Published

2 years ago

December 15, 2023

Alice Rush

The Russian government’s campaign for endorsement of “transitional fuels” succeeded at the Cop28 climate talks in Dubai.

Russia, the world’s second biggest gas producer, told the United Nations back in February that “natural gas as a transitional fuel… can be used for [emission-cutting] purposes” and this should be recognised at Cop28.

While the final Cop28 agreement does not specifically mention gas, it “recognizes that transitional fuels can play a role in facilitating the energy transition while ensuring energy security”.

It also calls on governments to transition away from fossil fuels in their energy systems so as to achieve net zero by 2050.

Diann Black-Layne from Antigua and Barbuda told the closing meeting of Cop28 that the “transitional fuel” language “is a dangerous loophole”. Coal, oil and gas are all fossil fuels and “we need to transition away from them,” she said.

But Barbados’s climate envoy Avinash Persaud later told Climate Home: “If you actually think about transitioning grids, transition fuels would help to transition with the lowest emissions. You can’t flip a switch and so in the mean time half switch. The challenge is to make sure that the slip road doesn’t become a parking lot.”

Persaud said that “more than a few” countries had supported the language “at some level and at varying degrees”. Another negotiator agreed it “wasn’t just Russia”.

Last-minute addition

Ahead of Cop28, governments and other organisations told a UN panel what they wanted to do to put the world on track to meet its climate goals, in a process known as the global stocktake.

A team of technical experts summarised all the submissions in October. The head of UN climate change, Simon Stiell, called for a “course correction”.

The technical summary included a line which called on governments to “recognise role of natural gas as an efficient transitional fuel”.

At Cop28, the UAE Presidency put together a 27-page document which included the language which made it into the final text, dropping the mention of gas but referring to “transitional fuels”.

Like many other parts of this document, it included an alternative option of no text. Three days later, after talking to governments, the UAE Presidency dropped it from their next version of the Dubai deal.

With all the attention on the broader issue of fossil fuel phase-out, this language was little noticed or commented on – either in the press or by negotiators.

It stayed off the radar until the scheduled end date for Cop28, 12 December. It appeared in a draft text, according to a source who saw the text, time-stamped 8pm that night.

But some negotiators didn’t see it until the text was published at 7am the following morning. Four hours later, the closing plenary meeting began and within minutes it had been approved.

‘An honest paragraph’

The strongest supporters of anti-fossil fuel language at Cop28 were developed nations, particularly the European Union, and small islands.

But on gas, developed countries did not want to resist, and small islands were still in a separate meeting room discussing the text when the decision was made.

Speaking to press shortly afterwards, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said the EU delegation had not had much time to discuss the text.

But, she said through a translator, “for me it is really an honest paragraph”. She said Germany and the EU have been accused of hypocrisy at previous Cops for continuing to use gas while asking other countries to move to renewables.

“We wanted to show that this does not happen from one day for another but it will happen slowly, slowly, slowly,” she said. Gas is “a bridge”, she said, and “every bridge has an end”.

Kaveh Guilanpour, from the Center for Climate and Clean Energy Solutions, said he’d rather the language had not been there “but in many ways its consistent with what lot of countries and regions are actually doing”.

The day before Cop28 closed, Brazil auctioned 193 oil and gas blocks. On the day it closed, the Italian export credit agency lent €400m ($436m) to a firm to supply Italy with gas. The day after, the board of a European public bank decided to keep lending to gas pipelines and power plants.

Small islands not there

The negotiating group for 39 small, developing island states (Aosis) was most likely to object to that language.

But, having seen the final text at 7am, when the plenary started they were still frantically discussing whether to support it or not.

As they entered the room with their comments on the text in hand, the room was already standing to applaud Cop28 president Sultan Al-Jaber’s announcement that it had been adopted.

Their lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen from Samoa took the microphone to say she “was a little confused about what happened”.

Delivering her prepared remarks, she said that because of the transitional fuels language – and other issues – that the “course correction has not been secured”.

“We have made incremental advancements over business as usual when what we really needed is an exponential step change,” she said.

To a standing ovation, she said the text includes a “litany of loopholes” for carbon capture and on the removal of fossil fuel subsidies.

The post How Russia won a ‘dangerous loophole’ for fossil gas at Cop28 appeared first on Climate Home News.

How Russia won a ‘dangerous loophole’ for fossil gas at Cop28

Climate Change

The History of Earth Day—and Why It Still Matters

Published

7 hours ago

April 18, 2026

Alice Rush

Fifty-six years after the first one rallied 20 million people across America, “we need to do things that make us feel more powerful.”

