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The rate at which atmospheric CO2 is increasing is now outpacing the pathways set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that limit global warming to 1.5C.

This is what the latest data shows from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, where measurements of CO2 levels in the atmosphere have been collected for more than 60 years.

In 2024, the rise in atmospheric CO2 was one of the fastest on record.

Emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases from human activity have so far caused human-caused global warming to reach about 1.3C above pre-industrial levels.

If warming is to be limited to 1.5C, as set out in the Paris Agreement, the build-up of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will need to slow to a halt and then go into reverse.

And, yet, the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations is still showing no signs of slowing.

Pathways to 1.5C

The third working group report of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report (AR6), published in 2022, presented a set of seven “illustrative pathways” that highlight how different mitigation choices across major economic sectors translate into future greenhouse gas emissions and global temperatures.

In the three most-ambitious pathways, global warming has a 50% chance of either staying below 1.5C, or overshooting it by only 0.1C (for up to several decades) before then returning to below 1.5C:

  • Shifting pathways (IMP-SP): Illustrates mitigation in the context of a broader shift towards sustainable development, including by reducing inequality and with a phase-out of fossil fuels.
  • Low demand (IMP-LD): Illustrates a strong emphasis on energy-demand reductions, and with a phase-out of fossil fuels.
  • Renewables (IMP-Ren): Illustrates a future with a heavy reliance on renewable energy.

As the table below shows, the build-up of atmospheric CO2 in these three scenarios slows from the 2010s average of 2.41 parts per million per year (ppm/year) to 1.33-1.79ppm/year in the 2020s.

It then slows still further and goes into reverse either in the 2030s or 2040s – in other words, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere actually begins to fall.

Decade Projected average CO2 rise (ppm/year) in scenarios limiting global warming to1.5C
C1-IMP-LD C1-IMP-REN C1-IMP-SP
2020s 1.33 1.75 1.79
2030s -0.14 0.13 0.57
2040s -0.53 -0.46 -0.7
2050s -0.65 -0.61 -0.41

Large CO2 rise in 2024

Yet, not only are atmospheric CO2 concentrations still rising, the rate of rise is accelerating.

The build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere has been monitored at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii since 1958.

As illustrated by the iconic Keeling Curve below, the increase has been accelerating over the decades (blue line) due to ongoing emissions of CO2 from burning fossil fuels and changing land use.

So while the curve needs to rapidly bend in the other direction to hold warming to 1.5C (light red line), the rate of rising CO2 marches onwards and upwards.

chart

Monthly CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa

Monthly CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa from observations up to 2024 (blue) and the IPCC C1-IMP-SP scenario consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5C (light red). Also shown is the Met Office forecast for 2025 (red).

The table below sets out decadal averages of the annual rise in CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa. The first half of the 2020s has seen an average CO2 rise of 2.58ppm/year, which is 44-94% higher than it needs to be to track the IPCC 1.5C-compatible scenarios.

Decade Observed average CO2 rise (ppm/year)
1960s 0.86
1970s 1.22
1980s 1.58
1990s 1.55
2000s 1.91
2010s 2.41
2020s (2020-2024) 2.58

In fact, the annual rise of 3.58ppm/year between 2023 and 2024 at Mauna Loa was the fastest on record.

The global average, which has been monitored by satellite since 2003, also showed a large rise last year – and, at 2.9ppm/year, this was the second largest on record after 2015-16.

(While the rise at Mauna Loa mirrors the global rise over long periods, in the short term it can also be affected by localised effects, such as fires upwind or in the same hemisphere, before the CO2 disperses more evenly across the globe.)

Global CO2 emissions were also at a record high in 2024, but a further key factor was that natural land carbon “sinks” were substantially weaker, allowing more of the emitted CO2 to remain in the atmosphere.

At least some of this weakening of land carbon sinks was associated with the El Niño conditions in the first part of the year. El Niño events shift weather patterns around the globe, leading to hotter, drier conditions in many parts of the tropics. This means that vegetation grows less well and more carbon is released from decay in soils and from wildfires, leading to land ecosystems removing less carbon from the atmosphere than usual.

