Since its head office opened in Johannesburg 16 years ago, the African arm of environmental campaign group Greenpeace has made a name for itself, battling governments and corporations to defend forests, protect oceans and tackle climate change. It was an organisation staff said they were proud to work for.
But an internal restructuring – which Greenpeace Africa’s board asked newly-appointed executive director Oulie Keita to implement in June 2023 – has left management fighting affected employees as well as the planet’s foes.
Climate Home spoke to former staff and has seen leaked documents, meeting recordings and email correspondence that expose the disarray caused by the drive by Greenpeace Africa’s management to lay off around 40 people – about half of its total staff – at three of its five offices, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Africa and Senegal. The organisation cited financial and security reasons in justifying the job cuts.
Some ex-employees interviewed by Climate Home, however, expressed doubt about those motives, saying they felt unfairly targeted for dismissal. They also criticised the new management’s approach to interaction with African governments, as well as Greenpeace Africa’s stance on LGBT+ rights and trade union representation.
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In a written response to those grievances, Climate Home was told that Greenpeace Africa “values the rights and voices of our employees and fosters an inclusive and collaborative work environment”. “Our policies align with the legal requirements in each country,” it added.
As one of the highest-profile environmental organisations on the African continent, Greenpeace has an ambitious vision to bring about “an Africa where people live in harmony with nature in a peaceful state of environmental and social justice”. The internal turmoil uncovered by Climate Home raises questions about its ability to meet that goal.
The terms of reference for a three-month operational review of the organisation, which was due to start in August 2023, cited a need for cultural change as a key reason for the restructuring. It said collaborative processes intended to boost productivity and accountability had failed, slowing down the delivery of a 2022-2025 strategic plan.
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That four-year strategy “aimed to transform Greenpeace Africa, to be a viable organisation working on campaigns delivering systemic impacts in Africa, with an operating model that is fit for purpose and responsive to the challenges facing the continent”, the document added.
It also showed that Greenpeace Africa wanted to ensure it had enough of a presence in richer African nations to improve fundraising – an argument that was later used by management as a justification for downsizing offices in poorer nations like DRC.
Greenpeace told Climate Home this shift was “part of a broader effort to ensure that Greenpeace Africa remains financially sustainable. This approach strengthens our capacity to promote environmental justice in all regions, including those with fewer resources.”
Following the shake-up, Climate Home understands that more than 10 former employees have launched legal action against Greenpeace Africa in labour courts in South Africa and Senegal, alleging unfair treatment by the organisation. Greenpeace Africa did not respond to questions on the cases, which are ongoing.
It said, however, that its 2023-2024 restructuring was conducted “with the utmost care”, and “in accordance with all relevant labour laws in each of our countries and ethical guidelines”.
New strategy
On March 1, 2023, the Greenpeace Africa board announced that, after a series of interim bosses, Keita had been appointed as executive director.
In a statement, it said she would “lead the implementation of the organisation’s new strategy which, grounded in African consciousness, seeks to dismantle systems which have historically served only to benefit the colonial powers, still plundering Africa for its resources”.
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Then board chair Oury Traoré, a fellow Malian who resigned this year, said in the statement that it was “critical to build a movement led by women and youth”. As a woman joining from the United Nations youth platform YouthConnekt Africa, Keita seemed well-placed to do that.
She had studied law, sociology, international development and human rights at universities in Morocco, the US and Austria and then worked as a trainer, facilitator and consultant for NGOs and Western embassies across Africa. She joined the Greenpeace Africa board in April 2012.
Staff were initially pleased with Keita’s appointment as executive director, which ended the long hunt for a permanent leader. “We were very excited,” said one then staff member in Senegal. “We had the sense that the organisation would become more stable.”
But that did not happen. Just a week later, an email landed in the inbox of Greenpeace Africa’s people and culture director Paul Ngugi and its then lead campaigner on climate and energy Melita Steele, flagging earlier support by Keita for Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
Sent by the head of Greenpeace Africa’s Congo rainforest campaign at the time, and signed on behalf of “the Congo Basin team”, the email raised “serious concerns” about Keita’s appointment, due to her alleged “very high admiration of Paul Kagame and her public communication to praise and admire him”.
The email, seen by Climate Home, included 15 posts by Keita on X (formerly Twitter), sent between November 2020 and October 2022. They praised Kagame’s “exemplary leadership”, calling him a “visionary”, “rare jewel” and “my Favourite President in the world”. Keita said she had moved to Rwanda “because of the admiration and respect I have for this man!”
A post on Oulie Keita’s X account on November 14, 2020 (Screenshot)
Commenting on this, the email from the Congo Basin team said that having a leader of Greenpeace Africa with that kind of admiration for Kagame was a serious problem for them and their work.
The United Nations has accused the military forces of Rwanda, governed by Kagame since 2000, of sending 4,000 troops to invade parts of neighbouring DRC and of backing Congolese rebel group M23. The violence has displaced millions of people in the DRC, which is home to large swathes of the world’s second-largest rainforest – a huge carbon store whose protection is regarded as vital to curbing global warming.
The email noted that the Congo Basin team had been preparing a statement on the DRC conflict for Greenpeace Africa’s leadership to endorse, “as for us our organisation’s silence on this conflict is no longer acceptable”. It added that the DRC office now believed “our new ED [Keita] would never accept such a statement”.
