For the second time in two months, western and central Europe has been hit by a record-breaking heatwave.
Temperature records have toppled in multiple countries, with France seeing its “hottest day ever” for two days running and the UK, Spain and Switzerland breaking records for June.
A rapid-response attribution study has concluded that “climate change is unequivocally to blame”, noting that the scorching temperatures would have been “virtually impossible” 50 years ago.
The research also found that the sweltering overnight temperatures seen this week are “100 times” more likely today than they were in 2003 when Europe was hit by a deadly summer heatwave.
The extreme conditions come on the 50th anniversary of a historic 1976 heatwave in the UK, prompting many comparisons of the two events from scientists and the media.
In this article, Carbon Brief looks at how the heatwave developed and the role climate change played.
- How did the heatwave develop?
- What have the impacts been so far?
- What role has climate change played?
- How does the UK heatwave compare to 1976?
- How has the media responded?
- Why has media coverage been criticised?
How did the heatwave develop?
The “very intense and widespread” heat began to develop in the south of France as early as 13 June, reported Le Monde, before it began to “intensify and move northward” in the following days.
The heatwave was caused by a phenomenon known as an “omega block”, which is a “rare weather pattern” that can trap intense heat over a particular area “for extended periods”, said the Independent.
The Daily Telegraph explained the pattern’s development as a four-step process.
First, it said, the jet stream moves across the Atlantic Ocean, creating a high pressure ridge to the south. The “omega” shape is created by low pressure systems on either side of the meander. This “stalls” the normal flow of weather systems from west to east and “pulls hot air from Africa northward over Europe”, creating a “lid” that traps the heat. This leads to the development of a heat dome, “driving temperatures higher”, it added.
This heat dome “originated in the hot and humid sub-tropics” and has been “centred” over France, said BBC News.
France experienced its “hottest day ever” on two consecutive days, with its “national heat index” – an average of day- and night-time high temperatures from 30 weather stations across the country – reaching 30C on 24 June, according to Le Monde.
On 25 June, Méteo-France announced that 72 of France’s 96 mainland administrative districts had been placed under a red heatwave alert.
The heatwave “spread to other parts of western Europe” as the week progressed, said BBC News.
Spain recorded a daily average of 28.2C on 23 June – a record temperature for that month, the outlet reported.
The UK surpassed its long-standing temperature record for June of 35.6C multiple times on 24, 25 and 26 June, with a new record set on 24 June at 36.1C in Gosport, Hampshire, which was subsequently exceeded on 25 June with 36.7C at Merryfield, Somerset and on 26 June with 36.9C at Wattisham, Suffolk.
“Temperatures exceeding 40C” are predicted for the weekend of 27-28 June in Italy, while 16 cities have been placed under heat alerts, according to Corriere della Sera.
Germany also saw temperature records tumble, where the heatwave is the “longest-ever recorded” for June, said Deutsche Welle.
The Financial Times said Germany was bracing for 41C temperatures over the weekend of 27-28 June and reported that Austria’s weather agency has warned Vienna could hit a record 40C.
Meanwhile, Switzerland’s national weather agency declared temperatures had exceeded 38C for the first time in June, breaking a record set in 1947, according to RTS.
(All of these new records are considered provisional until they have been validated and verified by each national met service.)
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution service analysed the wet-bulb globe temperature in 854 cities across 30 European countries and found that 45% have broken, or are expected to break, their June heat-stress record since 18 June.
(Wet-bulb globe temperature is a heat-stress index that combines temperature, humidity, wind speed and direct sunlight.)
These record-breaking cities are shown in pink on the map below.
While temperatures are expected to “gradually decline” across western Europe from 26 June onwards, “countries in eastern Europe were bracing for a scorching weekend”, according to the New York Times.
A separate New York Times article noted that “local factors” – such as melting sea ice, lower air pollution and less snow cover – mean that “for the past three decades, Europe has been warming faster than any other continent”.
The outlet added that these factors can also impact atmospheric conditions “in ways that could be making searing heatwaves like the one this week more frequent”.
What have the impacts been so far?
France
As temperatures climbed on Sunday 21 June, several cities and towns – including Paris – introduced restrictions for the nationwide “fête de la musique” celebration, reported the Guardian. This included bans on performances before 7pm and outdoor drinking, it said.
Le Parisien reported that the government announced that more than 845 schools would not open on Monday 22 June, while another 1,800 were rescheduling classes.
On 23 June, as average temperatures in France reached an all-time high, prime minister Sébastien Lecornu announced that more than 40 people had drowned as they sought relief from the heat, reported Libération.
Analysis from Agence France-Presse covered by the Guardian on 24 June showed that 54 of France’s administrative departments had recorded temperatures of 40C and higher since the heatwave began.
France24 reported that a power cut caused by the heat had left 68,000 households in Brittany, north-west France, without electricity. Meanwhile, Le Monde reported a jump of 15-20% in calls to the French emergency health services.
On 25 June, Ouest-France reported that 25 cardiac arrests had been reported over a 24-hour period in Paris – a significant increase on the typical number of “around 10”.
The Financial Times said temperatures reached 41C in Paris on 25 June, noting that “heat-absorbing zinc rooftops” had caused temperatures in apartment buildings to “soar”.