With the El Niño now subsided and conditions shifting more towards the opposite pattern of La Niña, natural land carbon sinks can be expected to recover again, at least to some extent.

As a result, in our Met Office forecast of the CO2 rise at Mauna Loa, we predict a slower rate of rise between 2024 and 2025 than between 2023 and 2024. The projected increase is 2.26ppm (with an uncertainty range of ±0.56ppm) – slightly slower than it would have been without the effects of La Niña.

However, even this is still too fast to stay on track with the IPCC 1.5C-compatible scenarios. This is highlighted in the chart below, which shows the annual change in CO2 levels at Mauna Loa since 1995 (blue lines) and how our forecast for 2025 (red point) exceeds a pathway consistent with 1.5C (grey plume).

Comparison of recent and forecast annual change in atmospheric CO2 concentration
Comparison of recent and forecast annual change in atmospheric CO2 concentration with an illustrative scenario limiting global warming to 1.5C. Light blue thin line: Annual change in CO2 concentration at the Mauna Loa observatory from observations. Mid-blue thin line: Annual increments in CO2 concentration at the Mauna Loa observatory reconstructed using statistical relationship between concentrations, emissions and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Red dot with vertical error bars: the 2025 forecast increment. Dark blue thick line and dark blue dot: estimated increments without the influence of ENSO. Grey plume: simulated CO2 concentrations in the C1-IMP-SP scenario limiting global warming to 1.5C with >50% likelihood.

Faster rise than expected

The specific reasons for the very large increase in CO2 in 2024 are not yet completely clear, although weaker land carbon sinks appear to be implicated.

We had forecast the 2023-24 CO2 rise at Mauna Loa to be 2.84ppm (±0.54) – faster than the average of the previous decade due to the El Niño. We had also highlighted the possibility that it could be the fastest annual rise on record.

However, the actual CO2 rise of 3.58ppm was even faster than expected. This was above the upper limit of our uncertainty range, which should include the forecast value 95% of the time.

Although carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation were also at a record high in 2024, this does not fully explain the shortfall in our forecast.

Our forecast method uses the global emissions from the previous year as one of the inputs. The emissions in 2024 were estimated to have been 11.3bn tonnes of carbon (GtC), slightly higher than the 2023 value of 11.1GtC used in our forecast.

This 0.2GtC difference is equivalent to about 0.09ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. So, even if we had used the larger value in our forecast, the observed rise would still have been beyond our uncertainty range.

Therefore, the origin of the discrepancy must be related to natural carbon sinks, which must have been even weaker than the expected weakening that occurred as a result of the 2023-24 El Niño.

Weaker land carbon sinks

Scientists had already established that land carbon sinks were exceptionally weak in 2023, with very high temperatures worldwide playing a part in this.

2024 was then even hotter than 2023 – and indeed was the first calendar year where warming exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. It can be expected that the climatic conditions this warmer year once again led to weaker global land carbon sink.

Both North and South America saw high temperatures and exceptionally severe fires in 2024, including in regions not normally affected by El Niño such as Canada, and extending beyond the season of El Niño influence.

Global fire emissions were estimated as 1.6-2.2GtC over January-September 2024, 11-32% above the 2014-23 average for the same months.

Moreover, fire emissions in the northern hemisphere were 0.5-0.6 GtC per year, which was 26-44% above the average of 2014-23. Since Mauno Loa is in the northern hemisphere, this may explain why the local rise there was even larger than the global average.

A portion of these fire emissions may already be accounted for in the above estimate of land-use emissions, but it is not possible to quantify this. Nevertheless, widespread fire activity likely contributed to the large rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations in 2024. Further analysis is needed to quantify the size of this contribution.

Climate change itself may have played a role in enhancing fire emissions. For example, human-caused warming made the “unprecedented” wildfires that spread across Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands in June 2024 between four and five times more likely.

Although land carbon sinks are generally increasing as a result of rising CO2, Earth system model projections have long indicated that ongoing global warming would reduce this effect, leading to a greater proportion of human-caused emissions remaining in the atmosphere.

