Delegates at the 61st meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Sofia, Bulgaria have failed to agree on a timeline for the upcoming seventh assessment report.
The week-long meeting saw more than 230 delegates from 195 member governments revisit an unresolved topic from the previous meeting in January – finalising the timeline for the IPCC’s seventh assessment report (AR7) cycle.
AR7 will be the IPCC’s latest round of reports summarising the most recently published climate science.
First published in 1990, the assessment reports typically take 6-7 years to complete. AR6’s concluding “summary for policymakers” was published in March last year.
Many countries said in Sofia that they favoured an accelerated timeline, in which all three “working group” reports would be completed by June 2028. This deadline would allow the findings to inform the UN’s second global stocktake, which will gauge progress towards the Paris Agreement goals.
Ahead of last week’s meeting, a group of 40 IPCC authors from developing countries published an open letter arguing that the AR7 reports “can and must” be produced by this date in order to remain policy-relevant.
However, countries including Kenya, India, China and South Africa opposed the accelerated timeline, warning that “haste leads to shoddy work” and saying that raising concerns that the decision was being rushed through.
Ultimately, the decision was delayed. The issue will be picked up again after the AR7 scoping meeting in December.
Delegates in Sofia had more success in agreeing outlines for the special report on “climate change and cities” and the methodology report on “short-lived climate forcers”, both of which will be published in 2027.
Tricky talks in Turkey
Following the completion of its sixth assessment report (AR6) last year, the IPCC’s attention has now turned to its seventh assessment (AR7).
In a four-day meeting in Istanbul in January, which focused on the IPCC’s “programme of work” for AR7, governments decided against adopting a new structure and instead committed to the traditional set of three “working group” reports and a final synthesis report.
Before the Istanbul meeting, governments had already agreed that the AR7 cycle would include a special report on climate change and cities, as well as a methodology report on short-lived climate forcers.
The meeting then saw the addition of a second methodology report on carbon dioxide removal technologies, carbon capture utilisation and storage, plus a revision to the IPCC’s 1994 technical guidelines on impacts and adaptation.
However, while there was agreement between government delegates on the selection of reports, a timeline for their delivery was not agreed.
The majority of countries meeting in Istanbul favoured delivering the working group reports on an “accelerated” timeline, which would see them published by the end of 2028. This would allow the reports to “inform” the UN’s second global stocktake (GST), which will gauge progress towards the Paris Agreement goals.
However, a few countries, including Saudi Arabia, India and China, “strenuously objected” to this timetable, reported the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB), which has unique access to the closed talks.
It reported, for example, that Saudi Arabia “opposed the shorter timeline, saying this would lead to compromised working groups reports both in content and inclusivity”. While China “emphasised that AR7 aims to be inclusive and developing country scientists should be given time to make their contributions”.
As opposition to the accelerated timeline “held fast” – despite the meeting overrunning into a fifth day – no decision was made.
The final “decisions adopted” document instead requested that the IPCC bureau – experts with more managerial roles, including vice and co-chairs – prepare a document “outlining the month and year of delivery on the basis of an AR7 strategic plan, taking into account the different views expressed” in the meeting.
The instruction included an “oblique reference” to taking “into account” the GST, noted ENB. The report, it was decided, would be presented at the Sofia meeting “for consideration and decision”.
Decision delayed
A key goal of the meeting in Sofia last week was to nail down a timeline for AR7. Ahead of the meeting, a group of 40 IPCC authors from developing countries sent a letter arguing that the AR7 reports “can and must” be produced by 2028, in time to inform the second GST report.
On 31 July, former IPCC vice chair Dr Youba Sokona – a co-author of the letter – published a commentary in Climate Home News summarising its main arguments. He argued that “ensuring the IPCC cycle aligns with GST timelines is crucial for maintaining the integrity of international climate cooperation”, adding that, without input from the IPCC, the stocktake “may lack essential southern perspective”.
He also dismissed concerns that accelerating the timeline would compromise the robustness of the reports, or lead to under-representation of developing countries. The article also outlined ways these concerns could be addressed while implementing an accelerated timeline.
Dr Frederieke Otto – a senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment and IPCC AR6 author – tells Carbon Brief that, in her view, the Working Group II (WG2) and III (WG3) reports are “really needed before the GST”.
Typically, the three working group reports focus on “the physical science basis”, “impacts, adaptation and vulnerability” and “mitigation of climate change”.
On the morning of 31 July, Dr Jim Skea – the IPCC chair for AR7 – presented a proposed schedule for AR7. The proposal was requested by the IPCC panel at the 60th session in Istanbul in January. It was developed by the co-chairs of the IPCC working groups and the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI), then reviewed by the IPCC bureau.
Under this schedule, the AR7 cycle would last six-and-a-half years – similar to the fifth and sixth assessment cycles.
In the discussion that followed, a long list of countries supported the schedule as proposed, with many underscoring the importance of feeding into the second GST, according to the ENB’s summary of the entire meeting.
Belize, supported by the US, the Netherlands and the UK, said IPCC reports need to be ready for the Bonn Climate Change Conference in June 2028, according to the ENB. Belize added that “an inclusive cycle is only meaningful if it can feed into the GST”.
Saint Kitts and Nevis argued that the absence of “crucial” IPCC input into the GST would mean the IPCC would lose policy relevance. The country also argued that the schedule for AR7 is “neither compressed nor rushed”, because, while it is shorter than the schedule for AR6, it also contains fewer special reports.
The AR6 cycle included three special reports – on 1.5C of global warming in 2018, then, successively in 2019, on climate change and land, and the ocean and cryosphere.