It added that nighttime temperatures had been most extreme in France, with some areas enduring 30C heat.
UK
The UK Met Office issued a “red warning” for extreme heat on 24 June, 25 June and 26 June – noting that this was the “first time in the history of the current weather warnings system” that it had issued red heat warnings on three consecutive days.
The UK Health Security Agency also issued red alerts – indicating that “severe impacts are expected across health and social care services due to the high temperatures” – for much of the country.
Schools, hospitals, transport networks and water companies were all left “struggling to cope” with the high temperatures, wrote the Guardian. Schools across southern England and Wales closed, while rail services were cut and speeds lowered, it said.
Temperatures on the London Underground’s Central line reached nearly 40C, according to the Independent, which took readings on several lines. It noted that “only around 40%” of the network’s trains are air-conditioned.
Several events at London Climate Action Week were cancelled or moved online, giving a “textbook example of how the world is being forced to adapt to increasingly extreme heat”, wrote Wired.
On 26 June, the i newspaper reported that 1,200 schools in the UK had been closed and six hospitals had declared “critical incidents”.
BBC News said that the London Ambulance Service had responded to a record number of call outs for life-threatening emergencies”, while the Guardian detailed reports from doctors of “radiotherapy machines and MRI scanners failing, critical IT systems stalling and cooling units that serve entire hospitals breaking down”.
Rest of Europe
The extreme heat has also swept through other European countries.
Euronews reported that 22 and 23 June were the hottest June days on record in mainland Spain since at least 1950. It added that “the current heatwave is bringing temperatures to between 5-10C above normal across much of the country”.
Separately, Euronews reported that across Spain, many municipalities had called off their San Juan celebrations, which usually involve lighting bonfires.
France24 reported that extreme heat between 21 and 24 June had been linked to an estimated 212 excess deaths across Spain, according to the country’s “mortalidad y modelos” monitoring system.
Reuters reported that “an extreme heat warning was in place across the Netherlands, where outdoor sports were cancelled, public transport was scaled down and schools shortened classes or closed as temperatures were expected to soar to 36C”.
It added that, in Switzerland, local authorities opened air-conditioned theatres for free daytime cinema screenings.
Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reported that Belgium’s national train operator had removed “some” non-air-conditioned trains from service, while France’s SNCF had cancelled 10% of trains in the Paris region to avoid overheating the tracks.
What role has climate change played?
The record-breaking temperatures recorded over Europe this week would have been “virtually impossible” 50 years ago, according to a rapid analysis from the World Weather Attribution service.
The study, published on 26 June, found that “climate change is unequivocally to blame”.
To identify the fingerprint of human-caused climate change on the extreme heat, the study authors used climate models to compare the world as it is today to a cooler “counterfactual” world. This is called an attribution study.
The analysis focuses on a large area of Europe encompassing Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the UK, as well as parts of Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden.
The authors simulated the three-day maximum June daytime temperatures and three-day minimum June night-time temperatures over the study area in today’s climate, which has already warmed by 1.4C due to human-caused climate change.
They then simulated the same June heatwave in a climate 1.1C and 0.6C cooler than today. These global warming levels approximate the average global temperatures in 1976 and 2003, respectively.
The study authors said they chose these two years because both saw record-breaking summer heatwaves hit Europe which were linked to devastating impacts including thousands of deaths.
If the atmospheric conditions that drove this week’s heatwave had hit Europe in 1976 and 2003, the resulting heatwaves would have been 3.5C and 2C cooler, respectively, the researchers found. Meanwhile, night-time temperatures would have been 2.4C and 1.3C cooler in June 1976 and 2003, respectively.
The study added:
“The sweltering overnight temperatures keeping many people awake this week are about 100 times more likely today than they were just 23 years ago during the infamous 2003 European heatwave. The daytime peaks are about 10 times more likely.”
Study author Prof Fredi Otto, WWA co-founder and professor in climate science at Imperial College London, told a press briefing:
“It is in our hands…If we transition away rapidly from fossil fuels, this [heatwave] could still be an average summer and not a cool summer.”
Other experts have linked the intense heat to human-caused climate change.
For example, Dr Akshay Deoras, a senior research scientist at the University of Reading, told the Science Media Centre:
“Human-driven climate change has provided the springboard for this event, loading the atmosphere with extra heat and making extreme temperatures far more intense than they would have been in the past”.
How does the UK heatwave compare to 1976?
This year’s June heatwave has fallen on the 50th anniversary of the UK’s summer of 1976, a historic heat and drought event that saw water restrictions, crop failures and thousands of deaths.
With an average temperature of 15.7C, the summer of 1976 was the hottest on record at the time. That record stood for more than 25 years, before being surpassed by the summer of 2003 and then also 2006, 2018, 2022 and 2025.
The duration of the 1976 heatwave made the event extraordinary, including 15 consecutive days where temperatures of at least 32.2C were recorded somewhere in the country.
The heatwave arrived towards the end of a record-breaking drought that started the year before. The period from May 1975 to August 1976 holds the record for the lowest 16-month total rainfall in England and Wales.
