Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Australia votes for climate action
CLIMATE PROMISE: Australia’s Labor party has secured a second term in power following a landslide election victory, reported CNN. Prime minister Anthony Albanese “reiterated his commitment to climate action” and his government’s target to reach net-zero by 2050, added the outlet. Bloomberg said Albanese’s “next campaign” is to stave off Turkey to secure hosting the COP31 climate summit, along with Pacific nations, in 2026.
PUBLIC SUPPORT: The Conversation said that Australia now has “five huge climate opportunities”, including setting an ambitious new international climate pledge for 2035. Columnist David Fickling wrote in Bloomberg that the “historic” victory of the Labor party proved the right-wing opposition party’s plan to replace “renewables-focused climate targets with a switch to nuclear energy” was not widely supported. Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor Adam Morton said that the country “backed a rapid shift to renewable energy”.
EU eyes renewable future
RUSSIAN GAS: The European Commission published a “roadmap” for ending reliance on Russian energy, which includes a ban on all Russian gas imports by the end of 2027, BBC News reported, adding that the bloc hopes to move away by “accelerating the deployment of renewable energy”. Meanwhile, Chinese president Xi Jinping was expected to talk about the China-Russia Siberia 2 gas pipeline, which could send 50bn cubic metres of gas to China, during his visit to Moscow this week, the Guardian reported.
SPAIN’S TRANSITION: Following last week’s blackout in Spain and Portugal, the Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said that he will not deviate a “single millimetre” from his commitment to renewable energy, calling it “our country’s energy future” and “our only and best option”, reported the Financial Times. Sanchez rejected nuclear-power advocates, saying the blackout was used as an excuse for a “gigantic manipulation exercise”, reported the Daily Telegraph.
Trump regime continues
DISASTERS DELETED: The New York Times reported that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has announced that it will stop tracking the cost of the country’s most expensive disasters – defined as those that cause at least $1bn in damage. The newspaper described this as the “latest effort from the Trump administration to restrict or eliminate climate research”.
MORE TRUMP: The Trump administration also proposed to cut more than $21bn in climate-related funding, including $15bn for carbon capture and renewable energy and $6bn for electric-vehicle chargers, reported Reuters. Elsewhere, two major science unions pledged to produce “over 29 peer-reviewed journals that will cover all aspects of climate change” after the administration dismissed a “key Congress-mandated report on climate”, reported the Guardian.
Around the world
- UN REFORM: The UN is “considering sweeping reforms”, which could “integrate” the “climate change arm” into the “environment programme”, following “even deeper funding cuts” from the Trump administration, said the Financial Times. The newspaper added that the reform memo also “mulled whether the COP climate change summit…‘should be discontinued’ in its current form”.
- WINDFARM BLOW: The construction of Hornsea 4, a windfarm that aimed to add 2.4GW to the UK’s clean energy capacity, was cancelled by its Danish owner Ørsted, reported BBC News. The Guardian said the decision was a “major blow to the government’s plan to quadruple the UK’s offshore wind capacity by the end of the decade”.
- CHINA EXTREME WEATHER: Upcoming “hot and dry” weather will pose risks to the wheat harvest in China’s Henan province, which accounted for nearly a third of the nation’s total wheat output in 2024, Bloomberg reported.
- METHANE EMISSIONS: Record fossil-fuel production pushed methane emissions close to an all-time high in 2024, according to a report by the International Energy Agency, covered by Agence France-Presse.
65%
The proportion of global warming from 1990-2020 that the “wealthiest 10%” of people are “responsible” for, according to research covered by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Research in PLOS Climate found that just 4% of hyperlinks point to “scientific sources” in 1.3m posts and 20.3m comments related to climate change on Reddit from 2009-22.
- Climate change intensified deadly rainfall and made storms more likely to occur in Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and other states across the US south and midwest in early April, a new World Weather Attribution analysis found.
- Science Advances published a study finding that an unprecedented surge in concurrent heatwave-drought events from Eastern Europe to East Asia has been “amplified” by climate change.
