Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
This week
Methane on the rise
NEAR-RECORD LEVELS: Methane emissions from the fossil-fuel industry rose to near-record levels of 120m tonnes last year, “despite technology available to curb this pollution at virtually no cost”, according to Agence France-Presse. Reuters added that the high levels of methane emissions were produced despite commitments by companies and governments to plug leaking fossil-fuel infrastructure, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) annual methane tracker report.
MORE METHANE: Separately, a new study in Nature concluded that US oil-and-gas infrastructure emits three times as much methane into the atmosphere as government estimates suggest, the Associated Press reported. According to New Scientist, the study was based on nearly one million aerial surveys of methane leaks, creating what one of the scientists described as “the largest such dataset that has ever been assembled”.
Europe’s climate risks
MAJOR SHOCKS: The European Environment Agency (EEA) has issued its first assessment of the “urgent” climate risks facing Europe, the Guardian reported. More action is needed to address half of the 36 significant climate risks, such as wildfires and other climate disasters, according to the report, the Guardian said. The Financial Times noted that, according to the EEA, the EU is at “higher and higher” risk of major financial shocks from climate change.
DECIMATED FARMING: Meanwhile, Politico reported that the European Commission is working on legislative proposals that would “severely weaken” environmental requirements for agricultural workers in the EU, amid ongoing farmers’ protests across the continent. This is despite advice by top EU scientists that agriculture “must become more sustainable or it will be decimated by climate change”, the article added.
Around the world
- ZAMBIA DROUGHT: More than one million people face food shortages and malnutrition in Zambia due to crop failures triggered by drought, according to an Oxfam report covered by Down To Earth. Much of southern Africa continued to face record temperatures.
- TRANSITIONING AWAY?: The US Export-Import Bank, a federal institution that finances projects overseas, has voted to put $500m toward an oil-and-gas project in Bahrain, according to the New York Times. It noted that this was viewed by critics as “out of step” with US pledges to move away from fossil fuels.
- SHELL BACKTRACKS: Oil giant Shell has weakened its emissions target for 2030 and dropped its goal for 2035 entirely, in an update to its “energy transition strategy”, Bloomberg reported. Carbon Brief explained the changes with charts.
- YOUTH AT RISK: Young activists, including climate campaigners, must be better protected from online attacks, arrests and physical threats, according to a report by UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders Mary Lawlor, covered by the Guardian.
- GAS BOOST: UK energy secretary Claire Coutinho announced plans to support new gas power plants, claiming that without them the country could face “blackouts”, the Press Association reported. Ministers later confirmed that unabated gas would still only meet around 1% of demand in 2035.
- ELECTRIC SWAP: Mexico’s parliament has agreed to amend the nation’s General Law on Climate Change to support programmes that facilitate the replacement of combustion-engine cars with electric and hybrid vehicles, according to Excélsior.
$1 trillion
The amount that India has asked developed countries to provide in climate finance each year from 2025 as a minimum to help developing countries deal with climate change, according to the Times of India.
Latest climate research
- New research in Nature estimated that global economic losses from heat stress could reach 0.6-4.6% by 2060. Major losses came from health impacts, lower labour productivity and disruptions to supply chains, the study found.
- Fears about Covid-19 reinforced climate change concerns rather than providing a distraction from the crisis, according to a new survey of 28 European countries published in Climate Risk Management.
- Newcastle University in the UK is asking members of the public to participate in a survey into “uncertainty distress” in relation to climate change.
Captured
New Carbon Brief analysis based on provisional government data showed that UK emissions fell to just 383m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2023. This marked the first time emissions have fallen below 400MtCO2e since Victorian times. However, this drop was mostly unrelated to deliberate climate action by the government. Instead, much of it came about due to a drop in gas demand, driven by factors such as higher electricity imports from French nuclear plants and warmer temperatures. The analysis was covered by the Times and was the focus of an editorial.
Spotlight
‘Drill, baby, drill’: The history of Trump’s favourite slogan
Carbon Brief explores the history of a slogan claimed by Donald Trump, but with roots stretching back to Sarah Palin and, prior to this, the Black Panthers.
The senior Republican who first used the phrase tells Carbon Brief that he is critical of Trump and those who want to “drill with abandon” today.
In a recent interview with Fox News, former president Donald Trump summarised his plans for US fossil-fuel production if he wins the election this year, by saying:
“We are going to – I used this expression, now everyone else is using it so I hate to use it, but – drill, baby, drill.”
