The year of 2023 was the second-warmest on record for the UK, narrowly behind the record set as recently as 2022.
It was also the warmest year on record for Wales and Northern Ireland, second-warmest for England and third-warmest for Scotland.
In this review, we look back at the UK’s climate in 2023, the significant climate events that shaped the year and how human-caused climate change influenced them. We find:
- Eight of the 12 months of the year were warmer than average.
- Somewhat unusually, the warmest periods were in June and September, with the high summer months of July and August generally cooler and wetter.
- June was the hottest month of the year for the first time since 1966 and was the hottest June on record by a large margin.
- Through a climate attribution analysis, we show that a year as warm as 2023 has been made around 150 times more likely due to human-caused climate change.
- We would expect to reach or exceed the 2023 annual temperature in around 33% of years in the current climate.
- 2023 was relatively wet with 1,290mm of rainfall, making it the UK’s 11th wettest year in a series going back to 1836.
- The few wintery cold spells of the year were relatively short-lived.
- 2023-24 has seen the most active start to the storm season since naming storms began in 2015.
(See our previous annual analysis for 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018.)
The year in summary
The Met Office produces the HadUK-Grid dataset for monitoring the UK climate. Using geostatistical methods, we combine UK observational data from land-based stations across the country into a gridded, geographically complete dataset.
There is enough coverage of observational data in our digital archives for national coverage of monthly temperature since 1884, rainfall since 1836 and sunshine since 1910. These are used to define long-running climate series and climatological averages, which provide context for variability and change in the UK’s climate through time.
The maps below show the average anomalies compared to 1991-2020 for temperature (left), rainfall (middle) and sunshine duration (right) across the UK during 2023. The darkest shading shows the areas of the country that saw the warmest (red), driest (brown) and sunniest (yellow) conditions relative to the baseline climate.
The maps show that 2023 was, for most of the country, a warm and wet year compared to average, with close to average sunshine overall. The exception to this being western Scotland which saw drier and sunnier conditions.
The UK annual average temperature was 9.97C for 2023, which is just 0.06C below the record high of 10.03C in 2022. This continues an observed warming of the UK climate since the 1960s.
The hottest year in the UK during the whole of the 20th century was 1997, with an average temperature of 9.41C. So far in the 21st century, 13 years have exceeded this value, meaning that the majority of years so far in the 21st century have exceeded what was the hottest year of the 20th century.
In contrast, the coldest year of the 21st century so far was 2010 (7.94C) which was more than 0.5C warmer than the coldest year of the 20th century in 1963 (7.40C).
While 2010 is an extreme-cold year in the context of the current UK climate, it would have been much closer to the average for the late 19th and early 20th century. Climate change has significantly reduced the occurrence and severity of cooler conditions in the UK.
Looking regionally, the map below colour-codes UK counties by the ranking of annual average temperature.
The darkest shade of red identifies those counties that recorded their warmest year in 2023. It was the warmest year on record for all of Northern Ireland and Wales, and also for counties in western England and south-west Scotland.
The year 2022 retains the record for the majority of England and Scotland, with the exception of far north Scotland (for which the warmest year on record was 2014), Western Isles (2006), Orkney (2003) and Shetland (2014).
In addition, 2023 is also provisionally the warmest year on record for Ireland in the 124 year national series maintained by Met Eireann.
Central England Temperature record
The year of 2023 was also the second-warmest year in the Met Office Central England Temperature series (CET), marginally behind 2022. The CET represents a region bounded by Hertfordshire, Worcestershire and Lancashire.
The chart below compares the records for the CET (black) and whole UK (red) for annual average temperature.
While there are inevitable differences in the precise ranking and anomalies of individual years between UK and CET, the series show the strong overall level of agreement. It also highlights how unusual the temperature of 2022 and 2023 are in the context of more than 360 years of observational data.
Extremes and rainfall
The UK climate monitoring network records both daily maximum and daily minimum temperatures.
Last year was the record highest for the annual average daily minimum temperature for the UK, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and fourth highest for Scotland.
It was the highest annual average daily maximum temperature for Northern Ireland, second-highest for the UK, England and Wales, and third-highest for Scotland.
The year of 2023 was relatively wet with 1,290mm of rainfall, equivalent to 111% of UK average rainfall and putting it just outside the top 10 as the 11th wettest year in a series going back to 1836.
It was the sixth wettest March and July, seventh wettest October and ninth wettest December. In addition, 2023 is the only year that has four individual months within the top 10 wettest on record for the respective month.
The wet spells of March and July followed dry spells during February and June, but it was the higher-than-average rainfall through the autumn and into December that pushed up the annual accumulation for the year overall.
As the chart below shows, there has been an observed increase in UK annual rainfall over recent decades, with 2023 joining a cluster of notably wet years that have occurred since the late 1990s.
The lines show the annual rainfall (dark blue) and trend (black dashes), along with the 1991-2020 average (pink), 2023 total (brown) and the highest (red dashes) and lowest (blue dashes) annual totals on record.
The drivers of annual rainfall trends are complex as the annual total masks distribution of rainfall throughout the year and will respond to a multitude of factors, which will include human-caused climate change but also contributions from natural climate variability.