For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Children born in 2020 – of which there are about 124 million – will face “unprecedented exposure” to extreme weather events, even if global warming is limited to 1.5C by the end of the century, according to a new study published in Nature and covered by Carbon Brief. The chart above illustrates how many millions of children born in 2020 are expected to face a range of extremes, from heatwaves to tropical cyclones, throughout their lifetime at 1.5C (dark blue), compared to even higher levels of warming. Limiting global warming to 1.5C could save 77.2 million children from exposure to extremes, the research concluded.
Spotlight
Taiwan’s nuclear phaseout
This week, Carbon Brief examines what Taiwan’s decision to phase out nuclear power means for its climate policies.
Taiwan will shut down its last nuclear power reactor on 17 May.
Nuclear has played an important role in Taiwan’s energy supply, which is 97% imported.
Nuclear provided 12% of electricity in 2016, according to the Taiwanese Energy Administration. In 2025, it accounted for about 3% of the electricity supply, while gas contributed 46%, coal 34% and renewable energy 15%.
In 2016, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), an anti-nuclear party, won the presidential election. Then-president Tsai Ing-wen launched her “nuclear-free homeland policy”, with a pledge to avoid nuclear incidents similar to the Fukushima disaster in Japan.
The DPP has said that going “nuclear-free” is part of its “net-zero” transition. The party aims to have 50% of its electricity generated from gas, 30% from coal and 20% from renewable sources by 2025.
Public concerns
Nevertheless, its nuclear-free policy faces pressures from the opposition parties, as well as the public.
The Taipei Times, a Taiwanese newspaper, reported that 48% of the public was “dissatisfied” with the plan in 2017.
Protests against the plan continued until May 2025, with many people citing worries about having a stable electricity supply.
Seeking to reassure the public, the government’s Energy Administration said that the need to source more electricity to replace nuclear has “already been included in the long-term electricity development plan” and that “there will be no power shortage”.
More fossil fuels?
The environmental impact of the government’s “long-term power electricity plan” has also been under scrutiny.
The Taipei Times said the plan is “substituting nuclear sources of energy with coal-fired sources”.
A study in Energy Strategy Review found that the plan “lack[s]” a “coal phase-out schedule”, which may “render Taiwan’s energy transition unjust”.
In 2016, about 45.9% of electricity supply was from coal, while gas and renewable energy accounted for 31.5% and 4.8% respectively.
Rather than gradually reducing coal-fired power as the DPP planned, the share of coal increased to more than 47% in 2018, which then fell back to 45% in 2020, due to the temporary increase of nuclear power, said the study.
The growth of gas and renewable sources did not go as fast as the DPP predicted, according to the study, making the nuclear-free energy transition “unlikely to be achieved”.
As of today, only 14.6% of electricity in Taiwan is from renewable sources, far behind its goal of 20%.
Meanwhile, burning gas, which is the main energy source under the plan, releases carbon emissions, making it harder for the island to achieve net-zero.
Focus Taiwan said the move could promote the use of fossil fuels to as high as 84%.
The official nuclear research institute National Atomic Research Institute in Taiwan refused a request to comment.
Watch, read, listen
WEATHER AND PANGOLINS: A TEDxLondon podcast focused on how crop failure, drought and extreme weather are damaging the livelihood of pangolins.
DEEP DIVE: A new feature-length documentary “Ocean With David Attenborough” is in cinemas now.
US AND CLIMATE: An editorial in the Break-Down, a new publication focusing on the “political economy of climate and ecological crisis”, dissects “this moment in climate politics”.
Coming up
- 10-11 May: 2025 international workshop on methane observation and quantification, Xuzhou, China
- 12 May: Philippines elections
- 12-14 May: African Union conference on debt, Lomé, Togo
- 14 May: NDC partnership public webinar, online
Pick of the jobs
- BBC World Service, science/climate journalist and senior science/climate journalist | Salary: £28,000-£35,000 and £42,000-£49,000. Location: London
- Global Renewables Alliance, various roles | Salary: Unknown. Location: Various
- EarthRights International, Mekong communications manager | Salary: Unknown. Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand
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 9 May 2025: Australia elects climate action; Spain ‘committed’ to renewables; Taiwan’s nuclear phaseout appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate Change
DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Bonn talks close
‘SIDE-STEPPING AND STALLING’: UN climate talks in Bonn have ended in “gridlock”, according to Climate Home News. The outlet reported on the failure to balance developing countries’ need for climate-adaptation finance with “richer nations’ desire to move forward” on emissions cuts. It added that both topics were subject to “rule 16”, meaning no agreement could be reached and work will be pushed to the COP31 summit in Turkey. Inside Climate News quoted UN climate executive secretary Simon Stiell, who said the talks had seen “side-stepping and stalling”.
