Published

2 years ago

May 20, 2024

Alice Rush

In 2024, the world is facing one of the most volatile geopolitical outlooks in decades.

More than 50 countries, accounting for half of the global population, are going to the polls, with high levels of political uncertainty across many of the world’s largest economies.

Additionally, ongoing conflicts, extreme weather events, trade disputes and resource competition are contributing to geopolitical volatility.

With the world nearly half way through a “critical decade” for climate action, overcoming geopolitical risks in order to start rapidly cutting emissions is paramount to limiting global warming.

Carbon Brief has asked a range of scientists, policy experts and campaigners from around the world what they think the biggest geopolitical risks to climate action will be in 2024.

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

Prof Jason Bordoff: “We are currently at risk of a troubling downward spiral, in which today’s geopolitical conflicts are complicating and slowing the energy transition.”
Olivia Lazard: “Structural and dynamic risks lead to grievances ripe for an economic, political and/or geo-politicised backlash against or away from climate action.”
Faten Aggad: “From an African perspective, the key challenge is that the geopolitical tension between China and the US/EU will be used as an excuse this year to argue for a limited increase in climate finance.”
Jennie King: Many are using “climate issue… as a gateway to undermine democratic life and norms.”
Iskander Erzini Vernoit: “Development assistance and aid budgets are at risk of being slashed by shortsighted politicians.”

Dr Dhanasree Jayaram: “The India-China conflict poses immense risks to transboundary climate and water cooperation.”
Anna Ackermann: “Right-wing populism gaining visibility and votes in democracies means there is a risk of rising anti-climate sentiments.”
Juan Pablo Medina Bickel: “The global discussion to protect the Amazonian rainforest requires incorporating a security angle.”
Prof Sophia Kalantzakos: “The road to net-zero and global digitalisation have been subsumed by … power struggles, driven by Sino-American hyper-competition exacerbated further by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
Kate Logan: “Concerns over China’s [clean-tech] dominance have further entrenched protectionist policies in the US and EU especially, where climate action is increasingly intertwined with economic competitiveness and political support from domestic industrial bases.”

Jason Bordoff

Founding director
Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs

Today’s increasingly volatile and unstable geopolitical environment is one of the most powerful forces shaping the global energy transition and climate action. We are currently at risk of a troubling downward spiral, in which today’s geopolitical conflicts are complicating and slowing the energy transition, while the risks of a disorderly transition risk exacerbating some of today’s most troublesome geopolitical trends.

Increasingly fraught global conflicts are sapping resources and political will to address the climate crisis, from the Middle East to Russia’s unjustified aggression against Ukraine. Most recently, strikes by Israel and Iran directly against one another have inflamed tensions, escalating risks in a region critical to climate action that may also have ripple effects globally.

Additionally, great power competition between many of the countries needed to lead on climate action, notably the US and China, is rewriting the rules of the international economic order and complicating climate action further. The urgency of accelerating the deployment of clean energy technologies far more rapidly than is the case today risks being hampered by concerns about national security, economic competitiveness fueled by the rise of industrial policy, and supply chain resilience that could raise the costs of those technologies. A recent example of this concern was the Biden administration’s launching of a national security investigation into the risks posed by imported Chinese electric vehicles.

While there are real policy concerns to address with regard to China’s dominance in clean energy supply chains, there is also a real tension between limiting China’s market access and scaling clean energy technologies at the speed and scale needed for climate action.

Finally, there are signs of growing resentment and backlash by emerging and developing economies at the perceived unfairness in how the energy transition is unfolding. Leaders in the global south increasingly point to the inability of countries responsible for most of the cumulative emissions to mobilise capital for the transition in lower income countries, or what they see as hypocrisy in how wealthier countries approach fossil fuel investment at home versus in energy-poor countries, among other concerns. As a significant share of future emissions growth will come from emerging and developing economies and more than half of investment is needed in those countries by the early 2030s, ensuring they see the transition as proceeding in a just and equitable way is essential.

Olivia Lazard

Fellow
Carnegie Europe

The list is long! It is a year when a third of the world is going to the election polls, including in the EU and in the US. Needless to say, a radical right wave in the west would be disastrous for the coherence of climate trajectories. It would undermine the key message that democracies can deliver on social contracts and inter-generational stakes. In Europe, the radical right has been making progress on the back of economic and societal issues, but one should not underestimate two other factors that magnify the risks.

The first one is disinformation and misinformation, especially the kinds piloted from Russia. The latter has perfected the art of fragmentation weaponisation in all its forms, including on the information and policy debate. Its tactics are both diffuse – via social media and digitalisation – and direct – co-opting and/or influencing political actors in Europe to serve its own interests.

The second one is Europe’s own geopolitical blindspots, lack of foresight and, therefore, lack of strategic communication to European citizens. As opposed to what [European Commission] president [Ursula] von der Leyen said, the world is not going through a series of “crises”, which require weathering through. The world is in a state of biospheric, economic and power transitions, which require adaptation and transformation. Europe did not anticipate the paradigm shifts which are now unfolding. Political extremes are, however, riding the wave of this lack of anticipation to come to power and cement a more protectionist approach. The latter will break trust that Europe needs to deliver legally-binding climate action, and more largely, that Europe needs to exist.

Underpinning election-related risks is inflation. 2023 was indeed a record-breaking year from a climate perspective. Global temperature average overshot past the 1.5C threshold compared to pre-industrial levels on a few occasions. Marine and pole temperatures broke records that indicate tipping points may activate sooner than later. El Nino contributed to dramatic impacts on various forms of agriculture. These global trends may seem abstract, but they indicate that the world is indeed headed towards more impactful forms of “natural” hazards – which translate in economic shocks at various levels – combined with more structural forms of scarcity and shortages, particularly with regards to water and food.

