More than a dozen wildfires have been sweeping through Los Angeles in California, consuming tens of thousands of acres of land and devastating some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the US.
As firefighters battle to contain the blazes, at least 24 people have died, while tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate and thousands of properties have been razed to the ground.
The disaster has received widespread attention across international media, covering the scale of the damage through to the causes of the fires – and the political spats they have triggered.
Both US president Joe Biden and his Californian vice-president Kamala Harris made the link between climate change and the fires.
Meanwhile, many scientists have pointed to “climate whiplash” – rapid switches from wet to dry conditions that are becoming more common in a warmer climate – as a factor in the scale of the devastation.
Many outlets have highlighted misleading claims by right-wing commentators about the Los Angeles fire department, as well as statements from incoming president Donald Trump casting blame on California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.
A number of outlets have also explored the impact of the wildfires – which have already been dubbed the costliest in US history – on the state’s already-fragile property insurance market.
In this article, Carbon Brief examines the role of climate change in the Los Angeles wildfires and how the media has covered the disaster.
- How did the wildfires develop around Los Angeles?
- How were the fires ignited?
- What have been the impacts of the fires?
- Does climate change have a role in driving the fires?
- What has been the political reaction?
- How has the media responded to the wildfires?
- What are the implications for insurance in the state?
How did the wildfires develop around Los Angeles?
Over the course of just a week in early January, multiple fires erupted in and around Los Angeles in southern California.
The first – and what became the largest – wildfire was the Palisades fire. This was first reported at around 10:30am on Tuesday 7 January and quickly spread, explained the Washington Post, “as winds gust[ed] to about 50 mph in the area”.
The Financial Times reported that more than 29,000 acres [11,174 hectares] were burned on Tuesday in Palisades, “an affluent coastal community with some of the most expensive property in the US”. With thousands of homes at risk, evacuation orders were issued for around 30,000 people, according to the newspaper.
Rescuers were “forced to use a bulldozer to clear a path” through gridlocked, abandoned cars for emergency services to pass, reported the Times.
Through the day, a “life-threatening” windstorm “accelerated the fire’s spread across a parched landscape that has had very little rain in months”, the FT said. This storm was the “strongest to hit southern California in more than a decade”, the Associated Press noted.
An AP photographer reported seeing “multi-million dollar mansions on fire as helicopters overhead dropped water loads”.
The Washington Post described the Palisades fire as a “monster from the start”, noting that it spanned “the size of 150 football fields within half an hour and an area larger than Manhattan a day after that”.
On Tuesday night, a fast-moving fire broke out in the hills above Altadena near Eaton Canyon, reported the Los Angeles Times, prompting further evacuation orders.
The Eaton fire had “quickly grown to 200 acres” [81 hectares] by Tuesday night, said the Times, while “another fire had ignited in Sylmar, a suburb north-west of Los Angeles, and had already consumed 50 acres [20 hectares] with some nearby residents ordered to evacuate”.
These three fires – Palisade, Eaton and what would later be named the Hurst fire – would become the focus of media coverage, but a number of other fires, such as Kenneth, Archer, Sunset, Lidia, Woodley and Olivas, also ignited across the region through the week.
By Tuesday evening, California governor Gavin Newsom had declared a state of emergency, CBS News reported.
On Wednesday, the wildfires “burned uncontrollably across a wide swathe of greater Los Angeles”, reported the Washington Post, “transforming the landscape into scenes of apocalyptic destruction with blocks and blocks of neighborhoods reduced to ash”.
By the end of the day, more than 1,000 structures had been destroyed, at least 130,000 people were under evacuation orders and nearly 1.5 million residents were without power, the newspaper said. The fires were still raging with “almost zero containment”, it added.
The newspaper quoted Los Angeles county fire chief Anthony Marrone, who warned that his department was prepared for one or two major fires, but not for “this type of widespread disaster”. He added:
“There are not enough firefighters in LA county to address…fires of this magnitude.”
In response, firefighting teams from across California and the west “poured into the Los Angeles region in recent days to help relieve and reinforce local crews”, said the Washington Post.
Reports also emerged that firefighters were, in the words of BBC News, “struggl[ing] with water supply to their hoses and hydrants”. Reuters noted that “Los Angeles authorities said their municipal water systems were working effectively but they were designed for an urban environment, not for tackling wildfires”.
In total, at least a dozen fires have raged across the greater Los Angeles area over the past week. By Friday, the two largest fires of Palisades and Eaton were 8% and 3% contained, respectively, reported the Los Angeles Times. This increased to 11% and 15% by Saturday morning.
[As of early Monday 13 January (Pacific Standard Time), fire containment stood at 14%, 33% and 95% for the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires, respectively, according to California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. All other fires have been contained.]
With more heavy winds expected this week, a local fire chief told BBC News that the fight against the blazes is “at a fork in the road”, warning that the fires could “take off on Tuesday or Wednesday”.
How were the fires ignited?
Investigators are still exploring the initial cause of the fires, reported the Associated Press.
While lightning is the “most common source of fires in the US…investigators were able to rule that out quickly”, the newswire said. It explained:
“There were no reports of lightning in the Palisades area or the terrain around the Eaton fire.”
The next two most-common causes are “fires intentionally set and those sparked by utility lines”, it added.
NBC News reported that the key to identifying the cause of the Palisades fire lies “on a brush-covered hilltop where the blaze broke out just after 10:30am on Tuesday”. A former battalion chief for the Los Angeles Fire Department told the outlet that arson was an unlikely cause:
“This is what we call inaccessible, rugged terrain…Arsonists usually aren’t going to go 500 feet off a trailhead through trees and brush, set a fire and then run away.”
Analysis by the Washington Post suggested the cause was an extinguished fire from New Year’s Eve. Combining photos, videos, satellite imagery, radio communications and interviews, the newspaper concluded that “the new fire started in the vicinity of the old fire, raising the possibility that the New Year’s Eve fire was reignited, which can occur in windy conditions”.
The Daily Mail picked up the Washington Post’s reporting, describing it as a “haunting new theory”.
Other fires, such as the Eaton fire, were linked to power lines, reported NBC News (link above):
“Whipping winds can cause the lines to slap together, shedding small balls of superhot molten metal.”
The Guardian noted that “it is routine for utilities to shut off power during ‘red-flag events’, but the power lines were on near the Eaton and Palisades fires” when they started last week.
However, NBC News said, this was just one theory, adding that “it’s also possible that it was started by a person operating a camping stove or a car or lawn mower that ejected a hot spark onto dry grass”.
What have been the impacts of the fires?
The fires that swept through Los Angeles have consumed more than 40,000 acres [16,187 hectares] of land, spread across a number of neighbourhoods in both the city and Los Angeles county, according to an update from the Washington Post on Monday 13 January.
The outlet also noted the fires had claimed the lives of 24 individuals at the latest count.
