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Last week, around 180 scientists, researchers and legal experts gathered in Laxenburg, Austria to attend the first-ever international conference focused on the controversial topic of climate “overshoot”.

This hypothesised scenario would see global temperatures initially “overshoot” the Paris Agreement’s aspirational limit of 1.5C, before they are brought back down through techniques that would remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

(For more on the key talking points, new research and discussions that emerged from the three-day conference, see Carbon Brief’s full write-up of the event.)

On the sidelines of the conference, Carbon Brief asked a range of delegates what they consider to be the key “unknowns” around overshoot.

Below are their responses, first as sample quotes, then, in full:

  • Dr James Fletcher: “Yes, there will be overshoot, but at what point will that overshoot peak? Are we peaking at 1.6C, 1.7C, 2.1C?”
  • Prof Shobha Maharaj: “There are lots of places in the world where adaptation plans have been made to a 1.5C ceiling. The fact is that these plans are going to need to be modified or probably redeveloped.”
  • Sir Prof Jim Skea: “There are huge knowledge gaps around overshoot and carbon dioxide removal.”
  • Prof Kristie Ebi: “If there is going to be a peak – and, of course, we don’t know what that peak is – then how do you start planning?”
  • Prof Lavanya Rajamani: “To me, a key governance unknown is the extent to which our current legal and regulatory architecture…will actually be responsive to the needs of an overshoot world.”
  • Prof Nebojsa Nakicenovic: “One of my major concerns has been for a long time…is whether, even after reaching net-zero, negative emissions can actually produce a temperature decline.”
  • Prof Debra Roberts: “For me, the big unknown is how all of these areas of increased impact and risk actually intersect with one another and what that means in the real world.”
  • Prof Oliver Geden: “[A key unknown] is whether countries are really willing to commit to net-negative trajectories.”
  • Dr Carl-Friedrich Schleussner: “This is a bigger concern that I have – that we are pushing the habitability in our societies on this planet above that limit and towards maybe existential limits.”
  • Dr Anna Pirani: “I think that tracking global mean surface temperature on an overshoot pathway will be an important unknown.”
  • Prof Richard Betts: “One of the key unknowns is are we going to continue to get the land carbon sink that the models produce.”
  • Prof Hannah Daly: “The biggest unknown is whether countries can translate these global [overshoot] pathways into sustained domestic action…that is politically and socially feasible.”
  • Dr Andrew King: “[W]e still have a lot of uncertainty around other elements in the climate system that relate more to what people actually live through.”

Dr James FletcherDr James Fletcher


Former minister for public service, sustainable development, energy, science and technology for Saint Lucia and negotiator at COP21 in Paris.

The key unknown is where we’re going to land. At what point will we peak [temperatures] before we start going down, and how long will we stay in that overshoot period? That is a scary thing. Yes, there will be overshoot, but at what point will that overshoot peak? Are we peaking at 1.6C, 1.7C, 2.1C? All of these are scary scenarios for small island developing states – anything above 1.5C is scary. Every fraction of a degree matters to us. Where we peak is very important and how long we stay in this overshoot period is equally important. That’s when you start getting into very serious, irreversible impacts and tipping points.

Prof Shobha MaharajProf Shobha Maharaj

Adjunct professor at the University of Fiji and a coordinating lead author for Working Group II of the IPCC’s seventh assessment

First of all, there is an assumption that we’re going to go back down from overshoot. Back down is not a given. And secondly, we are still in the phase where we are talking about uncertainty. Climate scientists don’t like uncertainty. We are not acknowledging that uncertainty is the new normal… But because we’re so bogged down in terms of uncertainties, we are not moving towards [the issue of] what we do about it. We know it’s coming. We know the temperatures are going to be high. But there is little talk about the action.

The focus seems to be more on how we can understand this or how we can model this, but not what we do on the ground. Especially when it comes to adaptation planning – [and around] how does this modify whatever the plans are? There are lots of places in the world where adaptation plans have been made to a 1.5C ceiling. The fact is that these plans are going to need to be modified or probably redeveloped. And no one is talking about this, especially in the areas that are least resourced in the world – which sets up a big, big problem.