Despite Trump’s assertion, it was Michael Steele, the US politician who was the first African-American lieutenant governor of Maryland and chair of the Republican National Committee, who came up with the slogan
Addressing the 2008 Republican National Convention, he told the crowd:
“Let’s reduce our dependency on foreign sources of oil, and promote oil-and-gas production at home. Let me make it very clear: Drill, baby, drill, and drill now.”
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Steele said that the slogan came to him late at night, after a fit of “writer’s block”.
“Donald Trump…his BS aside, had nothing to do with ‘drill, baby drill’,” stressed Steele, who today is a staunch critic of the Republican presidential candidate.
The phrase was used by supporters throughout the campaign of Republican John McCain in his unsuccessful presidential bid against Barack Obama.
It became particularly associated with Sarah Palin, the climate-sceptic Republican vice-presidential pick, who said in a debate with her Democratic challenger Joe Biden:
“The chant is ‘drill, baby, drill’. And that’s what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy.”
In the years that followed, the phrase was repeated endlessly by Republican politicians, as well as in comment articles and political analysis. (It did, however, see a dip in popularity following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.)
There was some bemusement at a slogan that appeared to have been derived from “burn, baby, burn”.
That phrase, which has since made its way into everything from disco songs to hot sauce, was originally associated with Black nationalist group the Black Panthers and particularly the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles. It was chanted as buildings were set on fire, amid civil unrest sparked by police violence against an African-American man.
Writing shortly after the Republican National Convention in 2008, journalist Derrick Z Jackson alluded to this when he wrote in the Boston Globe:
“This 93% White gathering blithely stole from the race riots of the ’60s to lustily chant ‘drill, baby, drill’.”
For his part, Steele told Carbon Brief that his intention was to use a colloquial expression to “connect it to something that was very real” – namely, cutting US reliance on Middle Eastern oil. He said:
“Unfortunately, a lot of people use it…in a way that they don’t fully appreciate what the point was, and the point was the self-sufficiency of the American spirit.”
He added that “it’s not just ‘drill with abandon’, it’s also the idea of drilling responsibly”, noting that, with the growth of electric cars and other technologies in the US:
“‘Drill, baby, drill’ may at some point in the future change to…‘plug, baby, plug’.”
Nevertheless, Steele accepted that while he will “always be there to remind [Trump]” of where the slogan came from, it is out of his hands now:
“My only regret is that I didn’t copyright it and put it on a T-shirt.”
Watch, read, listen
‘OIL COLONIALISM’: The latest episode of the Drilled podcast explored how Nigerians are “resisting oil colonialism” after Shell announced at the end of 2023 that it was shutting down its onshore operations in the country.
CLIMATE PLOTTERS: An article in Sierra examined what it called a “conspiracy to take down wind and solar power” across the US, made up of “climate-science deniers, right-wing think tanks and fossil fuel shills”.
KYOTO ON STAGE: The Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, is putting on a production of Kyoto, a play that dramatises the UN climate summit in 1997 that gave rise to the Kyoto Protocol.
Coming up
- 15-17 March: Russian presidential election
- 18-21 March: Global Methane Forum, Geneva, Switzerland
- 21-22 March: Copenhagen Climate Ministerial, Denmark
Pick of the jobs
- International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, senior cryosphere specialist | Salary: $66,510. Location: Kathmandu, Nepal
- UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, climate science advisor | Salary: £31,120-37,260. Location: Aberdeen, Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, London or Salford, UK
- Rewiring America, writer and editor (newsletters, website) | Salary: $75,000-100,000, Location: Remote
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org
The post DeBriefed: Global methane surge; Europe faces ‘urgent’ climate risks; Surprising origin of Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Discussing climate change can make a difference. Focusing on the impacts in everyday life is a good place to start, experts say.
When Bad Bunny climbed onto broken power lines during his Super Bowl halftime show, millions of viewers saw a spectacle. Climate communicators saw a lesson in how to talk about climate change.
Wondering How to Talk About Climate Change? Take a Lesson from Bad Bunny
Sydney, Thursday 19 March 2026 — In response to escalating attacks on gas fields in the Middle East, including Israeli strikes on Iran’s giant South Pars gas field and Iranian retaliations on gas fields in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the following lines can be attributed to Solaye Snider, Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“The targeting of gas fields across the Middle East is a perilous escalation that reinforces just how vulnerable our fossil-fuelled world really is.
