English schools could exceed an “overheating” threshold of 26C for one-third of the academic year if global warming reaches 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, a new study finds.
The study, published in Climate Risk Management, assesses the risk of overheating in around 20,000 schools across England, using data on the schools’ location, the type of building and the climate.
The authors identify the indoor temperature of 26C as the upper “comfortable” limit in classrooms. While the average school would be expected to surpass this limit for more than one-third of the academic year under 2C of warming, it rises to half of the year for 4C of warming.
The authors also investigate a 35C threshold, above which “important health impacts” are seen. They find that, currently, schools only exceed this temperature threshold once every year, on average.
However, under 4C warming, the average school is expected to exceed this threshold around nine times per year, accounting for 5% of the academic year.
Newer schools are more likely to overheat than their older counterparts, the authors say, because they typically have better insulation and lower ceilings. They add that schools in the south and east of England, as well as London, are at greatest risk of overheating.
The study shows the need for adaptation measures such as improved ventilation, a scientist not involved in the study tells Carbon Brief. She adds that “school buildings need to be designed today with tomorrow’s climate in mind”.
Overheating schools
Over the past month, millions of children in the Philippines, Bangladesh and India stayed home as a record-breaking heatwave forced schools across southern Asia to shut.
However, schools in more temperate climates can also be affected by the heat. In July 2022, the UK experienced a record-breaking heatwave that saw temperatures exceed 40C for the first time on record. During this period, the UK put out its first red heat alert and many schools finished early or closed their doors entirely for the safety of their staff and students.
Extreme heat can be deadly. During a heatwave, the number of “heat-related deaths” – where exposure to heat either causes or significantly contributes to a death – tends to increase.
Children are particularly vulnerable to high temperatures. When it is hot, the human body produces sweat to cool itself down. However, children do not sweat as much as adults and are therefore less able to regulate their body temperature.
Even when temperatures do not reach headline-grabbing highs, any increase above the “optimal” temperature can be harmful. A recent World Bank report estimates that in “middle and high-income settings”, the ideal classroom temperature lies between 19.5C and 23.3C. The report says:
“In those settings, any temperature above 24C can compromise reaction time, processing speed and accuracy through changes in heart rate and respiratory rates…
“Across five experimental studies, high temperature produced declines in student performance ranging from 2 to 12% for each 1C increase in classroom temperature.”
Furthermore, when teachers work in classrooms that are too hot, they can become fatigued or lose concentration, making them more likely to put themselves and the children in their care at risk.
UK guidance suggests a minimum working temperature of 16C, if employees are not carrying out physical work. However, there are no legal maximum working temperatures for schools in the UK.
“Our children spend 30% of their lives in schools,” says Prof Lucelia Rodrigues – chair of sustainable and resilient cities at the University of Nottingham. Rodrigues, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that it is “imperative that we provide them with comfortable, healthy environments to thrive and achieve their best”.
Newer buildings
The new study assesses how often English schools overheat, which schools are most at risk and how climate change could exacerbate the problem. The study authors define two temperature thresholds:
- 26C: The “upper limit of comfortable operative temperature in schools”.
- 35C: The temperature at which “important health impacts” are seen.
The authors use the open-access CLIMADA platform to simulate the risk of English schools overheating, combining information on hazard, exposure and vulnerability.
The authors use climate data from the UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18) to determine annual variations in temperature across England over 1998-2017. They then model those temperatures in worlds with average global temperatures of 2C and 4C above pre-industrial levels. This provides the hazard data.
They then quantify exposure using data on the location of around 20,000 primary and secondary state schools in England. And vulnerability is assessed using “physics-based building models” to quantify the link between outdoor and indoor temperature for different types of buildings.
The plot below shows an example of the relationship between outdoor daily average temperature (blue) and indoors daily maximum temperature (red) in two different schools. The dashed and dotted lines indicate the 26C and 35C temperature thresholds, respectively.
The authors find that schools built before 1918 are generally most able to keep cool, while those built after 1967 overheat the most easily.
Dr Laura Dawkins – an “expert scientist” in climate risk and resilience at the UK Met Office, and lead author of the study – tells Carbon Brief that this is due to “differences in typical floor-to-ceiling heights”. Newer schools are typically built with lower ceilings, which cause the room to heat up more quickly, she explains.
Rodrigues adds that newer schools are built to “more stringent building regulations designed to reduce heating energy demand”, making them more airtight and well-insulated. Citing her 2010 study, she continues:
“In classrooms within schools built post-2010, overheating occurred for more than 40% of school hours, whilst in older schools with leakier and non-insulated envelopes overheating was rarely reported.”