Sir Prof Jim SkeaSir Prof Jim Skea

Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and emeritus professor at Imperial College London’s Centre for Environmental Policy

There are huge knowledge gaps around overshoot and carbon dioxide removal. As it’s very clear from the themes of this conference, we don’t altogether understand how the Earth would react in taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. We don’t understand the nature of the irreversibilities and we don’t understand the effectiveness of CDR techniques, which might themselves be influenced by the level of global warming, plus all the equity and sustainability issues surrounding using CDR techniques.

Prof Kristie EbiProf Kristie Ebi

Professor of global health at the University of Washington‘s Center for Health and the Global Environment

There are all kinds of questions about adaptation and how to approach effective adaptation. At the moment, adaptation is primarily assuming a continual increase in global mean surface temperature. If there is going to be a peak – and of course, we don’t know what that peak is – then how do you start planning? Do you change your planning? There are places, for instance when thinking about hard infrastructure, [where overshoot] may result in a change in your plan – because as you come down the backside, maybe the need would be less. For example, when building a bridge taller. And when implementing early warning systems, how do you take into account that there will be a peak and ultimately a decline? There is almost no work in that. I would say that’s one of the critical unknowns.

Prof Lavanya RajamaniProf Lavanya Rajamani

Professor of international environmental law at the University of Oxford

I think there are several scientific unknowns, but I would like to focus on the governance unknowns with respect to overshoot. To me, a key governance unknown is the extent to which our current legal and regulatory architecture – across levels of governance, so domestic, regional and international – will actually be responsive to the needs of an overshoot world and the consequences of actually not having regulatory and governance architectures in place to address overshoot.

Prof Nebojsa NakicenovicProf Nebojsa Nakicenovic

Distinguished emeritus research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and executive director of The World In 2050.

One of my major concerns has been for a long time – as it was clear that we are heading for an overshoot, as we are not reducing the emissions in time – is whether, even after reaching net-zero, negative emissions can actually produce a temperature decline…In other words, there might be asymmetry on the way down [in the global-temperature response to carbon removal] – it might not be symmetrical to the way up [as temperature rise in response to carbon emissions]. And this is really my major concern, that we are planning measures that are so uncertain that we don’t know whether they will reach the goal.

The last point I want to make is that I think that the scientific community should, under all conditions, make sure that the highest priority is on mitigation.

Prof Debra RobertsProf Debra Roberts

Honorary professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, coordinating lead author on the IPCC’s forthcoming special report on climate change and cities, board chair of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and co-chair of Working Group II for the IPCC’s sixth assessment

Well, I think coming from the policy and practitioner community, what I’m hearing a lot about are the potential impacts that come from the exceedance component of overshoot. What I’m not hearing a lot about is the responses to overshoot and their impacts – and how those impacts might interact with the impacts from temperature exceedance. So there’s quite a complex risk landscape emerging. It’s three dimensional in many ways, but we’re only talking about one dimension and, for policymakers, we need to understand that three dimensional element in order to understand what options remain on the table. For me, the big unknown is how all of these areas of increased impact and risk actually intersect with one another and what that means in the real world.

Prof Oliver GedenProf Oliver Geden

Senior fellow and head of the climate policy and politics research cluster at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and vice-chair of IPCC Working Group III

[A key unknown] is whether countries are really willing to commit to net-negative trajectories. We are assuming, in science, global pathways going net negative, with hardly any country saying they want to go there. So maybe it is just an academic thought experiment. So we don’t know yet if [overshoot] is even relevant. It is relevant in the sense that if we do, [the] 1.5C [target] stays on the table. But I think the next phase needs to be that countries – or the UNFCCC as a whole – needs to decide what they want to do.

Dr Carl-Friedrich SchleussnerDr Carl-Friedrich Schleussner

Research group leader and senior research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

I’m convinced that there’s an upper limit of overshoot that we can afford – and it might be not far outside the Paris range [1.5C-2C] – before human societies will be overwhelmed with the task of bringing temperatures back down again. This [societal limit] is lower than the geophysical limits or the CDR limit.