JUST TRANSITION: One “glimmer of hope” came from negotiations on achieving a “just transition”, reported Euronews. The news outlet said negotiators “made headway on operationalising the Belém-Antalya mechanism”, intended to support people in the shift to a low-carbon economy. However, Politico concluded that much of the focus in Bonn had “shift[ed] to efforts outside diplomatic talks – raising questions about the future of global climate negotiations”.
‘ATTACKING SCIENCE’: Agence France-Presse reported on the EU, Switzerland and “dozens of developing nations” warning of “attacks on science” by a “small group of fossil-fuels interests” in Bonn. Table Briefings explained that “the 1.5C target is increasingly being challenged” and the role of the UN climate-science panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – in an upcoming assessment of global climate progress “remains controversial”. See Carbon Brief’s full write-up of the talks for more detail.
US-Iran deal
PRICE DROP: The US and Iran announced that they have reached an interim agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz, reported Bloomberg. Oil prices have fallen, as the “long-awaited deal” began the process of “eas[ing]” the global energy crisis triggered by the conflict, according to the New York Times. The Associated Press noted that high fuel prices will “likely outlast the Iran war”.
‘OIL GLUT’: The Financial Times reported that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast a “glut of oil” emerging next year, if the peace deal holds. The IEA said this would allow countries to build new strategic reserves, as they “review their energy strategies and policies in response to the crisis”, according to Reuters.
‘NEW ERA’: Agence France-Presse reported that oil and gas companies have “few illusions about a return to normal for the Gulf energy industry after more than three months of blockage”. One analyst told the newswire that the war “showed the oil and gas industry that Hormuz risk is no longer just a geopolitical headline”.
Around the world
- OCEAN MONITOR: The Trump administration is “abandoning its plan” to dismantle a $368m ocean monitoring system key for tracking climate change after a “bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill”, reported the New York Times.
- CORAL HAVEN: The New York Times covered preliminary research, presented at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, suggesting there could be three times as many “coral refugia” – where corals are relatively safe from climate change – than previously thought.
- BAD CREDIT: Down to Earth reported that the first carbon credits issued under the Paris Agreement’s new Article 6.4 mechanism are “facing scrutiny over alleged links to institutions controlled by Myanmar’s military junta”.
- OIL BACKTRACK: Reuters reported that oil-and-gas company Equinor has dropped a renewable-energy target and scaled back clean investments, while another Reuters story noted that Shell is selling off its offshore wind assets.
1.1 billion
The number of children facing “at least three overlapping climate hazards”, according to a new Unicef report covered by Agence France-Presse.
Latest climate research
- Including the “permafrost carbon-climate feedback” in climate models increases the chance of exceeding “tipping elements” – such as the Greenland ice sheets, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or Amazon rainforest – by up to 50% | Environmental Research Letters
- The intensity of influenza outbreaks could decline in temperate regions, but increase in tropical areas over the next century, as the climate warms | PNAS Nexus
- European snow cover has declined by 20% for December and January since the start of the industrial era, revealing an “unprecedented ongoing shrinkage of European winters” | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The more than 2m battery electric vehicles (BEVs), 1m “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs) and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are already saving drivers a total of around £3bn a year, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. This amounts to savings of more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs for each BEV driver in the UK. The analysis comes amid reports in UK media this week that the government is considering “watering down” its EV sales targets.
Spotlight
Oceans rising at UN climate talks
The state of the world’s oceans is inextricably linked to the changing climate – and many delegates at UN climate talks want to see more focus on this issue, reports Carbon Brief.
Oceans are often described as the world’s “greatest ally” against climate change – absorbing 30% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and most of the heat generated by those emissions.
They are also the site of important climate solutions, such as huge offshore windfarms and the shipping industry’s transition to cleaner fuels.
At the same time, the oceans themselves present a growing danger to coastal communities and sea life due to sea level rise, marine heatwaves and ocean acidification.