Rodrigues says that ventilation is key, noting that it not only prevents buildings from overheating, but can also “improve air quality, which will have a significant impact on productivity” in pupils.
Mapping heat
The study’s findings include a series of maps to show where the most at-risk schools are located.
The maps below show the expected total number of days in an academic year that each school will cross the 26C (left) and 35C (right) temperature thresholds. The top row uses the climate of 1998-2017, the middle row a 2C-warmer world and the bottom row a 4C-warmer world. Darker red indicates more overheating days.
The authors assume 195 days in a school year, to account for weekends and holidays. The analysis does not include August – the hottest part of the year – because schools are typically closed for the summer holidays during this time.
The authors find that schools in south and east of England, as well as London, are at greatest risk of overheating. They add that this is largely due to the urban heat island effect – in which a combination of factors, such as buildings, reduced vegetation and high domestic energy use, cause urban areas to become hotter than more rural regions.
By combining the data from all 20,000 schools, the authors determine how many days the average school is expected to cross the 26C and 35C warming thresholds under different global warming levels. The authors also calculate values for “at-risk” schools – which rank in the highest 10% on their risk metric.
These results are shown in the table below.
| 26C threshold, average school | 26C threshold, at-risk school | 35C threshold, average school | 35C threshold, at-risk school | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recent climate | 59 | 59 | 1 | 1 |
| 2C warming | 71 | 75 | 3 | 5 |
| 4C warming | 89 | 92 | 9 | 13 |
Number days during the academic year that “average” and “at-risk” schools are expected to cross the 26C and 35C warming thresholds under different global warming levels. Adapted from Dawkins et al (2024).
The average school currently exceeds the 26C threshold for 59 days – accounting for around one-third of the academic year – according to the study. However, the authors warn that this could rise to 71 and 89 days under the 2C and 4C scenarios, respectively.
Meanwhile, England’s most at-risk schools currently face one day per year of indoor temperatures above 35C. This could rise to five days per year under a 2C warming scenario, and 13 under a 4C scenario.
This study is “a first attempt at applying the novel spatial risk assessment framework to this real world problem”, according to Dr Dan Bernie climate resilience science manager and health science lead at the UK Met Office and an author on the study.
Bernie tells Carbon Brief that he is currently working on “generating more robust results using individual school building models and higher resolution climate projections”.
Prof David Bresch is a professor at the department of environmental systems science at ETH Zurich and is the founder and senior scientific advisor at CLIMADA. He tells Carbon Brief that the authors have used the platform well, providing a good “prototype” for this type of study.
The biggest “challenge” in the study is the team’s use of fixed temperature thresholds, he says. However, he calls the paper an “important contribution” to the literature, and says that it will allow schools and governments to start thinking about adaptation measures.
Bresch emphasises the importance of adaptation. He tells Carbon Brief that it is crucial to “take a forward looking view of risk”, adding that it comes with the win-win situation of limiting impacts and likely coming with a lower price tag than waiting for major impacts to hit.
Government plans
Every five years, the UK government publishes its Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA), which assesses the “current and future risks to and opportunities for the UK from climate change”.
The National Adaptation Programme (NAP) is published shortly afterwards, allowing administrations such as the Department of Education (DfE) to outline how they are planning to adapt to climate change.
In July 2023, the UK government published its third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3). In this report, the DfE recognised the “significant threat” of rising overheating in schools, and highlighted the need for further research to better understand this risk.
The new study was carried out partly in response to this call for research and has experts from both the UK Met Office and DfE in its author list. Bernie tells Carbon Brief that this study was a collaboration between “climate science, data science, building performance models and stakeholder insights”.
The DfE tells Carbon Brief that it has already allocated £138m to make education buildings more sustainable or more resilient to the impacts of climate change. The UK government’s “strategy for the education and children’s services systems” adds:
“All new school buildings delivered by DfE (not already contracted) will be net-zero in operation. They will be designed for a 2C rise in average global temperatures and future-proofed for a 4C rise, to adapt to the risks of climate change, including increased flooding and higher indoor temperatures.”
However, Rodrigues tells Carbon Brief that “there is still no requirement to design for future climate conditions, even though schools typically have at least a 50-year lifespan, with many occupied continuously for over 100 years”. She adds that “school buildings need to be designed today with tomorrow’s climate in mind”.
The DfE tells Carbon Brief that they are working with partners including the Met Office on the next iteration of this research and will provide more information about it later this year.
