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
Mohamed Adow is the founder and director of Power Shift Africa.
At London Climate Action Week, electrification moved from the margins of climate policy to the centre of the road to COP31. The launch of the Electrify Now campaign gave fresh momentum to a target floated at the Bonn climate talks: by 2035, electricity should provide 35% of the world’s final energy consumption, up from just over 20% today.
That makes electrification one of the defining tests for this year’s climate summit in Türkiye. If COP31 is to be more than another exercise in negotiating text, it must show how the world can replace fossil fuels in transport, heating, industry and everyday life with clean electricity.
For Africa, this agenda presents both an extraordinary opportunity and an immense challenge.
For decades, the continent has been viewed primarily through the lens of energy poverty. More than 600 million Africans still lack access to electricity. Yet that very deficit also means many African countries are not locked into ageing fossil-fuel infrastructure in the way industrialised economies are. They have the chance to build cleaner energy systems from the outset.
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A group of dozens of countries seeks to build momentum for a COP31 pledge to electrify 35% of global energy use by 2035 as an alternative to fossil fuels
The case for electrification is compelling. Transport, industry and heating account for much of the world’s fossil-fuel consumption. Replacing combustion engines with electric vehicles, diesel generators with renewable power and fossil-fuel heating with electric alternatives is one of the fastest ways to cut emissions while improving energy security. Electric technologies are also far more efficient, and renewable electricity is now the cheapest source of new power across much of the world.
Africa also possesses one of the greatest renewable energy endowments on Earth. The continent possesses some of the world’s best solar resources. Vast wind corridors stretch across North, East and Southern Africa. Geothermal energy is already powering much of Kenya’s electricity system. Hydropower resources remain significant in several regions.
But potential is not the same as progress.
The biggest obstacle is not a lack of sunshine or wind. It is a shortage of investment.
Financial barriers
African countries pay some of the highest borrowing costs in the world despite contributing the least to climate change. Projects that would be commercially viable elsewhere become prohibitively expensive because of high interest rates and perceptions of financial risk. Until the cost of capital falls, many countries will struggle to build the renewable power stations, transmission lines and battery storage needed to electrify their economies.
The electricity itself is another challenge. It is difficult to persuade people to buy electric vehicles or industries to electrify production if power supplies remain unreliable. Many national grids require major investment to expand access, improve reliability and accommodate growing volumes of renewable energy. In rural areas, decentralised solar and battery systems will often provide the quickest route to universal electricity access, but they too require finance and supportive policy frameworks.
Industrial policy matters just as much.
Africa is rich in many of the minerals needed for batteries and clean technologies, yet too often it exports raw materials and imports finished products. If electrification simply creates new markets for imported batteries, electric vehicles and solar equipment, much of the economic opportunity will be lost. The transition should also become a strategy for building African manufacturing, creating skilled jobs and capturing more value from the continent’s own resources.
There are encouraging signs. Ethiopia has pushed aggressively to promote electric mobility while seeking to reduce its dependence on imported oil. Kenya has become a global leader in geothermal electricity and is seeing rapid growth in electric motorcycles. Morocco is building an industrial base around renewable energy and battery supply chains.
Electrification is happening
These examples show that electrification is no longer a distant prospect. But they also remain outliers rather than the norm. For most African countries, unreliable grids, high borrowing costs and limited access to finance still stand in the way of a much broader transformation. That is precisely why the emerging electrification agenda matters.
If the world wants electricity to account for 35% of final energy demand by 2035, then success cannot be measured simply by announcing a global target. It must be measured by whether developing countries have the finance, technology and policy support to make that transition possible.
For Africa, electrification is not only about reducing emissions. It is about determining what kind of development path the world’s youngest and fastest-growing continent will follow.
More than a billion people live in Africa today. By mid-century, that number will be closer to 2.5 billion. This is a continent on the cusp of sweeping economic transformation, with cities expanding, industries growing and hundreds of millions of people rightly demanding the energy, mobility and prosperity long enjoyed elsewhere.
Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks
That development will require vast amounts of power. The question is whether it will be delivered through the old fossil-fuel model of imported oil, gas infrastructure and polluting combustion, or through clean electricity generated from Africa’s own renewable resources.
This matters for Africa. But it also matters for the world. A global transition to electrification cannot succeed if a continent of this scale is locked into a new generation of fossil-fuel dependence. Nor can it be just if Africa is told to decarbonise without being given the finance and technology to build something better.
The choice facing COP31 is therefore not simply whether electrification will happen. It is whether Africa is helped to become an electro-state continent, powering its development through clean electricity, or pushed by neglect into repeating the fossil-fuel pathway that has already destabilised the climate.
For the age of electrification to be a success, COP31 needs to ensure Africa is equipped to shape and accelerate it. If Africa is left behind, the global energy transition will fall behind with it.
The post Africa can lead the Age of Electrification appeared first on Climate Home News.
The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people.
Together, these initiatives would have made up around half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support conservation in the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.
When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge by 12 donors of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.
Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.
Alongside the US and much of Europe, the UK has significantly cut its aid budget in recent years, leading to much of its Congo rainforest spending being cancelled or reappraised.