Attribution of UK annual mean temperature in 2023
Met Office scientists conducted an attribution study to quantify the influence of human-caused climate change on the likelihood of reaching a UK annual average temperature at or above that recorded in 2023.
The method uses an established Met Office system for rapid attribution of extreme events. The analysis uses observed values of the UK annual temperature and temperature data for the UK drawn from 14 climate model simulations from the sixth – and most recent – phase of the global Coupled Model Intercomparison Project.
The models are evaluated against the observational data across the period 1884-2014 using approaches commonly adopted for attribution studies. This determines whether they are suitable for use in the assessment and provide adequate representations of UK annual average temperature trends and variability.
One set of model simulations uses only natural climate forcings (“NAT”) for the period 1850-2020, while another set uses all natural and human-caused forcings (“ALL”) for the historical period and the SSP2-4.5 emissions scenario, often described as a “medium” emissions scenario, out to 2100.
These simulations are then able to provide estimates of the likelihood of the UK annual temperature exceeding the observed 2023 value for the following scenarios:
- A natural climate without human-caused greenhouse gases.
- The current climate taken as a 20-year period centred on 2023.
- An end-of-century climate under a medium emissions scenario taken as the period 2081-2100.
A reference baseline for all the experiments is the period 1901-30.
The estimated return period for a UK annual average temperature exceeding 9.97C in the NAT simulations is once every 460 years (with a range of 82 to 587). For the ALL simulations in the present day, this drops to once every three years (with a range of 2.86 to 3.17). For the ALL simulations in the future, this falls further and could see temperatures warmer than 2023 being exceeded more frequently than every other year.
Human-caused climate change is, therefore, estimated to have increased the likelihood of a year as warm as 2023 by a factor of more than 150.
These results are, unsurprisingly, very similar to an equivalent study conducted a year ago in relation to the record-breaking annual mean temperature of 10.03C set in 2022. Regarding that study, we stated:
“A warming climate means that an event that would have been exceptionally unlikely in the past has become one that we will increasingly see in the coming decades.”
Importantly, this analysis also indicates that 2022 and 2023 are not necessarily that extreme in the context of our current climate. This means that there is the potential for a far higher UK annual average temperature extreme even in the present-day climate. In addition, by the end of the 21st century, most years will be warmer than 2023.
Weather through the year
Temperature
The chart below tracks UK average temperatures through the year, with orange highlighting periods that were warmer than the 1991-2020 average for the time of year and blue were cooler than average.
Overall, 66% of days (240 days) were warmer than the 1991-2020 average for the time of year and 34% (125 days) were colder. The most notable warm spells were in June, September and December.
The highest maximum temperature of the year was 33.5C at Faversham (Kent) on 10 September, which is only the fifth time a highest maximum has been recorded in September. This is equal to the 1991-2020 average annual maximum temperature, so it is close to what we would expect as the highest UK temperature for a typical year. However, it is 2.3C higher than the average maximum during the earlier period of 1961-90 (31.2C).
In September, there was also a run of seven consecutive days with temperatures somewhere in the UK exceeding 30C, which is the longest such run in September on record.
The lowest temperature of the year was -16.0C, recorded at Altnaharra (Sutherland) on 9 March during a spell of wintry weather. This is 0.5C below the 1991-2020 average (-15.5C), but 3C above the 1961-90 average (-19.0C) for the year’s coldest day.
In 2023, both the hottest and coldest weather of the year occurred outside of the climatological summer and winter season, a reminder of the variable nature of the UK climate.
Both the highest maximum and lowest minimum temperature of the year for the UK have been increasing at a faster rate than the UK average temperature, reflecting that heat extremes are becoming more severe while cold extremes are becoming less severe in our warming climate.
Rainfall
For rainfall, the wettest periods were seen in March, July, October and December.
In the chart below, the rainfall accumulation is tracked through the course of the year. The solid black line is the 1991-2020 average, the grey shading reflects the variability across years with the red and blue marking the highest and lowest on record. Brown shading highlights points in the year where the total rainfall since the start of the year was below average, and blue regions are where it is above average.
The chart highlights that a dry spell in February was compensated by the wet March, and the dry spell through May and June was followed by a wet July, returning the year to near-average by the start of autumn.
Western Scotland was an exception to this rainfall pattern, with a somewhat drier autumn in particular, although wetter conditions in the east, including some extreme rainfall such as during storm Babet in October, meant that Scotland overall was still wetter than average. For England it was the sixth wettest year on record, third wettest for Northern Ireland, 12th for Wales and 32nd for Scotland.
Storms
The Met Office storm naming, first launched in 2015, provides a storm name list for the period from 1 September to 31 August each year in collaboration with Met Eireann and KNMI, the Irish and Dutch national weather services, respectively.
The 2022-23 storm season was rather notable for the relative absence of storms, with the only storms to be named under this scheme both occurring right at the end of the season in August – storms Antoni (5 August) and Betty (18-19 August).