NPR added that more than 12,000 structures, including houses and businesses, had been destroyed by the fires over seven days.
In a separate article, the Washington Post mapped the wildfires in various areas in Los Angeles – Palisades, Eaton and Hurst. It noted that, as of 12 January, the Lidia, Sunset, Woodley, Archer and Kenneth fires had been contained.
In response to the fires, evacuation orders were issued for approximately 153,000 people in LA county, NBC Los Angeles reported.
The New York Times added that some evacuees found temporary housing in Los Angeles hotels, including a luxury hotel in Santa Monica and 19 hotels owned by the IHG chain, which includes Intercontinental, Regent and Holiday Inn.
Evacuations were ordered in “many parts of Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Santa Monica, Calabasas, Brentwood and Encino”, Los Angeles Times reported. Meanwhile, in areas including Glenoaks Canyon and Chevy Chase Canyon, evacuation orders were lifted, allowing residents to return to their homes, according to the outlet.
However, due to poor air quality affecting regions not directly impacted by the fires, schools in Los Angeles were cancelled on Friday, according to NBC Los Angeles. “Nearly all LA unified [school district] campuses and all offices would reopen Monday”, the Los Angeles Times added.
Cultural events have also been impacted, with the nominations for the 97th Academy Awards, and the Critics’ Choice Awards being postponed, as well as television shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, as reported by ABC News.
Meanwhile, an early estimate of total damages by insurance provider AccuWeather, widely cited in the media, including BBC News, predicts the fires have caused $135-150bn in total damages.
The fires are expected to have a major impact on California’s property insurance market. (See: What are the implications for insurance in Los Angeles?)
Does climate change have a role in driving the fires?
The severity and likelihood of wildfires are affected by a wide range of conditions. Some of these are related to the climate, such as temperature, wind speed and rainfall. Meanwhile, others are linked to land use, such as the density and type of vegetation, or human-implemented fire-suppression techniques.
Nevertheless, there is a wide body of evidence showing that climate change is making wildfire conditions more likely in many parts of the world. Attribution studies have revealed that climate change has already made many individual wildfires more intense or likely. However, no such attribution study has yet been published about the Los Angeles wildfires.
News outlets and experts across the world have been making the climate connection to the fires in recent days. Many outlets note that Los Angeles has seen rapid swings between extremely dry and wet conditions over the past few years.
BBC News reported that “decades of drought in California were followed by extremely heavy rainfall for two years in 2022 and 2023”, which allowed lots of vegetation to grow. However, the state saw a switch to very dry conditions in the autumn and winter of 2024, which dried out the vegetation, providing ideal fuel for the wildfire.
The outlet highlighted a timely academic paper, which explains that climate change has increased “hydroclimate whiplash” conditions – the rapid swings between periods of high and low rainfall – globally by 31-66% since the middle of the 20th century.
Dr Daniel Swain – a climate scientist from UCLA, who led the research – wrote a Bluesky thread explaining why climate “whiplash” can create the ideal conditions for fires to spread. He said:
“In coastal southern California, where grass and brush (including chaparral) are predominant vegetation types, there is actually a historical relationship between wetter winters and increased fire activity in [the] following fire season.”
Many outlets unpacked the rapid changes in California’s rainfall. The Guardian reported that in both the rainy seasons of 2023 and 2024, more than 25 inches of rain fell over southern California. However, it said this year’s rainy season “is running at just 2% of normal for Los Angeles, which has only seen 0.16in [4mm] of rain so far”.
Al Jazeera reported that, on 7 January, only 39% of California was completely drought-free, with the rest of the state described as “abnormally dry”. However, around the same time last year, 97% of the state was classed as “drought-free”, with only 3% classed as abnormally dry, it said.
Many outlets also pointed to the Santa Ana winds. According to the Guardian, these winds blow dry, warm air into California from the US western desert during cooler months, and have contributed to many forest fires in the past. The Associated Press reported that the winds were “much faster than normal” this year and have been “whipping flames and embers at 100mph – much faster than normal”.
BBC News reported that the low-humidity Santa Ana wind “strips the vegetation of a lot of its moisture, meaning that fire can catch quicker and the vegetation burn more readily”.
Inside Climate News said the “unusually warm” band of the Pacific Ocean near southern California is bending the jet stream, allowing high pressure to settle over the north-east of Los Angeles, while intensifying the Santa Ana winds.
In the Conversation, Prof Jon Keelet from the University of California, Los Angeles, explained his research, which shows a shift in the timing of Santa Ana winds. “Due to well-documented trends in climate change, it is tempting to ascribe this to global warming, but, as yet, there is no substantial evidence of this,” he said.
What has been the political reaction?
As the fires blazed, US president Joe Biden met with California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, and approved his request for a major disaster declaration, enabling increased federal funding, according to the Los Angeles Times.
When asked by NBC News if he thought these fires would be the worst “natural” disaster in US history, Newsom replied: “I think it will be just in terms of just the costs associated.”
Craig Fugate, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator under former president Barack Obama, told the Los Angeles Times that the fires were LA’s “Hurricane Katrina” – a moment that would “forever change the community”.
Bloomberg reported that Biden said federal support would cover 100% of the costs of the fire response for 180 days. The president also directed 400 additional federal firefighters and more than 30 helicopters and planes towards the region, the news outlet added.
Both Biden and his Californian vice-president Kamala Harris made the link between climate change and the fires in their public statements.
The wildfires come at a fraught political moment for the US. Biden, who has championed climate action during his presidency, will soon be replaced by Donald Trump, a climate sceptic who has vowed to roll back many of his predecessor’s policies.
Trump’s response to the fires was summarised in an Associated Press headline that stated: “As wildfires rage in LA, Trump doesn’t offer much sympathy. He’s casting blame.”
The article said Trump had taken aim at his “longtime political foe” and falsely blamed Newsom’s forest management policies and fish conservation efforts in California for the water shortages affecting the response effort . It added that Trump “has a history of withholding or delaying federal aid to punish his political enemies”.
The Los Angeles Times noted that both Biden and current FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell “stopped short” of guaranteeing that aid would continue under Trump.
Following the incoming president’s remarks, Newsom addressed a letter to Trump inviting him to visit LA fire victims and stating “we must not politicise human tragedy or spread disinformation”, according to the Los Angeles Times.
There were also claims in right-wing media that Democratic LA mayor Karen Bass had cut the fire department’s budget, but the Los Angeles Times noted that its budget “actually grew by more than 7%”. BBC News and Media Matters both ran articles fact-checking various claims made about Democrats by figures on the US right.
The Guardian reported on “misinformation” spread by the US right, including claims that the LA fire department prioritised “diversity schemes” – often referred to as “DEI” – over fighting fires. Elon Musk, Trump’s new “efficiency tsar”, supported such claims, and wrote on Twitter: “Wild theory: maybe, just maybe, the root cause wasn’t climate change?”