These combined dynamic forms of economic stress will have different effects: disruption of agricultural and industrial, energy sources and trade passage points; inflation levels will remain a growing concern in the global economic system. This will have direct purchasing power impacts on vulnerable populations in all countries alike, with potential for active breakdown of social contracts in some countries, and change in political tides in others – including pushing a swell of radical parties in Europe. On a more macro-economic level, it will keep straining relationships between countries of the global north and global south, with detrimental effects on debt-relief conversations. Yet, the latter are absolutely crucial to enhance global adaptation and [emissions] mitigation capacity.

All of these structural and dynamic risks lead to grievances ripe for an economic, political and/or geo-politicised backlash against or away from climate action. Considering that we’re in the pivot years towards a world past the 1.5C threshold, to say that this would be disastrous is an understatement.

Faten Aggad

CEO
African Future Policies Hub

All eyes are on the US presidential election and what [candidate Donald] Trump will do.

From an African perspective, the key challenge is that the geopolitical tension between China and the US/EU will be used as an excuse this year to argue for a limited increase in climate finance. We are likely to see this play out during COP29 [in Baku] when the discussion on the new financing goal is due to be discussed – [including the] insistence of western countries on a contributor base that includes China – as well as the replenishment of the International Development Association (IDA).

The insistence on financing through specific frameworks – rather than net flows to developing countries – is not constructive and risks poisoning discussions around international commitments for climate finance.

While it is clear that the quantum needs to be increased and that contributions need to come from all high polluters, any attempts to capture the discussion by adding these geopolitical tensions will be seen as a lack of commitment by developing countries. Understandably, these countries can only commit to decarbonisation – and to more ambitious NDCs next year – if they have a sense that there is serious consideration for their argument on financial flows.

Also, internationally, the major risk is emission increase due to the issues on the Red Sea shipping route (estimated at [being an increase in emissions up to] 11%), as well as announced increase in weapon manufacturing due to increased demands. Considering that the defence sector estimated carbon footprint stands at 5.5% of global emissions, this is concerning.

Jennie King

Director of climate research and policy
Institute for Strategic Dialogue

It’s generally assumed that mis- and disinformation in this space has a clear policy goal: weaken the public mandate for action, slow down the legislative process and, ultimately, maintain the status quo of the carbon economy. By confusing the public, actors can delay progress and prevent us from achieving a sustainable, decarbonised future.

That remains true in many cases, but I think there is a bigger or parallel game at play: climate issues are also being used as a gateway to undermine democratic life and norms. Nowadays, the aim of much content is not just to delay net-zero, but rather weaken trust in political systems and institutions writ large. Framing climate action as an elite conspiracy or inherently undemocratic, and feeding into wider anti-establishment sentiment, has proven very successful.

Climate is by no means the only victim of that trend, which has also impacted issues like racial justice, sexual and reproductive health, civil rights and electoral integrity. But I think what makes it uniquely vulnerable is how holistic the problem is and how every pocket of society has to be involved in the transition moving forward.

By its very nature, climate is a problem that requires not only big government solutions, but multilateral cooperation. We are living in a time where people have lost faith or patience in either of those things. Citizens are suspicious of government and sceptical that policymaking can actually yield results. At the same time, nativism and isolationism are on the rise. That means the idea of doing things collaboratively with other countries – potentially even hostile states – and the global community rallying together around a shared crisis is an easy one to exploit and turn people against.

When we think about the problem in this huge election year – the so-called “year of democracy” – and beyond, I see those as the two parallel challenges: one, ongoing and coordinated efforts to thwart climate action, often funded by billions of corporate dollars; second, the way that climate is being weaponised to increase social division and embed the idea that democracy doesn’t work. We cannot address one without the other.

Iskander Erzini Vernoit
Director
IMAL Initiative for Climate & Development

The most significant question to be addressed within the multilateral climate regime – in 2024 – is that of international climate finance. The new collective quantified goal (“NCQG”) on climate finance in the UNFCCC, mandated [as part of the Paris Agreement] to be agreed before 2025, is to exceed and replace the goal of $100bn per year originally agreed in Copenhagen.

This will be enormously consequential to the future of climate action, as a time-limited window for governments to start, essentially for the first time, having responsible conversations about the magnitude of climate finance required to deliver the Paris Agreement. Climate change mitigation, including but not limited to energy transition, adaptation and loss and damage entail financing needs for poorer countries in the trillions of dollars per annum (in terms of overall nominal public/private sums required), of which at least hundreds of billions are needed in public finance support (in grant-equivalent terms).

One great risk in 2024 is that geopolitical rivalries between the so-called superpowers distract from the urgent need to scale up finance from the world’s richer countries to the world’s poorer countries, amid widespread sovereign debt distress and a shrinking window to deliver the Paris Agreement and UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Despite the historical examples of the highest peaks in development spending being motivated by geopolitical rivalries, development assistance and aid budgets are at risk of being slashed by shortsighted politicians precisely when an increase is needed.

Dr Dhanasree Jayaram
Assistant professor at the department of geopolitics and international relations, and co-coordinator of Centre for Climate Studies (CCS)
Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Karnataka, India

South Asia is fraught with multiple crises, including political instability, socio-economic uncertainty, ecological fragility and resource inaccessibility. Both internal and transboundary challenges impede much-needed climate action to protect the most vulnerable populations in the region. The region is not immune to global developments such as the wars in Ukraine and Middle East either, as they have had adverse impacts on the countries’ energy and food security – making them less climate-resilient.

