With UN climate negotiations underway at COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), climate finance has once again been one of the key issues countries have been clashing over.
The recently concluded process to design the new “loss-and-damage fund” highlighted known rifts between developed and developing country parties on finance provision.
One such rift is the lingering question of who should provide climate finance to help developing countries decarbonise their economies and protect themselves from climate hazards.
Traditionally, only a small set of high-income nations have been obliged to provide this finance under the UN system.
Some parties, including the US and the EU, have argued that this list should expand to include relatively wealthy emerging economies, such as China and the Gulf states.
As our analysis demonstrates, many of these nations already provide substantial sums of money that could potentially be described as “climate finance”.
In fact, large nations, such as India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia contribute to more climate-related finance via multilateral development banks (MDBs) than many countries in the global north.
Meanwhile, China could rival the largest developed-country donors even on direct climate funding for developing countries.
Different responsibilities
Current responsibility for climate finance under the UN climate regime lies with Annex II countries – meaning the high-income nations that were members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed in 1992.
These nations – including western Europe, the EU, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan – bear the obligation to provide a minimum of $100bn in climate finance annually to developing countries by 2020 – and up to 2025. (Developed countries failed to reach the 2020 target.)
Developing countries do not have such a responsibility, but they are “encouraged” to contribute voluntary climate finance under the Paris Agreement. This voluntary contribution aims to reflect the collective global effort required to combat climate change.
Yet, the heart of the ongoing political disputes lies in the nebulous categorisation of “developed” and “developing” introduced in the Paris Agreement in 2015.
This arrangement was viewed as a necessary compromise to replace the rigid and outdated lists agreed in 1992, which entrusted such financially divergent nations as Qatar and Malawi with the same climate responsibilities.
In theory, it opened the door for countries to self-differentiate their responsibilities and capabilities to reflect their evolving economic weight and influence in the world. To date, no developing country has made use of this possibility and formally pledged to provide climate finance.
As countries negotiate a new climate finance target for 2025 onwards to succeed the £100bn goal, developed countries would like to see the list of contributor countries formally expanded. There has been a similar effort to make countries such as China and Saudi Arabia contribute to the new loss-and-damage fund.
Top donors
Ongoing disputes about expanding the “donor base” for climate finance within the UNFCCC have overlooked the voluntary finance support that developing countries are already providing to other developing countries, in the spirit of solidarity.
Analyses from ODI and E3G have shed light on the magnitude of these contributions.
ODI’s research reveals that virtually all developing country parties are already providing “climate finance” through their contributions to multilateral institutions.
Large, middle-income countries, which are often called upon to assume climate-finance obligations, are already contributing “climate finance” for other developing countries through multilateral development banks (MDBs), such as the World Bank, and climate funds, such as the Green Climate Fund.
Accounting for these financial flows would place BRICS heavyweights – China, India, Brazil and Russia – among the top 20 providers globally.
Saudi Arabia, which alongside other relatively wealthy emerging economies has resisted efforts to broaden the climate finance donor pool, would also make the top 20. This can be seen in the chart below.
The bulk of these contributions are via MDBs. Countries pay into these banks for a range of reasons and their primary intention may not always be to provide climate finance to other developing countries.
However, they are still relevant, especially given that developed countries such as the US rely heavily on such MDB contributions when reporting their own climate finance.
Additionally, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and South Korea have also made specific contributions to multilateral climate funds, which are clearly intended to be used for climate action by developing countries.
Bilateral flows
Crucially, these multilateral figures are likely to be a significant underestimate of the total climate-related finance provided by developing countries.
This is because they do not account for bilateral – or country-to-country – finance flows to other developing countries, such as those distributed via China’s South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund or the Belt and Road Initiative.
There is a lack of official data on these flows, but our analysis shows that they can be significant.
For example, E3G analysis of Chinese bilateral finance data compiled by research institute AidData shows that China has invested, on average, $1.46bn per year worth of climate-related projects between 2012 and 2017. (Data could not be assembled for the years after 2017.)
This includes both public and private bilateral investments, as well as aid in the energy, transport, water and disaster risk reduction sectors that could be described as either reducing emissions or improving climate resilience.
If the public portions of these bilateral financial flows are combined with multilateral flows, China would rank as the seventh largest provider of international climate finance to developing countries in 2017.
The nation’s $2.1bn of contributions place it roughly on a par with Italy and ahead of many developed countries including Canada and Norway in that year.
Reporting challenges
Despite these substantial contributions, the financial support provided by China and other large, middle-income nations to their fellow developing countries are going largely unrecognised by the international system.
One key reason is that developing countries are not obliged to report such contributions.
A fundamental reason for this is that these countries fear potential misinterpretation. Reporting such support voluntarily might lead to geopolitical expectations and pressure to assume “developed country” responsibilities, including taking more drastic actions to reduce emissions, our research suggests.
