At the start of 2024, China introduced a new system of “capacity payments” designed to help coal-fired power stations shift into a supporting role, alongside low-carbon sources.
In theory, the payments should make it financially viable for coal plants to operate less frequently, switching off unless there is insufficient output from renewables and nuclear.
However, new Global Energy Monitor (GEM) analysis finds that, despite channeling 107bn yuan ($14.9bn) to China’s coal-plant owners during its first year, there is no clear evidence that the scheme has reduced the amount of hours during which coal plants are operating.
Moreover, the analysis shows that some 70-100% of China’s coal plants received payments, depending on the province, boosting their revenues by around 5-8%.
As such, the way the mechanism has been implemented continues to raise questions about its effectiveness in supporting renewable growth and China’s wider energy-transition targets.
Rather than encouraging operators to reduce operating hours and emissions, the loose application of eligibility “guardrails” means it could be prolonging coal-plant lifetimes instead.
A ‘supporting’ role for coal
Like many other countries, China faces the complex challenge of how to decarbonise its power sector while keeping the electricity grid reliable.
Following widespread power outages in 2021 and ongoing debates over how to manage the transition, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s powerful central planner, announced a new coal capacity payment mechanism in late 2023.
The policy, which took effect in January 2024, aims to maintain grid reliability, while supporting coal-fired power plants as they shift from a primary electricity source to a “regulating and supporting” role in China’s power mix, according to Han Xue, associate researcher at China Development Research Centre of the State Council.
The mechanism provides what is essentially a monthly “standby” payment to eligible public coal plants (see below). The payments are designed to help cover fixed operating costs during periods when coal plants’ output is low, often as a result of high renewable generation. They are also intended to ensure that coal plants are available to switch on during peak demand periods.
The national framework sets payment levels at either 30% or 50% of a benchmark coal plant’s total fixed costs, which the NDRC determined to be 330 yuan ($45.8) per kilowatt (kW).
The higher 50% rate applies in provinces where the role of coal power supply is transitioning rapidly, such as Chongqing and Sichuan in southwest China as well as Hunan in the south. However, from 2026 the rate will increase to at least 50% of the fixed costs nationwide.
To illustrate the mechanism’s impact, consider a 600 megawatt (MW) coal plant running at China’s 2024 average rates. It would be operating for 4,628 hours a year and selling electricity at 0.452 yuan ($0.063) per kilowatt-hour (kWh). This plant’s annual revenue would stand at about 1.2bn ($174m) yuan.
If it receives a 30% capacity payment, roughly 59.4m yuan ($8.2m) would be added to its bank account, driving up the revenue by 4.7%. If the rate is at the 50% level, the bump rises to 7.9%.
Capacity market criticism
From the outset, the policy drew questions and criticisms. Capacity markets in other countries have also sparked debate, including in the UK, Chile and Spain.
Early in the first year of implementation of China’s capacity payments, energy media outlet China Energy News quoted experts saying that the mechanism would gradually change the coal producers’ mindset of “the more they generate, the more they earn”.
However, other “restrictions” of the mechanism, such as the 330 yuan pay rate being “too low”, would “limit” its “effect” on transition, according to the outlet.
-
Sign up to Carbon Brief’s free “China Briefing” email newsletter. All you need to know about the latest developments relating to China and climate change. Sent to your inbox every Thursday.
Energy research institute the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) had pointed out that the mechanism is restricted to coal, excluding the “participation of alternative resources” able to offer similar services, such as energy storage or demand response.
Issues with the policy meant that it could encourage older coal plants to remain online, as well as potentially “exacerbating” the continued construction of new capacity, according to RAP.
After one year of China’s programme, GEM’s analysis finds that, while the policy has contributed to coal power plant revenue, there is still little definitive evidence to show that it is shifting coal to a “supporting” role, as intended.
This raises continued questions about the mechanism’s design, its implementation and whether it aligns with China’s long-term climate and energy objectives such as the “dual-carbon” goals.
Adding to the complexity, Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at thinktank the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, highlights a regional divide in China’s power mix from 2020 to 2024 in an article for Dialogue Earth.
He says that northern provinces have made more progress towards integrating clean energy than the southern regions, which have been “complacent” due to rich hydro resources. In contrast, others have invested more in wind and solar capacity, as well as in coordinating grid operation with neighbouring areas so as to better manage variable renewable output.
