Last week’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Hangzhou, China, marked the third time that governments have failed to agree on a timeline for the organisation’s seventh assessment cycle (AR7).
A large group of countries pushed for the reports to be published by the end of 2028, to allow them to feed into the UN’s second global stocktake – a mechanism that will gauge progress towards the Paris Agreement goals.
However, others – including the Chinese hosts – pushed for a longer deadline, warning of “compression in the timeline” that could affect participation, particularly from developing countries.
The meeting ran over by more than 30 hours, meaning that many small delegations – especially small-island developing states and least-developed countries – were unable to stay to the end.
As a result, the final decisions were made without their participation.
According to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB), reporting from inside the meeting, timeline discussions will be taken up again in the next IPCC meeting in late 2025, “with hope that the panel can finally break its deadlock”.
“The absence of a timeline puts potential contributing scientists in a difficult position,” one IPCC scientist tells Carbon Brief.
He notes that the “call for authors” will open soon, but warns how challenging it will be to accept a nomination “if there is no clarity on when a massive time commitment for the IPCC is expected”.
The meeting also saw outlines agreed for AR7’s three main reports – despite the “entrenched positions” of some delegations “complicating efforts to find consensus”, the ENB reports.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, IPCC chair Prof Jim Skea says the process was “probably the most difficult session I can recall”.
In a further complication, reports emerged ahead of the meeting that US officials had been denied permission to attend and a contract for the technical support unit of one of the working groups had been terminated.
It was the first US absence in IPCC history.
Skea says that the IPCC will “have to start thinking more seriously” about how to manage a potential US withdrawal, but the priority last week had been to “get through” the meeting and its lengthy agenda.
He adds that the IPCC has still “had no formal communication from the US at all”.
Below, Carbon Brief unpacks the deliberations at the meeting and the decisions that were made.
- Splits in Sofia
- US no-show
- AR7 schedule
- Assessment report outlines
- CDR report
- Expert meetings
- China host
Splits in Sofia
IPCC “sessions” are meetings that bring together officials and experts from member countries and observer organisations.
Collectively, they decide on the work of the IPCC, including the scope, outline and timeline for reports – all overseen by the IPCC’s “bureau” of elected scientists.
With its sixth assessment report (AR6) completed in 2023, the focus of the IPCC has turned to the seventh assessment (AR7) and the reports it will deliver over the next five years.
At its meetings in Istanbul and Sofia in 2024, the IPCC agreed that AR7 should include – among other outputs – the traditional set of three “working group” reports, one “special” report on cities and two “methodology” reports on “short-lived climate forcers” and “carbon dioxide removal technologies, carbon capture utilisation and storage”.
The three working group reports – each typically running to thousands of pages – focus on climate science (WG1), impacts and adaptation (WG2) and mitigation (WG3).
However, the timeline for these reports was not agreed at either meeting. Countries were split on whether the working group reports should be published in time to inform the UN’s second global stocktake, which will be completed in 2028. The stocktake will gauge international progress towards the Paris Agreement goals. (See: AR7 schedule)
The final decision on the AR7 timeline was, thus, postponed to 2025. As a result, the Hangzhou meeting would need to revisit the timeline – as well as approve the scope and outline of the working group reports themselves.
The Hangzhou meeting, originally slated for five days over 24-28 February, brought together almost 450 participants from governments, international organisations and civil society – including 300 delegates from 124 member countries and 48 observer organisations.
IPCC chair Prof Jim Skea tells Carbon Brief that the agenda contained “six days’ worth [of items] rather than five” and they “started with three sessions a day right from the beginning to try and get ahead”.
US no-show
Just a few days before the meeting opened, Axios reported that government officials from the US had been “denied” permission to attend. Furthermore, it said, the contract for the technical support unit for WG3 had been “terminated” by its provider NASA, meaning its staff “will also not be traveling to China or supporting the IPCC process moving forward”.
(Each working group has a technical support unit, or TSU, which provides scientific and operational support for report authors and the group’s leadership.)
In further reporting, Nature quoted a NASA spokesperson, who said that the move was prompted by guidance “to eliminate non-essential consulting contracts”. The Washington Post reported that the group of 10 TSU staff “still have their jobs…but have been blocked from doing any IPCC-related work since 14 February”. Bloomberg added that WG3 co-chair and NASA chief scientist Dr Kate Cavlin would also not attend the meeting.
Axios speculated that the move “could be the beginning of a bigger withdrawal from US involvement in international climate science work”.
Carbon Brief analysis suggests that the US has provided around 30% of the voluntary contributions to IPCC budgets since it was established in 1988. Totalling more than 53m Swiss francs (£46m), this is more than four times that of the next-largest direct contributor, the European Union.
The first Trump administration cut its contributions to the IPCC in 2017, with other countries stepping up their funding in response. The US subsequently resumed its contributions.
Chart showing the 10 largest direct contributors to the IPCC since its inception in 1988, with the US (red bars), European Union (dark blue) and UNFCCC (mid blue) highlighted. Grey bars show all other contributors combined. Source: IPCC (2025) and (2010). Contributions have been adjusted, as per IPCC footnotes, so they appear in the year they are received, rather than pledged.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Skea says the absence of the US at the meeting itself “didn’t disturb the basic way that the meeting operated”. He adds:
“Every meeting we have 60 countries that don’t turn up out of our membership – the US was now one of that group. I mean, frankly, nobody within the meeting mentioned the US absence. We just got on and did it.”
On the longer-term implications, Skea says that “we didn’t spare an awful lot of time for thinking about”. However, the IPCC will “have to start thinking more seriously” once they have more information, he says, noting that “we have had no formal communication from the US at all”.
