The Republican candidate Donald Trump has been elected as the 47th US president, beating his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris in a “historic comeback”.
In response, climate scientists, researchers and experts have expressed concern about his election’s impact on efforts to tackle climate change.
During his first term in 2017-2021, Trump – a climate sceptic – rolled back climate regulations and pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement, a move he has promised to repeat.
He continued to attack climate action and science throughout his campaign in the run-up to the 5 November election. He lent heavily on his mantra of “drill, baby, drill”, as well as announcing he wanted to “terminate” spending on what he calls the “green new deal” – understood to be a reference to 2023’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act.
Trump’s election could lead to an additional 4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) of US emissions by 2030, compared to continuing current-president Joe Biden’s plans, Carbon Brief analysis found earlier this year.
Carbon Brief has asked a range of scientists, policy experts and campaigners from around the world what they think a Trump presidency could mean for climate action.
These are their responses, first as sample quotes, then, below, in full:
- Katharine Hayhoe: “‘Every action matters’…[so] despite the coming headwind, it’s more vital than ever to continue striving.”
- Jason Bordoff: “Among the most consequential impacts of a second Trump term on climate action will be regarding the Inflation Reduction Act.”
- Joeri Rogelj: “Political decisions that disregard evidence…will be harshly course-corrected by the hard physical reality of climate change.”
- Li Shuo: “Trump’s win is no doubt bad news for US climate action…Other countries will need to step up.”
- Mo Adow: “Ultimately no one can run from the climate crisis, not even Donald Trump.”
- Alden Meyer: “Both domestic climate policy and multilateral cooperation are facing a time of extreme uncertainty and stress.”
- Navroz K Dubash: “It is critical that the world not bend backwards to try and mould the climate regime around the vagaries of US political currents.”
- Camilla Born MBE: “There is now a significant vacuum to fill to inspire confidence, shape markets and maximise the opportunities the transition brings.”
- Tasneem Essop: “The climate movement will be defiant and continue fighting.”
Katharine Hayhoe
Chief scientist of the Nature Conservancy and distinguished professor
Texas Tech University
As a lead author for the National Climate Assessment during the previous Trump administration, I’ve personally witnessed how federal decisions can impact climate action.
Some decisions are highly visible, like rolling back legislation, removing environmental protections and pulling out of global treaties. However, quieter and more behind-the-scenes decisions that restrict scientists’ access to data, limit research and funding and discourage public communication of critical findings can be equally chilling.
It’s essential to remember that action doesn’t rely solely on federal action. While policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act provide critical momentum, progress can and must happen at all levels: cities, states, businesses, organisations and more.
This election, for example, climate- and nature-positive ballot initiatives were passed in more than a dozen states. Groups such as the US Climate Alliance, Climate Mayors and America Is All In represent nearly two-thirds of the US. And organisations like the Nature Conservancy remain dedicated to implementing effective solutions for a safer, healthier and more just future.
Science is clear that “every action matters”. That’s why, despite the coming headwind, it’s more vital than ever to continue striving for a resilient future for people and nature. It’s not about saving the planet: it’s about saving us.
Jason Bordoff
Founding director
Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs
Domestically, among the most consequential impacts of a second Trump term on climate action will be regarding the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). President Trump has been critical of the IRA, vowing to rescind unspent IRA funds and end EV tax credits. Particularly with the possibility of Republican control of Congress, there may be more legislative ability to roll back parts of the IRA. At the same time, given that we have seen bipartisan support for parts of the IRA in Republican-leaning states because of the investments being generated, I could see a scenario where some of the IRA’s domestic manufacturing provisions remain in place.
Additionally, we could see some expansion of clean-energy generation capacity in the Trump administration, particularly nuclear energy, for which Trump has voiced support. This would come at a time when some of America’s largest tech companies are actively looking to invest in nuclear and other forms of clean, firm power generation to meet the rapidly growing energy needs of artificial intelligence. Given growing tensions between the US and China, Republicans and Democrats should both be able to agree that it is in America’s economic and security interests to maintain our leadership position in AI.
Internationally, Trump quite notably withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement in the first days of his first term in office and has pledged to do so again if re-elected. On top of that, he has also said he plans to withdraw the US from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a potentially more impactful move that, if successful, would remove the US from participating in COP negotiations and global climate cooperation more broadly.