(Discussions about linking IPCC reports with the GST are long-standing. During 2016-18, the IPCC panel “agreed to draft terms of reference for a task group on the organisation of future work of the IPCC in light of the GST under the Paris Agreement”, according to the ENB.)
Finland argued that “if we want science-based policymaking, the faster we have the next report, the faster policymakers are able to take science-based policy action”, according to the ENB. And many small-island developing nations also “underscored the critical importance of timely reports from small island developing states [SIDS] and less-developed countries”.
Several countries, including Brazil, Peru and the UK, “stressed that inclusivity concerns could be addressed in ways other than an extended timeline”.
However, several countries, including India, Algeria, Kenya, the Russian Federation and South Africa, argued that a longer timeline is needed to ensure “robust, rigorous scientific outputs, and to ensure greater inclusivity”.
India called the proposed schedule “unprecedented,” saying that the fourth and fifth assessment cycles had similar timeframes, but did not include special reports. It also argued that “producing the best science needs time, haste leads to shoddy work and retracted publications”, according to the ENB.
Kenya, supported by India and South Africa, warned that there are “major” gaps in literature on adaptation in Africa. It said that the “short time” between AR7 scoping meetings and the first author meetings may not be sufficient to identify and fill “literature gaps” for the continent.
And South Africa and Saudi Arabia opposed expediting the schedule to feed into the stocktake, suggesting this would not make the IPCC more “policy-relevant,” but more “policy-prescriptive.”
Dr David Lapola is a research scientist at the University of Campinas in Brazil and AR6 contributing author. He tells Carbon Brief that, “while inclusiveness is super important to bring more legitimacy to the process, it also slows down decisions when you have to have the agreement of all members”. He says that it is a “great challenge to imprint more agility to the IPCC decision processes without compromising inclusiveness”.
On the evening of 1 August, Skea “noted how difficult it had been to find a solution that satisfied all delegations” and he proposed to postpone a decision on the timeline until after the AR7 scoping meeting in December 2024.
In a press release published after the meeting closed, the IPCC stated that “at its next plenary in early 2025, the panel will agree on their respective scope, outlines and work plans, including schedules and budgets”.
“While some expressed disappointment about the lack of consensus, others were quick to point out that determining the timeline after the scoping meeting for the working groups is consistent with past practice and the IPCC’s principles and procedures”, says the ENB.
Dr Hannah Hughes is a senior lecturer in international politics and climate change at Aberystwyth University, who has written extensively about the IPCC. She tells Carbon Brief that it is “not surprising” that the decision has been further postponed. She explains that the IPCC is “balancing complex and competing dynamics”.
She adds:
“Delaying the finalisation of the timeline until after the scoping of reports offers the advantage of having a clear sense of the advances in science and the level of urgency in communicating these.”
However, Otto tells Carbon Brief that it will be “difficult to scope without a timeline”. She says that “with the decision postponed, it seems that conflicts could not be resolved, but everything is just postponed”.
What additional reports were discussed in Sofia?
Earlier this year, IPCC held scoping meetings (in Latvia and Australia, respectively) for a special report on climate change and cities and a methodology report on short-lived climate forcers – both of which are due for publication in 2027. The proposals suggested at these meetings were discussed in Sofia.
Special report on climate change and cities
In 2016, the IPCC decided to produce a special report on climate change and cities. A “cities and climate change science conference” was held in Canada in 2018 to “inspire the next frontier of research focused on the science of cities and climate change”. A scoping meeting was held in Latvia over 16-19 April 2024 to develop a proposed outline for the report.
On 27 July in Sofia, Diana Ürge-Vorsatz – IPCC vice-chair and chair of the scientific steering committee (SSC) for the cities report – presented the proposal.
Under the proposal, the report will have five main chapters. The first will provide framing for the report, the second will discuss “trends, challenges and opportunities” in a changing climate and the third will be called “actions and solutions to reduce urban risks and emissions”. The final two chapters will focus on facilitating change and solutions.
Ürge-Vorsatz also suggested a timeline in which authors for the report will be selected by the end of 2024 and the first meetings of lead authors will be held in 2025. The expert review of the first order draft will take place by the end of 2025, and 15-19 March 2027 will see the “approval of the summary for policymakers and acceptance of the special report”.
In Sofia, many countries proposed changes or raised queries, according to ENB. For example, countries including India, South Africa and Malawi questioned how cities are defined. Burundi, Kenya and Mauritius said early warning systems should be given more prominence. And countries including Burundi, Malaysia and Kenya called for a more “balanced consideration of adaptation and mitigation”.
Over the following days, there were multiple more rounds of comments and drafts. For example, India questioned the shift from “loss and damage” to “losses and damages” implemented in one of the drafts, noting IPCC precedents for use of the latter terminology are limited to one document.
Saudi Arabia opposed the use of “net-zero goals” for cities, saying that these are country-level objectives. And Kenya, supported by India and Algeria, “called for improvements in the way adaptation was addressed throughout the outline”, including the removal of a reference to “maladaptation”.
By 31 July, most countries had accepted the proposal. But others – including Saudi Arabia, India and Kenya – were continuing to raise concerns and to call for a chapter-by-chapter discussion of the report outline.
Skea said the situation was “at a crossroads, given the difficulty of opening only a few non-consensual issues without risking an unravelling, and [he] invited the SSC to confer on whether the issues expressed could be somehow incorporated without unacceptable implications”, according to the ENB.
Timor-Leste, supported by the US and the Netherlands, urged countries to reach a compromise in time for the end of the meeting, noting their delegation consists of a single person. But India, Saudi Arabia and Kenya “expressed concern with other delegations’ ‘refusal to engage’ with their concerns”.
A “huddle” was set up to address some of the key concerns and, on 2 August, the delegates approved a draft decision.
