Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Africa energy summit
CLOSING THE GAP: More than 1,000 people, including heads of state, gathered at the Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to agree on a road map for providing electricity to 300 million people in Africa by 2030, Nigeria’s Guardian reported. The Mission 300 initiative was launched by the World Bank and the African Development Bank last year, the newspaper said. About 600 million people in Africa “still lack access to reliable and affordable energy”, the Conversation noted.
SETTLING FINANCE: Reuters reported that the initiative aimed to “unlock” at least $90bn from multilateral development banks, development agencies, finance institutions, private businesses and philanthropies. According to Climate Home News, development banks have committed to collectively deliver $40bn under the initiative – a target that was raised this week to more than $50bn by contributions from other financial institutions.
Trump’s climate rollbacks
CONFUSION: Donald Trump’s administration introduced a widespread spending freeze this week, sparking “widespread confusion and frustration”, Politico reported. On Monday, the White House budget office ordered a pause to all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government, with climate mitigation and adaptation programmes likely affected, the outlet said. It added that a federal judge temporarily blocked the freeze on Tuesday, but this has done little to assuage concerns.
ENDANGERMENT: Trump is also making moves to call into question the “legality and applicability” of the “endangerment finding”, a rule that instructs the federal Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions because they pose a danger to human life, the New York Times reported. The New York Times also reported that Trump wants to deploy a rarely used “god-squad” panel to carve out exemptions in the Endangered Species Act.
ALIGNMENT: Meanwhile, La Nación reported that Argentina’s far-right president Javier Milei is still “mulling over” emulating Trump by removing his country from the Paris Agreement. Rumours that Argentina could be the first country to follow the US in leaving the Paris Agreement first began at COP29 in Azerbaijan after Milei withdrew his delegation from the talks. However, the newspaper noted, Argentina is still subject to agreements, such as the EU-Mercosur deal, that mandate it to meet environmental clauses.
UK’s climate plans
CLIMATE PLEDGE: The UK government has formally submitted its international climate pledge, known as a “nationally determined contribution” (NDC), to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), BusinessGreen reported. The UK is one of a handful of countries to have submitted ahead of the 10 February deadline and is pledging to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 81% compared to 1990 levels by 2035, the publication said.
ROSEBANK RULING: The decision by the UK’s previous Conservative government to greenlight two new oilfields in the North Sea has been ruled unlawful by a court in Edinburgh, the Guardian reported, as it does not take into account emissions caused by burning the oil and gas produced. BusinessGreen reported that burning all the oil from the larger project, Rosebank, would emit as much CO2 as running 56 coal-fired power stations for a year.
LAY OF THE LAND: The Guardian reported that UK environment secretary Steve Reed is to announce a consultation for a long-awaited land-use framework for England. As part of the framework, the government hopes to map the areas of England with the best quality farmland and most potential for nature recovery, with ministers “discouraged from planning developments on the areas marked as best for farming and nature”, the Guardian said.
Around the world
- LA ATTRIBUTION: Human-caused climate change increased the likelihood of the wildfires in Los Angeles by 35% and the intensity by 6%, according to a rapid attribution study from World Weather Attribution.
- HACKING RING RULING: ExxonMobil has been linked to a legal case involving hacking attempts aimed at climate activists, after the man charged alleged that the oil giant was involved, E&E News reported. ExxonMobil denied involvement.
- AI DEMANDS LESS: The surprise breakthrough of Chinese start-up DeepSeek suggests that artificial intelligence may require less energy than previously thought, exposing the “guesswork” on AI power demand, the Financial Times reported.
- CHINA’S RECORD: Record amounts of wind and solar were added in China in 2024, the Associated Press reported. It cited new Carbon Brief analysis showing the clean energy surge halted the rise of China’s emissions in the last 10 months of the year.
46%
The share of Australia’s power supply derived from renewables in the final quarter of 2024 – a new record, according to the Guardian.
Latest climate research
- A Science study, covered by Carbon Brief, showed that climate change played a key role in the “catastrophic” 2023 floods in Sikkim in India, when a “glacial lake outburst flood” led to cascading floods that killed 55 people.
- A study in Nature Medicine found that there could be an extra 2.3 million deaths from extreme temperatures in Europe’s main cities by 2099, in a scenario with little action to curb climate change and adapt to its effects.
