The “data-centre boom” is driving a surge in gas investment in the US, pushing its fossil-power spending ahead of China, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

A rapid expansion of data centres across the nation is at the heart of the US tech sector’s plans to continue “dominat[ing]” the global artificial intelligence (AI) industry.

High demand for electricity to power these data centres has led to companies rushing to build new gas-fired power plants across the country.

This trend, combined with “soaring” gas-turbine prices, drove a threefold increase in US gas‑power investment in 2025 – and the IEA expects this to continue throughout 2026.

As the chart below shows, Chinese investment in coal- and gas-fired power is expected to drop this year, amid domestic policy changes and the Iran war sending gas prices spiralling.

Together, these trends mean the IEA expects US investment in fossil-fuelled power plants to overtake China’s in 2026.

The IEA’s latest world energy investment report shows that spending on renewables and electricity grids continues to dominate at the global scale.

In the US, Trump administration policies such as the phase-out of tax credits for renewables has led to the IEA revising its forecast for new wind and solar power downwards.

At the same time, US electricity demand is expected to rise by an average of 2% per year from 2026 to 2030, with data centres contributing half of the overall increase.

This is leading to what the IEA calls an “AI-driven push” to build new gas-power plants in the US, the world’s largest data-centre market and largest gas producer.

Globally, orders for new gas-power plants increased to 130 gigawatts (GW) in 2025 – a 25-year high – and US demand was a “major factor” in this, according to the IEA.

Much of the demand is coming from tech companies in the US seeking to bypass grid connection queues by building “captive” gas-power plants.

As the chart below shows, since the start of 2025 these US captive data centres alone have signed off on more investment in new gas turbines than any country in the world – aside from the US itself.

Overall, investment in grid upgrades, power equipment and electricity generation to support the buildout of data-centre infrastructure around the world hit $105bn in 2025, according to the IEA.

This is more than the total invested in the energy sector across the whole of Africa – a continent where more than 600 million people do not have access to electricity.

The IEA notes that strong demand for gas-power plants for data centres in the US – and, to a lesser extent, the Middle East – is “limiting the availability of turbines for near-term deployment elsewhere in the world”.

The agency also points out that as the tech sector becomes a “major energy investor”, accounting for around 40% of all corporate power-purchase agreements, it is also “underpinning momentum” for emerging clean technologies, such as small modular nuclear reactors and advanced geothermal.

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The post AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China appeared first on Carbon Brief.

AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China

The world’s most comprehensive disaster database – relied on by thousands of climate scientists and policymakers – is at risk of closing as a result of cuts to US foreign aid by the Trump administration.

The “emergency events” database (EM-DAT) has for 30 years provided free-to-use information on the size and impact of extreme weather events and other disasters around the world.

Its data underpins a vast range of scientific research, government policymaking, humanitarian response efforts and environmental investigations.

However, Trump’s dismantling of the federal Agency for International Development (USAid) – which provided 90% of the funding for EM-DAT – has left the future of the database in jeopardy, scientists tell Carbon Brief.

An open letter coordinated by climate scientists and signed by more than 4,000 academics and students is calling on governments, multilateral development banks and philanthropy to step in to stop the database from closing.

‘World’s memory of disasters’

For the past three decades, a small team of researchers at the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) at the University of Louvain in Belgium have maintained EM-DAT.

It is the world’s most comprehensive database of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, floods and tropical storms, along with other disasters. It offers information such as the timing and length of an event, how many people were killed or displaced and the economic cost.

Since 1988, this continuous record has been free to use and independently verified by the researchers at CRED.

When considered in its entirety, the database provides more than just a list of disasters – it acts as a “memory” of how extreme weather events and their impacts on people are changing, says Prof Niko Speybroeck, an epidemiologist and director of EM-DAT. He tells Carbon Brief:

“EM-DAT can be considered the world’s memory of disasters. It contains more than 27,000 natural and technological disasters. It’s not just a database. It makes it possible to know who was affected, when, where and with what consequences.”

The database is frequently used by climate scientists. It is often cited in research papers and underpinned analysis in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the impacts of climate change.

It is also used by government officials and environmental organisations.

The database is particularly important for global-south nations, which are less likely to have comprehensive national or regional records of disasters than those in the global north.

For example, the Indonesian government used EM-DAT to develop a national strategy against disasters, says Speybroeck.

