As temperature records are shattered, ice rapidly melts and extreme weather events worsen, many people around the world say they are feeling more worried about climate change.
Researchers call this growing phenomenon “climate anxiety”.
A new analysis examines 94 studies focused on climate anxiety, involving 170,000 people across 27 countries, to explore who it is most likely to affect and what its possible consequences could be.
It finds that those who are more likely to experience climate anxiety include women, young adults, people with “left-wing” views and those expressing “concerns” about nature or the “future”.
Climate anxiety is negatively related to wellbeing, according to the analysis, but positively related to participating in climate action, such as activism and behaviours to reduce emissions.
Below, Carbon Brief explains the findings in more detail.
- What is ‘climate anxiety’?
- Who suffers from climate anxiety?
- What are the consequences of climate anxiety?
- How does climate anxiety differ from general anxiety?
What is ‘climate anxiety’?
“Climate anxiety” can be described and defined in various ways.
The research, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, considers the term “climate change anxiety” to “broadly refer to people’s feelings of anxiety and/or worry related to climate change”.
This is based on two established definitions, explains study lead author Dr Clara Kühner, a researcher of climate change and psychology at the University of Leipzig, Germany. She tells Carbon Brief:
“There is a discussion in the scientific community about what exactly constitutes climate change anxiety.”
The first definition comes from a 2023 research paper, which describes climate anxiety as “persistent anxiety (apprehensiveness) and worry about climate change”.
The second comes from the American Psychological Association, which in 2020 used the term “eco anxiety” to describe “any anxiety or worry about climate change and its effects”.
Kühner explains that “eco anxiety could be interpreted as being more broadly related to the ecological crisis…but [the American Psychological Association] describe it as any anxiety or worry related to climate change”.
Her team noticed that there has been an “increasing amount of research” into climate anxiety over the past few years, she adds:
“Research on the topic has exploded. That’s a signal that it’s very relevant to researchers, but also to society and the public.
“But it was very difficult to get an overview of this research because it was scattered across different disciplines, not only psychology, but also public health and sociology. And so it was difficult to really know how much is out there. That’s when we thought: ‘OK, let’s put all of that together in a quantitative meta-analysis to get an overall perspective on the topic.’”
For the meta-analysis, Kühner and her team searched online records, scoured scientific conference agendas and contacted other scientists to try to identify all published and upcoming studies looking into climate anxiety.
They focused on studies that had conducted surveys with people self-reporting symptoms of climate anxiety. They also restricted their search to “correlational studies” looking at the links between self-reported climate anxiety and various factors, such as gender, age or political beliefs.
In addition, they only included studies involving people over the age of 18.
In total, the meta-analysis identifies 94 climate anxiety studies, involving 170,000 people in 27 countries.
Some 81 of these studies were published after 2020, according to the researchers – reflecting the surge of research interest into the topic over the past few years.
Who suffers from climate anxiety?
As part of the meta-analysis, the researchers looked across the 94 studies to identify what characteristics are most highly associated with having climate anxiety.
From this, the meta-analysis finds that those more likely to report feeling climate anxiety include:
- Younger adults
- Women
- People with a “left-wing” political orientation
- People concerned about the environment
- People concerned about nature
- People concerned about the future
- People who believe in climate change
- People who have been exposed to climate impacts
- People who are regularly exposed to information about climate change (such as climate scientists, journalists and teachers)
The graphic below shows the relative “effect size” of each of these characteristics, according to the study, with -0.9 illustrating the trait is less related to climate anxiety and 0.9 indicating it is more related.
On the graphic, the centre of each blue bar represents the effect size, with the start and end showing 95% confidence intervals.
By contrast, people with the opposite characteristics to those listed above – for example, those that are older, male or hold “right-wing” political views – are less likely to report feeling climate anxiety, according to the research.
The study only examines the correlations between feeling climate anxiety and various human characteristics – and does not look into the reasons why different groups of people may be more likely to experience climate anxiety.
One of the research papers cited in the meta-analysis finds that people under the age of 25 who reported climate anxiety were likely to have feelings of “betrayal” aimed towards older generations and to perceive governmental response to climate change as “inadequate”.
On gender, previous research – not cited in the meta-analysis – has found that women are more likely than men to suffer from mental illness following extreme weather events – and face higher health risks from climate change in general.