Meanwhile, another Guardian article noted that “nearby blue and red states as well as foreign countries are making their own political statements in their decisions to deploy firefighters to aid California”. CBS Austin reported that Republican Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has provided resources to California.
Canada and Mexico sent firefighters to help in California, with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau offering his nation’s “full support”. Trump has threatened to impose punitive tariffs on both nations.
How has the media responded to the fires?
There has been extensive coverage in the media of the wildfires, across the US and around the world.
This has taken many forms, but there has been a particular focus in editorials on political divisions and the role of climate denial. For example, an editorial in the Guardian argued that “political obstruction is deepening a climate crisis that needs urgent action”.
In the Washington Post, columnist Jennifer Rubin said that the fires should affect the spread of climate denial, “but won’t”. She wrote:
“The hellish fires tearing through the Los Angeles area are a preview of what’s to come if politicians, ideologues and big oil continue to ignore climate change…These sorts of horror shows will become routine if climate change deniers, led by the [Make America Great Again] anti-science crowd, get their way.”
Explainers on the role of climate change in the Los Angeles wildfires have formed a notable part of the media reaction. This included pieces from the Associated Press, Al Jazeera, Channel 4 News, Le Monde, Axios and the Los Angeles Times, among others.
Elsewhere, right-leaning, climate-sceptic media has called into question the role of climate change and conservation on the wildfires. Many have also criticised the Democratic government of California, as well as the Los Angeles fire chief and members of her department.
In the Daily Telegraph, Freddy Gray, deputy editor of the Spectator, argued that “the LA fires are an epitaph for Democrat misrule”, hitting out at the “climate change lobby” and arguing that the Biden administration “spent far too much time and resources pursuing politically correct causes at the expense of competent or even sane governance”.
An article in the New York Post hit out at Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass’s “botched response” to the fires. It also amplified the comments made across social media by celebrities such as actor James Woods, who claimed that “the fire is not from ‘climate change’” and instead blamed “liberal idiots” for electing “liberal idiots like Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass”.
As noted in a piece in Forbes, Youtubers have been among the right-wing influencers pushing criticism of fire department policy. For example, journalist Megyn Kelly – recently dubbed the “Rumplestiltskin of irritation” in Vox – alleged that the fire chief “has made not filling the fire hydrants top priority, but diversity” in a viral clip.
Similar misleading claims have been made on social media, including by Twitter CEO and leader of the new US Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk, who, as noted above, argued the Los Angeles fire department “prioritised [DEI] over saving lives and homes”.
In response to the misinformation and disinformation being spread, there has also been a wave of articles attempting to counter or factcheck claims. This includes articles in the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, BBC News and the Times, among others.
One specific aspect of the coverage of the Los Angeles wildfires has been the impact on celebrities, with the homes of Billy Crystal, Paris Hilton and Eugene Levy destroyed in the fires. As such, there has been a range of coverage from sources for whom disasters would generally fall outside their remit, including Hello!, Elle, TMZ and others.
An editorial in the Daily Mirror argued that “the destruction of celebrity mansions has captured attention, but we should not forget ordinary Americans”.
What are the implications for insurance in Los Angeles?
Media coverage has highlighted how the fires are set to deliver a major blow to the area’s property insurance market – seen as in “crisis” already – with major consequences for the Californian economy and households across the state.
Insured losses of the Los Angeles fires are expected to be in the tens of billions, according to early predictions from the insurance industry cited by Bloomberg and Reinsurance News.
The eye-watering damages are driven in part by Los Angeles’ expensive real estate. The National Post said the wildfires could prove to be “the costliest in US history, specifically because they have ripped through densely populated areas with higher end-properties”. Properties in the affected Palisades neighbourhood, for example, have a median home value of $3.1m, according to real-estate data cited in a CBS News report.
After wildfires in 2017 and 2018 decimated the industry’s profits, insurers have pulled back from California’s property insurance market in recent years, making it difficult for homeowners to find affordable cover. State Farm, Allstate and Farmers Insurance are among the insurers that have either dropped California policies or halted underwriting in recent years, CBS News said.
As a result, the Los Angeles Times said the fires threaten “to deepen a crisis that has already left hundreds of thousands of Californians struggling to find and keep affordable homeowners insurance”.
Meanwhile, the New Yorker said the “insurance crisis” has been “years in the making”, noting that people had been moving to wildfire-prone areas, despite fires “becoming more destructive, in large measure due to climate change”.
The retreat of insurers from California means a significant proportion of homeowners in Los Angeles rely on the state’s insurer of last resort, California’s Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) plan.
There are now concerns the FAIR plan – which is run by the state government, but pools funds from insurers – could run out of money, putting private insurance firms on the hook to foot the bill. These costs – which could be as large as $24bn, according to the San Francisco Chronicle – would likely be passed on to insurance policyholders across the state.
The New York Times said such a scenario “would further strain the financial health of those insurers, adding to the pressure to pull back from the [California property insurance] market”. It adds:
“The potential consequences are huge. Without insurance, banks won’t issue a mortgage; without a mortgage, most people can’t buy a home. Fewer buyers mean falling home prices, threatening the tax base of fire-prone communities. It’s a scenario that could come to define California, as rising temperatures and drier conditions caused by climate change intensify the risk of wildfires.”
The Los Angeles Times said rising insurance costs for homeowners were just one way the fires would exacerbate the region’s “housing affordability crisis”. The paper has also pointed to higher rents and fierce competition for contractors that can rebuild destroyed and damaged properties.
The crisis comes as insurers around the world grapple with the rising costs attached to escalating climate impacts. Munich Re data – covered by Reuters – reveals that extreme weather events in 2024 caused an estimated $140bn in insured losses globally, up from $106bn the previous year.
Dave Jones, the former insurance commissioner of California and director of the Climate Risk Initiative at Berkeley School of Law, told Time the dynamics hurting California’s beleaguered insurance market could spread to other states as climate impacts intensified. He said:
“In the long term, we’re not doing enough to deal with the underlying driver, which is fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions, so we’re going to continue to see insurance unavailability throughout the US. We are marching steadily towards an uninsurable future in this country.”
The post Media reaction: The 2025 Los Angeles wildfires and the role of climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Media reaction: The 2025 Los Angeles wildfires and the role of climate change
Drought and heatwaves occurring together – known as “compound” events – have “surged” across the world since the early 2000s, a new study shows.
Compound drought and heat events (CDHEs) can have devastating effects, creating the ideal conditions for intense wildfires, such as Australia’s “Black Summer” of 2019-20 where bushfires burned 24m hectares and killed 33 people.
The research, published in Science Advances, finds that the increase in CDHEs is predominantly being driven by events that start with a heatwave.
The global area affected by such “heatwave-led” compound events has more than doubled between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, the study says.