Dr Aromar Revi is the founding director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements and author on multiple IPCC reports. He tells Carbon Brief that the approval of the outline for an IPCC special report on cities is “a historic step that brings the urban and infrastructure transition, up front and centre of the climate action solutions space”.
He adds:
“It has taken almost a decade of preparation by a wide range of urban and climate actors to make this possible, since it was first suggested in 2016 as a special report in the AR6 cycle…
“This report will be especially important to cities and urban areas in Asia, Africa and Latin America and the SIDS, where 90% of the incremental urban population will live over the next 30-odd years, often in informal settlements with poor services and high vulnerability.”
Revi adds that the proposed timescale, which would see the work completed by March 2027, sets a “high bar” for the authorship team.
Prof Lisa Schipper – a professor of development geography at the University of Bonn and IPCC AR6 author – tells Carbon Brief that the cities report “will be a critical meeting point of adaptation, mitigation and development agendas”.
She adds:
“I was happy to see the level of detail in the cities [report] outline. Normally, the IPCC report outlines are a shopping list of topics without any normative framing. This makes it challenging to write the report with a consistent narrative. I think IPCC member countries will find more relatable and usable content in the cities report.”
The report “will be arriving at a crucial time”, adds Dr Zachary Labe – a scientist at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, noting that many cities are “leading examples of how to design and implement evidence-based climate action through adaptation and mitigation practices”.
“The calls for nominations of authors are scheduled for release as early as next week,” according to the IPCC press release.
Short-lived climate forcers methodology report
In 2019, the IPCC decided that the TFI should produce a methodology report on short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) – gases and particulates, such as methane and carbon, that cause global warming, but typically only stay in the atmosphere for less than two decades.
At the 60th session in January 2024, the panel decided to produce the report by 2027. A scoping meeting for the report was held on 26-28 February 2024 in Brisbane, Australia.
On the first day of the 61st session, Dr Takeshi Enoki, the co-chair of the TFI, presented an overview of the group’s recommendations. He suggested a title for the report of “2027 supplement to the 2006 IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories: short-lived climate forcers (2027 supplement on SLCFs)”, and said the report would be a supplement to the 2006 guidelines.
They added that the report would be made up of an overview chapter and five “volumes” following the format of the 2006 IPCC guidelines. These five volumes will focus on “general guidance”, the energy sector, industrial processes and product use, the agriculture, forestry and other land use sector, and waste, he said.
However, many countries raised concerns. First, there was disagreement about whether or not to include hydrogen and PM2.5 – particulate matter with a diameter of under 2.5 micrometres – in the report.
China, India, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, among others, argued that they should not be included, as the literature supporting their inclusion is not robust enough, the ENB says. However, it adds that many other countries – including the US, Canada and Chile – supported its inclusion.
Second, the title of the report was called into question. India said that linking the report to the 2006 guidelines “creates a whole new set of obligations and commitments through other channels”. It, along with Saudi Arabia, called for the report to be changed back to a standalone document. However, Denmark, Germany, Spain and Morocco expressed support for the current format.
A series of huddles were held to iron out these disagreements. On 2 August, the delegates agreed to change the name of the report to “2027 IPCC methodology report on inventories for short-lived climate forcers”.
However, in the absence of consensus on the case for including PM2.5 and hydrogen, the panel decided to come back to this discussion in the future.
What else was agreed in Sofia?
Updates on a range of other IPCC activities were also given, including the IPCC scholarship programme, terms of reference for the IPCC publication committee, and progress reports aimed at increasing accountability and transparency in the IPCC process.
Expert meetings
Ahead of the meeting in Sofia, the IPCC had already decided to limit the production of new special reports in line with the reported preferences of IPCC chair Jim Skea, who previously promised that he would strongly resist pressure to produce more reports.
The limited number of special reports was, in part, to allow more time for expert meetings or workshops. On 2 August, working group one co-chair Prof Xiaoye Zhang introduced the options for expert meetings and workshops for AR7, “highlighting the need for cross-working group collaboration”, according to the ENB.
He noted that expert meetings on reconciling land-use emissions and on CO2 removal technologies had been held in July 2024. Another meeting on gender, diversity and inclusivity has already been “tentatively” scheduled for later this year, and a workshop on the IPCC inventory software will be held in late August 2024.
Ahead of the meeting in Sofia, IPCC co-chairs and their working group bureaus had also proposed a range of extra meetings for 2025-26.
IPCC co-chair for working group one – Dr Robert Vautard – outlined the proposal for a meeting on high impacts and tipping points. The proposal suggests that 60 experts meet in April 2025 to “prepare consensus for the working group-specific assessments addressing
this important topic subject to intense research and debates in the community”.
Vautard explained that the meeting would be led by WG1, but include contributions from all working groups. He added that the meeting will receive financial support from the World Climate Research Programme.
Many countries supported this meeting, with Ukraine calling tipping points “the elephant in the room”. However, India opposed the meeting, saying it spans too many topics. And Saudi Arabia said the meeting is not needed as tipping points will be discussed in the WG1 report.
A meeting on “adaptation guidelines, metrics and indicators” was also proposed. Several countries, including Kenya and Saudi Arabia, said adaptation should be a priority in this cycle, according to the ENB
Finally, a meeting on “novel approaches to assessing knowledge on climate change and society’s responses” was suggested. Australia, Chile, France and others expressed support of this meeting, with many highlighting the importance of Indigenous knowledge and collaboration with the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
Health, overshoot and science communication were also identified among other key areas of interest for AR7.
Improving inclusivity
“The one issue on which all delegates seemed to agree was the need to enhance the inclusivity of the IPCC’s work in both its process and products,” the ENB says.