The meta-analysis does not look into how being transgender or non-binary could be associated with climate anxiety, but researchers have previously argued that these groups – along with other people who might identify as LGBTQ+ – are likely to face disproportionate climate risks.
The meta-analysis also does not investigate where in the world levels of climate anxiety could be the highest.
Most of the papers included in the meta-analysis were conducted in the global north.
Out of the 94 studies, 56 were conducted in Europe, 12 in North America, seven in Australia and New Zealand, seven in Asia, one in Africa and one in South America. (A further 10 spanned multiple continents.)
This “largely reflects the general dominance of western research in mainstream psychological and behavioural studies” – rather than a weakness of the authors’ methods, says Prof Kim-Pong Tam, an environmental psychologist from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who was not involved in the meta-analysis.
He describes the findings as “very significant”, adding:
“It should be noted that the pattern revealed in this meta-analysis does not necessarily indicate that the phenomenon of interest has rarely been studied in the global south or outside of western societies.
“It is common practice for authors conducting a meta-analysis to focus on publications in the language(s) in which they are proficient. This implies that studies published in non-English languages (usually in local journals), if any, are excluded.”
Dr Charles Ogunbode, an associate professor in psychology specialising in how people respond to environmental change at the University of Nottingham, UK, agrees that the “lack of studies from Africa and other parts of the global south is not a unique weakness of this article”.
He says that the “climate anxiety discourse is western-centric”, explaining:
“Outside of western cultures, climate anxiety may not feel like an especially useful concept for making sense of local lived realities. For example, one study found that feelings of anger and grief regarding climate change are more prominent in Turkey. Another study conducted with young people in three African countries found the predominant emotions to be akin to a helpless pessimism. Similar observations were made in Ecuador.
“It is, of course, valuable to have a comprehensive study on climate anxiety, but the western-centric nature of the concept means that we end up missing out on the nuanced cross-cultural dimensions of emotional responses to climate change.”
What are the consequences of climate anxiety?
As well as examining what human characteristics are most associated with climate anxiety, the meta-analysis explores what consequences are most associated with the phenomenon.
These consequences are grouped into three categories: “wellbeing”, “climate change emotions” and “behaviour”. (The meta-analysis considers “wellbeing” to be “how individuals evaluate the quality of their own lives, including experiences such as life satisfaction”.
The meta-analysis finds that feeling climate anxiety is associated with poor wellbeing and negative feelings about climate change.
However, climate anxiety is also associated with “pro-environmental behaviours”, such as saving energy at home, as well as participating in community activism and showing support for government pro-climate policies. Kühner explains:
“We found that climate change anxiety is a double-edged sword. It [is] related to poorer wellbeing and to more psychological strain. On the other hand, it [is] positively related to different forms of pro-environmental behaviour.
“On the one hand, it could make you feel uncomfortable. But, on the other hand, it may trigger significant action.”
How does climate anxiety differ from general anxiety?
One of the goals of the meta-analysis is to investigate if climate anxiety is a distinct psychological phenomenon – or merely reflects the broader recent trend of rising levels of anxiety across many parts of the world, particularly for younger demographics.
To do this, the researchers carried out a “meta-regression analysis”, a statistical method for, in this case, investigating the size of the impact of various factors on having climate anxiety.
This analysis finds that the characteristics associated with climate anxiety, such as being a young adult or female, as well as its associated consequences, such as taking action to reduce emissions, were “uniquely related to climate anxiety above and beyond generalised anxiety”. Kühner explains:
“From a methodological point of view, this means that these are distinct constructs, not that people who are generally more anxious are also more anxious about climate change.”
This finding could have implications for how both medical professionals and the public view climate anxiety, she continues:
“Sometimes, climate change anxiety is treated like a disease that has to be cured. And it’s not. It’s a normal healthy reaction to an actual threat.
“I think it’s important for policymakers, also journalists and politicians, not to pathologise climate change anxiety, but to interpret it as a functional reaction to something that is actually happening. Instead of offering mental-health support for how to get rid of this, we need more opportunities to channel this anxiety into climate change action.”
In some cases, climate anxiety can cause poor mental health, she adds:
“If [climate anxiety] impairs your daily functioning or affects your sleep, you definitely need mental-health support to cope with these strong emotions.”
