle changes.
What is LIFE?
The LIFE (short for “lifestyle”) scenario is unique among the modelled scenarios because it does not consider a different level of ambition, but, rather, a different way of reaching the emissions reductions target of the most ambitious scenario (known as S3).
(LIFE is similar to the “1.5LIFE” scenario that the EU considered when setting out its vision for a climate-neutral economy in 2018.)
Both LIFE and S3 achieve the EU target of at least a 90% emissions reduction by 2040. In contrast to S3, which achieves this by assuming high levels of deployment for novel technologies such as carbon capture and e-fuels, LIFE “assumes more sustainable lifestyles and a move towards a more circular and shared economy”.
Comparing S3 with LIFE offers a comparison for two paths to net-zero: one more reliant on technology and one more reliant on lifestyle changes.
What would LIFE mean for EU lifestyles?
The LIFE scenario targets modest reductions in the most-emitting and inefficient forms of transport and food, while encouraging “circularity”.
Compared to S3 in 2040, car driving is reduced by 5%, flying is reduced by 10% and meat production is reduced by 25%, (caused by diet change rather than more exports). People are assumed to travel more by train, use more video conferencing and eat more plant-based foods.
People are expected to heat their homes more efficiently through smart meters and be more mindful consumers of products, reusing and repairing them where possible.
The assessment notes that these changes are in line with “possible expected individuals changes in daily life and willingness for action in changing consumption patterns”.
What are the benefits of LIFE?
There are multiple proposed benefits to the LIFE pathway in terms of cost, ease of transition, health and biodiversity, in comparison to S3.
The total investment needs for LIFE are, on average, 8% lower, representing average annual savings of €129bn, or €2.58tn total, across 2031-2050.
Enabled by lower electricity demand overall, the total renewable capacity required in 2040 is reduced by around 240GW (11%), or around half of 2020 capacity.
Health benefits from better air quality are further improved, claim the modellers, and there are significant health benefits from lower levels of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and obesity due to healthier diets.
Under the pathway, some 11m hectares of farmland are instead used for forests, natural vegetation and rewetted soils, leading to less fertiliser use and improved biodiversity. As a result, there are 104m tonnes more emissions savings from the land sector, including agriculture, by 2040.
This, say the modellers, reduces the need for industrial carbon capture and carbon removal by 19% and 64%, respectively, reducing the risk of scaling these nascent technologies.
Watch, read, listen
NO BLOOMS AHEAD: The South China Morning Post considered the threats faced by cherry blossoms due to climate change in Japan.
E-BIKE EMISSIONS?: Youtuber Simon Clark explored the environmental impact of electric bikes compared to other forms of transport.
NATURE’S END: Euractiv’s podcast broke down why the EU’s restoration law is facing opposition from several EU member states.
Coming up
- 1-5 April: Preparatory committee for the fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, second session, New York, US
- 4 April: G20 global mobilisation against climate change meeting, Brasilia
- 4 April: Kuwaiti parliamentary elections
Pick of the jobs
- Green Alliance, head of climate policy | Salary: £46,962-£55,348. Location: London
- WattTime.org, research scientist, data fusion (climate trace) | Salary: $160,000- $195,000. Location: Remote (US-based)
- Science Based Targets Initiative, transport analyst | Salary: Unknown. Location: Remote
- Green Climate Fund, accredited entities officer | Salary: $96,200. Location: Incheon, South Korea
- Friends of the Earth International, programme communications coordinator | Salary: €4,314-4,778 per month. Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands (or remote)
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DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org
The post DeBriefed 28 March 2024: Amazon fund; China faces trade storm; How lifestyle changes could slash EU emissions appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Drought and heatwaves occurring together – known as “compound” events – have “surged” across the world since the early 2000s, a new study shows.
Compound drought and heat events (CDHEs) can have devastating effects, creating the ideal conditions for intense wildfires, such as Australia’s “Black Summer” of 2019-20 where bushfires burned 24m hectares and killed 33 people.
The research, published in Science Advances, finds that the increase in CDHEs is predominantly being driven by events that start with a heatwave.
The global area affected by such “heatwave-led” compound events has more than doubled between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, the study says.
The rapid increase in these events over the last 23 years cannot be explained solely by global warming, the authors note.
Since the late 1990s, feedbacks between the land and the atmosphere have become stronger, making heatwaves more likely to trigger drought conditions, they explain.
One of the study authors tells Carbon Brief that societies must pay greater attention to compound events, which can “cause severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and society”.
Compound events
CDHEs are extreme weather events where drought and heatwave conditions occur simultaneously – or shortly after each other – in the same region.
These events are often triggered by large-scale weather patterns, such as “blocking” highs, which can produce “prolonged” hot and dry conditions, according to the study.
Prof Sang-Wook Yeh is one of the study authors and a professor at the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When heatwaves and droughts occur together, the two hazards reinforce each other through land-atmosphere interactions. This amplifies surface heating and soil moisture deficits, making compound events more intense and damaging than single hazards.”
CDHEs can begin with either a heatwave or a drought.
The sequence of these extremes is important, the study says, as they have different drivers and impacts.
For example, in a CDHE where the heatwave was the precursor, increased direct sunshine causes more moisture loss from soils and plants, leading to a drought.