WG3 co-chair Prof Joy Pereira stressed that the bureau is committed to AR7 products being inclusive in terms of author representation and literature assessment, and pointed to a document on improving inclusivity in AR7.
The document suggests setting the agenda for the expert meeting on gender, diversity and inclusivity – which is planned in late 2024 or early 2025 – and providing training on inclusive practices for lead authors and contributing lead authors during the first lead author meeting.
Efforts will also be taken to sponsor measures such as internet access and access to literature for IPCC scientists, according to the document.
(Carbon Brief’s analysis on the change in diversity of IPCC authors over the past three decades highlights access to literature as a key barrier for IPCC authors from less wealthy institutions.)
The post IPCC meeting in Sofia fails to agree timeline for seventh assessment report appeared first on Carbon Brief.
IPCC meeting in Sofia fails to agree timeline for seventh assessment report
A United Nations investigation into deep-sea mining firms will continue after the world’s top maritime court rejected their bid to suspend the inquiry triggered by a US-backed push to extract critical minerals from the ocean floor.
In two orders issued on Saturday, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) declined to halt an inquiry launched by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) into whether permit holders, including Tonga Offshore Mining Ltd (TOML) and Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI), have breached their obligations under UN exploration contracts.
The two companies are subsidiaries of Canadian firm The Metals Company (TMC), which earlier this year sought permits from the United States to commercially mine the deep seabed in an area already covered by its UN exploration licences, bypassing the ISA’s regulatory process.
The inquiry was opened after TMC’s move raised questions over whether its subsidiaries had complied with their contractual obligations to the ISA, which regulates mining in international waters under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. TOML and NORI sued the ISA last June for allegedly targeting them “in breach of due process” and without “good faith”.
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UN seabed regulator defends authority as mining firms seek to halt inquiry
Campaigners accused deep-sea mining frontrunner The Metals Company of obstructing an inquiry into its subsidiaries. The firm says it is being targeted without procedural basis -
Flood deaths in West African cities raise fraught issue of slum evictions
Deadly floods expose poor urban planning, over-population and spread of informal settlements on disaster-prone land – a problem authorities are struggling to manage -
Most “zombie credits” locked out of new UN carbon market after China and India snub
Fears of a flood of environmentally-dubious carbon credits have faded, with most old projects not able to transition to new UN market
While allowing the inquiry to proceed, the court ordered the ISA to ensure the companies receive due process. Judges said the regulator must explain the factual and legal basis of its inquiry, clarify the procedures being followed and provide TOML and NORI with a meaningful opportunity to respond.
The companies seeks to mine an area called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, which holds vast reserves of critical minerals like nickel, manganese and rare earths but is also home to a little-studied deep ocean ecosystem with thousands of unnamed species.
In response to the court’s ruling, the ISA welcomed the decision, saying the inquiry “remains in effect” and would continue “with due regard to all applicable legal requirements”.
Last week, during an annual meeting of its member governments, ISA secretary-general Leticia Carvalho said the resources in the ocean floor are “the common heritage of humankind” and upheld the agency’s role as “more important than ever”.
TMC also welcomed the court decision in a statement and claimed that judges ruled to “protect the rights of TMC subsidiaries”.
“Contractors like NORI and TOML, who have together spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the promise of a fair regulatory framework, should be informed of the factual and legal basis of any non-compliance inquiries, understand the procedure being applied, and receive a meaningful opportunity to respond,” said Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals Company.
Environmental groups said the ruling allows scrutiny of the companies’ actions to continue.
Louisa Casson, deep-sea mining campaigner with Greenpeace, said the “entire litigation has been an egregious waste of time and money”, which was part of the industry’s “textbook distraction tactic” meant to delay the consequences of the inquiry.
“If the inquiry confirms that TMC’s subsidiaries are breaching their contracts, governments must send the strongest possible signal that complicity in unlawful deep sea mining will not be tolerated,” she said.
While investigation is still ongoing, NORI’s contract is set to expire this week and is up for review. Governments asked the ISA to report back and make “make appropriate recommendations” by the next ISA assembly, its main decision-making body set to take place next week from July 27 to 31.
The court ordered both the ISA and TMC to submit a report on how they complied with the ruling by August 31, and called on both to “cooperate and refrain from any action that might lead to
aggravating the dispute”.
The post Top maritime court rejects bid to halt UN deep-sea mining inquiry appeared first on Climate Home News.
Top maritime court rejects bid to halt UN deep-sea mining inquiry
The European Commission has put forward new plans to cut emissions under the EU carbon market more slowly, from 2031 onwards.
On 17 July, the commission presented its long-awaited proposal for reform of the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS).
It recommended a number of changes, including giving companies free allowances to cover their emissions for longer than previously planned, conditional on climate investment plans.
The proposal offers a more business-friendly and “savvy” approach, argued EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra in a press conference.
But critics believe it could “weaken” the system and put EU climate targets at risk.
Alongside the proposal, the commission also announced a new target for electricity to make up 46% of energy consumption by 2040, doubling the current rate of 23%.
This could cut EU spending on imported fossil fuels by €260bn annually, according to the commission.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief outlines the details of the new ETS proposal – which is subject to negotiation with member states – and explores what it could mean for climate action.
- What is the EU Emissions Trading System?
- What did companies and countries want from the ETS review?
- What is in the new proposal from the European Commission?
- What could the changes mean for greenhouse gas emissions?
- How was the proposal received?
- What is ‘ETS2’?
- What happens next?
What is the EU Emissions Trading System?
The EU ETS is a carbon market, which puts a price on the greenhouse gas emissions of companies in power generation, industry, aviation and other sectors.
It covers everything from electricity generation to steel production, as well as flights within the EU and a handful of other European countries.