The government says it still plans to “prioritise” rainforest regions, including the Congo basin, but civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.
COP pledge
At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030. This was backed by more than 140 nations.
The UK also made various funding pledges, including £200m to protect the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.
These commitments target the world’s three largest rainforests, all of which face major forest loss due to threats such as agriculture, logging and climate change.
The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink. Yet, its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.
This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.
Forest cuts
Following successive aid cuts introduced by both the Conservative and then Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.
The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was launched by the UK at COP27. It was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.
CBFA set out to “empower central African nations”, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with support for “community forests” and other measures to curb forest loss.
Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s recent aid cuts, intended to free up money for defence spending.
Its original £90m budget has now been reduced to £18.8m. Government data shows that £15m of this has already been spent.
This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to this latest round of aid cuts.
The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – championed by the previous government and worth at least £12.3m – has been closed, just two years into its seven-year schedule.
Government documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk as the UK scales back its aid budget, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region.
One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”. Officials working on the other, while more optimistic, reported that the project may be forced to operate in fewer countries as the cuts set in.
Documents also reveal the difficulties that come when operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.
‘Breaking promises’
Damian Fleming, a senior director of forests at WWF International tells Carbon Brief:
“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”
In a series of recent parliamentary responses, Chapman revealed that the UK had only spent £39.8m on Congo forest finance, as of 2024. (She declined to provide any information on the Indonesia and Amazon regional goals.)
Despite being presented as the UK’s “contribution” to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029.
Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution so far has been relatively small.
Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, tells Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:
“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world for whom the environment is an existential issue.”
Future targets
The Labour government says it has met the five-year “climate finance” target of £11.6bn that expires this year.
Ministers also say the government has met “and exceeded” the £3bn and £1.5bn sub-goals for “preserving nature” and forests, respectively, within the £11.6bn. These are the funding streams that include support for the Congo basin and other rainforests.
The UK has funded a variety of projects in line with its forest goals, including mangrove restoration in Indonesia, support for carbon-offsetting projects in Brazil and promoting “forest stewardship” among farmers in Cameroon.
Chapman has stated that the UK will continue to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest, in line with its new plan for aid spending in Africa. The UK even helped to launch a new “call to action” for Congo basin funding at COP30 last year.
The UK government also says it supported the creation of Brazil’s flagship “Tropical Forest Forever Facility” (TFFF). However, so far it has not provided any funding for the facility.
When the government announced a new climate finance pledge for 2026 onwards, it stressed that nature would still be a “focus” and said it would also generate billions in “climate and nature positive investments”. Nevertheless, it dropped the “ring-fenced” amounts for nature and forests that had appeared in its previous pledge.
The UK, alongside other developed countries, has pledged to provide biodiversity finance to developing countries, under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) – a non-binding global pact to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.
Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee of MPs, says “sub-pledges” for nature and forests are a “cost-effective and impactful” way to ensure this finance is provided, alongside climate finance. She tells Carbon Brief that she was “concerned” about the move away from this approach:
“When the minister recently appeared before the international development committee, I was concerned to hear her characterise this shift as a ‘gamble’.”
A government spokesperson tells Carbon Brief:
“We remain committed to providing finance for forests, including in the Congo basin, as a core element of our overall climate funding.”
A shorter version of this article was first published in Cropped, Carbon Brief’s fortnightly newsletter that provides a digest of food, land and nature news, on 15 July 2026. Subscribe for free.
The post UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo appeared first on Carbon Brief.
UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo
Climate Change
Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
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Key developments
Global drought and heat
DRY THEN WET: A recent heatwave and months of low rainfall has led to a prolonged drought for Uganda, resulting in at least 16 deaths from hunger and significant crop losses, reported BBC News. Bastille Post Global suggested that “a developing El Niño later this year could bring heavier rainfall to parts of the region, raising the risk of flooding in areas now struggling with drought”.
FUNDING FOOD: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have appealed for $200m in funding to help African nations deal with the impact of El Niño, stated Deutsche Welle. This would target 22 high-risk countries with measures, including “cash transfers, climate-resilient seeds, livestock protection and flood control.” The Guardian explained how El Niño could still “cause a severe shock to global food prices lasting into 2028”.
FARMING FEARS: Extreme weather has devastated agriculture across the world. India saw its driest June in 12 years, reported BBC News, and France has had a “double-digit production” decline, according to Le Monde. The Financial Times reported that farmers in the UK are mitigating the impacts of extreme heat by eliminating “chemicals and intensive ploughing to improve soil quality so it retains water”.
EURO FIRES: Wildfires have spread across Europe, with Spain reporting at least 12 deaths so far, according to the Guardian, and France experiencing road closures, said Reuters. Wildfire Today reported that the most extreme conditions are “across France, Spain and northern Portugal, the Alpine arc extending into northern Italy, the south of the UK and south-east Ireland”. CNN explained how “the climate crisis is driving hotter, drier weather, which is setting the stage for fiercer fire seasons”.