Regarding the WG3 TSU, there is no “comparable circumstance” in the IPCC’s history, Skea says. Typically, the co-chair from a developed country is “supposed to bring support for a TSU with them”, he says. (Each working group has two co-chairs – one from a developed country and one from a developing country.) However, the WG3 TSU is already partly supported in Malaysia, where co-chair Prof Joy Jacqueline Pereira is based.
(As an IPCC progress report for the Hangzhou meeting points out, the WG3 TSU has already “taken shape”, although it is not yet fully staffed. The “node” in Malaysia was established with the donor support of the US, Norway and New Zealand. There is also a job advert for a “senior science officer” in the WG3 TSU currently on the IPCC’s website.)
Skea suggests that the situation can be resolved with “creative solutions”, adding that the IPCC “can take any decision, regardless of past principles or past decisions. So I think, with ingenuity, there will be ways around it.”
Prof Frank Jotzo, a professor of environmental economics at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy and WG3 lead author on AR5 and AR6, describes the situation as “highly unusual”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“I would expect that other developed countries will come to the rescue to fund the WG3 TSU, to rescue the process and to demonstrate that Trump will not upend this multilateral process. Staff positions could then presumably be either in those countries or in Malaysia, home of the other WG3 co-chair.”
On the US involvement in the IPCC more broadly, CNN reported the comments of a “scientist involved in the report”, who said they were “not sure” what the block on US officials will mean for the planned work going forward, or “if US scientists will participate in the writing of the IPCC reports”.
Science reported that, although US contributions to the IPCC are “typically run out of the White House by the Global Change Research Programme, NASA is the lead on managing GCRP’s contracts”. It added that “NASA leadership, not GCRP, decided to end the TSU contract”.
Following the China meeting, member states are set to solicit nominations of scientists to author the working group reports in AR7, Science explained:
“GCRP usually runs the process [for the US], but the administration’s moves have some wondering whether it will proceed as normal. If not, IPCC does allow scientists to self-nominate without their country’s involvement. But US authors might be shut out anyway if travel funding ends.”
For example, the US nominated 250 scientists to be authors on the special report on cities, which will be part of the AR7 cycle. (Authors can also be nominated by other countries, observer organisations and the IPCC bureau.)
Dr Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, posted on social media last week that, “despite some reports, there is no blanket prohibition on US scientists interacting with or serving with the IPCC”.
AR7 schedule
A key agenda item for the Hangzhou meeting was to finalise the timeline for publishing AR7 reports. This is a contentious point on which delegates were unable to reach an agreement at either the Istanbul or Sofia meetings.
Heading into the meeting, countries were split on whether the working group reports should be published in time to inform the UN’s second global stocktake, which will be completed in 2028.
In the IPCC plenary on Saturday afternoon, Skea emphasised the “enormous effort and time” taken over this decision – including during the scoping meeting at Kuala Lumpur – and stressed the importance of an integrated approach to planning across the three working groups.
The working head of the WG2 TSU put forward the proposed schedule for AR7 cycle, which would see all working group reports published in time to feed into the second global stocktake in 2028.
A long list of countries underscored the importance of a “timely, policy-relevant” AR7 cycle, urging the adoption of the schedule put forward by the IPCC bureau in order to avoid failing to reach an agreement, according to the ENB. These included the UK, EU, Australia, Japan, Luxembourg, Turkey and Jamaica. (Jamaica was speaking on behalf of the other small island developing states who were unable to stay past the scheduled close of the plenary session.)
However, India, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and South Africa called for the schedule to be revised, citing “time compression in the timeline and challenges for scientists from developing countries to produce literature”, the ENB reports. And Kenya “expressed concern about inclusivity and called for more flexibility on timing”.
At this point, many countries raised concern about the number of countries who had already left the session, with Australia noting that “many of them are precisely those who lack capacity and depend on IPCC’s assessments”.
Skea stressed the need to agree a timeline in this meeting so that work on the main reports – including author selection – could progress. Discussions continued in a huddle throughout Saturday afternoon and into the evening.
Late on Saturday evening, Italy and Ireland, supported by a handful of other countries, suggested an additional option to stretch the timeline to allow an extra month of “wiggle room”.
However, India and South Africa “said the addition of one or two months did not make it a viable counter-suggestion”, according to the ENB. The three countries instead suggested completing the WG1 report by July 2028, WG2 in December 2028, WG3 in April 2029 and the synthesis report in the second half of 2029.
To move forward, Skea proposed agreeing on the outlines of the working groups and inviting experts to start their work, including putting out the call for author nominations and convening the first lead authors meeting in 2025. However, he said that the timeline decision would be deferred until the next IPCC meeting in late 2025.
Skea tells Carbon Brief that the meeting was helpful for “clarifying where different groups of countries were coming from”. He says that the opposition to a stocktake-aligned timeline was “not about the outcome and the synchronisation with the political process”, but, rather, “the needs of countries for doing their reviews of the [report] drafts – how frequently, how rapidly, they were coming”.
Even with the two options – a proposed timeline and a counter suggestion – resolving remaining differences won’t be “easy”, Skea says, adding that “I think we will be off to do a little bit of consultation offline before we get to IPCC-63 to see how we resolve it”.
“The absence of a timeline puts potential contributing scientists in a difficult position,” Rogelj tells Carbon Brief. He adds:
“My understanding is that a call for authors will be launched soon. However, how can one accept a nomination or subsequent selection if there is no clarity on when a massive time commitment for the IPCC is expected. It shows how political games regarding the timing of scientific evidence for the negotiations dominate considerations for authors and considerations of delivering the best possible report.”
WG2 co-chair Prof Bart van den Hurk tells Carbon Brief that the failure to agree on a timeline means that experts invited to take part in reports “will not receive a schedule for all the meetings they’re supposed to attend”, leading to possible agenda clashes later.