Emissions in these sectors have halved since the ETS launched in 2005, according to the European Commission.
A European parliament briefing describes the system as a “cornerstone” of EU climate policy, covering around 40% of the bloc’s overall emissions.
It applies to emissions in all 27 EU countries alongside Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and electricity generation in Northern Ireland. (The UK established its own ETS after Brexit.)
The ETS operates as a “cap and trade” system, which puts a limit on the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) that can be emitted within the sectors it covers.
The “cap” on emissions gradually decreases each year until, eventually, they are expected to reach zero.
The currency of trade within the system is “allowances”. One allowance is equal to one tonne of CO2-equivalent emissions.
At present, around 57% of these allowances are bought by companies in auctions. The EU generated around €43bn in revenue from these auctions in 2025.
The remaining 43% of allowances are given to companies for free, to cover some or all of their emissions.
This is intended to prevent “carbon leakage” – the idea that companies operating in countries with strict climate policies will relocate to countries with looser rules.
The amount of free allowances varies by sector, depending on factors including the level of competition with overseas firms that do not face a carbon price.
What did companies and countries want from the ETS review?
Countries and companies have been divided on how they wanted the ETS to evolve.
Some pushed for more ambition to help meet European climate goals. Others called for it to be rolled back, amid rising costs for businesses.
In March, 10 countries including Italy, Hungary and Poland wrote a letter to the commission calling the ETS an “existential risk” for key industrial sectors, reported Euronews.
Italy had earlier even called for the system to be suspended outright.
France and other countries favoured introducing a slower descent towards bringing the emissions cap to zero by 2039.
Some steel and chemical companies also criticised the cost burden of the ETS.
Other organisations focused on calls for stability and predictability in the system.
In recent weeks, Spain, the Netherlands and five other countries called on the commission to “resist gutting” the ETS in its review, said E&E News. They said the ETS should be strengthened to “ensure long-term investment predictability and regulatory stability”.
Weakening the system could “undermine investment signals and leave Europe more exposed to fossil-fuel shocks”, said a March 2026 briefing from climate thinktank E3G.
Another E3G briefing said the “risk” is that politicians weaken the system as a short-term economic fix, “undermining one of the EU’s main tools for delivering on its industrial transformation ambitions”.
Dozens of investment organisations called on EU countries to facilitate a “robust and predictable” ETS. They said that “policy stability is the cheapest investment stimulus available to the EU”.
In its list of priorities for ETS reform, the NGO Carbon Market Watch said that “now is not the time to backslide” on its aims and terms.
What is in the new proposal from the European Commission?
The commission’s proposal outlines a number of changes to the ETS, to bring it in line with the EU’s climate goal to cut emissions to 90% below 1990 levels by 2040.
The review will “bring relief to industry”, the commission says, while also continuing the ETS’ “essential” role in climate action.
However, others are more sceptical about the impacts it could have on climate action.
Below, Carbon Brief details the main aspects of the proposal.
Free allowances extended
The European Commission proposes to extend free allowances beyond a previously agreed date.
Free allocations were due to reduce from this year and be fully removed by 2034.
However, the commission has proposed to extend this to 2038, on the condition that companies receiving free allowances set out how they will invest in decarbonising their EU operations.
It proposes that from 2031 onwards, 80% of free allowances in the system would be given to companies that have submitted plans for investment in EU decarbonisation.
The remaining 20% of free allowances would only be allocated to those that can prove they followed through with planned investments and achieved the emissions reductions they had previously outlined.
This move is a “step in the right direction”, says Dr Kirsten Scholl, the director for EU affairs at thinktank Epico, but it must not “impose excessive administrative burdens”.
The EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) was designed to replace the existing system of free allowances in the ETS.
It is a tax applied to certain imported goods, based on the amount of CO2 emissions released during their production. It began to be phased in at the start of 2026.
As a result, free allocation is being gradually phased out from 2026-38.
However, the commission has proposed that 15% of free allocations due to be removed because of CBAM should be reintroduced from 2028, to “reduce the speed at which CBAM is phased-in and mitigate the remaining carbon leakage risk”.
The commission says that preventing carbon leakage “remains a crucial element” of the ETS.
Pushing back the phase-out of free allowances and the full implementation of CBAM “risks squandering the EU’s credibility with investors and trading partners alike”, says Francesco Lombardi Stocchetti, a policy advisor on sustainable economy at the Bellona Foundation, an environmental NGO.
“Europe cannot lead the clean industrial transition just by moving the goalposts,” he adds in a statement.
Slowing path to reach zero emissions by a decade
The commission has proposed to cut emissions in the ETS more slowly from 2031 onwards.
This could mean new allowances are able to enter the scheme into the 2040s, instead of ending in 2039 as previously planned.
But the planned changes are still “aligned” with the EU’s 2040 climate target and net-zero requirement by 2050, says the commission.
The overall ETS cap on emissions was reduced by 1.7% each year up to 2020 and then by 2.2% annually since 2021.
It is then agreed to drop by 4.3% over 2024-27 and 4.4% from 2028 onwards.
Maintaining similar rates after 2030 would not be “realistic”, says the commission’s proposal.
Instead, it suggests that the cap should fall by 3.7% per year over 2031-35 and by just 1.7% annually over 2036-40.
This will make the path to zero emissions within the ETS “more gradual and aligned with domestic climate ambition level”, claims the commission.
But WWF says that the proposal would allow an extra 2bn tonnes of CO2e to be emitted. (See: What could the changes mean for greenhouse gas emissions?)
Aviation
The commission has proposed plans to incorporate more airline emissions into the ETS.
The plan outlines that, from 2029, all flights departing from the European Economic Area (EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) and landing in other countries within 5,000km of a point in central Europe should be added to the ETS.
