Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
China’s ‘two sessions’
‘CONCRETE MEASURES’: China’s premier Li Qiang said the country will work “diligently” and take a “series of concrete measures” to achieve the country’s “dual-carbon” goals of peaking CO2 emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, state newspaper China Daily reported. Li made the comments as he delivered the “report on the work of the government”, a major policy document that outlines key priorities for 2025, at the nation’s all-important annual “two sessions” meeting, it said.
RENEWABLES PACKAGE: China also announced plans to develop a package of major projects to tackle climate change at the meeting, Reuters reported. A new report from the country’s National Development and Reform Commission outlined plans to develop new offshore wind farms and accelerate the construction of “new energy bases”, it added. However, coal will remain a “key fuel”, with plans to increase production and supply, the article noted.
NEW NEGOTIATOR: Li Gao was promoted to vice minister at China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, replacing Zhao Yingmin, who served as the head of China’s delegation to COP29, according to Bloomberg. Li is a “climate negotiator” with “two decades of experience in global climate change talks” and an “advocate of the country’s carbon-credit programme”, the article noted.
Trump continues cuts
CUTTING FORESTS: Trump signed an executive order to expand logging across 280m acres of US national forests and other public lands, the Guardian reported. Conservation groups warned that this could have a “disastrous impact on climate change, endangered species and local economies dependent on ecotourism”, added Inside Climate News.
‘NATIONAL DISASTER’: BBC News reported that around 880 workers at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were fired last week. Reuters said that Jane Lubchenco, the former NOAA administrator under Barack Obama, called the layoffs a “national disaster and a colossal waste of money”, adding: “Destroying NOAA’s ability to provide life-saving information, keep our ocean healthy and strengthen the economy makes no sense – no sense at all.”
‘PIVOTAL CENTERS’: The Trump administration told NOAA that “two pivotal centres for weather forecasting will soon have their leases cancelled”, sources told Axios this week. Elsewhere, Reuters reported that the US is pulling out of the Just Energy Transition Partnership, where wealthy countries help support developing countries to move away from coal, according to several participating countries.
Around the world
- INDIAN AVALANCHE: An avalanche in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand that killed eight people was triggered by a 600% surge in precipitation within 24 hours, fuelling “climate concerns”, reported the Times of India.
- EU EMISSIONS: The European Commission announced that carmakers will have three more years to meet emissions rules, but the 2035 ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars remains in place, according to the Financial Times. Reuters added the EU is also still committed to its interim target for zero-emission car sales for 2030.
- JAPANESE WILDFIRE: Japan’s biggest wildfire in 30 years has burned around 2,100 hectares and killed one person so far, the South China Morning Post reported.
- CLIMATE MULTILATERALISM: Brazil will use the COP30 climate summit in November to “press for multilateralism and respect for science”, said president-designate Andre Aranha Correa do Lago, according to Reuters.
- NORTH SEA: The UK has confirmed it will not issue new North Sea oil and gas licences and announced a 2030 end date for the “windfall tax”, first introduced when fossil-fuel company profits skyrocketed in 2022, in new plans released ahead of a consultation, the Press Association reported.
36
The number of fossil-fuel companies responsible for half of global CO2 emissions, the Guardian reported.
Latest climate research
- An AI-driven assessment of COP side events from 2003-23 published in Nature Climate Change examined how fossil-fuel lobbyists have been gaining access to UN climate summits to “uncover power dynamics at the highest levels of climate governance”.
- In a high-emissions future, melting Antarctic ice could lead to Earth’s strongest ocean current slowing down by 20% by 2050, according to a new study in Environmental Research Letters.
- Women and girls continue to bear a disproportionate impacts from heatwaves in South Sudan, according to a new World Weather Attribution analysis.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
At the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) meeting in Hangzhou, China, governments failed for a third time to agree to a timeline for the next round of UN climate science reports, according to Climate Home News. The absence of US federal scientists “cast a shadow” over the IPCC meeting, reported the Financial Times. The chart above, from Carbon Brief’s in-depth coverage of the meeting, highlights that the US has provided around 30% of the voluntary contributions to the IPCC’s financial budgets since it was established in 1988.
Spotlight
The ‘Super Grid’ campaign of the 1950s
As the UK looks to expand its grid, Carbon Brief takes a look at what can be learned from the Super Grid expansion 70 years ago.
Electricity demand in the UK is expected to at least double by 2050, requiring an expansion of the grid to keep pace. National Grid has launched the “Great Grid Upgrade“, with at least 17 major infrastructure projects being built as part of this.