The post English schools face ‘overheating’ for one-third of year under 2C warming appeared first on Carbon Brief.
English schools face ‘overheating’ for one-third of year under 2C warming
Greenhouse Gases
Analysis: UK newspaper editorial opposition to climate action overtakes support for first time
Nearly 100 UK newspaper editorials opposed climate action in 2025, a record figure that reveals the scale of the backlash against net-zero in the right-leaning press.
Carbon Brief has analysed editorials – articles considered the newspaper’s formal “voice” – since 2011 and this is the first year opposition to climate action has exceeded support.
Criticism of net-zero policies, including renewable-energy expansion, came entirely from right-leaning newspapers, particularly the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.
In addition, there were 112 editorials – more than two a week – that included attacks on Ed Miliband, continuing a highly personal campaign by some newspapers against the Labour energy secretary.
These editorials, nearly all of which were in right-leaning titles, typically characterised him as a “zealot”, driving through a “costly” net-zero “agenda”.
Taken together, the newspaper editorials mirror a significant shift on the UK political right in 2025, as the opposition Conservative party mimicked the hard-right populist Reform UK party by definitively rejecting the net-zero target that it had legislated for and the policies that it had previously championed.
Record climate opposition
Nearly 100 UK newspaper editorials voiced opposition to climate action in 2025 – more than double the number of editorials that backed climate action.
As the chart below shows, 2025 marked the fourth record-breaking year in a row for criticism of climate action in newspaper editorials.
This also marks the first time that editorials opposing climate action have overtaken those supporting it, during the 15 years that Carbon Brief has analysed.
This trend demonstrates the rapid shift away from a long-standing political consensus on climate change by those on the UK’s political right.
Over the past year, the Conservative party has rejected both the “net-zero by 2050” target that it legislated for in 2019 and the underpinning Climate Change Act that it had a major role in creating. Meanwhile, the Reform UK party has been rising in the polls, while pledging to “ditch net-zero”.
These views are reinforced and reflected in the pages of the UK’s right-leaning newspapers, which tend to support these parties and influence their politics.
All of the 98 editorials opposing climate action were in right-leaning titles, including the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, the Times and the Daily Express.
Conversely, nearly all of the 46 editorials pushing for more climate action were in the left-leaning and centrist publications the Guardian and the Financial Times. These newspapers have far lower circulations than some of the right-leaning titles.
In total, 81% of the climate-related editorials published by right-leaning newspapers in 2025 rejected climate action. As the chart below shows, this is a marked difference from just a few years ago, when the same newspapers showed a surge in enthusiasm for climate action.
That trend had coincided with Conservative governments led by Theresa May and Boris Johnson, which introduced the net-zero goal and were broadly supportive of climate policies.
Notably, none of the editorials opposing climate action in 2025 took a climate-sceptic position by questioning the existence of climate change or the science behind it. Instead, they voiced “response scepticism”, meaning they criticised policies that seek to address climate change.
(The current Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, has described herself as “a net-zero sceptic, not a climate change sceptic”. This is illogical as reaching net-zero is, according to scientists, the only way to stop climate change from getting worse.)
In particular, newspapers took aim at “net-zero” as a catch-all term for policies that they deemed harmful. Most editorials that rejected climate action did not even mention the word “climate”, often using “net-zero” instead.
This supports recent analysis by Dr James Painter, a research associate at the University of Oxford, which concluded that UK newspaper coverage has been “decoupling net-zero from climate change”.
This is significant, given strong and broad UK public support for many of the individual climate policies that underpin net-zero. Notably, there is also majority support for the “net-zero by 2050” target itself.
Much of the negative framing by politicians and media outlets paints “net-zero” as something that is too expensive for people in the UK.
In total, 87% of the editorials that opposed climate action cited economic factors as a reason, making this by far the most common justification. Net-zero goals were described as “ruinous” and “costly”, as well as being blamed – falsely – for “driving up energy costs”.
The Sunday Telegraph summarised the view of many politicians and commentators on the right by stating simply that said “net-zero should be scrapped”.
While some criticism of net-zero policies is made in good faith, the notion that climate change can be stopped without reducing emissions to net-zero is incorrect. Alternative policies for tackling climate change are rarely presented by critical editorials.
Moreover, numerous assessments have concluded that the transition to net-zero can be both “affordable” and far cheaper than previously thought.
This transition can also provide significant economic benefits, even before considering the evidence that the cost of unmitigated warming will significantly outweigh the cost of action.
Miliband attacks intensify
Meanwhile, UK newspapers published 112 editorials over the course of 2025 taking personal aim at energy security and net-zero secretary Ed Miliband.