These regional disparities complicate any assessment of the capacity mechanism’s impacts.
Capacity payments ‘top 100bn yuan’
Only 12 provincial governments have released lists of qualifying plants, providing rare insight into how the capacity payment policy is being implemented.
These provinces represent just 38% of the country’s total operating coal capacity, meaning most of the national implementation remains undocumented in the public domain.
This partial picture makes it difficult to assess the policy’s broader outcomes, particularly as provinces appear to apply eligibility and enforcement criteria differently.
Based on the national policy’s payment levels and the 12 provincial recipient lists, the capacity payments in these provinces alone was more than 40bn yuan ($5.5bn) in the first year of the scheme, as shown in the figure below.
Combining the total operating capacity and payment numbers from the 12 provinces that have published data with GEM’s most recent national capacity figures, our analysis estimates that the total national payout in 2024 was approximately 107bn yuan ($14.8bn).
(This figure is uncertain. Greater transparency would help clarify how the mechanism is functioning and its role in shaping the future of coal in China’s power system.)
As shown in the figure above, capacity payments vary significantly across provinces. Of those 12 provinces with detailed published data, Henan in central China received the largest share, totaling approximately 9.4bn yuan ($1.3bn), driven by both its large eligible capacity of 56.9 gigawatts (GW) and the high payment rate (50% level).
Among the 12 provinces, Guangxi (20.5GW) and Yunnan (11.2GW) in southwest China, as well as Qinghai (2.9GW) in northwest China also applied the 50% payment rate, but their smaller eligible coal capacity resulted in comparatively lower total payments.
Broadly, the rankings of total capacity payments align with those of total operating coal capacity by province, which is expected given the direct link between capacity and payment eligibility.
However, the alignment is not exact. Yunnan, for example, ranks 11th out of 12 provinces in terms of operating capacity but 8th in total capacity payments.
This reflects how provincial differences in payment rates and eligibility shares, not just installed capacity, are shaping the financial impact of the policy.
Despite restrictions, most coal capacity is eligible
By cross-referencing provincial recipient lists with GEM’s Global Coal Plant Tracker (GCPT), it is possible to estimate the share of each province’s coal capacity receiving payments.
In almost all of the 12 provinces that published recipient lists, a large majority of coal capacity is eligible for payments, as shown in the figure below.
The NDRC national guidelines published alongside the policy announcement stipulate that only “compliant, public operating coal units” are eligible for the capacity payments. The guidelines identify three categories of coal-fired power plant units that are excluded:
- “Captive” units, which exclusively serve specific industrial or commercial entities and operate independently from the public power grid;
- Units failing to meet energy efficiency, environmental performance, or operational flexibility standards;
- Units not compliant with the broader “national plan”, a criterion that is not further clarified in the guidelines.
Despite these restrictions, most provinces with available data include between 70% and 100% of their total coal capacity under the mechanism, as the chart above shows.
In some cases, this appears inconsistent with the eligibility criteria. For example, the Mancheng Mill power station in Hebei in northern China has two 35MW combined heat and power (CHP) units, which started operating in 2018 to provide heat and power exclusively to a pulp and paper industrial park. This appears inconsistent with the “captive unit” exclusion.
In line with concerns raised by RAP, some newly built coal power plants were included in the initial provincial recipient lists, or added at a later date. For example, Beihai Bebuwan power station Unit 4 in Guangxi began operating in March 2024 and was added to the recipient list in September 2024. The inclusion of such projects could be interpreted as an incentive for new coal capacity, under the banner of grid reliability.
Although plant age is not explicitly disqualifying, coal power plants in China generally have a 30-year design lifespan. Yet older units are included in recipient lists in multiple provinces.
Shenhua Panshan power station Units 1 and 2 in Tianjin in northern China, for instance, began operating in 1994 and were retrofitted in 2023. Their continued inclusion raises questions about whether the policy supports transition, or extends the operational life of ageing assets.
It also highlights uncertainty around how retrofits will be treated, if undertaken after the policy entered force at the start of 2024, and whether such units will be firmly excluded from eligibility.
Finally, several provincial lists include smaller units, which may have limited ability to contribute to peak demand management. For example, five 57MW units from Shaoxing Binhai power station in Zhejiang, southeast China, built to provide heat demand for local dyeing and printing industries, were accredited for capacity payments.