However, there has been repeated pushback, with critics condemning plans to “carpet” the countryside with pylons, “devastating” locals and “shattering” rural dreams.
Speaking earlier this year, energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband said there would need to be a communication campaign to convey the benefits of the expansion, pointing to one during the last big expansion in the 1950s and 60s – known as the “Super Grid”.
Super Grid
The UK’s first electricity transmission grid began operation in 1933 – this excludes Northern Ireland, which is part of Ireland’s power grid. National Grid was created in 1935 and the regional grids were connected into the world’s first integrated national grid in 1938.
By 1950, the grid was at capacity, with demand rising ninefold in just 15 years.
Out of this the idea for a “Super Grid” was born. Made up of 1,150 miles of power lines held by 136-feet-high steel pylons, the grid cost £52m, roughly £1.4bn in today’s prices, over 10 years.
It was designed not just to increase capacity, but also to strengthen the north-to-south interconnections of the existing grid, especially as generation capacity shifted to large coal-fired power stations to the north of London.
After it was announced, opposition around the UK was voiced by local authorities, preservationist groups, voluntary societies and residents, citing concerns about the visual impact of the new pylons on the countryside, as well as concerns around industrialisation and the economy.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Prof Katrina Navickas at the University of Hertfordshire said that the Super Grid expansions were undertaken during a time when there was a post-war “desire for modernisation, efficiency and growth”, adding:
“These aims were often in tension with popular demands for amenity and countryside preservation, as the national parks were set up from 1949 and a popular idea of preservation of the rural landscape arose out of the right to roam movement.”
Attempts were made to minimise the impact of the pylons on the landscape. For example, the electricity boards argued that the large scale of the infrastructure would fit the landscape better than a “cluster” of smaller grid, noted Navickas.
Debate continued into the 1960s, with ministers questioning the impact of the Super Grid “upon the beauty of the countryside”, calling on army specialists to look at the potential of camouflage and arguing against the pylons being “painted in antinationalisation Tory colours”.
Communication challenges
To try to counter the opposition to the Super Grid and wider grid expansion, the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) launched an information campaign, using articles and adverts to try to convey the benefits of an expanded electricity network.
For example, one advert (above left) highlighted surging electricity demand and the need to ensure supply for future generations.
Others sought to highlight that the CEGB appreciated the need to protect the countryside and expand.
As an advert in Country Life (above right) highlighted, there is a “double duty” that falls on the shoulders of those tasked with managing the grid expansion. This is to “maintain an efficient, economical electricity supply, but also to preserve the amenities of the country”.
Some of the challenges around the attachment to the “amenity value of local landscapes” still exist today, Navickas added:
“But the ecological and environmental considerations are also much more to the fore than they had been in the 1950s and 1960s. Local community consultation has to be at the heart of any planning schemes too, whereas the earlier schemes were implemented in a much more top-down way that assumed that local opposition was based on lack of understanding of national benefits.”
Watch, read, listen
CLIMATE LENS: A new podcast titled Lights, Climate, Action discussed film and TV through a climate lens, with hosts talking about the film Don’t Look Up in their first episode.
ACTIVISM AND TRUMP: Yale360 interviewed activist and author Bill McKibben about “rethinking the role of protest, the global push on clean energy and why he sees reason for hope” in the “age of Trump 2.0”.
WOMEN’S DAY: To mark International Women’s Day, Costa Rican diplomat and former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres is joined by top climate scientist Dr Katharine Hayhoe on her Outrage and Optimism podcast to discuss why ignoring women endangers the climate.
Coming up
- 11 March: Greenland’s general election
- 16-25 March: Climate and Clean Air Conference, Brasilia, Brazil
- 17 March: G20 Second International Financial Architecture Working Group Meeting, Pretoria, South Africa
- 18-19 March: OECD x IEA Global Forum on the Environment and Climate Change, Paris, France
- 18-19 March: Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue, Berlin, Germany
Pick of the jobs
- Union of Concerned Scientists, senior climate scientist | Salary: $134,805. Location: Washington DC/remote
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, head of communication in the IPCC working group I technical support unit | Salary: Unknown. Location: Paris, France
- Community Energy England, chief operating officer | Salary: £46,000-£52,470. Location: Remote/Sheffield
- Irish Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, head of circular economy and resource efficiency | Salary: Unknown. Location: Ireland
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 7 March 2025: China’s pivotal ‘two sessions’; IPCC indecision; Lessons from UK’s 1950s ‘Super Grid’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate Change
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Blazing heat hits Europe
FANNING THE FLAMES: Wildfires “fanned by a heatwave and strong winds” caused havoc across southern Europe, Reuters reported. It added: “Fire has affected nearly 440,000 hectares (1,700 square miles) in the eurozone so far in 2025, double the average for the same period of the year since 2006.” Extreme heat is “breaking temperature records across Europe”, the Guardian said, with several countries reporting readings of around 40C.
