Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Balmy new year
NEW RECORD: Last month was the warmest January recorded on Earth, the Financial Times reported, based on data from the EU’s earth observation agency. This “surprise[ed] scientists who expected the cooling La Niña weather cycle in the tropical Pacific to slow almost two years of record-high temperatures”, the newspaper said. January 2025 was also the third-hottest month ever recorded.
2C ‘DEAD’?: The aim to limit global temperature rise to “well below” 2C is “dead”, said veteran climate scientist Prof James Hansen, after publishing an analysis on “underestimated” warming, the Guardian reported. The analysis focused on areas of “deep scientific uncertainty”, Carbon Brief science contributor Dr Zeke Hausfather told the newspaper, and, in his opinion, “represent[s] something closer to a worst-case opinion”.
NORTH POLE: A separate Guardian article noted that temperatures north of Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean soared more than 20C above average last Sunday. This put “actual temperatures close to ice’s melting point of 0C”, the newspaper said. Mika Rantanen, a scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, told the newspaper that it was “probably not the most extreme ever observed, but still at the upper edge of what can happen in the Arctic”.
Trump tariffs and funding cuts
TRADE THREATS: US president Donald Trump sent ripples through global markets by adding a 10% tariff on goods imported from China, CNN reported. China retaliated with 10% tariffs on US “crude oil, agricultural machinery, large-displacement cars and pickup trucks”, plus 15% tariffs on coal and liquefied “natural” gas, Sky News said. Trump’s tariff threats against Mexico and Canada were paused for 30 days, the Associated Press noted.
CHANGES: Trump nominated Neil Jacobs, an ally previously “cited for misconduct”, as the new head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NPR reported. Elsewhere, 168 employees working on environmental justice programmes at the Environmental Protection Agency were placed on administrative leave, Reuters reported. Separately, the Guardian found that mentions of climate change were removed from the websites of “several major” US government departments.
FUNDING CUT FALLOUT: Hundreds of climate programmes funded by the US government “risk disappearing” after the Trump administration’s “attack” on the US aid agency, Climate Home News reported. USAID is a “major provider of grant-based finance for climate action in the global south”, the outlet noted. Amid the continued fallout from other federal funding cuts, Science reported: “Many scientists remain in limbo at thousands of academic institutions and nongovernmental agencies that rely on federal research grants.”
Around the world
- LATE PLANS: Major polluters such as India and the EU are expected to miss the UN deadline to submit climate plans for 2035 by 10 February, the Financial Times reported. UN climate chief Simon Stiell said latecomers must submit plans “by September”.
- QUEENSLAND DOWNPOUR: Up to 1.5m of rain fell in Queensland, Australia last weekend in a deluge likely to have been exacerbated by climate change, the Sydney Morning Herald said. Scientists linked the rain to a “prolonged marine heatwave in the Coral Sea”, but noted that an official attribution study has not been carried out.
- UPHEAVAL: Indonesia’s special envoy for climate and energy said the Paris Agreement is “no longer relevant” for the country, Antara News said. Argentina is analysing the impact of withdrawing from Paris and other agreements after announcing it will follow Trump in exiting the World Health Organization, Ámbito said.
- OIL AND GAS: The Guardian reported on “growing internal backlash” against UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s potential plans to approve the controversial Rosebank oilfield. Starmer allegedly assured executives at energy company Equinor, Rosebank’s lead developer, of his support for the project, according to the Daily Telegraph.
- ROLLBACK: Equinor announced plans to halve renewable investment and increase oil and gas production by 10% over the next two years, BBC News said.
- COLLABORATION: An editorial in the Global Times, a major state-supporting newspaper in China, said that the nation and the EU should “strengthen cooperation” on climate change and “lead the rest of the world on a cooperative path of green development” in light of Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.
$158
The usual price for a night in an apartment in Belém, Brazil.
$15,266
The currently offered “surreal” price for this November when the city will host COP30, the Associated Press reported.
Latest climate research
- Rat numbers are on the rise in cities such as Washington DC, New York and Amsterdam due to climate change and other factors, according to a Science Advances study.
- Analysis in PLOS Climate found that some of the countries most vulnerable to climate change received disproportionately less adaptation-focused global government aid over a recent 10-year period.
