The annual World Economic Forum is underway in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, providing a snowy backdrop for leaders and CEOs to opine on international affairs, including close to 65 heads of state and government On Wednesday afternoon, US President Donald Trump is set to speak, with all eyes on whether he will further stoke a potential US-European trade war over his bid to grab Greenland.

Despite geopolitics grabbing the limelight, there are panels addressing issues including electric vehicles, energy security and climate policy. Keep up with top takeaways from those discussions and other climate news from Davos in our bulletin, which we’ll update throughout the day.

In energy transition’s “messy phase”, climate policy falters but clean tech marches on

Politicians may be struggling to free themselves from the clutches of fossil fuel interests, but that won’t slam the brakes on the march of clean tech and renewables worldwide, former US Vice-President and longtime climate advocate Al Gore said at Davos on Wednesday.

Moderating one of the first panels on day two in an almost empty room, he made a stab at answering the question posed by the World Economic Forum: “How do we avoid a climate recession?”

Gore said he sees “a climate policy recession, but not a recession in the energy transition”. That, he explained, is because policy is controlled by governments – “and too many governments are now, unfortunately, controlled by special interests”, namely the fossil fuel industry which is “significantly better at capturing politicians than at capturing emissions”.

The result has been “schizophrenic” policy on addressing climate change in some countries, including in the US, he said, with periods of slamming on the brakes and “going back to the dirty fossil fuels” to satisfy the industry. 

In the real world, however, the advantages of renewable energy have become obvious, as have the consequences of the climate crisis, he added, listing a litany of recent impacts.

On the technology front, Gore pointed out that in 2025, of all new electricity generation installed worldwide, 93% was renewables, and “the only thing coming down faster in price than solar panels is utility-scale batteries, because the production is doubling every year”. “So we don’t have a recession in the movement toward this energy transition, in my opinion,” he added.

Entrepreneur Zhang Lei, founder and CEO of Envision, which develops technology for clean energy systems and AI-powered energy digital platforms, said there may be some swings in climate policy but “the fundamental physics is actually improving”.

He pointed to an 80% drop in the price of energy storage in the last three years, which he said opens up a lot of opportunities to increase the penetration of wind and solar. That, he added, is exactly what is needed to meet the upsurge in electricity demand driven by the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), describing renewables as “infinite and inexpensive energy resources”.

Fossil fuels, by contrast, are “finite” and therefore not up to the job of powering an AI-based future, with electricity supply expected to increase by 10 times in the next 15 years. Renewables, however, are competitive and approaching “zero marginal cost”, he noted. 

“We are so lucky to have renewable energy ready” to take advantage of “great prosperity” driven by AI, Zhang Lei added, noting China’s pivotal role in providing the necessary clean tech to much of the world.

Investment by China is making the renewable energy transition “irreversible”, argued Elizabeth Thurbon, professor of international political economy and director of the Green Energy Statecraft Project at the University of New South Wales.

China will stay on this path, she added, because the government understands that the energy transition “is a massive national security multiplier” by boosting economic security, energy security, environmental security, social security through jobs and geo-strategic security.

Globally, however, she warned that the transition is “in a really messy, messy phase”, due largely to poor governance, especially across a lot of Western countries.

Carsten Schneider, Germany’s environment minister, argued that the European Union, for one, has not taken its foot off the climate policy pedal, agreeing a new emissions reduction goal of 90% by 2040 last December. But that was a hard-fought win, amid pressure from some coal-reliant Eastern European countries to soften the target.

EU’s new climate target lines up multibillion-dollar boost for carbon markets

On Tuesday afternoon, in a separate panel, Andrew Forrest, executive chairman and founder of Australian mining company Fortescue, advised politicians and business people not to waver in their commitment to the energy transition – from an economic perspective, if nothing else.