The governance gap is exacerbated by regional geopolitical tensions too. For example, the India-China conflict poses immense risks to transboundary climate and water cooperation. In fact, border infrastructure expansion and troop buildup could increase fossil fuel dependencies and socio-ecological vulnerabilities, especially in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region that sustains major ecosystems and river basins of South Asia.

More importantly, the lack of trust and robust institutional arrangements, despite common/shared challenges, hampers regional cooperation. While many transboundary ecological concerns in the region such as climate migration, fisheries management and air pollution lack governance mechanisms, many mutually beneficial opportunities are not being capitalised on, such as cross-border renewable energy trade.

Anna Ackermann
Policy analyst at the International Institute for Sustainable Development
Board member at the Centre for Environmental Initiatives “Ecoaction”

Global movement to advance climate action requires sustainable peace, opportunities for development of the green economy around the world and a fair contribution from all countries responsible for historically high shares of greenhouse gas emissions. More people should be living in democracies to ensure their rights are protected, including the right to a clean environment and climate protection. Unfortunately, the world is becoming more complicated, with higher geopolitical risks and many uncertainties.

The ongoing military conflicts are likely to continue or escalate. Having moved from authoritarianism to totalitarianism, Russia keeps running the economy and financing its war against Ukraine – the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II – with fossil fuels. Russia is gaining billions of dollars weekly from its oil and gas exports, while increasing military spending to the record $110bn this year. As Ukraine struggles to protect itself without sufficient international support and an unstable situation with the upcoming US elections, European countries boost their defence preparedness. This sets security on top of the agenda both on national level and globally – during most world leader meetings.

As half of the world will be voting in 2024, we see worrying trends of democratic backsliding and autocratisation of countries around the globe. We tend to focus criticism for the lack of climate action on democracies (often fairly enough). Meanwhile, authoritarian regimes do not allow criticism as such, preferring civil society’s silence or absence, and use of harmful disinformation tactics at home and abroad. Right-wing populism gaining visibility and votes in democracies means there is a risk of rising anti-climate sentiments. As we saw in recent years, this may well translate into shockwaves to international climate policies and COP outcomes.

Juan Pablo Medina Bickel
Research associate
International Institute for Strategic Studies

Tackling deforestation in the Amazonian rainforest, the world’s largest tropical forest, also known as the planet’s lungs for its carbon-sinking characteristics, is key for the global climate action agenda.

The protection of this rainforest requires addressing multiple drivers of forest loss, including the expansion of transnational drug trafficking and related environmental crime linked to illegal mining, logging and cattle ranching. Yet, the discussion of security and armed conflict risks across the Amazon in global fora is limited. The current international security agenda is largely focused on the Russian-Ukraine war, the Israel-Palestinian Territories armed conflict, and the Red Sea crisis. Moreover, the Venezuelan displacement emergency with over seven million refugees and migrants, the worst humanitarian crisis in the western hemisphere in decades, has taken centre stage in diplomatic, developmental assistance and security cooperation talks in the Americas. In particular, the record level of irregular Venezuelan migration into the US across the Mexican border has become a priority for US foreign relations with the region.

All in all, in 2024 the global discussion to protect the Amazonian rainforest requires incorporating a security angle.

Prof Sophia Kalantzakos
Global distinguished professor, environmental studies and public policy
New York University Abu Dhabi

The road to net-zero and global digitalisation have been subsumed by realist power struggles, driven by Sino-American hyper-competition exacerbated further by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Supply chains and the fourth industrial revolution have become securitised, and a world of “clubs” and “fences” has emerged undermining ties of interdependence. Moreover, the race for critical minerals and the chip wars raise fears of a scramble: for inputs, “geopolitically engineered” supply chains and the building up of tech and knowledge barriers that produce new exclusions and inequities.

This is why I have argued that global climate leadership should not be driven by the US and China. Their relationship is unstable and acrimonious and has proven that climate is readily sacrificed on the altar of their wider rivalries. While ideologically framed as a fight between democracy and autocracy, they struggle to ensure primacy in the green energy and industrial shifts – and more importantly to control the “tech imperium”. To add to the current instability, a Trump victory in November 2024 will pull the US out of the [global] climate regime. While the Biden administration has made extraordinary efforts to transform the US economy, a Trump White House will wreak further havoc in the global order and undermine climate resolve.

Kate Logan
Associate director of climate
Asia Society Policy Institute, Asia Society

With major armed conflicts continuing to divert attention and financial flows, there is no shortage of geopolitical risk to climate action in 2024. From a mitigation perspective especially, the role of China – as both the world’s largest emitter, and the largest producer of decarbonisation technologies – looms large over prospects for progress.

China’s large-scale production of clean energy technologies, such as solar panels, electric vehicles and batteries has brought down the cost of these critical products and spurred their uptake. But concerns over China’s dominance have further entrenched protectionist policies in the US and EU, especially, where climate action is increasingly intertwined with economic competitiveness and political support from domestic industrial bases.

Analysis by Wood Mackenzie indicates that excluding Chinese cleantech from global markets would raise the cost of the energy transition 20% by 2050, or $6tn. While supply chain diversification is important, how the world navigates these tensions will pose major implications for the speed and cost of emissions reductions – including in developing countries that don’t necessarily want to choose between the US and China.

Domestically in China, political support for new coal power continues in the name of energy security. How soon the country can peak its emissions and bring them into structural decline will largely depend on power sector reforms and whether massive deployment of renewables can dampen coal power utilisation.

The entire world is also watching the US presidential election. A Trump victory would remove US pressure on China and other major emitters to cut their domestic emissions faster and introduce a new source of instability that may push countries to further prioritise security. Regardless, under either administration, trade tensions threaten to persist, with proposed legislation on carbon border adjustments receiving bipartisan support in the US Congress.