This period also saw the lowest flows on record for the majority of UK rivers.
At the time, the 1976 heatwave tied the record – with 1957 – for the maximum June temperature in the UK. A temperature of 35.6C was recorded at Mayflower Park in Southampton on 28 June.
That record remained until it was beaten on three consecutive days this year, with 36.1C recorded in Gosport, Hampshire on 24 June, then 36.7C at Merryfield, Somerset on 25 June and 36.9C at Wattisham, Suffolk on 26 June.
June 1976 also held the record for the UK’s highest minimum temperature – that is, how warm conditions remain overnight – of 22.7C in Ventnor Park on the Isle of Wight. That has now been surpassed with a recorded temperature of 23.5C in Bute Park in Cardiff.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the 1976 heatwave, the Met Office and University of Reading analysed what a comparable event would look like in today’s climate.
Shown in the maps below, the findings show that a similar event to 1976 (left-hand map) would already be around 3C hotter today (right–hand map), with peak temperatures of 38C or 39C.
As climate change continues, “1976-style events will become increasingly common over the next two decades”, said Prof Ed Hawkins in a University of Reading press release:
“What felt like a freak weather event to grandparents in 1976 will become the new normal for their grandchildren.”
Hawkins also noted on social media that the heat in 1976 was “less humid”, with “much cooler nights”, adding that “peak night time temperatures were around 16C back then”.
The summer of 1976 became a benchmark for later periods of extreme heat and drought, both for contingency planning and in popular culture.
In recent days, for example, commentary in climate-sceptic newspapers has often referred back to 1976 as a time without “heatwave hysterics” and “nanny state warnings”, or when the heat was taken “in our stride”,.
Much of this commentary has been critical of school closures – for example, arguing that it is “defeatist”.
Yet, although hundreds of schools have announced full or partial closures this week, the summer of 1976 also saw schools close early or allow parents to keep their children home.
How has the media responded?
Many outlets in the UK and France have been dominated by news about the heatwave and temperature records being repeatedly broken.
The story appeared on various frontpages, including the Times, i newspaper and Daily Telegraph in the UK, and Le Monde, Libération and Ouest-France in France.
There was also prominent coverage in other countries that have seen extreme heat, such as on the frontpages of El País in Spain and Die Welt in Germany.
Some outlets were clear about the dangers of extreme heat, as well as the role of climate change in driving it. They led their coverage with public health warnings and details of how the heat was negatively impacting people’s lives.
A Daily Express editorial urged readers to “stay safe” and to shelter indoors with fans, while Ouest-France had a frontpage story about how the heat “threatens our health”. A Guardian frontpage asked if such extremes, “driven by [the] climate crisis”, were “the new normal”.
Noting the “muted response” from the UK government to recent warnings about the need for climate adaptation, a Guardian editorial said it hoped “this week’s heat will focus minds”. It added:
“A strong adaptation plan – to run in parallel with the green transition – cannot wait.”
The Independent also argued via an editorial that climate change must be treated with “the urgency the moment demands”, given the “all-too-obvious need to increase resilience”.
Similarly, an editorial in Le Monde criticised the French government’s “flagrant unpreparedness” for heatwaves. It, too, stressed the need for adaptation and said:
“The fight against global warming must be seen as a new paradigm, within which a broad range of public policies must be considered. Simply reacting to events is no longer enough.”
Yet, even amid warnings of “killer heat” approaching 40C, much of the news coverage in UK media was relatively frivolous, often focusing on the positive aspects of the heat.
The Times published stories about “what the fashion A-list are wearing in the heatwave” and “surprising positives to a British heatwave”. On the day after the UK reached its highest-ever June temperature, the Daily Mail featured a story about King Charles using an electric handheld fan on its frontpage.
Often, alongside warnings of “red alerts” and “meltdown”, news outlets illustrated their stories with photos of people relaxing on the beach and children playing in fountains.
As the news was filled with heat-related disruption at hospitals, train cancellations and school closures, many outlets in the UK also criticised official responses to the heat.
Some writers misleadingly compared the heatwave to similar events in 1957 and 1976. In the Evening Standard, one writer said this year’s heat has “got nothing on the summer of 1976”. A Daily Mail article claimed that in 1957 “the sunshine was greeted by national rejoicing”.
In contrast, a comment piece in the Daily Express erroneously stated that the UK was facing “Covid-like shutdown” due to the heat and the Sun took aim at the “nannying, alarmist state”. A Daily Telegraph editorial said the government was “treat[ing] the public like children”. It said:
“It may well be that the country will have to learn to live with higher temperatures in future. Britain cannot close its schools, cancel its trains and shut down its offices every time the sun comes out.”
Why has media coverage been criticised?
Media coverage of the heatwave in the UK has been criticised for failing to mention climate change and for using imagery that does not convey the health risks associated with the extreme weather.
On 23 June, a group of climate scientists wrote to senior editors at BBC News, ITV News, Channel 4 News, 5 News, Sky News and LBC owner Global, as well as to media regulators Ofcom and IPSO, to urge them to “use their power to inform public audiences of the scientific links between extreme weather, climate change and net-zero”.