It also means that they “don’t know for how long they’re signed up for this time-intensive yet voluntary role, which is a big ask”, he adds.
Assessment report outlines
Heading into the Hangzhou meeting, countries had agreed to produce a full set of assessment reports with a synthesis report, along with a special report on climate change and cities and two methodology reports.
The scope, outlines and titles for WG1, WG2 and WG3 reports were prepared at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur in December 2024, to be reviewed and approved in Hangzhou.
At the scoping meeting, some experts suggested that reports should include “plain-language summaries”, because local authorities, companies and the general public often do not know the “jargon”, the ENB reports.
When brought to the Hangzhou meeting, countries including Australia, France and Vanuatu supported this suggestion, stressing the importance of accessibility. Some countries also called for shorter reports focused on new science.
However, the Russian Federation, India and Saudi Arabia were opposed, the ENB says. The Russian Federation argued that the report is intended for an expert audience and India said that these summaries “would compete with the [summary for policymakers] and IPCC outreach mechanisms”, adding that any plain-language summaries would need to be approved line-by-line.
Later, the WG1 co-chairs suggested changing “plain-language summaries” to “plain-language overviews,” in which authors provide a chapter overview, including graphics, in a similar manner to the FAQs sections.
About 20 countries, including the UK, Canada, Ukraine, Chile, China and Libya, supported the suggestion. However, Algeria, Russian Federation, India and Saudi Arabia continued to oppose it, the ENB says.
A “huddle” was convened to find consensus, which, ultimately, agreed to delete any reference to “plain language overviews” and instead encouraged authors to ensure that the executive summary of each report is clear.
The countries then discussed the proposed outline for each working group report in turn. Skea tells Carbon Brief that this process “had some of the quality of an approval session” for a finished report, adding:
“But people did compromise in the end and we did get the outlines of the reports agreed, which, for me, was the real objective of the meeting.”
For WG1, many countries welcomed the proposed outline and some suggested changes. For example, Switzerland called for addressing the unique challenges faced by high altitude and latitude environments. And India asked for the inclusion of a chapter on monsoons and deletion of a chapter on climate information and services, the ENB says.
When discussing the chapter on abrupt changes, tipping points and high-impact events in the Earth system, Saudi Arabia and India objected to singling out “tipping points” in the title and suggested deleting them, the ENB says. However, Switzerland, supported by a handful of other countries, highlighted their relevance for policy and science and called for them to be kept in.
On Friday, after a huddle, the title was changed to: “Abrupt changes, low-likelihood high-impact events and critical thresholds, including tipping points, in the Earth system.”
Delegates agreed on the following chapters for the WG1 report:
- Chapter 1: Framing, methods and knowledge sources;
- Chapter 2: Large-scale changes in the climate system and their causes;
- Chapter 3: Changes in regional climate and extremes and their causes;
- Chapter 4: Advances in process understanding of Earth system changes;
- Chapter 5: Scenarios and projected future global temperatures;
- Chapter 6: Global projections of Earth system responses across time scales;
- Chapter 7: Projections of regional climate and extremes;
- Chapter 8: Abrupt changes, low-likelihood high impact events and critical thresholds, including tipping points, in the Earth system;
- Chapter 9: Earth system responses under pathways towards temperature stabilisation, including overshoot pathways; and
- Chapter 10: Climate information and services.
On the WG2 report outline, Kenya said AR6 definition of maladaptation is “limiting” and called for the term to be redefined for the new report, the ENB says. Meanwhile, Brazil and Switzerland called for the report to assess the risks of solar radiation management, given its cross-cutting nature and potential impacts on sectors, such as agriculture.
Senegal underscored the need for a focus on losses and damages, expressing hope that this will “help showcase those in greatest need”. And Saudi Arabia called for a full assessment of the potential of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies.
Delegates agreed on the following chapters for the WG2 report:
Global assessment chapters:
- Chapter 2: Vulnerabilities, impacts and risks;
- Chapter 3: Current adaptation progress, effectiveness and adequacy;
- Chapter 4: Adaptation options and conditions for accelerating action;
- Chapter 5: Responses to losses and damages; and
- Chapter 6: Finance.
- Chapters 7-13 are regional assessment chapters on Africa, Asia, Australasia, Central and South America, Europe, North America and small islands.
Thematic assessment chapters:
- Chapter 14: Terrestrial, freshwater and cryospheric biodiversity, ecosystems and their services;
- Chapter 15: Ocean, coastal, and cryospheric biodiversity, ecosystems and their services;
- Chapter 16: Water;
- Chapter 17: Agriculture, food, forestry, fibre and fisheries;
- Chapter 18: Adaptation of human settlements, infrastructure and industry systems;
- Chapter 19: Health and well-being; and
- Chapter 20: Poverty, livelihoods, mobility and fragility
Among the comments on the WG3 outline, the Russian Federation cautioned against discussing national policies – describing this as “beyond [WG3’s mandate], the ENB says. Belgium suggested including social tipping points in the report, the ENB says, while Saudi Arabia argued the IPCC reports “should be neutral with respect to policy and called for a full assessment of the potential of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies”.
Delegates agreed on the following chapters for the WG3 report:
- Chapter 1: Introduction and framing;
- Chapter 2: Past and current anthropogenic emissions and their drivers;
- Chapter 3: Projected futures in the context of sustainable development and climate change;
- Chapter 4: Sustainable development and mitigation;
- Chapter 5: Enablers and barriers;
- Chapter 6: Policies and governance and international cooperation;
- Chapter 7: Finance;
- Chapter 8: Services and demand;
- Chapter 9: Energy systems;
- Chapter 10: Industry;
- Chapter 11: Transport and mobility services and systems;
- Chapter 12: Buildings and human settlements;
- Chapter 13: Agriculture, forestry and other land uses (AFOLU);
- Chapter 14: Integration and interactions across sectors and systems; and
- Chapter 15: Potentials, limits and risks of carbon dioxide removal.