The database has also been used to document the “disproportionate climate burden” borne by small-island nations, he adds, which “prompted the UN to release more funding” for these states.

EM-DAT is of critical importance to national and multinational initiatives tracking extreme weather in Africa, says Prof Dewald van Niekerk, head of the African Centre for Disaster Studies at North-West University in South Africa. Van Niekerk was one of the climate scientists who authored the open letter calling for EM-DAT to be protected from closure. He tells Carbon Brief:

“We use it on various levels, from sub-national straight up to continental level.”

Since 2018, van Niekerk has utilised EM-DAT to prepare reports on extreme weather events in Africa for the African Union. These efforts are to meet goals agreed under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, a voluntary international agreement to prevent disasters from upending development.

Without EM-DAT, it would not be possible to conduct such analyses, he says:

“Not all [African] governments can compile these databases. Where they do, they are extremely fragmented. You can’t compare apples with apples.”

(Carbon Brief has also used EM-DAT data to investigate the impact of extreme weather on Africa, finding that such events killed at least 15,000 people on the continent in 2023.)

Uncertain future

Despite having a global impact, EM-DAT’s small team of researchers require just €300,000 ($350,000) a year to maintain operations.

For decades, EM-DAT obtained 90% of this funding from USAid, the US’s federal agency for foreign aid, says Speybroeck:

“[USAid] allowed us to work in an independent and neutral way, so we were not influenced by any politics. That was one of the strengths of the database. They only asked for us to leave it open access, meaning that anyone can use it.”

USAid was dismantled by Donald Trump after he became US president for the second time in January 2025. By July, the agency officially closed its doors.

Speybroeck received a letter in February 2025 informing him that his team were to lose their funding.

“I decided for a long time to keep silent,” he tells Carbon Brief. However, by the end of 2025, he chose to start speaking out about the impact of USAid cuts on EM-DAT.

Learning of the threats to the database, four leading climate scientists published an open letter in March calling for other governments, multilateral development banks and philanthropy to step in to stop the database from closing. It has attracted more than 4,000 signatures.

One of the letter authors, Prof Gabriele Messori, director of the Swedish Centre for Impacts of Climate Extremes at Uppsala University in Sweden, tells Carbon Brief:

“It’s very worrying that a long-term dataset that has become a reference for many different sectors, when looking at the impacts of a wide range of natural and technological events on society and the economy, could be suddenly interrupted.”

(The cuts to EM-DAT’s funding come as the Trump administration has laid off thousands of scientists and frozen research grants worth billions of dollars in the US. For more on how these actions are impacting climate science, see Carbon Brief’s explainer on how Trump is threatening polar research.)

Since going public about EM-DAT’s funding crisis, Speybroeck says he has had some “positive signals” from potential new funders, but “there is nothing on paper yet”.

Another letter author, Prof Dewald van Niekerk, says he hopes to see EM-DAT move towards a model of using multiple funding sources, to create a “more robust structure” where “no one can just pull the plug” on its work.

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The post EM-DAT: Trump aid cuts could close database storing ‘world’s memory of disasters’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.

EM-DAT: Trump aid cuts could close database storing ‘world’s memory of disasters’

Andreas Sieber is head of political strategy at 350.org. Shady Khalil is a senior global policy strategist at Oil Change International.

COP31 will take place in the context of what Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, has called the “biggest energy crisis in history” – an extraordinary warning from a typically measured leader. A UN climate summit that fails to address fossil fuel dependency, energy affordability and energy access will not only fail politically; it will fail economically and socially too.

The last COP in Belém created several important building blocks: a Global Implementation Accelerator, a Just Transition Mechanism, the climate finance work programme, an expanded Action Agenda linked to the first Global Stocktake (GST1), and the Presidency-led Belém Roadmaps on forests and transitioning away from fossil fuels (TAFF).

But COP31 will need to move from frameworks to delivery. The historic first international conference on the transition away from fossil fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia, in April added further momentum to this agenda.

Development hit to importing nations

The countries paying the highest price for fossil fuel volatility are not the richest countries. The cost of dependency on fossil fuels is hitting importing low-income countries the hardest. Over three-quarters of the world’s population lives in countries that are net importers of fossil fuels. High energy prices push up food costs. Inflation fuels political instability. Debt burdens deepen. The fossil fuel crisis has become a development crisis. That is why COP31 matters.