Nearly all of these articles were in right-leaning newspapers, with the Sun alone publishing 51. The Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the Times published most of the remainder.
This trend of relentlessly criticising Miliband personally began last year in the run up to Labour’s election victory. However, it ramped up significantly in 2025, as the chart below shows.
Around 58% of the editorials that opposed climate action used criticism of climate advocates as a justification – and nearly all of these articles mentioned Miliband, specifically.
Editorials denounced Miliband as a “loon” and a “zealot”, suffering from “eco insanity” and “quasi-religious delusions”. Nicknames given to him include “His Greenness”, the “high priest of net-zero” and “air miles Miliband”.
Many of these attacks were highly personal. The Daily Mail, for example, called Miliband “pompous and patronising”, with an “air of moral and intellectual superiority”.
Frequently, newspapers refer to “Ed Miliband’s net-zero agenda”, “Ed Miliband’s swivel-eyed targets” and “Mr Miliband’s green taxes”.
These formulations frame climate policies as harmful measures that are being imposed on people by the energy secretary.
In fact, the Labour government decisively won an election in 2024 with a manifesto that prioritised net-zero policies. Often, the “targets” and “taxes” in question are long-standing policies that were introduced by the previous Conservative government, with cross-party support.
Moreover, the government’s climate policy not only continues to rely on many of the same tools created by previous administrations, it is also very much in line with expert evidence and advice. This is to prioritise the expansion of clean power and to fuel an economy that relies on increasing levels of electrification, including through electric cars and heat pumps.
Despite newspaper editorials regularly calling for Miliband to be “sacked”, prime minister Keir Starmer has voiced his support both for the energy secretary and the government’s prioritisation of net-zero.
In an interview with podcast The Rest is Politics last year, Miliband was asked about the previous Carbon Brief analysis that showed the criticism aimed at him by right-leaning newspapers.
Podcast host Alastair Campbell asked if Miliband thought the attacks were the legacy of his strong stance, while Labour leader, during the Leveson inquiry into the practices of the UK press. Miliband replied:
“Some of these institutions don’t like net-zero and some of them don’t like me – and maybe quite a lot of them don’t like either.”
Renewable backlash
As well as editorial attitudes to climate action in general, Carbon Brief analysed newspapers’ views on three energy technologies – renewables, nuclear power and fracking.
There were 42 newspaper editorials criticising renewable energy in 2025. This meant that, for the first time since 2014, there were more anti-renewables editorials than pro-renewables editorials, as the chart below shows.
As with climate action more broadly, this was a highly partisan issue. The Times was the only right-leaning newspaper that published any editorials supporting renewables.
By far the most common stated reason for opposing renewable energy was that it is “expensive”, with 86% of critical editorials using economic arguments as a justification.
The Sun referred to “chucking billions at unreliable renewables” while the Daily Telegraph warned of an “expensive and intermittent renewables grid”.
At the same time, editorials in supportive publications also used economic arguments in favour of renewables. The Guardian, for example, stressed the importance of building an “affordable clean-energy system” that is “built on renewables”.
There was continued support in right-leaning publications for nuclear power, despite the high costs associated with the technology. In total, there were 20 editorials supporting nuclear power in 2025 – nearly all in right-leaning newspapers – and none that opposed it.
Fracking was barely mentioned by newspapers in 2023 and 2024, after a failed push by the Conservatives under prime minister Liz Truss to overturn a ban on the practice in 2022. This attempt had been accompanied by a surge in supportive right-leaning newspaper editorials.
There was a small uptick of 15 editorials supporting fracking in 2025, as right-leaning newspapers once again argued that it would be economically beneficial.
The Sun urged current Conservative leader Badenoch to make room for this “cheap, safe solution” in her future energy policy. The government plans to ban fracking “permanently”.
North Sea oil and gas remained the main fossil-fuel policy focus, with 30 editorials – all in right-leaning newspapers – that mentioned the topic. Most of the editorials arguing for more extraction from the North Sea also argued for less climate action or opposed renewable energy.
None of these editorials noted that the UK is expected to be significantly less reliant on fossil-fuel imports if it pursues net-zero, than if it rolls back on climate action and attempts to squeeze more out of the remaining deposits in the North Sea.
Methodology
This is a 2025 update of previous analysis conducted for the period 2011-2021 by Carbon Brief in association with Dr Sylvia Hayes, a research fellow at the University of Exeter. Previous updates were published in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
The count of editorials criticising Ed Miliband was not conducted in the original analysis.