HUMAN TOLL: At least three people have died in the wildfires erupting across Spain, Turkey and Albania, France24 said, adding that the fires have “displaced thousands in Greece and Albania”. Le Monde reported that a child in Italy “died of heatstroke”, while thousands were evacuated from Spain and firefighters “battled three large wildfires” in Portugal.
UK WILDFIRE RISK: The UK saw temperatures as high as 33.4C this week as England “entered its fourth heatwave”, BBC News said. The high heat is causing “nationally significant” water shortfalls, it added, “hitting farms, damaging wildlife and increasing wildfires”. The Daily Mirror noted that these conditions “could last until mid-autumn”. Scientists warn the UK faces possible “firewaves” due to climate change, BBC News also reported.
Around the world
- GRID PRESSURES: Iraq suffered a “near nationwide blackout” as elevated power demand – due to extreme temperatures of around 50C – triggered a transmission line failure, Bloomberg reported.
- ‘DIRE’ DOWN UNDER: The Australian government is keeping a climate risk assessment that contains “dire” implications for the continent “under wraps”, the Australian Financial Review said.
- EXTREME RAINFALL: Mexico City is “seeing one of its heaviest rainy seasons in years”, the Washington Post said. Downpours in the Japanese island of Kyushu “caused flooding and mudslides”, according to Politico. In Kashmir, flash floods killed 56 and left “scores missing”, the Associated Press said.
- SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION: China and Brazil agreed to “ensure the success” of COP30 in a recent phone call, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
- PLASTIC ‘DEADLOCK’: Talks on a plastic pollution treaty have failed again at a summit in Geneva, according to the Guardian, with countries “deadlocked” on whether it should include “curbs on production and toxic chemicals”.
15
The number of times by which the most ethnically-diverse areas in England are more likely to experience extreme heat than its “least diverse” areas, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- As many as 13 minerals critical for low-carbon energy may face shortages under 2C pathways | Nature Climate Change
- A “scoping review” examined the impact of climate change on poor sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa | PLOS One
- A UK university cut the carbon footprint of its weekly canteen menu by 31% “without students noticing” | Nature Food
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Factchecking Trump’s climate report
A report commissioned by the US government to justify rolling back climate regulations contains “at least 100 false or misleading statements”, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists. The report, compiled in two months by five hand-picked researchers, inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed” and misleadingly states that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”80
Spotlight
Does Xi Jinping care about climate change?
This week, Carbon Brief unpacks new research on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s policy priorities.
On this day in 2005, Xi Jinping, a local official in eastern China, made an unplanned speech when touring a small village – a rare occurrence in China’s highly-choreographed political culture.
In it, he observed that “lucid waters and lush mountains are mountains of silver and gold” – that is, the environment cannot be sacrificed for the sake of growth.
(The full text of the speech is not available, although Xi discussed the concept in a brief newspaper column – see below – a few days later.)
In a time where most government officials were laser-focused on delivering economic growth, this message was highly unusual.
Forward-thinking on environment
As a local official in the early 2000s, Xi endorsed the concept of “green GDP”, which integrates the value of natural resources and the environment into GDP calculations.
He also penned a regular newspaper column, 22 of which discussed environmental protection – although “climate change” was never mentioned.
This focus carried over to China’s national agenda when Xi became president.
New research from the Asia Society Policy Institute tracked policies in which Xi is reported by state media to have “personally” taken action.
It found that environmental protection is one of six topics in which he is often said to have directly steered policymaking.
Such policies include guidelines to build a “Beautiful China”, the creation of an environmental protection inspection team and the “three-north shelterbelt” afforestation programme.
“It’s important to know what Xi’s priorities are because the top leader wields outsized influence in the Chinese political system,” Neil Thomas, Asia Society Policy Institute fellow and report co-author, told Carbon Brief.
Local policymakers are “more likely” to invest resources in addressing policies they know have Xi’s attention, to increase their chances for promotion, he added.
What about climate and energy?
However, the research noted, climate and energy policies have not been publicised as bearing Xi’s personal touch.
