Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
G7 sets end date for coal
CUTTING COAL: The US, UK, Germany and other Group of Seven (G7) countries committed to phase out coal power by 2035, the Associated Press reported, noting that it “puts a timeline” on global pledges to “phase down” coal. G7 countries agreed two years ago to decarbonise their power sectors by 2035 and Climate Home News noted that most nations in the group already have coal phase-out plans.
LEEWAY: However, the G7 pact also included an “alternative goal” to phase out coal power “in a timeline consistent with keeping a limit of a 1.5C temperature rise within reach”, Reuters said. Sources told the outlet that this would “grant room for manoeuvre to Germany and Japan”, two coal-reliant countries. The Financial Times said the deal also leaves open the possibility of “continued investment in gas”.
FUELLING THE FIRE: A study found that global banks lent $470bn (£374bn) to coal industry companies between January 2021 and December 2023, Der Spiegel reported. Meanwhile, in the UK, the government is expected to permit fossil fuel companies to explore for oil and gas under offshore wind sites for the first time, the Guardian reported, with experts saying this will likely do little to increase production.
Deadly floods hit globe
COUNTRYWIDE IMPACT: Heavy rainfall and flooding have hit many parts of Kenya in recent weeks, killing more than 180 people, Reuters reported. At least 48 people were killed after a dam burst its banks near a town in the south of the country, according to the Standard newspaper. A river also overflowed into the famous Masai Mara wildlife reserve and flooded tourist camps, the New York Times said.
CLIMATE LINK: Context News reported that scientists blame a “deadly cocktail” of climate change and the El Niño weather pattern for floods in Kenya and other neighbouring countries. In the Conversation, a hydrology consultant said that the floods also “expose decades of poor urban planning and bad land management”.
HIGHWAY HIT: Meanwhile, heavy rainfall persisted in China’s Guangdong province. At least 24 people died after a highway collapsed due to the “torrential rain”, the Independent said. There is no formal “attribution” study on whether global warming worsened the Guangdong floods, but one rapid analysis found that the “somewhat uncommon event” was “exacerbated” by both human-caused climate change and natural variability.
BURST DAM: In Brazil, more than 30 people following heavy rains and flooding and a hydroelectric dam burst, BBC News reported. The “extreme weather” across the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul was caused by a “rare combination of hotter than average temperatures, high humidity and strong winds”, the outlet said.
Around the world
- CARBON BUDGETS: For the second time in two years, the High Court in London has ruled that the UK’s climate action plan is unlawful, Reuters reported, in a legal challenge put forward by environmental groups.
- UP, UP AND AWAY: Airlines lobbied the EU to “weaken” its plans to make the sector monitor and report non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions from flights, according to the Financial Times.
- SNP SWITCH: Humza Yousaf resigned as Scotland’s first minister days after he ended a power-sharing deal with the country’s Green party, the Scotsman reported. Yousaf “cut ties” with the Greens after a “bitter row” over his party’s recent decision to abandon 2030 climate targets, Sky News said.
- PLASTIC PITCH: Rwanda and Peru put forward a proposal to reduce global plastic production by 40% by 2040 at UN treaty talks, the Guardian reported. The target should “align” with aims under the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5C, the two countries said.
- BIG OIL: Large oil companies “misled Americans for decades” on climate change and knew the “consequences of their emissions” for at least 60 years, according to a new Democrat report and Congressional hearing covered by NBC News.
195
The number of countries expected to submit new biodiversity pledges ahead of the UN summit COP16 in October.
7
Countries that have done so, Carbon Brief analysis showed.
Latest climate research
- Methane emissions from China’s abandoned coal mines have been underestimated, Nature Climate Change research found.
- Plans to draw down CO2 from the atmosphere “fall short” of the measures needed to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures, new research covered by Carbon Brief warned.
- A study in Nature Geoscience said that losing tropical forest has a greater effect on increasing land surface temperatures than gaining forest does on cooling them.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Recent Carbon Brief analysis showed that fossil fuels supplied a record-low 2.4% of electricity in Britain, for one hour on Monday 15 April. This new chart paints a more complete picture of how British electricity supplies are shifting decisively away from fossil fuels. The figure shows the distribution of half-hours in each year since 2009, arranged according to the share of fossil fuels during each time period. Periods when the grid was more than 50% reliant on fossil fuels are shaded red and, reading from top to bottom, these have become increasingly rare over the past 15 years. Periods with less than 50% fossil fuel, shaded blue, are becoming more common.