“Oil and gas have long been used as tools of power and coercion by authoritarian regimes. They cause climate chaos and environmental pollution and they drive conflict and war. The energy security of every nation still hooked on gas, including Australia, is under direct threat.
“For countries that are reliant on gas imports, like Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Korea, this crisis is just getting started. It can take months to restart a gas export facility once it is shut down, meaning the shockwaves of these strikes will be felt for a long time to come.
“It is a gross and tragic injustice that while civilians are killed and lose their homes to this escalating violence, and families struggle with a tightening cost-of-living, gas giants like Woodside and Santos have seen their share prices surge on the prospect of windfall war profits.
“We must break this cycle. Transitioning to local renewable energy is the way to protect Australian households from the inherent volatility of fossil fuels like gas.”
-ENDS-
Images available for download via the Greenpeace Media Library
Media contact: Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lkeller@greenpeace.org
Greenpeace response to escalating attacks on gas fields in Middle East
Climate Change
DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Iran war fallout continues
WORK FROM HOME: The International Energy Agency has advised its member countries to take 10 steps in response to the ongoing energy crisis fuelled by the Iran war, including reducing highway speeds and encouraging people to work from home, said the Guardian. It came after retaliatory attacks between Israel and Iran continued to destroy energy infrastructure in the Middle East, causing energy prices to soar further, said Reuters.
SUPPLY DISRUPTED: The IEA also said it is prepared to make more of its member nations’ 1.4bn-barrel oil reserves available to help ease the impacts of what it called the “biggest supply disruption in the history of the oil market”, reported Bloomberg. The outlet noted that Asian countries have been hit hardest by the shortages, caused by a “near-halt” of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
EU SUMMIT: The energy crisis dominated talks at an EU leaders summit on Thursday, said Politico. Arriving at the summit, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez attacked other European leaders for using the energy crisis as an excuse to “gut climate policies”, according to the EU Observer. The Financial Times said that some European leaders have asked the European Commission to overhaul its flagship emissions trading system (ETS) by summer in response to the energy crisis.
COAL BOOST: In response to the conflict, utility companies in Asia are “boosting coal-fired power generation to cut costs and safeguard energy supply”, said Reuters. UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell told Reuters: “If there was ever a moment to accelerate that energy transition, breaking dependencies which have shackled economies, this is the time.”
Around the world
- WINDFARM WINDFALL: The Trump administration in the US is considering a nearly $1bn settlement with TotalEnergies to cancel the French energy company’s two planned windfarms off the US east coast and have it instead invest in fossil-gas infrastructure in Texas, according to documents seen by the New York Times.
- BUSINESS CLASH: Following “clashes” with the agribusiness sector, Brazil launched its new climate plan, which calls for a 49-58% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2022 levels by 2025 and includes “specific guidelines for different sectors”, reported Folha de Sao Paolo.
- SALES SLUMP: Sales of liquified petroleum gas from India’s state-run oil companies have fallen by 17% this month due to cuts in deliveries to commercial and industrial consumers “amid the widespread logistical bottlenecks triggered by the Iran war”, said the Economic Times.
- CUBAN ENERGY CRISIS: The US imposed an “effective oil blockade” on Cuba, leaving the country facing its “worst energy crisis in decades”, reported the Washington Post. Meanwhile, Chinese exports of solar panels to the island have “skyrocketed” since 2023, it added.
- RECORD HIGHS: An “unprecedented” heatwave in the western and south-western US is “shattering dozens of temperature records” and could lead to drought in California in the coming months, reported the Los Angeles Times.
- VULNERABILITY CONCERNS: Landslides that killed more than 100 people in southern Ethiopia have “renewed concerns about Ethiopia’s vulnerability to climate-related disasters”, said the Addis Standard.
1%
The percentage of England’s land surface that could be devoted to renewables by 2050, according to the long-awaited “land-use framework” released by the UK government this week and covered by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Approaching international climate action by shifting the burden of mitigation onto higher-income countries could avoid 13.5 million premature deaths from air pollution in middle- and lower-income countries by 2050 | The Lancet Global Health
- Beavers can turn the ecosystems surrounding streams into “persistent” sinks of carbon that can sequester an order of magnitude more than non-beaver-modified ecosystems can store | Communications Earth & Environment
- Mobile-phone data from seven diverse countries during the summer heatwaves of 2022-23 showed a “widespread tendency to withdraw into homes” and an increase in out-of-home activities that can offer cooling, such as indoor retail | Environmental Research: Climate
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Carbon Brief this week published a significant update to its map of how climate change is affecting extreme weather events around the world. The map now includes 232 new extreme weather events from studies published in 2024 and 2025. Of these events, 196 were made more severe or more likely to occur by human-driven climate change, 12 were made less severe or less likely to occur and 10 had no discernible human influence. (The remaining 14 studies were inconclusive.)