CDR report
Among the other items on the Hangzhou agenda was the finalisation of the scope and outline of a methodology report on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies, slated for publication in 2027.
At a scoping meeting held in Copenhagen in October, the IPCC’s task force on national greenhouse gas inventories – which is coordinating the methodology report – agreed on a title, scope and outline for the forthcoming report.
Delegates in Hangzhou failed to reach agreement on the plan for the report, after disagreements emerged around chapter seven of the proposed outline – which looks at carbon removals from oceans, lakes and rivers.
A number of delegations – including India, France, Belgium, Chile and Turkey – objected to the inclusion of a standalone chapter in the methodology report on carbon removal from waterbodies, the ENB says. The countries argued there is insufficient understanding of the environmental impacts and effectiveness of certain marine CDR technologies, including ocean alkalinity enhancement.
Saudi Arabia was among the countries that argued in favour of a chapter on carbon removal from waterbodies. The Gulf nation said that its removal would set a “worrying precedent” and be a “bad sign” for emerging technologies, according to the ENB.
With no consensus reached, delegates agreed on the title and chapters one to six of the report, but postponed further deliberations on chapter seven until the next plenary meeting.
IPCC chair Skea tells Carbon Brief that delegates “were extremely close to getting agreement” on the report, but had been hampered by a lack of “ingenuity and time”.
He adds that a solution which helped broker agreement on the outline for the special report on short-lived climate forcers at the last IPCC plenary meeting could offer a path forward for the methodology report. (After a debate arose around the inclusion of hydrogen emissions in that report, country delegations compromised on a footnote stating the matter would be addressed in a future cycle.) Skea explains:
“The [IPCC’s] task force on national greenhouse gas inventories always has this issue as to whether there’s enough scientific evidence to justify bringing a technology or a technique in. If there are doubts about the quality of the basic evidence for bringing it in, there are devices for kicking the can down the road just a little bit.”
Some insiders speculated that the standoff over the methodology report in Hangzhou could have consequences for the overall AR7 timeline. They told Carbon Brief the delay to the report’s start could result in shifted review periods and necessitate an extra approval plenary in 2028.
Expert meetings
A number of expert meetings and workshops were approved in Hangzhou.
This included two workshops designed to explore “new and extended” methods of assessment at the IPCC. One will focus on the incorporation of diverse knowledge systems, including Indigenous and local knowledge, while the other will look at the use of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence.
An expert meeting on methodologies, metrics and indicators for assessing climate change impacts was also approved.
Proposals to hold an expert meeting on high-impact events and Earth system tipping points, however, proved contentious and were deferred to a later session. Rifts emerged around the concept of “tipping points” and the format of the event, the ENB says.
The lengthy nature of discussions about expert meetings and workshops prompted a number of countries – and IPCC chair Skea – to articulate concerns around the general state of decision-making at the meeting, according to the ENB.
In a “progress report” session where the IPCC bureau updated members on its activities, Saudi Arabia voiced concern about briefings given by the IPCC to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is drawing up an advisory opinion on states’ climate-related obligations. Skea said that briefings had been limited to “purely scientific” information, the ENB says.
In a session which took place as talks overran into Saturday morning, a number of countries called for greater collaboration between the IPCC and its biodiversity-focused counterpart, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). However, others pointed to the difference between IPBES and IPCC review processes.
China host
The Hangzhou meeting marks the first time an IPCC bureau meeting has been held in China. It is also the first major climate conference hosted by the nation since the Tianjin talks organised by the UNFCCC in 2010 after negotiations faltered at the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen.
The 34-member IPCC bureau features one scientist from China – meteorologist Dr Zhang Xiaoye, who is co-chair of WG1.
Coverage of the meeting in national and local Chinese media focused largely on statements and comments from government officials, including national climate envoy Liu Zhenmin and spokespeople for the foreign ministry and the China Meteorological Association.
Officials stressed China’s “active” contribution to global climate action, but stopped short of characterising the nation as a climate leader.
For example, in comments captured by the Economic Observer, foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian characterised China as a “fellow traveller” in the “green transformation” of the global south.
China Meteorological Administration director Chen Zhenlin said the nation stood willing to “cooperate extensively with all parties to jointly respond to extreme weather and climate risk challenges” and “jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind in the field of climate change”, according to Science and Technology Daily.
A number of Chinese publications – including the Paper, Xinhua and China Daily – reported on closing comments made by IPCC chair Jim Skea, which emphasised China’s critical role in international climate governance.
Yao Zhe, policy analyst at Greenpeace East Asia, says that hosting the conference allowed China to demonstrate “its support for climate science and its genuine interest in continuing international engagement on climate”. However, she tells Carbon Brief that she saw a “gap in expectations”:
“China sees itself mainly as a hospitable host, but others at the conference expect it to help build consensus and take a more progressive stance. I think this points to an emerging question in the broader landscape: The bar for China’s climate leadership will only rise as its influence on climate policy and cleantech markets grows. But when will China be ready to meet these expectations?”
Observers told Climate Home News they had witnessed a disconnect between Chinese officials’ public statements of support for cooperation on climate change and their positions in closed-door negotiations, which included a push to keep the next round of IPCC reports out of the next global stocktake.
On the last official day of the conference, Peru announced its offer to host the next session of the IPCC in the final quarter of this year. The exact date is still to be determined as there is “still some debate about where it sits in relation to COP30 – for example, before or after”, says Skea.