Joeri Rogelj
Director of research at the Grantham Institute
Imperial College London
Irrespective of how one aligns politically, the case for pursuing a thriving low-carbon economy has never been stronger, both scientifically and economically. Scientifically, we understand how the extreme weather we have seen over the past years is of our own making, a result of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
We also understand that these impacts will become unacceptable and unmanageable with unchecked climate change. Meanwhile, clean renewable energy that generates high-quality jobs has become the economically sane choice in many countries. Political decisions that disregard evidence are putting us on societal dead-end streets that will be harshly course-corrected by the hard physical reality of climate change catching up.
Li Shuo
Director of China Climate Hub
Asia Society Policy Institute
Trump’s win is no doubt bad news for US climate action. It will also have a spillover effect for global climate politics, casting a shadow over COP29. Other countries will need to step up to fill the leadership gap. The EU and China will need to be critical partners in this endeavour.
Trump’s win will not change the global green transition. Green energy is becoming cheaper and more competitive. This economic trend, not politics, will lead action from now on.
I expect countries, including China, to reaffirm their commitments to the Paris Agreement at the start of COP29. Their resolve to manage the climate finance debate in Baku will be the earliest test of the resilience of the climate regime. Unlike 2016, the global community is prepared.
I am confident we will weather the immediate impact, but I am worried about the long-term implications of this election.
Mo Adow
Founding director
Power Shift Africa
Ultimately, no one can run from the climate crisis, not even Donald Trump. Extreme weather is killing people, economies and livelihoods are being wrecked, the science is clear, and the solutions are known. The rest of the world won’t just stand by and let one man’s ignorance ruin the home we all share.
Climate action is not a wall where if you remove one brick it falls down. It is like a trampoline with many springs. If you take one out, others can bear the load. The impetus for climate action over the next four years will not come from the politics of the White House, it will come from the economics of clean energy, from Europe, emerging markets and sub-national actors in the US and around the world.
For Africa, this is an opportunity to step up and fill the void left by the US presidency. Africa has vast renewable energy potential combined with the moral authority of being victims of climate harm but not perpetrators. With the right investment from other countries, African nations can demonstrate how it’s possible to break the link between development and fossil fuels and raise up a continent of climate champions to showcase the power of clean energy.
Alden Meyer
US lead for the International Climate Politics Hub and senior associate
E3G
While we don’t know exactly what policies President-elect Trump will pursue on the domestic or global stage, both domestic climate policy and multilateral cooperation are facing a time of extreme uncertainty and stress, given his statements on expanding oil and gas production, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and rolling back key climate and clean energy measures.
Any retreat from progress would be a significant mistake. As the mounting impacts of climate-related disasters make abundantly clear, the world needs to accelerate climate action. And such action is advantageous for the US – for our economy, our energy security and for our foreign policy interests.
In a few days, representatives from 197 countries as well as a delegation of US governors, mayors, corporate CEOs and civil society leaders will travel to Baku to advance the crucial work of climate cooperation. COP29 has both the opportunity and obligation to drive forward progress on scaling up climate finance, transitioning from polluting fossil fuels to cleaner, more secure energy sources and building greater resilience to mounting climate impacts.
Navroz K Dubash
Professor of public and international affairs
Princeton University
Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and supports fossil fuel expansion. His election as president of the richest and most technologically capable country with the greatest responsibility for cumulative emissions cannot but set back the fight against climate change.
But it is also true that the problem goes deeper than an individual president. For example, because of the divided polity in the US and its political system of multiple “veto points”, the world’s largest historical emitter finds it impossible to appropriate essential public funds for climate finance, under any president. This contributes to simmering feelings of global climate injustice.
Which is why, at climate negotiations, it is critical that the world not bend backwards to try and mould the climate regime around the vagaries of US political currents, nor press pause on building out critical elements of the climate regime.
Meanwhile, our friends in the US will need to take defensive measures at home by, for example, doubling down on action in US states (again!). And by mobilising political support from beneficiary Republican states to maintain clean energy technology subsidies.
Failing this, the US public may well find that a Trump-induced sabbatical from the clean-energy race (which they are by no means winning even now) may cost them dearly in foregone jobs and competitiveness in technologies of the future.
Camilla Born MBE
Independent climate advisor and former UK senior official at COP26
In a word, the biggest impact Trump’s election has on climate action is on “confidence”.