A mourning ceremony for the victims of the DRC conflict took place in the city of Goma on September 2, 2024. (Photo: Arlette Bashizi/Reuters)
Internal “smear campaign”
The email led to frantic activity at the top of Greenpeace Africa. The organisation’s engagement director brought forward training on social media use and prepared what she called a “risk mitigation comms plan for this particular concern”.
On March 16, 2023, Greenpeace Africa’s then head of communication, Johannesburg-based Mbong Akiy Fokwa Tsafack, sent an email to staff on the subject of “the smear campaign” against the new executive director.
Greenpeace Africa, it said, wanted “to express its ultimate concern and disgust at the onslaught”. It accused unnamed people of using a “colonial approach, of divide and rule, taking advantage of the fragile political situation in the DRC to drive their agenda” and to “resist the transformation that is required to bring credibility to the presence of Greenpeace in Africa”.
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Shortly afterwards, Keita herself sent a conciliatory email with no reference to Tsafack’s message. Keita said she had “heard with distress, yet with solidarity, the cries of the staff in the DRC who are rightfully disturbed about tweets on my social media handle”.
The posts, she noted, were made while she led YouthConnekt, which was chaired by Rwanda. “Cheering, supporting and celebrating the political will of these African leaders towards investing in the youth of Africa, including the main Champion the President of Rwanda as the co-initiator of this continental initiative was a big part of the job,” she wrote.
Keita added that she had “no personal political affiliations with any African countries”, thanked colleagues for raising “valid” concerns, and appealed for unity “to build the Africa we all want to live in”.
Keita did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Greenpeace Africa’s website states that the organisation “does not take sides in conflicts and wars on the African continent”, in line with Greenpeace’s global policy on peace.
Congo office closure
About seven months later, in October, Greenpeace Africa’s finance director, South African Gerhard Combrink, held a video call with the DRC office to tell staff there that management had decided “to close down” their office and centralise activities for the Congo Basin in Cameroon.
The announcement seemed to come as a surprise to those attending, many of whom criticised the decision. Combrink said the Greenpeace Africa board had “consulted widely with Greenpeace International and with other [national or regional offices], especially Belgium”, the DRC’s former colonial ruler. But staff in the DRC said on the call they had not been included.
The then lead for the Congo Basin team said that, as three-fifths of the Congo rainforest is in the DRC, losing the office there would be a “historical error” and would damage the organisation’s credibility globally.
The forest – and its central role in keeping climate change in check – is threatened by government-backed efforts to drill for oil and by industrial logging.
“It’s like closing an office in Brazil, and you say you’ll be campaigning from somewhere else to try to save the Amazon forest. It doesn’t work,” the team lead said. “Closing it will send a signal to many other African countries saying that no, this Greenpeace is not an organisation that we can count on,” she warned.
Environmental activists, with a banner co-signed by Greenpeace Africa, protest in Kinshasa, DRC, on November 29, 2019. (Photo: Hereward Holland/Reuters)
Combrink said one “fundamental” reason for the decision was “the security issues we face and our inability to openly confront the government without placing our staff at risk”. He noted that the organisation had evacuated staff to safeguard them against threats. The campaigner, who did not respond to Climate Home’s request for comment, replied that these evacuations had only been “preventive” and no DRC employees had been arrested.
Fundraising prioritised
Combrink said another reason for shutting the DRC office was that, due to the war in Ukraine, funding from Germany – a key source of income for Greenpeace Africa – was drying up. He said that “the [Greenpeace Africa] board is adamant that if we do have activities, it is necessary that we focus on fundraising within those countries”, adding it was not possible to “substantially” raise funds in the DRC, one of Africa’s poorest countries.
In the terms of reference seeking an external consultant to conduct the review – to be hired in August 2023 and reporting to Combrink and Keita – Greenpeace Africa stipulated that its future footprint should “reflect adequate presence in countries affluent enough to raise income for the rest of the organisation”.
In its earlier June 2023 letter to Keita, mandating her to carry out the restructuring, the Greenpeace Africa board had noted that Greenpeace’s global revenue was decreasing against inflation, with the war in Ukraine negatively affecting its donor base and leading to a reduction in grants to regional offices including Africa.
It said staff alone accounted for almost two-thirds of Greenpeace Africa’s total annual projected costs, leaving it “poorly equipped to reduce its expenditure in the short term when its income streams diminish”.
“Given the large fixed overhead costs required to maintain a formal office within a country, it is crucial that we utilize current grant income streams to grow within geographical areas that can provide future donor income streams,” it added.
Several months later, on the call with DRC staff, Combrink said the review had identified Ghana, Nigeria and Mauritius as good targets for expansion, adding that fundraising in Kenya had “started to pick up”.
Responding to his comments, Greenpeace’s then Congo Basin lead argued that, while decisions on where to locate offices should be based on more than finances, DRC was “getting a lot of money compared to other offices”, particularly for its campaign to save the country’s huge rainforest.
A PhD student measures the circumference of a tree in a forest reserve near the village of Masako in the DRC on August 8, 2012. (Photo: Ollivier Girard/CIFOR)
In spite of the subsequent restructuring, which led to most of the DRC office staff leaving, Greenpeace Africa told Climate Home its operations in the country had not ceased and had been strengthened in 2024.