The post Experts: What are the biggest geopolitical risks to climate action in 2024? appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Experts: What are the biggest geopolitical risks to climate action in 2024?

Climate Change

DeBriefed 19 December 2025: EU’s petrol car U-turn; Trump to axe ‘leading’ research lab; What climate scientists are reading

Published

19 hours ago

December 19, 2025

Alice Rush

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

EU easing up

HITTING THE BREAKS: The EU “walked back” its target to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2035, “permitting some new combustion engine cars”, reported Agence-France Presse. Under the original plan, the bloc would have had to cut emissions entirely by 2035 on new vehicles, but will now only have to cut emissions by 90% by that date, compared to 2021 levels. However, according to the Financial Times, some car manufacturers have “soured” on the reversal.

ADJUSTING CBAM: Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that the EU is making plans to “close loopholes” in the bloc’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) before it goes into effect in January. CBAM is set to be the world’s first carbon border tax and has drawn ire from key trading partners. The EU has also finalised a plan to delay its anti-deforestation legislation for another year, according to Carbon Pulse.

Around the world

NCAR NO MORE: The Trump administration is moving to “dismantle” the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, said USA Today, describing it as “one of the world’s leading climate research labs”.
DEADLY FLOODS: The deadliest flash flooding in Morocco in a decade killed “at least” 37 people, while residents accused the government of “ignoring known flood risks and failing to maintain basic infrastructure”, reported Radio France Internationale.
FAILING GRADE: The past year was the “warmest and wettest” ever recorded in the Arctic, with implications for “global sea level rise, weather patterns and commercial fisheries”, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2025 Arctic report card, covered by NPR.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE: Reuters reported that Kenya signed a $311m agreement with an African infrastructure fund and India’s Power Grid Corporation for the “construction of two high-voltage electricity transmission lines” that could provide power for millions of people.
BP’S NEW EXEC: BP has appointed Woodside Energy Group’s Meg O’Neill as its new chief executive amid a “renewed push to…double down on oil and gas after retreating from an ambitious renewables strategy”, said Reuters.

29

The number of consecutive years in which the Greenland ice sheet has experienced “continuous annual ice loss”, according to a Carbon Brief guest post.

Latest climate research

Up to 4,000 glaciers could “disappear” per year during “peak glacier extinction”, projected to occur sometime between 2041 and 2055 | Nature Climate Change
The rate of sea level rise across the coastal US doubled over the past century | AGU Advances
Repression and criminalisation of climate and environmentally focused protests are a “global phenomena”, according to an analysis of 14 countries | Environmental Politics

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

The latest coal market report from the International Energy Agency said that global coal use will reach record levels in 2025, but will decline by the end of the decade. Carbon Brief analysis of the report found that projected coal use in China for 2027 has been revised downwards by 127m tonnes, compared to the projection from the 2024 report – “more than cancelling out the effects of the Trump administration’s coal-friendly policies in the US”.

Spotlight

What climate scientists are curious about

This week, Carbon Brief spoke to climate scientists attending the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans, Louisiana, about the most interesting research papers they read this year.

Their answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Dr Christopher Callahan, assistant professor at Indiana University Bloomington

The most interesting research paper I read was a simple thought experiment asking when we would have known humans were changing the climate if we had always had perfect observations. The authors show that we could have detected a human influence on the climate as early as the 1880s, since we have a strong physical understanding of how those changes should look. This paper both highlights that we have been discernibly changing the climate for centuries and emphasises the importance of the modern climate observing network – a network that is currently threatened by budget cuts and staff shortages.

Prof Lucy Hutyra, distinguished professor at Boston University

The most interesting paper I read was in Nature Climate Change, where the researchers looked at how much mortality was associated with cold weather versus hot weather events and found that many more people died during cold weather events. Then, they estimated how much of a protective factor in the urban heat island is on those winter deaths and suggested that the winter benefits exceed the summer risks of mitigating extreme heat, so perhaps we shouldn’t mitigate extreme heat in cities.

This paper got me in a tizzy…It spurred an exciting new line of research. We’ll be publishing a response to this paper in 2026. I’m not sure their conclusion was correct, but it raised really excellent questions.

Dr Kristina Dahl, vice president for science at Climate Central

This year was when we saw source attribution studies, such as Chris Callahan‘s, really start to break through and be able to connect the emissions of specific emitters…to the impact of those emissions through heat or some other sort of damage function. [This] is really game-changing.

What [Callahan’s] paper showed is that the emissions of individual companies have an impact on extreme heat, which then has an impact on the GDP of the countries experiencing that extreme heat. And so, for the first time, you can really say: “Company X caused this condition which then led to this economic damage.”

Dr Antonia Hadjimichael, assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University

It was about interdisciplinary work – not that anything in it is ground-shakingly new, but it was a good conversation around interdisciplinary teams and what makes them work and what doesn’t make them work. And what I really liked about it is that they really emphasise the role of a connector – the scientist that navigates this space in between and makes sure that the things kind of glue together…The reason I really like this paper is that we don’t value those scientists in academia, in traditional metrics that we have.

Dr Santiago Botía, researcher at Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry

The most interesting paper I’ve read this year was about how soil fertility and water table depth control the response to drought in the Amazon. They found very nicely how the proximity to soil water controls the anomalies in gross primary productivity in the Amazon. And, with that methodology, they could explain the response of recent droughts and the “greening” of the forest during drought, which is kind of a counterintuitive [phenomenon], but it was very interesting.

Dr Gregory Johnson, affiliate professor at the University of Washington

This article explores the response of a fairly coarse spatial resolution climate model…to a scenario in which atmospheric CO2 is increased at 1% a year to doubling and then CO2 is more gradually removed from the atmosphere…[It finds] a large release of heat from the Southern Ocean, with substantial regional – and even global – climate impacts. I find this work interesting because it reminds us of the important – and potentially nonlinear – roles that changing ocean circulation and water properties play in modulating our climate.