We are in a different world than we were the first time around and there are many more equities invested in the transition. People are making money, doing jobs and cutting their bills because of clean energy and technology. And after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there is a growing recognition that fossil fuel dependency is risky and not consistent with security.
But for those on the fence, still making choices, the confidence dent could slow or knock their transition off course. This is potentially particularly true in emerging and developing economies where the transition is less mature.
Having said that, the other major difference this time is that China is so heavily politically and economically invested in the transition and they will want to maintain and grow export markets for their low-carbon tech.
There’s no doubt a strong and climate-positive US voice on the international stage helps immensely, there is now a significant vacuum to fill to inspire confidence, shape markets and maximise the opportunities the transition brings.
Tasneem Essop
Executive director
Climate Action Network-International
The climate crisis doesn’t care who is in the White House. If President Trump’s last time in office was anything to go by, there will be chaos and mayhem, but the climate movement will be defiant and continue fighting. The rest of the world will continue working.
Working together to address the climate crisis is in every nation’s self-interest. The impacts of climate know no boundaries and are felt across the world, including in the US. Nearly 200 countries carried on working on climate during the first Trump presidency – collaborating with many US states and cities – and we fully expect that to carry on.
The US is still in the climate battle. The energy transition is inevitable and accelerating in many countries and across the US, regardless of who is in power. If Trump steps out of the global clean energy race, they will be the losers. First-mover countries will be the winners. Trump can withdraw from the Paris Agreement, or the UNFCCC as a whole, at his own peril. The US will lose its ability to influence the decisions that will change the trajectory of the world’s economic development.
While the news that Trump plans to leave the Paris Agreement could cause initial anxiety at COP29, the world’s majority recognises that climate action does not hinge on who is in power in the US, and as we saw before and will see again, other countries will step up if the US reneges on their responsibilities and stands back. But the US will still be held accountable, by their own citizens as well as by governments and people across the world.
The Trump administration also cannot think that it can leave the Paris Agreement, and still come to climate meetings and obstruct progress. We will not allow this obstruction even if the US stays in the Paris Agreement.
The post Experts: What does a Trump presidency mean for climate action? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Experts: What does a Trump presidency mean for climate action?
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Absolute State of the Union
‘DRILL, BABY’: US president Donald Trump “doubled down on his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda” in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, said the Los Angeles Times. He “tout[ed] his support of the fossil-fuel industry and renew[ed] his focus on electricity affordability”, reported the Financial Times. Trump also attacked the “green new scam”, noted Carbon Brief’s SOTU tracker.
COAL REPRIEVE: Earlier in the week, the Trump administration had watered down limits on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, reported the Financial Times. It remains “unclear” if this will be enough to prevent the decline of coal power, said Bloomberg, in the face of lower-cost gas and renewables. Reuters noted that US coal plants are “ageing”.
OIL STAY: The US Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments brought by the oil industry in a “major lawsuit”, reported the New York Times. The newspaper said the firms are attempting to head off dozens of other lawsuits at state level, relating to their role in global warming.
SHIP-SHILLING: The Trump administration is working to “kill” a global carbon levy on shipping “permanently”, reported Politico, after succeeding in delaying the measure late last year. The Guardian said US “bullying” could be “paying off”, after Panama signalled it was reversing its support for the levy in a proposal submitted to the UN shipping body.
Around the world
- RARE EARTHS: The governments of Brazil and India signed a deal on rare earths, said the Times of India, as well as agreeing to collaborate on renewable energy.
- HEAT ROLLBACK: German homes will be allowed to continue installing gas and oil heating, under watered-down government plans covered by Clean Energy Wire.
- BRAZIL FLOODS: At least 53 people died in floods in the state of Minas Gerais, after some areas saw 170mm of rain in a few hours, reported CNN Brasil.
- ITALY’S ATTACK: Italy is calling for the EU to “suspend” its emissions trading system (ETS) ahead of a review later this year, said Politico.
- COOKSTOVE CREDITS: The first-ever carbon credits under the Paris Agreement have been issued to a cookstove project in Myanmar, said Climate Home News.
- SAUDI SOLAR: Turkey has signed a “major” solar deal that will see Saudi firm ACWA building 2 gigawatts in the country, according to Agence France-Presse.
$467 billion
The profits made by five major oil firms since prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago, according to a report by Global Witness covered by BusinessGreen.