Interview by Steve Curwood, Living on Earth

From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with environmental historian Adam Rome.

The History of Earth Day—and Why It Still Matters

Climate Change

Judge Dismisses Trump Administration’s Bid to Block Hawaii Climate Lawsuit

Published

12 hours ago

April 18, 2026

Alice Rush

It was the second defeat for the Trump administration’s unusual litigation to stop states from acting on climate change.

By Marianne Lavelle

In a setback to the Trump administration’s extraordinary legal campaign against state climate action, a federal judge threw out the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to prevent the state of Hawaii from suing oil companies for damages.

Judge Dismisses Trump Administration’s Bid to Block Hawaii Climate Lawsuit

Climate Change

DeBriefed 17 April 2026: Fossil-fuel power slumps | ‘Super’ El Niño warning | Afghanistan’s climate struggle

Published

1 day ago

April 17, 2026

Alice Rush

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

Oil prices rebound

OIL UP AGAIN: Oil prices surged by more than 7% and back above $100 a barrel on Monday after US-Iran peace talks faltered and US president Donald Trump ordered the blockading of Iranian ports, reported BBC News. The jump came after prices fell last week in the wake of the announcement of a conditional two-week ceasefire, it said.

RESCUE PLANS: European countries unveiled plans to protect citizens and businesses from rising energy prices. Ireland announced a support package worth €505m, reported BBC News, while Germany agreed on measures worth €1.6bn, said Bloomberg. Meanwhile, Reuters reported on a draft EU proposal due to be unveiled next week that would see the bloc reduce electricity prices and roll out clean energy more quickly in response to the crisis.

UNSOLICITED ADVICE: Trump renewed his criticism of UK energy policy and called on the government to “drill, baby drill”, reported the Independent. Via social media, the president said: “Europe is desperate for energy, and yet the United Kingdom refuses to open North Sea oil, one of the greatest fields in the world. Tragic!!!” (See Carbon Brief’s recent factcheck of various false claims about the North Sea.)

Around the world

C-WORD: Faced with pressure from the US, countries attending spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank were urged to “not mention the climate”, reported the Guardian. It added that plans to agree a new “climate change action plan” for the World Bank “may be shelved, along with substantive discussion of the climate crisis”.
NEW DIRECTION: Péter Magyar’s landslide victory over Victor Orbán in Hungary’s elections “presents new opportunities for the country to reduce emissions and invest in clean energy”, reported Time. Carbon Brief explored what it means for European climate action.
‘FURNACE’ SUMMER: There was widespread coverage – including in the Boston Globe, ABC News, CNN, Euro Weekly News, Guardian and New Scientist – of warnings from meteorologists of the development of a “super” El Niño phenomenon that could ramp up temperatures and drive extreme weather.
ANTALYA COP: The Turkish government unveiled the dates and venues for the “leaders’ summit” segment of November’s COP31 conference, according to Climate Home News.
PACIFIC PRE-COP: Meanwhile, the Guardian reported that Tuvalu will host a special meeting of world leaders before the climate summit in Antalya.

€10bn a year

The amount of state support that French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu has pledged for electrification through to 2030 in a bid to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. In a speech late on Friday 10 April, Lecornu noted the figure amounted to a “doubling” of existing support.

Latest climate research

Over a four-month period of 2023, more than 70% of editorials discussing net-zero in four right-leaning UK newspapers included “at least one misleading statement” | Climate Policy
Air pollution from global transport currently has a net cooling effect that offsets 80% of the warming impact of the sector’s CO2 emissions | npj Climate and Atmospheric Science
The incorporation of “observational constraints” into climate-model projections suggests that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation could weaken by 50% by 2100 in a medium-emissions scenario | Science Advances

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

Global power generation from fossil fuels fell in the first month of the Hormuz blockade.

Analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found that global electricity generation from fossil fuels fell in the first month of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Across all countries with real-time electricity data outside of China, coal-fired power generation fell 3.5% and gas-fired power generation fell 4.0%, according to CREA. This was offset by a rise in solar power and wind generation, which increased by 14% and 8%, respectively. Hydropower generation also saw a small increase, the analysis showed, but this was “more than offset” by a drop in nuclear power generation.

Spotlight

How climate change affects Afghan lives

This week, Carbon Brief reports on the impact of climate change in Afghanistan, following deadly floods this year.

Earlier this month, heavy rains, flash floods and landslides struck large parts of Afghanistan, damaging thousands of homes, destroying crops, bridges and roads and taking nearly 100 lives.