Calculations suggest that this has already been occurring in recent years, so a key question is whether the last two years have seen an acceleration. If natural carbon sinks weaken more than already expected, this would further increase the difficulty of slowing the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

Alternatively, there are a number of historical years for which our CO2 forecast procedure gives almost as large departures between predictions and outcomes as for 2024. For example, 2003 saw a large rise at Mauna Loa despite not being an El Niño year, due to large fires in Siberia. It will therefore be important to see whether there is a higher-than-expected rise in CO2 in 2025, or whether the large exceedance in 2024 is a temporary phenomenon.

With global warming ongoing, extremely high temperatures will continue to occur more frequently and severely, so events such as those seen in 2023 and 2024 could play an ever more important role in the global carbon cycle.

The contribution of fires attributed to climate change is consistent with model simulations which suggest that global fire activity will already be weakening land carbon sinks. Further monitoring of the global carbon cycle will help to reveal whether this is indeed the case.

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DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? 

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Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

Absolute State of the Union

‘DRILL, BABY’: US president Donald Trump “doubled down on his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda” in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, said the Los Angeles Times. He “tout[ed] his support of the fossil-fuel industry and renew[ed] his focus on electricity affordability”, reported the Financial Times. Trump also attacked the “green new scam”, noted Carbon Brief’s SOTU tracker.

COAL REPRIEVE: Earlier in the week, the Trump administration had watered down limits on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, reported the Financial Times. It remains “unclear” if this will be enough to prevent the decline of coal power, said Bloomberg, in the face of lower-cost gas and renewables. Reuters noted that US coal plants are “ageing”.

OIL STAY: The US Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments brought by the oil industry in a “major lawsuit”, reported the New York Times. The newspaper said the firms are attempting to head off dozens of other lawsuits at state level, relating to their role in global warming.

SHIP-SHILLING: The Trump administration is working to “kill” a global carbon levy on shipping “permanently”, reported Politico, after succeeding in delaying the measure late last year. The Guardian said US “bullying” could be “paying off”, after Panama signalled it was reversing its support for the levy in a proposal submitted to the UN shipping body.

Around the world

  • RARE EARTHS: The governments of Brazil and India signed a deal on rare earths, said the Times of India, as well as agreeing to collaborate on renewable energy.
  • HEAT ROLLBACK: German homes will be allowed to continue installing gas and oil heating, under watered-down government plans covered by Clean Energy Wire.
  • BRAZIL FLOODS: At least 53 people died in floods in the state of Minas Gerais, after some areas saw 170mm of rain in a few hours, reported CNN Brasil.
  • ITALY’S ATTACK: Italy is calling for the EU to “suspend” its emissions trading system (ETS) ahead of a review later this year, said Politico.
  • COOKSTOVE CREDITS: The first-ever carbon credits under the Paris Agreement have been issued to a cookstove project in Myanmar, said Climate Home News.
  • SAUDI SOLAR: Turkey has signed a “major” solar deal that will see Saudi firm ACWA building 2 gigawatts in the country, according to Agence France-Presse.

$467 billion

The profits made by five major oil firms since prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago, according to a report by Global Witness covered by BusinessGreen.


Latest climate research

  • Claims about the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change, made in a recent US Department of Energy report, are “factually incorrect” | AGU Advances
  • Large lakes in the Congo Basin are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from “immense ancient stores” | Nature Geoscience
  • Shared Socioeconomic Pathways – scenarios used regularly in climate modelling – underrepresent “narratives explicitly centring on democratic principles such as participation, accountability and justice” | npj Climate Action

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

The constituency of Richard Tice MP, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of Reform UK, is the second-largest recipient of flood defence spending in England, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Overall, the funding is disproportionately targeted at coastal and urban areas, many of which have Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs.

Spotlight

Is there really a UK ‘greenlash’?

This week, after a historic Green Party byelection win, Carbon Brief looks at whether there really is a “greenlash” against climate policy in the UK.

Over the past year, the UK’s political consensus on climate change has been shattered.