The impacts of climate change and the challenges that will come with it will undermine society’s abilities to cooperatively engage in what is required to achieve long-term temperature reversal. This is a bigger concern that I have – that we are pushing the habitability in our societies on this planet above that limit and towards maybe existential limits. We may not be able to walk back from it, even if we wanted to. That is a big unknown to me.

I’m convinced that there is an upper limit to how much overshoot we can afford, and it might be just about 2C or a bit above – it might not be much more than that. But we do not have good evidence for this. But I think these scenarios of going to 3C and then assuming we can go back down – I have doubts that future societies grappling with the impacts of climate change will be in the position to embark on such an endeavour.

Dr Anna PiraniDr Anna Pirani

Senior research associate at the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) and former head of the Technical Support Unit for Working Group I of the IPCC

I think that tracking global mean surface temperature on an overshoot pathway will be an important unknown – how to take account of natural variability in that context, to inform where we are on an overshoot pathway and how well we’re doing on it. I think, methodologically, that would prove to be a challenge. The fact that it occurs over many, many years – many decades – and, yet, we sort of think about it as a nice curve. We see these graphs that say “by the 2050s, we will be here and we’ll start declining and so on”. I think that what that actually translates to in the evolution of global surface temperatures is going to be very difficult to measure and track. Even how we report on that, internationally, in the UNFCCC [UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] context and what the WMO [World Meteorological Organization] does in terms of reporting an overshoot trajectory, that would be quite a challenge.

Prof Richard BettsProf Richard Betts

Head of climate impacts research in the Met Office Hadley Centre and professor at the University of Exeter

One of the key unknowns is are we going to continue to get the land carbon sink that the models produce. We have got model simulations of returning from an overshoot.

If you are lowering temperatures, you have got to reduce emissions. The amount you reduce emissions depends on how much carbon is taken up naturally by the system – by forests, oceans and so on. The models will do this; they give you an answer. But we don’t know whether they are doing the right thing. They have never been tested in this kind of situation.

In my field of expertise, one of the key [unknowns] is how these carbon sinks are going to behave in the future. That is why we are trying to get real-world data into the models – including through the Amazon FACE project – so we can really try and narrow the uncertainties in future carbon sinks. If the carbon sinks are weaker than the models think, it is going to be even harder to reduce emissions and we will need to remove even more by carbon capture and removal.

Prof Hannah DalyProf Hannah Daly

Professor of sustainable energy at University College Cork

We know ever more about the profound – and often irreversible – damages that will be felt as we overshoot 1.5C. Yet we seem no closer to understanding what will unlock the urgent decarbonisation that remains our only way to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Global models can show, on paper, what returning temperatures to safer levels after overshoot might look like. The biggest unknown is whether countries can translate these global pathways into sustained domestic action – over decades and without precedent in history – that is politically and socially feasible.

Dr Andrew KingDr Andrew King

Associate professor in climate science at the University of Melbourne

I think, firstly, can we actually achieve net-negative emissions to bring temperatures down past a peak? It’s a completely different world and, unfortunately, it’s likely to be challenging and we’re setting ourselves up to need to do it more. So I think that’s a huge unknown.

But then, beyond that, I think also, whilst we’ve built some understanding of how global temperature would respond to net-zero or net-negative emissions, we still have a lot of uncertainty around other elements in the climate system that relate more to what people actually live through. In our warming world, we’ve seen that global warming relates to local warming being experienced by everyone at different amounts. But, in an overshoot climate, we would see quite diverse changes for different people, different areas of the world, experiencing very different changes in our local climates. And also definitely worsening of some climate hazards and possibly reversibility in others, so a very different risk landscape as well, emerging post net-zero – and I think we still don’t know very much about that as well.

The post Experts: The key ‘unknowns’ of overshooting the 1.5C global-warming limit appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Experts: The key ‘unknowns’ of overshooting the 1.5C global-warming limit

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Analysis: Wind and solar power overtake fossil fuels in Germany for first time ever

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More of Germany’s electricity came from wind and solar power than fossil fuels for the first time ever in 2025.