In contrast, the 2023-24 season has experienced a much more active start with seven named storms from September to December, and the eighth (storm Henk) in early January 2024, which is the most active start to the named storm season since its inception in 2015.
| Storm Name | Dates affected UK | Maximum wind gust | Number of observing sites recording wind gusts over 50 knots |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 names | |||
| Otto | 17 February (named by Danish Meteorological Service) | 72 Kt (83mph) Inverbervie, Kincardineshire | 31 |
| Noa | 12 April (named by Meteo-France) | 83 Kt (96mph) Needles, Isle of Wight | 25 |
| Antoni | 5 August | 68 Kt (78mph) Berry Head, Devon | 2 |
| Betty | 18-19 August | 57 Kt (66mph) Capel Curig, Conwy | 5 |
| 2023-24 names | |||
| Agnes | 27-28 September | 73 Kt (84mph) Capel Curig, Conwy | 15 |
| Babet | 18-21 October | 67 Kt (77mph) Inverbervie, Kincardineshire | 16 |
| Ciarán | 1-2 November | 68 Kt (77mph) Langdon Bay, Kent | 11 |
| Debi | 13 November | 67 Kt (77mph) Aberdaron, Gwynedd | 21 |
| Elin | 9 December | 70 Kt (81mph) Capel Curig, Conwy | 13 |
| Fergus | 10 December | 64 Kt (74mph) Aberdaron, Gwynedd | 11 |
| Gerrit | 27-28 December | 77 Kt (89mph) Fair Isle, Shetland | 42 |
| Henk | 2 January 2024 | 82 Kt (94mph) Needles, Isle of Wight | 35 |
List of named storms for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 storm seasons
Overall, 2023 was calmer than average. This reflects a long-term decline in average wind speed, as illustrated in the chart below. This shows average UK wind speeds for each year since 1969 (dark blue line), the trend (black dashes), 1991-2020 average (pink), 2023 total (brown) and the highest (red dashes) and lowest (blue dashes) annual averages on record.
This long-term trend should be interpreted with some caution as it is possible that changes in instrumentation and exposure of the observing network through time may influence these trends. However, the decline is consistent with a widespread global slowdown termed “global stilling”.
More recently, global and UK data have shown that since 2010 the decline has stopped or even reversed.
Winter
After a notably wet spell at the start of the year – resulting in flooding across south Wales and Midlands on the 12 January – the late winter period was characterised by a very sunny January and very dry February overall.
It was the driest February since 1993 with much of central and southern England, which received less than 20% of the normal monthly rainfall.
The climatological winter season (1 December 2022 to 28 February 2023) was drier than average and – as discussed above – relatively calm with just one named storm (Otto) occurring in an otherwise dry February.
The chart below depicts UK winter rainfall per year (dark blue line) since 1836. While 2023 was relatively, but not exceptionally, dry in the context of recent decades, it is closer to the average for earlier in the series. The winter of 2022-23 had 83% of the 1991-2020 average rainfall, but 94% compared to the earlier period of 1961-90.
Comparing 1991-2020 to 1961-90, winter rainfall for the UK has risen by 14%. The increase is not uniform across the UK, however, with the greatest increases in excess of 20% across north and west Scotland, and smaller rises below 10% for central and southern England.
It is notable that, in a series stretching back to 1836, the five wettest winters have all occurred since 1990. The record wettest winter of 2013-14 had approximately double the rainfall of 2023, highlighting the large interannual variability in UK rainfall.
In contrast, at the time of writing, wet weather through the first half of the 2023-24 winter has resulted in widespread flooding across the country.
Climate variability is a critical driver in recent extremes of winter rainfall, while the emerging climate change signal resulting from increased moisture in the atmosphere is an important secondary factor contributing to the risk of wetter winters.
UK climate projections indicate a clear shift to higher probability of wet winters over the UK. This is caused by an increase in the number of wet days, an increase in intensity of rainfall, and a decrease in the proportion of winter precipitation falling as snow.
Spring
The first half of March was generally cold and resulted in some of the lowest temperatures of the year.
By the middle of the month, the situation became milder and wetter. March was exceptionally wet for many regions except for northern Scotland. It was the sixth-wettest March for the UK, third-wettest for England and Northern Ireland and fifth-wettest for Wales.
April saw temperature and rainfall statistics near-average, although Storm Noa was one of the most significant April storms since 2013, with hundreds of homes across south-west England and Wales left without power.
A maximum wind gust of 83 Kt (96mph) at Needles on the Isle of Wight was the highest wind gust on record for England during the month of April. This particular site is located at the top of a cliff exposed to westerly winds so is representative of a very exposed coastal location. Inland winds were lower, but still sufficient to cause some disruption.
May was warmer and drier overall, although heavy thunderstorms over 7-11 May caused surface-water flooding across parts of southern and eastern England. Drier weather from the middle of the month, however, resulted in a shift to wildfire reports across parts of Wales, the south-west and west Yorkshire by the end of the month.
Summer
It was the warmest June on record for the UK with an average temperature of 15.8C, beating the previous record of 14.9C that was set in the Junes of 1940 and 1976 by 0.9C. Previously, the top three warmest Junes were separated by just 0.1C.
The highest daily temperature reached in the month was 32.2C (on 10 and 25 June), which did not challenge the June temperature record of 35.6C, recorded on 28 June 1976. What was unusual about June 2023 was the persistence of the warmth rather than its severity. Temperatures exceeded 25C for at least a fortnight with peaks in excess of 30C.