The rapid increase in these events over the last 23 years cannot be explained solely by global warming, the authors note.
Since the late 1990s, feedbacks between the land and the atmosphere have become stronger, making heatwaves more likely to trigger drought conditions, they explain.
One of the study authors tells Carbon Brief that societies must pay greater attention to compound events, which can “cause severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and society”.
Compound events
CDHEs are extreme weather events where drought and heatwave conditions occur simultaneously – or shortly after each other – in the same region.
These events are often triggered by large-scale weather patterns, such as “blocking” highs, which can produce “prolonged” hot and dry conditions, according to the study.
Prof Sang-Wook Yeh is one of the study authors and a professor at the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When heatwaves and droughts occur together, the two hazards reinforce each other through land-atmosphere interactions. This amplifies surface heating and soil moisture deficits, making compound events more intense and damaging than single hazards.”
CDHEs can begin with either a heatwave or a drought.
The sequence of these extremes is important, the study says, as they have different drivers and impacts.
For example, in a CDHE where the heatwave was the precursor, increased direct sunshine causes more moisture loss from soils and plants, leading to a drought.
Conversely, in an event where the drought was the precursor, the lack of soil moisture means that less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporation and more goes into warming the Earth’s surface. This produces favourable conditions for heatwaves.
The study shows that the majority of CDHEs globally start out as a drought.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on these events due to the devastating impact they have on agriculture, ecosystems and public health.
In Russia in the summer of 2010, a compound drought-heatwave event – and the associated wildfires – caused the death of nearly 55,000 people, the study notes.
The record-breaking Pacific north-west “heat dome” in 2021 triggered extreme drought conditions that caused “significant declines” in wheat yields, as well as in barley, canola and fruit production in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, says the study.
Increasing events
To assess how CDHEs are changing, the researchers use daily reanalysis data to identify droughts and heatwaves events. (Reanalysis data combines past observations with climate models to create a historical climate record.) Then, using an algorithm, they analyse how these events overlap in both time and space.
The study covers the period from 1980 to 2023 and the world’s land surface, excluding polar regions where CDHEs are rare.
The research finds that the area of land affected by CDHEs has “increased substantially” since the early 2000s.
Heatwave-led events have been the main contributor to this increase, the study says, with their spatial extent rising 110% between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, compared to a 59% increase for drought-led events.
The map below shows the global distribution of CDHEs over 1980-2023. The charts show the percentage of the land surface affected by a heatwave-led CDHE (red) or a drought-led CDHE (yellow) in a given year (left) and relative increase in each CDHE type (right).
The study finds that CDHEs have occurred most frequently in northern South America, the southern US, eastern Europe, central Africa and south Asia.
Threshold passed
The authors explain that the increase in heatwave-led CDHEs is related to rising global temperatures, but that this does not tell the whole story.
In the earlier 22-year period of 1980-2001, the study finds that the spatial extent of heatwave-led CDHEs rises by 1.6% per 1C of global temperature rise. For the more-recent period of 2022-23, this increases “nearly eightfold” to 13.1%.
The change suggests that the rapid increase in the heatwave-led CDHEs occurred after the global average temperature “surpasse[d] a certain temperature threshold”, the paper says.
This threshold is an absolute global average temperature of 14.3C, the authors estimate (based on an 11-year average), which the world passed around the year 2000.
Investigating the recent surge in heatwave-leading CDHEs further, the researchers find a “regime shift” in land-atmosphere dynamics “toward a persistently intensified state after the late 1990s”.
In other words, the way that drier soils drive higher surface temperatures, and vice versa, is becoming stronger, resulting in more heatwave-led compound events.
Daily data
The research has some advantages over other previous studies, Yeh says. For instance, the new work uses daily estimations of CDHEs, compared to monthly data used in past research. This is “important for capturing the detailed occurrence” of these events, says Yeh.
He adds that another advantage of their study is that it distinguishes the sequence of droughts and heatwaves, which allows them to “better understand the differences” in the characteristics of CDHEs.
Dr Meryem Tanarhte is a climate scientist at the University Hassan II in Morocco, and Dr Ruth Cerezo Mota is a climatologist and a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Both scientists, who were not involved in the study, agree that the daily estimations give a clearer picture of how CDHEs are changing.
Cerezo-Mota adds that another major contribution of the study is its global focus. She tells Carbon Brief that in some regions, such as Mexico and Africa, there is a lack of studies on CDHEs:
“Not because the events do not occur, but perhaps because [these regions] do not have all the data or the expertise to do so.”
However, she notes that the reanalysis data used by the study does have limitations with how it represents rainfall in some parts of the world.
Compound impacts
The study notes that if CDHEs continue to intensify – particularly events where heatwaves are the precursors – they could drive declining crop productivity, increased wildfire frequency and severe public health crises.
These impacts could be “much more rapid and severe as global warming continues”, Yeh tells Carbon Brief.
Tanarhte notes that these events can be forecasted up to 10 days ahead in many regions. Furthermore, she says, the strongest impacts can be prevented “through preparedness and adaptation”, including through “water management for agriculture, heatwave mitigation measures and wildfire mitigation”.
The study recommends reassessing current risk management strategies for these compound events. It also suggests incorporating the sequences of drought and heatwaves into compound event analysis frameworks “to enhance climate risk management”.
Cerezo-Mota says that it is clear that the world needs to be prepared for the increased occurrence of these events. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These [risk assessments and strategies] need to be carried out at the local level to understand the complexities of each region.”
The post Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Energy crisis
ENERGY SPIKE: US-Israeli attacks on Iran and subsequent counterattacks across the Middle East have sent energy prices “soaring”, according to Reuters. The newswire reported that the region “accounts for just under a third of global oil production and almost a fifth of gas”. The Guardian noted that shipping traffic through the strait of Hormuz, which normally ferries 20% of the world’s oil, “all but ground to a halt”. The Financial Times reported that attacks by Iran on Middle East energy facilities – notably in Qatar – triggered the “biggest rise in gas prices since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.
‘RISK’ AND ‘BENEFITS’: Bloomberg reported on increases in diesel prices in Europe and the US, speculating that rising fuel costs could be “a risk for president Donald Trump”. US gas producers are “poised to benefit from the big disruption in global supply”, according to CNBC. Indian government sources told the Economic Times that Russia is prepared to “fulfil India’s energy demands”. China Daily quoted experts who said “China’s energy security remains fundamentally unshaken”, thanks to “emergency stockpiles and a wide array of import channels”.
‘ESSENTIAL’ RENEWABLES: Energy analysts said governments should cut their fossil-fuel reliance by investing in renewables, “rather than just seeking non-Gulf oil and gas suppliers”, reported Climate Home News. This message was echoed by UK business secretary Peter Kyle, who said “doubling down on renewables” was “essential” amid “regional instability”, according to the Daily Telegraph.