In the UK, mental-health support is available from the NHS by calling 111, the charity Mind is also available on 0300 123 3393. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14 and at MensLine on 1300 789 978.
The post Explainer: What is ‘climate anxiety’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
When Israel’s prime minister approved a $35-billion deal to supply natural gas to Egypt last month, Energy Minister Eli Cohen said the benefits of increased gas trade with its neighbour went far beyond money.
“The approval of this gas agreement is a historic moment for the State of Israel, both in the security-diplomatic sphere and the economic sphere,” Cohen said on December 17.
In contrast, Egyptian officials – sensitive to the optics at home due to widespread anger over Israel’s military offensive in Gaza – played down the political significance of the deal, saying it was “purely commercial”.
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The deal’s final approval, which had been delayed by several months, reflects Israel’s commitment to ramp up offshore gas extraction as a way to assert its regional dominance and shore up economic ties amid international criticism over the war in Gaza, analysts say.
While Israel has a globally renowned clean-tech sector, the push on fossil gas underscores how climate action is low on the country’s priority list.
Climate action takes a backseat
Shortly before the gas export deal was finalised, at COP30 in Brazil, Israel declined to add its voice to calls by more than 80 countries for a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. And before that, in October, the Energy Ministry said the country would fail to meet a 2025 target for renewables to make up 20% of its energy mix.
Israel’s latest climate plan sets a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 27% by 2030 from 2015 levels, and it has not yet presented an updated nationally determined contribution (NDC) due in 2025.
The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also preparing to launch a new offshore gas exploration campaign within weeks, following the signing in October of a ceasefire agreement to end two years of war between Israel and the Hamas militant group in Gaza.
Beyond the Middle East, Israel’s gas push also highlights another challenge for the global clean energy transition as fossil fuels play a key role in political instability and conflict, from Ukraine to Venezuela.
Fuelling the economy
Fossil gas accounts for about 70% of Israel’s energy mix, followed by renewables – mainly solar – and coal.
Last year, the 27 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas extracted off Israel’s coast were split almost evenly between domestic consumption and exports to Jordan and Egypt, the only two buyers of Israeli gas, both of which are vocal allies of the Palestinians.
Despite their condemnation of the war, neither country sought to halt the gas trade during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which killed about 71,000 Palestinians and left most of the coastal enclave in ruins.
Israeli gas exports to both countries increased 13% during 2024, maintaining an upward trend in shipments of the fossil fuel since 2018.
“Both Egypt and Jordan may signal solidarity with Palestinians in public, but their infrastructures tell a different story,” wrote Rafeef Ziadah, a UK-based scholar and human rights activist.
Israel’s gas exports to Egypt were halted for several weeks in 2023 when the war began, and again in 2025 when Israel launched a brief air war against nuclear sites in Iran – disrupting an increasingly important supply of energy to Egypt, which has faced power shortages in recent years as its own gas production dwindled.
Egypt is heavily dependent on fossil gas for energy generation, with renewables, mainly hydropower, making up only about 11% of the power mix, according to data from the Ember think-tank.
For Israel, gas is a win-win trade
Gas production has also been an important source of revenue for Israel, and income has been growing in recent years, including during the war in Gaza. Israel’s gas revenues grew in 2024 to 2.3 billion shekels ($720 million) from 2.1 billion a year earlier, official data shows.
Some of the gas proceeds feed Israel’s sovereign wealth fund, but much of the income from gas – mainly royalties and corporate tax – goes directly to state coffers, helping to fund Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza war, both of which are opposed by Jordan and Egypt.
Laury Haytayan, a Middle East and North Africa energy expert, described the gas ties between Israel and Egypt as a “kind of co-dependence”.
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While that might be politically uncomfortable, Egypt’s energy crisis means it cannot afford to be choosy, analysts say.
“Israel remains an important pillar of the energy supply in neighbouring countries, contrary voices notwithstanding,” Israel’s Petroleum Commissioner Chen Bar Yoseph told Climate Home News.
The recent finalisation of the Egypt export deal also drew praise from Israel’s main international ally, the United States, with the State Department calling it “a major win for American business and regional cooperation”.
US oil major Chevron, which holds a 40% stake in Israel’s offshore Leviathan field and operates the field, plans to expand it as a result of the agreement.
