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Removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere is widely expected to play a key role in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

But this will only be effective for slowing climate change if the CO2 can be stored securely and indefinitely.

This requires “geological carbon storage”, where captured CO2 is injected deep underground, where it can stay trapped for thousands of years.

While the current deployment of CO2 removal (CDR) technologies around the world is small, almost all facilities aim to store captured CO2 in sedimentary basins.

However, in our study in Nature, we show that current policy approaches to using these formations on a larger scale could be suffering from a false sense of abundance.

We find that – once technical, social and environmental risks are considered – the world’s available reserves of geological carbon storage are significantly more limited than most estimates suggest.

Our research shows that, of nearly 12,000bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) of theoretical carbon storage capacity, just 1,460GtCO2 is risk-free.

Significantly, we find that, if all available safe carbon storage capacity were used for CO2 removal, this would contribute to only a 0.7C reduction in global warming.

In short, geological carbon storage is not limitless – on the contrary, its practical potential is a rather scarce planetary resource.

From technical potential to prudent limits

When studies estimate where carbon could be stored for the long term, they typically start by looking at all sedimentary basins worldwide to find those that are mature and stable.

However, norms of international environmental law indicate that high standards of due diligence must be applied to prevent transboundary environmental harm. As scientists, we were therefore interested in understanding how much storage capacity would be available when looking through a precautionary lens.

Our study develops the first global estimate of safe and durable carbon storage that takes into account social, environmental and technical risks – in addition to the geological qualities of the basins.

Rather than taking raw geological capacity at face value, we screen the potential locations for a number of factors:

  • Seismic hazards
  • Groundwater contamination.
  • Proximity to population centres.
  • Biodiversity protections, such as environmentally protected areas and the Arctic and Antarctic circles.
  • Engineering limitations, such as basin depths that are too shallow to store carbon indefinitely or too deep underground and locations too deep in the ocean.
  • Political feasibility, such as maritime areas outside of national jurisdictions or disputed geographical areas.

The results of our assessment are stark. We find that, out of nearly 12,000GtCO2 of theoretical carbon storage capacity in sedimentary basins, just 1,460GtCO2 can be considered robust for climate planning purposes.

We refer to this as “prudent” storage capacity.

This is an order of magnitude less than commonly-cited figures.

In 2005, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) special report on carbon capture and storage estimated that there is a “technical potential of at least about 2,000GtCO­2…of storage capacity in geological formations”. 

Over the two decades since, estimates have ballooned to 10,000-40,000GtCO2, depending on the academic or industry source that is consulted. 

What this means for warming limits

Our research finds that if all reserves of “prudent” storage were used solely for removing CO2 from the atmosphere, they would enable – at most – a 0.7C reduction in global temperatures.

This falls to as little as 0.4C if we conservatively take the lower end of the likely (>66%) range of how much warming or cooling we expect per tonne of CO2 emitted or removed, respectively.

For the first time, our new study provides an estimate for an upper limit for how much past warming could be reversed through geological storage.

However, under most low-carbon pathways available in the academic and technical literature and assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this prudent geological storage limit would be used up before 2200 – and some by 2100. 

In many cases, storage is not used to draw down atmospheric CO2, but to balance the continued production of greenhouse gas and carbon pollution from human activities. 

And yet, without sharp near-term cuts in gross emissions, the likely overshoot of the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C warming limit could prove irreversible. 

Equity and responsibility

The maps below show how prudent storage capacity – for offshore (left) and onshore (right) basins – is not evenly distributed.

Two global maps side by side showing the global CO2 storage potential

The “prudent” global storage potential (in GtCO2) for offshore (left) and onshore (right) basins, by individual countries. Darker shading indicates a greater amount of storage capacity. Source: Gidden et al. (2025)

Much of it is found in large, fossil-fuel-producing nations, such as the US, Australia, Russia and Saudi Arabia. These countries are among the world’s biggest historical emitters

(This is not a coincidence, as these nations’ fossil-fuel-based economies are the result of relatively easily reachable geological deposits.)