- Strategies around energy demand could reduce emissions from buildings by 51-85% and transport by 37-91% by 2050, compared to a “current policies scenario”, research in Nature Energy said.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
“Natural” world heritage sites, such as the Galápagos Islands, Serengeti national park and the Great Barrier Reef, could be exposed to multiple climate extremes by the end of the century, a new study covered by Carbon Brief found. The maps show which sites will face climate impacts under low (top left), intermediate (top right), high (bottom left) and very high (bottom right) warming pathways. The dots are coloured red if the site will face climate impacts from heat, drought or extreme rainfall by the year 2100.
Spotlight
Climate negotiations in the West End
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to the writers of Kyoto, a new London play dramatising the signing of the first global agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions at COP3.
Carbon Brief readers are likely all-too familiar with the annual climate COP summits, where delegates from almost every country in the world negotiate on climate action.
In 1997, for the first time, developed nations agreed to set binding targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Now, a play in London’s West End delves into how this deal – the Kyoto Protocol – came about.
It was written by Joe Murphy and Joe Roberston, the playwrights behind The Jungle, a hit show set in a refugee camp in Calais, France.
Kyoto emerged from a desire to write about climate change in a “compelling way that would engage people”, Robertson told Carbon Brief:
“We had been talking a lot about the disagreeable nature of society at the moment and so we were looking for stories of agreement. The question of how to write about climate, and the search for a story of agreement, sort of fused together in finding and diving into the world of Kyoto and the protocol.”
Murphy said this kicked off two years of research and discussions with people involved in the Kyoto talks. He added:
“[We] spoke to incredible diplomats and delegates and scientists and lawyers and world leaders who, almost unanimously, were desperate to talk about this time and spoke with such emotion and pride.
“As artists trying to grapple with a subject that often despairs people, or disempowers people, or disengages people, we realised this was a route into the subject that could actually genuinely be dramatic, could genuinely have jeopardy.”
Kyoto – whose lead character is oil lobbyist Don Pearlman – is not short on drama as delegates fight about the placement of brackets and commas in the negotiating text to the bitter end. In one chaotic scene, translators go home after talks run too late, leaving negotiators in a mess of language.
The show also highlights how the real COP3 chair, Raúl Estrada-Oyuela from Argentina, “went out of his way to talk to everyone” in search of agreement, Robertson said:
“He understood that there are all sorts of influences on the conference floor…He would talk about the zone of agreement. With certain people, the zone of agreement was tiny, almost invisible…But you can expand out once you’ve established something that’s commonplace.”
The writers are working on two more COP plays – focused on Copenhagen in 2009 and Paris in 2015. Robertson said they are “really excited to think about how to represent those two very different conferences – each a stepping stone, it feels, to where we are today”.
Murphy added that they want to see more collaboration between science, activism, politics and arts to “tell these stories in really exciting ways”, saying:
“It’s thrilling and I think there’s so much more to do.”
Kyoto runs until 3 May 2025 at Soho Place in London.
Watch, read, listen
SPOKEN WORD: The Third Pole Podcast from Dialogue Earth explored the impact of climate change on Indigenous languages in Pakistan’s remote mountain communities.
CRITICAL MINERALS: Issues around mining for cobalt – a mineral “essential to decarbonisation” – in the Democratic Republic of the Congo employ “new forms of old colonial practices”, researchers wrote in the Conversation.
CLEAN POWER: The head of the UK’s mission control for clean power, Chris Stark, discussed the UK’s energy and climate goals on the Bloomberg Zero podcast.
Coming up
- 9 February: Ecuador general election
- 10 February: Deadline for countries to submit new nationally determined contributions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
- 14-16 February: Munich Security Conference, Germany
Pick of the jobs
- The Guardian, environment desk work experience for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic applicants | Salary: Unknown. Location: London
- Climate Change Committee, senior executive officer analyst on land-use, agriculture and nature team | Salary: £45,308-£49,775. Location: London
- Human Rights Watch, senior researcher. Salary: $79,500-$85,000. Location: Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Climate & Community Institute, junior research fellowship | Salary: $50 per hour. Location: US, remote
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 7 February 2025: Hottest January on record; Trump tariffs; UN climate talks star in theatre thriller appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during the conflict that broke out in October 2023 has wrecked progress towards adapting the enclave to climate change and left two million Gazans vulnerable to heatwaves, drought and disease, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said in a new climate plan submitted to the United Nations.