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IPCC report timeline still undecided after ‘most difficult’ meeting in China
Climate Change
DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Iran war fallout continues
WORK FROM HOME: The International Energy Agency has advised its member countries to take 10 steps in response to the ongoing energy crisis fuelled by the Iran war, including reducing highway speeds and encouraging people to work from home, said the Guardian. It came after retaliatory attacks between Israel and Iran continued to destroy energy infrastructure in the Middle East, causing energy prices to soar further, said Reuters.
SUPPLY DISRUPTED: The IEA also said it is prepared to make more of its member nations’ 1.4bn-barrel oil reserves available to help ease the impacts of what it called the “biggest supply disruption in the history of the oil market”, reported Bloomberg. The outlet noted that Asian countries have been hit hardest by the shortages, caused by a “near-halt” of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
EU SUMMIT: The energy crisis dominated talks at an EU leaders summit on Thursday, said Politico. Arriving at the summit, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez attacked other European leaders for using the energy crisis as an excuse to “gut climate policies”, according to the EU Observer. The Financial Times said that some European leaders have asked the European Commission to overhaul its flagship emissions trading system (ETS) by summer in response to the energy crisis.
COAL BOOST: In response to the conflict, utility companies in Asia are “boosting coal-fired power generation to cut costs and safeguard energy supply”, said Reuters. UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell told Reuters: “If there was ever a moment to accelerate that energy transition, breaking dependencies which have shackled economies, this is the time.”
Around the world
- WINDFARM WINDFALL: The Trump administration in the US is considering a nearly $1bn settlement with TotalEnergies to cancel the French energy company’s two planned windfarms off the US east coast and have it instead invest in fossil-gas infrastructure in Texas, according to documents seen by the New York Times.
- BUSINESS CLASH: Following “clashes” with the agribusiness sector, Brazil launched its new climate plan, which calls for a 49-58% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2022 levels by 2025 and includes “specific guidelines for different sectors”, reported Folha de Sao Paolo.
- SALES SLUMP: Sales of liquified petroleum gas from India’s state-run oil companies have fallen by 17% this month due to cuts in deliveries to commercial and industrial consumers “amid the widespread logistical bottlenecks triggered by the Iran war”, said the Economic Times.
- CUBAN ENERGY CRISIS: The US imposed an “effective oil blockade” on Cuba, leaving the country facing its “worst energy crisis in decades”, reported the Washington Post. Meanwhile, Chinese exports of solar panels to the island have “skyrocketed” since 2023, it added.
- RECORD HIGHS: An “unprecedented” heatwave in the western and south-western US is “shattering dozens of temperature records” and could lead to drought in California in the coming months, reported the Los Angeles Times.
- VULNERABILITY CONCERNS: Landslides that killed more than 100 people in southern Ethiopia have “renewed concerns about Ethiopia’s vulnerability to climate-related disasters”, said the Addis Standard.
1%
The percentage of England’s land surface that could be devoted to renewables by 2050, according to the long-awaited “land-use framework” released by the UK government this week and covered by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Approaching international climate action by shifting the burden of mitigation onto higher-income countries could avoid 13.5 million premature deaths from air pollution in middle- and lower-income countries by 2050 | The Lancet Global Health
- Beavers can turn the ecosystems surrounding streams into “persistent” sinks of carbon that can sequester an order of magnitude more than non-beaver-modified ecosystems can store | Communications Earth & Environment
- Mobile-phone data from seven diverse countries during the summer heatwaves of 2022-23 showed a “widespread tendency to withdraw into homes” and an increase in out-of-home activities that can offer cooling, such as indoor retail | Environmental Research: Climate
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Carbon Brief this week published a significant update to its map of how climate change is affecting extreme weather events around the world. The map now includes 232 new extreme weather events from studies published in 2024 and 2025. Of these events, 196 were made more severe or more likely to occur by human-driven climate change, 12 were made less severe or less likely to occur and 10 had no discernible human influence. (The remaining 14 studies were inconclusive.)
Spotlight
New Zealand breaks new ground on climate litigation
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to experts about a first-of-its-kind climate lawsuit in New Zealand.
Earlier this week, representatives from two environmentally focused legal advocacy groups challenged the New Zealand government’s climate-action plan in court.
The plaintiffs argued that the measures laid out in the plan are insufficient to achieve the country’s legal obligation to hold global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The case could be “influential” in shaping lawsuits and rulings around the world, one legal expert not involved in the case told Carbon Brief.
Reductions vs removals
The new case contends that there are several issues regarding the New Zealand government’s response to climate change.
One of the key arguments the plaintiffs make is that New Zealand’s second emissions reduction plan, which covers the period from 2026-30, is overreliant on the use of tree-planting to achieve its targets.
When the plan was released in December 2024, it was “immediately clear that it was a pretty lacklustre plan”, Eliza Prestidge Oldfield, senior legal researcher at the Environmental Law Initiative, one of the groups behind the legal case, told Carbon Brief.
The plan called for large-scale planting of pine tree plantations, which are not native to New Zealand and have a high risk of burning. Because of this, there are concerns about how permanent any carbon removal provided by these plantations actually can be, experts told Carbon Brief.
Catherine Higham, senior policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment who was not involved in the case, said:
“The lawyers are arguing that there are real challenges with equating the emissions that you may be able to remove from the atmosphere through afforestation with actual emissions reductions, which are much more certain.”
‘Global dialogue’
While other climate lawsuits elsewhere in the world have also focused on the inadequacy of a government’s plan to meet its stated emissions-reduction targets, this is the first such case that addresses the role of removals head-on.