A long-standing curious statistical quirk of UK climatology was that 13 June was the only June date that had never previously recorded temperatures in excess of 30C in meteorological records spanning over 100 years. This quirky fact was finally broken this year, reaching 30.8C on 13 June.
The chart below shows a comparison of the 2023 June heatwave with 1976, the previous joint record warmest June. This shows the UK-average daily maximum temperature through June and July for 1976 (dotted line and grey shading) and 2023 (blue line and orange shading).
The 1976 heatwave was certainly more severe than 2023, but occurred slightly later in the season, peaking in early July. In contrast, the persistent warmth in 2023 fell within the calendar month of June.
A significant contributing factor to the exceptional and persistent warmth was a major North Atlantic marine heatwave, which brought record-breaking temperatures in the North Atlantic and around the UK. A severe marine heatwave was declared in mid-June, which further amplified temperatures over the UK land.
An attribution study by the Met Office found that the likelihood of beating the UK land June temperature record had at least doubled compared to when it was first set in 1940. We estimated there was around a 3% chance of beating the record in a 1991-2020 climate and, by the 2050s, a record could be occurring around every other year on average under a high-emissions scenario.
Unsurprisingly, the June warmth was associated with a persistent high-pressure system resulting in plenty of clear skies and dry conditions. The month was, therefore, also the fourth sunniest June on record, and the sunniest June since 1957, but not as sunny as the exceptionally sunny month of May 2020.
Some more unsettled weather at the end of the month meant that while recording only around 68% of average rainfall, June was not dry enough to trouble any records.
A more unsettled situation then took over for the remainder of the summer, with conditions turning cooler, duller and windier.
It was the sixth-wettest July on record with 140.1mm and the wettest since 2009 (145.5mm). It was the wettest July on record for Northern Ireland and for parts of north-west England including Merseyside, Lancashire and Greater Manchester.
August continued the unsettled theme with a distinct lack of summery weather – however, it was not as wet as July.
A key driver of the wet high summer was a displacement in the jet stream to a more southerly track across the UK. The map below shows anomalies in wind speed at 250hPa, relative to a 1991-2020 average. (250hPa is a level of equal pressure and is equivalent to a height of around 10.5km.)
The purple regions show where the wind is stronger than average and orange they are weaker – highlighting a strengthening of the upper-level wind across southern England and a weakening in the more typical summer jet stream to the north of Scotland. This resulted in low-pressure weather systems from the Atlantic being directed on a more southerly track over the UK.
Despite being relatively wet during the high summer (July through August), the average temperature averaged across July (14.9C) and August (15.3C) was 15.1C. This was cooler than June (15.8C), but close to the 1991-2020 average for Jul-Aug (15.2C).
Another indicator of the influence of climate change on UK climate is that a wet summer such as that of 2023 is approximately 1C warmer than equivalently wet summers from the past.
Autumn (and December)
In early September, the jet stream shifted north and high pressure returned. Consequently, the UK experienced another heatwave bringing some of the hottest weather of the year, peaking at 33.5C at Faversham, Kent on 10 September.
A new high-temperature record was also set for the month for Northern Ireland with 28C at Castlederg, County Tyrone on the 8 September.
It was the longest run of days reaching 30C somewhere in the country during September on record at seven consecutive days (4-10 September). It is only the fourth time on record that the highest temperature of the year has occurred in September, with the other years being 2016, 1954, 1949 and 1919. High temperatures were not confined to the daytime and some locations also recorded “tropical nights” when the minimum temperatures do not drop below 20C.
The month concluded with Storm Agnes kicking off the 2023-24 storm season. But the early warmth contributed to it becoming the joint-warmest September on record for the UK (with 2006). An average temperature of 15.2C was warmer than July and only marginally behind August.
A rapid attribution conducted at the time showed that a September this warm would be exceptionally unlikely in a natural climate, but in our current climate there is approximately a 3% chance of reaching or exceeding it. A September this warm does still require the right combination of factors, but climate change is making such late-season warmth more likely.
The remainder of the autumn season and December continued the generally mild, wet and – at times – stormy theme, with the joint-sixth wettest October and joint-eighth wettest December on record. It was the sixth-warmest autumn for the UK and third-warmest for both England and Wales.
Reviewing 2023 demonstrates how the UK is subject to the combined influences of the variability in the weather, but also the influence of human-caused climate change. This is affecting both our climate statistics and also the likelihood of some types of extreme events.
The post Met Office: A review of the UK’s climate in 2023 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
In 2024, carbon emissions hit a record high, with more than 41 billion tonnes of planet-heating CO2 pumped into the Earth’s atmosphere. From aviation to agriculture, every industry contributed a share of those emissions, mainly through the use of fossil fuels.
If the world is to start reducing emissions and reach net zero in the second half of the century, as promised under the Paris climate agreement in 2015, we need to know exactly where those emissions are coming from. Crunching the data offers up estimates of which sectors release the most greenhouse gases – but this is a far harder task at the corporate level.
There are the major fossil fuel firms, both state-run and private – such as Shell, Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil or Coal India – which we know play an outsized role. But according to the World Bank, 90% of global businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises.
Understanding their environmental impact – and how they contribute to the emissions of larger companies further up the value chain – is complex but essential if climate action goals set by both governments and the private sector are to be met, experts say.