In a letter, reproduced in the Press Gazette, the scientists said they wanted to express their concern about recent coverage of extreme heat. They argued that the UK public was “frequently not well served with clear information about the scientifically indisputable connection between greenhouse gas emissions and extreme heat”.
Prof Mark Hannon from the University of Strathclyde was among a number of academics on Bluesky to note how some parts of the UK media had failed to explain that climate change was causing the extreme heat. He said:
“Amazing how much coverage the heat – and the symptoms of climate change – is getting on outlets like the BBC, but how little coverage is typically given over to the causes of climate change.”
Others pointed to a disconnect between discussions around net-zero policies and the recent weather.
In a letter published in the Times, Prof Brian Hoskins – the founding director of Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment – noted that “the discourse around net-zero is increasingly decoupled from that science and our changing weather”.
Other researchers – including University College London’s Prof Bill McGuire and Cardiff University’s Prof Ian Hall – criticised national newspapers’ choice of beach photos to illustrate articles about the UK’s “red weather warning”.
Wolfgang Blau, co-founder of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, wrote on Bluesky:
“Your happy and clickable ‘kids in lido’‚ ‘dogs playing in fountain’‚ ‘family eats ice cream’ photos to illustrate news reports about the heatwave are journalistic malpractice.”
The post Media reaction: How climate change intensified Europe’s record-breaking June heat appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Media reaction: How climate change intensified Europe’s record-breaking June heat
What happens when a love of marine life meets a playful imagination?
Sydney artist, illustrator and children’s author Sha’an d’Anthes, better known as Furry Little Peach, has teamed up with Greenpeace to create Happy Ocean Happy Planet: a joyful celebration of the extraordinary creatures that call our oceans home.
Sha’an felt inspired to create an illustration celebrating the beauty and resilience of marine life. Its hopeful message, A Happy Ocean is a Happy Planet, sparked a special collaboration with Greenpeace and a limited-edition t-shirt designed to help protect the oceans that inspired it.
The exclusive Furry Little Peach tee is available as a gift to new regular Greenpeace donors who give $30 or more and make at least three donations. By becoming a regular giver, you’ll help Greenpeace campaign for ocean protection.
ARTIST INTERVIEW: Sha’an d’Anthes (Furry Little Peach)
Sha’an shares the story behind the artwork, the local marine creatures featured in the design and why hope can be such a powerful force for action.
Hi Sha’an! Can you tell us a little about yourself and what you do?
My name is Sha’an d’Anthes, I also go by the pseudonym Furry Little Peach and I’m an illustrator, artist and children’s author based in Sydney, Australia. I love creating joyful, vibrant and nostalgic art that looks at the world through the lens of childlike wonder.
What do you love about drawing animals and nature?
I love all of the different shapes, colour and narrative you get to explore when drawing animals and nature. I’m also a city-slicker these days, and so I think that my work is a sort of escapism (for myself and hopefully for my audience).
How did the Greenpeace collaboration come about?
I went to the premiere of David Attenborough’s documentary Ocean, and felt compelled to create something to share the message of the film. This t-shirt is actually based off of that illustration including the tagline in I included when I shared it “A Happy Ocean is a Happy Planet”. I’m so grateful Greenpeace approached me for the project – it was a blast.
Where did you start when creating the Happy Ocean Happy Planet design?
The Happy Ocean tee starts the same as all of my work – with a brainstorm/braindump and really loose concept sketches.
How did you choose the animals for the illustration?
I actually asked Greenpeace to help me with the research of local marine life and they were so accommodating. They very quickly delivered me a huge list of local species of fish, mammals and coral and I just went through and looked up each creature and curated a little group of sea life that I thought would look sweet together – a mix of sizes, types, colours, textures and shapes.
What did you use to create the artwork?
So much of my work is traditional, but when it comes to things like t-shirts I always use digital drawing programs because I like to draw each colour in a separate layer which requires me to jump in and out of layers because it allows me to control colour and printing. When working digitally I always sketch in Procreate (an Australian digital art app), and then with this project I created final art in Adobe Fresco because it called for a vector graphic (an image that can be blown up to any size).
Do you have a favourite creature in the design?
I love painting Humpback Whales and always have, but I also have a soft spot for the sweet little Jelly Blubber jellyfish.
What did you want people to feel when they saw the artwork?
I specifically wanted to focus on the outcome that all of us want to see – a happy, thriving ocean where creatures are given the time and space to balance themselves. I feel that even when tackling tough subjects, leaning into hope is my natural inclination. As long as we have hope that things can be better, we will continue to take action.
What was the most fun part of creating it?
I actually documented the entire process of this project in a studio vlog on YouTube – and you can see how much fun I’m having doing final art jumping between layers and building the image. I had just come off completing final art for two books which are multi-year long projects, so being able to do a project that from start to finish in just a few days was really freeing at the time.
What does a “happy ocean” mean to you?
An ocean that given the time and space to repair and balance itself. Something I really took away from David Attenborough’s Ocean is that ocean ecosystems are actually really good at repairing themselves if we just let them do their thing.
How can people get their hands on the t-shirt?
The shirt is a reward for regular givers to Greenpeace – those who commit to at least 3 months of donations will receive the tee as a gift. Read about how at http://act.gp/flp-tee
How is Greenpeace helping to make our oceans happier places?