“More gas will be found”
When Netanyahu announced his approval of the deal, he said it would encourage other companies to explore for more gas resources off the Israeli coast.
“More gas will be found,” Netanyahu said, two weeks after the Energy Ministry said it was close to launching a new tender for gas exploration in offshore blocks.
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The deal signed between Egyptian firm Blue Ocean Energy and Chevron, along with its partners in Leviathan, will see 130 billion cubic metres of Israeli gas pumped to Egypt over the next 15 years. Israeli media reports linked the planned offshore gas expansion to concerns over limited gas reserves which resurfaced in the wake of the export agreement.
Israeli officials hope the ceasefire in Gaza, coupled with the finalisation of the Egypt deal, will boost international interest in the bidding, which could take place early this year.
Pro-Palestinian groups denounce exploration
Climate and environmental campaign groups, meanwhile, have repeatedly demanded that Israeli gas exploration be frozen, citing the potential consequences for planet-heating emissions and marine ecosystems.
Palestinian human rights NGOs have warned that the hunt for fossil gas could also expand Israel’s illegal exploitation of Palestinian natural resources since several maritime zones earmarked by Israel for gas exploration overlap waters claimed by Palestinians in a 2019 submission to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
“Israel cannot operate there unilaterally. It is not an Israeli territorial or economic zone with authority to operate there,” said Suhad Bishara, legal director at Adalah, an Israel-based organisation focused on promoting Palestinian rights.
“Any company that agrees, or enters, or is associated with drilling in this area is complicit in breaching international law,” Bishara said.
Whether or not more exploration licences are granted, some experts question how much more undiscovered oil and gas lies beneath the seabed off Israel.
Geologist Yossi Langotsky, considered the father of Israeli offshore gas, has long maintained that the Leviathan and Tamar fields – which are not in areas claimed by the Palestinians – are the only large gas reservoirs along Israel’s coast.
For as long as the two fields are producing enough, Israel will likely find a willing buyer in energy-hungry Egypt – whatever the geopolitical backdrop.
“Even when regional leaders rail against occupation or genocide, the gas keeps flowing,” said Ziadah, the UK-based rights activist.
The post Israel’s fossil gas power play pushes climate action to the sidelines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Israel’s fossil gas power play pushes climate action to the sidelines
Climate Change
The battle over a global energy transition is on between petro-states and electro-states
Jennifer Morgan is a senior fellow with the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy and Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University and a former special climate envoy for the German government.
Two years ago, countries around the world set a goal of “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner”. The plan included tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency gains by 2030 – important steps for slowing climate change since the energy sector makes up about 75% of the global carbon dioxide emissions that are heating up the planet.
The world is making progress: More than 90% of new power capacity added in 2024 came from renewable energy sources, and 2025 saw similar growth.
However, fossil fuel production is also still expanding. And the United States, the world’s leading producer of both oil and natural gas, is now aggressively pressuring countries to keep buying and burning fossil fuels.
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The energy transition was not meant to be a main topic when world leaders and negotiators met at the 2025 United Nations climate summit, COP30, in November in Belém, Brazil. But it took centre stage from the start to the very end, bringing attention to the real-world geopolitical energy debate underway and the stakes at hand.
Fight over transition roadmap at COP30
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began the conference by calling for the creation of a formal roadmap, essentially a strategic process in which countries could participate to “overcome dependence on fossil fuels.” It would take the global decision to transition away from fossil fuels from words to action.
More than 80 countries said they supported the idea, ranging from vulnerable small island nations like Vanuatu that are losing land and lives from sea level rise and more intense storms, to countries like Kenya that see business opportunities in clean energy, to Australia, a large fossil fuel-producing country.
Opposition, led by the Arab Group’s oil- and gas-producing countries, kept any mention of a “roadmap” energy transition plan out of the final agreement from the climate conference, but supporters are pushing ahead.
I was in Belém for COP30, and I follow developments closely as former special climate envoy and head of delegation for Germany and senior fellow at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. The fight over whether there should even be a roadmap shows how much countries that depend on fossil fuels are working to slow down the transition, and how others are positioning themselves to benefit from the growth of renewables. And it is a key area to watch in 2026.