Cecilia Keating also contributed to this spotlight.

Watch, read, listen

METHANE MATTERS: In the Guardian, Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley wrote that the world must “urgently target methane” to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

CLIMATE WRAPPED: Grist summarised the major stories for Earth’s climate in 2025 – “the good, the bad and the ugly”.

COASTING: On the Coastal Call podcast, a biogeochemist spoke about “coastal change and community resilience” in the eastern US’s Long Island Sound.

Coming up

27 December: Cote D’Ivoire parliamentary elections
28 December: Central African Republic presidential and parliamentary elections
28 December: Guinean presidential election

Pick of the jobs

BirdLife International, forest programme administrator | Salary: £28,000-£30,000. Location: Cambridge, UK
World Resources Institute, power-sector transition senior manager | Salary: $116,000-$139,000. Location: Washington DC
Fauna & Flora, operations lead for Liberia | Salary: $61,910. Location: Monrovia, Liberia

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

The post DeBriefed 19 December 2025: EU’s petrol car U-turn; Trump to axe ‘leading’ research lab; What climate scientists are reading appeared first on Carbon Brief.

DeBriefed 19 December 2025: EU’s petrol car U-turn; Trump to axe ‘leading’ research lab; What climate scientists are reading

Climate Change

Recent COP hosts Brazil and Azerbaijan linked to “super-emitting” methane plumes

Published

23 hours ago

December 19, 2025

Alice Rush

As countries come under growing pressure to tackle planet-heating methane emissions from the fossil fuel sector, oil and gas producers in COP host nations Brazil and Azerbaijan are struggling to prevent large leaks of methane, data shared with Climate Home News shows.

Satellite observations detected “super-emitting” methane plumes in the two countries this year that were visible from space and linked to state oil companies in both cases. Brazil presided over this year’s COP30 climate talks, while COP29 was in Azerbaijan.

Methane is a greenhouse gas that traps about 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide but has a shorter life span. If global warming is to stay below 1.5C, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that methane emissions from fossil fuels would need to fall by 75% by 2030.

At COP26 in 2021, a group of more than 100 countries announced their intention to cut methane emissions across all sectors by 30% from 2020 levels by the end of this decade. But a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) assessment shows they are instead set to rise 5% by 2030.

At COP30 this November, Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva said that reducing methane emissions “gives us an opportunity to keep the planet’s average temperature [rise] within 1.5C, decreasing the frequency, intensity and impact of extreme weather events and protecting lives”.

And last year, Rovshan Najaf, president of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, promised that the firm would achieve near-zero methane emissions in its oil and gas production by 2035.

Dec 18, 2025

News

“House of cards”: Verra used junk carbon credits to fix Shell’s offsetting scandal

The registry used nearly one million bogus carbon credits to compensate for failed Shell-linked China rice offsets, raising concerns over its rules

Read more
Dec 17, 2025

Energy

Indonesia and Vietnam set for surge in coal use this decade despite transition deals

Rising demand in Southeast Asia and India is expected to prevent coal use from falling significantly this decade, the International Energy Agency predicts

Read more
Dec 12, 2025

News

UN adopts first-ever resolution on AI and environment, but omits lifecycle

The UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi gavelled the resolution on artificial intelligence and environment, but removed mentions to AI’s water and power use

Read more

However, the latest data available from Azerbaijan’s SOCAR shows that the company’s methane emissions more than tripled from 2023 to 2024, when the country hosted COP29. SOCAR identified about 200,000 tonnes of methane emissions from its business activities in 2024.

Brazilian state-oil company Petrobras, meanwhile, did manage to reduce its methane emissions by more than half between 2015 and 2022, but they have since stayed stagnant, at about a million tonnes of CO2-equivalent emitted per year, the company’s annual sustainability data shows.

“Reducing methane has significant impacts on a country’s ability to meet its climate commitments,” said Tengi George-Ikoli, a methane expert with the National Resource Governance Institute (NRGI).

“Countries like Brazil and Azerbaijan, who have hosted COPs, should be seen to commit to those efforts more so than others,” she emphasised.

In 2025, UNEP’s International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) alerted countries globally – including Brazil and Azerbaijan – to around 2,200 instances linking their oil and gas production to super-emitting events.

Both Brazil and Azerbaijan have focal points that receive these IMEO alerts. But a recent report shows that 90% of the notifications did not even receive a response, and neither Brazil nor Azerbaijan are listed in the 25 successful cases that managed to reduce emissions thanks to this system.

Big plumes in Azerbaijan’s southern oil & gas hub

In Azerbaijan, persistent large-scale methane emissions have been detected over its southern coast – a hub for its oil and gas industry – during the past two years, according to satellite data from online monitoring platform Carbon Mapper.

When satellites passed over the region in mid-2024, as Azerbaijan prepared to host the COP29 climate summit, they spotted a handful of massive methane plumes, each releasing between 2,000 and 4,000 kilogrammes of methane per hour, dozens of times above the threshold for a “super-emitting” event.

According to Carbon Mapper’s data, methane emissions from the same locations still persisted a year later at comparable or even higher levels.

Super-emitting events originating from the same source in Southern Azerbaijan detected in June 2024 (left) and July 2025 (right). Source: Carbon Mapper

It is impossible to pinpoint precisely the source of those emissions without ground-level monitoring. But satellite data suggests that methane was released both from pipelines – which may be leaking – and compressor stations, which are facilities that help keep fossil gas flowing by boosting its pressure.