Their actual contribution to evening peak load, when generation from solar and wind is low, is unclear from the list or other available provincial assessments.
More questions than answers?
There was only two months between the announcement of coal capacity payments and their implementation, leaving no time for pilot programmes or detailed feedback. This may help explain the ambiguities that have emerged during the provincial execution process.
Our analysis of the first year of the scheme suggests that provincial discretion has played a major role, with national criteria loosely applied in practice.
Moreover, there is no clear evidence to date that the mechanism has led to reduced coal utilisation hours, or significantly increased solar and wind generation.
While electricity generation from coal decreased in northern provinces during 2024, our analysis found that this was not the case in southern regions.
Different factors contribute to these regional differences, such as power demand and clean-energy resources. With only one year of data from the capacity payment scheme, it is not possible to attribute these changes solely to the capacity payment scheme.
To better align the mechanism with its stated goals, future adjustments could consider specifying coal-plant eligibility criteria more clearly and transparently.
Expanding the scheme to non-coal resources, such as energy storage, demand response or energy efficiency, could help it contribute to wider system flexibility and transition objectives.
Finally, ongoing monitoring of provincial implementation and energy trends will allow for a clearer assessment of how the policy evolves in the coming years.
The post Guest post: China’s ‘capacity payments’ boosted coal-plant revenue by up to 8% appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: China’s ‘capacity payments’ boosted coal-plant revenue by up to 8%
The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people.
Together, these initiatives would have made up around half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support conservation in the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.
When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge by 12 donors of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.
Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.
Alongside the US and much of Europe, the UK has significantly cut its aid budget in recent years, leading to much of its Congo rainforest spending being cancelled or reappraised.
The government says it still plans to “prioritise” rainforest regions, including the Congo basin, but civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.
COP pledge
At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030. This was backed by more than 140 nations.
The UK also made various funding pledges, including £200m to protect the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.
These commitments target the world’s three largest rainforests, all of which face major forest loss due to threats such as agriculture, logging and climate change.
The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink. Yet, its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.
This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.
Forest cuts
Following successive aid cuts introduced by both the Conservative and then Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.
The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was launched by the UK at COP27. It was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.
CBFA set out to “empower central African nations”, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with support for “community forests” and other measures to curb forest loss.
Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s recent aid cuts, intended to free up money for defence spending.
Its original £90m budget has now been reduced to £18.8m. Government data shows that £15m of this has already been spent.
This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to this latest round of aid cuts.
The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – championed by the previous government and worth at least £12.3m – has been closed, just two years into its seven-year schedule.
Government documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk as the UK scales back its aid budget, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region.
One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”. Officials working on the other, while more optimistic, reported that the project may be forced to operate in fewer countries as the cuts set in.
Documents also reveal the difficulties that come when operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.
‘Breaking promises’
Damian Fleming, a senior director of forests at WWF International tells Carbon Brief:
“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”
In a series of recent parliamentary responses, Chapman revealed that the UK had only spent £39.8m on Congo forest finance, as of 2024. (She declined to provide any information on the Indonesia and Amazon regional goals.)
Despite being presented as the UK’s “contribution” to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029.
Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution so far has been relatively small.
Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, tells Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:
“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world for whom the environment is an existential issue.”
Future targets
The Labour government says it has met the five-year “climate finance” target of £11.6bn that expires this year.
Ministers also say the government has met “and exceeded” the £3bn and £1.5bn sub-goals for “preserving nature” and forests, respectively, within the £11.6bn. These are the funding streams that include support for the Congo basin and other rainforests.
The UK has funded a variety of projects in line with its forest goals, including mangrove restoration in Indonesia, support for carbon-offsetting projects in Brazil and promoting “forest stewardship” among farmers in Cameroon.
Chapman has stated that the UK will continue to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest, in line with its new plan for aid spending in Africa. The UK even helped to launch a new “call to action” for Congo basin funding at COP30 last year.
The UK government also says it supported the creation of Brazil’s flagship “Tropical Forest Forever Facility” (TFFF). However, so far it has not provided any funding for the facility.
When the government announced a new climate finance pledge for 2026 onwards, it stressed that nature would still be a “focus” and said it would also generate billions in “climate and nature positive investments”. Nevertheless, it dropped the “ring-fenced” amounts for nature and forests that had appeared in its previous pledge.