The battle between electro-states and petro-states
Brazilian diplomat and COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago has committed to lead an effort in 2026 to create two roadmaps: one on halting and reversing deforestation and another on transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner.
What those roadmaps will look like is still unclear. They are likely to be centred on a process for countries to discuss and debate how to reverse deforestation and phase out fossil fuels.
Over the coming months, Corrêa do Lago plans to convene high-level meetings among global leaders, including fossil fuel producers and consumers, international organisations, industries, workers, scholars and advocacy groups.
For the roadmap to both be accepted and be useful, the process will need to address the global market issues of supply and demand, as well as equity. For example, in some fossil fuel-producing countries, oil, gas or coal revenues are the main source of income. What can the road ahead look like for those countries that will need to diversify their economies?
Nigeria is an interesting case study for weighing that question.
Oil exports consistently provide the bulk of Nigeria’s revenue, accounting for around 80% to over 90% of total government revenue and foreign exchange earnings. At the same time, roughly 39% of Nigeria’s population has no access to electricity, which is the highest proportion of people without electricity of any nation. And Nigeria possesses abundant renewable energy resources across the country, which are largely untapped: solar, hydro, geothermal and wind, providing new opportunities.
What a roadmap might look like
In Belém, representatives talked about creating a roadmap that would be science-based and aligned with the Paris climate agreement, and would include various pathways to achieve a just transition for fossil fuel-dependent regions.
Some inspiration for helping fossil fuel-producing countries transition to cleaner energy could come from Brazil and Norway.
In Brazil, Lula asked his ministries to prepare guidelines for developing a roadmap for gradually reducing Brazil’s dependency on fossil fuels and find a way to financially support the changes.
His decree specifically mentions creating an energy transition fund, which could be supported by government revenues from oil and gas exploration. While Brazil supports moving away from fossil fuels, it is also still a large oil producer and recently approved new exploratory drilling near the mouth of the Amazon River.
Norway, a major oil and gas producer, is establishing a formal transition commission to study and plan its economy’s shift away from fossil fuels, particularly focusing on how the workforce and the natural resources of Norway can be used more effectively to create new and different jobs.
Both countries are just getting started, but their work could help point the way for other countries and inform a global roadmap process.
The European Union has implemented a series of policies and laws aimed at reducing fossil fuel demand. It has a target for 42.5% of its energy to come from renewable sources by 2030. And its EU Emissions Trading System, which steadily reduces the emissions that companies can emit, will soon be expanded to cover housing and transportation. The Emissions Trading System already includes power generation, energy-intensive industry and civil aviation.
Fossil fuel and renewable energy growth ahead
In the US, the Trump administration has made clear through its policymaking and diplomacy that it is pursuing the opposite approach: to keep fossil fuels as the main energy source for decades to come.
The International Energy Agency still expects to see renewable energy grow faster than any other major energy source in all scenarios going forward, as renewable energy’s lower costs make it an attractive option in many countries. Globally, the agency expects investment in renewable energy in 2025 to be twice that of fossil fuels.
At the same time, however, fossil fuel investments are also rising with fast-growing energy demand.
The IEA’s World Energy Outlook described a surge in new funding for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, projects in 2025. It now expects a 50% increase in global LNG supply by 2030, about half of that from the US. However, the World Energy Outlook notes that “questions still linger about where all the new LNG will go” once it’s produced.
What to watch for
The Belém roadmap dialogue and how it balances countries’ needs will reflect on the world’s ability to handle climate change.
Corrêa do Lago plans to report on its progress at the next annual UN climate conference, COP31, in late 2026. The conference will be hosted by Turkey, but Australia, which supported the call for a roadmap, will be leading the negotiations.
With more time to discuss and prepare, COP31 may just bring a transition away from fossil fuels back into the global negotiations.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The post The battle over a global energy transition is on between petro-states and electro-states appeared first on Climate Home News.
The battle over a global energy transition is on between petro-states and electro-states
On the last day of 2025, the Saudi Arabian government submitted an updated climate plan to the United Nations which contains a new but ambiguous emissions-reduction target and argues the world should keep buying the kingdom’s fossil fuels so that it can afford to shift its economy away from oil.