Together, wind and solar power generated 225 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity – accounting for 44% of the total in 2025 – with just 217TWh (43%) coming from fossil fuels.

Solar and onshore wind have grown rapidly under Germany’s “Energiewende” strategy over the past two decades, as the nation transitions away from both coal and nuclear power.

Renewables have recently faced mounting opposition from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and the current coalition government has been trying to develop new gas-power plants.

Nevertheless, Carbon Brief analysis of Energy Institute data – shown in the chart below – illustrates how wind and solar have continued growing, emerging as the nation’s largest power source.

The success of renewables in Germany mirrors the EU as a whole, which also saw wind and solar overtake fossil-fuel power generation in 2025 for the first time.

“Other renewables” includes hydropower, bioenergy, geothermal and other renewable sources not otherwise stated. Source: Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy, 2026.

Germany has various targets in place that require a rapid expansion of wind and solar power, including cutting economy-wide emissions to net-zero by 2045.

The nation is also aiming to increase renewables’ share of electricity consumption to 80% by 2030 to achieve a “largely climate neutral” power system by 2035. It aims to decarbonise its electricity entirely once coal power has been phased out, which has a deadline of “no later than” 2038.

(The renewables targets also include electricity generated from hydropower and bioenergy. The latter produces a relatively large share of Germany’s power – roughly a tenth in 2025.)

Germany has to rely on renewables more than neighbours, such as France and the UK, to achieve its climate goals. This is due to its phaseout of nuclear power, which is a key part of the “Energiewende” strategy.

Nuclear power has long faced widespread public opposition in Germany. This year, the centre-right chancellor Friedrich Merz described the nuclear phaseout as a “strategic mistake”, but the government has ruled out a return to conventional nuclear power.

The country has an official coal phaseout date of 2038, but experts say the country is on track to eliminate coal from its power supply years earlier. This is despite some pressure to temporarily slow the transition away from coal during the recent energy crisis.

(Very few outside the AfD are calling to scrap the coal phaseout altogether, but the government will publish a review of the timelines in August.)

While coal generation has fallen quickly, even as nuclear was being phased out, some argue that coal could have been cut more quickly if nuclear had remained.

Gas-power expansion has also been framed by the government in recent years as an essential component of Germany’s transition away from coal and nuclear power, to support a renewables-heavy grid.

The current government under Merz has tried to boost gas and recently adopted a law to provide state support for new gas-fired power plants. The plan is for these plants to be converted to run on “green hydrogen” by 2045, in order to meet the climate-neutrality goal.

Germany aims to install 115 gigawatts (GW) of onshore wind by 2030 and approved a record 20.8GW of new capacity in 2025. 

Meanwhile, solar generation has reached unprecedented levels during the hot summer of 2026.

However, the government’s planned grid reforms have been criticised by the renewables industry for risking slowing down the energy transition. Under the proposals, renewables developers would only be granted automatic grid connections in areas with limited grid capacity if they waive compensation for future curtailed generation.

The post Analysis: Wind and solar power overtake fossil fuels in Germany for first time ever appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Analysis: Wind and solar power overtake fossil fuels in Germany for first time ever

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Analysis: 84% of nations miss deadline to identify ‘nature-harming’ subsidies by 2025 

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Most countries failed to meet a 2025 target to identify all of their subsidies that could be “harmful” to biodiversity, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

The findings also reveal that 32 countries spend an estimated $270bn on biodiversity-harming subsidies and other incentives each year.

This is the “tip of the iceberg”, one expert notes, with “trillions” spent globally.

In 2022, almost every country in the world agreed on a set of “goals” and “targets” aiming to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.

One of these targets asked countries to identify all subsidies that damage biodiversity by 2025, before phasing out or reforming at least $500bn of these incentives by 2030.

The subsidies can be found in a range of sectors, including fossil fuels, agriculture, forestry, mining and fishing.