Palestine’s third nationally determined contribution (NDC), uploaded to the UN climate body’s website this week, says that while “the aggression on the Gaza Strip did not make the climate worse”, “it removed the housing, water and sanitation systems, health facilities, energy networks, roads and livelihoods through which people absorb a climate they were already struggling with.”
The 91-page document lists the types of infrastructure it says Israel has destroyed and notes how the destruction will worsen the impacts of climate change. It says the bombing of hospitals and rising hunger have make it harder for Gazans to cope with the health impacts of climate-driven heatwaves and waterborne diseases.
The destruction of water tanks, boreholes and desalination plants, meanwhile, have left Gazans struggling with the effects of water shortages and drought, while mass unemployment reduces people’s ability to afford climate-driven price rises. The erasure of most of the Strip’s homes makes it more difficult for people to avoid the sun’s increasing heat, the NDC said.
Many Gazans are now living in the ruins of collapsed buildings or in makeshift shelters and tents that offer little or no protection from high temperatures.
Palestine’s previous goals to cut emissions and adapt to climate change in Gaza, expressed in its last NDC five years ago, were based on a pre-war baseline that “no longer describes anything that exists”, the NDC says. Progress made since 2021 has now been destroyed, it adds.
Green reconstruction of Gaza
Instead of continuing to aim for these adaptation and emissions-reduction goals, the PA is now calling for the green reconstruction of Gaza. It says buildings should be constructed again in an energy-efficient manner with solar panels and served with modern water, waste and transport systems.
While the PA, controlled by the Fatah political party, continues to claim legitimate control of Gaza, the strip was effectively governed by Fatah’s rival Hamas between 2007 and the recent war. Control is now split between Israel and the political wing of Islamist militant group Hamas, after a US-backed ceasefire took effect in October 2025, although a UN-backed committee plans to take over.
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The United Nations, European Union and World Bank have jointly estimated that Gaza needs $71.4 billion of investment in the next two years to recover and build back. This process should be Palestinian-led, they said in April.
But US President Donald Trump has said the US should “take over” and “own” Gaza and redevelop it as the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Israel’s right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel should control the territory with civil administration managed by Palestinians favourable to Israel.
With occupation, targets conditional
In the other part of Palestine, the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority carries out some government functions, but ultimate control rests with Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Because Israel controls planning in most of the West Bank, the NDC argues that the PA cannot pursue all the climate projects it wants. In addition, Israel restricts the movement of PA officials, making data collection difficult, and controls the West Bank’s electricity supply meaning that the PA cannot control whether it comes from dirty or clean sources of energy.
Given this situation, the NDC says that all of Palestine’s new climate targets are conditional but it will aim to reduce emissions 12.8% below a business-as-usual baseline by 2035 and 17.1% by 2040. If the Israeli occupation ends and Palestine regains full sovereignty over its land and resources, it will aim for reductions of 15.1% and 19.1% by 2035 and 2040 respectively under an “independence pathway”.
That could allow, for example, for greater electrification and reducing emissions per unit of growth, the document said.
To achieve the 2035 emissions-reduction target and adapt to the impacts of climate change, the PA says it needs $8.6 billion in total. This funding would be spent on measures like encouraging solar farms and rooftop solar and scaling up solar water heating to cover four-fifths of households. To complement the planned increase in solar power, the authority wants to modernise the electricity grid and install battery storage.
In the transport sector, it aims to promote the uptake of electric vehicles, develop bus rapid transit corridors and scrap old polluting trucks and buses. In Gaza in particular, it wants to deploy 66 electric buses when the conflict ends.
To adapt to climate-driven drought, the NDC includes initiatives to reuse wastewater through treatment plants, build desalination plants in Gaza to remove salt from seawater, and promote irrigation for farmers.
The new climate plan was prepared by Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the governments of Britain and Spain.
The United Nations recognised Palestine’s statehood in 2012 and it joined the UN’s climate convention and signed the Paris climate agreement – which requires countries to submit more ambitious NDCs every five years – in 2016.