The full methodology can be found in the original article, including the coding schema used to assess the language and themes used in editorials concerning climate change and energy technologies.
The analysis is based on Carbon Brief’s editorial database, which is regularly updated with leading articles from the UK’s major newspapers.
The post Analysis: UK newspaper editorial opposition to climate action overtakes support for first time appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: UK newspaper editorial opposition to climate action overtakes support for first time
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 16 January 2026: Three years of record heat; China and India coal milestone; Beijing’s 2026 climate outlook
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Hottest hat-trick
STATE OF THE CLIMATE: Scientists have announced that 2025 was either the second or third hottest year on record, with close margins between last year and 2023, reported the Associated Press. The newswire noted that “temperature averages for 2025 hovered around – and mostly above – 1.4C of industrial era warming”. Bloomberg said that this happened despite the natural weather phenomenon La Niña, which “suppresses global temperatures”, meaning “heat from greenhouse gases countered that cooling influence”. Carbon Brief’s comprehensive analysis of the data found cumulative global ice loss also “reached a new record high in 2025”.
OVERHEATING OCEANS: Separately, the world’s oceans “absorbed colossal amounts of heat in 2025”, said the Guardian, setting “yet another new record and fuelling more extreme weather”. It added that the “extra heat makes the hurricanes and typhoons…more intense, causes heavier downpours of rain and greater flooding and results in longer marine heatwaves”.
FIRE AND ICE: Wildfires in Australia have destroyed around 500 structures, said the Sydney Morning Herald, with a “dozen major fires” still burning. A wildfire in Argentinian Patagonia has “blazed through nearly 12,000 hectares” of scrubland and forests, according to the Associated Press. Meanwhile, parts of the Himalayas are “snowless” for the first time in nearly four decades, signalling a “climatic anomaly”, reported the Times of India.
Around the world
- EMISSIONS REBOUND: US emissions rose 2% last year after two years of declines” due to a rise in coal power generation, said Axios, in coverage of research by the Rhodium Group.
- ‘UNINVESTABLE’ OIL: US president Donald Trump may “sideline” ExxonMobil from Venezuela’s oil market after its comment that Venezuela is “uninvestable”, reported CNBC. TotalEnergies is also “in no rush to return to Venezuela”, said Reuters.
- PRICE WARS: The EU issued guidelines that will allow tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to be removed in exchange for minimum price commitments, said Reuters.
- ‘RECORD’ AUCTION: The UK government has secured “8.4 gigawatts of new offshore wind power” in a “record” auction, said Sky News. Although the auction saw some price rises, this will likely be “cost neutral” for consumers, Carbon Brief said – contrary to the “simplistic and misleading” narratives promoted by some media outlets.
- COP STRATEGY: The Guardian reported that Chris Bowen, the Australian minister appointed “president of negotiations” for COP31, plans to use his role to lobby “Saudi Arabia and others” on the need to phase out fossil fuels.
$2bn
The size of a new climate fund unveiled by the Nigerian government, according to Reuters.
Latest climate research
- Rooftop solar in the EU has the potential to meet 40% of electricity demand in a 100% renewable scenario for 2050 | Nature Energy
- Natural wildfires, such as those ignited by lightning strikes, have been increasing in frequency and intensity in sub-Saharan Africa, driven by climate change | Global and Planetary Change
- Engaging diverse citizens groups can lead to “more equitable, actionable climate adaptation” across four pilot regions in Europe | Frontiers in 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
Both China and India saw coal power generation fall in 2025, in the “first simultaneous drop in half a century”, found new analysis for Carbon Brief, which was widely reported around the world. It noted that, for both countries, the decline in coal was driven by new clean-energy capacity additions, which were “more than sufficient to meet rising demand”.
Spotlight
What are China experts watching for in 2026?
The year 2026 will be pivotal for China’s climate policy. In March, the government will release key climate and energy targets for 2030, the year by which China has pledged to have peaked its emissions.
At the same time, with the US increasingly turning away from climate policy and towards fossil fuel expansionism, China’s role in global climate action is more important than ever.
Carbon Brief asks leading experts what they are watching for from China over the year ahead.
Shuo Li, director of the China Climate Hub, Asia Society Policy Institute
After decades of rapid growth, independent analyses suggest China’s CO2 emissions may have plateaued or even begun to decline in 2025.
The transition from emissions growth to stabilisation and early decline will be the key watch point for 2026 and will be shaped by the forthcoming 15th five-year plan. [This plan will set key economic goals, including energy and climate targets, for 2030.]