They have a deep focus on the health and happiness of our oceans through advocating for the set up of marine sanctuaries, holding big ocean polluters to account and calling for a ban on deep sea mining.
What are you working on next?
I will be jumping headfirst into Peachtober – an annual daily art challenge I run each year in October, if there are any artists reading this it’s a great time so please come join! In terms of publications my next picture book The Late Bird will be out in February 2027 (published by Harper Collins US) and then I have an creative activity book for adults coming out next August with Chronicle US and Penguin Australia. Otherwise you can always check out what I’m tinkering away with in my studio on Instagram and YouTube.
Climate Change
AI giant Anthropic’s first Australian data centre deal an “egregious” example of Big Tech double talk
SYDNEY, Thursday 17 September 2026 — Greenpeace Australia Pacific has slammed AI giant Anthropic’s deal for its first Australian site in Queensland’s Western Downs, the heart of coal seam gas country, saying the project will entrench gas and turbocharge climate pollution.
The expected electricity demand from the data centre site, situated in the middle of the Western Downs coal seam gas fields, is comparable to 1.5 million Australian households. Greenpeace’s report Energy Vampires: The AI data centres draining Australia called for a moratorium on frenzied data centre development until appropriate guardrails are in place.
Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is an egregious example of Big Tech giants being given carte blanche to drain energy and water, and use polluting gas to fuel their hyperscale data centres.
“AI and Big Tech corporations claim to bring new renewable energy to the grid, while blatantly planning to power their operations with polluting fossil fuels.
“Planning documents show the first stage of this behemoth project could be powered by ‘behind the metre’ gas — the same playbook AI companies have used in the US, leading to a 20% increase in climate pollution from electricity. Now these companies want to bring their cowboy plans to Australia and the Federal Government is allowing it.
“If they plugged into the local grid, the power required would increase Queensland’s electricity grid emissions by around 6.6 million tonnes — an 18% rise. If they build their own gas-fired power plants, this will drive up Queensland’s emissions even more.
“Billions of dollars are now pouring into a massive pipeline of proposed new data centres, of unprecedented size, being built at incredible speed across the country. Australians should be worried about the extreme lack of scrutiny being applied to these projects, and the corporations leading the data centre charge.
“The data centre build-out is happening without the endorsement of the Australian people, yet we are the ones who will pay the price. We can not allow unchecked data centre expansion to derail our renewable energy transition, entrench gas and turbocharge climate pollution — that’s why Greenpeace has called for an urgent moratorium until appropriate guardrails are in place.”
ENDS
Media contact: Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
Climate Change
Analysis: India’s power-sector emissions flat for two years due to clean-energy surge
A surge in clean energy has kept carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in check across India’s power sector, with no growth from the first half of 2024 to the same period in 2026.
This guest post is by:
Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA)
Anubha Aggarwal, India analyst at CREA
This is the first time in more than 50 years that there has been no growth in India’s coal power over a two-year period, even as electricity demand grew overall.
At the same time, both oil and gas consumption have fallen across the nation for two years in a row, helping alleviate the shock of the Hormuz crisis.
Nevertheless, the new six-monthly analysis for Carbon Brief shows that India’s emissions grew by 3.7% year-on-year in the first half of 2026, due to increases from steel, cement and other sectors.
Other key findings for the first half of 2026 include:
- India’s power-sector emissions flatlined at 2024 levels, after a 2.2% decline in the first half of 2025 and a 2.3% rise in the same period this year.
- Clean energy met all of the 7% rise in India’s electricity demand over the two years, adding 63 terawatt hours (TWh), equivalent to the total demand of Switzerland.
- India has added 77 gigawatts (GW) of solar in this two-year period, helping meet 60% of the rise in electricity demand overall.
- While fossil-fuel generation stagnated, generators added 8.5GW of new coal capacity, leading to fewer running hours and increased costs to electricity consumers.
- CO2 emissions from oil and gas fell by 7% year-on-year, extending a reduction that began in 2025, despite higher demand for road transport fuels.
- Steel and cement emissions grew by 8% year-on-year, reaching a 23% share of India’s total CO2 in the first half of 2026.
If the pace of India’s clean-energy expansion is to continue, it will need to upgrade its electricity grid, rapidly build out energy storage and boost the flexibility of coal power.
While clean-energy expansion is covering most or all of India’s power-demand growth, the fossil-fuel industry continues to pursue major capital investments.
This includes large amounts of new coal-power capacity, ambitious plans for the conversion of coal-to-chemicals and efforts to boost domestic coking coal production for the steel sector.
While CO2 output from the power sector is flat, with oil and gas in decline, India’s emissions still went up due to the contribution from industry.
India lags behind its competitors – including most large emerging economies – when it comes to electrifying its industrial sector.
Faster progress would enable clean electricity to substitute for fossil fuels in industry, as well as for power, offering the potential for India to cut its emissions overall.
Flatlining fossils
Last year, India’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement grew at their slowest pace in two decades, according to previous analysis for Carbon Brief.
This sharp slowdown was due to rapid clean-energy growth and flat oil demand, combined with rising emissions from steel and cement.