Yet despite a sharp turn against climate action among right-wing politicians and right-leaning media outlets, UK public support for climate action remains strong.

Prof Federica Genovese, who studies climate politics at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief:

“The current ‘war’ on green policy is mostly driven by media and political elites, not by the public.”

Indeed, there is still a greater than two-to-one majority among the UK public in favour of the country’s legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, as shown below.

Steve Akehurst, director of public-opinion research initiative Persuasion UK, also noted the growing divide between the public and “elites”. He told Carbon Brief:

“The biggest movement is, without doubt, in media and elite opinion. There is a bit more polarisation and opposition [to climate action] among voters, but it’s typically no more than 20-25% and mostly confined within core Reform voters.”

Conservative gear shift

For decades, the UK had enjoyed strong, cross-party political support for climate action.

Lord Deben, the Conservative peer and former chair of the Climate Change Committee, told Carbon Brief that the UK’s landmark 2008 Climate Change Act had been born of this cross-party consensus, saying “all parties supported it”.

Since their landslide loss at the 2024 election, however, the Conservatives have turned against the UK’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050, which they legislated for in 2019.

Curiously, while opposition to net-zero has surged among Conservative MPs, there is majority support for the target among those that plan to vote for the party, as shown below.

Dr Adam Corner, advisor to the Climate Barometer initiative that tracks public opinion on climate change, told Carbon Brief that those who currently plan to vote Reform are the only segment who “tend to be more opposed to net-zero goals”. He said:

“Despite the rise in hostile media coverage and the collapse of the political consensus, we find that public support for the net-zero by 2050 target is plateauing – not plummeting.”

Reform, which rejects the scientific evidence on global warming and campaigns against net-zero, has been leading the polls for a year. (However, it was comfortably beaten by the Greens in yesterday’s Gorton and Denton byelection.)

Corner acknowledged that “some of the anti-net zero noise…[is] showing up in our data”, adding:

“We see rising concerns about the near-term costs of policies and an uptick in people [falsely] attributing high energy bills to climate initiatives.”

But Akehurst said that, rather than a big fall in public support, there had been a drop in the “salience” of climate action:

“So many other issues [are] competing for their attention.”

UK newspapers published more editorials opposing climate action than supporting it for the first time on record in 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

Global ‘greenlash’?

All of this sits against a challenging global backdrop, in which US president Donald Trump has been repeating climate-sceptic talking points and rolling back related policy.

At the same time, prominent figures have been calling for a change in climate strategy, sold variously as a “reset”, a “pivot”, as “realism”, or as “pragmatism”.

Genovese said that “far-right leaders have succeeded in the past 10 years in capturing net-zero as a poster child of things they are ‘fighting against’”.

She added that “much of this is fodder for conservative media and this whole ecosystem is essentially driving what we call the ‘greenlash’”.

Corner said the “disconnect” between elite views and the wider public “can create problems” – for example, “MPs consistently underestimate support for renewables”. He added:

“There is clearly a risk that the public starts to disengage too, if not enough positive voices are countering the negative ones.”

Watch, read, listen

TRUMP’S ‘PETROSTATE’: The US is becoming a “petrostate” that will be “sicker and poorer”, wrote Financial Times associate editor Rana Forohaar.

RHETORIC VS REALITY: Despite a “political mood [that] has darkened”, there is “more green stuff being installed than ever”, said New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells.
CHINA’S ‘REVOLUTION’: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast reported from China on the “green energy revolution” taking place in the country.

Coming up

Pick of the jobs

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 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?  appeared first on Carbon Brief.

DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? 

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Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen

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Seven Pacific island nations say they will demand heftier levies on global shipping emissions if opponents of a green deal for the industry succeed in reopening negotiations on the stalled accord.

The United States and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to grant final approval to the International Maritime Organization’s Net-Zero Framework (NZF) in October and they are now leading a drive for changes to the deal.