China’s climate plan
PEAK COAL?: China has set out its next “five-year plan” at the annual “two sessions” meeting of the National People’s Congress, including its climate strategy out to 2030, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. The plan called for China to cut its carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 17% from 2026 to 2030, which “may allow for continued increase in emissions given the rate of GDP growth”, reported Reuters. The newswire added that the plan also had targets to reach peak coal in the next five years and replace 30m tonnes per year of coal with renewables.
ACTIVE YET PRUDENT: Bloomberg described the new plan as “cautious”, stating that it “frustrat[es] hopes for tighter policy that would drive the nation to peak carbon emissions well before president Xi Jinping’s 2030 deadline”. Carbon Brief has just published an in-depth analysis of the plan. China Daily reported that the strategy “highlights measures to promote the climate targets of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030”, which China said it would work towards “actively yet prudently”.
Around the world
- EU RULES: The European Commission has proposed new “made in Europe” rules to support domestic low-carbon industries, “against fierce competition from China”, reported Agence France-Presse. Carbon Brief examined what it means for climate efforts.
- RECORD HEAT: The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said there is a 50-60% chance that the El Niño weather pattern could return this year, amplifying the effect of global warming and potentially driving temperatures to “record highs”, according to Euronews.
- FLAGSHIP FUND: The African Development Bank’s “flagship clean energy fund” plans to more than double its financing to $2.5bn for African renewables over the next two years, reported the Associated Press.
- NO WITHDRAWAL: Vanuatu has defied US efforts to force the Pacific-island nation to drop a UN draft resolution calling on the world to implement a landmark International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on climate, according to the Guardian.
98
The number of nations that submitted their national reports on tackling nature loss to the UN on time – just half of the 196 countries that are part of the UN biodiversity treaty – according to analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Sea levels are already “much higher than assumed” in most assessments of the threat posed by sea-level rise, due to “inadequate” modelling assumptions | Nature
- Accelerating human-caused global warming could see the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit crossed before 2030 | Geophysical Research Letters covered by Carbon Brief
- Future “super El Niño events” could “significantly lower” solar power generation due to a reduction in solar irradiance in key regions, such as California and east China | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 fell to 54% below 1990 levels, the baseline year for its legally binding climate goals, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Over the same period, data from the World Bank shows that the UK’s economy has expanded by 95%, meaning that emissions have been decoupling from growth.
Spotlight
Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ community wind turbine
Following the recent launch of the UK government’s local power plan, Carbon Brief visits one of the country’s community-energy success stories.
The Lawrence Weston housing estate is set apart from the main city of Bristol, wedged between the tree-lined grounds of a stately home and a sprawl of warehouses and waste incinerators. It is one of the most deprived areas in the city.
Yet, just across the M5 motorway stands a structure that has brought the spoils of the energy transition directly to this historically forgotten estate – a 4.2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine.
The turbine is owned by local charity Ambition Lawrence Weston and all the profits from its electricity sales – around £100,000 a year – go to the community. In the UK’s local power plan, it was singled out by energy secretary Ed Miliband as a “pioneering” project.
‘Sustainable income’
On a recent visit to the estate by Carbon Brief, Ambition Lawrence Weston’s development manager, Mark Pepper, rattled off the story behind the wind turbine.
In 2012, Pepper and his team were approached by the Bristol Energy Cooperative with a chance to get a slice of the income from a new solar farm. They jumped at the opportunity.
“Austerity measures were kicking in at the time,” Pepper told Carbon Brief. “We needed to generate an income. Our own, sustainable income.”
With the solar farm proving to be a success, the team started to explore other opportunities. This began a decade-long process that saw them navigate the Conservative government’s “ban” on onshore wind, raise £5.5m in funding and, ultimately, erect the turbine in 2023.
Today, the turbine generates electricity equivalent to Lawrence Weston’s 3,000 households and will save 87,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) over its lifetime.
‘Climate by stealth’
Ambition Lawrence Weston’s hub is at the heart of the estate and the list of activities on offer is seemingly endless: birthday parties, kickboxing, a library, woodworking, help with employment and even a pop-up veterinary clinic. All supported, Pepper said, with the help of a steady income from community-owned energy.
The centre itself is kitted out with solar panels, heat pumps and electric-vehicle charging points, making it a living advertisement for the net-zero transition. Pepper noted that the organisation has also helped people with energy costs amid surging global gas prices.
Gesturing to the England flags dangling limply on lamp posts visible from the kitchen window, he said:
“There’s a bit of resentment around immigration and scarcity of materials and provision, so we’re trying to do our bit around community cohesion.”
This includes supper clubs and an interfaith grand iftar during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Anti-immigration sentiment in the UK has often gone hand-in-hand with opposition to climate action. Right-wing politicians and media outlets promote the idea that net-zero policies will cost people a lot of money – and these ideas have cut through with the public.
Pepper told Carbon Brief he is sympathetic to people’s worries about costs and stressed that community energy is the perfect way to win people over:
“I think the only way you can change that is if, instead of being passive consumers…communities are like us and they’re generating an income to offset that.”
From the outset, Pepper stressed that “we weren’t that concerned about climate because we had other, bigger pressures”, adding:
“But, in time, we’ve delivered climate by stealth.”
Watch, read, listen
OIL WATCH: The Guardian has published a “visual guide” with charts and videos showing how the “escalating Iran conflict is driving up oil and gas prices”.
MURDER IN HONDURAS: Ten years on from the murder of Indigenous environmental justice advocate Berta Cáceres, Drilled asked why Honduras is still so dangerous for environmental activists.
TALKING WEATHER: A new film, narrated by actor Michael Sheen and titled You Told Us To Talk About the Weather, aimed to promote conversation about climate change with a blend of “poetry, folk horror and climate storytelling”.
Coming up
- 8 March: Colombia parliamentary election
- 9-19 March: 31st Annual Session of the International Seabed Authority, Kingston, Jamaica
- 11 March: UN Environment Programme state of finance for nature 2026 report launch
Pick of the jobs
- London School of Economics and Political Science, fellow in the social science of sustainability | Salary: £43,277-£51,714. Location: London
- NORCAP, innovative climate finance expert | Salary: Unknown. Location: Kyiv, Ukraine
- WBHM, environmental reporter | Salary: $50,050-$81,330. Location: Birmingham, Alabama, US
- Climate Cabinet, data engineer | Salary: hourly rate of $60-$120 per hour. Location: Remote anywhere in the US
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China’s leadership has published a draft of its 15th five-year plan setting the strategic direction for the nation out to 2030, including support for clean energy and energy security.
The plan sets a target to cut China’s “carbon intensity” by 17% over the five years from 2026-30, but also changes the basis for calculating this key climate metric.
The plan continues to signal support for China’s clean-energy buildout and, in general, contains no major departures from the country’s current approach to the energy transition.