However, the precise timing, scale and enforceability of these absolute emissions control measures remain under active debate. Chinese experts broadly agree that if the 2021-2025 period was characterised by continued emissions growth, and 2031-2035 is expected to deliver a clear decline, then 2026-2030 will serve as a critical “bridge” between the two.
Yan Qin, principal analyst, ClearBlue Markets
First, the 15th five-year plan inaugurates the “dual control of carbon” system. This year marks the first time industries and local governments face binding caps on total emissions, not just intensity.
Second, the national carbon market is aggressively tightening. With the inclusion of steel, cement and aluminum this year, regulators are executing a “market reset” – de-weighting older allowances [meaning they cannot be used to contribute to polluters’ obligations for 2026] and enforcing stricter benchmarks to bolster prices ahead of the full rollout of the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism.
Cecilia Trasi, senior policy advisor for industry and trade, ECCO
China’s solar manufacturing overcapacity is prompting Beijing’s first serious consolidation efforts. At the same time, its offshore wind technology is advancing rapidly [and there are] signals that Chinese wind companies are pursuing entry into European markets through local production, mirroring strategies adopted by battery manufacturers.
Together, these dynamics suggest that the next phase of cleantech competition will be shaped less by trade defense alone and more by the interaction between Chinese supply-side reforms and global market-absorption capacity.
Tu Le, managing director, Sino Auto Insights
China’s electric vehicle (EV) industry has been the primary force pushing the global passenger vehicle market toward clean energy. That momentum should continue. But a growing headwind has emerged: tariffs. Mexico, Brazil, Europe and the US are just a few of the countries raising barriers, complicating the next phase of global EV expansion.
One new wildcard: the US now effectively controls Venezuelan oil. If that meaningfully impacts global oil prices, it could either slow – or unexpectedly accelerate – the shift toward clean-energy vehicles.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
A full-length version of the article is available on the Carbon Brief website.
Watch, read, listen
SHAPING THE LAND: In addition to land use shaping the climate, climate change is now increasingly “changing the land”, according to satellite monitoring by World Resources Institute, creating a “dangerous feedback loop”.
‘POSITIVE TIPPING POINTS’: A commentary co-authored by climate scientist Prof Corinne Le Quéré in Nature argued that several climate trends have locked in “irreversible progress in climate action”.
FROM THE FLAMES: Nick Grimshaw interviewed musician and data analyst Miriam Quick on how she turned the 2023 Canadian wildfires into music on BBC Radio 6. (Skip to 1:41:45 to listen.)
Coming up
- 17 January: High Seas Treaty comes into force, New York
- 19-26 January: World Economic Forum annual meeting, Davos, Switzerland
- 21 January: IEA Q1 Gas Market Report, Paris
Pick of the jobs
- Eurasia Group, analyst, climate transition | Salary: Unknown. Location: Nairobi, Kenya or Mexico City, Mexico
- Heard, climate programme coordinator | Salary: £31,518. Location: London (hybrid)
- Environmental Investigation Agency, climate campaigner | Salary: £36,000- £40,000. Location: London (hybrid)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 16 January 2026: Three years of record heat; China and India coal milestone; Beijing’s 2026 climate outlook appeared first on Carbon Brief.
The world’s most biodiverse nation, Brazil, has belatedly published its UN plan for halting and reversing nature decline by the end of this decade.
Brazil is home to 10-15% of all known species on Earth, 64% of the Amazon rainforest and it supplies 10% of global food demand, according to official estimates.
It was among around 85% of nations to miss the 2024 deadline for submitting a new UN nature plan, known as a national biodiversity strategy and action plan (NBSAP), according to a joint investigation by Carbon Brief and the Guardian.
On 29 December 2025, Brazil finally published its new NBSAP, following a lengthy consultation process involving hundreds of scientists, Indigenous peoples and civil society members.
The NBSAP details how the country will meet the goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the landmark deal often described as the “Paris Agreement” for nature, agreed in 2022.
Below, Carbon Brief walks through six key takeaways from Brazil’s belated NBSAP:
- The government plans to ‘conserve’ 80% of the Brazilian Amazon by 2030
- It plans to ‘eliminate’ deforestation in Brazilian ecosystems by 2030
- Brazil has ‘aligned’ its actions on tackling climate change and biodiversity loss
- The country seeks to ‘substantially increase’ nature finance from a range of sources
- Brazil’s plans for agriculture include ‘sustainable intensification’
- Brazil conducted a largest-of-its-kind consultation process before releasing its NBSAP
The government plans to ‘conserve’ 80% of the Brazilian Amazon by 2030
The third target of the GBF sets out the aim that “by 2030 at least 30% of terrestrial, inland water and of coastal and marine areas…are effectively conserved and managed”. This is often referred to as “30 by 30”.