“I think Xi prioritises environmental protection more than climate change because reducing pollution is an issue of social stability,” Thomas said, noting that “smoggy skies and polluted rivers” were more visible and more likely to trigger civil society pushback than gradual temperature increases.
The paper also said topics might not be linked to Xi personally when they are “too technical” or “politically sensitive”.
For example, Xi’s landmark decision for China to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 is widely reported as having only been made after climate modelling – facilitated by former climate envoy Xie Zhenhua – showed that this goal was achievable.
Prior to this, Xi had never spoken publicly about carbon neutrality.
Prof Alex Wang, a University of California, Los Angeles professor of law not involved in the research, noted that emphasising Xi’s personal attention may signal “top” political priorities, but not necessarily Xi’s “personal interests”.
By not emphasising climate, he said, Xi may be trying to avoid “pushing the system to overprioritise climate to the exclusion of the other priorities”.
There are other ways to know where climate ranks on the policy agenda, Thomas noted:
“Climate watchers should look at what Xi says, what Xi does and what policies Xi authorises in the name of the ‘central committee’. Is Xi talking more about climate? Is Xi establishing institutions and convening meetings that focus on climate? Is climate becoming a more prominent theme in top-level documents?”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP EFFECT: The Columbia Energy Exchange podcast examined how pressure from US tariffs could affect India’s clean energy transition.
NAMIBIAN ‘DESTRUCTION’: The National Observer investigated the failure to address “human rights abuses and environmental destruction” claims against a Canadian oil company in Namibia.
‘RED AI’: The Network for the Digital Economy and the Environment studied the state of current research on “Red AI”, or the “negative environmental implications of AI”.
Coming up
- 17 August: Bolivian general elections
- 18-29 August: Preparatory talks on the entry into force of the “High Seas Treaty”, New York
- 18-22 August: Y20 Summit, Johannesburg
- 21 August: Advancing the “Africa clean air programme” through Africa-Asia collaboration, Yokohama
Pick of the jobs
- Lancaster Environment Centre, senior research associate: JUST Centre | Salary: £39,355-£45,413. Location: Lancaster, UK
- Environmental Justice Foundation, communications and media officer, Francophone Africa | Salary: XOF600,000-XOF800,000. Location: Dakar, Senegal
- Politico, energy & climate editor | Salary: Unknown. Location: Brussels, Belgium
- EnviroCatalysts, meteorologist | Salary: Unknown. Location: New Delhi, India
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Climate Change
New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit
The specter of a “gas-for-wind” compromise between the governor and the White House is drawing the ire of residents as a deadline looms.
Hundreds of New Yorkers rallied against new natural gas pipelines in their state as a deadline loomed for the public to comment on a revived proposal to expand the gas pipeline that supplies downstate New York.
New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit
A “critical assessment” report commissioned by the Trump administration to justify a rollback of US climate regulations contains at least 100 false or misleading statements, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists.
The report – “A critical review of impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the US climate” – was published by the US Department of Energy (DoE) on 23 July, just days before the government laid out plans to revoke a scientific finding used as the legal basis for emissions regulation.
The executive summary of the controversial report inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed”.
It also states misleadingly that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”.
Compiled in just two months by five “independent” researchers hand-selected by the climate-sceptic US secretary of energy Chris Wright, the document has sparked fierce criticism from climate scientists, who have pointed to factual errors, misrepresentation of research, messy citations and the cherry-picking of data.
Experts have also noted the authors’ track record of promoting views at odds with the mainstream understanding of climate science.
Wright’s department claims the report – which is currently open to public comment as part of a 30-day review – underwent an “internal peer-review period amongst [the] DoE’s scientific research community”.
The report is designed to provide a scientific underpinning to one flank of the Trump administration’s plans to rescind a finding that serves as the legal prerequisite for federal emissions regulation. (The second flank is about legal authority to regulate emissions.)
The “endangerment finding” – enacted by the Obama administration in 2009 – states that six greenhouse gases are contributing to the net-negative impacts of climate change and, thus, put the public in danger.
In a press release on 29 July, the US Environmental Protection Agency said “updated studies and information” set out in the new report would “challenge the assumptions” of the 2009 finding.
Carbon Brief asked a wide range of climate scientists, including those cited in the “critical review” itself, to factcheck the report’s various claims and statements.
The post Factcheck: Trump’s climate report includes more than 100 false or misleading claims appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-trumps-climate-report-includes-more-than-100-false-or-misleading-claims/
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