Just 21 countries appear to have met the 2025 goal, Carbon Brief finds, based on analysis of 134 national reports submitted to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) by 1 July 2026.

Five of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries were among those that met the deadline.

Country progress

Carbon Brief’s analysis looks at the number of countries that have met the 2025 target to identify their use of nature-harming subsidies.

However, the metrics to determine which countries have “met” this target are not explicitly defined.

Carbon Brief included any country that says it has completed the process of identifying its subsidies. In almost every case, these countries also included a total figure for the value of those subsidies.

The analysis finds that 21 countries say they have identified their harmful subsidies, as shown in the map below (yellow). This amounts to 16% of the countries that have submitted national reports so far.

A further 11 countries, plus the EU, have provided figures for some of their subsidies, such as only those in a specific sector (dark blue).

Of the 134 national reports submitted to the CBD, 66 make reference to beginning the process (medium blue), while the remaining 68 do not (light blue). The final 62 countries party to the CBD have yet to submit a national report (light grey).

(Every country in the world participates in the CBD, except for the US and the Holy See – the governing body of the Catholic church, which is seated in Vatican City.)

Map of the world showing that 21 countries have identified all of their nature-harming subsidies
Countries that have identified all of their harmful subsidies (yellow); provided figures for some sectors (dark blue); begun the process, but not provided any numbers (medium blue); not begun the process (light blue); and not submitted a national report to the CBD (light grey). Credit: Carbon Brief analysis

The 32 countries that have identified some or all subsidies spend almost $270bn on nature-harming incentives annually, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis.

This is based on a tally of the figures for the most recent available year listed in countries’ national reports, in US dollars using conversion rates at the end of the given year and adjusted for inflation. The analysis also includes figures from other reports cited in the country submissions.

The $270bn reported in country submissions to date is “just the tip of the iceberg”, notes Eva Zabey, the chief executive of Business for Nature. The global figure could be as high as $1.8tn, according to a 2022 estimate from non-profit group, the B Team.

The figures identified by Carbon Brief are a “warning” that the “world is not moving fast enough” to tackle harmful subsidies, Zabey says, adding:

“The positive news is that some countries have shown it can be done and this should embolden others to follow suit…Subsidy reform should be treated as an economic necessity, not an environmental checklist.”

Harmful subsidies are expected to be among the key priorities at the upcoming COP17 UN nature summit, being held in Armenia in October 2026.

Subsidy target

There is no single definition of a “harmful” subsidy. (See: ‘Harmful’ subsidies.) 

The aim to identify these subsidies stems from target 18 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) – the global agreement containing a series of goals and targets for nature.

Target 18.
Target 18 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Credit: UN CBD (2022)

Target 18 calls on countries to identify subsidies and other incentives that are harmful for biodiversity by 2025.

It also says that nations should “eliminate, phase out or reform” these subsidies in a “proportionate” way, reducing them by at least $500bn per year by 2030.

It says countries should first target the “most harmful” incentives, while simultaneously scaling up positive incentives for nature.

All 2030 targets in the GBF are global – with countries each expected to outline how they will contribute nationally. So far, 169 countries have submitted these national targets.

Only 38% of countries addressed the 2025 aim to identify harmful subsidies in their national targets “to some extent”, according to a draft version of an upcoming progress report.

Countries’ national reports do not “provide a sufficient basis to determine” whether the 2025 milestone was met, says the report, but available evidence “suggests” that it was not.  

‘Harmful’ subsidies  

There is no universally agreed-upon definition of a “biodiversity-harmful subsidy” – or how it differs from an environmentally harmful subsidy.

In general, “harmful” environmental subsidies impact humans’ surroundings, whereas those harmful to biodiversity directly affect species and ecosystems. Paul Elton, a PhD candidate at the Australian National University, tells Carbon Brief:

“If you were to do a study that focused on biodiversity-harmful subsidies versus one that focused on environmentally-harmful subsidies, there’d be a Venn diagram where a large percentage would overlap.”

A 2022 working paper on identifying subsidies harmful to biodiversity published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) depicted biodiversity as a subset of the environment, with climate and air falling outside the scope of “biodiversity”.