Latest climate research
- Claims about the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change, made in a recent US Department of Energy report, are “factually incorrect” | AGU Advances
- Large lakes in the Congo Basin are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from “immense ancient stores” | Nature Geoscience
- Shared Socioeconomic Pathways – scenarios used regularly in climate modelling – underrepresent “narratives explicitly centring on democratic principles such as participation, accountability and justice” | npj Climate Action
(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 constituency of Richard Tice MP, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of Reform UK, is the second-largest recipient of flood defence spending in England, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Overall, the funding is disproportionately targeted at coastal and urban areas, many of which have Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs.
Spotlight
Is there really a UK ‘greenlash’?
This week, after a historic Green Party byelection win, Carbon Brief looks at whether there really is a “greenlash” against climate policy in the UK.
Over the past year, the UK’s political consensus on climate change has been shattered.
Yet despite a sharp turn against climate action among right-wing politicians and right-leaning media outlets, UK public support for climate action remains strong.
Prof Federica Genovese, who studies climate politics at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief:
“The current ‘war’ on green policy is mostly driven by media and political elites, not by the public.”
Indeed, there is still a greater than two-to-one majority among the UK public in favour of the country’s legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, as shown below.
Steve Akehurst, director of public-opinion research initiative Persuasion UK, also noted the growing divide between the public and “elites”. He told Carbon Brief:
“The biggest movement is, without doubt, in media and elite opinion. There is a bit more polarisation and opposition [to climate action] among voters, but it’s typically no more than 20-25% and mostly confined within core Reform voters.”
Conservative gear shift
For decades, the UK had enjoyed strong, cross-party political support for climate action.
Lord Deben, the Conservative peer and former chair of the Climate Change Committee, told Carbon Brief that the UK’s landmark 2008 Climate Change Act had been born of this cross-party consensus, saying “all parties supported it”.
Since their landslide loss at the 2024 election, however, the Conservatives have turned against the UK’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050, which they legislated for in 2019.
Curiously, while opposition to net-zero has surged among Conservative MPs, there is majority support for the target among those that plan to vote for the party, as shown below.
Dr Adam Corner, advisor to the Climate Barometer initiative that tracks public opinion on climate change, told Carbon Brief that those who currently plan to vote Reform are the only segment who “tend to be more opposed to net-zero goals”. He said:
“Despite the rise in hostile media coverage and the collapse of the political consensus, we find that public support for the net-zero by 2050 target is plateauing – not plummeting.”
Reform, which rejects the scientific evidence on global warming and campaigns against net-zero, has been leading the polls for a year. (However, it was comfortably beaten by the Greens in yesterday’s Gorton and Denton byelection.)
Corner acknowledged that “some of the anti-net zero noise…[is] showing up in our data”, adding:
“We see rising concerns about the near-term costs of policies and an uptick in people [falsely] attributing high energy bills to climate initiatives.”
But Akehurst said that, rather than a big fall in public support, there had been a drop in the “salience” of climate action:
“So many other issues [are] competing for their attention.”
UK newspapers published more editorials opposing climate action than supporting it for the first time on record in 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Global ‘greenlash’?
All of this sits against a challenging global backdrop, in which US president Donald Trump has been repeating climate-sceptic talking points and rolling back related policy.
At the same time, prominent figures have been calling for a change in climate strategy, sold variously as a “reset”, a “pivot”, as “realism”, or as “pragmatism”.
Genovese said that “far-right leaders have succeeded in the past 10 years in capturing net-zero as a poster child of things they are ‘fighting against’”.
She added that “much of this is fodder for conservative media and this whole ecosystem is essentially driving what we call the ‘greenlash’”.
Corner said the “disconnect” between elite views and the wider public “can create problems” – for example, “MPs consistently underestimate support for renewables”. He added:
“There is clearly a risk that the public starts to disengage too, if not enough positive voices are countering the negative ones.”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP’S ‘PETROSTATE’: The US is becoming a “petrostate” that will be “sicker and poorer”, wrote Financial Times associate editor Rana Forohaar.
RHETORIC VS REALITY: Despite a “political mood [that] has darkened”, there is “more green stuff being installed than ever”, said New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells.
CHINA’S ‘REVOLUTION’: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast reported from China on the “green energy revolution” taking place in the country.