While businesses have long been aware of the need to curb their emissions, the process of collecting data on their supply chains, and knowing what to do with it, can serve as a barrier to action. And without regulation to make companies set and meet targets to reduce their carbon pollution, monitoring and analysing emissions has so far been a voluntary effort.
Problem with a wide scope
The first attempt to properly account for company-level emissions started almost 25 years ago with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Its corporate standard was developed in 2001 in response to the UN’s Kyoto Protocol on limiting the emissions of wealthy countries, and covered reporting of the seven greenhouse gases covered by that agreement.
The GHG Protocol was formed by two non-profit organisations: the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Its work has become a standard bearer in the field of carbon accounting, with its guidance used by thousands of corporations, and updates to its rules closely followed.
The protocol’s lasting contribution was to create the concept of ‘scopes’, which separate a company’s emissions into three distinct categories. Scope 1 covers all emissions from direct sources a company owns or controls. Scope 2 is indirect emissions from purchasing energy. Scope 3 emissions are all other indirect emissions within a company’s supply chain.
Comment: SBTi needs tighter rules on companies’ indirect emissions
Defining Scope 3 – and how to adequately account for and offset those emissions – has proved a difficult task. These emissions can include everything from business travel to a company’s financial investments. The GHG protocol has 15 separate categories on Scope 3 emissions, reflecting the wide range of where they might be found.
These categories are themselves divided into ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’; for example, upstream could include the use of any vehicle a company doesn’t own but is in the service of its business. Downstream can cover activities such as how products are treated at the end of their life.
“Scope 3 has proven to be one of the most challenging topics to be addressed among the business community,” said Ramiro Fernandez, campaign director at Race to Zero, a UN-backed climate campaign. “For years the climate business community has been developing methodologies and metric frameworks to account for the emissions of companies’ value chains.”
The knottiness of the issue means that many companies are reluctant to engage with tackling this category of emissions. A 2024 survey of 300 large public companies by consultancy firm Deloitte found that while three-quarters disclose their Scope 1 emissions, and around half Scope 2, the figure falls dramatically to 15% for Scope 3.
Threat to 1.5C goal
Sustainability experts warn that ignoring Scope 3 emissions is self-defeating and puts at risk the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial times, given that an estimated 75% of the average company’s emissions fall into that category, according to CDP, a non-profit that helps businesses disclose their environmental impact.
“If we fail to address Scope 3, corporate net-zero pledges cannot be achieved,” said Sanda Ojiambo, CEO and executive director of the UN Global Compact, a voluntary initiative supporting sustainability in business.
“Most business-related emissions come from Scope 3, which means neglecting them keeps us on a dangerous path to exceeding 1.5C [of global warming],” she added.
The Science Based Targets initiative, originally set up to ensure that corporate climate plans are in line with the Paris Agreement, has approved 7,000 targets over the past 10 years. Notably, the initiative requires all companies to include Scope 3 emissions in their long-term emissions reduction targets.
Ojiambo told Climate Home the UN Global Compact is working with thousands of businesses to ensure that Scope 3 emissions are “no longer an afterthought but a core pillar of corporate climate strategies”.
Comment: SBTi’s rigid emissions rules don’t reflect business reality
In tech we trust
The thorny challenge of reducing Scope 3 emissions has given rise to a host of solutions aimed at making it easier. Ways to tackle the problem include engaging with suppliers, investing in data collection and using technology to track emissions across the whole life cycle of products.
German software company SAP, for example, is attempting to integrate carbon data with financial data to create a “green ledger”. This system assigns carbon emissions to a company’s transactions, with a dashboard showing the impact of greenhouse gas intensity on operating income, gross margin and net revenue. The hope is that this process will generate real-world numbers rather than relying on estimates, as most businesses do today.
James Sullivan, global head of product management at SAP Sustainability, said the software will “change business practice… to accurately account for, analyse and report carbon footprints”. The ledger is the latest in a range of data-driven services the company and its peers are putting into the market to help businesses wrestle with emissions that are beyond their immediate control.
Locating accurate data on all Scope 3 emissions – and then calculating how they have reduced over time – can seem like a Herculean task. Where data gaps exist, the GHG Protocol advises using secondary data based on industry averages, government statistics, or public databases that are representative of a company’s activities. But using such generic data at scale may not provide an accurate picture of emissions or the impact of corporate action to stem them.
Sullivan believes that better data is key to solving the Scope 3 puzzle. “A major advancement is the widespread understanding that managing Scope 3 emissions requires high-quality data and transparency into supply chains,” he said. “It is crucial for businesses to integrate sustainability data into core business processes.”
Getting ahead of competitors
Companies like SAP are confident their technological solutions are having a tangible impact on that front. Sullivan pointed to one of its customers, Martur Fompak International, a Turkish supplier of seats for the automotive sector. As a result of using SAP’s technology, Sullivan said the company has reported a 52% reduction in transportation-related carbon emissions and a 34% decrease in emissions linked to its automotive seats.
Martur Fompak achieved this, in part, through tracking emissions across its products’ entire lifecycle, from where the materials were sourced to where they were sent and used. The software analysed the carbon footprint of different fabrics and suggested lower-impact alternatives. It also provided real-time monitoring of the company’s energy consumption at more than 600 work centres, and created new delivery routes for its drivers.