However, the report also noted that climate change is one of the five key drivers of biodiversity loss, adding:

“As such, subsidies that lead to larger greenhouse gas emissions, for example, will also indirectly impact on biodiversity.”

Distinction between the “environment” and “biodiversity”, according to an oft-cited working paper on identifying and assessing biodiversity-harming subsidies. Credit: OECD (2022)
Distinction between the “environment” and “biodiversity”, according to an oft-cited working paper on identifying and assessing biodiversity-harming subsidies. Credit: OECD (2022)

Prof Jessica Dempsey, a political ecologist at the University of British Columbia, tells Carbon Brief that she would “absolutely” consider fossil-fuel subsidies to be biodiversity-harming – not only as a driver of climate change, but also because the extraction of fossil fuels can cause localised harms to biodiversity. She adds:

“I do think probably it is true that all harmful subsidies are not necessarily biodiversity-related. Some care in that is important, but subsidies to the sectors that are known drivers of biodiversity loss feel very obvious to me.”

Biodiversity-harming subsidies can be either direct or indirect.

Direct subsidies refer to government expenditures that go towards a project that harms nature, such as construction of a new gas-fired power plant. Indirect subsidies could include tax exemptions that encourage a certain behaviour, such as lower tax rates on fuels for agricultural machinery.

Subsidies in agriculture, fishery and energy sectors are most commonly deemed “harmful”, but damage can also be caused by support for forestry, infrastructure, transport, construction, water and other sectors.

One recent estimate of the global total of biodiversity-harming subsidies put the figure at $1.7-3.2tn annually. An estimate of environmentally harmful subsidies put the figure at $2.6tn.

Elton tells Carbon Brief:

“It’s useful to contextualise the $500bn ambition of the GBF against those global estimates of how big [the total] actually could be, because that underscores the fact that so far, you’ve only got a subset of nations reporting about $250bn by your analysis, which is only half of the [phase-out target].

“It’s a significant lack of accountability.”

The chart below compares the $2.6bn estimated value of harmful subsidies to the $500bn phase-out target set in the GBF and the value of the subsidies identified so far in national reports.

Chart showing biodiversity harming subsidies
Comparison of the harmful subsidies identified by countries in their national reports (light blue), the phase-out target for subsidies outlined in the GBF (medium blue) and a global estimate of environmentally harmful subsidies (dark blue). Credit: Carbon Brief analysis

Sectoral breakdown

Many subsidies can have both negative and positive impacts on biodiversity, according to the 2022 OECD working paper.

A subsidy on constructing dams for new hydropower can harm local biodiversity by disrupting water flows and flooding certain areas, for example. But it also reduces fossil-fuel dependence, lowering emissions and leading to a decrease in global warming.

Ronald Steenblik, a subsidies expert and co-author of the report estimating $2.6bn of harmful subsidies, tells Carbon Brief:

“What’s harmful is somewhat in the eye of the beholder.”

Most experts agree that a few sectors receive the bulk of the world’s biodiversity-harming subsidies: fossil fuels, agriculture and infrastructure, with much smaller contributions from other sectors, such as forestry, mining and fisheries.

Of the subsidies reported to the CBD, almost half were for the fossil-fuel sector, and around one-quarter for agriculture and fishing.

Chart showing that almost half of nature-harming subsidies go towards fossil fuels
Sectoral breakdown of identified subsidies. “Multiple” means a country either did not distinguish between sectors or reported one number encompassing several sectors. “Other” refers to specific sectors not named in the chart. Credit: Carbon Brief analysis.

Dempsey says it is “surprising” that mining “didn’t show up” in these figures. (Of the 32 countries that provided subsidy data, only one mentioned mining as an industry that received harmful subsidies.)

Limitations

One limitation of Carbon Brief’s analysis is the lack of standardisation of subsidy data.

The methodology underlying the national reports lists several definitions of environmentally harmful subsidies, adding:

“[T]here is no standardised, globally agreed methodology for assessing the value of subsidies…nor is there a single global dataset providing this information.”