During its latest mission to the DRC in August, to engage with “key stakeholders”, including the government, Greenpeace Africa said the Hydrocarbons Minister confirmed his government’s commitment to remove oil concessions overlapping protected forest areas, including in the Virunga National Park, and invited Greenpeace Africa to help identify the areas threatened by the concessions.
“Such political dialogue provides us a platform to campaign to achieve positive outcomes for the environment and the people in Africa,” Greenpeace Africa told Climate Home by email.
It added that the board’s decision to conduct a “geographic footprint” exercise to consider fundraising potential across the continent also supported this objective – and was not a threat to its activities in poorer countries like DRC.
“This approach does not diminish – in fact it strengthens – our capacity to promote environmental justice in all regions, including those with fewer financial resources,” it told Climate Home.
Union members sue in South Africa
As part of the broader restructuring of the organisation, further job cuts were announced at Greenpeace Africa’s offices in Senegal and South Africa.
Sources who worked at Greenpeace South Africa at that time said unionised staff members were affected by the retrenchment.
A document put together by trade union members, seen by Climate Home, lists 34 union members in Greenpeace Africa’s head office in Johannesburg. Of these, ten were in the fundraising department which trade union sources said was excluded from the restructuring.
Of the remaining 24, 15 were deemed “not suitable” for their positions and were laid off, as were several non-union staff, out of an overall headcount of around 50 employees.
Chart: Climate Home News
A legal document seen by Climate Home, dated May 2024, shows that lawyers acting for affected union members filed a case against Greenpeace Africa with the Labour Court of South Africa in Johannesburg alleging unfair dismissal and failure to follow due process.
It said court-ordered efforts at consultation between the employees and Greenpeace Africa had not resulted in any agreed selection criteria for retrenchment, but their contracts were terminated nonetheless. The case is pending and if not resolved in arbitration, will be heard by the court. Greenpeace did not comment on the proceedings.
Sources also raised questions about whether new staff, brought in after the restructuring, were permitted to unionise in the workplace.
A Greenpeace Africa employment contract from the end of 2023, seen by Climate Home, asked a potential employee in South Africa to “acknowledge that Greenpeace Africa is a non-unionised employer due to the nature of its operations, being a Non-Governmental not-for-profit institution relying on external grants for its survival”.
It requested that the employee “acknowledge that any [trade union] recognition agreement signed before 1 January 2024 is deemed cancelled and should a recognition agreement be required under local labour law, a new agreement will need to be signed in line with Greenpeace Africa’s new policies”.
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It is not known whether this is a standard clause in employment contracts for Greenpeace Africa staff. The organisation did not respond directly to Climate Home’s questions on this issue, or provide information on its unionisation policy, as requested.
In Senegal too, Climate Home understands that three former staff members have taken Greenpeace Africa to the local labour court. They are seeking damages and a declaration that their dismissals were unfair after they were accused of financial irregularities and other misdemeanours – which they deny. Greenpeace Africa declined to comment on the case, which is at a pre-trial stage pending conciliation efforts.
While Greenpeace’s management have insisted the job losses across their African offices were necessary to keep the organisation financially sustainable, many former staff members told Climate Home the restructuring was used as a way to ram through the changes wanted by the board in the face of internal opposition.
“It’s just a way to kill [the influence of] some activists who do not agree with what they say,” said a former staffer in Senegal “They want people who are very docile.”
Greenpeace Africa told Climate Home it recognised that “some people may not be happy with the growing success of the new management”.
“We understand that organisational changes can be challenging, and we made sure that the change management process was carried out legally, fairly and transparently,” it added.
Row over LGBT issues
During the restructuring period, Greenpeace Africa management also took issue with staff members’ criticism of its approach to LGBT+ rights.
In June 2023, Greenpeace Africa debated internally how to mark Pride month and how to respond to the Ugandan government’s new Anti-Homosexuality Act.
Ugandan LGBTQ activists protest against their government in the South African city of Pretoria on March 31, 2023. (Photo: Alet Pretorius/Reuters)
Some LGBT+ employees criticised a plan to hold an all-staff meeting in Johannesburg to discuss these issues, where LGBT+ workers were going to be asked to share their experiences.
In a letter to Greenpeace Africa management, they said this would require them to out themselves and “identify us for further victimisation later”.
Instead, they proposed that external experts on South African labour law, discrimination and gender sensitivity should be brought in to educate staff.
They accused management of “a refusal to maintain professional standards” and of not following South African labour and equality law.
Their email elicited a strongly worded response from Greenpeace Africa governance officer Eugene Perumal, who wrote that they did not represent all of the organisation’s LGBT+ employees. He added that it was “disingenuous and disrespectful to insinuate that Greenpeace Africa Management paid no attention to this particular area”.
He then warned them: “You need to revise the disrespectful manner you engage with Greenpeace Africa senior management, the defamation, false statements and undermining are unacceptable behaviour patterns and [Senior Leadership Team] will take action accordingly.”
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Greenpeace Africa told Climate Home it had engaged external experts to provide LGBT+ education and support, and ensured that “all staff feel safe and respected during these discussions”. A training workshop in March on this issue “proved very successful”, it added.
The organisation, it said, is “firmly committed to promoting the principles of Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Safety (JEDIS) across all aspects of our work”, including by fostering and maintaining “a safe, inclusive, and supportive environment for all employees, including our LGBTQ+ colleagues”.
More government “collaboration”
The organisational strife and contentious reforms inside Greenpeace Africa have been accompanied by a shift in external strategy, according to documents seen by Climate Home.