A change in status in the climate regime could also result in pressure on similar changes in other international regimes such as development finance or trade.
The under-delivery of the $100bn climate finance goal by developed countries also dissuades interested and capable developing countries from enhancing their voluntary support.
Although the $100bn goal is likely to have been met in 2023, it is hard for developing countries to rally the political support to send taxpayers’ money abroad, when rich countries are seen as not paying their “fair share”.
In addition, developing countries often lack the institutional and technical capacity to fully disclose their voluntary financial contributions.
The lack of transparency also extends to underreported commitments by other non-state actors, including corporations and financial institutions. These issues could be addressed collectively in ongoing discussions in the UNFCCC secretariat-led accountability framework for non-state actors.
New goal
Delegates at UN climate negotiations are set to agree on a new international climate finance goal, succeeding the $100bn, by COP29 in 2024. This target will include details on the sources of finance and likely reshape the climate finance landscape for the next decade.
COP28 could build the groundwork for a consensus on the so-called “new collective quantified goal” (NCQG), including an acknowledgement of existing contributions from developing countries.
The NCQG could do this while providing reassurance that the obligations of developed countries in leading the global climate-finance effort will continue, emphasising that voluntary contributions by developing countries will not be conflated with the politics of country categorisation.
It could even enhance voluntary contributions from non-developed country parties by considering the creation of some kind of “sub-goal” for them, while making it clear this would be on the basis of solidarity and not an obligation.
Such language could serve as a political reset, helping to rebuild trust in the international climate finance system.
The post Guest post: Why some ‘developing’ countries are already among largest climate-finance contributors appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: Why some ‘developing’ countries are already among largest climate-finance contributors
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during the conflict that broke out in October 2023 has wrecked progress towards adapting the enclave to climate change and left two million Gazans vulnerable to heatwaves, drought and disease, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said in a new climate plan submitted to the United Nations.
Palestine’s third nationally determined contribution (NDC), uploaded to the UN climate body’s website this week, says that while “the aggression on the Gaza Strip did not make the climate worse”, “it removed the housing, water and sanitation systems, health facilities, energy networks, roads and livelihoods through which people absorb a climate they were already struggling with.”
The 91-page document lists the types of infrastructure it says Israel has destroyed and notes how the destruction will worsen the impacts of climate change. It says the bombing of hospitals and rising hunger have make it harder for Gazans to cope with the health impacts of climate-driven heatwaves and waterborne diseases.
The destruction of water tanks, boreholes and desalination plants, meanwhile, have left Gazans struggling with the effects of water shortages and drought, while mass unemployment reduces people’s ability to afford climate-driven price rises. The erasure of most of the Strip’s homes makes it more difficult for people to avoid the sun’s increasing heat, the NDC said.
Many Gazans are now living in the ruins of collapsed buildings or in makeshift shelters and tents that offer little or no protection from high temperatures.
Palestine’s previous goals to cut emissions and adapt to climate change in Gaza, expressed in its last NDC five years ago, were based on a pre-war baseline that “no longer describes anything that exists”, the NDC says. Progress made since 2021 has now been destroyed, it adds.
Green reconstruction of Gaza
Instead of continuing to aim for these adaptation and emissions-reduction goals, the PA is now calling for the green reconstruction of Gaza. It says buildings should be constructed again in an energy-efficient manner with solar panels and served with modern water, waste and transport systems.
While the PA, controlled by the Fatah political party, continues to claim legitimate control of Gaza, the strip was effectively governed by Fatah’s rival Hamas between 2007 and the recent war. Control is now split between Israel and the political wing of Islamist militant group Hamas, after a US-backed ceasefire took effect in October 2025, although a UN-backed committee plans to take over.
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The United Nations, European Union and World Bank have jointly estimated that Gaza needs $71.4 billion of investment in the next two years to recover and build back. This process should be Palestinian-led, they said in April.
But US President Donald Trump has said the US should “take over” and “own” Gaza and redevelop it as the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Israel’s right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel should control the territory with civil administration managed by Palestinians favourable to Israel.
With occupation, targets conditional
In the other part of Palestine, the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority carries out some government functions, but ultimate control rests with Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Because Israel controls planning in most of the West Bank, the NDC argues that the PA cannot pursue all the climate projects it wants. In addition, Israel restricts the movement of PA officials, making data collection difficult, and controls the West Bank’s electricity supply meaning that the PA cannot control whether it comes from dirty or clean sources of energy.
Given this situation, the NDC says that all of Palestine’s new climate targets are conditional but it will aim to reduce emissions 12.8% below a business-as-usual baseline by 2035 and 17.1% by 2040. If the Israeli occupation ends and Palestine regains full sovereignty over its land and resources, it will aim for reductions of 15.1% and 19.1% by 2035 and 2040 respectively under an “independence pathway”.