He spoke of his company’s plan to save up to a billion dollars per year in operating costs by removing over a billion litres of diesel from its supply chains by 2030, replacing the dirty fuel used by trucks, trains and ships with renewable energy and batteries. This will improve Fortescue’s efficiency and competitiveness, and cut pollution, Forrest added, enabling it to outperform its peers.

He appealed to fellow business and political leaders to follow economic sense, urging them not to turn away from renewables in 2026 “because the winds of politics blew your values over”.

The post Climate at Davos: Clean tech powers on despite policy wobbles appeared first on Climate Home News.

Climate at Davos: Clean tech powers on despite policy wobbles

Choosing the “least expensive” healthy food options could cut dietary emissions by one-third, according to a new study.

In addition to the lower emissions, diets composed of low-cost, healthy foods would cost roughly one-third as much as a diet of the most-consumed foods in every country.

The study, published in Nature Food, compares prices and emissions associated with 440 local food products in 171 countries.

The researchers identify some food groups that are low in both cost and emissions, including legumes, nuts and seeds, as well as oils and fats.

Some of the most widely consumed foods – such as wheat, maize, white beans, apples, onions, carrots and small fish – also fall into this category, the study says.

One of the lead authors tells Carbon Brief that while food marketing has promoted the idea that eating environmentally friendly diets is “very fancy and expensive”, the study shows that such diets are achievable through cheap, everyday foods.

Meanwhile, a separate Nature Food study found that reforming the policies that reduce taxes on meat products in the EU could decrease food-related emissions by up to 5.7%.

Costs and emissions

The study defines a healthy diet using the “healthy diet basket” (HDB), which is a standard based on nutritional guidelines that includes a range of food groups with the needed nutrients to provide long-term health.

Using both data on locally available products and food-specific emissions databases, the authors estimate the costs and greenhouse gas emissions of 440 food products needed for healthy diets in 171 countries.

They examine three different healthy diets: one using the most-consumed food products, one using the least expensive food products and one using the lowest-emitting food products.

Each of these diets is constructed for each country, based on costs, emissions, availability and consumption patterns.

The researchers find that a healthy diet comprising the most-consumed foods within each country – such as beef, chicken, pork, milk, rice and tomatoes – emits an average of 2.44 kilograms of CO2-equivalent (kgCO2e) and costs $9.96 (£7.24) in 2021 prices, per person and per day.

However, they find that a healthy diet with the least-expensive locally available foods in each country – such as bananas, carrots, small fish, eggs, lentils, chicken and cassava – emits 1.65kgCO2e and costs $3.68 (£2.68). That is approximately one-third of the emissions and one-third of the cost of the most-consumed products diet.

In comparison, a healthy diet with the lowest-emissions products – such as oats, tuna, sardines and apples – would emit just 0.67kgCO2e, but would cost nearly double the least-expensive diet, at $6.95 (£5.05).

This reveals the tradeoffs of affordability and sustainability – and shows that the least-expensive foods tend to produce lower emissions, according to the study.

Dr Elena Martínez, a food-systems researcher at Tufts University and one of the lead authors of the study, tells Carbon Brief this is generally true because lower-cost food production tends to use fewer fossil fuels and require less land-use change, which also cuts emissions.

Ignacio Drake is coordinator of the fiscal and economic policies at Colansa, an organisation promoting healthy eating and sustainable food systems in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Drake, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the research is a “step further” than previous work on healthy diets. He adds that the study “integrates and consolidates” previous analyses done by other groups, such as the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Food group differences

The research looks at six food groups: animal-sourced foods, oils and fats, fruits, legumes (as well as nuts and seeds), vegetables and starchy staples.

Animal-sourced foods – such as meat and dairy – are typically the most-emitting, and most-expensive, food group.

Within this group, the study finds that beef has the highest costs and emissions, while small fish, such as sardines, have the lowest emissions. Milk and poultry are amongst the least-expensive products for a healthy diet.

Starchy staple products also contribute to high emissions too, adds the study, because they make up such a large portion of most people’s calories.

Emissions from fruits, vegetables, legumes and oil are lower than those from animal-derived foods.