An internal report on Greenpeace Africa’s activities at the COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai last December, said that, during meetings, ministers from the Republic of Congo and Cameroon “expressed their strong displeasure with Greenpeace’s confrontational approach in trying to address the issues around climate change”.
A screenshot of Greenpeace Africa’s internal report on the COP28 climate summit
The report did not describe what they objected to, but said that Keita “reassured [the ministers] of a new approach of collaboration” and noted they “were willing to reset the relationship with [Greenpeace Africa] under the new leadership and map out areas of collaboration in the near future”.
This approach was criticised by former staff members. “It’s not the DNA of Greenpeace,” one said. “How can you be friendly with the government and it is killing people?” Another said, “it felt like we were being neutered.”
Greenpeace Africa, told Climate Home that, under its current management, it “supports the building of a climate justice movement across Africa to hold the extractive industries and governments to account”. It had launched its first such movement in the DRC, Cameroon and Ghana, with plans to expand into the Republic of Congo and Nigeria in 2025, it added.
In addition, Greenpeace Africa pointed to its lobbying work against the oil industry and its impacts on the continent, as well as its advocacy calling for plastic waste to be cleaned up in Kenya, and more protection for oceans and the livelihoods of African fishing communities, among other campaigns.
Greenpeace International silent
Despite the apparent turmoil experienced at Greenpeace Africa over the past 18 months, Climate Home understands that its parent organisation Greenpeace International has not intervened to help resolve the documented issues. Greenpeace did not respond directly when asked about this.
Greenpeace Africa is one of 26 Greenpeace branches around the world, known as national/regional organisations or NROs. They all have some independence but are overseen by Greenpeace International, which is based in the Dutch city of Amsterdam.
Nairobi-based development officer Yvonne Muyoti, who is in charge of monitoring Greenpeace Africa for Greenpeace International, was copied on the emails from Keita and Tsafack about DRC staff concerns over Rwanda.
Greenpeace Africa told Climate Home it is an independent NRO guided by its board of directors but collaborates closely with Greenpeace International. “We value the support and oversight provided by Greenpeace International,” it said.
Some former staff members of Greenpeace Africa, however, are concerned that a lack of racial diversity in the upper levels of Greenpeace international – whose senior executives are mostly white and from rich countries – is preventing the global parent organisation from intervening in the African disarray.
One black female former Greenpeace Africa staff member told Climate Home she believed Greenpeace International was reluctant to challenge Keita over her leadership style: “I think they are worried about how it will look – a Eurocentric organisation taking on a black woman.”
Another former employee described Greenpeace Africa as his “baby”, but said those now in charge “don’t know the DNA of the organisation”.
“People in Greenpeace have to be strong and be up against all the injustice they are facing in the organisation,” he said. “The fight must start inside before it goes outside.”
_
Nairobi-based development officer Yvonne Muyoti, who is in charge of monitoring Greenpeace Africa for Greenpeace International, was copied on the emails from Keita and Tsafack about DRC staff concerns over Rwanda.
Greenpeace Africa told Climate Home it is an independent NRO guided by its board of directors but collaborates closely with Greenpeace International. “We value the support and oversight provided by Greenpeace International,” it said.
Some former staff members of Greenpeace Africa, however, are concerned that a lack of racial diversity in the upper levels of Greenpeace International – whose top executives are mostly white and from rich countries – is preventing the global parent organisation from intervening in the African disarray.
One black female former Greenpeace Africa staff member told Climate Home she believed Greenpeace International was reluctant to challenge Keita over her leadership style: “I think they are worried about how it will look – a Eurocentric organisation taking on a black woman.”
Another former employee described Greenpeace Africa as his “baby”, but said those now in charge “don’t know the DNA of the organisation”.
“People in Greenpeace have to be strong and be up against all the injustice they are facing in the organisation,” he said. “The fight must start inside before it goes outside.”
(Reporting by Joe Lo; fact-checking by Sebastian Rodriguez; editing by Megan Rowling, Sebastian Rodriguez and Matteo Civillini)
The post Greenpeace Africa in disarray as restructuring meets resistance appeared first on Climate Home News.
Greenpeace Africa in disarray as restructuring meets resistance
Climate Change
DeBriefed 30 January 2026: Fire and ice; US formally exits Paris; Climate image faux pas
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Fire and ice
OZ HEAT: The ongoing heatwave in Australia reached record-high temperatures of almost 50C earlier this week, while authorities “urged caution as three forest fires burned out of control”, reported the Associated Press. Bloomberg said the Australian Open tennis tournament “rescheduled matches and activated extreme-heat protocols”. The Guardian reported that “the climate crisis has increased the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, including heatwaves and bushfires”.
WINTER STORM: Meanwhile, a severe winter storm swept across the south and east of the US and parts of Canada, causing “mass power outages and the cancellation of thousands of flights”, reported the Financial Times. More than 870,000 people across the country were without power and at least seven people died, according to BBC News.
COLD QUESTIONED: As the storm approached, climate-sceptic US president Donald Trump took to social media to ask facetiously: “Whatever happened to global warming???”, according to the Associated Press. There is currently significant debate among scientists about whether human-caused climate change is driving record cold extremes, as Carbon Brief has previously explained.