That could allow, for example, for greater electrification and reducing emissions per unit of growth, the document said.
To achieve the 2035 emissions-reduction target and adapt to the impacts of climate change, the PA says it needs $8.6 billion in total. This funding would be spent on measures like encouraging solar farms and rooftop solar and scaling up solar water heating to cover four-fifths of households. To complement the planned increase in solar power, the authority wants to modernise the electricity grid and install battery storage.
In the transport sector, it aims to promote the uptake of electric vehicles, develop bus rapid transit corridors and scrap old polluting trucks and buses. In Gaza in particular, it wants to deploy 66 electric buses when the conflict ends.
To adapt to climate-driven drought, the NDC includes initiatives to reuse wastewater through treatment plants, build desalination plants in Gaza to remove salt from seawater, and promote irrigation for farmers.
The new climate plan was prepared by Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the governments of Britain and Spain.
The United Nations recognised Palestine’s statehood in 2012 and it joined the UN’s climate convention and signed the Paris climate agreement – which requires countries to submit more ambitious NDCs every five years – in 2016.
The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. But in late 2024, then Israeli climate envoy Gideon Behar told Climate Home News that the war and the resulting environmental destruction in Gaza was the fault of Hamas.
The post Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.
Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change
Solar power generation in the UK reached a new record over the summer of 2026, as temperatures across the nation soared, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Collectively over June, July and August, solar farms and rooftops generated 8.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in the UK*, as shown in the chart below.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Chris Hewett, chief executive of trade association Solar Energy UK welcomed the new record, adding that it was driven by “clear skies and continued growth in deployment”.
This surge in generation took place amid the hottest summer on record in the UK, with five heatwaves between May and August.
Summer 2026 was the sixth sunniest on record, with more than 620 hours of sunshine, according to the Met Office. England and Wales – which experienced the most extreme heat – saw their second-sunniest summers on record.
June 2026 was the hottest June in England since records began in 1884, according to Met Office data, while Wales and the UK as a whole experienced their second-warmest June.
It was the driest July for England and Wales since records began in 1836, with some parts of London seeing no rain at all in the month, while Wisley in Surrey had no rain for 62 days.
In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August.
According to the Met Office, this summer’s record mean temperature was made 130 times more likely by climate change.
Amid these hot and sunny months, solar power generation increased 23% from the same period in 2025. This is double the level of solar generation over the summer of 2021, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
While solar panels can be affected by periods of extreme heat, the longer hours of daylight and higher levels of irradiation over the summer more than offset any efficiency losses.
June, July and August all saw solar set new monthly records for solar generation – July saw the highest solar generation in a calendar month ever, with 3.3TWh meeting 15% of overall electricity demand for the month.
As of the end of August, the total UK solar generation in 2026 stood at 17TWh – 13% higher than the same point in 2025.
The number of solar farms and rooftop installations has grown substantially in recent years, helping to boost generation. Domestic rooftop solar accounts for around 29% of total capacity.
In 2025, the UK’s solar capacity reached 21 gigawatts (GW) by the third quarter of the year, according to UK government figures. This is a jump of 3GW, or 18%, year-on-year, as Carbon Brief reported in January.
(Capacity is the maximum output possible from an electricity generation, whereas generation is what was produced over a certain time period, such as a day, month or year.)
According to the University of Sheffield, the installed solar capacity is now nearly 24GW.
This includes nearly 172,000 solar installations that have been fitted across the UK since the start of 2026, according to recent government figures. In July alone, more than 19,800 rooftop solar panels were installed – the equivalent of one installation every two minutes.
In total, nearly 1.7m households in the UK now have solar panels installed.
Over 26 heatwave days this summer – periods of at least three days when temperatures exceed the Met Office’s county-level heatwave temperature threshold – UK households with rooftop solar panels avoided an estimated £86.7m in electricity costs, according to analysis by Utility Bidder.
Talking about the surge in solar generation this summer, Hewett says:
“[It] not only kept bills down for people with solar and batteries in their homes, but helped keep overall power prices much lower than they would have been if Britain had been relying on more gas generation during the day”.
Despite the record generation, no new half-hourly solar power output record was set in the summer of 2026. This still stands at 15.2 megawatts (MW) on 23 April 2026.
* This article refers to the UK throughout, but strictly relates to the island of Great Britain, made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is part of the separate, all-Ireland electricity system.
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The post Analysis: UK solar power hits record high over summer 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Farmers around Europe are dealing with the aftermath of a summer of extreme heat, drought and wildfires that were exacerbated by climate change.
Human-caused climate change is increasing the severity and likelihood of many extreme weather events around the world, which is increasing volatility for food producers.