In a joint submission seen by Climate Home News, the seven climate-vulnerable Pacific countries said the framework was already a “fragile compromise”, and vowed to push for a universal levy on all ship emissions, as well as higher fees . The deal currently stipulates that fees will be charged when a vessel’s emissions exceed a certain level.

“For many countries, the NZF represents the absolute limit of what they can accept,” said the unpublished submission by Fiji, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands.

The countries said a universal levy and higher charges on shipping would raise more funds to enable a “just and equitable transition leaving no country behind”. They added, however, that “despite its many shortcomings”, the framework should be adopted later this year.

US allies want exemption for ‘transition fuels’

The previous attempt to adopt the framework failed after governments narrowly voted to postpone it by a year. Ahead of the vote, the US threatened governments and their officials with sanctions, tariffs and visa restrictions – and President Donald Trump called the framework a “Green New Scam Tax on Shipping”.

Since then, Liberia – an African nation with a major low-tax shipping registry headquartered in the US state of Virginia – has proposed a new measure under which, rather than staying fixed under the NZF, ships’ emissions intensity targets change depending on “demonstrated uptake” of both “low-carbon and zero-carbon fuels”.

The proposal places stringent conditions on what fuels are taken into consideration when setting these targets, stressing that the low- and zero-carbon fuels should be “scalable”, not cost more than 15% more than standard marine fuels and should be available at “sufficient ports worldwide”.

This proposal would not “penalise transitional fuels” like natural gas and biofuels, they said. In the last decade, the US has built a host of large liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, which the Trump administration is lobbying other countries to purchase from.

The draft motion, seen by Climate Home News, was co-sponsored by US ally Argentina and also by Panama, a shipping hub whose canal the US has threatened to annex. Both countries voted with the US to postpone the last vote on adopting the framework.

    The IMO’s Panamanian head Arsenio Dominguez told reporters in January that changes to the framework were now possible.

    “It is clear from what happened last year that we need to look into the concerns that have been expressed [and] … make sure that they are somehow addressed within the framework,” he said.

    Patchwork of levies

    While the European Union pushed firmly for the framework’s adoption, two of its shipping-reliant member states – Greece and Cyprus – abstained in October’s vote.

    After a meeting between the Greek shipping minister and Saudi Arabia’s energy minister in January, Greece said a “common position” united Greece, Saudi Arabia and the US on the framework.

    If the NZF or a similar instrument is not adopted, the IMO has warned that there will be a patchwork of differing regional levies on pollution – like the EU’s emissions trading system for ships visiting its ports – which will be complicated and expensive to comply with.

    This would mean that only countries with their own levies and with lots of ships visiting their ports would raise funds, making it harder for other nations to fund green investments in their ports, seafarers and shipping companies. In contrast, under the NZF, revenues would be disbursed by the IMO to all nations based on set criteria.

    Anais Rios, shipping policy officer from green campaign group Seas At Risk, told Climate Home News the proposal by the Pacific nations for a levy on all shipping emissions – not just those above a certain threshold – was “the most credible way to meet the IMO’s climate goals”.

    “With geopolitics reframing climate policy, asking the IMO to reopen the discussion on the universal levy is the only way to decarbonise shipping whilst bringing revenue to manage impacts fairly,” Rios said.

    “It is […] far stronger than the Net-Zero Framework that is currently on offer.”

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    Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn

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    Doubts over whether governments will maintain ambitious targets on boosting the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) are a threat to the industry’s growth and play into the hands of fossil fuel companies, investors warned this week.

    Several executives from airlines and oil firms have forecast recently that SAF requirements in the European Union, United Kingdom and elsewhere will be eased or scrapped altogether, potentially upending the aviation industry’s main policy to shrink air travel’s growing carbon footprint.

    Such speculation poses a “fundamental threat” to the SAF industry, which mainly produces an alternative to traditional kerosene jet fuel using organic feedstocks such as used cooking oil (UCO), Thomas Engelmann, head of energy transition at German investment manager KGAL, told the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Investor conference in London.

    He said fossil fuel firms would be the only winners from questions about compulsory SAF blending requirements.

    What is Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)?