The flooding – reported to have affected 74,000 people in 31 of 34 provinces – is the latest weather-related catastrophe to afflict the nation, whose communities have suffered the brunt of repeated flash floods, droughts and landslides in recent years.

Hameed Hakimi, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, told Carbon Brief the recent floods would hurt livelihoods and food security, noting reports of destroyed wheat and rice crops in the most affected eastern parts of the country. He said:

“This is common. For at least a decade now, [we have seen] these flash floodings and the damage that happens to rural life, farming, the disruption to crops…Flash flooding physically eats up the land. So, it not only damages where people live, but also people’s livelihoods, based on what they grow.”

The damage to crops will be felt acutely, he explained, given that food security in the landlocked nation is already strained by the blockage of its main transit trade artery through Pakistan and international sanctions that have frozen long-term development aid.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Abdulhadi Achakzai, founding CEO of the Environmental Protection Trainings and Development Organization (EPTDO), an Afghan NGO, described flooding in Afghanistan as a “chronic situation”.

Achakzai, whose organisation runs projects that help urban and rural communities adapt to climate impacts, says climate change hurts the country in four key ways: extreme drought; extreme temperature; “natural hazards”, including landslides and dust storms; and, finally, flash flooding. He said:

“Climate change is a serious matter in Afghanistan. Every nation and every corner within this country is severely affected.”

Ranked 176 of 187 on the University of Notre Dame “global adaptation index”, Afghanistan is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change.

Average temperature across the country has increased from 12.2C in 1960 to 14.2C in 2024, according to the World Bank’s climate change knowledge portal. Drought is widespread, severe and persistent – harming food and water security in a nation of subsistence farmers.

Meanwhile, extreme weather events are the leading driver of internal displacement in the country. More than three-quarters of the 710,000 people who relocated within Afghanistan in 2024 did so driven by “environmental hazards”, such as drought and flood, according to a recent climate vulnerability assessment from the International Organization for Migration.

A UNDP-funded workshop run by EPTDO in Badakhshan, north-eastern Afghanistan Credit: EPTDO.

Finance struggles

Despite feeling the impacts of extreme weather, Afghanistan has been barred from UN climate negotiations and had limited access to climate finance since 2021. (The government attended COP29 in Baku as guests of the Azerbaijan hosts, but did not take part in formal negotiations.)

This is because the international community does not recognise the Taliban government, which resumed power in 2021, due to its record on human rights and its repression of women and girls in particular.

Almost all financing from key climate funds has been suspended, with the exception of a few projects where UN agencies and NGOs act simultaneously as a “requesting” and “implementation” partner.

Aid from UN climate funds fell from $5.9m annually over 2014-20 to $3.9m annually over 2021-24, according to recent analysis by the Berghof Foundation. Multilateral development banks provided a further $337m of funds badged as “climate finance” over 2021-23, it said.

By comparison, Afghanistan’s national climate plan, submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2016, requested $17.4bn in climate finance over 2020-30. An updated national climate plan seen by Carbon Brief – completed in 2021 and later endorsed by the Taliban government, but not accepted by member governments of the UNFCCC – called for $20.6bn through to 2030.

Achakzai, whose organisation attends the COP climate summit each year in an observer capacity, has in the past been the sole delegate from Afghanistan to the conference.

He is calling on the UNFCCC to accept the country’s latest climate plan – and to find an “alternative solution” that would give the people of the country a voice in negotiations. He said:

“Every year we are losing hundreds, thousands of people because of climate change-related matters. Every year we are losing hundreds, thousands of hectares of crops. We are affected by [the decisions of] other countries. Why are we not part of this process?”

Watch, read, listen

BLOSSOM WATCHER: The Guardian reported on the successful search to find a researcher to continue Japan’s 1,200-year cherry blossom record.

COP OUT: Deutsche Welle spoke to experts to understand why India walked away from its bid to host COP33 in 2028.

‘BOMBS AND PORN’: The New Republic looked at who is set to benefit from the rapid build-out of energy-intensive AI datacentres.

Coming up

20-24 April: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working group one report author meeting, Santiago, Chile
22 April: Earth day
22 April: Launch of third edition of the Lancet Countdown’s Europe report
24-29 April: First conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, Santa Marta, Colombia

Pick of the jobs

International Organization for Migration, senior thematic associate (climate action) | Salary: UN G-6 salary grade | Location: Dakar, Senegal
Climate Action Network UK, several board member roles | Salary: Unknown. Location: Unknown
UK Department for Energy, Food and Rural Affairs, G7 science lead | Salary: £56,375. Location: Bristol, London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne or York, UK
Save the Children UK, senior climate change advisor | Salary: £62,000-£65,000. Location: London