Throughout this year, large methane plumes have been observed by satellites emanating from a facility run by SOCAR in one of the world’s oldest oil fields, located just a few miles from Baku’s swanky waterfront boulevard.

In its 2025 sustainability report, SOCAR said it had expanded its methane emissions monitoring by using “leak detection AI tools”, drones and satellite technologies that “enabled more targeted, data-driven responses and supported the development of effective mitigation measures across operational sites”.

State oil firm in COP30 host nation linked to leaks

In Brazil, state-oil company Petrobras has been linked to three methane “super-emitting events” detected by satellites this year, which raises questions about emissions from its offshore oil and gas production facilities.

Three large methane plumes were detected in the Santos basin off the coast of Rio de Janeiro – which holds several of Brazil’s largest oil and gas fields – by Carbon Mapper on April 23.

Further analysis by environmental nonprofit SkyTruth, which specialises in satellite observations, revealed the plumes came from vessels in the Tupi field, which is majority-owned by Petrobras. Two of the vessels are operated by Dutch company SBM and the other by Petrobras.

US set to push fossil fuels under its G20 presidency

The plumes in the Santos basin were large enough to be considered “super-emitting” methane events, on a scale similar to leaks in the same category detected in other parts of the world.

The US Environmental Protection Agency defines these as events with a rate of emissions of 100 kg of methane per hour. Two of the plumes detected in Brazil were above 300 and one was above 700 kg of methane per hour.

The events in Brazil are “particularly stunning” and could point to a more persistent issue, SkyTruth’s CEO John Amos told Climate Home, because the three plumes were detected during just one observation by a satellite orbiting the area.

“For one attempt to produce three positive plumes suggests that this could be a systematic problem offshore,” he said.

Petrobras says mitigation measures in place

Asked about these cases, Petrobras told Climate Home in a statement that the company is committed to reducing methane emissions as part of its decarbonisation strategy. It added that, because the plumes were detected by a single satellite observation, “the ability to draw broader conclusions about the consistency and magnitude of emissions over time is limited”.

The company also highlighted that its assets in the Santos basin perform “within the industry’s first quartile” for emissions per barrel of oil and noted that “initiatives such as recovering flare gas and performing leak detection and repair campaigns have helped to mitigate methane emissions”.

Petrobras also said that “during the period in question, operational conditions were under normal circumstances”.

Amos argued that if the sector considers such super-emitter plumes of methane – observable from space – “to be a consequence of ‘normal operating conditions’, then the offshore methane problem may be far worse than we anticipated”.

Just days before COP30, Petrobras executives co-chaired an offshore oil and gas conference in Rio de Janeiro. The discussions, the organisers wrote in a welcome letter, would focus on “traditional oil and gas technologies while highlighting the innovations essential for a more sustainable future” and would be “strategically positioned amid the ongoing energy transition”.

Oct 8, 2025

Energy

Mottley’s “legally binding” methane pact faces barriers, but smaller steps possible

A group of countries acting nationally on methane is more likely than a global Montreal Protocol-style deal as proposed by Barbados’ leader – at least to start

Read more
Mar 3, 2025

Investigations

Oil giant Pemex fails to control methane emissions, threatening Mexico’s net zero goal

A Climate Home investigation shows Mexico’s state oil firm has struggled to cut its methane emissions as promised, risking the country’s net zero ambitions

Read more

Barbados PM proposes binding methane pact

As global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise, with the United Nations admitting in November that an overshoot of the 1.5C warming limit is now inevitable, action on methane garnered growing attention at COP30.

New initiatives were launched at the climate summit in Belém to tackle methane emissions from the production of fossil fuels, which accounts for about a third of global emissions from this “super pollutant”, with other key sources being agriculture and waste management.

The UK launched a declaration to “drastically reduce” methane from the fossil fuel sector, which was endorsed by 11 countries including major oil and gas producers Canada, Norway and Kazakhstan. The actions it supports include more transparent monitoring, eliminating routine flaring and venting, and tracking progress towards near-zero methane emissions per unit of production.

The UK and Brazil also launched a three-year $25-million funding package to help developing countries tackle methane, among other “super pollutant” gases, which will benefit a first cohort of mostly fossil fuel-producing countries – among them Brazil, Kazakhstan, Mexico and Nigeria.

At last year’s COP29, the European Union championed an initiative that encouraged fossil fuel-producing countries to create roadmaps towards abating methane emissions from coal, oil and gas, including timelines, investment needs and the amount of emissions to be abated.

A boy follows a woman carrying a sack on her head as they walk towards a burning gas flaring furnace at a flow station in Ughelli, Delta State, Nigeria, on September 17, 2020. (Photo: REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde)

But, as a growing clutch of voluntary initiatives has failed to produce results at the scale and speed needed to rein in global warming in the short term, pressure is rising for a more accountable and comprehensive approach to the problem.

At COP30, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley renewed her call for a legally binding methane pact to “pull the methane emergency brake” and “buy us some time”, starting with actions in the oil and gas industry.

NRGI’s George-Ikoli said the oil and gas sector could lead on cutting methane emissions because measures like zero flaring and venting, and eliminating leaks could bring in revenues for companies by enabling them to use or sell currently wasted gas.

Mottley wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian this month that the next step would be to convene heads of state from willing nations to develop “a roadmap in 2026 for binding measures for the oil and gas industry”. Negotiations could start by 2027, with a deal adopted “as soon as possible thereafter”, she proposed.

The post Recent COP hosts Brazil and Azerbaijan linked to “super-emitting” methane plumes appeared first on Climate Home News.