    The EU and the UK introduced the world’s first SAF mandates in January 2025, requiring fuel suppliers to blend at least 2% SAF with fossil fuel kerosene. The blending requirement will gradually increase to reach 32% in the EU and 22% in the UK by 2040.

    Another case of diluted green rules?

    Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, CEO of French oil and gas company TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanné said he would bet “that what happened to the car regulation will happen to the SAF regulation in Europe”. 

    The EU watered down green rules for car-makers in March 2025 after lobbying from car companies, Germany and Italy.

    “You will see. Today all the airline companies are fighting [against the EU’s 2030 SAF target of 6%],” Pouyanne said, even though it’s “easy to reach to be honest”.

    While most European airline lobbies publicly support the mandates, Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary said last year that the SAF is “nonsense” and is “gradually dying a death, which is what it deserves to do”.

    EU and UK stand by SAF targets

    But the EU and the British government have disputed that. EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said in November that the EU’s targets are “stable”, warning that “investment decisions and construction must start by 2027, or we will miss the 2030 targets”.

    UK aviation minister Keir Mather told this week’s investor event that meeting the country’s SAF blending requirement of 10% by 2030 was “ambitious but, with the right investment, the right innovation and the right outlook, it is absolutely within our reach”.

    “We need to go further and we need to go faster,” Mather said.

    UK aviation minister Keir Mather speaks at the SAF Investor conference in London on February 24, 2026. (Photo: SAF Investor)

    SAF investors and developers said such certainty on SAF mandates from policymakers was key to drawing the necessary investment to ramp up production of the greener fuel, which needs to scale up in order to bring down high production costs. Currently, SAF is between two and seven times more expensive than traditional jet fuel. 

    Urbano Perez, global clean molecules lead at Spanish bank Santander, said banks will not invest if there is a perceived regulatory risk.

    David Scott, chair of Australian SAF producer Jet Zero Australia, said developing SAF was already challenging due to the risks of “pretty new” technology requiring high capital expenditure.

    “That’s a scary model with a volatile political environment, so mandate questioning creates this problem on steroids”, Scott said.

    Others played down the risk. Glenn Morgan, partner at investment and advisory firm SkiesFifty, said “policy is always a risk”, adding that traditional oil-based jet fuel could also lose subsidies.

    A fuel truck fills up the Emirates Airlines Boeing 777-300ER with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), during a milestone demonstration flight while running one of its engines on 100% (SAF) at Dubai airport, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, January 30, 2023. REUTERS/Rula Rouhana

    A fuel truck fills up the Emirates Airlines Boeing 777-300ER with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), during a milestone demonstration flight while running one of its engines on 100% (SAF) at Dubai airport, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, January 30, 2023. REUTERS/Rula Rouhana

    Asian countries join SAF mandate adopters

    In Asia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Japan have recently adopted SAF mandates, and Matti Lievonen, CEO of Asia-based SAF producer EcoCeres, predicted that China, Indonesia and Hong Kong would follow suit.

    David Fisken, investment director at the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, said the Australian government, which does not have a mandate, was watching to see how the EU and UK’s requirements played out.

    The US does not have a SAF mandate and under President Donald Trump the government has slashed tax credits available for SAF producers from $1.75 a gallon to $1.

    Is the world’s big idea for greener air travel a flight of fancy?

    SAF and energy security

    SAF’s potential role in boosting energy security was a major theme of this week’s discussions as geopolitical tensions push the issue to the fore.

    Marcella Franchi, chief commercial officer for SAF at France’s Haffner Energy, said the Canadian government, which has “very unsettling neighbours at the moment”, was looking to produce SAF to protect its energy security, especially as it has ample supplies of biomass to use as potential feedstock.

    Similarly, German weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall said last year it was working on plans that would enable European armed forces to produce their own synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel “locally and independently of global fossil fuel supply chain”.

    Scott said Australia needs SAF to improve its fuel security, as it imports almost 99% of its liquid fuels.

    He added that support for Australian SAF production is bipartisan, in part because it appeals to those more concerned about energy security than tackling climate change.

    The post Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn appeared first on Climate Home News.

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