The UK, alongside other developed countries, has pledged to provide biodiversity finance to developing countries, under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) – a non-binding global pact to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.
Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee of MPs, says “sub-pledges” for nature and forests are a “cost-effective and impactful” way to ensure this finance is provided, alongside climate finance. She tells Carbon Brief that she was “concerned” about the move away from this approach:
“When the minister recently appeared before the international development committee, I was concerned to hear her characterise this shift as a ‘gamble’.”
A government spokesperson tells Carbon Brief:
“We remain committed to providing finance for forests, including in the Congo basin, as a core element of our overall climate funding.”
A shorter version of this article was first published in Cropped, Carbon Brief’s fortnightly newsletter that provides a digest of food, land and nature news, on 15 July 2026. Subscribe for free.
The post UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo appeared first on Carbon Brief.
UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo
Climate Change
Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid
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
Global drought and heat
DRY THEN WET: A recent heatwave and months of low rainfall has led to a prolonged drought for Uganda, resulting in at least 16 deaths from hunger and significant crop losses, reported BBC News. Bastille Post Global suggested that “a developing El Niño later this year could bring heavier rainfall to parts of the region, raising the risk of flooding in areas now struggling with drought”.
FUNDING FOOD: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have appealed for $200m in funding to help African nations deal with the impact of El Niño, stated Deutsche Welle. This would target 22 high-risk countries with measures, including “cash transfers, climate-resilient seeds, livestock protection and flood control.” The Guardian explained how El Niño could still “cause a severe shock to global food prices lasting into 2028”.
FARMING FEARS: Extreme weather has devastated agriculture across the world. India saw its driest June in 12 years, reported BBC News, and France has had a “double-digit production” decline, according to Le Monde. The Financial Times reported that farmers in the UK are mitigating the impacts of extreme heat by eliminating “chemicals and intensive ploughing to improve soil quality so it retains water”.
EURO FIRES: Wildfires have spread across Europe, with Spain reporting at least 12 deaths so far, according to the Guardian, and France experiencing road closures, said Reuters. Wildfire Today reported that the most extreme conditions are “across France, Spain and northern Portugal, the Alpine arc extending into northern Italy, the south of the UK and south-east Ireland”. CNN explained how “the climate crisis is driving hotter, drier weather, which is setting the stage for fiercer fire seasons”.
Endangering species
REDEFINING HARM: The Trump administration “reversed decades of longstanding environmental law protecting endangered species…opening up sensitive habitats…to drilling, mining, farming and real estate development”, reported CNN. According to the story, the change “redefines what constitutes ‘harm’” to endangered species, which historically prohibited habitat modification or degradation. Agence France-Presse reported that US environmental groups sued the Trump government over the move, arguing that it had violated “common sense, biological science and federal law”.
OPEN SEASON: Reuters reported that the change “limits the reach of the 50-year-old Endangered Species Act” (ESA), which is a “key regulatory consideration” when granting permits for “oil and gas, mining, electric transmission and other operations on federal lands and water”. Legal scholars told the New York Times the US government “was acting without conducting scientific research into the impact” of the change, while the National Mining Association “applauded the announcement”.
News and views
- INTERNATIONAL WATERS: After a significant delay, the UK ratified the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ), also known as the High Seas Treaty. Oceanographic detailed how this will allow for “marine protected areas across international waters for the first time”, but also stressed that the “hard part” starts now.
- SCOPE-FREE: The world’s largest meat supplier JBS “scrapped a key climate goal” in its net-zero plan that accounts for its suppliers’ emissions, “which make up the vast bulk of the company’s environmental footprint”, reported the Financial Times. The company told the paper it was difficult to control these “indirect” emissions.
- DEEP TROUBLE: Pacific gray whales are facing a “catastrophic die-off” as sea-ice loss threatens their food sources, said the Guardian. Separately, conservationists warned that more than half of all molluscs that “cluster around underwater vents” could face extinction from deep-sea mining, reported Reuters.
- ETHANOL PUSHBACK: India’s new rules to promote 100% ethanol fuel and make ethanol-blended fuel mandatory at pumps “triggered a political row”, reported the Times of India. While the Indian government defended the push to automobile owners, a Hindu editorial and an Indian Express comment warned against incentivising fuels made from “water-intensive” sugarcane and rice.