Lucy Maxwell, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, told Carbon Brief that the lawsuit “builds on a decade of climate litigation” in national, regional and international courts.
Maxwell, who was not involved in the New Zealand case, added that there is a “real global dialogue” between, not just plaintiffs, but national courts as well. She said:
“[National courts] look to common issues that have been decided in other countries. They’re not binding on that court if it’s at the national level, but they are influential.”
Given that many other countries have legal frameworks requiring their governments to create plans outlining the pathway to their long-term climate targets, Prestidge Oldfield told Carbon Brief that other jurisdictions “should be interested in these questions around the level of certainty”.
Higham noted that, even if the case is successful, addressing the plan’s shortfalls will face its own set of challenges. She told Carbon Brief:
“A lot of these decisions are political and they can be politically contentious…Those [measures] have to be put into action through legislation and that is then subject to the usual political process. So that’s where the challenge comes in.”
While she could not speculate on the outcome of the case, Prestidge Oldfield said it was “very heartening” to see that both the judge and the opposing counsel “appreciated how much of a concern climate change is globally”.
She added:
“It’s not a given that the judge would even be interested in climate change.”
Watch, read, listen
COMMON APPROACH: The Heated podcast analysed fossil-fuel advertisements and highlighted the most common deception tactics they employed.
THREAT ASSESSMENT: Mongabay mapped the potential threat that oil extraction poses to Venezuela’s ecosystems, including the Amazon rainforest and its coral reefs.
SALT LAKES? GREAT!: High Country News interviewed journalist Dr Caroline Tracey about her new book on saline lakes – such as Utah’s Great Salt Lake – the threats that face them and what they can teach us.
Coming up
- 23 March-2 April: Third meeting of the preparatory commission for the High Seas Treaty, New York
- 24-27 March: 64th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bangkok
- 26-29 March: 14th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, Yaoundé, Cameroon
Pick of the jobs
- International Centre of Research for the Environment and Development (CIRAD), IPCC chapter scientist | Salary: €3,200-3,750 per month. Location: Nogent-sur-Marne, France
- Avaaz, chief of staff | Salary: Dependent on location. Location: Remote, with preferred time zones
- Green Party, social media officer | Salary: £31,592-£32,192. Location: Remote or Westminster, UK
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Around 300 scientists, civil servants, journalists and climate experts took part in the 11th annual Carbon Brief quiz on Wednesday 18 March 2026.
For the second time, this year’s quiz was hosted by Octopus Energy at its headquarters in central London.
In total, 39 teams participated – 25 teams in person and 14 teams joining via Zoom.
Competing teams reflected a wide range of climate change and energy professionals. The list included journalists, civil servants, climate campaigners, policy advisers, energy experts and scientists.
Organisations represented included: Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in India; New Scientist; the Times; Business Green; the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources (BSEER), UCL; Verisk Maplecroft; BBC; World Weather Attribution; Grantham Institute at Imperial; DESNZ; WWF; European Climate Foundation (ECF); the ENDS Report; C40 Cities; Ricardo; Met Office; Meliore; E3G; Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI); Energy Transitions Commission; Carbon Tracker; Ember; Royal Meteorological Society; Civil Service Climate and Environment Network (CSCEN); Changing Markets Foundation; Cerulogy; Oxford Sustainable Law Programme; Université de Lausanne; University of Exeter; Centre for Environment and Sustainability, University of Surrey; UK Parliament; Skeptical Science; ECIU (Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit); Octopus Energy; DeSmog; Department for Transport and Royal School of Mines.
Teams were tested with five rounds of questions – general knowledge, policy, science and two picture rounds. (See the slideshow of the questions and answers below).
After two hours of playing, this year’s winners were announced.
Comprised of players from the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in India, last time’s second place team, “Emissions Impossible” won the coveted Carbon Brief trophy with a total score of 76 out of 100 available points.
In joint second place, with 59 points, were the “Potato-sized nodules”, a mixed team of journalists from New Scientist, the Times and Business Green.
Sharing second place, after leading at the half-way point, were “You cannot BSEERious” from the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources at UCL.
In fourth place, with 57 points, were “Risky Quizness”, from Verisk Maplecroft.
A certificate was awarded to the BBC for the best team name, as voted for by Carbon Brief staff: “High hopes [low confidence]”.
See the full leaderboard:
All the questions and answers from this year’s quiz can be found in this PDF document.
This year’s trickiest round was picture round two, which asked teams to match the quote to the author, with an average score of 5.9 out of 20 available points.
No team correctly guessed that “Chris Funk: Drought, Flood, Fire” was the source of the quote: “How greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere is pretty straightforward. It is really important that we understand this. But almost nobody does, because it is not something that we are taught in school.”
Science was the second hardest round, earning an average score of 6.1 points out of 20.
No team correctly guessed “religious leaders” as the least trustworthy source of climate information, according to a 2025 study using public polling from seven global south countries.
The highest-scoring round was general knowledge, with an average of 13.8 out of 20 questions answered correctly.
Carbon Brief would like to thank all the teams who took part and we look forward to hosting the quiz again in the spring of 2027.
If you would like to participate in next year’s quiz, please contact us in advance at quiz AT carbonbrief DOT org.
Photos by Kerry Cleaver
The post The Carbon Brief Quiz 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Just 1% of England’s land will be needed for renewables to help meet the UK’s climate goals by 2050, according to a first-of-its-kind framework.
There is enough land in England to meet climate and nature goals, while also producing more food and building new homes, according to the UK government’s new “land-use framework”.
Speaking at the framework’s launch on Wednesday, environment secretary Emma Reynolds said she hoped it would put an end to the idea that England faces “false choices” over “solar panels versus farmland”, or “growth versus environment”.