Previous analysis by Carbon Brief and the Guardian found that more than half of countries’ pledges were not aligned with this aim. (Importantly, all of the GBF’s targets are global ones and do not prescribe the amount of land that each country must protect.)
Brazil’s NBSAP sets a substantially higher goal – it seeks to conserve 80% of the Amazon rainforest within its borders, as well as 30% of the country’s other ecosystems.
Since Brazil is one of the largest countries in the world, in addition to being the most biodiverse, this higher target represents a significant step towards achieving the global target.
For the purposes of its protected areas target, Brazil considers not just nationally designated protected areas, but also the lands of Indigenous peoples, Quilombola territories and other local communities.
As the NBSAP notes, Brazil has already taken several steps towards achieving the “30 by 30” target.
In 2018, the country created or expanded four marine protected areas in its territorial waters, increasing its protected area coverage from around 1.5% to greater than 25%.
According to Brazil’s sixth national report, submitted to the CBD in 2020, 18% of the country’s “continental area” – that is, its land and inland waters – was part of a protected area. More than 28% of the Amazon received such a designation.
A further 12% of the country is demarcated as Indigenous lands, which “provide important protection to a large territorial extension of the country, particularly in the Amazon biome”, the report says.
The action plan that accompanies the new NBSAP sets out 15 actions in support of achieving target three, including recognising and titling Indigenous lands, establishing ecological corridors and biosphere reserves and implementing national strategies for mangrove, coral reef and wetlands protection.
It plans to ‘eliminate’ deforestation in Brazilian ecosystems by 2030
As well as committing to the GBF targets of protecting and restoring ecosystems, Brazil’s NBSAP also sets a separate target to “eliminate” deforestation in Brazilian biomes by 2030.
Target 1B of Brazil’s NBSAP says that the country aims to “achieve zero deforestation and conversion of native vegetation by 2030”.
The country hopes to achieve this “through the elimination of illegal deforestation and conversion, compensation for the legal suppression of native vegetation, prevention and control of wildfires, combating desertification and attaining land degradation neutrality”.
This goes above and beyond what is set out in the GBF, which does not mention “deforestation” at all.
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was reelected as leader in 2022 on a promise to achieve “zero deforestation”, following a rise in Amazon destruction under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
Data from Global Forest Watch (GFW), an independent satellite research platform, found that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by a “dramatic” 36% in 2023 under Lula.
However, Brazil remains the world’s largest deforester. Separate GFW data shows that the country accounted for 42% of all primary forest loss in 2024 – with two-thirds of this driven by wildfires fuelled by a record drought.
Brazil has ‘aligned’ its actions on tackling climate change and biodiversity loss
Brazil’s NBSAP comes shortly after it hosted the COP30 climate summit in the Amazon city of Belém in November.
One of the presidency’s priorities at the talks was to bring about greater coordination between global efforts to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss.
At the Rio Earth summit in 1992, the world decided to address Earth’s most pressing environmental problems under three separate conventions: one on climate change, one on biodiversity and the final one on land desertification.
But, for the past few years, a growing number of scientists, politicians and diplomats have questioned whether tackling these issues separately is the right approach.
And, at the most recent biodiversity and land desertification COPs, countries agreed to new texts calling for closer cooperation between the three Rio conventions.
At COP30, the Brazilian presidency attempted to negotiate a new text to enhance “synergies” between the conventions. However, several nations, including Saudi Arabia, vocally opposed the progression of a substantive outcome.
Following on from this, Brazil’s NBSAP states that its vision for tackling nature loss is “aligned” with its UN climate plan, known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC).
In addition, the NBSAP states that Brazil is taking a “holistic approach to addressing the existing crises of climate change and biodiversity loss in a synergistic manner”.
It lists several targets that could help to address both environmental problems, including ending deforestation, promoting sustainable agriculture and restoring ecosystems.
Brazil joins a small number of countries, including Panama and the UK, that have taken steps to bring their actions to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss into alignment.
The country seeks to ‘substantially increase’ nature finance from a range of sources
According to target 19 of the NBSAP, the Brazilian government will “develop and initiate” a national strategy to finance the actions laid out in the document by the end of 2026.
This financial plan “should aim to substantially increase…the volume of financial resources” for implementing the NBSAP.