The first half of 2026 marks a continuation of these trends.
Most strikingly, the ongoing surge in clean-energy generation means that emissions have flatlined in India’s power sector for two years, as shown in the figure below.
Power-sector CO2 was the same in the first half of 2026 as two years earlier, with a small decline in 2025 having been reversed over the same period this year.
Beyond electricity generation, India’s key emitting sectors continued to see divergent trends in the first half of 2026, as some saw ongoing decline while others reached new heights.
This is shown in the figure below, which compares year-on-year changes in emissions during the first half of 2026 with the same periods in 2025, 2024 and the average for 2021-23.
Specifically, emissions grew by 2.3% in the power sector, reversing last year’s decline, while demand for gas and oil products fell for another year.
The biggest increases were for steel and cement, where emissions growth accelerated to 8% year-on-year in the first half of 2026, well above the recent trend.
Clean-energy growth matches power demand
The period from the first half of 2024 to the first half of 2026 saw the largest increase in non-fossil power generation on record in India.
This enabled fossil-fuel consumption and CO2 emissions from the sector to stay flat, even as electricity consumption increased.
Indeed, this is the first time in more than 50 years that there has been no growth in coal power over a two-year period, even as electricity demand grew overall, as shown below.
Over this two-year period, India’s total power generation increased by 7%, some 63TWh, equal to the total consumption of Singapore or Switzerland.
The additional power requirement of 63TWh was met entirely by clean energy. Solar grew by 44TWh, alongside growth from wind (13TWh), nuclear (7TWh) and hydro (8TWh).
Together, clean-energy sources added 70TWh over two years, more than the net increase in demand.
(For comparison, China’s nuclear, wind and solar output increased by 485TWh in 2025.)
The figure below shows that new investments are more than sufficient to maintain this trend, as added power generation from new clean power capacity has stayed above average demand growth for the past 18 months.
Over the past two years, India added 77GW of new solar capacity, 11GW of wind, 5GW of hydro and 0.6GW of nuclear capacity.
Solar power continues to dominate clean-energy growth, but, collectively, the other non-fossil sources still contributed 40% of the overall increase in generation.
One factor in electricity demand growth in 2026 is the El Niño, which delayed the monsoon and intensified heatwaves, driving up cooling demand.
India is accelerating investment in energy storage, which will support further growth in clean power. The National Electricity Plan projected a requirement of 82 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of energy storage capacity by 2026-27 and 411GWh by 2031-32.
As of May 2026, the government has issued tenders for around 272GWh of energy storage capacity, including 142GWh of pumped hydro and 133GWh of battery storage systems. Current capacity is 7.5GWh of battery storage and around 60GWh of pumped hydro.
Which states led the clean-power shift?
The fall in power generation from fossil fuels from the first half of 2024 to the same period in 2026 was concentrated in a few states.
Gujarat saw both the largest reduction in fossil-fuel generation and the largest expansion in clean power, as shown in the figure below.
After Gujarat, the largest increases in clean-power generation were seen in Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, which also saw reductions in power generation from fossil fuels.
Several other states saw declines in fossil-fuel generation due to higher net imports, rather than local clean power. These included Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Punjab.
Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh also succeeded in increasing clean-power generation faster than power demand, thereby contributing to keeping fossil fuel-based power generation stable nationwide across the two-year period. However, they exported much of the increase and consequently saw local increases in power generation from fossil fuels.
The two states with the largest increases in power demand, Maharashtra and Telangana, managed to almost match the rise with growth in clean-power generation.
Fall in oil and gas consumption continues
India’s oil consumption continued to fall during the first half of 2026, dropping 1.3% year-on-year, a slight acceleration from the 0.7% reduction in the same period last year.
While diesel and petrol consumption continued to grow, oil consumption was pulled down overall by declines in liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), petcoke (a solid derivative of oil used in the cement industry) and industrial feedstocks. Growth of aviation fuel use eased.
Diesel consumption growth accelerated from 1.8% to 4.1% in the first half of the year, supported by higher freight movement and increased agricultural demand, as the delayed monsoon led to greater use of diesel-powered irrigation.
Petrol consumption returned to growth, increasing 6.9% year-on-year after zero growth in the same period in 2025, reflecting sustained growth in passenger and two-wheeler mobility.
A significant increase in ethanol blending shaved a full percentage point off the growth of petrol consumption. India achieved its 20% ethanol blending target five years ahead of schedule in 2025-26. (Ethanol blending has faced public opposition.)
Electric vehicle (EV) adoption in India is also gaining momentum, with EVs adopted in a widening range of categories.
In Delhi, an EV policy was launched to accelerate electrification of the vehicle fleet, with a particular focus on two-wheelers, three-wheelers (auto rickshaws), commercial vehicles and high-mileage segments, alongside expanded charging infrastructure. Higher EV adoption rates will moderate the growth in emissions from petrol consumption in India.
In contrast, aviation fuel demand growth slowed down from 5% to 2%. The slowdown coincided with the strait of Hormuz and wider crisis, which disrupted international aviation through temporary airspace closures and flight cancellations to several Middle Eastern destinations. Elevated aviation fuel prices also increased airline operating costs, contributing to lower fuel demand.