This summer resulted in, for example, shrunken potatoes in the Netherlands, reduced carrot harvests in France, dried-up rice fields in Italy and scorched olive groves in parts of the Mediterranean region.
Global food prices are currently at their highest level since early 2023 due to “heatwaves and energy price dynamics”, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Other factors such as blocked fertiliser supplies in the Strait of Hormuz and high fuel costs have also played a role in this year’s agricultural outputs.
In the six charts below, Carbon Brief provides a snapshot of the impact this summer’s extremes are considered to have had on crop production and yields across Europe.
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
France, in particular, will see heavy losses in the amount of cereals – such as wheat, barley and oats – it produces this year, according to European Commission data.
French cereal production is expected to drop by almost 8 megatonnes (Mt) in 2026, compared to 2025.
The chart above shows that most European countries, aside from Bulgaria, will also see production losses this year.
Germany is due to see the second-largest losses in production, dropping by almost 4Mt compared to 2025.
Prof Til Feike, a cropping systems expert at the Julius Kühn-Institut, says many areas in Germany and Austria, as with other parts of Europe, have been “hit hard by a long-lasting dry period in combination with record-high heatwaves”.
This has resulted in dry grassland for animals and lower yields of maize, which is a “key fodder crop” for livestock. He tells Carbon Brief:
“In the long run, farming must adapt better to more extreme weather conditions, not only heat and drought, but also prolonged wet periods. So, there is no one-fits-all solution for climate change adaptation.”
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
Heat and a lack of water have “substantially worsened” crop expectations this summer in western and most of central Europe, according to a recent bulletin from the EU Joint Research Centre.
Yields are expected to be “significantly reduced”, with local crop failures “likely” in areas such as France, southern Germany, northern and central Italy, and Hungary, it added.
The chart below shows that yields of cereal grains – which, here, refers to the tonnes of a grain grown per hectare of land – are expected to fall in most EU countries in 2026.
Slovakia, Austria and Hungary are expected to see the largest declines in cereal yields, reducing by more than one tonne per hectare in 2026 compared to 2025.
The recent EU bulletin noted that irrigated crops performed well in Portugal this summer – the country with the largest yield increases. Other crops relying on rainfall showed growing signs of heat stress, it added.
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
The record heatwave that hit many parts of Europe in June contributed to an estimated €2-2.3bn in cumulative grain production losses, as shown in the chart below.
The intense June heat in western Europe would have been “virtually impossible” just 50 years ago, according to a rapid climate attribution study. It was the region’s hottest June on record.
The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank analysed June and July 2026 grain forecasts from Coceral, a European grain traders association.
ECIU estimated lost supply by multiplying the change in tonnes of grains between these two months by prices for harvest delivery in 28 European countries.
Major grain producers France, Germany, Hungary and Spain accounted for 86% of the lost revenue, according to the ECIU.
Extreme heat is also expected to have a wider economic impact across the continent. Analysis from Triodos Bank found that this summer’s extreme weather could reduce the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) by around 1% this year, or around €180bn.
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
If current trends continue, the average yields for cereals and oilseeds will result in the UK’s worst harvest since detailed records began in 1984, according to ECIU.
Barley yields could fall by 15%, oats by 14% and wheat yields by 6% year-on-year, according to 2026 harvest surveys from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, a non-departmental public body that provides agricultural data to the UK government.
ECIU said that, even if the situation improves, this year is still expected to be one of the five worst harvests on record. This means that four of the five worst harvests in the UK have occurred in the past decade.
Consumers will likely see higher prices and/or smaller vegetables in supermarkets as a result, Tim O’Malley, chairman of UK company Nationwide Produce, told BBC News in August.
Other crops, such as berries, have grown successfully in the extreme heat. But the Guardian noted fears this could dip later this year “as plants become exhausted from heavy cropping during the heatwave”.
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
France has been acutely affected by this summer’s extreme weather, with more than 7,300 excess deaths during heatwaves and a record number of weather stations recording temperatures of above 40C.
The country is the EU’s largest agricultural producer, but heat, drought and wildfires have affected many crops.
The chart below shows that maize production is set to drop by more than one-third (35%) year-on-year.
This could result in France’s lowest maize production since 1980, according to data from Agreste, the country’s agriculture ministry’s statistics service.
Due to the heat, “record-early” grape harvests have also been recorded in various parts of the nation since mid-July, reported Le Monde. In some cases, this means “smaller, less juicy grapes, which will yield less wine”, explained the newspaper.
6. Declines in EU grains since 2025
Overall in the EU, data and projections indicate declines in the output of cereal grains this year.
Cereal production is set to fall by 9% compared to 2025, according to the European Commission.
Just one year in the past decade – 2024 – recorded lower production levels.
Maize production is set to be particularly affected, with projections indicating a 13% drop, to 52Mt – the lowest level in the EU since 2007.
The post How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts
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