Reaching net-zero will be much cheaper for the UK government than previously expected – and the economic damages of unmitigated climate change far more severe.
These are two key conclusions from the latest report on risks to the government finances from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which includes a chapter on climate change.
The new OBR report shows very clearly that the cost of cutting emissions to net-zero is significantly smaller than the economic damages of failing to act.
Here are four key charts from the OBR report.
Climate damages could reach 8% of GDP by 2070s
The UK could take an 8% hit to its economy by the early 2070s, if the world warms by 3C this century, according to the new OBR report.
(This aspect of the OBR report has been picked up in a Reuters headline: “Global 3C warming would hurt UK economy much more than previously predicted, OBR says.”)
Its latest estimate (blue line) of the impact of “climate-related damages” by the 2070s is three percentage points (60%) higher than thought just last year (yellow), as shown in the figure below.
The OBR says that the increase in its estimate of climate damages is due to using a “more comprehensive and up-to-date analysis”.
(The world is currently on track to warm by only slightly less than 3C this century.)
Unchecked damages could double hit to borrowing
The impact of climate damages on government borrowing would be nearly twice as high by the 2070s, if global warming goes unchecked and reaches 3C, according to the OBR report.
This is shown in the figure below, which compares additional government borrowing each year, as a share of GDP, if warming is limited to less than 2C this century (left) or if it climbs to 3C (right).
The OBR explains that the largest impact of climate damages on government borrowing is “lower productivity and employment and, therefore, lower tax receipts”.
Cost of net-zero halved
When it comes to cutting UK emissions, the OBR says the government will only need to invest just over half as much on reaching net-zero, compared with what it expected four years earlier.
This is shown in the figure below, with the latest 2025 estimate (right) showing a cumulative government investment of 6% of GDP across the 25 years to 2050, down from 11% (left).
(Note that the large majority of “lost government receipts”, shown in yellow in the figure below, are due to fuel duty evaporating as drivers shift to electric vehicles. As the OBR notes, the government could choose to recoup these losses via other types of motoring taxes.)
The OBR takes its estimates of the costs and benefits of cutting emissions to net-zero from the government’s Climate Change Committee (CCC). The CCC recently issued significantly lower estimates for net-zero investment costs, due to more rapidly falling clean-technology costs.
Acknowledging this shift, the OBR says the latest CCC estimates on the cost of reaching net-zero are “significantly lower” than earlier figures.
It notes that the net cost to the economy of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 is now put at £116bn over 25 years, some £204bn lower than previously expected.
In very rough terms, this figure – which excludes health co-benefits due to cutting emissions and avoided climate damages – is equivalent to less than £70 per person per year.
Cost of action far lower than cost of inaction
Taken together, the OBR findings show more clearly than ever before that the cost of taking action to tackle climate change would be far lower than the cost of unchecked warming.
For the first time, its latest report combines the estimated cost of cutting emissions with the expected damages due to rising temperatures in a single figure, shown below.
The comparison illustrates that climate damages (blue bars in the chart) are set to impose severe costs on the UK public finances, even if warming is limited to less than 2C this century (left).
The OBR also shows how the cost of government investment in cutting emissions (yellow) is both temporary and relatively small in comparison to climate damages.
Moreover, it highlights how unchecked warming of 3C this century (right) would impose far higher climate damages on the UK government’s finances than if global temperatures are kept in check.
Specifically, global action to limit warming to 2C instead of 3C could prevent more than 1 percentage point of climate damages being added to annual government borrowing by the 2070s.
In contrast, the combined estimated cost to government of action to cut emissions never exceeds 0.6 percentage points – even if lost receipts due to fuel duty are not replaced (green).
Beyond these new numbers, the OBR acknowledges that it still does not include the cost of adapting to climate change, or the impact this could have on reducing damages.
Nor does it consider the potential for accelerated transitions towards clean energy, technological advances that make this shift cheaper or the risk of tipping points, which could cause “large and irreversible changes” to the global climate.
The post OBR: Net-zero is much cheaper than thought for UK – and unchecked global warming far more costly appeared first on Carbon Brief.
OBR: Net-zero is much cheaper than thought for UK – and unchecked global warming far more costly
Half of nations have met a UN deadline to report on how they are tackling nature loss within their borders, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
This includes 11 of the 17 “megadiverse nations”, countries that account for 70% of Earth’s biodiversity.