Around the world
- US EXIT: The US has formally left the Paris Agreement for the second time, one year after Trump announced the intention to exit, according to the Guardian. The New York Times reported that the US is “the only country in the world to abandon the international commitment to slow global warming”.
- WEAK PROPOSAL: Trump officials have delayed the repeal of the “endangerment finding” – a legal opinion that underpins federal climate rules in the US – due to “concerns the proposal is too weak to withstand a court challenge”, according to the Washington Post.
- DISCRIMINATION: A court in the Hague has ruled that the Dutch government “discriminated against people in one of its most vulnerable territories” by not helping them to adapt to climate change, reported the Guardian. The court ordered the Dutch government to set binding targets within 18 months to cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, according to the Associated Press.
- WIND PACT: 10 European countries have agreed a “landmark pact” to “accelerate the rollout of offshore windfarms in the 2030s and build a power grid in the North Sea”, according to the Guardian.
- TRADE DEAL: India and the EU have agreed on the “mother of all trade deals”, which will save up to €4bn in import duty, reported the Hindustan Times. Reuters quoted EU officials saying that the landmark trade deal “will not trigger any changes” to the bloc’s carbon border adjustment mechanism.
- ‘TWO-TIER SYSTEM’: COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago believes that global cooperation should move to a “two-speed system, where new coalitions lead fast, practical action alongside the slower, consensus-based decision-making of the UN process”, according to a letter published on Tuesday, reported Climate Home News.
$2.3tn
The amount invested in “green tech” globally in 2025, marking a new record high, according to Bloomberg.
Latest climate research
- Including carbon emissions from permafrost thaw and fires reduces the remaining carbon budget for limiting warming to 1.5C by 25% | Communications Earth & Environment
- The global population exposed to extreme heat conditions is projected to nearly double if temperatures reach 2C | Nature Sustainability
- Polar bears in Svalbard – the fastest-warming region on Earth – are in better condition than they were a generation ago, as melting sea ice makes seal pups easier to reach | Scientific Reports
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) overtook standard petrol cars in the EU for the first time in December 2025, according to new figures released by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) and covered by Carbon Brief. Registrations of “pure” battery EVs reached 217,898 – up 51% year-on-year from December 2024. Meanwhile, sales of standard petrol cars in the bloc fell 19% year-on-year, from 267,834 in December 2024 to 216,492 in December 2025, according to the analysis.
Spotlight
Looking at climate visuals
Carbon Brief’s Ayesha Tandon recently chaired a panel discussion at the launch of a new book focused on the impact of images used by the media to depict climate change.
When asked to describe an image that represents climate change, many people think of polar bears on melting ice or devastating droughts.
But do these common images – often repeated in the media – risk making climate change feel like a far-away problem from people in the global north? And could they perpetuate harmful stereotypes?
These are some of the questions addressed in a new book by Prof Saffron O’Neill, who researches the visual communication of climate change at the University of Exeter.
“The Visual Life of Climate Change” examines the impact of common images used to depict climate change – and how the use of different visuals might help to effect change.
At a launch event for her book in London, a panel of experts – moderated by Carbon Brief’s Ayesha Tandon – discussed some of the takeaways from the book and the “dos and don’ts” of climate imagery.
Power of an image
“This book is about what kind of work images are doing in the world, who has the power and whose voices are being marginalised,” O’Neill told the gathering of journalists and scientists assembled at the Frontline Club in central London for the launch event.
O’Neill opened by presenting a series of climate imagery case studies from her book. This included several examples of images that could be viewed as “disempowering”.
For example, to visualise climate change in small island nations, such as Tuvalu or Fiji, O’Neill said that photographers often “fly in” to capture images of “small children being vulnerable”. She lamented that this narrative “misses the stories about countries like Tuvalu that are really international leaders in climate policy”.
Similarly, images of power-plant smoke stacks, often used in online climate media articles, almost always omit the people that live alongside them, “breathing their pollution”, she said.
During the panel discussion that followed, panellist Dr James Painter – a research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and senior teaching associate at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute – highlighted his work on heatwave imagery in the media.
Painter said that “the UK was egregious for its ‘fun in the sun’ imagery” during dangerous heatwaves.
He highlighted a series of images in the Daily Mail in July 2019 depicting people enjoying themselves on beaches or in fountains during an intense heatwave – even as the text of the piece spoke to the negative health impacts of the heatwave.
In contrast, he said his analysis of Indian media revealed “not one single image of ‘fun in the sun’”.
Meanwhile, climate journalist Katherine Dunn asked: “Are we still using and abusing the polar bear?”. O’Neill suggested that polar bear images “are distant in time and space to many people”, but can still be “super engaging” to others – for example, younger audiences.
Panellist Dr Rebecca Swift – senior vice president of creative at Getty images – identified AI-generated images as “the biggest threat that we, in this space, are all having to fight against now”. She expressed concern that we may need to “prove” that images are “actually real”.
However, she argued that AI will not “win” because, “in the end, authentic images, real stories and real people are what we react to”.
When asked if we expect too much from images, O’Neill argued “we can never pin down a social change to one image, but what we can say is that images both shape and reflect the societies that we live in”. She added:
“I don’t think we can ask photos to do the work that we need to do as a society, but they certainly both shape and show us where the future may lie.”
Watch, read, listen
UNSTOPPABLE WILDFIRES: “Funding cuts, conspiracy theories and ‘powder keg’ pine plantations” are making Patagonia’s wildfires “almost impossible to stop”, said the Guardian.