The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. But in late 2024, then Israeli climate envoy Gideon Behar told Climate Home News that the war and the resulting environmental destruction in Gaza was the fault of Hamas.
The post Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.
Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change
Solar power generation in the UK reached a new record over the summer of 2026, as temperatures across the nation soared, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Collectively over June, July and August, solar farms and rooftops generated 8.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in the UK*, as shown in the chart below.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Chris Hewett, chief executive of trade association Solar Energy UK welcomed the new record, adding that it was driven by “clear skies and continued growth in deployment”.
This surge in generation took place amid the hottest summer on record in the UK, with five heatwaves between May and August.
Summer 2026 was the sixth sunniest on record, with more than 620 hours of sunshine, according to the Met Office. England and Wales – which experienced the most extreme heat – saw their second-sunniest summers on record.
June 2026 was the hottest June in England since records began in 1884, according to Met Office data, while Wales and the UK as a whole experienced their second-warmest June.
It was the driest July for England and Wales since records began in 1836, with some parts of London seeing no rain at all in the month, while Wisley in Surrey had no rain for 62 days.
In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August.
According to the Met Office, this summer’s record mean temperature was made 130 times more likely by climate change.
Amid these hot and sunny months, solar power generation increased 23% from the same period in 2025. This is double the level of solar generation over the summer of 2021, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
While solar panels can be affected by periods of extreme heat, the longer hours of daylight and higher levels of irradiation over the summer more than offset any efficiency losses.
June, July and August all saw solar set new monthly records for solar generation – July saw the highest solar generation in a calendar month ever, with 3.3TWh meeting 15% of overall electricity demand for the month.
As of the end of August, the total UK solar generation in 2026 stood at 17TWh – 13% higher than the same point in 2025.
The number of solar farms and rooftop installations has grown substantially in recent years, helping to boost generation. Domestic rooftop solar accounts for around 29% of total capacity.
In 2025, the UK’s solar capacity reached 21 gigawatts (GW) by the third quarter of the year, according to UK government figures. This is a jump of 3GW, or 18%, year-on-year, as Carbon Brief reported in January.
(Capacity is the maximum output possible from an electricity generation, whereas generation is what was produced over a certain time period, such as a day, month or year.)
According to the University of Sheffield, the installed solar capacity is now nearly 24GW.
This includes nearly 172,000 solar installations that have been fitted across the UK since the start of 2026, according to recent government figures. In July alone, more than 19,800 rooftop solar panels were installed – the equivalent of one installation every two minutes.
In total, nearly 1.7m households in the UK now have solar panels installed.
Over 26 heatwave days this summer – periods of at least three days when temperatures exceed the Met Office’s county-level heatwave temperature threshold – UK households with rooftop solar panels avoided an estimated £86.7m in electricity costs, according to analysis by Utility Bidder.
Talking about the surge in solar generation this summer, Hewett says:
“[It] not only kept bills down for people with solar and batteries in their homes, but helped keep overall power prices much lower than they would have been if Britain had been relying on more gas generation during the day”.
Despite the record generation, no new half-hourly solar power output record was set in the summer of 2026. This still stands at 15.2 megawatts (MW) on 23 April 2026.
* This article refers to the UK throughout, but strictly relates to the island of Great Britain, made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is part of the separate, all-Ireland electricity system.
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The post Analysis: UK solar power hits record high over summer 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Farmers around Europe are dealing with the aftermath of a summer of extreme heat, drought and wildfires that were exacerbated by climate change.
Human-caused climate change is increasing the severity and likelihood of many extreme weather events around the world, which is increasing volatility for food producers.
This summer resulted in, for example, shrunken potatoes in the Netherlands, reduced carrot harvests in France, dried-up rice fields in Italy and scorched olive groves in parts of the Mediterranean region.
Global food prices are currently at their highest level since early 2023 due to “heatwaves and energy price dynamics”, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Other factors such as blocked fertiliser supplies in the Strait of Hormuz and high fuel costs have also played a role in this year’s agricultural outputs.
In the six charts below, Carbon Brief provides a snapshot of the impact this summer’s extremes are considered to have had on crop production and yields across Europe.
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
France, in particular, will see heavy losses in the amount of cereals – such as wheat, barley and oats – it produces this year, according to European Commission data.