LPG consumption contracted by 7%, after 5.7% growth in the same period last year, amid disruptions in global LPG markets following the Hormuz crisis.
Petcoke consumption fell 9.9%, more than reversing a 9.3% increase in the same period last year. Rising petcoke prices encouraged cement manufacturers to switch to coal.
Consumption of other petroleum products continued to drop, although the pace of decline moderated from 14% in 2025 to 9% in 2026.
Industrial feedstock use was affected by shortages and price increases.
Naphtha demand contracted as import prices nearly doubled and domestic prices increased by around 60%, prompting petrochemical manufacturers to reduce operating rates and suppress demand for imported naphtha.
Bitumen consumption remained subdued due to slower road construction, driven by persistent land acquisition challenges and higher bitumen costs.
Meanwhile, higher light diesel oil (LDO) prices and shortage of LPG led some industrial consumers to switch back to furnace oil in boilers and heaters, despite the higher air pollutant emissions. Supply of fuel oil to industry increased for the same reason.
Rapid emission growth from heavy industry continues
Steel and cement output in India grew by 8% and 9%, respectively, year-on-year in the first half of 2026, despite rising input prices and weakening profitability.
The growth in steel and cement was supported in part by increased investment in India’s real estate sector, especially in the second quarter. Steel consumption growth outpaced production, implying that inventories built up last year were tapped.
Despite domestic demand growth, profit margins of Indian steel and cement manufacturers remained under pressure for much of the period due to elevated raw material costs – particularly imported coking coal – and higher freight costs stemming from the Hormuz crisis.
The pressure on prices could dampen growth. Cement prices are expected to rise to levels last seen in the 2021-22 financial year, when Russia’s decision to cut back gas exports to Europe drove a sharp increase in fossil-fuel prices.
Outside the steel, cement and power sectors, coal-consumption growth accelerated to 14% in the first half of 2026, up from 3% last year, as the LPG shortage prompted a shift to coal.
Gas shortages resulted in some additional burning of coal for cooking in March and April. The government officially authorised the hospitality industry to use coal, refuse-derived fuel pellets, biomass and kerosene for one month.
The ceramic and tile industry also requested that the government allow the use of coal gasifiers amid the gas shortage. State governments including Delhi NCR, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Maharashtra also allowed industries to temporarily use alternative fuels, including coal.
India’s industrial energy use is dominated by fossil fuels, particularly coal. Indian industry has the second-lowest electrification rate in the G20, as shown in the figure below. The share of electricity in total energy consumption in the sector also lags the world average, in terms of both current levels and the rate of increase.
The current low rates of electricity use in Indian industry imply that there is major potential for electrification, using technologies and processes already in place in other countries.
New investments in coal
While the clean-power expansion is starting to meet most or all of India’s electricity demand growth, there are still large investment plans across the coal supply chain.
Some 43GW of coal-power capacity was under construction at the end of June. Additional coal-power capacity is seen as necessary to meet increasing peak loads, even as solar power and energy storage are already playing a role in covering daytime and evening peak demand, respectively. The expansion of energy storage will increase this contribution.
Outside the power sector, India has major ambitions to produce chemical-industry products, such as fertiliser and plastic feedstock, from coal through coal gasification, in pursuit of energy security.
The government is targeting a capacity to process 100m tonnes of coal per year in the next four years, despite the technology for coal gasification still being nascent in India. At present, the only operational use of coal gasification is at Jindal Steel Limited, which is reportedly using syngas in its steel-making process.
Meanwhile, India plans to reduce its average CO2 emissions per tonne of steel by 25% by 2025-26, mainly by reducing the share of coal-based steelmaking.
At the same time, the government is aiming to increase the use of domestic coking coal, which it notified in January this year as a “critical and strategic mineral”. Coal miners and steel companies are reportedly planning to establish additional washeries for coking coal to make it suitable for blending with imported coal for use in steel production.
India is also looking to invest in new coal mines in the near future.
These continued investments in coal gasification, domestic coking coal and new coal mining capacity could lock in coal use across industry for several decades.
Outlook for India’s emissions
Over the two-year period from the first half of 2024 to the same period in 2026, India has achieved its largest clean-energy expansion on record.
As a result, power-demand growth has been met entirely by clean electricity and CO2 emissions in the sector have flatlined.
This expansion of clean energy also allowed a reduction in fossil-fuel imports for power generation, with the use of imported coal falling 38% and the use of gas by 35%, supporting the energy security aims of the government and reducing exposure to the Hormuz shock.
In order to keep the clean-energy growth going, India would need to overcome multiple obstacles, including expansion of the electricity transmission network, improvements in grid flexibility to accommodate variable renewables and the timely completion of new projects.
For example, renewable power projects totalling 5.3GW missed completion deadlines and are having to pay penalties to the grid operator in order to retain network access.
Curtailment has emerged as an issue, particularly for projects relying on interstate power transmission, pointing to the need to upgrade the network. (Curtailment refers to electricity generation that is “wasted” because it cannot be accommodated by the power network.)
Another obstacle to be overcome if clean energy is to keep growing will be making coal-power plants more flexible, so they can ramp down during high renewable output.