- AMAZON ACTION: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell to its lowest level in a decade, but president Lula’s plans to “end illegal deforestation by 2030” could be hampered if he is not re-elected, reported Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, Colombia’s outgoing environment minister warned of greater environmental and climate risk under the incoming government, said the Associated Press.
- WAR WORRIES: The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned of the impact of the Iran war on Africa’s clean cooking efforts as disruption in the strait of Hormuz has stunted supplies and increased prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), explained Climate Home News.
Spotlight
UK ‘discards’ Congo rainforest funding
Amid worldwide cuts to aid spending, Carbon Brief explores how the UK is backtracking on funding for the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.
The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people.
Together, these initiatives would have made up half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support forest conservation in the Congo basin.
When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.
Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.
COP pledge
At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030.
The UK also made various regional funding pledges, including £200m for the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.
All of these rainforests face major forest loss. The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink, but its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.
This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.
Forest cuts
Following successive aid cuts introduced by both Conservative and Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.
The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.
Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s aid cuts. Its £90m budget has been “quietly reduced by 79% to £18.8m”, according to the Times.
This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to aid cuts. The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – worth at least £12.3m – has closed five years early.
Official documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region. One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”.
Documents also show the difficulties operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.
‘Breaking promises’
Damian Fleming, a senior forests director at WWF International told Carbon Brief:
“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”
In a parliamentary response, Chapman said that the UK had spent £39.8m towards its £200m Congo target, as of 2024.
Despite being described as the UK’s contribution to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029. Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution was relatively small.
Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, told Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:
“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world.”
The Labour government says it has met its overarching “climate finance” goals and still intends to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest.
However, civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.
Watch, read, listen
TOXIC TROUBLES: DeSmog unpacked a new report that said Northern Ireland is being turned into a “toxic” pig and poultry farming “sacrifice zone” to satiate the UK’s meat appetite.
NEED TO NOAA: Laid-off scientists from the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) launched Climate.Us – an independent, public-backed version of the climate information website shut down by Trump last year.
DRY FRUIT: A Dialogue Earth long read looked at how climate change is impacting apricot harvests in the “stark, high-altitude desert” region of Ladakh, India.
READING ALOUD: A London Review of Books podcast discussed Robin Wall Kimmerer’s influential book “Braiding Sweetgrass”, weighing its compelling themes and where it veers into “scientific overreach”.
New science
- Climate change could cause Indigenous peoples in the Amazon to lose 28-34% of their plant species and 18-23% of their associated services | Nature
- Biodiversity in forests can act as a “buffer” against compound extreme weather events | Nature Communications
- Zero-deforestation commitments in Indonesia’s palm oil sector have had “no additional impacts” on reducing forest loss | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
In the diary
- 7-15 July: High-level political forum on sustainable development | New York City
- 13-31 July: Meeting of the International Seabed Authority assembly and council | Kingston, Jamaica
- 16 July: International Energy Agency critical minerals outlook 2026, online
- 27 July-1 August: Scientific and technical subsidiary body meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity | Nairobi, Kenya
This edition of Cropped was written by Jess Milligan, Josh Gabbatiss and Aruna Chandrasekhar. Cropped is edited by Dr Giuliana Viglione. This edition was edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org.
The post Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid
Climate Change
Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks
Climate and environment campaigners have urged the Kenyan government to halt plans for a proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery backed by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, warning the project threatens one of East Africa’s most ecologically sensitive coastlines.
The refinery, which is planned to be situated in Lamu County on Kenya’s northern coast, will be East Africa’s largest refining project and is expected to take up to three years to build. Once finished, it would supply refined petroleum products to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda, among others, helping to reduce the region’s dependence on imported fuels.
Campaigners are questioning the viability of such a large refinery at a time when renewable energy and electric transportation are expanding rapidly.
Mohamed Adow, director of a Kenya-based climate and energy think-tank Power Shift Africa, said the decision to give Dangote the green light for the refinery is “an extraordinary act of environmental recklessness and economic short-sightedness”, arguing it would tie Kenya to “yesterday’s energy system” just as global demand for petroleum products faces increasing uncertainty.