The following chart shows the energy contributions (top) and related emissions (bottom) from six major food groups in the three diets modelled by the study: lowest-cost (left), lowest-emission (middle) and most-common (right) food items.

The six food groups examined in the study are shown in different colours: animal-sourced foods (red), legumes, nuts and seeds (blue), oils and fats (purple), vegetables (green), fruits (orange) and starchy staples (yellow). The size of each box represents the contribution of that food to the overall dietary energy (top) and greenhouse gas emissions (bottom) of each diet.

Prof William Masters, a professor at Tufts University and author on the study, tells Carbon Brief that balancing food groups is important for human health and the environment, but local context is also important. For example, he points out that in low-income countries, some people do not get enough animal-sourced foods.

For Drake, if there are foods with the same nutritional quality, but that are cheaper and produce fewer emissions, it is logical to think that the “cost-benefit ratio [of switching] is clear”.

Other studies and reports have also modelled healthy and sustainable diets and, although they do not exclude animal-sourced foods, they do limit their consumption.

A recent study estimated that a global food system transformation – including a diet known as the “planetary health diet”, based on cutting meat, dairy and sugar and increasing plant-based foods, along with other actions – can help limit global temperature rise to 1.85C by 2050.

The latest EAT-Lancet Commission report found that a global shift to healthier diets could cut non-CO2 emissions from agriculture, such as methane and nitrous oxide, by 15%. The report recommends increasing the production of fruit, vegetable and nuts by two-thirds, while reducing livestock meat production by one-third.

Dr Sonia Rodríguez, head of the department of food, culture and environment at Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health, says that unlike earlier studies, which project ideal scenarios, this new study also evaluates real scenarios and provides a “global view” of the costs and emissions of diets in various countries.

Increasing access

The study points out that as people’s incomes increase, their consumption of expensive foods also increases. However, it adds, some people with high income that can afford healthy diets often consume other types of foods, due to reasons such as preferences, time and cooking costs.

The study stresses that nearly one-third of the world’s population – about 2.6 billion people – cannot afford sufficient food products required for a healthy diet.

In low-income countries, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, 75% of the population cannot afford a healthy diet, says the study.

In middle-income countries, such as China, Brazil, Mexico and Russia, more than half of the population can afford such a diet.

To improve the consumption of healthy, sustainable and affordable foods, the authors recommend changes in food policy, increasing the availability of food at the local level and substituting highly emitting products.

Martínez also suggests implementing labelling systems with information on the environmental footprint and nutritional quality of foods. She adds:

“We need strategies beyond just reducing the cost of diets to get people to eat climate-friendly foods.”

Drake notes that there are public and financial policies that can help reduce the consumption of unhealthy and unsustainable foods, such as taxes on unhealthy foods and sugary drinks. This, he adds, would lead to better health outcomes for countries and free up public resources for implementing other policies, such as subsidies for producing healthy food.

Separately, another recent Nature Food study looks at taxes specifically on meat products, which are subject to reduced value-added tax (VAT) in 22 EU member states.

It finds that taxing meat at the standard VAT rate could decrease dietary-related greenhouse gases by 3.5-5.7%. Such a levy would also have positive outcomes for water and land use, as well as biodiversity loss, according to the study.

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The post Adopting low-cost ‘healthy’ diets could cut food emissions by one-third appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Adopting low-cost ‘healthy’ diets could cut food emissions by one-third

As a treaty to protect the High Seas entered into force this month with backing from more than 80 countries, major fishing nations China, Japan and Brazil secured a last-minute seat at the table to negotiate the procedural rules, funding and other key issues ahead of the treaty’s first COP.

The Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) pact – known as the High Seas Treaty – was agreed in 2023. It is seen as key to achieving a global goal to protect at least 30% of the planet’s ecosystems by 2030, as it lays the legal foundation for creating international marine protected areas (MPAs) in the deep ocean. The high seas encompass two-thirds of the world’s ocean.