Coming up
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean, Brasília
- 3 March: UK spring statement
- 4-11 March: China’s “two sessions”
- 5 March: Nepal elections
Pick of the jobs
- The Guardian, senior reporter, climate justice | Salary: $123,000-$135,000. Location: New York or Washington DC
- China-Global South Project, non-resident fellow, climate change | Salary: Up to $1,000 a month. Location: Remote
- University of East Anglia, PhD in mobilising community-based climate action through co-designed sports and wellbeing interventions | Salary: Stipend (unknown amount). Location: Norwich, UK
- TABLE and the University of São Paulo, Brazil, postdoctoral researcher in food system narratives | Salary: Unknown. Location: Pirassununga, Brazil
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 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Greenhouse Gases
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
The Lincolnshire constituency held by Richard Tice, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of the hard-right Reform party, has been pledged at least £55m in government funding for flood defences since 2024.
This investment in Boston and Skegness is the second-largest sum for a single constituency from a £1.4bn flood-defence fund for England, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
Flooding is becoming more likely and more extreme in the UK due to climate change.
Yet, for years, governments have failed to spend enough on flood defences to protect people, properties and infrastructure.
The £1.4bn fund is part of the current Labour government’s wider pledge to invest a “record” £7.9bn over a decade on protecting hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from flooding.
As MP for one of England’s most flood-prone regions, Tice has called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
He is also one of Reform’s most vocal opponents of climate action and what he calls “net stupid zero”. He denies the scientific consensus on climate change and has claimed, falsely and without evidence, that scientists are “lying”.
Flood defences
Last year, the government said it would invest £2.65bn on flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) schemes in England between April 2024 and March 2026.
This money was intended to protect 66,500 properties from flooding. It is part of a decade-long Labour government plan to spend more than £7.9bn on flood defences.
There has been a consistent shortfall in maintaining England’s flood defences, with the Environment Agency expecting to protect fewer properties by 2027 than it had initially planned.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has attributed this to rising costs, backlogs from previous governments and a lack of capacity. It also points to the strain from “more frequent and severe” weather events, such as storms in recent years that have been amplified by climate change.
However, the CCC also said last year that, if the 2024-26 spending programme is delivered, it would be “slightly closer to the track” of the Environment Agency targets out to 2027.
The government has released constituency-level data on which schemes in England it plans to fund, covering £1.4bn of the 2024-26 investment. The other half of the FCERM spending covers additional measures, from repairing existing defences to advising local authorities.
The map below shows the distribution of spending on FCERM schemes in England over the past two years, highlighting the constituency of Richard Tice.
By far the largest sum of money – £85.6m in total – has been committed to a tidal barrier and various other defences in the Somerset constituency of Bridgwater, the seat of Conservative MP Ashley Fox.
Over the first months of 2026, the south-west region has faced significant flooding and Fox has called for more support from the government, citing “climate patterns shifting and rainfall intensifying”.
He has also backed his party’s position that “the 2050 net-zero target is impossible” and called for more fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea.
Tice’s east-coast constituency of Boston and Skegness, which is highly vulnerable to flooding from both rivers and the sea, is set to receive £55m. Among the supported projects are beach defences from Saltfleet to Gibraltar Point and upgrades to pumping stations.
Overall, Boston and Skegness has the second-largest portion of flood-defence funding, as the chart below shows. Constituencies with Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs occupied the other top positions.
Overall, despite Labour MPs occupying 347 out of England’s 543 constituencies – nearly two-thirds of the total – more than half of the flood-defence funding was distributed to constituencies with non-Labour MPs. This reflects the flood risk in coastal and rural areas that are not traditional Labour strongholds.
Reform funding
While Reform has just eight MPs, representing 1% of the population, its constituencies have been assigned 4% of the flood-defence funding for England.
Nearly all of this money was for Tice’s constituency, although party leader Nigel Farage’s coastal Clacton seat in Kent received £2m.
Reform UK is committed to “scrapping net-zero” and its leadership has expressed firmly climate-sceptic views.
Much has been made of the disconnect between the party’s climate policies and the threat climate change poses to its voters. Various analyses have shown the flood risk in Reform-dominated areas, particularly Lincolnshire.