French cereal production is expected to drop by almost 8 megatonnes (Mt) in 2026, compared to 2025.
The chart above shows that most European countries, aside from Bulgaria, will also see production losses this year.
Germany is due to see the second-largest losses in production, dropping by almost 4Mt compared to 2025.
Prof Til Feike, a cropping systems expert at the Julius Kühn-Institut, says many areas in Germany and Austria, as with other parts of Europe, have been “hit hard by a long-lasting dry period in combination with record-high heatwaves”.
This has resulted in dry grassland for animals and lower yields of maize, which is a “key fodder crop” for livestock. He tells Carbon Brief:
“In the long run, farming must adapt better to more extreme weather conditions, not only heat and drought, but also prolonged wet periods. So, there is no one-fits-all solution for climate change adaptation.”
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
Heat and a lack of water have “substantially worsened” crop expectations this summer in western and most of central Europe, according to a recent bulletin from the EU Joint Research Centre.
Yields are expected to be “significantly reduced”, with local crop failures “likely” in areas such as France, southern Germany, northern and central Italy, and Hungary, it added.
The chart below shows that yields of cereal grains – which, here, refers to the tonnes of a grain grown per hectare of land – are expected to fall in most EU countries in 2026.
Slovakia, Austria and Hungary are expected to see the largest declines in cereal yields, reducing by more than one tonne per hectare in 2026 compared to 2025.
The recent EU bulletin noted that irrigated crops performed well in Portugal this summer – the country with the largest yield increases. Other crops relying on rainfall showed growing signs of heat stress, it added.
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
The record heatwave that hit many parts of Europe in June contributed to an estimated €2-2.3bn in cumulative grain production losses, as shown in the chart below.
The intense June heat in western Europe would have been “virtually impossible” just 50 years ago, according to a rapid climate attribution study. It was the region’s hottest June on record.
The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank analysed June and July 2026 grain forecasts from Coceral, a European grain traders association.
ECIU estimated lost supply by multiplying the change in tonnes of grains between these two months by prices for harvest delivery in 28 European countries.
Major grain producers France, Germany, Hungary and Spain accounted for 86% of the lost revenue, according to the ECIU.
Extreme heat is also expected to have a wider economic impact across the continent. Analysis from Triodos Bank found that this summer’s extreme weather could reduce the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) by around 1% this year, or around €180bn.
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
If current trends continue, the average yields for cereals and oilseeds will result in the UK’s worst harvest since detailed records began in 1984, according to ECIU.
Barley yields could fall by 15%, oats by 14% and wheat yields by 6% year-on-year, according to 2026 harvest surveys from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, a non-departmental public body that provides agricultural data to the UK government.
ECIU said that, even if the situation improves, this year is still expected to be one of the five worst harvests on record. This means that four of the five worst harvests in the UK have occurred in the past decade.
Consumers will likely see higher prices and/or smaller vegetables in supermarkets as a result, Tim O’Malley, chairman of UK company Nationwide Produce, told BBC News in August.
Other crops, such as berries, have grown successfully in the extreme heat. But the Guardian noted fears this could dip later this year “as plants become exhausted from heavy cropping during the heatwave”.
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
France has been acutely affected by this summer’s extreme weather, with more than 7,300 excess deaths during heatwaves and a record number of weather stations recording temperatures of above 40C.
The country is the EU’s largest agricultural producer, but heat, drought and wildfires have affected many crops.
The chart below shows that maize production is set to drop by more than one-third (35%) year-on-year.
This could result in France’s lowest maize production since 1980, according to data from Agreste, the country’s agriculture ministry’s statistics service.
Due to the heat, “record-early” grape harvests have also been recorded in various parts of the nation since mid-July, reported Le Monde. In some cases, this means “smaller, less juicy grapes, which will yield less wine”, explained the newspaper.
6. Declines in EU grains since 2025
Overall in the EU, data and projections indicate declines in the output of cereal grains this year.
Cereal production is set to fall by 9% compared to 2025, according to the European Commission.
Just one year in the past decade – 2024 – recorded lower production levels.
Maize production is set to be particularly affected, with projections indicating a 13% drop, to 52Mt – the lowest level in the EU since 2007.
The post How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts
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