Spotlight
New Zealand breaks new ground on climate litigation
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to experts about a first-of-its-kind climate lawsuit in New Zealand.
Earlier this week, representatives from two environmentally focused legal advocacy groups challenged the New Zealand government’s climate-action plan in court.
The plaintiffs argued that the measures laid out in the plan are insufficient to achieve the country’s legal obligation to hold global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The case could be “influential” in shaping lawsuits and rulings around the world, one legal expert not involved in the case told Carbon Brief.
Reductions vs removals
The new case contends that there are several issues regarding the New Zealand government’s response to climate change.
One of the key arguments the plaintiffs make is that New Zealand’s second emissions reduction plan, which covers the period from 2026-30, is overreliant on the use of tree-planting to achieve its targets.
When the plan was released in December 2024, it was “immediately clear that it was a pretty lacklustre plan”, Eliza Prestidge Oldfield, senior legal researcher at the Environmental Law Initiative, one of the groups behind the legal case, told Carbon Brief.
The plan called for large-scale planting of pine tree plantations, which are not native to New Zealand and have a high risk of burning. Because of this, there are concerns about how permanent any carbon removal provided by these plantations actually can be, experts told Carbon Brief.
Catherine Higham, senior policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment who was not involved in the case, said:
“The lawyers are arguing that there are real challenges with equating the emissions that you may be able to remove from the atmosphere through afforestation with actual emissions reductions, which are much more certain.”
‘Global dialogue’
While other climate lawsuits elsewhere in the world have also focused on the inadequacy of a government’s plan to meet its stated emissions-reduction targets, this is the first such case that addresses the role of removals head-on.
Lucy Maxwell, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, told Carbon Brief that the lawsuit “builds on a decade of climate litigation” in national, regional and international courts.
Maxwell, who was not involved in the New Zealand case, added that there is a “real global dialogue” between, not just plaintiffs, but national courts as well. She said:
“[National courts] look to common issues that have been decided in other countries. They’re not binding on that court if it’s at the national level, but they are influential.”
Given that many other countries have legal frameworks requiring their governments to create plans outlining the pathway to their long-term climate targets, Prestidge Oldfield told Carbon Brief that other jurisdictions “should be interested in these questions around the level of certainty”.
Higham noted that, even if the case is successful, addressing the plan’s shortfalls will face its own set of challenges. She told Carbon Brief:
“A lot of these decisions are political and they can be politically contentious…Those [measures] have to be put into action through legislation and that is then subject to the usual political process. So that’s where the challenge comes in.”
While she could not speculate on the outcome of the case, Prestidge Oldfield said it was “very heartening” to see that both the judge and the opposing counsel “appreciated how much of a concern climate change is globally”.
She added:
“It’s not a given that the judge would even be interested in climate change.”
Watch, read, listen
COMMON APPROACH: The Heated podcast analysed fossil-fuel advertisements and highlighted the most common deception tactics they employed.
THREAT ASSESSMENT: Mongabay mapped the potential threat that oil extraction poses to Venezuela’s ecosystems, including the Amazon rainforest and its coral reefs.
SALT LAKES? GREAT!: High Country News interviewed journalist Dr Caroline Tracey about her new book on saline lakes – such as Utah’s Great Salt Lake – the threats that face them and what they can teach us.
Coming up
- 23 March-2 April: Third meeting of the preparatory commission for the High Seas Treaty, New York
- 24-27 March: 64th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bangkok
- 26-29 March: 14th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, Yaoundé, Cameroon
Pick of the jobs
- International Centre of Research for the Environment and Development (CIRAD), IPCC chapter scientist | Salary: €3,200-3,750 per month. Location: Nogent-sur-Marne, France
- Avaaz, chief of staff | Salary: Dependent on location. Location: Remote, with preferred time zones
- Green Party, social media officer | Salary: £31,592-£32,192. Location: Remote or Westminster, UK
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 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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