Tice has rejected climate science, advocated for fossil-fuel production and criticised Environment Agency flood-defence activities. Yet, he has also called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
This may reflect Tice’s broader approach to climate change. In a 2024 interview with LBC, he said:
“Where you’ve got concerns about sea level defences and sea level rise, guess what? A bit of steel, a bit of cement, some aggregate…and you build some concrete sea level defences. That’s how you deal with rising sea levels.”
While climate adaptation is viewed as vital in a warming world, there are limits on how much societies can adapt and adaptation costs will continue to increase as emissions rise.
The post Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
Greenhouse Gases
Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.
Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Food inflation on the rise
DELUGE STRIKES FOOD: Extreme rainfall and flooding across the Mediterranean and north Africa has “battered the winter growing regions that feed Europe…threatening food price rises”, reported the Financial Times. Western France has “endured more than 36 days of continuous rain”, while farmers’ associations in Spain’s Andalusia estimate that “20% of all production has been lost”, it added. Policy expert David Barmes told the paper that the “latest storms were part of a wider pattern of climate shocks feeding into food price inflation”.
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NO BEEF: The UK’s beef farmers, meanwhile, “face a double blow” from climate change as “relentless rain forces them to keep cows indoors”, while last summer’s drought hit hay supplies, said another Financial Times article. At the same time, indoor growers in south England described a 60% increase in electricity standing charges as a “ticking timebomb” that could “force them to raise their prices or stop production, which will further fuel food price inflation”, wrote the Guardian.
‘TINDERBOX’ AND TARIFFS: A study, covered by the Guardian, warned that major extreme weather and other “shocks” could “spark social unrest and even food riots in the UK”. Experts cited “chronic” vulnerabilities, including climate change, low incomes, poor farming policy and “fragile” supply chains that have made the UK’s food system a “tinderbox”. A New York Times explainer noted that while trade could once guard against food supply shocks, barriers such as tariffs and export controls – which are being “increasingly” used by politicians – “can shut off that safety valve”.
El Niño looms
NEW ENSO INDEX: Researchers have developed a new index for calculating El Niño, the large-scale climate pattern that influences global weather and causes “billions in damages by bringing floods to some regions and drought to others”, reported CNN. It added that climate change is making it more difficult for scientists to observe El Niño patterns by warming up the entire ocean. The outlet said that with the new metric, “scientists can now see it earlier and our long-range weather forecasts will be improved for it.”
WARMING WARNING: Meanwhile, the US Climate Prediction Center announced that there is a 60% chance of the current La Niña conditions shifting towards a neutral state over the next few months, with an El Niño likely to follow in late spring, according to Reuters. The Vibes, a Malaysian news outlet, quoted a climate scientist saying: “If the El Niño does materialise, it could possibly push 2026 or 2027 as the warmest year on record, replacing 2024.”
CROP IMPACTS: Reuters noted that neutral conditions lead to “more stable weather and potentially better crop yields”. However, the newswire added, an El Niño state would mean “worsening drought conditions and issues for the next growing season” to Australia. El Niño also “typically brings a poor south-west monsoon to India, including droughts”, reported the Hindu’s Business Line. A 2024 guest post for Carbon Brief explained that El Niño is linked to crop failure in south-eastern Africa and south-east Asia.
News and views
- DAM-AG-ES: Several South Korean farmers filed a lawsuit against the country’s state-owned utility company, “seek[ing] financial compensation for climate-related agricultural damages”, reported United Press International. Meanwhile, a national climate change assessment for the Philippines found that the country “lost up to $219bn in agricultural damages from typhoons, floods and droughts” over 2000-10, according to Eco-Business.
- SCORCHED GRASS: South Africa’s Western Cape province is experiencing “one of the worst droughts in living memory”, which is “scorching grass and killing livestock”, said Reuters. The newswire wrote: “In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.”
- NOUVELLE VEG: New guidelines published under France’s national food, nutrition and climate strategy “urged” citizens to “limit” their meat consumption, reported Euronews. The delayed strategy comes a month after the US government “upended decades of recommendations by touting consumption of red meat and full-fat dairy”, it noted.
- COURTING DISASTER: India’s top green court accepted the findings of a committee that “found no flaws” in greenlighting the Great Nicobar project that “will lead to the felling of a million trees” and translocating corals, reported Mongabay. The court found “no good ground to interfere”, despite “threats to a globally unique biodiversity hotspot” and Indigenous tribes at risk of displacement by the project, wrote Frontline.