It adds that it is “important” for countries to identify harmful subsidies “within their national context”. Steenblik says:

“When you get down into the details, you can have lots of arguments of where you draw the line. And, so, the big question on this spreadsheet is where countries drew that line.”

For example, China’s national report says the country has already identified all biodiversity-harming subsidies and reformed them entirely.

In Australia, a 2026 study – led by Elton from Australian National University – identified biodiversity-harmful subsidies worth $26.3bn over 2022-23, a number that amounts to just over 1% of the country’s GDP.

However, in its national report, Australia identified $155m worth of subsidies, largely in the agricultural sector. (The national report says that the identified agricultural subsidies are those that are “potentially most harmful to the environment”.)

Elton tells Carbon Brief that this discrepancy underscores the necessity of an independent assessment of harmful subsidies, “rather than this just being seen as a tick-the-box reporting exercise by officials in the environment department”.

When it comes to actually phasing out harmful subsidies, Dempsey says, focusing on the quality of the subsidy – and who benefits from it – is just as important as focusing on the numbers. She adds:

“If we don’t take this lens of understanding the beneficiaries and we only focus on the [numbers], we really risk having policy changes that then lead to increased affordability problems for everyday working people, and backlash.”

Methodology

Carbon Brief analysed national reports submitted to the CBD by 134 parties – 133 countries and the EU – to assess which ones had identified all of their biodiversity-harmful subsidies and therefore met the 2025 deadline.

The reports were submitted in 2026, with the analysis including those submitted by 1 July 2026.

The figures for each country can be found in this spreadsheet. More than three-quarters of reports did not list any figures.

To get the full tally for the amount listed, Carbon Brief used the figures for 2025 (or the nearest available year) and converted the local currency into US dollars, based on conversion rates in the given year using the currency exchange rates calculator from the US Treasury.

These figures were then adjusted for inflation to the year 2025. Numbers were rounded to the nearest $1,000.

In total, this amounted to $269,856,769,000 in subsidies across 32 countries.

Many countries listed the sector that each subsidy is going towards. Carbon Brief standardised these inputs using the following categories:

  • Agriculture and fishing
  • Energy
  • Forestry  
  • Fossil fuels 
  • Infrastructure
  • Transport 
  • Other
  • Multiple sectors

“Multiple sectors” was assigned when a country provided only a partial sectoral breakdown of their subsidies or none at all.

“Other” was selected to encompass sectors that were named more infrequently, including water, mining, tourism and construction.

The designations employed and the presentation of the material on the map in this article do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of Carbon Brief concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

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Analysis: 84% of nations miss deadline to identify ‘nature-harming’ subsidies by 2025 

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Cook Government must recognise risks posed by Woodside’s Scott Reef drilling plans

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SYDNEY, Monday 27 July 2026 — In response to an announcement that Woodside’s Browse to North West Shelf (Browse) Project was declared a State Significant Project by the WA Government, the following comments can be attributed to Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Hannah Schuch:

“The WA Government must not ignore the significant risks clearly associated with Woodside’s plans to drill for gas at the pristine Scott Reef — to endangered marine life, our oceans, and our climate — all of which are valued and relied upon by Western Australians.

“The WA Environmental Protection Authority has already found Woodside’s plans to drill at Scott Reef would have unacceptable impacts on the environment without considering the climate impacts of 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon pollution associated with this disastrous proposal.

“Woodside’s gas drilling plans, including seismic blasting and carbon dumping in the heart of a precious ecosystem, pose potentially fatal risks to pygmy blue whales and genetically unique green sea turtles, and could cause a catastrophic oil spill.

“If the WA and federal governments are concerned with the prosperity of WA, they must reject Woodside’s nature and climate-wrecking proposal to drill for gas at Scott Reef.”

—ENDS—

High res images and footage of Scott Reef can be found here.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Emma Sangalli on 0431 513 465 or emma.sangalli@greenpeace.org

Cook Government must recognise risks posed by Woodside’s Scott Reef drilling plans

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