The 27-page nationally determined contribution (NDC) was sent to the UN’s climate arm (UNFCCC) on December 31 2025, just in time to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement’s requirement that governments submit an NDC every five years. The bottom of the front page says in capital letters “2025 SUBMISSION TO UNFCCC”.
The document was not uploaded to the UNFCCC website, and so was not publicly available, until the night of January 5-6.
Saudi Arabia’s third climate plan sets a new target for reducing emissions by 2040 – unlike most other new NDCs which contain a goal for 2035.
As with the oil-rich government’s earlier 2030 target, it is not clear what share of the oil producing-country’s emissions the 2040 goal equates to, as the baseline is not clearly specified. The Saudi government also states that it may change the baseline, effectively making the target less ambitious if it feels unfairly targeted by global climate policies.
The document says Saudi Arabia will aim to “reduce, avoid, and remove greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 335 million tons of [carbon dioxide equivalent] annually reached by 2040… on the basis of a dynamic baseline, with the year 2019 designated as the base year for this NDC”.
Saudi Arabia’s last NDC in 2021 had a similar format, aiming to cut emissions by 278 million tons a year (mtpa) by 2030. But neither target specifies the total the emissions reductions should be measured against, leaving analysts unclear as to what level of absolute emissions Saudi Arabia is aiming for in 2030 and 2040.
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Climate Action Tracker (CAT), which analyses climate plans from major-emitting nations, has yet to publish its view on Saudi Arabia’s new NDC.
But commenting on the 2021 NDC, it said that “although not explicitly mentioned in the document, the CAT interprets the NDC target to be a reduction below a baseline scenario. It is important to note that neither the previous nor the updated NDC includes a baseline projection to which the emissions reductions target is applied.”
A 2024 study by researchers from the Riyadh-based King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre (KAPSARC) and the US’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said “the Kingdom has not officially defined the baseline emissions in their updated NDCs”. They suggested that, under Saudi Arabia’s current policies, emissions will continue to rise until at least 2060.
Saudi authorities have not clarified what baseline the previous NDC’s targets are against and have not spoken publicly about the new NDC. The website for the government’s Vision 2030 initiative says only that the Kingdom aims to “reduce carbon emissions by 278 mtpa by 2030”.
NDC depends on continued oil exports
As well as being unclear in terms of numbers, Saudi Arabia says the baseline for its 2040 target is contingent on “sustained economic growth and diversification, supported by a robust contribution from hydrocarbon export revenues to the national economy”.
Hydrocarbons are another word for fossil fuels, which the NDC says Saudi Arabia aims to become less reliant on by moving into sectors like financial and medical services, tourism, renewable energy and energy-efficiency technologies.
UN carbon accounting rules mean emissions of fossil fuels are counted where they are consumed, not where they are produced, so the emissions from exported Saudi oil do not count towards the kingdom’s emissions.
Saudi Arabia’s emissions-cutting ambitions also rest, the NDC says, “on the assumption that the economic and social consequences of international climate change policies and measures will not pose a disproportionate or abnormal burden on the Kingdom’s economy”.
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The country – which gets about three-fifths of its export earnings from fossil fuels – has long been the leading opponent of international measures to reduce their production and use. It has recently opposed efforts to map out a transition away from fossil fuels in climate talks, measures to restrict plastics production in negotiations on a global treaty to cut plastic pollution and taxes on polluting ships at the International Maritime Organization.
If other governments do not continue to buy its fossil fuels in sufficient quantities, the NDC says that Saudi Arabia will use fossil fuels domestically to produce plastics and power heavy industries like cement, mining and metals production. In this scenario, Saudi Arabia’s emissions will be higher, the plan says.
The NDC lists green initiatives Saudi Arabia is pursuing, including carbon capture and storage, green hydrogen, direct air capture of greenhouse gases and renewables. To adapt to more extreme heatwaves and droughts, the NDC says the government is using cloud seeding technology to make rain artificially.
The country’s 2021 NDC set a target for Saudi Arabia to get half of its energy from renewables by 2030. That target is not mentioned in the new NDC. The International Energy Agency’s latest figures said that in 2023 the country still got far less than 1% of its energy from renewables.
Around 70 countries have yet to submit their latest NDCs, which were due in 2025, including India.
The post Saudi Arabia issues last-minute climate plan with unclear emissions-cutting goal appeared first on Climate Home News.
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