-
Nigeria gives fossil gas a bigger role as “transition fuel” in climate plan
Officials say the country needs time and money to ramp up renewables, but critics say betting on gas is a risky strategy that could prolong the “oil curse” -
Gas flaring soars in Niger Delta post-Shell, afflicting communities
Since the multinational sold its assets in Nigeria’s oil hub, data analysis for Climate Home News shows flaring has risen, harming locals and the climate
Campaigners argue the refinery risks coming online just as transport – the largest market for petrol and diesel – is beginning to electrify across the continent.
Kenya launched a National Electric Mobility Policy earlier this year to speed up the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) and reduce the country’s roughly $5 billion annual fuel import bill. Ethiopia has already banned imports of non-electric vehicles and now has more than 100,000 EVs on its roads, while Rwanda is expanding its electric mobility programme with plans to convert its fleet of around 100,000 motorcycles to electric.
Adow said the project risks billions of dollars in investment in infrastructure that could become obsolete as the world moves away from oil.
“Building a refinery today assumes decades of robust demand for fuels that much of the world is actively trying to phase out,” he said in a statement.
Ecological concerns
Lamu – the proposed site for the project – is home to the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Lamu Old Town and an archipelago containing extensive mangrove forests, coral reefs and seagrass beds that support fisheries, tourism and coastal livelihoods.
Locating the refinery in Lamu would “place one of Africa’s largest fossil fuel developments in one of the continent’s most ecologically sensitive and culturally significant coastal regions,” Power Shift Africa said.
Major emitting countries knew of climate risks decades earlier than claimed
Sherelee Odayar, oil and gas campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, warned that a refinery of this scale could increase the risk of habitat destruction, marine pollution, oil spills and air pollution in one of East Africa’s most fragile coastal ecosystems.
She said the risks stem not only from the refinery itself – including storage tanks, pipelines and fuel handling facilities – but also from the large volumes of crude oil that would need to be shipped into Lamu and refined products exported by sea. Increased tanker traffic and fuel transfers, she said, would raise the likelihood of accidents in ecologically sensitive coastal waters.
Odayar added that Lamu’s low-lying, flood-prone coastline could compound those risks by damaging infrastructure and carrying contaminants from storage facilities into nearby fishing grounds and marine ecosystems.
“Lamu’s mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds are not expendable; they support fisheries, livelihoods and coastal protection,” Odayar added.
She said Kenyan authorities should suspend any approvals until an independent environmental and social impact assessment is completed, with genuine public participation and transparent scrutiny of the long-term economic, health and ecological risks.
“Any review must assess cumulative impacts on Lamu’s mangroves, coral reefs, seagrass beds and fishing livelihoods, alongside the wider economic risk of locking Kenya into costly fossil fuel infrastructure as the global energy transition accelerates”.
Dangote Group declined to answer questions from Climate Home News when contacted by phone.
Technological change threaten project’s future
The Kenya refinery would replicate Dangote’s 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Lagos, currently Africa’s largest, which has plans to more than double capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2028.
Adow of Power Shift Africa said projects like this represent “a breathtaking failure to recognise where the global economy is heading”, pointing out that the East African refinery risks arriving when Africa is experiencing an unprecedented clean energy boom.
Referencing Africa’s solar boom, global electric vehicles uptake and the International Energy Agency’s projection that global oil demand is set to enter a decline later this decade, the think-tank founder said African governments risk anchoring the continent’s future to an industry facing mounting economic uncertainty.
Loss and damage fund delays first project approvals as needs dwarf resources
The organisation said the project faces a bigger threat aside from environmental opposition and that is technological change. “The danger is not simply that the refinery will pollute, it is that it will become obsolete long before it has paid for itself,” he added.
Kenyan President William Ruto said the project will create about 60,000 jobs for Kenyans and supply refined fuel to eight East and Central African countries.
GreenPeace Africa’s Odayar said the promise of ‘thousands of jobs’ cannot be used to hide the true cost of the investment which is that large fossil fuel projects often create temporary jobs while undermining existing livelihoods in fishing, tourism and small-scale local economies.
“The enormous capital required for a project of this scale could instead help accelerate Kenya’s renewable energy future through solar, wind, geothermal, storage and better energy access,” she added.
The post Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks appeared first on Climate Home News.
Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks
-
Climate Change11 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases11 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Renewable Energy9 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测