Last September, the treaty reached the key threshold of 60 national ratifications needed for it to enter into force – a number that has kept growing and currently stands at 83. In total, 145 countries have signed the pact, which indicates their intention to ratify it. The treaty formally took effect on January 17.

“In a world of accelerating crises – climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution – the agreement fills a critical governance gap to secure a resilient and productive ocean for all,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.

Julio Cordano, Chile’s director of environment, climate change and oceans, said the treaty is “one of the most important victories of our time”. He added that the Nazca and Salas y Gómez ridge – off the coast of South America in the Pacific – could be one of the first intact biodiversity hotspots to gain protection.

Scientists have warned the ocean is losing its capacity to act as a carbon sink, as emissions and global temperatures rise. Currently, the ocean traps around 90% of the excess planetary heat building up from global warming. Marine protected areas could become a tool to restore “blue carbon sinks”, by boosting carbon absorption in the seafloor and protecting carbon-trapping organisms such as microalgae.

Last-minute ratifications

Countries that have ratified the BBNJ will now be bound by some of its rules, including a key provision requiring countries to carry out environmental impact assessments (EIA) for activities that could have an impact on the deep ocean’s biodiversity, such as fisheries.

Activities that affect the ocean floor, such as deep-sea mining, will still fall under the jurisdiction of the International Seabed Authority (ISA).

Nations are still negotiating the rules of the BBNJ’s other provisions, including creating new MPAs and sharing genetic resources from biodiversity in the deep ocean. They will meet in one last negotiating session in late March, ahead of the treaty’s first COP (conference of the parties) set to take place in late 2026 or early 2027.

China and Japan – which are major fishing nations that operate in deep waters – ratified the BBNJ in December 2025, just as the treaty was about to enter into force. Other top fishing nations on the high seas like South Korea and Spain had already ratified the BBNJ last year.

Power play: Can a defensive Europe stick with decarbonisation in Davos?

Tom Pickerell, ocean programme director at the World Resources Institute (WRI), said that while the last-minute ratifications from China, Japan and Brazil were not required for the treaty’s entry into force, they were about high-seas players ensuring they have a “seat at the table”.

“As major fishing nations and geopolitical powers, these countries recognise that upcoming BBNJ COP negotiations will shape rules affecting critical commercial sectors – from shipping and fisheries to biotechnology – and influence how governments engage with the treaty going forward,” Pickerell told Climate Home News.

Some major Western countries – including the US, Canada, Germany and the UK – have yet to ratify the treaty and unless they do, they will be left out of drafting its procedural rules. A group of 18 environmental groups urged the UK government to ratify it quickly, saying it would be a “failure of leadership” to miss the BBNJ’s first COP.

Finalising the rules

Countries will meet from March 23 to April 2 for the treaty’s last “preparatory commission” (PrepCom) session in New York, which is set to draft a proposal for the treaty’s procedural rules, among them on funding processes and where the secretariat will be hosted – with current offers coming from China in the city of Xiamen, Chile’s Valparaiso and Brussels in Belgium.

Janine Felson, a diplomat from Belize and co-chair of the “PrepCom”, told journalists in an online briefing “we’re now at a critical stage” because, with the treaty having entered into force, the preparatory commission is “pretty much a definitive moment for the agreement”.

Felson said countries will meet to “tidy up those rules that are necessary for the conference of the parties to convene” and for states to begin implementation. The first COP will adopt the rules of engagement.

She noted there are “some contentious issues” on whether the BBNJ should follow the structure of other international treaties such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), as well as differing opinions on how prescriptive its procedures should be.

“While there is this tension on how far can we be held to precedent, there is also recognition that this BBNJ agreement has quite a bit to contribute in enhancing global ocean governance,” she added.

The post Big fishing nations secure last-minute seat to write rules on deep sea conservation appeared first on Climate Home News.

Big fishing nations secure last-minute seat to write rules on deep sea conservation