This distance means that the changes would not apply to flights landing in China or the US. (Both the US and China have opposed the expansion of ETS coverage for flights.)
The commission also proposes including emissions from private jets and other “business flights” in the ETS.
It notes that aviation currently accounts for 14% of EU transport emissions. This is expected to skyrocket to around 90% by 2050, given it is more difficult to decarbonise than other modes of transport.
Some aviation emissions have been included in the ETS since 2012. This included emissions from air travel within the EEA and flights departing from Switzerland and the UK.
The airline industry did not respond favourably to reports of plans to expand beyond this scope.
On 8 June, the biggest airlines in Europe urged commission president Ursula von der Leyen not to extend the ETS to cover international flights, saying that it would raise ticket prices.
A study commissioned by Carbon Market Watch found that the ETS encompassing all flights departing from the EEA, not just those within it, would result in a “very small impact on ticket prices and passenger demand”.
Auction money
Under the proposed changes, EU countries would need to funnel half of the money they receive from ETS auctions towards decarbonising sectors covered by the system.
This would amount to more than €100bn in investment for decarbonisation before 2030, says the commission.
Around three-quarters of the money generated by the ETS has been allocated to EU countries since 2013, the proposal notes.
Since 2023, countries have been required to spend all of this money on climate and energy-related activities – at least on paper.
But the proposal says the “transparency and effectiveness” of this mechanism has been “insufficient”.
Currently, only around 5% of the ETS money “directly supports industrial decarbonisation in sectors such as steel, chemicals and fertilisers”, it adds.
Going forward, the proposal says that 50% should be put towards actions aiding clean-energy plans, industrial decarbonisation and improved waste management, as some examples.
A briefing by thinktank Institut Montaigne noted that the money generated within the system for EU countries to help finance the energy transition should be “at the heart” of ETS discussions, amid budget constraints in many EU countries at the moment.
CO2 removals
The commission has proposed integrating permanent carbon removals into the ETS to “give additional flexibility” for certain sectors that struggle to decarbonise. This action was previously agreed within the terms of the EU’s 2040 climate target.
“Permanent” removals refer to direct air capture with carbon storage and similar measures, rather than temporary removals such as planting trees.
The removals would be integrated into the system by increasing the allowance cap by an amount equivalent to the number of removals purchased.
This will set up “additional emission space” for hard-to-abate sectors and also support the “scale-up of the carbon removals industry”, outlines the proposal.
It also proposes that certain companies, such as shipping and aircraft operators, could compensate for their emissions with their own certified carbon removals.
These emissions would not be permitted to “go beyond zero”, adds the proposal.
Sven Harmeling, the head of climate at Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, says that adding carbon removals “would weaken the ETS impact, undermine the carbon price and create new loopholes for polluters instead of accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels”.
The proposal “fails to ensure that only high-integrity removal technologies would be considered”, he adds in a statement.
However, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Prof Ottmar Edenhofer, describes the move as “an important step”, saying:
“For the first time, it creates a credible and long-term investment framework for carbon-removal technologies in Europe.”
International credits
The commission proposes that firms covered by the ETS could make use of “high-integrity” credits bought on the global carbon market from 2036 onwards.
This relates to the EU’s 2040 climate target, in which up to 5% of the 90% reduction in GHGs can come from global carbon credits.
Amélie Laurent, a policy advisor in carbon accounting at the Bellona Foundation, says in a statement that these credits “should be in a strategic last resort reserve, not an excuse to avoid doing our homework”.
Aurora D’Aprile, the EU policy director at the International Emissions Trading Association, notes in a statement:
“For international credits, early preparation on governance and procurement and greater certainty around a pilot from 2031, will be essential to establish a credible demand signal.”
Other sectors extended
The commission has outlined plans to expand the inclusion of the maritime sector in the ETS.
Maritime accounts for around 4% of the EU’s total emissions. The new proposals for the sector include adding certain small ships of 400-5,000 tonnes to the system.
The proposal also outlines plans to incorporate more waste incineration into the ETS on a gradual basis from 2031.
Since 2024, some waste-burning companies have been required to monitor and report their emissions under the ETS. But they did not have to purchase credits.
Now, the commission proposes introducing the sector on a gradual basis.
Under the proposals, companies would require allowances for 25% of their emissions in 2031, 50% in 2032, 75% in 2033 and 100% from 2034 onwards.
Market stability reserve review
The market stability reserve was added to the ETS in 2019 to help stabilise the flow of allowances.
It acts like an overflow container holding extra allowances. If the number of allowances in the market falls below a certain threshold, more are brought out from the reserve to balance things out.
Equally, if the market is flooded with too many allowances, depressing prices, then some are removed and put into the reserve.
The commission has proposed a reform of the reserve, including changing the upper and lower limits for when allowances are released or removed.
It wants to reduce the rate at which allowances are withdrawn from auctions when they exceed a certain threshold from 24% to 12% from 2028.
This means that the permits would be able to stay in the market for longer.
As shown in the chart below, the price of carbon in the EU increased tenfold over 2017-2021, exceeding €80 (£68) per tonne of CO2.
Nevertheless, the commission proposal says the reserve was “effective in mitigating price shocks” on the ETS caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the surge in energy prices after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2021.
UK-EU ties
The EU and UK have agreed in principle to link their carbon markets, but the commission’s proposal says negotiations are still “under progress”.
It adds that the commission “foresees” future financial contributions from the UK to the EU’s ETS, if a final agreement is reached.
Many companies have called for the systems to be linked. In June, dozens of carbon-capture organisations and industry groups signed a letter calling for greater certainty on EU-UK links to ensure cross-border carbon-capture and storage projects are covered, for example.
Switzerland’s ETS has been linked to the EU since 2020.