The government reaffirms support for several clean-energy industries, ranging from solar and electric vehicles (EVs) through to hydrogen and “new-energy” storage.
The plan also emphasises China’s willingness to steer climate governance and be seen as a provider of “global public goods”, in the form of affordable clean-energy technologies.
However, while the document says it will “promote the peaking” of coal and oil use, it does not set out a timeline and continues to call for the “clean and efficient” use of coal.
This shows that tensions remain between China’s climate goals and its focus on energy security, leading some analysts to raise concerns about its carbon-cutting ambition.
Below, Carbon Brief outlines the key climate change and energy aspects of the plan, including targets for carbon intensity, non-fossil energy and forestry.
Note: this article is based on a draft published on 5 March and will be updated if any significant changes are made in the final version of the plan, due to be released at the close next week of the “two sessions” meeting taking place in Beijing.
- What is China’s 15th five-year plan?
- What does the plan say about China’s climate action?
- What is China’s new CO2 intensity target?
- Does the plan encourage further clean-energy additions?
- What does the plan signal about coal?
- How will China approach global climate governance in the next five years?
- What else does the plan cover?
What is China’s 15th five-year plan?
Five-year plans are one of the most important documents in China’s political system.
Addressing everything from economic strategy to climate policy, they outline the planned direction for China’s socio-economic development in a five-year period. The 15th five-year plan covers 2026-30.
These plans include several “main goals”. These are largely quantitative indicators that are seen as particularly important to achieve and which provide a foundation for subsequent policies during the five-year period.
The table below outlines some of the key “main goals” from the draft 15th five-year plan.
| Category | Indicator | Indicator in 2025 | Target by 2030 | Cumulative target over 2026-2030 | Characteristic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Economic development | Gross domestic product (GDP) growth (%) | 5 | Maintained within a reasonable range and proposed annually as appropriate. | Anticipatory | |
| ‘Green and low-carbon | Reduction in CO2 emissions per unit of GDP (%) | 17.7 | 17 | Binding | |
| Share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption (%) | 21.7 | 25 | Binding | ||
| Security guarantee | Comprehensive energy production capacity (100m tonnes of standard coal equivalent) |
51.3 | 58 | Binding |
Select list of targets highlighted in the “main goals” section of the draft 15th five-year plan. Source: Draft 15th five-year plan.
Since the 12th five-year plan, covering 2011-2015, these “main goals” have included energy intensity and carbon intensity as two of five key indicators for “green ecology”.
The previous five-year plan, which ran from 2021-2025, introduced the idea of an absolute “cap” on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, although it did not provide an explicit figure in the document. This has been subsequently addressed by a policy on the “dual-control of carbon” issued in 2024.
The latest plan removes the energy-intensity goal and elevates the carbon-intensity goal, but does not set an absolute cap on emissions (see below).
It covers the years until 2030, before which China has pledged to peak its carbon emissions. (Analysis for Carbon Brief found that emissions have been “flat or falling” since March 2024.)
The plans are released at the two sessions, an annual gathering of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). This year, it runs from 4-12 March.
The plans are often relatively high-level, with subsequent topic-specific five-year plans providing more concrete policy guidance.
Policymakers at the National Energy Agency (NEA) have indicated that in the coming years they will release five sector-specific plans for 2026-2030, covering topics such as the “new energy system”, electricity and renewable energy.
There may also be specific five-year plans covering carbon emissions and environmental protection, as well as the coal and nuclear sectors, according to analysts.
Other documents published during the two sessions include an annual government work report, which outlines key targets and policies for the year ahead.
The gathering is attended by thousands of deputies – delegates from across central and local governments, as well as Chinese Communist party members, members of other political parties, academics, industry leaders and other prominent figures.
What does the plan say about China’s climate action?
Achieving China’s climate targets will remain a key driver of the country’s policies in the next five years, according to the draft 15th five-year plan.
It lists the “acceleration” of China’s energy transition as a “major achievement” in the 14th five-year plan period (2021-2025), noting especially how clean-power capacity had overtaken fossil fuels.
The draft says China will “actively and steadily advance and achieve carbon peaking”, with policymakers continuing to strike a balance between building a “green economy” and ensuring stability.
Climate and environment continues to receive its own chapter in the plan. However, the framing and content of this chapter has shifted subtly compared with previous editions, as shown in the table below. For example, unlike previous plans, the first section of this chapter focuses on China’s goal to peak emissions.
| 11th five-year plan (2006-2010) | 12th five-year plan (2011-2015) | 13th five-year plan (2016-2020) | 14th five-year plan (2021-2025) | 15th five-year plan (2026-2030) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chapter title | Part 6: Build a resource-efficient and environmentally-friendly society | Part 6: Green development, building a resource-efficient and environmentally friendly society | Part 10: Ecosystems and the environment | Part 11: Promote green development and facilitate the harmonious coexistence of people and nature | Part 13: Accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development to build a beautiful China |
| Sections | Developing a circular economy | Actively respond to global climate change | Accelerate the development of functional zones | Improve the quality and stability of ecosystems | Actively and steadily advancing and achieving carbon peaking |
| Protecting and restoring natural ecosystems | Strengthen resource conservation and management | Promote economical and intensive resource use | Continue to improve environmental quality | Continuously improving environmental quality | |
| Strengthening environmental protection | Vigorously develop the circular economy | Step up comprehensive environmental governance | Accelerate the green transformation of the development model | Enhancing the diversity, stability, and sustainability of ecosystems | |
| Enhancing resource management | Strengthen environmental protection efforts | Intensify ecological conservation and restoration | Accelerating the formation of green production and lifestyles | ||
| Rational utilisation of marine and climate resources | Promoting ecological conservation and restoration | Respond to global climate change | |||
| Strengthen the development of water conservancy and disaster prevention and mitigation systems | Improve mechanisms for ensuring ecological security | ||||
| Develop green and environmentally-friendly industries |
Title and main sections of the climate and environment-focused chapters in the last five five-year plans. Source: China’s 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th five-year plans.
The climate and environment chapter in the latest plan calls for China to “balance [economic] development and emission reduction” and “ensure the timely achievement of carbon peak targets”.
Under the plan, China will “continue to pursue” its established direction and objectives on climate, Prof Li Zheng, dean of the Tsinghua University Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development (ICCSD), tells Carbon Brief.
What is China’s new CO2 intensity target?
In the lead-up to the release of the plan, analysts were keenly watching for signals around China’s adoption of a system for the “dual-control of carbon”.
This would combine the existing targets for carbon intensity – the CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – with a new cap on China’s total carbon emissions. This would mark a dramatic step for the country, which has never before set itself a binding cap on total emissions.
Policymakers had said last year that this framework would come into effect during the 15th five-year plan period, replacing the previous system for the “dual-control of energy”.