AUDIO SURVEY: Sverige Radio has published “the world’s, probably, longest audio survey” – a six-hour podcast featuring more than 200 people sharing their questions around climate change.
UNDERSTAND CBAM: European thinktank Bruegel released a podcast “all about” the EU’s carbon adjustment border mechanism, which came into force on 1 January.
Coming up
- 1 February: Costa Rican general election
- 3 February: UN Environment Programme Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator report launch, Online
- 2-8 February: Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) 12th plenary, Manchester, UK
Pick of the jobs
- Climate Central, climate data scientist | Salary: $85,000-$92,000. Location: Remote (US)
- UN office to the African Union, environmental affairs officer | Salary: Unknown. Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
- Google Deepmind, research scientist in biosphere models | Salary: Unknown. Location: Zurich, Switzerland
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 30 January 2026: Fire and ice; US formally exits Paris; Climate image faux pas appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 30 January 2026: Fire and ice; US formally exits Paris; Climate image faux pas
Electric heat pumps are set to play a key role in the UK’s climate strategy, as well as cutting the nation’s reliance on imported fossil fuels.
Heat pumps took centre-stage in the UK government’s recent “warm homes plan”, which said that they could also help cut household energy bills by “hundreds of pounds” a year.
Similarly, innovation agency Nesta estimates that typical households could cut their annual energy bills nearly £300 a year, by switching from a gas boiler to a heat pump.
Yet there has been widespread media coverage in the Times, Sunday Times, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph and elsewhere of a report claiming that heat pumps are “more expensive” to run.
The report is from the Green Britain Foundation set up by Dale Vince, owner of energy firm Ecotricity, who campaigns against heat pumps and invests in “green gas” as an alternative.
One expert tells Carbon Brief that Vince’s report is based on “flimsy data”, while another says that it “combines a series of worst-case assumptions to present an unduly pessimistic picture”.
This factcheck explains how heat pumps can cut bills, what the latest data shows about potential savings and how this information was left out of the report from Vince’s foundation.
How heat pumps can cut bills
Heat pumps use electricity to move heat – most commonly from outside air – to the inside of a building, in a process that is similar to the way that a fridge keeps its contents cold.
This means that they are highly efficient, adding three or four units of heat to the house for each unit of electricity used. In contrast, a gas boiler will always supply less than one unit of heat from each unit of gas that it burns, because some of the energy is lost during combustion.
This means that heat pumps can keep buildings warm while using three, four or even five times less energy than a gas boiler. This cuts fossil-fuel imports, reducing demand for gas by at least two-fifths, even in the unlikely scenario that all of the electricity they need is gas-fired.
Since UK electricity supplies are now the cleanest they have ever been, heat pumps also cut the carbon emissions associated with staying warm by around 85%, relative to a gas boiler.
Heat pumps are, therefore, the “central” technology for cutting carbon emissions from buildings.
While heat pumps cost more to install than gas boilers, the UK government’s recent “warm homes plan” says that they can help cut energy bills by “hundreds of pounds” per year.
Similarly, Nesta published analysis showing that a typical home could cut its annual energy bill by £280, if it replaces a gas boiler with a heat pump, as shown in the figure below.
Nesta and the government plan say that significantly larger savings are possible if heat pumps are combined with other clean-energy technologies, such as solar and batteries.
Both the government and Nesta’s estimates of bill savings from switching to a heat pump rely on relatively conservative assumptions.
Specifically, the government assumes that a heat pump will deliver 2.8 units of heat for each unit of electricity, on average. This is known as the “seasonal coefficient of performance” (SCoP).
This figure is taken from the government-backed “electrification of heat” trial, which ran during 2020-2022 and showed that heat pumps are suitable for all building types in the UK.
(The Green Britain Foundation report and Vince’s quotes in related coverage repeat a number of heat pump myths, such as the idea that they do not perform well in older properties and require high levels of insulation.)
Nesta assumes a slightly higher SCoP of 3.0, says Madeleine Gabriel, the organisation’s director of sustainable future. (See below for more on what the latest data says about SCoP in recent installations.)
Both the government and Nesta assume that a home with a heat pump would disconnect from the gas grid, meaning that it would no longer need to pay the daily “standing charge” for gas. This currently amounts to a saving of around £130 per year.
Finally, they both consider the impact of a home with a heat pump using a “smart tariff”, where the price of electricity varies according to the time of day.
Such tariffs are now widely available from a variety of energy suppliers and many have been designed specifically for homes that have a heat pump.
Such tariffs significantly reduce the average price for a unit of electricity. Government survey data suggests that around half of heat-pump owners already use such tariffs.
This is important because on the standard rates under the price cap set by energy regulator Ofgem, each unit of electricity costs more than four times as much as a unit of gas.
The ratio between electricity and gas prices is a key determinant of the size and potential for running-cost savings with a heat pump. Countries with a lower electricity-to-gas price ratio consistently see much higher rates of heat-pump adoption.
(Decisions taken by the UK government in its 2025 budget mean that the electricity-to-gas ratio will fall from April, but current forecasts suggest it will remain above four-to-one.)
In contrast, Vince’s report assumes that gas boilers are 90% efficient, whereas data from real homes suggests 85% is more typical. It also assumes that homes with heat pumps remain on the gas grid, paying the standing charge, as well as using only a standard electricity tariff.