However, the reality that the nations most responsible for emissions also appear best placed to store them raises equity concerns. Nations who benefitted from enabling carbon pollution would now also benefit from the clean up.

Other countries, such as Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have substantial storage, but little domestic incentive to use it unless compensated.

Meanwhile, emissions-intensive nations would now be first in line to transform themselves from extractors to large-scale injectors of carbon – and could benefit from new business opportunities, often paid for by the public purse.

However, sovereign wealth funds – state-owned investment funds, often built on fossil revenues – could play a role in financing this shift, in line with the “polluter pays” principle.

Planning for scarcity

Treating storage as a finite and scarce resource has a knock-on effect for climate policy.

For example, governments would need to decide explicitly how they intend to allocate limited carbon storage capacity – should storage capacity be used to abate residual, industrial and fossil-fuel emissions, or for CO2 that has been directly pulled from the atmosphere?

Norms of international environmental law – and the recent “advisory opinion” on climate change from the International Court of Justice – provide guidance as to what countries ought to do. The principle of harm prevention indicates that risks of climate harm should be minimised where possible.

To limit risks to implementing climate targets, carbon capture and storage (CCS) should be seen as a complement to – but not a substitute – for rapid emissions cuts. This recommendation is not new – it has long been called for by researchers looking at the trade-offs and negative side-effects of specific negative emissions technologies, including the impacts poorly governed deployment of these technologies can have on biodiversity and food security.

Our geological storage estimate represents an assessment of reserves today – but this is likely to change with time as knowledge, preferences and governance of CO2 storage change.

CDR technologies that provide alternatives to geological storage, such as mineralisation in basalt, show promise. However, these technologies remain at pilot scale, with only a few million tonnes stored to date. 

Climate strategies that rely on nascent CDR technologies would not constitute a strategy that minimises risks and potential harm to today’s and future generations.

The bottom line

Geological carbon storage is not a limitless backstop – and assuming otherwise puts the world at risk of irreversibly exceeding the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C threshold for global warming.

However, at the same time, carbon storage will almost certainly play a pivotal role in any future where global “net-zero” CO2 or greenhouse gas emissions is achieved.

By acknowledging the scarcity of carbon storage – and designating reserves for essential and strategic uses – governments can limit the risks of harm to people and the planet.

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Analysis: Half of nations meet UN deadline for nature-loss reporting

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Half of nations have met a UN deadline to report on how they are tackling nature loss within their borders, Carbon Brief analysis shows.

This includes 11 of the 17 “megadiverse nations”, countries that account for 70% of Earth’s biodiversity.

It also includes all of the G7 nations apart from the US, which is not part of the world’s nature treaty.

All 196 countries that are part of the UN biodiversity treaty were due to submit their seventh “national reports” by 28 February, of which 98 have done so.

Their submissions are supposed to provide key information for an upcoming global report on actions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, in addition to a global review of progress due to be conducted by countries at the COP17 nature summit in Armenia in October this year.

At biodiversity talks in Rome in February, UN officials said that national reports submitted late will not be included in the global report due to a lack of time, but could still be considered in the global review.

Tracking nature action

In 2022, nations signed a landmark deal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030, known as the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF).

In an effort to make sure countries take action at the domestic level, the GBF included an “implementation schedule”, involving the publishing of new national plans in 2024 and new national reports in 2026.

The two sets of documents were to inform both a global report and a global review, to be conducted by countries at COP17 in Armenia later this year. (This schedule mirrors the one set out for tackling climate change under the Paris Agreement.)

The deadline for nations’ seventh national reports, which contain information on their progress towards meeting the 23 targets of the GBF based on a set of key indicators, was 28 February 2026.

