China will need to install around 10,000 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar capacity to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, according to new Chinese government-endorsed research.
This huge energy transition – with the technologies currently standing at 1,408GW – can make a “decisive contribution” to the country’s climate efforts and bring big economic rewards, the China Energy Transformation Outlook 2024 (CETO24) shows.
The report was produced by our research team at the Energy Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research – a “national high-end thinktank” of China’s top planner the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
The outlook looks at two pathways to meeting China’s “dual-carbon” climate goals and its wider aims for economic and social development.
In the first pathway, a challenging geopolitical environment constrains international cooperation.
The second assumes international climate cooperation continues despite broader geopolitical tensions.
We find that, under both scenarios, China’s energy system can achieve net-zero carbon emissions before 2060, paving the way to make Chinese society as a whole carbon neutral before 2060.
However, the outlook shows that meeting these policy goals will not be possible unless China improves its energy efficiency, sustains its electrification efforts and develops a power system built around “intelligent” grids that are predominantly supplied with electricity from solar and wind.
(Carbon Brief interviewed the report’s lead authors at the COP29 climate talks in Baku last November.)
- Trends governing China’s energy transition
- Scenarios for carbon neutrality
- Pathway to achieving “dual-carbon” targets
- Innovation and market forces for energy transition
- Focusing on enabling forces
Trends governing China’s energy transition
China’s rapid economic growth over the past decades has driven a massive increase in industrial production, particularly energy-intensive industries such as steel and cement, requiring vast amounts of energy.
To meet the high demand for energy, the country has built up a coal-based energy sector.
In 2014, Chinese president Xi Jinping introduced the concept of “four revolutions and one cooperation”, which calls for a drastic change in how energy system development is thought about.
The following 13th “five-year plan” (2016-20) – an influential economic planning document – required a shift from maintaining and developing a system based on fossil fuels to creating a system that is “clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient”.
This led to the announcement of China’s “dual-carbon” targets in 2020, which positioned achieving a peak in emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060 as integral to China’s economic development in the future.
As part of this, policymakers are working towards a “new type of energy system”, in which low-carbon technologies will simultaneously provide energy security and affordable energy prices, as well as addressing environmental concerns.
In the past few years, however, electricity demand has grown rapidly due to increased production of goods after the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact of heatwaves.
Furthermore, the supply of hydropower has been hampered by the lack of water because of droughts. This has led to a push for new investments in coal power, despite a massive deployment of solar and wind power plants.
The challenge today is related to this transformation’s speed – how China can vigorously accelerate renewable energy deployment to cover growing energy demand and substitute coal power.
Scenarios for carbon neutrality
CETO24 looks at two scenarios for its analysis of China’s energy transformation towards 2060. The first – the baseline carbon-neutral scenario (BCNS) – assumes geopolitics continues to constrain low-carbon cooperation.
The second – the ideal carbon-neutral scenario (ICNS) – assumes climate cooperation avoids geopolitical conflict.
Both scenarios envision that China will reach peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, against a backdrop of the growing urgency of global climate change and increasing complexity and volatility of the international political and economic landscape.
The BCNS assumes that addressing climate change may become a lower priority globally, but that China still meets its “dual-carbon” goals. The ICNS assumes that other countries prioritise accelerating their domestic energy transformation and cooperation on climate change, despite occasional political or economic conflicts.
The outlook models the two scenarios and analyses the transformation of end-use energy consumption in different sectors, such as industry, buildings and transportation.
The CETO model suite, used in the outlook, is illustrated in the figure below. For example, the electricity and district heating optimisation model (EDO, blue box), looks at power, heat and “e-fuel” production in great detail with an hourly resolution, in order to capture the fluctuations in variable renewable energy output at provincial level.
EDO looks at the least-cost pathway to reach the dual-carbon goals for the whole power system, including the production, storage and transport of electricity.
On the demand side, the end-use energy demand analysis model (END-USE, black box) allows for different modelling approaches in the different sectors. The model also includes the processing of fossil fuels and biomass.
The EDO and END-USE models are supported by a socioeconomic model (red box), which looks into the macroeconomic impact of the energy transformation and vice-versa.
The results from the models are used in the summary model (yellow box), which shows the primary energy consumption, the energy flows for the whole energy system and the investments and operating costs for the supply sectors, as modelled in the EDO model.
Our strategy for developing the new type of energy system, based on the models shown above, consists of:
- Focusing on efficient use of energy in the end-use sectors, with an emphasis on a shift from fossil fuel consumption to the direct use of electricity (electrification).
- Transforming the power sector to a zero-carbon emission system, mainly based on wind and solar.