These resources should come in the form of federal, state and municipal funding, international finance, private funding and incentives for preserving biodiversity, the document continues.
The accompanying action plan includes a number of specific mechanisms, which could be used to finance efforts to tackle nature loss. These include biodiversity credits, a regulated carbon market and the Tropical Forest Forever Facility.
Separately, the NBSAP sets out a goal in target 18 of identifying “subsidies and economic and fiscal incentives that are directly harmful to biodiversity” by the end of this year. Those identified subsidies should then be reduced or eliminated by 2030, it adds.
The document notes that the phaseout of harmful subsidies should be accompanied by an increase in incentives for “conservation, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity”.
The NBSAP does “important work” in translating the targets of the GBF into “ambitious targets” in the national context, says Oscar Soria, co-founder and chief executive of civil-society organisation the Common Initiative.
Soria tells Carbon Brief:
“While the document is laudable on many aspects and its implementation would change things for the better, the concrete financial means to make it a reality – funding it and halting the funding of activities going against it – are still lacking. In this regard, this NBSAP is a good example of the GBF’s problem at the global level.
“The hardest part of political negotiations will begin only now: in 2026, the Brazilian government will have to evaluate the cost of implementing the NBSAP and where finance will come from.”
Brazil’s plans for agriculture include ‘sustainable intensification’
Brazil is one of the world’s leading food producers, meeting 10% of global demand, according to its NBSAP.
It is also the world’s largest grower of soya beans and the second-largest cattle producer.
However, agriculture is also a major driver of biodiversity loss in Brazil, largely due to the clearing of rainforest or other lands for soya growing and cattle ranching. Agriculture itself is also affected by biodiversity loss, particularly the loss of pollinators. The NBSAP says:
“Biodiversity loss directly undermines agricultural production and human well-being, demonstrating that agriculture, other productive activities and biodiversity conservation are interdependent rather than antagonistic.”
Brazil’s NBSAP addresses sustainable agriculture in target 10A, which aims to “ensure that, by 2030, areas under agriculture, livestock, aquaculture and forestry are managed sustainably and integrated into the landscape”.
It lists several approaches to achieving sustainable production, including agroecology, regenerative agriculture and sustainable intensification.
Targets seven and 10B also pertain to food systems. Target seven seeks to reduce the impacts of pollution, including nutrient loss and pesticides, on biodiversity, while target 10B commits to the sustainable fishing and harvesting of other aquatic resources.
In 2021, Brazil launched its national low-carbon agriculture strategy, known as the ABC+ plan. The plan promotes sustainability in the agricultural sector through both adaptation and mitigation actions.
Brazil conducted a largest-of-its-kind consultation process before releasing its NBSAP
Brazil was among the majority of nations to miss the UN deadline to submit a new NBSAP before the COP16 biodiversity summit in Colombia in October 2024.
At the time, a representative from the Brazilian government said that it was unable to meet the deadline because it was embarking on an ambitious consultation process for its NBSAP.
Braulio Dias, director of biodiversity conservation at the Brazilian Ministry of Environment, who is responsible for the NBSAP process, told Carbon Brief and the Guardian in 2024:
“Brazil is a huge country with the largest share of biodiversity [and] a large population with a complex governance. We are a federation with 26 states and 5,570 municipalities. We started the process to update our NBSAP in May last year and have managed to conclude a broad consultation process involving over a thousand people in face-to-face meetings.
“We are in the process of consolidating all proposals received, consulting all the departments of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, all the federal ministries and agencies engaged in the biodiversity agenda and the National Biodiversity Committee, before we can have a high-level political endorsement.
“Then we still have to build a monitoring strategy, a finance strategy and a communication strategy. We will only conclude this process toward the end of the year or early next year.”
In its NBSAP, the Brazilian government says it engaged with around 200 scientific and civil society organisations and 110 Indigenous representatives while preparing its NBSAP.
Around one-third of the Amazon is protected by Indigenous territories.
Indigenous peoples in Brazil have continuously called for more inclusion in UN processes to tackle climate change and nature loss, including by holding multiple demonstrations during the COP30 climate summit in November.
Michel Santos, public policy manager at WWF Brazil, says that many in Brazil’s civil society were pleased with the NBSAP’s extensive consultation process, telling Carbon Brief:
“Brazilian civil society is very happy with everything. It was a long process with broad participation. It took a while to be completed, but we consider the result quite satisfactory.”
The post Brazil’s biodiversity pledge: Six key takeaways for nature and climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Brazil’s biodiversity pledge: Six key takeaways for nature and climate change
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