The policy was first planned by the Conservative government in 2022, but has been delayed many times.
It has been broadly welcomed by environmental groups, with Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England, calling it a “vital step forward” towards “more joined-up approaches” to land use.
Below, Carbon Brief outlines the main points of the framework relating to climate change, nature restoration, food production, renewable energy and housing.
- What is the land-use framework?
- What does the plan say about how land in England should be used?
- What does the framework mean for different sectors?
What is the land-use framework?
The government’s land-use framework for England aims to set out a “coherent national vision” for using land.
The 56-page report is the first of its kind in England.
It focuses solely on England, but notes that the government will “work closely” with the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to share best practice and “collaborate on cross-border issues”.
It is a “blueprint” to inform better decisions on optimising land use to produce food, host renewable energy, restore nature and build more homes, says environment secretary Emma Reynolds in the foreword of the framework.
The plan hopes to end the “fragmented approach” to tackling these issues, which has led to a “confused picture and missed opportunities for land to deliver multiple benefits”, Reynolds says in the foreword. She adds:
“We can plant trees to reduce flood risk to homes and farmland, locate energy infrastructure alongside nature-rich food production and ensure nature recovery is at the heart of resilient growth and development.”
The report says it will play a “critical role” in helping to deliver national and global commitments, such as carbon budgets and national biodiversity and climate plans.
The framework commits to creating a long-term assessment of climate change impacts on land use at 2C and 4C of global warming.
It also commits to setting up a “land-use unit” in the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs to produce a map of “national spatial priorities” in England for, among other things, food production, nature and housing.
The government says it will update the framework every five years, outlining progress and next steps on implementation.
Currently, about 70% of land in the UK is used for agriculture – primarily livestock.
The chart below highlights how land is currently allocated in the UK (left) and how much overseas land is used to produce food for the UK (right).
The government’s land-use framework for England has been long-awaited and much-delayed.
The recommendation for the report first came in the 2021 National Food Strategy, an independent report led by businessman Henry Dimbleby.
It recommended creating a rural land-use framework to give “detailed assessments” of the best ways to use land in England.
The former Conservative government committed to produce such a report in a June 2022 food strategy.
This strategy said that a land-use framework for England would be released in 2023 “to ensure we meet our net-zero and biodiversity targets”, among other aims.
The publication was, however, delayed many times.
The Labour government launched a consultation on the framework in January 2025 and the final report was eventually released on 18 March 2026.
The framework is a “long-awaited opportunity for real change”, says Roger Mortlock, chief executive of the environmental charity Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), in a statement.
Mortlock welcomes its “ambition”, but says that the way in which land tradeoffs are considered locally and nationally “will be key to its success”.
A report released by CPRE earlier this week, however, said that the framework is “unlikely to be the silver bullet many are hoping for”.
What does the plan say about how land in England should be used?
The framework uses high-resolution modelling – what it calls the “most sophisticated analysis” of its kind – to examine how England can use land to meet climate, nature, food and housing needs.
One key finding is that England has enough land to meet all of its objectives, if land is used efficiently.
This means that England has “enough land to deliver our objectives for nature restoration and development without reducing domestic food production or compromising on these objectives”, according to the framework.
It adds that efficient land use means “playing to the strengths” of England’s varied landscape. This involves, for example, prioritising the restoration of peatlands in north-west England and temperate rainforests in the south-west.
The chart below shows the percentage of land in England currently used for different purposes, as well as how this distribution will need to change by 2030 and 2050, if the UK is to meet its goals, according to the framework.
According to the framework, just 1% of England’s land will need to be taken up by renewables, such as solar and onshore wind, by 2050.
However, the framework does note that there is “inherent uncertainty” in projecting energy use by 2050 and says that the amount of land required for renewables may be nearer to “more than 2%”, depending on how quickly solar and wind is deployed in the future.
A further 6% of England’s land should be used for achieving climate and nature goals, according to the framework.
(A Defra official tells Carbon Brief that the framework’s projections for renewable energy and tree-planting were not as ambitious as those in the Climate Change Committee’s central pathway to net-zero, but are in line with the government’s carbon budget delivery plan for 2035.)
Speaking at the launch of the framework, environment secretary Emma Reynolds said that the framework shows that there are no “false choices” between “solar panels versus farmland” or “growth versus environment”, adding:
“The problem has never been scarcity of land. It has been a shortage of clarity.”
What does the framework mean for different sectors?
The framework sets out a “vision” for land use in several areas, such as housing, energy, food and nature by 2030 and 2050.
It also details what the government is currently doing to achieve these aims and makes pledges for more action down the line.
Below, Carbon Brief has detailed the key points around renewable energy, tree-planting and nature restoration, food production and housing.
Renewable energy
The report notes that the need to produce extra electricity to meet growing demand from, among other things, electric vehicles, heat pumps and data centres is “changing the way land is used across England”.
The UK plans to produce at least 95% of electricity from low-carbon sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear, by 2030.
Despite this, the report says that solar and wind will continue to make up a “small proportion of land use”. It says that, by 2030, much of this land will be “managed sustainably” for dual purposes, such as placing solar panels on the same land as growing crops.
Currently, around 21,000 hectares of land in the UK is covered by solar panels – which, as Carbon Brief has previously noted, is much less than the land used for golf courses.
By 2035, an additional 129,000 hectares of land is estimated to be used for solar and wind energy in England, with some of this land also used to produce food at the same time.
If achieved, this will account for 1% of land in England and 2% of the UK’s agricultural area.
This estimate is based on the assumption that all extra solar will be installed on the ground, which the report says is a “highly conservative and unlikely scenario” given that many panels are anticipated to be placed on rooftops.
This makes the 2035 figure an “upper-bound” estimate, says the report.