However, the draft 15th five-year plan does not offer further details on when or how both parts of the dual-control of carbon system will be implemented. Instead, it continues to focus on carbon intensity targets alone.
Looking back at the previous five-year plan period, the latest document says China had achieved a carbon-intensity reduction of 17.7%, just shy of its 18% goal.
This is in contrast with calculations by Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which had suggested that China had only cut its carbon intensity by 12% over the past five years.
At the time it was set in 2021, the 18% target had been seen as achievable, with analysts telling Carbon Brief that they expected China to realise reductions of 20% or more.
However, the government had fallen behind on meeting the target.
Last year, ecology and environment minister Huang Runqiu attributed this to the Covid-19 pandemic, extreme weather and trade tensions. He said that China, nevertheless, remained “broadly” on track to meet its 2030 international climate pledge of reducing carbon intensity by more than 65% from 2005 levels.
Myllyvirta tells Carbon Brief that the newly reported figure showing a carbon-intensity reduction of 17.7% is likely due to an “opportunistic” methodological revision. The new methodology now includes industrial process emissions – such as cement and chemicals – as well as the energy sector.
(This is not the first time China has redefined a target, with regulators changing the methodology for energy intensity in 2023.)
For the next five years, the plan sets a target to reduce carbon intensity by 17%, slightly below the previous goal.
However, the change in methodology means that this leaves space for China’s overall emissions to rise by “3-6% over the next five years”, says Myllyvirta. In contrast, he adds that the original methodology would have required a 2% fall in absolute carbon emissions by 2030.
The dashed lines in the chart below show China’s targets for reducing carbon intensity during the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th five-year periods, while the bars show what was achieved under the old (dark blue) and new (light blue) methodology.
The carbon-intensity target is the “clearest signal of Beijing’s climate ambition”, says Li Shuo, director at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s (ASPI) China climate hub.
It also links directly to China’s international pledge – made in 2021 – to cut its carbon intensity to more than 65% below 2005 levels by 2030.
To meet this pledge under the original carbon-intensity methodology, China would have needed to set a target of a 23% reduction within the 15th five-year plan period. However, the country’s more recent 2035 international climate pledge, released last year, did not include a carbon-intensity target.
As such, ASPI’s Li interprets the carbon-intensity target in the draft 15th five-year plan as a “quiet recalibration” that signals “how difficult the original 2030 goal has become”.
Furthermore, the 15th five-year plan does not set an absolute emissions cap.
This leaves “significant ambiguity” over China’s climate plans, says campaign group 350 in a press statement reacting to the draft plan. It explains:
“The plan was widely expected to mark a clearer transition from carbon-intensity targets toward absolute emissions reductions…[but instead] leaves significant ambiguity about how China will translate record renewable deployment into sustained emissions cuts.”
Myllyvirta tells Carbon Brief that this represents a “continuation” of the government’s focus on scaling up clean-energy supply while avoiding setting “strong measurable emission targets”.
He says that he would still expect to see absolute caps being set for power and industrial sectors covered by China’s emissions trading scheme (ETS). In addition, he thinks that an overall absolute emissions cap may still be published later in the five-year period.
Despite the fact that it has yet to be fully implemented, the switch from dual-control of energy to dual-control of carbon represents a “major policy evolution”, Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), tells Carbon Brief. He says that it will allow China to “provide more flexibility for renewable energy expansion while tightening the net on fossil-fuel reliance”.
Does the plan encourage further clean-energy additions?
“How quickly carbon intensity is reduced largely depends on how much renewable energy can be supplied,” says Yao Zhe, global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, in a statement.
The five-year plan continues to call for China’s development of a “new energy system that is clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient” by 2030, with continued additions of “wind, solar, hydro and nuclear power”.
In line with China’s international pledge, it sets a target for raising the share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption to 25% by 2030, up from just under 21.7% in 2025.
The development of “green factories” and “zero-carbon [industrial] parks” has been central to many local governments’ strategies for meeting the non-fossil energy target, according to industry news outlet BJX News. A call to build more of these zero-carbon industrial parks is listed in the five-year plan.
Prof Pan Jiahua, dean of Beijing University of Technology’s Institute of Ecological Civilization, tells Carbon Brief that expanding demand for clean energy through mechanisms such as “green factories” represents an increasingly “bottom-up” and “market-oriented” approach to the energy transition, which will leave “no place for fossil fuels”.
He adds that he is “very much sure that China’s zero-carbon process is being accelerated and fossil fuels are being driven out of the market”, pointing to the rapid adoption of EVs.
The plan says that China will aim to double “non-fossil energy” in 10 years – although it does not clarify whether this means their installed capacity or electricity generation, or what the exact starting year would be.
Research has shown that doubling wind and solar capacity in China between 2025-2035 would be “consistent” with aims to limit global warming to 2C.
While the language “certainly” pushes for greater additions of renewable energy, Yao tells Carbon Brief, it is too “opaque” to be a “direct indication” of the government’s plans for renewable additions.
She adds that “grid stability and healthy, orderly competition” is a higher priority for policymakers than guaranteeing a certain level of capacity additions.
China continues to place emphasis on the need for large-scale clean-energy “bases” and cross-regional power transmission.
The plan says China must develop “clean-energy bases…in the three northern regions” and “integrated hydro-wind-solar complexes” in south-west China.
It specifically encourages construction of “large-scale wind and solar” power bases in desert regions “primarily” for cross-regional power transmission, as well as “major hydropower” projects, including the Yarlung Tsangpo dam in Tibet.
As such, the country should construct “power-transmission corridors” with the capacity to send 420 gigawatts (GW) of electricity from clean-energy bases in western provinces to energy-hungry eastern provinces by 2030, the plan says.
State Grid, China’s largest grid operator, plans to install “another 15 ultra-high voltage [UHV] transmission lines” by 2030, reports Reuters, up from the 45 UHV lines built by last year.
Below are two maps illustrating the interlinkages between clean-energy bases in China in the 15th (top) and 14th (bottom) five-year plan periods.
The yellow dotted areas represent clean energy bases, while the arrows represent cross-regional power transmission. The blue wind-turbine icons represent offshore windfarms and the red cooling tower icons represent coastal nuclear plants.
The 15th five-year plan map shows a consistent approach to the 2021-2025 period. As well as power being transmitted from west to east, China plans for more power to be sent to southern provinces from clean-energy bases in the north-west, while clean-energy bases in the north-east supply China’s eastern coast.
It also maps out “mutual assistance” schemes for power grids in neighbouring provinces.
Offshore wind power should reach 100GW by 2030, while nuclear power should rise to 110GW, according to the plan.
What does the plan signal about coal?
The increased emphasis on grid infrastructure in the draft 15th five-year plan reflects growing concerns from energy planning officials around ensuring China’s energy supply.