Conversely, in an event where the drought was the precursor, the lack of soil moisture means that less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporation and more goes into warming the Earth’s surface. This produces favourable conditions for heatwaves.
The study shows that the majority of CDHEs globally start out as a drought.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on these events due to the devastating impact they have on agriculture, ecosystems and public health.
In Russia in the summer of 2010, a compound drought-heatwave event – and the associated wildfires – caused the death of nearly 55,000 people, the study notes.
The record-breaking Pacific north-west “heat dome” in 2021 triggered extreme drought conditions that caused “significant declines” in wheat yields, as well as in barley, canola and fruit production in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, says the study.
Increasing events
To assess how CDHEs are changing, the researchers use daily reanalysis data to identify droughts and heatwaves events. (Reanalysis data combines past observations with climate models to create a historical climate record.) Then, using an algorithm, they analyse how these events overlap in both time and space.
The study covers the period from 1980 to 2023 and the world’s land surface, excluding polar regions where CDHEs are rare.
The research finds that the area of land affected by CDHEs has “increased substantially” since the early 2000s.
Heatwave-led events have been the main contributor to this increase, the study says, with their spatial extent rising 110% between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, compared to a 59% increase for drought-led events.
The map below shows the global distribution of CDHEs over 1980-2023. The charts show the percentage of the land surface affected by a heatwave-led CDHE (red) or a drought-led CDHE (yellow) in a given year (left) and relative increase in each CDHE type (right).
The study finds that CDHEs have occurred most frequently in northern South America, the southern US, eastern Europe, central Africa and south Asia.
Threshold passed
The authors explain that the increase in heatwave-led CDHEs is related to rising global temperatures, but that this does not tell the whole story.
In the earlier 22-year period of 1980-2001, the study finds that the spatial extent of heatwave-led CDHEs rises by 1.6% per 1C of global temperature rise. For the more-recent period of 2022-23, this increases “nearly eightfold” to 13.1%.
The change suggests that the rapid increase in the heatwave-led CDHEs occurred after the global average temperature “surpasse[d] a certain temperature threshold”, the paper says.
This threshold is an absolute global average temperature of 14.3C, the authors estimate (based on an 11-year average), which the world passed around the year 2000.
Investigating the recent surge in heatwave-leading CDHEs further, the researchers find a “regime shift” in land-atmosphere dynamics “toward a persistently intensified state after the late 1990s”.
In other words, the way that drier soils drive higher surface temperatures, and vice versa, is becoming stronger, resulting in more heatwave-led compound events.
Daily data
The research has some advantages over other previous studies, Yeh says. For instance, the new work uses daily estimations of CDHEs, compared to monthly data used in past research. This is “important for capturing the detailed occurrence” of these events, says Yeh.
He adds that another advantage of their study is that it distinguishes the sequence of droughts and heatwaves, which allows them to “better understand the differences” in the characteristics of CDHEs.
Dr Meryem Tanarhte is a climate scientist at the University Hassan II in Morocco, and Dr Ruth Cerezo Mota is a climatologist and a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Both scientists, who were not involved in the study, agree that the daily estimations give a clearer picture of how CDHEs are changing.
Cerezo-Mota adds that another major contribution of the study is its global focus. She tells Carbon Brief that in some regions, such as Mexico and Africa, there is a lack of studies on CDHEs:
“Not because the events do not occur, but perhaps because [these regions] do not have all the data or the expertise to do so.”
However, she notes that the reanalysis data used by the study does have limitations with how it represents rainfall in some parts of the world.
Compound impacts
The study notes that if CDHEs continue to intensify – particularly events where heatwaves are the precursors – they could drive declining crop productivity, increased wildfire frequency and severe public health crises.
These impacts could be “much more rapid and severe as global warming continues”, Yeh tells Carbon Brief.
Tanarhte notes that these events can be forecasted up to 10 days ahead in many regions. Furthermore, she says, the strongest impacts can be prevented “through preparedness and adaptation”, including through “water management for agriculture, heatwave mitigation measures and wildfire mitigation”.
The study recommends reassessing current risk management strategies for these compound events. It also suggests incorporating the sequences of drought and heatwaves into compound event analysis frameworks “to enhance climate risk management”.
Cerezo-Mota says that it is clear that the world needs to be prepared for the increased occurrence of these events. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These [risk assessments and strategies] need to be carried out at the local level to understand the complexities of each region.”
The post Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Energy crisis
ENERGY SPIKE: US-Israeli attacks on Iran and subsequent counterattacks across the Middle East have sent energy prices “soaring”, according to Reuters. The newswire reported that the region “accounts for just under a third of global oil production and almost a fifth of gas”. The Guardian noted that shipping traffic through the strait of Hormuz, which normally ferries 20% of the world’s oil, “all but ground to a halt”. The Financial Times reported that attacks by Iran on Middle East energy facilities – notably in Qatar – triggered the “biggest rise in gas prices since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.
‘RISK’ AND ‘BENEFITS’: Bloomberg reported on increases in diesel prices in Europe and the US, speculating that rising fuel costs could be “a risk for president Donald Trump”. US gas producers are “poised to benefit from the big disruption in global supply”, according to