By 2050, around 155,000 hectares – roughly equal to the size of Greater London – will be used for renewables, the report estimates, adding that this is based on trends from historical data and not future scenarios.
The report adds that it is possible that more land than this will be needed to meet energy goals past 2035, however, citing the “inherent uncertainty” in figuring out what the mix of electricity sources will look like by 2050.
By 2030, coordinated planning of electricity networks will encourage rural investment, “such as through new data centres”, the report claims.
By 2050, the report says that better land-use planning will lead to a “fairer and more efficient distribution of solar and wind infrastructure across England”.
There will also be better electricity connections to renewables, much of which will be delivered alongside “productive agriculture”, such as by installing solar panels above crops – known as agrivoltaic farming.
The report says that any land-use change decisions should be made based on a number of factors, drawing from “local knowledge, values, data and priorities”.
It notes that development of wind and solar infrastructure in rural areas should give local communities the “opportunity to benefit from local clean energy”.
Tree-planting and nature restoration
According to the framework, 6% of England’s land will need to be used for achieving climate and nature goals by 2050.
This kind of land use includes restoring England’s carbon-dense peatlands, planting new woodlands and restoring heathland habitats.
As part of the analysis, the framework takes a detailed look at what parts of England would be best suited for nature restoration. It says:
“Habitat creation and restoration should be directed to the places where it can have the greatest ecological impact, help to reconnect fragmented landscapes, support priority species and deliver the greatest contribution to nature recovery.”
The chart below, taken from the framework, shows where in England has the greatest potential for nature restoration in dark green.
The analysis finds that north-west England has high potential for nature restoration, largely because it is home to the vast majority of the country’s carbon-rich, but degraded, peatlands.
Other areas identified include the south-west, which could be suitable for “grassland restoration and broadleaf woodland creation” and the south-east, where new grasslands could be planted, according to the framework.
The framework adds that the UK government remains committed to protecting 30% of land for nature by 2030, an international goal set under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
However, it notes that, at present, just 7% of England’s land is protected for nature – with just four years to go until the deadline.
Speaking at the launch of the framework, nature minister Mary Creagh acknowledged that meeting the target remains a large challenge.
She added that her department was currently on a “data sprint” to try to account for all kinds of land that may not currently be classified as being protected for nature, despite serving this purpose.
Food production
The new framework extensively discusses how to balance food production with other uses for land, such as producing renewable energy and building homes.
The government says it is generally not suggesting land-use change on the country’s “best agricultural land”.
The framework focuses instead on using farmland to fulfil dual purposes, “rather than taking land out of production entirely”.
The goals outlined in the framework include increasing domestic food production in England, which the report says is “feasible according to our projections”.
Currently, the UK produces around 60% of its own food, importing the rest from abroad.
By 2030, the “vision” outlined in the framework says that farmers and other land managers will have better long-term clarity and more information on improved ways to use their land.
By 2050, meanwhile, farmlands will be managed to prioritise “sustainable food production and environmental benefits”, it says.
At this stage, the framework estimates that 480,000 hectares of farmland could be used primarily for food production, while also bringing environmental and climate benefits such as planting trees or restoring grassland habitats.
Agricultural land will be used to balance food production and other outcomes. A footnote in the report says that this will broadly lead to a “mosaic of different landscapes” – semi-natural land, low-intensity farmland and higher-intensity farmland.
It also says that, by 2050, farmland will be more resilient to climate change impacts through actions such as planting trees for flood and drought resilience.
All projected scenarios in the analysis behind the framework focus on producing food “more sustainably from less land”, the report notes.
The agricultural land-use change recommendations in the framework differ across the country. If focusing on improvements to water quality and biodiversity, for example, it recommends looking at areas with intensive agricultural production in the east of England.
This is due to these areas using high quantities of fertilisers, which can wash off fields and run into rivers and other waterways. This lowers water quality and harms plants and animals.
The government commits to developing sectoral growth plans, starting with horticulture and poultry, to provide a framework to boost production and “maintain food security”.
The government also promises to support making “under-used land” available for communities to grow food and recover nature, “where appropriate”. This refers to inactive land that is not suitable for other developments.
The report is a “step in the right direction”, says Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union. He adds that it is “positive” to have “explicit recognition” of using land for multiple purposes and a government commitment to maintain food production.
Bradshaw notes that “challenges remain about delivering against the ambitious objectives as the first 2030 milestone approaches”.
Housing
Reynolds says that this framework can help to “speed up house-building and infrastructure delivery”.
The report says that, by 2030, improved planning will enable areas to facilitate housing and development “whilst protecting and enhancing the environment”.
It adds that, where appropriate, developments will be higher-density to “make the best use of land within our towns and cities”.
By 2030, biodiversity net gain – a planning requirement to improve habitats while building developments – and nature-based solutions will also be used to ensure development “leaves the natural environment in a measurably better state than it was in beforehand”, the report says.
It adds that timber production will be expanded to provide “low-carbon building materials”.
By 2050, meanwhile, the framework says planners will be able to more easily assess how suitable areas are for development “using a streamlined digital planning service and decision support tools”.
These tools – built on a range of data sources – are intended to reduce the number of homes built in areas at risk of flooding, the report says.
One in four homes in England are projected to be at risk of flooding by 2050, under a high-emissions scenario, the report outlines.
The report notes that the government is proposing a “default yes” to some planning applications for developments near well-connected transport stations.
High-demand areas “need to be powered locally and sustainably”, it notes, and using technologies such as rooftop solar to “make use of existing built land for electricity generation” can reduce land pressures elsewhere.
The post Q&A: What England’s new ‘land-use framework’ means for climate, nature and food appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What England’s new ‘land-use framework’ means for climate, nature and food
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