What could the changes mean for greenhouse gas emissions?
The European Commission says the ETS plays a “crucial role” in meeting its climate targets “cost-effectively”.
The system contributed to a 41% reduction in EU industrial emissions over 2021-23, a decrease of around 800m tonnes of CO2 per year, according to recent analysis from the London School of Economics.
As highlighted in the chart below, the EU’s overall GHG emissions have dropped by 40% since 1990.
Climate commissioner Hoekstra told a press briefing that the proposal is “fully aligned” with the EU’s target to cut GHGs to 90% below 1990 levels by 2040. He called the plan “completely climate-law proof”.
He also noted that no other EU policy has contributed to reducing emissions on the scale of the ETS, describing it as a “phenomenal asset”.
But campaigners and experts are concerned that the proposed changes could slow decarbonisation and put the EU’s climate goals at risk.
Carbon Market Watch says the plans would “severely weaken” the ETS and “risk undermining the achievement of the EU’s 2040 and 2050 climate targets”.
The proposals “would represent a major setback for EU climate ambition, weakening incentives to cut emissions, extending reliance on fossil fuels and putting the 2040 climate target at risk”, says a statement from WWF.
WWF estimates that 2bn extra tonnes of CO2 would be emitted if the proposals were approved in the EU.
Michael Bloss, a German member of the European parliament (MEP) for the European Greens, says the plans would release around 1.4bn tonnes of extra CO2. He describes the proposal as “climate vandalism”.
Chiara Martinelli, the director of CAN Europe, says:
“Every extra tonne of CO2 allowed under the ETS makes Europe’s climate challenge harder and more expensive. Weakening the ETS now is a gift to polluters that have prioritised shareholder payouts instead of investing in cleaner production.”
How was the proposal received?
The European Commission’s new ETS proposal has been met with a mixed response.
Scholl from Epico says the proposal has “important flexibilities that can help address competitiveness challenges and provide greater certainty for industrial investment”. But she adds in a statement:
“Concerns remain about whether the proposed changes preserve the long-term investment signal of the ETS and sufficiently recognise companies that have already committed to ambitious decarbonisation pathways.”
Edenhofer from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research adds that the proposals provide “clarity on the contribution that emissions trading is intended to make towards the 2040 climate target”.
Elisa Giannelli, a programme lead at E3G, says in a statement:
“Today’s proposal might please some, but it risks increasing both the long-term cost and the time needed to deliver the EU’s growth strategy.”
Pepe Escrig, a senior researcher, also at E3G, adds that the commission held onto some of the ETS’ “essential foundation”, but “yielded to political pressure to weaken it as a quick fix to broader challenges”.
This has left the plan “pull[ing] in two directions: strengthening support for industrial investment while weakening parts of the framework meant to drive it”, says Escrig.
Andrea Spignoli, the policy manager of sustainable markets at Bellona Europa, says the proposal risks “weakening green investments” and putting a larger decarbonisation burden onto other sectors that are not covered by the ETS.
Greg Van Elsen, a senior industrial policy coordinator at CAN Europe, says in a statement:
“Free pollution permits were never meant to become a permanent subsidy. Extending them until 2038 rewards delay instead of industrial decarbonisation.”
Lobby groups also had mixed reactions to different aspects of the proposal.
The International Air Transport Association says it is “deeply frustrated” with the proposal.
The organisation’s director general, Willie Walsh, claims the consequences will be “harmful”, “sowing acrimony over extraterritoriality, slowing global decarbonisation and sapping European competitiveness”.
WindEurope says the proposal risks “slowing decarbonisation and failing to channel billions in ETS revenues to industrial electrification”.
BusinessEurope’s director general, Markus J Beyrer, says some aspects “raise concerns”. For example, he says the “new conditionalities for free allocations risk increasing bureaucratic complexity and the uncertain role for international carbon credits”.
What is ‘ETS2’?
ETS2 is a separate emissions trading system to the main ETS. It is due to take effect in 2028 and is not affected by the current ETS review or resultant proposals.
It will operate under a similar system as the existing ETS, covering emissions from transport, buildings and smaller industries in other sectors.
One key difference, however, is that ETS2 will not provide any allowances for free. They will all be auctioned and bought by companies.
On 15 July, 10 countries, including Italy and Poland, had urged the commission to also reconsider the ETS2 during this review. They were unsuccessful.
Similar to the original ETS, the commission believes the carbon price under the new ETS2 system will “provide a market incentive for investments in building renovations and low-emissions mobility”.
However, in June, member-state governments and the European parliament agreed on a number of “safeguards” to support price stability.
For example, if allowance costs under the ETS2 exceed €45 per tonne of CO2, they agreed that 40m allowances will be put into the system from a reserve to normalise the supply – double the amount previously agreed.
A European Environment Agency briefing said the ETS2 will “affect fuel prices and mobility costs” and that money will be syphoned into a social climate fund to “support vulnerable households and investments”.
What happens next?
EU countries will now negotiate over the terms of the commission’s proposal before it goes to a vote in the European parliament.
Ireland, which recently took over the six-monthly rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, has stated that it wants the ETS proposals to be signed off by the end of this year.
A previous document from the council, which represents member-state governments, outlined a target to agree a deal by the first quarter of 2027.
Clean Energy Wire says that this would be an “unusually ambitious timetable for one of the bloc’s most technically complex pieces of climate legislation”.
Politico notes that “months of arguing” is likely to occur.
The post Q&A: What the EU’s carbon market review means for climate action appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What the EU’s carbon market review means for climate action
Scientists have found that the deadly floods across parts of West Africa in recent weeks were made more likely and intense by human-driven climate change, while the expansion of cities into flood-prone areas amplified the devastation, raising the thorny problem of how to better protect poorer urban communities.