Prof Jan Rosenow, energy programme leader at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, tells Carbon Brief that Vince’s report uses “worst-case assumptions”. He says:
“This report cherry-picks assumptions to reach a predetermined conclusion. Most notably, it assumes a gas boiler efficiency of 90%, which is significantly higher than real-world performance…Taken together, the analysis combines a series of worst-case assumptions to present an unduly pessimistic picture.”
Similarly, Gabriel tells Carbon Brief that Vince’s report is based on “flimsy data”. She explains:
“Dale Vince has drawn some very strong conclusions about heat pumps from quite flimsy data. Like Dale, we’d also like to see electricity prices come down relative to gas, but we estimate that, from April, even a moderately efficient heat pump on a standard tariff will be cheaper to run than a gas boiler. Paired with a time-of-use tariff, a heat pump could save £280 versus a boiler and adding solar panels and a battery could triple those savings.”
What the latest data shows about bill savings
The efficiency of heat-pump installations is another key factor in the potential bill savings they can deliver and, here, both the government and Vince’s report take a conservative approach.
They rely on the “electrification of heat” trial data to use an efficiency (SCoP) of 2.8 for heat pumps. However, Rosenow says that recent evidence shows that “substantially higher efficiencies are routinely available”, as shown in the figure below.
Detailed, real-time data on hundreds of heat pump systems around the UK is available via the website Heat Pump Monitor, where the average efficiency – a SCoP of 3.9 – is much higher.
Homes with such efficient heat-pump installations would see even larger bill savings than suggested by the government and Nesta estimates.
Academic research suggests that there are simple and easy-to-implement reasons why these systems achieve much higher efficiency levels than in the electrification of heat trial.
Specifically, it shows that many of the systems in the trial have poor software settings, which means they do not operate as efficiently as their heat pump hardware is capable of doing.
The research suggests that heat pump installations in the UK have been getting more and more efficient over time, as engineers become increasingly familiar with the technology.
It indicates that recently installed heat pumps are 64% more efficient than those in early trials.
Notably, the Green Britain Foundation report only refers to the trial data from the electrification of heat study carried out in 2020-22 and the even earlier “renewable heat premium package” (RHPP). This makes a huge difference to the estimated running costs of a heat pump.
Carbon Brief analysis suggests that a typical household could cut its annual energy bills by nearly £200 with a heat pump – even on a standard electricity tariff – if the system has a SCoP of 3.9.
The savings would be even larger on a smart heat-pump tariff.
In contrast, based on the oldest efficiency figures mentioned in the Green Britain Foundation report, a heat pump could increase annual household bills by as much as £200 on a standard tariff.
To support its conclusions, the report also includes the results of a survey of 1,001 heat pump owners, which, among other things, is at odds with government survey data. The report says “66% of respondents report that their homes are more expensive to heat than the previous system”.
There are several reasons to treat these findings with caution. The survey was carried out in July 2025 and some 45% of the heat pumps involved were installed between 2021-23.
This is a period during which energy prices surged as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting global energy crisis. Energy bills remain elevated as a result of high gas prices.
The wording of the survey question asks if homes are “more or less expensive to heat than with your previous system” – but makes no mention of these price rises.
The question does not ask homeowners if their bills are higher today, with a heat pump, than they would have been with the household’s previous heating system.
If respondents interpreted the question as asking whether their bills have gone up or down since their heat pump was installed, then their answers will be confounded by the rise in prices overall.
There are a number of other seemingly contradictory aspects of the survey that raise questions about its findings and the strong conclusions in the media coverage of the report.
For example, while only 15% of respondents say it is cheaper to heat their home with a heat pump, 49% say that one of the top three advantages of the system is saving money on energy bills.
In addition, 57% of respondents say they still have a boiler, even though 67% say they received government subsidies for their heat-pump installation. It is a requirement of the government’s boiler upgrade scheme (BUS) grants that homeowners completely remove their boiler.
The government’s own survey of BUS recipients finds that only 13% of respondents say their bills have gone up, whereas 37% say their bills have gone down, another 13% say they have stayed the same and 8% thought that it was too early to say.
The post Factcheck: What it really costs to heat a home in the UK with a heat pump appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Factcheck: What it really costs to heat a home in the UK with a heat pump
The European Union and the UK are not on track to meet their 2030 offshore wind targets.
At the same time, Chinese wind-turbine manufacturers – who account for more than half of global wind-turbine capacity – are looking to grow their footprint in the European market, where their presence is currently tiny.
To some, the solution seems clear: allowing Chinese manufacturers to invest in Europe could boost competition, alleviate supply chain bottlenecks and lower costs – not to mention bring climate targets within reach.
But the possibility of a growing role for Chinese wind-turbine manufacturers in the European market has sparked heated debate among European policymakers and industry participants.
In 2024, three of China’s top wind-turbine companies accounted for less than 1% of Europe’s installed wind capacity.
But their focus is increasingly shifting to the continent, which some are concerned could hollow out the one clean-energy industry in which Europe is still competitive.
Competition between European and Chinese manufacturers would be “unfair”, according to critics, because the discounts Chinese firms are offering seem to be at least in part due to state subsidies.
In a recent report published by the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, we explore whether Chinese wind turbine companies are competitive in Europe and the real risks and benefits of Chinese participation in European offshore wind markets.