Endangering species
REDEFINING HARM: The Trump administration “reversed decades of longstanding environmental law protecting endangered species…opening up sensitive habitats…to drilling, mining, farming and real estate development”, reported CNN. According to the story, the change “redefines what constitutes ‘harm’” to endangered species, which historically prohibited habitat modification or degradation. Agence France-Presse reported that US environmental groups sued the Trump government over the move, arguing that it had violated “common sense, biological science and federal law”.
OPEN SEASON: Reuters reported that the change “limits the reach of the 50-year-old Endangered Species Act” (ESA), which is a “key regulatory consideration” when granting permits for “oil and gas, mining, electric transmission and other operations on federal lands and water”. Legal scholars told the New York Times the US government “was acting without conducting scientific research into the impact” of the change, while the National Mining Association “applauded the announcement”.
News and views
- INTERNATIONAL WATERS: After a significant delay, the UK ratified the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ), also known as the High Seas Treaty. Oceanographic detailed how this will allow for “marine protected areas across international waters for the first time”, but also stressed that the “hard part” starts now.
- SCOPE-FREE: The world’s largest meat supplier JBS “scrapped a key climate goal” in its net-zero plan that accounts for its suppliers’ emissions, “which make up the vast bulk of the company’s environmental footprint”, reported the Financial Times. The company told the paper it was difficult to control these “indirect” emissions.
- DEEP TROUBLE: Pacific gray whales are facing a “catastrophic die-off” as sea-ice loss threatens their food sources, said the Guardian. Separately, conservationists warned that more than half of all molluscs that “cluster around underwater vents” could face extinction from deep-sea mining, reported Reuters.
- ETHANOL PUSHBACK: India’s new rules to promote 100% ethanol fuel and make ethanol-blended fuel mandatory at pumps “triggered a political row”, reported the Times of India. While the Indian government defended the push to automobile owners, a Hindu editorial and an Indian Express comment warned against incentivising fuels made from “water-intensive” sugarcane and rice.
- AMAZON ACTION: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell to its lowest level in a decade, but president Lula’s plans to “end illegal deforestation by 2030” could be hampered if he is not re-elected, reported Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, Colombia’s outgoing environment minister warned of greater environmental and climate risk under the incoming government, said the Associated Press.
- WAR WORRIES: The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned of the impact of the Iran war on Africa’s clean cooking efforts as disruption in the strait of Hormuz has stunted supplies and increased prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), explained Climate Home News.
Spotlight
UK ‘discards’ Congo rainforest funding
Amid worldwide cuts to aid spending, Carbon Brief explores how the UK is backtracking on funding for the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.
The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people.
Together, these initiatives would have made up half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support forest conservation in the Congo basin.
When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.
Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.
COP pledge
At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030.
The UK also made various regional funding pledges, including £200m for the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.
All of these rainforests face major forest loss. The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink, but its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.
This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.
Forest cuts
Following successive aid cuts introduced by both Conservative and Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.
The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.
Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s aid cuts. Its £90m budget has been “quietly reduced by 79% to £18.8m”, according to the Times.
This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to aid cuts. The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – worth at least £12.3m – has closed five years early.
Official documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region. One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”.
Documents also show the difficulties operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.
‘Breaking promises’
Damian Fleming, a senior forests director at WWF International told Carbon Brief:
“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”
In a parliamentary response, Chapman said that the UK had spent £39.8m towards its £200m Congo target, as of 2024.
Despite being described as the UK’s contribution to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029. Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution was relatively small.
Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, told Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:
“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world.”
The Labour government says it has met its overarching “climate finance” goals and still intends to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest.
However, civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.
Watch, read, listen
TOXIC TROUBLES: DeSmog unpacked a new report that said Northern Ireland is being turned into a “toxic” pig and poultry farming “sacrifice zone” to satiate the UK’s meat appetite.
NEED TO NOAA: Laid-off scientists from the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) launched Climate.Us – an independent, public-backed version of the climate information website shut down by Trump last year.
DRY FRUIT: A Dialogue Earth long read looked at how climate change is impacting apricot harvests in the “stark, high-altitude desert” region of Ladakh, India.
READING ALOUD: A London Review of Books podcast discussed Robin Wall Kimmerer’s influential book “Braiding Sweetgrass”, weighing its compelling themes and where it veers into “scientific overreach”.
New science
- Climate change could cause Indigenous peoples in the Amazon to lose 28-34% of their plant species and 18-23% of their associated services | Nature
- Biodiversity in forests can act as a “buffer” against compound extreme weather events | Nature Communications
- Zero-deforestation commitments in Indonesia’s palm oil sector have had “no additional impacts” on reducing forest loss | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
In the diary
- 7-15 July: High-level political forum on sustainable development | New York City
- 13-31 July: Meeting of the International Seabed Authority assembly and council | Kingston, Jamaica
- 16 July: International Energy Agency critical minerals outlook 2026, online
- 27 July-1 August: Scientific and technical subsidiary body meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity | Nairobi, Kenya
This edition of Cropped was written by Jess Milligan, Josh Gabbatiss and Aruna Chandrasekhar. Cropped is edited by Dr Giuliana Viglione. This edition was edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org.
The post Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid
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