It also includes all of the G7 nations apart from the US, which is not part of the world’s nature treaty.
All 196 countries that are part of the UN biodiversity treaty were due to submit their seventh “national reports” by 28 February, of which 98 have done so.
Their submissions are supposed to provide key information for an upcoming global report on actions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, in addition to a global review of progress due to be conducted by countries at the COP17 nature summit in Armenia in October this year.
At biodiversity talks in Rome in February, UN officials said that national reports submitted late will not be included in the global report due to a lack of time, but could still be considered in the global review.
Tracking nature action
In 2022, nations signed a landmark deal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030, known as the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF).
In an effort to make sure countries take action at the domestic level, the GBF included an “implementation schedule”, involving the publishing of new national plans in 2024 and new national reports in 2026.
The two sets of documents were to inform both a global report and a global review, to be conducted by countries at COP17 in Armenia later this year. (This schedule mirrors the one set out for tackling climate change under the Paris Agreement.)
The deadline for nations’ seventh national reports, which contain information on their progress towards meeting the 23 targets of the GBF based on a set of key indicators, was 28 February 2026.
According to Carbon Brief’s analysis of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s online reporting platform, 98 out of the 196 countries that are part of the nature convention (50%) submitted on time.
The map below shows countries that submitted their seventh national reports by the UN’s deadline.
This includes 11 of the 17 “megadiverse nations” that account for 70% of Earth’s biodiversity.
The megadiverse nations to meet the deadline were India, Venezuela, Indonesia, Madagascar, Peru, Malaysia, South Africa, Colombia, Mexico, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Australia.
It also includes all of the G7 nations (France, Germany, the UK, Japan, Italy and Canada), excluding the US, which has never ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The UK’s seventh national report shows that it is currently on track to meet just three of the GBF’s 23 targets.
This is according to a LinkedIn post from Dr David Cooper, former executive secretary of the CBD and current chair of the UK’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee, which coordinated the UK’s seventh national report,
The report shows the UK is not on track to meet one of the headline targets of the GBF, which is to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030.
It reports that the proportion of land protected for nature is 7% in England, 18% in Scotland and 9% in Northern Ireland. (The figure is not given for Wales.)
National plans
In addition to the national reports, the upcoming global report and review will draw on countries’ national plans.
Countries were meant to have submitted their new national plans, known as “national biodiversity strategies and action plans” (NBSAPs), by the start of COP16 in October 2024.
A joint investigation by Carbon Brief and the Guardian found that only 15% of member countries met that deadline.
Since then, the percentage of countries that have submitted a new NBSAP has risen to 39%.
According to the GBF and its underlying documents, countries that were “not in a position” to meet the deadline to submit NBSAPs ahead of COP16 were requested to instead submit national targets. These submissions simply list biodiversity targets that countries will aim for, without an accompanying plan for how they will be achieved.
As of 2 March, 78% of nations had submitted national targets.
At biodiversity talks in Rome in February, UN officials said that national reports submitted late will not be included in the global report due to a lack of time, but could still be considered in the global review.
Funding ‘delays’
At the Rome talks, some countries raised that they had faced “difficulties in submitting [their national reports] on time”, according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.
Speaking on behalf of “many” countries, Fiji said that there had been “technical and financial constraints faced by parties” in the preparation of their seventh national reports.
In a statement to Carbon Brief, a spokesperson for the Global Environment Facility, the body in charge of providing financial and technical assistance to countries for the preparation of their national reports, said “delays in fund disbursement have occurred in some cases”, adding:
“In 2023, the GEF council approved support for the development of NBSAPs and the seventh national reports for all 139 eligible countries that requested assistance. This includes national grants of up to $450,000 per country and $6m in global technical assistance delivered through the UN Development Programme and UN Environment Programme.
“As of the end of January 2026, all 139 participating countries had benefited from technical assistance and 93% had accessed their national grants, with 11 countries yet to receive their funds. Delays in fund disbursement have occurred in some cases, compounded by procurement challenges and limited availability of technical expertise.”
The spokesperson added that the fund will “continue to engage closely with agencies and countries to support timely completion of NBSAPs and the seventh national reports”.
The post Analysis: Half of nations meet UN deadline for nature-loss reporting appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Half of nations meet UN deadline for nature-loss reporting
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