A flexibility plan for coal-power plants has been delayed by more than a year due to persistent regulatory bottlenecks, contributing to the curtailment of renewable energy.
Expanding energy storage has the potential to ease grid and flexibility constraints, while reducing or eliminating the need for adding thermal-power capacity to meet peak loads.
The Central Electricity Authority has proposed that, after June 2027, all new government-owned solar and wind projects would have “mandatory” two-hour battery storage. (This mirrors a policy that was in place in China until early 2025 and was subsequently scrapped, in favour of more market-based approaches.)
For oil and gas, India’s consumption has been flatlining for the past two years, after half a century of continuous growth that was only briefly interrupted by Covid-19.
This has reduced the impacts of the Hormuz crisis on the country’s trade balance, helping close the gap between supply and consumption. But it has entailed disruptive shifts in many oil-dependent sectors.
For example, high prices and fuel shortages due to the Hormuz crisis led state governments to reverse their orders banning the use of dirtier fuels such as fuel oil, kerosene and coal in industries and commercial establishments.
Meanwhile, EV adoption has also begun to influence oil consumption.
Despite the progress in the power sector and reductions in oil consumption, India’s total emissions went up over the past two years due to a major increase in industrial emissions.
Low levels of electricity use in industry mean that growing industrial output results in increasing direct fossil-fuel use and emissions.
Unless the rate of industrial electrification picks up, increases in heavy industry output will continue to translate into increases in fossil-fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
About the data
This analysis is based on official monthly data for fuel consumption, industrial production and power generation from different ministries and government institutes.
Coal-power emissions are estimated by combining plant-level coal consumption from the Central Electricity Authority’s (CEA) monthly coal reports with data on the calorific value and emission factors of coal used at different power plants from the CEA’s CO2 baseline database.
For each station and month, total coal consumption is split into domestic and imported coal using the imported share of coal receipts over a trailing two-month window, found to best reproduce the actual split in data available for 2023.
Consumption is converted to CO2 using each plant’s station-specific gross calorific value from the CEA database and IPCC emission factors for domestic coal, imported coal and lignite. The national-average calorific value is used for recently added plants, for which data is not available in the baseline database.
Coal use at steel and cement plants, as well as process emissions from cement production, are estimated using production indices from the index of eight core industries released monthly by the Office of Economic Adviser, assuming that changes in total fossil-fuel use follow production volumes. These production indices were used to scale fuel use by the sectors in 2022.
To form a basis for using the indices, monthly coal-consumption data for 2022 was constructed for the sectors by combining the annual total coal and petcoke consumption reported in IEA World Energy Balances with monthly production data. This work was set out in a paper by Robbie Andrew, a researcher at Norwegian research institute CICERO, on monthly CO2 emission accounting for India. Monthly petcoke consumption was available from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell, while coal consumption by the cement industry was calculated by subtracting petcoke use from total fossil-fuel use.
Annual cement-process emissions up to 2025 were also taken from Andrew’s work and scaled using the production indices. This approach better approximated changes in energy use and emissions reported in the IEA World Energy Balances, than did the amounts of coal reported to have been dispatched to the sectors, showing that production volumes are the dominant driver of short-term changes in emissions.
For other sectors – including aluminium, auto, chemical and petrochemical, paper and plywood, pharmaceutical, graphite electrode, sugar, textile, mining, traders and others – coal consumption is estimated based on data on despatch of domestic and imported coal to end users from statistical reports and monthly reports by the Ministry of Coal, as consumption data is not available.
Coal consumption by “captive” coal-power plants – those supplying power to industrial sites, not to the public electricity network – was calculated based on capacity changes from Global Energy Monitor, assuming constant utilisation, as utilisation has been very stable year-to-year, as calculated from Central Electricity Authority data.
The difference between coal consumption and dispatch is stock changes, which are estimated by assuming that the changes in the amount of coal stored at end-user facilities mirror those at coal mines, with end-user inventories excluding power, steel and cement assumed to be 70% of those at coal mines, based on comparisons between our data and the IEA World Energy Balances.
Stock changes at mines are estimated as the difference between production at and dispatch from coal mines, as reported by the Ministry of Coal.
Coal consumption is estimated in two ways for sectors beyond power, steel and cement. Consumption of domestic coal in these other sectors is taken from the monthly reports by the Ministry of Coal. Their consumption of imported coal is estimated from the total imports of thermal coal reported by consultancy Kpler, by subtracting demand for imports at coal-power plants. The basis for this assumption is that steel and cement industries use little imported thermal coal, according to Ministry of Coal data.
Product-by-product consumption data for petroleum products, as well as gas use by sector, is from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
As the fuel dispatch and consumption data is reported as physical volumes – such as tonnes or litres – calorific values are taken from IEA’s World Energy Balance and CO2 emission factors from 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.
The emissions factor for motor oil or petrol was updated, based on the blending percentage of ethanol each year. The ethanol-blending percentage is as reported by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Calorific values are assigned separately to different fuel types, including domestic and imported coal, anthracite and coke, as well as to petrol, diesel and several other oil products.
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Analysis: India’s power-sector emissions flat for two years due to clean-energy surge
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