Ojiambo noted that many large companies are making emissions reductions a condition of doing business with them and weaving such criteria into their procurement contracts. This could give suppliers like Martur Fompak a major incentive to lower their emissions in order to gain a competitive edge.
“Suppliers are feeling the pressure, but the smartest ones see this as an opportunity rather than a burden,” she added.
Business contribution to NDCs
The current global political climate has made sustainability concerns a convenient punchbag, with US President Donald Trump’s anti-green agenda already encouraging many companies to scale back their environmental ambitions. Across the Atlantic, the European Commission is planning to water down a package of sustainability rules originally intended to be world-leading.
The mood music is not exactly positive. According to the Financial Times, some participants at January’s World Economic Forum in Davos reported that ambition around tackling Scope 3 emissions was “crumbling” among business executives.
This comes at a time of record heat and more frequent extreme weather events, when scientists are concerned at the pace of change in the Earth’s climate and its effects. To tackle this, countries are due to submit stronger national climate plans by September, including emissions reduction targets for 2035, as required by the Paris Agreement.
These plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), are a clear example of where businesses could play a bigger role in supporting government efforts to fight climate change but currently lack the capacity, partly due to a lack of data and other resources.
Tom Cumberlege, a director at The Carbon Trust, who leads the consultancy’s work on value chain analysis and strategy, said NDCs that are able to leverage both public and private funding for implementation “could be a win-win” for governments and businesses.
“It can reduce the risk of investing in projects – such as energy efficiency improvements or renewable assets in the supply chain – and contribute to effective emissions reductions at a national level,” he explained.
Achieving NDC targets will require businesses to align their own climate action plans with those of governments and their suppliers. “Companies have an increasingly important role to play in engaging and supporting their own value chain to be part of the contribution [to NDCs],” said Fernandez of Race to Zero.
“Transitioning to net zero requires a whole of society approach,” he added. “Even with all the uncertainties and lack of clarity, companies have to reduce their Scope 3 emissions if we want to have any chance of remaining within the 1.5C threshold.”
The post Neglecting ‘Scope 3’ emissions could sink corporate climate action appeared first on Climate Home News.
Neglecting ‘Scope 3’ emissions could sink corporate climate action
The United States will provide a $4.7-billion loan to a fossil gas plant in Mozambique that has been described as a “carbon bomb” and is beset by allegations of human rights abuses.
The US Export-Import Bank (EXIM), a government agency, on Thursday approved financial support for the liquefied natural gas (LNG) project run by French energy giant TotalEnergies in the country’s northern Cabo Delgado region.
US EXIM has yet to publicly confirm the deal, but its approval has been widely reported.
The US backing was seen as key to unlocking financing for what is set to be one of Africa’s largest-ever energy projects, with a total expected cost of $20 billion. The loan also marks a U-turn from a possible ban on public funding for oil and gas developments abroad that rich countries, including the US, were on the verge of agreeing at the end of last year.
Risky investment
The US export credit agency had already agreed to finance the Mozambique project in 2019 during President Donald Trump’s first stint in office, but fresh approval was required after TotalEnergies triggered a contractual “force majeure” pause in 2021.
The French energy giant halted construction on the facility following an attack by the Al-Shabaab militant group in the Cabo Delgado region where the plant is located. Up to 1,200 civilians are estimated to have died or gone missing in the assault.
Age of “climate whiplash” puts residents of Africa’s fast-growing cities in danger
French authorities began investigating Total last year for possible involuntary manslaughter after survivors of the attack accused the company of failing to ensure the safety of its subcontractors. Total has rejected the accusations.
An investigation by Politico also alleged that Mozambican soldiers operating out of Total’s plant abducted, raped and killed dozens of civilians. The company’s Mozambican subsidiary told Politico it had no knowledge of the events.
Total had hoped to restart construction at the site in 2024 but conceded this January that it would not begin operations before 2029 amid security concerns and funding uncertainties.
Rich nations ignore polluting past to claim climate plans are 1.5C-compatible
Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TotalEnergies, launched a lobbying blitz at the end of last year, hoping to secure the backing of the Biden administration for the project, but his efforts ultimately failed.
Speaking to Bloomberg this week on the sidelines of CERAWeek, Poyuanné asserted, “now you have a functional US EXIM” after President Trump appointed a new board at the agency.
The Total boss added that “most of the contracts have been awarded to US companies”, which he described as the “driver” of the US government’s support for the project.
‘Carbon bomb’
Opposing the mega-project, climate campaigners have described the Mozambique LNG venture as a “carbon bomb” that threatens the world’s chances of keeping global warming in check. It could produce up to 121 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent every year over its life-cycle of close to four decades, including emissions generated from the final use of the gas, according to calculations by Friends of the Earth.
Collin Rees, US campaign manager at Oil Change International, called the project “a climate and human rights nightmare”.
“The Trump administration is committing billions in taxpayer funds to a fossil fuel project linked to severe human rights violations, while simultaneously cutting federal jobs and essential public services for working families [in the US],” he added.
Kate DeAngelis, economic policy deputy director at Friends of the Earth US, described EXIM’s decision as “the pinnacle of government waste and an egregious abuse of taxpayer dollars”.
Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has cancelled more than 80% of US international aid programmes – including dozens of projects in Mozambique – claiming they did not serve the country’s national interests.
“Clearly, the only aid Trump supports is foreign aid for billionaires and foreign gas companies,” DeAngelis added.
Decision time for UK and Netherlands
Total’s LNG venture in Mozambique also won support from the British and Dutch export credit agencies before the project’s halt in 2021. The two lenders have been reportedly reassessing their financial commitment and have yet to announce a final decision.
The Financial Times reported last month that the UK government was taking legal advice on whether it could withdraw its £1.15-billion ($1.49-billion) support for the project without facing legal repercussions.
Oil Change’s Rees said UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer should “show courage and break with the previous UK government’s foolish decision to support this nightmare”.
Brazil decides leaders will speak before COP30, easing logistics crunch
US EXIM approved billions in support for oil and gas developments abroad under former President Joe Biden, even though the US had joined 33 other countries at the COP26 climate summit in pledging to end direct public finance for overseas fossil fuel projects by the end of 2022.
The Biden administration made a late attempt to change course before Trump’s return to the White House by belatedly backing a proposal to ban export credit support for oil and gas abroad, put forward by member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).
But the push, led primarily by the EU and the UK, failed after opposition from South Korea and Türkiye stalled the discussions. Negotiators met again in Paris this week, but an observer told Climate Home that the deal now appears to be off the table given the seismic geopolitical changes since Trump took office in January.
The post US approves multi-billion-dollar loan for troubled Mozambique gas plant appeared first on Climate Home News.
US approves multi-billion-dollar loan for troubled Mozambique gas plant
Climate Change
DeBriefed 14 March 2025: US’s ‘moral case for fossil fuels’; Rainforest felled for ‘COP30 road’; Myanmar’s energy crisis
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
US ‘180-degree pivot’
‘SIDE EFFECT’: US energy secretary Chris Wright promised a “180-degree pivot” on climate policy while speaking in front of oil and gas executives, the New York Times reported. Addressing an industry conference in Houston, he said there was a “moral case for fossil fuels” to alleviate poverty and was dismissive of renewables, the newspaper added. CNBC reported that Wright also said: “The Trump administration will treat climate change for what it is – a global physical phenomenon that is a side effect of building the modern world.”
MORE CUTS: The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) terminated $20bn in grants for climate projects, awarded through a “green bank” known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, Bloomberg reported. However, Inside Climate News said that a federal judge has “sharply criticised the agency for canceling the grants without presenting any evidence of wrongdoing, calling the administration’s justification weak and unsubstantiated”. It added: “The judge stopped short of issuing a ruling on reinstatement of the funds, leaving grant recipients in limbo.”
NASA CHANGES: NASA has dismissed its chief scientist, climate-science expert Katherine Calvin, along with 20 others as part of changes imposed by the Trump administration, says the New York Times. The newspaper also added the government “could be considering slashing the budget for NASA’s science activities by half”.
Road to COP30
COP30 HIGHWAY: Eight miles of “Amazon rainforest” are being cleared to build a four-lane highway ahead of the COP30 climate talks in Belém later this year, said the Times. BBC News, which broke the story, added the road is designed to ease traffic in the Brazilian city. However, the Brazilian government responded to say the media stories were “misleading” because the road was planned before COP30 was announced.
CLIMATE MULTILATERALISM: Meanwhile, the Times of India reported that, in the wake of the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the Brazilian COP30 presidency has invited the hosts of all the UN climate summits since COP21 in Paris to form a “circle of presidencies” to enhance multilateral efforts to tackle climate change.
Carney for Canada
OH, CANADA: Mark Carney was elected leader of the Liberal party in Canada and will replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister, reported the Globe and Mail. CNN noted that the former governor of the banks of England and Canada has “advocated for the financial sector to invest in net-zero” and held the position of UN special envoy for climate action and finance in 2019.
BANKING ROLLBACKS: Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that the Net-Zero Banking Alliance – the “top global climate alliance for banks” founded by Carney – will ask its members to vote on abandoning a pledge to align their $54tn in assets with the Paris Agreement aim of limiting global warming to 1.5C. There has been an “exodus of many leading US banks” since Trump’s second term, but major players such as HSBC and Barclays remain in the alliance, the newspaper said.
Around the world
- FLASH FLOODS: Agence France-Presse reported that a flash flood in Bahía Blanca, Argentina has killed at least 16 people and caused $400m in damages.
- ENERGY BILLS: A UK bill introduced to parliament this week sought to speed up approval of clean-energy projects and reduce energy bills by £250 a year for people living near new or upgraded pylons, BBC News reported.
- TWO SESSIONS: China’s influential “two-sessions” political meetings ended on Tuesday, with new climate commitments, Carbon Brief reported.
- FEWER EMISSIONS: Emissions in Germany fell 3.4% in 2024, noted Reuters, adding that it puts the country “on track” to meet its 2030 climate targets.
3.6%
The amount that the UK’s emissions fell by in 2024, seeing emissions reach their lowest level since 1872, according to a new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- A study in Public Understanding of Science, co-authored by Carbon Brief’s Josh Gabbatiss, found that UK newspapers increased their support for climate action from 2011-21, but also featured “multiple discourses of delay”.