- The survival rates of certain bird species dropped during “increasingly severe” dry seasons seen in the Amazon rainforest over the past three decades, according to a new study in Science Advances, “challenging the notion that pristine rainforests can fully protect their biodiversity under increasingly severe climate conditions”.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Analysis by Carbon Brief has found that a forest twice the size of Greater London would need to be planted to offset the additional CO2 emissions from the planned expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton airports announced by UK chancellor Rachel Reeves this week. Reeves confirmed the government’s support for a third runway at Heathrow airport in order to “unlock further growth” in a speech on Wednesday. Earlier in the week, UK energy security and net-zero secretary Ed Miliband said that any expansion “must be justified within carbon budgets and, if it can’t be justified, it won’t go ahead”. The analysis was twice cited in parliament by MPs and covered by a range of media outlets.
Spotlight
East Africa’s climate refugees
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to a young female journalist from Kenya’s Dadaab refugee complex who is documenting how more people are arriving in her community because of climate change-fuelled drought and famine.
Hosting more than 300,000 people and stretching over 50 square kilometres, Dadaab in eastern Kenya is one of the largest refugee camps in the world.
More than 96% of its residents arrived or are descended from neighbouring Somalia. It has make-shift shops, hospitals and schools, but permanent structures are banned by the Kenyan government.
Fardowsa Sirat Gele is a young female journalist who was born and raised in Dadaab. Her mother – like most of the first wave of residents to arrive in Dadaab – fled to the camp in 1991 due to Somalia’s civil war.
Like many in the camp, Fardowsa is stateless and unable to leave the complex. She explained:
“I can say I’m Somali because of my appearance, my language. But I don’t have the courage to say I have a country, because I’ve never lived there. And I can’t say I’m Kenyan, because Kenya will not allow me a birth certificate. So, that hurts me.”
With an interest in sharing the stories of her fellow refugees, Fardowsa works as a journalist at Radio Gargaar, the camp’s radio station.
“Radio Dadaab”, a new film produced by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), followed Fardowsa as she put together a radio programme exploring a new force driving growing numbers of people to arrive at the camp: climate change.
Drought injustice
In recent years, countries in the Horn of Africa have faced their driest conditions in four decades, with several consecutive rainy seasons failing. Then, when rain finally fell, it brought deadly floods that swept away homes and croplands.
In Radio Dadaab, Fardowsa travels to the outskirts of the Dadaab refugee camp to interview new arrivals, who tell her stories of their entire livestock being wiped out, their crops failing and ensuing starvation due to the drought.
A rapid “attribution” analysis found that this deadly drought was made at least 100 times more likely by human-caused climate change.
Despite facing steep climate impacts, East Africa is responsible for just 1.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Fardowsa found that, despite fleeing starvation and the impacts of climate change, when people arrived at Dadaab they continued to suffer, with no access to toilets, medical care or houses.
Political tensions have caused issues with new arrivals being able to register at the camp, which, in turn, has caused difficulty accessing resources and help, according to Fardowsa’s reporting.
This has resulted in “refugees that were already in the camps and the new arrivals [having to share] the little aid [available],” she told Carbon Brief.
The future
Fardowsa expressed concern about how global politics will affect Dadaab.
When asked about her hopes for her future, Fardowsa said “there is no hope because Trump has come back and the US was the main country helping with aid”.
The US provides more foreign aid globally than any other country and, last week, following several climate policy rollbacks, the Trump administration ordered a “sweeping freeze” on new funding for almost all US foreign assistance.
Yet, Fardowsa is committed to uplifting the voices of refugees for whom climate change is a threat multiplier.
“The main aim [of the film] was to show the world that there are human beings suffering because of environmental problems, like drought and displacement. To show empathy for refugees was the main focus.”
Radio Dadaab is available to watch on YouTube.
Watch, read, listen
RENEWABLE REVEAL: The Financial Times looked at how, despite abundant fossil-fuel reserves, several Middle East countries have huge plans for renewable energy, making the area the fastest growing renewables market outside China.
STORY TIME: Three climate change “storytellers” featured in this week’s BBC Sounds’ Start the Week podcast, discussing writing the new climate talks-themed play Kyoto, Shetland’s windfarms and the art of agreeing.
NET-ZERO DADS: The Economist published a tongue-in-cheek look at how middle-aged men in the UK are becoming the unlikely early adopters of net-zero solutions.