- Ensuring that the grid management system – the system of transmission, distribution and storage of electricity – is able to deal with the fluctuations in production and demand. This includes more focus on flexible demand, as well as digital, intelligent control systems to manage system integration, cost-efficient dispatch of supply and demand, as well as energy security in the short- and long-term.
The approach of the model is to promote system-wide optimisation for the two scenarios. This allows for the analysis of the complex interaction between demand, supply, grids and storage, seeking to optimise the whole system, instead of optimising subsystems on their own.
The approach is based on a least-cost modelling of the power system, along with the production and distribution of low-carbon fuels, such as green methanol, green hydrogen, e-fuels and so on.
The demand-side modelling allows for flexible methodologies for the different end-use sectors, with “soft links” to the power and low-carbon fuel optimisation model.
The models are constrained to ensure that China’s dual-carbon goals are met. In other words, the energy system’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions peak before 2030 and reach net-zero before 2060.
Other assumptions built into the models include a moderate economic growth rate and a shift in China’s economic structure to focus more on high-quality products and services instead of heavy industry, which has much higher energy consumption per unit of economic output.
Pathway to achieving ‘dual-carbon’ targets
The analyses for both scenarios in CETO24 confirm that China’s energy system can achieve net-zero carbon emissions before 2060, paving the way to make Chinese society as a whole carbon neutral before 2060.
Shown in the figures below, in both scenarios, primary energy consumption peaks before 2035 and declines thereafter, despite the assumption that China’s economy will grow between 3.3 to 3.6 times its 2020 level in the period until 2060.
Both scenarios underscore the importance of energy conservation and efficiency as prerequisites for energy transition.
This is because without effective energy conservation, China’s energy transition would demand significantly greater deployment of clean energy sources, making it difficult to achieve the necessary pace to hit the dual-carbon targets.
Sustained electrification drives carbon neutrality
In order to reach carbon neutrality, CETO24 suggests that the use of fossil fuels in the end-use sectors should be substituted by clean electricity as much as possible.
Furthermore, electricity should also be used to produce synthetic fuels or heat supply to satisfy end-use demands for energy.
In 2023, China’s electrification rate was around 28%. The report’s figures, illustrated below, show that electricity (light blue) accounts for as much as 79%-84% of the total end-use energy demand in 2060.
In both scenarios, the transportation sector is expected to experience the fastest growth in electrification, while the building sector achieves the highest overall electrification rate.
Some fossil-fuel-based fuels would still be needed to support certain industries, such as freight transport and aviation, by 2060.
Nevertheless, both scenarios indicate that China’s end-use energy demand would peak before 2035, followed by a gradual decline, with the 2060 value being roughly 30% lower than the peak.
(It is important to note that end-use energy demand is not the same as useful energy services, such as warmer buildings or the movement of vehicles. The replacement of fossil fuels by electricity results in a more efficient use of energy in the end-use sectors, since the losses of energy from burning fossil fuels are removed. Hence, it is possible to reduce final energy consumption even as demand for energy services rises.)
The short-term growth in the end-use energy demand is due to the rapid increase in electricity demand.
As shown in the graphs below, the share of electricity demand from traditional end-use sectors (blue) – mainly from industry, buildings and transport – would decrease from 89% in 2022 to 68%-72% by 2060.
In contrast, an increasing share of electricity is expected to be used for new types of demand such as for hydrogen production (light green), electric district heating (pink) and synthetic fuel production (dark blue).
Building a power system centred on wind and solar
CETO24 finds that decarbonising the energy supply is a lynchpin of energy transformation – and replacing fossil fuel power with non-fossil sources is the top priority.
In 2023, non-fossil sources comprised 53.9% of China’s power capacity. In the report’s scenarios, as shown in the figures below, the total installed power generation capacity could reach between 10,530GW and 11,820GW by 2060 – about four times the 2023 level.
The installed capacity of renewable energy sources – including solar (yellow) and wind (blue) – would account for about 96% of the total in 2060.
The installed capacity of nuclear power (dark pink) and pumped storage power (in hydro, dark blue) could reach 180GW and 380GW, respectively. Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) (dark green) would have an installed capacity of more than 130GW.
In addition to dominating installed capacity, wind and solar could account for as much as 94% of China’s electricity generation by 2060, as shown in the figure below.
Energy transformation in China adheres to the principle of “construction new before destruct old” (先立后破). (The principle is also translated as “build before breaking”. See Carbon Brief’s articles from 2021 and 2022 for background.)
As new low-carbon energy capacity grows and power system control capabilities gradually improve, coal power will gradually shift to a regulating and backup power source, with older and less efficient capacity being decommissioned as it reaches the end of its life.
Building an intelligent power grid
The construction of a new power system is a core component of China’s energy transformation.