Recent COP hosts Brazil and Azerbaijan linked to “super-emitting” methane plumes

Climate Change

Guest post: How to steer EVs towards the road of ‘mass adoption’

Published

2 days ago

December 18, 2025

Alice Rush

Electric vehicles (EVs) now account for more than one-in-four car sales around the world, but the next phase is likely to depend on government action – not just technological change.

That is the conclusion of a new report from the Centre for Net Zero, the Rocky Mountain Institute and the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute.

Our report shows that falling battery costs, expanding supply chains and targeted policy will continue to play important roles in shifting EVs into the mass market.

However, these are incremental changes and EV adoption could stall without efforts to ensure they are affordable to buy, to boost charging infrastructure and to integrate them into power grids.

Moreover, emerging tax and regulatory changes could actively discourage the shift to EVs, despite their benefits for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, air quality and running costs.

This article sets out the key findings of the new report, including a proposed policy framework that could keep the EV transition on track.

A global tipping point

Technology transformations are rarely linear, as small changes in cost, infrastructure or policy can lead to outsized progress – or equally large reversals.

The adoption of new technologies tends to follow a similar pathway, often described by an “S-curve”. This is divided into distinct phases, from early uptake, with rapid growth from very low levels, through to mass adoption and, ultimately, market saturation.

However, technologies that depend on infrastructure display powerful “path-dependency”, meaning decisions and processes made early within the rollout can lock in rapid growth, but equally, stagnation can also become entrenched, too.

EVs are now moving beyond the early-adopter phase and beginning to enter mass diffusion. There are nearly 60m on the road today, according to the International Energy Agency, up from just 1.2m a decade ago.

Technological shifts of this scale can unfold faster than expected. Early in the last century in the US, for example, millions of horses and mules virtually disappeared from roads in under three decades, as shown in the chart below left.

Yet the pace of these shifts is not fixed and depends on the underlying technology, economics, societal norms and the extent of government support for change. Faster or slower pathways for EV adoption are illustrated in the chart below right.

Left: The S-curve from horses to cars. Right: The predicted shift from ICE to EVs. Note that S-curves present technology market shares from fixed saturation levels to show the shape of diffusion, rather than absolute numbers; Cars were both a substitute for, and additional to, horses. Sources: Grubler (1999), Technology and Global Change (left); Rocky Mountain Institute, IEA data (2023) (right).

Internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles did not prevail in becoming the dominant mode of transport through technical superiority alone. They were backed by massive public investment in roads, city planning, zoning and highway expansion funded by fuel taxes.

Meanwhile, they faced few penalties for pollution and externalities, benefitting from implicit subsidies over cleaner alternatives. Standardisation, industrial policy and wartime procurement further entrenched the ICE.

EVs are well-positioned to follow a faster trajectory, as they directly substitute ICE vehicles while being cleaner, cheaper and quieter to run.

Past transitions show that like-for-like replacements – such as black-and-white to colour TVs – tend to diffuse faster than entirely novel products.

Late adopters also benefit from cost reductions and established norms. For example, car ownership took 60 years to diffuse across the US, but just 20 years in parts of Latin America and Japan.

In today’s globalised economy, knowledge, capital and supply chains travel faster still. Our research suggests that the global EV shift could be achieved within decades, not half a century.

Yet without decisive policy, investment and coordination, feedback loops could slow, locking in fossil-fuel dependence.

Our research suggests that further supporting the widespread deployment of EVs hangs on three interlinked actions: supporting adoption; integrating with clean electricity systems; and ensuring sustainability across supply chains and new mobility systems.

Closing the cost gap

EVs have long offered lower running costs than ICE vehicles, but upfront costs – while now cost-competitive in China, parts of Europe and in growing second-hand markets – remain a major barrier to adoption in most regions.

While battery costs have fallen sharply – lithium-ion battery packs fell by 20% in 2024 alone – this has not fully translated into lower retail vehicle prices for consumers.

In China, a 30% fall in battery prices in 2024 translated into a 10% decline in electric SUV prices. However, in Germany, EV retail prices rose slightly in 2024 despite a 20% drop in battery costs.

These discrepancies reflect market structures rather than cost fundamentals. Our report suggests that a competitive EV market, supported by transparent pricing and a strong second-hand sector, can help unlock cost parity in more markets.

Beyond the sale of EVs, government policy around running costs, such as fuel duty, has the potential to disincentivse EV adoption.

For example, New Zealand’s introduction of road-pricing for EVs contributed to a collapse in registrations from nearly 19% of sales in December 2023 to around 4% in January 2024.

EV-specific fees have also been introduced in a number of US states. Last month, the UK also announced a per-mile charge for EVs – but not ICEs – from 2028.

Addressing the loss of fuel-duty revenue as EVs replace ICE vehicles is a headache for any government seeking to electrify mobility.

However, to avoid slowing diffusion, new revenues could be used to build out new charging infrastructure, just as road-building was funded as the ICE vehicle was scaling up.

While subsidies to support upfront costs can help enable EV adoption, the best approach to encouraging uptake is likely to shift once the sector moves into a phase of mass diffusion.

Targeted support, alongside innovative financing models to broaden access, from blended finance to pay-as-you-drive schemes, could play a greater role in ensuring lower-income drivers and second-hand buyers are not left behind.

Mandates as engines of scale

Zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandates and ICE phase-out deadlines can reduce costs more effectively than alternatives by guaranteeing market scale, our research finds, reducing uncertainty for automakers and pushing learning rates forward through faster production.

California’s ZEV mandate was one of the first in the 1990s, a policy that has since been adopted by ten other US states and the UK.

China’s NEV quota system has produced the world’s fastest-growing EV market, while, in Norway, clear targets and consistent incentives mean EVs now account for nearly all of new car sales. These “technology-forcing” policies have proved highly effective.