The Presidency-led Belém Roadmaps on forests and TAFF are expected to be presented at COP31. The next step should be obvious: countries need domestic roadmaps showing how they will actually implement the transition at home.

A growing number are expected to develop such plans. COP31 should encourage them to put together domestic implementation roadmaps for shifting off fossil fuels that have concrete milestones, sectoral targets, investment strategies and policy measures.

At the same time, these processes must recognise that countries do not share the same starting points, capacities or development needs. For some, this may take the form of comprehensive roadmaps to phase out production and consumption, while for others the priority may be economic diversification, industrial transformation or expanding energy access and energy sovereignty.

Risk of disorderly transition

Without credible planning and international cooperation, the transition risks being too slow and increasingly chaotic, with fossil fuel demand destruction occurring through rationing, price shocks and de-industrialisation rather than through a managed socially just transformation.

This stands in direct contrast to the GST commitment to an “orderly” transition away from fossil fuels. Domestic roadmaps can help chart more stable coordinated pathways that reduce social disruption while contributing to geopolitical and economic stability.

Türkiye and Australia should show leadership as the upcoming COP hosts. For Türkiye, this is particularly urgent given the absence of a coal phase-out date. Price spikes for oil and gas have siphoned around $3 billion from ordinary people and businesses in Türkiye in the first two months of the current crisis alone, calculations by 350.org show.

Australia faces a different credibility challenge. While positioning itself as a renewable energy powerhouse, it also remains one of the world’s largest fossil fuel expanders and is facing calls to tax its fossil fuel exports.

Watch CHN’s webinar: From Santa Marta to Bonn – where next for the fossil fuel transition?

According to Oil Change International, four Global North countries — the US, Canada, Norway and Australia — are responsible for nearly 70% of projected new oil and gas expansion between 2025 and 2035, equivalent to around three times the annual emissions of all coal-fired power plants worldwide.

Paragraph 36 of the Mutirão decision agreed at COP30 already invites governments to submit implementation and investment plans for their national NDC climate plans. Domestic TAFF roadmaps could become a practical way to operationalise that commitment, while also creating space for countries to define national pathways aligned with their own development priorities and constraints.

This matters because some of the most politically difficult elements of the first Global Stocktake in 2023 — especially the transition away from fossil fuels and halting deforestation — are where implementation lags furthest behind rhetoric. Governments continue to endorse transition goals but must more seriously address the harder questions: how workers are protected, how grids are modernised, how industries adapt, and how countries finance the shift while maintaining economic development and energy access.

Roadmaps for coordination and clarity

Domestic TAFF roadmaps can help answer those questions. They allow governments to coordinate internally across ministries and externally with investors, development banks and international partners. They can provide clarity on timelines, infrastructure needs, financing gaps, industrial strategy and social protection. Most importantly, they can help ensure the transition is not only fast, but fair.

The first countries willing to develop credible transition roadmaps could also help rebuild international trust. They would demonstrate that a managed phase-out of fossil fuels can support economic development, create jobs, improve energy security and expand energy access rather than undermine them. That’s the spirit of the Santa Marta conference that now needs to be emulated.

This is also becoming a geo-economic issue. In a world increasingly shaped by bilateral deals, industrial competition and fragmented trade relations, countries with credible transition plans will be more insulated from global fossil fuel shocks, far better positioned to negotiate on debt restructure and cancellation, climate finance, technology transfer and industrial policy. Governments that know where they are going can shape the transition to their advantage.

Leaders’ support needed

COP31 also presents Türkiye and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with a rare diplomatic opportunity. At a moment of growing fragmentation between North and South — and between East and West — Türkiye could utilise its role as a middle power and serve as a bridge-builder capable of restoring high-level political momentum to the climate process and convene a leaders summit with wide attendance.

Leaders attending COP31 should help countries agree that TAFF roadmaps are a practical way to turn climate promises into real action. These roadmaps would reflect national realities while identifying needs for international and regional cooperation, including on financing and barriers to transition such as debt burdens, technology access and trade rules.

Ultimately, roadmaps for transitioning away from fossil fuels are roadmaps for economic resilience, energy security, and political stability in a far more volatile world.

The post COP31 must persuade countries to make fossil fuel transition plans  appeared first on Climate Home News.

COP31 must persuade countries to make fossil fuel transition plans