Coming up
- 3-8 February: 78th meeting of the CITES standing committee, Geneva, Switzerland
- 7 February:Turks and Caicos Islands general election
Pick of the jobs
- Green Climate Fund, project officer, private sector facility | Salary: $87,000-$96,200. Location: Incheon, South Korea
- Nattergal, rewilding ecologist | Salary: £30,000-£35,000. Location: Remote with UK travel
- Greenpeace Africa, pan-African political strategist and responsive campaigner | Salary: Unknown. Location: South Africa, Cameroon, Senegal, Kenya or remote in Africa
- City, University of London, research fellow, centre for food policy | Salary: £42,632-£60,321. Location: London
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 31 January 2025: Closing Africa’s power gap; UK needs forest ‘twice size of London’ to offset airport plans; Kenya’s climate refugees appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate Change
A Data Center Could Be Coming to an Upstate New York Town, and Residents Are Speaking Out
The town board in Lansing is considering a temporary ban on large-scale development that could delay construction.
Residents in an upstate New York community are trying to prevent construction of a planned data center by approving a year-long ban on large-scale development.
A Data Center Could Be Coming to an Upstate New York Town, and Residents Are Speaking Out
Bill Gates’ foundation has promised to invest $1.4 billion over four years to help smallholder farmers adapt to the worsening effects of climate change – a commitment that comes just a week after a new memo from the tech billionaire drew sharp criticism from the climate community.
The funding from the Gates Foundation will help expand access for farmers across sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia to innovations that strengthen rural livelihoods and food systems, it said in a statement. These include mobile apps offering tailored weather information for planting decisions, drought and heat-resistant crops and livestock, and efforts to restore degraded land.
The pledge announced on Friday builds on a previous $1.4-billion commitment announced three years ago at COP27 that, the foundation says, is already helping “millions” of farmers.
“Smallholder farmers are feeding their communities under the toughest conditions imaginable,” said Bill Gates, who chairs the foundation. “We’re supporting their ingenuity with the tools and resources to help them thrive – because investing in their resilience is one of the smartest, most impactful things we can do for people and the planet.”
Shift from focus on “near-term” emission goals
The investment supports Bill Gates’ vision of “prioritizing climate investments for maximum human impact”, as the Microsoft co-founder outlined in a 17-page memo he published last week, according to the foundation.
In his missive, Gates acknowledged that climate change is “a very important problem”, but called for a “strategic pivot” away from focusing too much on “near-term emission goals” – something that, he argued, is diverting funds away from efforts to eradicate poverty.
“Our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world’s poorest countries,” he wrote.
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The memo has drawn ire from many climate scientists who, while agreeing with some of Gates’ central observations, have condemned his overall framing.
Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, said the world has ample resources to both reduce planet-heating emissions and help people adapt to climate change – if the political will exists.
“We don’t necessarily live in a zero-sum world,” he said in a webinar organised by Covering Climate Now, which supports media coverage of climate change. “It’s a policy problem, not a resource problem”.
Hausfather added that when climate finance is directed toward helping the world’s poorest countries curb their emissions, it might be better spent on adaptation or disease eradication instead. “But that’s not the fundamental thing standing in the way of solving climate change,” he said. “That is emissions mostly coming from the rich countries.”
“Straw man” argument criticised
Experts have also expressed frustration over Gates’ perceived “black-and-white” approach to climate impacts, which has been seized upon by notable climate deniers.
In his memo, the billionaire wrote that “although climate change will have serious consequences – particularly for people in the poorest countries – it will not lead to humanity’s demise”.
Picking up on Gates’ words – and misrepresenting them – US President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: “I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue.”
Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, said Gates’ framing relied on a “straw man” argument.
“I’ve not seen a single scientific paper that ever posited the human race will become extinct due to climate change,” she said. But Gates “is speaking about it as if scientists are saying that,” she added. “What we are saying is that suffering increases with each tenth of a degree of warming.”
The post After climate memo row, Gates gives $1.4bn to help farmers cope with a hotter world appeared first on Climate Home News.
After climate memo row, Gates gives $1.4bn to help farmers cope with a hotter world
To many people, Brazil conjures up images of the endless Amazon River, lush tropical rainforest and breathtaking wildlife. In a country of its size, this picture can remain true while also containing a more complex and changing set of realities.
For example, climate change, high water demand and human activity are also leading to increased desert-like conditions. One recent study found that in the past 30 years, there has been a 30% expansion in dryland habitat across Brazil. One of the most affected areas includes the state of Pará, a major part of the Amazon rainforest and home to Belém, which is hosting this year’s UN climate summit.
Water shortages
Brazil’s northeast region is particularly noted for its semi-arid landscape and water scarcity.
Pernambuco, a small state by Brazilian standards, extends from the eastern Atlantic coast into the region’s interior for around 450 miles. Water availability is a constant concern for many communities across the state, especially family farms which are significant contributors to the regional economy.