Analyses consistently show that the long-run societal benefits of sales mandates for EVs far outweigh their compliance costs.

For example, the UK’s ZEV mandate has an estimated social net present value of £39bn, according to the government, driven largely by emissions reductions and lower running costs for consumers.

Benefits can also extend beyond national borders. For example, California’s “advanced clean cars II” regulations – adopted by a number of US states and an influence on other countries – have been instrumental in compelling US automakers to develop and commercialise EVs, which can, in turn, trigger innovation and scale to reduce costs worldwide.

Research suggests that, where possible, combining mandates and incentives creates further synergies: mandates alleviate supply-side constraints, making subsidies more effective on the demand side.

Public charging: a critical bottleneck

Public charging is one of the most significant impediments to EV adoption today.

Whereas EVs charged at home are substantially cheaper to run than ICE vehicles, higher public charging costs can erase this benefit – in the UK, this can be up to times the home equivalent.

While most homes in the UK, for example, do have access to off-street parking, there are large swathes of low-income and urban households without access to private driveways. For these households, a lack of cheap public charging has been described as a de facto “pavement tax”, which is disincentivising EV adoption and resulting in an inequitable transition.

Our research shows that a dual-track charging strategy could help resolve the situation. Expanding access to private charging – through cross-pavement cabling, “right-to-charge” legislation for renters and planning mandates for new developments could be combined with strategic investment in public charging, to overcome the “chicken-and-egg” problem for investors uncertain about future EV demand.

Meanwhile, “smart charging” in public settings – where EV demand is matched with cheaper electricity supply – can also help close the affordability gap, by delivering cheap off-peak charging that is already available to those charging at home.

The Centre for Net Zero’s research shows that drivers respond to dynamic pricing outside of the convenience of their homes, which reduces EV running costs below those of petrol cars.

The figure below shows that, while the level of discount being offered had the strongest impact, lower-income areas showed the largest behavioural response, indicating that they may stand to gain the most from a rollout of such incentives.

Impact on charging behaviour from a “green message”, 15% or 40% discounts, according to the average disposable income in the area. Source: Centre for Net Zero (2025)

Our research suggests that policymakers could encourage this type of commercial offering by creating electricity markets with strong price signals and mandating that these prices are transparent to consumers.

Integrating with clean electricity grids

Electrification is central to decarbonising the world’s economies, meaning that sufficient capacity on electricity networks is becoming a key focus.

For the rollout of EVs, pressure will be felt most on low-voltage “distribution” networks, where charging is dispersed and tends to follow existing peaks and troughs in domestic demand.

Rather than responding to this challenge by just building out the grid – with the corresponding economic and political implications – making smart charging the norm could help mitigate pressure on the network.

Evidence from the Centre for Net Zero’s trials shows that AI-managed charging can shift EV demand off-peak, reducing residential peak load by 42%, as shown in the chart below.

Additionally, the amount of time when EVs are plugged in but not moving is often substantial, giving networks hours each day in which they can shift charging, targeting periods of low demand or high renewable output.

Average hourly consumption of electricity (kWh) across different hours of the day, showing baseline consumption (grey) and that with an EV tariff (navy). Source: Centre for Net Zero (2025)

The system value of this flexible charging is significant. In the UK, managed charging could absorb 15 terrawatt hours (TWh) of renewable electricity that would otherwise be curtailed by 2030 – equivalent to Slovenia’s entire annual consumption.

For these benefits to be realised, our research suggests that global policymakers may need to mandate interoperability across vehicles, chargers and platforms, introduce dynamic network charges that reflect local grid stress and support AI-enabled automation.

Bi-directional charging – which allows EVs to export electricity to the grid, becoming decentralised, mobile storage units – remains underexploited. This could allow EVs to contribute to the capacity of the grid, helping with frequency and providing voltage support at both local and system levels.

The nascency of such vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology means that penetration is currently limited, but there are some markets that are further ahead.

For example, Utrecht is an early leader in real-world V2G deployment in a context of significant grid congestion, while Japan is exploring the use of V2G for system resilience, providing backup power during outages. China is also exploring V2G systems.

Our research shows that if just 25% of vehicles across six major European nations had V2G functionality, then the theoretical total capacity of the connected vehicles would exceed each of those country’s fossil-fuel power fleet.

Mandating V2G readiness at new chargepoints, aligning the value of exports with the value to the system and allowing aggregators to pool capacity from multiple EVs, could all help take V2G from theory to reality.

A sustainable EV system

It is important to note that electrification alone does not guarantee sustainability.

According to Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) analysis, the total weight of ore needed to electrify the world’s road transport system is around 1,410mtonnes (Mt). This is 40% less than the 2,150Mt of oil extracted every year to fuel a combustion-based system. EVs concentrate resource use upfront, rather than locking in fossil-fuel extraction.

Moreover, several strategies can reduce reliance on virgin minerals, including recycling, new chemistries and improved efficiency.

Recycling, in particular, is progressing rapidly. Some 90% of lithium-ion batteries could now be recycled in some regions, according to RMI research. Under an accelerated scenario, nearly all demand could be met through recycling before 2050.

Finally, while our report focuses largely on EVs, it is important to highlight that they are not a “silver bullet” for decarbonising mobility.

Cities such as Seoul and New York have demonstrated that micromobility, public transport and street redesign can cut congestion, improve health and reduce the number of overall vehicles required.

Better system design reduces mineral demand, lowers network strain and broadens access.

The ‘decision decade’ ahead

Policy decisions made today will determine whether EVs accelerate into exponential growth or stall.

Our research suggests that governments intent on capturing the economic and environmental dividends of electrified mobility are likely to need coherent, cross-cutting policy frameworks that push the market up the steep climb of the EV S-curve.