These diverse issues have led to growing calls within the UN climate process for more focus on oceans. During climate negotiations this week in Bonn – known as SB64 – nations and civil society had a chance to air these views during an “ocean and climate change dialogue”.
‘Elevate action’
Oceans first entered UN climate outcomes in 2019, when the final COP25 negotiated text requested a new “dialogue” on “the ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and adaptation action”.
The following years saw this dialogue established as an annual event. However, the political weight of these discussions has been limited.
COP31 is being co-led by Turkey and Australia, but with Pacific islands playing a supporting role. These small islands sometimes self-identify as “large ocean states”, stressing the ocean’s centrality in their societies.
In Bonn, figures from across the presidency threw their weight behind this issue. Chris Bowen, an Australian minister and incoming COP31 “president of negotiations”, told attendees:
“Australia, Turkey and the Pacific see an important opportunity to elevate ocean-based climate action.”
Strategies and finance
The two-day dialogue in Bonn involved a series of panels, statements and breakout groups.
One of the main topics was how oceans are integrated into national climate plans under the Paris Agreement, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).
Three-quarters of the latest round of NDCs mention oceans, with conservation of “blue carbon” ecosystems the most frequently described action. (Landscapes such as mangroves can both absorb CO2 and protect coastal areas.)
Delegates also discussed alignment with the UN biodiversity process, as well as ocean finance, which currently makes up less than 1% of all climate finance.
(As discussions were taking place in Bonn, country officials also gathered in Mombasa, Kenya for the 11th Our Ocean Conference. Carbon Brief’s associate editor Giuliana Viglione attended the conference and will publish a full summary shortly.)
Developing countries were clear that many of the ocean-related actions in their NDCs would depend on receiving more financial support.
‘Political momentum’
With the backing of the COP31 presidency, delegates were hopeful about where this year’s dialogue could lead.
Charles Hamilton, an advisor for the Bahamas who spoke for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the dialogue, told Carbon Brief that island representatives “are not traveling thousands of miles to just talk and pat ourselves on the back”. He added:
“A dialogue that just remains a dialogue is just more talk – no action.”
Given that, he said “discussions in the dialogue must move into COP decisions and the decisions must be actioned”, noting the importance of finance.
Marina Corrêa, oceans lead at WWF-Brazil, pointed to an upcoming UN climate change Standing Committee on Finance forum as a space to ramp up pressure on ocean finance.
More broadly, she wanted to see the presidencies translate their support into a “leader-level ocean initiative” that could “mainstream” oceans across negotiations.
“We have a really interesting opportunity, in terms of political momentum,” Corrêa told Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
‘HOTTER THAN HELL’: An episode of the BBC’s Rare Earth podcast titled “hotter than hell” considered the issue of extreme heat, with input from experts and “people facing up to the hottest temperatures on the planet”.
NOT BROKEN?: John Drake, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, wrote an essay for Aeon – also re-published as a Guardian “long read” – questioning the framing of ecosystems and climate systems “breaking down”.
ON COURSE: On his Volts podcast, US climate journalist David Roberts interviewed UK climate minister Katie White, quizzing her about whether the UK will “stay the course with its climate plans”.
Coming up
- 20-28 June: London climate action week
- 21 June: Colombia presidential runoff
- 24 June: UK Climate Change Committee progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to parliament
Pick of the jobs
- Mongabay, managing editor – Africa | Salary: Unknown. Location: Global
- Contexte, environment reporter – Brussels | Salary: €45,000-€60,000. Location: Brussels
- Climate 200, communications director | Salary: Unknown. Location: Australia
- Energy Tracker Asia, energy transition correspondent | Salary: $3,000-$4,000 per month. Location: South-east Asia (remote)
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 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations appeared first on Carbon Brief.
The fiscal future of Musselshell County is uncertain after the coal mine that anchors its economy helped defeat the official working to diversify the area’s revenue streams.
Robert Pancratz couldn’t believe it.
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A deep pool of warm water that forms in the Western Pacific could bring strong storms to Southern California and throughout the South while increasing the risks of Western wildfires.
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Jenni Doering with author Kevin Trenberth.
El Niño Is Here and Will Have ‘Big Consequences’ for Global Weather
DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations
Planning For Life After Coal Cost a Montana County Commissioner His Seat
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