A report from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group highlighted how the floods hit some of West Africa’s most densely populated coastal regions, where rapid urbanisation has pushed formal and informal settlements dangerously into floodplains, while converting land into farms has reduced drainage.
Since May, West African countries including Ghana, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria have experienced weeks of torrential rain and deadly flash floods. Homes have been submerged, thousands of people displaced and over 70 people killed.
WWA scientists said climate models showed that human-induced climate change increased the intensity of the rainfall, with what was once a rare amount of rain falling in just three days – a downpour that can now be expected every two to four years.
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“The event is not rare already today and therefore the flood risk is certainly not going away but will increase in particular with additional pressures from growing populations and urbanisation,” said Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London.
Impact made worse by informal settlements
On top of climate change, scientists said urbanisation, inadequate drainage, poor waste management and the expansion of informal settlements into floodplains have left millions more people exposed to flooding.
Informal settlements are neighbourhoods which develop without authorisation from government authorities. More commonly known as slums or shanty towns, they often lack land tenure and services like running water and electricity and tend to be home to poorer communities.
Across West Africa and much of the developing world, as people have moved from rural areas to cities in search of work, these settlements have expanded into wetlands, flood-retention areas and riverbanks. This has further heightened flood risks across West African cities.
Kiswendsida Guigma, technical advisor at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said West Africa’s coastal cities are being “squeezed between repeated flooding and rapid urban growth”, pushing infrastructure beyond its limits and making it harder for communities to recover.
Roussel Teguia, a post-doctoral research fellow at Canada’s Université Laval, said the recent floods have exposed longstanding failures in urban planning across West Africa’s fast-growing coastal cities where much of the region’s economy is concentrated.
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Teguia said the floods are deadlier due to factors including rapid urbanisation in low-lying areas, lack of affordable housing alternatives and the long-standing marginalisation of poor communities. He also condemned the destruction of wetlands, mangroves and floodplains for roads and buildings when instead these natural bodies “should be treated as critical public safety infrastructure”.
“These floods should not be understood only as natural disasters,” he said. Residents of informal settlements must stop being treated as the problem, since they are often the first victims of “an urban model that exposes them to risk and then blames them for being exposed”, he added.
Short-sighted approach to relocation
Cote d’Ivoire’s capital Abidjan recorded 59 of the deaths, with about 20 dying in the densely-settled slope neighbourhood of Mossikro. Local media reported that authorities had previously relocated residents from this area due to fears about vulnerability to deadly landslides and flooding, but some people had returned to previously evacuated sites and died when the hillside collapsed due to the rain.
Local authorities have since started demolishing houses in the area, to the anger of many locals who say they were not consulted or warned about the demolitions, which are costing them their properties and livelihoods. “If you destroy this place, where am I supposed to go?” one unnamed resident told Al Jazeera.
The government says many of the structures were built illegally in flood and landslide-risk zones and it plans to move 3,000 people first and 2,000 more later. Municipal official Yue Hilaire told the TV channel the municipality has been trying to persuade them to leave for a long time. “Frankly we are tired,” he said. “The mayor instructed us to evict them because we don’t want to witness another tragedy every year.”
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Guigma said that to avoid people returning, the government should ensure that “where people are relocated they also have relatively good economic opportunities for them to stay”.
Demolishing poor people’s homes without offering real alternatives is not prevention, Teguia argued, calling on governments to provide safe, serviced and affordable land close to jobs and transport, stop the occupation of wetlands and regulate powerful land owners and users.
Relocation programmes often fail because they are designed as land-clearing or security operations rather than social processes, he explained.
Governments must move from reactive crisis management measures to a long-term comprehensive approach to risk, Teguia said. Relocation policies need to be just, fairly compensated, include affected communities and encompass economic and social networks – otherwise they “simply move the vulnerability elsewhere”, he warned.
Finance gap limits flood response
The WWA scientists said deadly floods will continue unless governments do more to reduce people’s exposure and vulnerability, calling for investments in safe and affordable housing, improved drainage and sanitation, stronger enforcement of building regulations, more effective early warning systems and greater involvement of at-risk communities in planning.
Joyce Kimutai, research associate in extreme weather and climate change at Imperial College London, said the study is a clear example of “the need for international cooperation on climate justice”, adding that developed countries have a responsibility to help nations like Togo, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana to adapt to a worsening problem that, as low emitters of greenhouse gas, they did not cause.
But significant financial support for countries grappling with increasing climate disasters may still be some way off. Earlier this month, the UN’s fledgling Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) postponed approving its first round of projects after requests for support far exceeded the money available.
One of the roughly 180 submissions the fund received was a Nigerian recovery and resilience project to address flood losses and damage in Lagos which is prone to yearly flooding.
Otto of Imperial College London said such situations where the role of climate change is certain “should be the kinds of events where this fund should pay and help, but of course, that would require first money to be in the fund”.
Ghana and Togo have also identified increasingly frequent flooding as a major climate risk in their national adaptation plans, prioritising investments in drainage, resilient infrastructure, flood management, early warning systems and climate-resilient urban planning.
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But while these adaptation plans acknowledge that delivering the proposed measures requires more international aid, wealthy nations are likely to have missed their 2025 goal of doubling adaptation finance for developing countries. Funding reached just over $30 billion in 2024, far below the target of $40 billion by 2025.
The WWA findings underscore the urgent need to speed up support for vulnerable communities who have done little to cause climate change, said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, adding that “all climate finance commitments must be delivered in full”.
The post Flood deaths in West African cities raise fraught issue of slum evictions appeared first on Climate Home News.
Flood deaths in West African cities raise fraught issue of slum evictions
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