According to Carbon Brief’s analysis of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s online reporting platform, 98 out of the 196 countries that are part of the nature convention (50%) submitted on time.

The map below shows countries that submitted their seventh national reports by the UN’s deadline.

Map of the world showing that half of nations published their seventh national nature reports on time
Countries that submitted their seventh national reports to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity by the deadline of 28 February. Data source: Convention on Biological Diversity.

This includes 11 of the 17 “megadiverse nations” that account for 70% of Earth’s biodiversity.

The megadiverse nations to meet the deadline were India, Venezuela, Indonesia, Madagascar, Peru, Malaysia, South Africa, Colombia, Mexico, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Australia.

It also includes all of the G7 nations (France, Germany, the UK, Japan, Italy and Canada), excluding the US, which has never ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The UK’s seventh national report shows that it is currently on track to meet just three of the GBF’s 23 targets.

This is according to a LinkedIn post from Dr David Cooper, former executive secretary of the CBD and current chair of the UK’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee, which coordinated the UK’s seventh national report,

The report shows the UK is not on track to meet one of the headline targets of the GBF, which is to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030.

It reports that the proportion of land protected for nature is 7% in England, 18% in Scotland and 9% in Northern Ireland. (The figure is not given for Wales.)

National plans

In addition to the national reports, the upcoming global report and review will draw on countries’ national plans.

Countries were meant to have submitted their new national plans, known as “national biodiversity strategies and action plans” (NBSAPs), by the start of COP16 in October 2024.

A joint investigation by Carbon Brief and the Guardian found that only 15% of member countries met that deadline.

Since then, the percentage of countries that have submitted a new NBSAP has risen to 39%.

According to the GBF and its underlying documents, countries that were “not in a position” to meet the deadline to submit NBSAPs ahead of COP16 were requested to instead submit national targets. These submissions simply list biodiversity targets that countries will aim for, without an accompanying plan for how they will be achieved.

As of 2 March, 78% of nations had submitted national targets.

At biodiversity talks in Rome in February, UN officials said that national reports submitted late will not be included in the global report due to a lack of time, but could still be considered in the global review.

Funding ‘delays’

At the Rome talks, some countries raised that they had faced “difficulties in submitting [their national reports] on time”, according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.

Speaking on behalf of “many” countries, Fiji said that there had been “technical and financial constraints faced by parties” in the preparation of their seventh national reports.

In a statement to Carbon Brief, a spokesperson for the Global Environment Facility, the body in charge of providing financial and technical assistance to countries for the preparation of their national reports, said “delays in fund disbursement have occurred in some cases”, adding:

“In 2023, the GEF council approved support for the development of NBSAPs and the seventh national reports for all 139 eligible countries that requested assistance. This includes national grants of up to $450,000 per country and $6m in global technical assistance delivered through the UN Development Programme and UN Environment Programme.

“As of the end of January 2026, all 139 participating countries had benefited from technical assistance and 93% had accessed their national grants, with 11 countries yet to receive their funds. Delays in fund disbursement have occurred in some cases, compounded by procurement challenges and limited availability of technical expertise.”

The spokesperson added that the fund will “continue to engage closely with agencies and countries to support timely completion of NBSAPs and the seventh national reports”.

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DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? 

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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

Pick of the jobs

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

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Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding

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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.

Map of England showing that Richard Tice's Boston and Skegness constituency is set to receive at least £55m for flood defences between 2024 and 2026
Flood-defence spending on new and replacement schemes in England in 2024-25 and 2025-26. The government notes that, as Environment Agency accounts have not been finalised and approved, the investment data is “provisional and subject to change”. Some schemes cover multiple constituencies and are not included on the map. Source: Environment Agency FCERM data.

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.

Chart showing that Conservative, Reform and Liberal Democrat constituencies are the top recipients of flood defence spending
Top 10 English constituencies by FCERM funding in 2024-25 and 2025-26. Source: Environment Agency FCERM data.

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.

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