Our findings build on interviews with policymakers and industry experts, who have been granted anonymity to allow for candid discussion.
Cost advantages are less clear-cut than they appear
China ranks first for many of the global statistics for offshore wind. It has been by far the largest offshore wind market in the world for several years running.
China had 47 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind installed, as of September 2025, more than all other countries combined. Furthermore, China also dominates several key fields critical to offshore wind globally, ranging from permanent magnets to offshore installation vessels.
This stands in firm contrast to Europe – where offshore development has experienced several years of slow growth – and the US, which faces an almost complete halt in new development under the Trump administration.
As happened before in solar and batteries, China’s offshore wind industry scale-up has brought about stunning declines in installation costs.
However, this cost advantage is not as straightforward as these headline numbers would suggest. Despite the vast difference in capacity cost, the electricity produced by Chinese offshore wind farms is only 30% cheaper.
A key reason for this is the lower overall capacity factor of China’s offshore wind sector, referring to the actual output of windfarms in China, compared to their maximum possible output. This can be partly explained by lower wind speeds at China’s offshore sites, but could also relate to lower performance of Chinese turbines, as well as power transmission issues.
Lower production costs in China also would not necessarily translate to the European market, as Chinese cost advantages would be partly offset by transport costs, as well as higher insurance and financing premiums.
Greater localisation of turbine production could mitigate against some of these premiums, but would be offset by higher input costs in Europe.
Nonetheless, as more European governments add local content requirements, Chinese manufacturers have announced plans to set up European factories for turbine blades and towers, with core components shipped from China.
These factories could also be costlier to finance than those back home if financing for investments also comes from Europe, further reducing the cost advantage enjoyed by China’s domestic offshore-energy infrastructure.
Issues beyond costs and bottlenecks
European offshore wind development plans have faced a number of hurdles, including rising costs, slow permitting processes, inefficient auction designs, lengthy grid connection times and limited availability of parts, port capacity and installation vessels.
The small number of players in Europe’s offshore wind sector is seen as part of the problem, according to our interviews.
Currently, there are only three major wind turbine manufacturers in the European offshore wind market: Vestas, Siemens Gamesa and GE Vernova.
The latter announced in 2024 that it is downsizing its offshore wind business and has not taken new offshore orders, although it remains active in onshore wind projects. This reduces competition and could hinder efforts to bring down the cost of offshore wind projects.
Bottlenecks, inadequate industry capacity and lack of competition cannot in themselves explain the current European predicament. Developers we interviewed also note that offshore wind auctions with price caps and stringent contractual terms, designed with an expectation of falling costs, have also been part of the problem.
When these auctions have failed – as in the UK in 2023 and Germany in 2025 – this led to capacity contraction, higher costs and industry consolidation, which have only made it more difficult to reach policy targets, according to a report by European offshore wind company Ørsted.
Even with improved European auction design, it may take years for Europe’s offshore wind installation numbers to recover. With or without Chinese participation, it will also take time to build domestic manufacturing bases and installation vessels.
Pathways to Chinese involvement
Meanwhile, Chinese developers benefit from a large and growing domestic market in China. At the same time, however, intense competition on price and quality is spurring them to seek opportunities overseas.
Throughout Europe’s supply chain, Chinese components and services are already helping alleviate shortages and bottlenecks.
Still, our report found there are divergent views on whether a greater Chinese presence in Europe’s wind markets represents a threat or an opportunity – or both.
Policymakers are expected to continue to emphasise concerns about technology dependence and cybersecurity risks, leading to more domestic content requirements and increased scrutiny of Chinese deals.
The case of the 300 megawatt (MW) Luxcara project in Germany highlights the difficulties for Chinese market entry. Chinese manufacturer Mingyang was initially selected by the project owner in 2024, but was later replaced by Siemens-Gamesa, reportedly due to concerns about security and political risks.
The recent announcement of a deal between the UK’s Octopus Energy and Mingyang may illustrate an emerging model. According to Octopus, Mingyang will supply the physical equipment, while Octopus will supply the software and manage the turbines.
Mingyang will still need access to operational data to support ongoing maintenance, but this can be provided periodically by Octopus without compromising security, the energy company told us.
Meanwhile, following policy signals such as the EU’s new pricing mechanism for electric vehicle imports from China, it seems likely that policymakers will continue to encourage Chinese players to establish production bases in Europe and to require technology licensing or technology transfer in exchange for market access. This would amount to applying the Chinese industrial development model in Europe.
This could allow for technological learning in Europe. In China, the largest players have deployed advanced automated manufacturing lines, including robotic blade bonding, modular stator assembly and real-time quality monitoring – although this may have implications for job creation, a stated aim in Europe’s clean-energy policy.
Despite pointing to some advantages, our interviews suggest that Chinese participation in Europe’s offshore wind market is not a panacea.
Its low costs are unlikely to be transferrable to the European context. But greater Chinese participation in auctions and in manufacturing, with local content requirements and other guardrails, could help spur competition in Europe.
At the same time, our report suggests that the focus on China distracts from deeper issues. Without a growing domestic market, it may be difficult for European players to reduce manufacturing costs and upgrade production, with or without Chinese partners.
Ultimately, industry participants tell us that the greatest determinant of success in Europe’s offshore wind market will be consistent policy support, rather than a decision to allow – or to block – Chinese participation.
The post Experts: Will Chinese wind power help or hinder Europe’s climate goals? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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