Spotlight
Brazil’s pitch to tax the ultra-rich
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to a policy expert about how Brazil’s plan to tax billionaires could help to address climate change.
Earlier this year, Brazil proposed a global tax on the ultra-wealthy, an idea recently supported by other Group of 20 (G20) countries.
The funds could be used to tackle inequality and climate change, ministers from Brazil, South Africa, Germany and Spain wrote in the Guardian last week.
The tax would raise up to $250bn (£200bn) each year from around 2,700 billionaires, according to a report from the EU Tax Observatory.
Quentin Parrinello, a senior policy advisor at the think-tank, tells Carbon Brief about the proposal and how it could help to tackle climate change. This interview was edited for length.
Carbon Brief: Can you explain how a 2% billionaire wealth tax would work?
Quentin Parrinello: We’re looking at all of the taxes paid by the super-rich, adding all of them and, if they do not add up to a minimum amount [of] 2% of their wealth, then there’s a top-up tax to reach that 2%…Back in February, there was a meeting of finance ministers from the G20 in São Paulo. Gabriel Zucman [director of the EU Tax Observatory] was invited to present that idea of a minimum tax on the super-rich…There was a wide recognition in response that tax progressivity is indeed a topic that needs to be tackled and also a lot of demands for technical details, which is why the Brazil [G20] presidency commissioned us to do a report that is due to look at the feasibility of the technical implications of that tax.
CB: With climate change already intensifying each year, should these discussions have been pursued decades ago?
QP: Billionaires derive their wealth from global assets that have access to global markets and that emit carbon all over the globe. So they have a very clear responsibility in heightening climate change and carbon emissions…I think that, sadly, the conversation might be slightly easier now than it was 10 or 15 years ago because we’re seeing in many more countries today the effect of climate change. It’s not rhetoric about potential future impacts, we’re seeing the impact now. We’re seeing an increasing number of floodings and heatwaves everywhere.
CB: The proposal is due to be discussed at the G20 summit in July. What are the next steps?
QP: We’re releasing our report with all the technical details around June. Our understanding is that the [Brazilian G20] presidency wants to use that report to convince a large number of countries to endorse the need for a discussion to happen around the summer. As more countries endorse it, perhaps we’ll have enough countries to start an international negotiation. Those things, unfortunately, take time. So we’re not looking at something that will deliver a tax up and running in six months. That might take a few months more, perhaps a few years more. I think what we need to have is clear commitment from G20 presidencies, from an increasing number of countries to actually talk about this to go towards a negotiation framework that enables us to deliver on that tax.
Watch, read, listen
CLIMATE SOLUTIONS: Data scientist Hannah Ritchie spoke to the New York Times podcast the Ezra Klein Show about the feasibility of “sustainability without sacrifice”.
WOODLAND WOES: The Financial Times looked at how deforestation can be a “driving factor” in diseases spreading from animals to humans.
GREEN PUSHBACK: The Guardian examined how climate policies have become a “focal point for far-right attacks” in Germany in a short video documentary.
Coming up
- 5 May: Panama general election
- 6-10 May: 19th session of the UN Forum on Forests, New York City
- 8-10 May: AIM for Climate summit, Washington DC
Pick of the jobs
- Carbon Brief, journalist internship | Salary: £13.50 per hour and £100 travel expenses. Location: London
- Carbon Pulse, Asia-Pacific environmental markets correspondent | Salary: Unknown. Location: Remote in Asia, Australia or New Zealand
- Pulitzer Centre, ocean reporting network fellowship | Salary: Covers current salary for one year. Location: Anywhere
- Forest Data Partnership, monitoring, evaluation and learning internship | Salary: $20-24 per hour. Location: Washington DC/hybrid
- Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, senior policy officer – protected areas and nature recovery | Salary: £38,389-£41,212. Location: Edinburgh
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 3 May 2024: G7 sets end date for coal; Deadly floods around globe; Brazil’s pitch to tax ultra-rich appeared first on Carbon Brief.
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31
Just 77 heads of state or government are scheduled to address the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, a third less than the COP28 peak -
Africa wants adaptation finance on COP31 agenda, raising risk of a fight
The African Group wants dedicated space on tripling adaptation finance, the Green Climate Fund and trade, setting up a possible clash
To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
COP31 presidency announces AI pledge as UN climate chief says Big Tech ‘on thin ice’
None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in th