Ren Yuzhi, director of the NEA’s development and planning department, wrote ahead of the plan’s release that the “continuous expansion” of China’s energy system has “dramatically increased its complexity”.
He said the NEA felt there was an “urgent need” to enhance the “secure and reliable” replacement of fossil-fuel power with new energy sources, as well as to ensure the system’s “ability to absorb them”.
Meanwhile, broader concerns around energy security have heightened calls for coal capacity to remain in the system as a “ballast stone”.
The plan continues to support the “clean and efficient utilisation of fossil fuels” and does not mention either a cap or peaking timeline for coal consumption.
Xi had previously told fellow world leaders that China would “strictly control” coal-fired power and phase down coal consumption in the 15th five-year plan period.
The “geopolitical situation is increasing energy security concerns” at all levels of government, said the Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress in a note responding to the draft plan, adding that this was creating “uncertainty over coal reduction”.
Ahead of its publication, there were questions around whether the plan would set a peaking deadline for oil and coal. An article posted by state news agency Xinhua last month, examining recommendations for the plan from top policymakers, stated that coal consumption would plateau from “around 2027”, while oil would peak “around 2026”.
However, the plan does not lay out exact years by which the two fossil fuels should peak, only saying that China will “promote the peaking of coal and oil consumption”.
There are similarly no mentions of phasing out coal in general, in line with existing policy.
Nevertheless, there is a heavy emphasis on retrofitting coal-fired power plants. The plan calls for the establishment of “demonstration projects” for coal-plant retrofitting, such as through co-firing with biomass or “green ammonia”.
Such retrofitting could incentivise lower utilisation of coal plants – and thus lower emissions – if they are used to flexibly meet peaks in demand and to cover gaps in clean-energy output, instead of providing a steady and significant share of generation.
The plan also calls for officials to “fully implement low-carbon retrofitting projects for coal-chemical industries”, which have been a notable source of emissions growth in the past year.
However, the coal-chemicals sector will likely remain a key source of demand for China’s coal mining industry, with coal-to-oil and coal-to-gas bases listed as a “key area” for enhancing the country’s “security capabilities”.
Meanwhile, coal-fired boilers and industrial kilns in the paper industry, food processing and textiles should be replaced with “clean” alternatives to the equivalent of 30m tonnes of coal consumption per year, it says.
“China continues to scale up clean energy at an extraordinary pace, but the plan still avoids committing to strong measurable constraints on emissions or fossil fuel use”, says Joseph Dellatte, head of energy and climate studies at the Institut Montaigne. He adds:
“The logic remains supply-driven: deploy massive amounts of clean energy and assume emissions will eventually decline.”
How will China approach global climate governance in the next five years?
Meanwhile, clean-energy technologies continue to play a role in upgrading China’s economy, with several “new energy” sectors listed as key to its industrial policy.
Named sectors include smart EVs, “new solar cells”, new-energy storage, hydrogen and nuclear fusion energy.
“China’s clean-technology development – rather than traditional administrative climate controls – is increasingly becoming the primary driver of emissions reduction,” says ASPI’s Li. He adds that strengthening China’s clean-energy sectors means “more closely aligning Beijing’s economic ambitions with its climate objectives”.
Analysis for Carbon Brief shows that clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025, representing around 11% of China’s whole economy.
The continued support for these sectors in the draft five-year plan comes as the EU outlined its own measures intended to limit China’s hold on clean-energy industries, driven by accusations of “unfair competition” from Chinese firms.
China is unlikely to crack down on clean-tech production capacity, Dr Rebecca Nadin, director of the Centre for Geopolitics of Change at ODI Global, tells Carbon Brief. She says:
“Beijing is treating overcapacity in solar and smart EVs as a strategic choice, not a policy error…and is prepared to pour investment into these sectors to cement global market share, jobs and technological leverage.”
Dellatte echoes these comments, noting that it is “striking” that the plan “barely addresses the issue of industrial overcapacity in clean technologies”, with the focus firmly on “scaling production and deployment”.
At the same time, China is actively positioning itself to be a prominent voice in climate diplomacy and a champion of proactive climate action.
This is clear from the first line in a section on providing “global public goods”. It says:
“As a responsible major country, China will play a more active role in addressing global challenges such as climate change.”
The plan notes that China will “actively participate in and steer [引领] global climate governance”, in line with the principle of “common,but differentiated responsibilities”.
This echoes similar language from last year’s government work report, Yao tells Carbon Brief, demonstrating a “clear willingness” to guide global negotiations. But she notes that this “remains an aspiration that’s yet to be made concrete”. She adds:
“China has always favored collective leadership, so its vision of leadership is never a lone one.”
The country will “deepen south-south cooperation on climate change”, the plan says. In an earlier section on “opening up”, it also notes that China will explore “new avenues for collaboration in green development” with global partners as part of its “Belt and Road Initiative”.
China is “doubling down” on a narrative that it is a “responsible major power” and “champion of south-south climate cooperation”, Nadin says, such as by “presenting its clean‑tech exports and finance as global public goods”. She says:
“China will arrive at future COPs casting itself as the indispensable climate leader for the global south…even though its new five‑year plan still puts growth, energy security and coal ahead of faster emissions cuts at home.”
What else does the plan cover?
The impact of extreme weather – particularly floods – remains a key concern in the plan.
China must “refine” its climate adaptation framework and “enhance its resilience to climate change, particularly extreme-weather events”, it says.
China also aims to “strengthen construction of a national water network” over the next five years in order to help prevent floods and droughts.
An article published a few days before the plan in the state-run newspaper China Daily noted that, “as global warming intensifies, extreme weather events – including torrential rains, severe convective storms, and typhoons – have become more frequent, widespread and severe”.
The plan also touches on critical minerals used for low-carbon technologies. These will likely remain a geopolitical flashpoint, with China saying it will focus during the next five years on “intensifying” exploration and “establishing” a reserve for critical minerals. This reserve will focus on “scarce” energy minerals and critical minerals, as well as other “advantageous mineral resources”.
Dellatte says that this could mean the “competition in the energy transition will increasingly be about control over mineral supply chains”.
Other low-carbon policies listed in the five-year plan include expanding coverage of China’s mandatory carbon market and further developing its voluntary carbon market.
China will “strengthen monitoring and control” of non-CO2 greenhouse gases, the plan says, as well as implementing projects “targeting methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons” in sectors such as coal mining, agriculture and chemicals.
This will create “capacity” for reducing emissions by 30m tonnes of CO2 equivalent, it adds.
Meanwhile, China will develop rules for carbon footprint accounting and push for internationally recognised accounting standards.
It will enhance reform of power markets over the next five years and improve the trading mechanism for green electricity certificates.
It will also “promote” adoption of low-carbon lifestyles and decarbonisation of transport, as well as working to advance electrification of freight and shipping.
The post Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ mean for climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ mean for climate change?
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