CETO24 suggests that a coordinated nationwide approach would be the most efficient way to facilitate this. It would integrate all resources – generation, grid, demand, storage and hydrogen – to create a power grid that enables large-scale interconnection as well as lower-level balancing.
This coordinated nationwide approach would involve three key elements.
First, an optimised electricity grid layout, with the completion of the national network of key transmission lines by 2035, enabling west-to-east and north-to-south power transmission, with provinces able to send power to each other. By using digital and intelligent technologies, the grid would be able to adapt flexibly to changes in power supply and demand.
By 2060 in both of CETO24’s scenarios, the total scale of electricity exports from the north-west, north-east and north China regions would increase by 140% to 150% compared to 2022 levels.
Second, this approach would see continuous improvements in the construction of local electricity distribution grids, allowing them to adapt to large-scale inputs of distributed “new energy” sources such as rooftop solar.
As part of this element, China would need to promote the transformation of distribution grids from a unidirectional system into a two-way interactive system. It would also need to focus on providing and promoting local consumption of renewable energy sources for industrial, agricultural, commercial and residential use.
The creation of numerous zero-carbon distribution grid hubs would be needed to provide strong support for the development of more than 5,000 GW of distributed wind and solar energy, which is a feature of CETO24’s modelled pathways.
Third, the multiple energy networks would need to be combined, fully integrating power, heat and transportation systems. This would create a new-type energy network where electricity and hydrogen, in particular, serve as key hubs.
Under both scenarios, the scale of green hydrogen production and use could reach 340-420m tonnes of coal equivalent (Mtce) by 2060. Hydrogen and e-fuel production through electrolysis would become an important means to support grid load balancing – using excess supply to run electrolysers – and to facilitate seasonal grid balancing, with stored hydrogen being used to generate power when needed.
Battery energy storage capacity could reach 240-280GW and the number of electric vehicles could reach 480-540m, with “vehicle-to-grid” interaction capacity reaching 810-900GW, providing real-time responsiveness to the power system.
Innovation and market forces for energy transition
The development of “new productive forces” is a distinctive feature of China’s energy transformation.
Low-carbon, zero-carbon and negative-carbon technologies, equipment and industries, such as electric arc furnaces for steel production, hydrogen-based steelmaking furnaces, high-efficiency heat-pump heating systems, among others, offer broad market potential and present significant investment opportunities.
From the perspective of energy equipment demand, the scenarios show that by 2060 China’s installed wind and solar power capacity would reach approximately 10,000GW.
In the scenarios, the annual investment demand for wind and solar power equipment in China would grow from approximately two trillion yuan ($270bn) per year in 2023 to around six trillion yuan ($820bn) per year by 2060, with cumulative investment needs over the next 30 years exceeding 160tn yuan ($22tn).
The energy transformation will also require China to update or retrofit energy-using equipment across various sectors over the next 30 years, including industry, buildings and transportation.
While playing a smaller part than electrification and efficiency, CETO24’s modelling also points to an essential role for technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and industrial CO2 recycling, if China is to reach carbon neutrality.
In order for these technologies to be deployed at scale on the timelines needed, more and greater research and planning would need to begin now.
If it is to contribute to the dual-carbon goals over the next 30 years, China’s energy system will need to enter an accelerated phase of equipment upgrades and retrofits, with the scale of demand for such improvements continuing to grow, providing a sustained driving force for economic growth.
Strengthening international cooperation on energy transformation would also help China and other countries reduce the manufacturing, service and usage costs of new energy transformation technologies, enabling both China and the world to achieve carbon neutrality sooner and at lower cost.
Last but not least, a complete legal system for energy is likely to be a key requirement for a successful energy transition. China’s new energy law came into force in the beginning of 2025. More reforms in the legal system, carbon pricing, as well as data management would add significant support to energy transition.
Focusing on enabling forces
In summary, CETO24 demonstrates that there are technically feasible solutions for China’s energy transformation. However, it is still a long-term and challenging societal project.
China would need to reach peak carbon emissions by the end of this decade and then cut them to net-zero within 30 years, far more quickly than the trajectories envisaged by developed economies.
In order to be successful, policymakers will need to face the challenges head-on, find solutions and seek clarity amid uncertainty, to ensure that China’s energy transformation stays on track and progresses steadily.
Our research suggests their solutions could aim to address five areas: electrify energy consumption and improve energy efficiency; decarbonise energy supply; enhance interaction between energy supply and demand; industrialise energy technologies; and modernise energy governance.
At the same time, strengthening international cooperation on energy transformation and exploring pathways together with the global community would allow China to both ensure the smooth progression of its own energy transformation and contribute significantly to the global effort.
The post Guest post: China will need 10,000GW of wind and solar by 2060 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: China will need 10,000GW of wind and solar by 2060
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.
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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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