- FISH FALLING: A new study found that fish biomass is “falling by 7.2% from as little as 0.1C of warming per decade”, noted the Guardian. While experts also pointed to the role of overfishing in marine life loss, marine ecologist and study lead author Dr Shahar Chaikin told the outlet: “Our research proves exactly what that biological cost [of warming] looks like underwater.”
- TOO HOT FOR COFFEE: According to new analysis by Climate Central, countries where coffee beans are grown “are becoming too hot to cultivate them”, reported the Guardian. The world’s top five coffee-growing countries faced “57 additional days of coffee-harming heat” annually because of climate change, it added.
Spotlight
Nature talks inch forward
This week, Carbon Brief covers the latest round of negotiations under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which occurred in Rome over 16-19 February.
The penultimate set of biodiversity negotiations before October’s Conference of the Parties ended in Rome last week, leaving plenty of unfinished business.
The CBD’s subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) met in the Italian capital for four days to discuss a range of issues, including biodiversity finance and reviewing progress towards the nature targets agreed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
However, many of the major sticking points – particularly around finance – will have to wait until later this summer, leaving some observers worried about the capacity for delegates to get through a packed agenda at COP17.
The SBI, along with the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA) will both meet in Nairobi, Kenya, later this summer for a final round of talks before COP17 kicks off in Yerevan, Armenia, on 19 October.
Money talks
Finance for nature has long been a sticking point at negotiations under the CBD.
Discussions on a new fund for biodiversity derailed biodiversity talks in Cali, Colombia, in autumn 2024, requiring resumed talks a few months later.
Despite this, finance was barely on the agenda at the SBI meetings in Rome. Delegates discussed three studies on the relationship between debt sustainability and implementation of nature plans, but the more substantive talks are set to take place at the next SBI meeting in Nairobi.
Several parties “highlighted concerns with the imbalance of work” on finance between these SBI talks and the next ones, reported Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB).
Lim Li Ching, senior researcher at Third World Network, noted that tensions around finance permeated every aspect of the talks. She told Carbon Brief:
“If you’re talking about the gender plan of action – if there’s little or no financial resources provided to actually put it into practice and implement it, then it’s [just] paper, right? Same with the reporting requirements and obligations.”
Monitoring and reporting
Closely linked to the issue of finance is the obligations of parties to report on their progress towards the goals and targets of the GBF.
Parties do so through the submission of national reports.
Several parties at the talks pointed to a lack of timely funding for driving delays in their reporting, according to ENB.
A note released by the CBD Secretariat in December said that no parties had submitted their national reports yet; by the time of the SBI meetings, only the EU had. It further noted that just 58 parties had submitted their national biodiversity plans, which were initially meant to be published by COP16, in October 2024.
Linda Krueger, director of biodiversity and infrastructure policy at the environmental not-for-profit Nature Conservancy, told Carbon Brief that despite the sparse submissions, parties are “very focused on the national report preparation”. She added:
“Everybody wants to be able to show that we’re on the path and that there still is a pathway to getting to 2030 that’s positive and largely in the right direction.”
Watch, read, listen
NET LOSS: Nigeria’s marine life is being “threatened” by “ghost gear” – nets and other fishing equipment discarded in the ocean – said Dialogue Earth.
COMEBACK CAUSALITY: A Vox long-read looked at whether Costa Rica’s “payments for ecosystem services” programme helped the country turn a corner on deforestation.
HOMEGROWN GOALS: A Straits Times podcast discussed whether import-dependent Singapore can afford to shelve its goal to produce 30% of its food locally by 2030.
‘RUSTING’ RIVERS: The Financial Times took a closer look at a “strange new force blighting the [Arctic] landscape”: rivers turning rust-orange due to global warming.
New science
- Lakes in the Congo Basin’s peatlands are releasing carbon that is thousands of years old | Nature Geoscience
- Natural non-forest ecosystems – such as grasslands and marshlands – were converted for agriculture at four times the rate of land with tree cover between 2005 and 2020 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Around one-quarter of global tree-cover loss over 2001-22 was driven by cropland expansion, pastures and forest plantations for commodity production | Nature Food
In the diary
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean | Brasília
- 5 March: Nepal general elections
- 9-20 March: First part of the thirty-first session of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) | Kingston, Jamaica
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz.
Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
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