“One of the main problems people are facing here is the growing frequency of droughts and the irregularity of rainfall. As a result, producing food has become extremely difficult,” said Carlos Magno, a coordinator at Centro Sabiá, a non-profit organisation in the area.
“We’re also experiencing stronger heatwaves, which have been causing the death of many trees and affecting the local environment even more,” Magno added.
He went on to describe how family farming in the region is almost entirely dependent on rain to grow food. There are no irrigation systems or wells to support communities so when the rains fail, it means less food on the table.
Addressing these concerns is a key objective of an ongoing project supported by the Adaptation Fund’s Climate Innovation Accelerator (AFCIA), administered by the UN Development Programme and carried out by Centro Sabiá.
Transforming lives
Centro Sabiá has an intimate knowledge of how family farming operates in the region. It spent time consulting with communities to better understand their concerns, and hearing their ideas on how to combat water scarcity.
The project is implementing simple, yet affordable, climate solutions which are improving the livelihoods of local people. One intervention being explored is to recycle wastewater to help with the growth of new agroforestry plots. The water – taken from washing or cleaning – is filtered and then redirected for use on plots that combine crop farming with tree planting. The technique is designed to improve soil health, cut pollution and improve biodiversity.
“The water that used to pollute the soil now nourishes crops and trees,” added Magno. “When people realise that their available water is limited, but they can reuse it to grow food, it changes everything.”
On the project, 130 families, totalling over 31,000 people, introduced greywater reuse across 30 new agroforestry plots. The systems are low-cost and simple to implement within a farm’s existing infrastructure. They can be used for years with the initial access to technical support, and, as a result, are now treating millions of litres of water each year.
The impacts in Pernambuco have been immediate. Each family is estimated to be saving US$350 a year on water, and earning over US$300 a month from selling agroforestry products.
Making farming greener
Agroforestry has been identified as a sustainable alternative to industrial farming.
According to some scientists, the Amazon rainforest is able to recycle up to 5 litres of water per square metre a day. By contrast, land used for pasture is only able to recycle 1.5 litres. This helps to explain why some previously biodiverse areas that have been converted for cattle ranching and farming are now becoming drier.
Agroforestry seeks to redress the balance by including trees in the agricultural process, bringing more moisture – and carbon – back into the soil. The response to these techniques from people across Pernambuco has so far been overwhelmingly positive.
“Nature is doing really well for us,” reported Cilene, a local participant in the project. In a recent interview with the Adaptation Fund, she explained how in the past, “we bought things with pesticides. Now with this project we are learning to have better, healthier food.”
“Compared to how we were living before, we see better results and sustainable benefits,” she added.
Francisca Ferraz de Aquino Silva, a farmer in Calumbi, agrees. “This project was a real turning point in my life,” she said.
“After the technology arrived, I realised it was possible to make better use of water, without waste, and to produce food while improving the soil. It was a new opportunity in my life,” she told Centro Sabiá.
“Agroforestry reduces the need for heavy labour. You work without much effort, it brings economic return, and nature works in your favour…I saw that it was possible to live in semi-arid conditions with dignity and prosperity – planting biodiversity and working with agroforestry systems,” she added.
What this means for COP30
As heads of state discuss the state of the planet in Belém, they only need look around at the surrounding rainforest to see how vital a role it plays.
Human development and extreme weather are putting significant pressure on nature and people’s livelihoods. If these drier conditions persist, the rainforest could be turned into savannah, which some scientists believe will create further dry weather and drought.
But the lessons from Belém’s southerly neighbour over in Pernambuco could provide an answer.
“Policymakers and delegates attending COP30 have a lot to learn from the project,” commented Magno. “It was built with civil society. It was carried out with the contribution of organisations and people who work every day with local communities.”
“By the end of the [climate] conference, the decisions and commitments must truly guarantee that adaptation resources reach the communities that are struggling every day to adapt to climate change,” he continued.
“It is crucial for funds from international climate agreements and adaptation policies to reach the local level, where they are needed the most.”
Adam Wentworth is a freelance writer based in Brighton, UK
The post COP30: Brazil is drying up despite its rich natural resources appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP30: Brazil is drying up despite its rich natural resources
A Data Center Could Be Coming to an Upstate New York Town, and Residents Are Speaking Out
After climate memo row, Gates gives $1.4bn to help farmers cope with a hotter world
COP30: Brazil is drying up despite its rich natural resources
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