- New analysis from the World Weather Attribution group concluded that human-caused climate change increased recent heavy rainfall in Botswana by 60%.
- A study in PLOS Climate found smallholder farmers in rural northeast Madagascar witnessed increases in temperature and decreases in rainfall over a five-year period and are concerned about the effects of climate change on their livelihoods.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
New analysis by Carbon Brief revealed that nearly a tenth of global climate finance could be under threat, as Trump continues to cut spending on international aid. Since taking office in January, Trump has pulled the US out of multiple international climate funds and initiatives, including plans withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement. He has also threatened to cancel virtually all US Agency for International Development (USAid) projects, with climate funds identified as a prime target. These actions are likely to endanger global efforts to help developing countries tackle climate change.
Spotlight
Myanmar’s energy crisis
This week, Carbon Brief looks at energy challenges in Myanmar and whether solar power could help to provide a solution.
Earlier this year, military rulers in Myanmar slashed power supplies for two of the country’s major cities – the capital, Naypyidaw, and Yangon. The order said that Yangon, the country’s largest city, would only receive eight hours of electricity per day on a rotating power schedule.
However, the reality on the ground is more severe. The capital of Naypyidaw appears to have been prioritised, with 16 hours of power on and eight hours off, while residents in Yangon report sometimes only receiving two hours of electricity per day. Other parts of the country have also been affected.
‘In the dark’
Rolling blackouts in Myanmar are not new. Back in 2019, the country experienced widespread energy shortages due to a widening power supply-demand gap.
However, Myanmar’s power-sector challenges have grown since the country’s military coup in February 2021.
The national power grid has been attacked and damaged due to armed conflict resisting the coup. A Frontier Myanmar article from 2023 reported that there had been 229 attacks on electricity infrastructure since the 2021 coup, which the military blamed on rebel groups.
A loss of foreign investment, economic turmoil and mismanagement have also all contributed to Myanmar’s energy crisis, said Richard Harrison, former CEO of Smart Power Myanmar, an NGO aimed at providing solar power to small businesses. He told Carbon Brief:
“Governments and donors no longer have direct relations with the national government and most NGOs are badly underfunded. There is almost no energy-related funding in Myanmar.”
Slowing solar
The country’s electricity mix currently mostly consists of gas and hydropower.
Before the coup, multiple projects, including solar farms, had been planned to help reduce the growing power supply-demand and increase electrification rates.
According to a report by the World Bank, a “major solar tender was launched in May 2020 for 30 solar power plants to be constructed throughout the country”. But “only one of those was completed since the military takeover in 2021 and the other 29 were cancelled”, the report said.
Myanmar has also experienced shortages of gas for power generation, compounded by investor exits and the decline of Myanmar’s largest gas field.
The Irrawaddy, a Myanmar-focused news site in Thailand, reported that military leaders have called for solar panels to be installed on all new buildings in a bid to solve Myanmar’s energy crisis. However, it is worth noting that, according to the Irrawaddy, the junta leader’s son has “won licenses to sell solar panels and equipment while the regime has granted tax exemptions on solar imports”.
Yet, the Irrawaddy has also noted that the cost of solar is “beyond the reach of many small businesses, which form the backbone of Myanmar’s economy”.
Not-for-profits have continued to build solar projects in the country since the coup, aimed at supporting local businesses and powering rural healthcare facilities.
However, the situation is volatile as the civil war drags on, Harrison noted:
“The outlook is bleak. Myanmar has failed to invest in new generation capacity and current sources of energy (gas) are declining or curtailed. This means that, even if conflict were to end, we will continue to see declining energy access and major shortages through 2030. In other words, Myanmar’s energy crisis is almost guaranteed to get worse and be protracted.”
Watch, read, listen
REMOVING CARBON: The Solving for Climate podcast spoke to Carbon Brief climate science contributor Dr Zeke Hausfather about whether the use of carbon removal technologies should expand.
BLACKOUTS: Dialogue Earth reported on how extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change are causing more frequent power outages in Latin America.
SABOTAGE TACTICS: A feature in the Guardian said “tougher laws” are said to be “inspiring clandestine attacks [by climate protesters] on the ‘property and machinery’ of the fossil fuel economy”.
Coming up
- 16-20 March: Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC), Atlanta, Georgia
- 17-18 March: First part of the 30th annual session of the International Seabed Authority, Kingston, Jamaica
- 21 March:UN observed International Day of Forests
Pick of the jobs
- Stockholm Environment Institute , climate project intern | Salary: Unknown. Location: Tallinn, Estonia (onsite, hybrid or remote)
- Doughnut Economics Action Lab , junior communications freelancer | Salary: £250 a day. Location: Remote (UK hours)
- EarthRights International, policy advisor | Salary: $85,000-$95,000. Location: Remote (US)
- Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust, conservation officer | Salary: £24,570. Location: Flexible
- British Antarctic Survey, field coordinator – Antarctica | Salary: £29,273 to £30,201. Location: Antarctica
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 14 March 2025: US’s ‘moral case for fossil fuels’; Rainforest felled for ‘COP30 road’; Myanmar’s energy crisis appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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