The Earth is on a “disastrous trajectory” with “no adequate global governance” to deal with the scale of threats posed by climate tipping points, warns a major new report.
These tipping points “pose some of the gravest threats faced by humanity”, according to the authors.
They identify more than 25 tipping points across the Earth system, ranging from ice-sheet collapse to rainforest dieback.
“Five major tipping points are already at risk of being crossed due to warming right now and three more are threatened in the 2030s as the world exceeds 1.5C global warming,” the report finds.
Crossing Earth system tipping points would have “catastrophic” impacts on societies, with the potential to “escalate violent conflicts, mass displacement and financial instability”, the report also warns.
The authors say that promoting “positive social tipping points” in socio-behavioural, technological, economic and political systems is “the only realistic systemic risk governance option” to limit the risks.
Many positive tipping points have already been crossed – such as renewable energy becoming the cheapest form of electricity in some countries, and electric vehicles gaining the largest share of the market in others – the report finds.
An international team of more than 200 researchers have contributed to this report, which was initiated at a conference on tipping points in September 2022. (See Carbon Brief’s coverage of the event.) The report was funded by the Bezos Earth Fund.
The authors of the report support a proposal – currently under consideration – for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to prepare a special report on the topic of tipping points.
They also call for the risks and opportunities around tipping points to be included in the global stocktake of progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, as well as future revisions of Nationally Determined Contributions and national and sub-national policy measures.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief unpacks the report’s findings on “negative” Earth system tipping points and “positive” social tipping points.
- What are tipping points?
- What are the main Earth system tipping points?
- When could key thresholds be crossed?
- What are the impacts of crossing tipping points?
- Can ‘positive tipping points’ mitigate the risks?
What are tipping points?
Scientists have warned for decades that many Earth systems are at risk of crossing “tipping points” – critical thresholds that, if exceeded, could push a system into an entirely new state.
Prof Tim Lenton is the chair of climate change and Earth system science at the University of Exeter and lead author of the new report on “global tipping points”. He describes a tipping point as a system in which “a small change makes a big difference and changes the state or the fate of a system”.
The report uses the analogy of a ball in a valley to describe tipping points, as shown in the graphic below.
In the left-most panel (blue), the ball sits in the left-side valley. If the ball is given a small push, it rolls briefly up the side of the valley before returning to its starting position. This “resilience” – the system’s ability to withstand changes – shows that the system is stable, the report says.
However, the report warns that human activity – including climate change, ecosystem degradation and pollution – are making many Earth systems less stable. This is shown by the left-hand valley getting shallower in the middle panel (purple) and the lowering of the hill between it and the right-hand valley. Now it would be easier for the ball to move into the right-hand valley when pushed.
As a system comes close to a tipping point, it may be slower to return to its original state after a “perturbation” or disturbance, the report says. This would be shown by the ball returning more slowly to its original position after it is pushed.
Dr David McKay – an independent research consultant and visiting fellow at the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute – is a section lead on the new report. He describes this behaviour as a “wobble” and tells a press briefing that it can often be picked up using observational data. This is important, because it can provide an early warning signal that a tipping point is approaching.
A “tipping point” is crossed when the ball rolls past the point of no return into the right-side valley, leaving its original state and settling into a new stable state. This is shown in the right-hand panel (red). It is now very difficult for the ball to return to its original state in the left-hand valley.
The report says that a tipping point occurs “when change in part of a system becomes self-perpetuating beyond a threshold, leading to substantial, widespread, frequently abrupt and often irreversible impact”.
Under this definition, it is also possible for tipping points to be reversible and “non-abrupt” – although this is not usually the case, the authors note.
What are the main Earth system tipping points?
In recent years, there has been plenty of academic discussion about which elements of the Earth system might exhibit tipping points.
The report synthesises hundreds of peer-reviewed articles to identify more than 25 parts of the Earth system that have tipping points across the cryosphere, biosphere, atmosphere and oceans. (Carbon Brief has previously unpacked nine of them in detail.)
Importantly, the authors also show which systems they do not believe to exhibit tipping behaviour.
Cryosphere
The report identifies multiple tipping points in the cryosphere, as shown on the map below.
The colours and markers indicate how confident the authors are that each system has a tipping point. A red bar and “+++” marker indicates that the authors are very confident that the system is a tipping point. A blue bar and “- – -” marker indicates that the authors are very confident that the system is not a tipping point. The four arrows and globe symbols indicate regional and global systems, respectively.
There are “multiple lines of evidence” to support the existence of “large-scale” tipping points from the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the report says, explaining that if ice loss exceeds a threshold amount, self-amplifying feedbacks could cause the ice to disintegrate even faster, leading to large-scale ice-sheet “collapse”.
Conversely, the authors have “high confidence” that Arctic summer sea ice loss is not a tipping system, finding that in models and observations, summer sea ice loss tends to increase “gradually, but surely” in line with warming.
Meanwhile, the authors find evidence for “localised and regional” tipping points in glaciers and permafrost, but find that these systems do not exhibit “large-scale tipping dynamics”.
Oceans and atmosphere
There are four further tipping points in the oceans and atmosphere, including monsoons over west Africa, India and South America, clouds and El Niño southern oscillation (ENSO), according to the report. These are shown in the map below.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is a major system of ocean currents that plays an important role in regulating the global climate. The report explains that rising temperatures, combined with an influx of cold, fresh water from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, could destabilise these ocean currents, potentially causing the entire system to “shut down”.
Similarly, the authors find evidence for tipping points in the overturning circulations in the Atlantic and the Southern oceans, as well as for the west African monsoon.
The authors also assess the literature on cloud-induced tipping points. Various different mechanisms linked to incoming solar radiation and outgoing infrared radiation have been suggested, but the authors conclude that “concern about cloud-driven tipping points is relatively low”.
Biosphere
The report finds the most tipping points in the biosphere, as shown in the map below. Different colours of shading indicate different biomes – for example, coral reefs in red and mangroves in pink.
Systems in the biosphere have more “co-drivers” that can reduce their resilience – such as climate change, habitat loss and pollution – making tipping points easier to reach, the report finds.
For example, it notes that the Amazon provides much of its own rainfall by cycling water between the atmosphere and vegetation. Deforestation and climate change can disrupt this mechanism, pushing the system over a tipping point where it turns from forest into savannah. This process is called forest “dieback”.
Among tropical forests, there is most evidence of a tipping point for the Amazon, the report finds. Other tropical forests such as the Congo have evidence for local tipping points, but are less likely to cross them, the report finds.
The authors also find that mangroves and sea grasses – which are “historically among the most human-threatened ecosystems in the world” – are at risk tipping regionally. They highlight regional examples of “mangrove die-off”, which typically occur when the mangroves are “physiologically stressed”.
The report also looks at marine food webs and fisheries, finding that “marine community shifts take place when abrupt changes cascade through several species or functional groups of an ecosystem”.
When could key thresholds be crossed?
Assessing when key climate tipping points may be crossed has been a key area of research for many years. One way to identify imminent tipping points is by looking for the “wobble” or “loss of resistance” in a system.
For example, the report cites research that finds three-quarters of the Amazon rainforest has lost “resilience” since 2003, making it slower to recover from droughts and heatwaves. This indicates that the forest could be approaching a tipping point, the authors say.
Parts of the Greenland ice sheet and AMOC are also exhibiting a loss of resilience, the report finds. It adds that given present-day warming of 1.2C, tipping of warm-water coral reefs is likely:
“Coral reefs are already experiencing tipping points, as more frequent warming-driven bleaching events, along with pollution, extreme weather events and diseases, tip them to degraded algae-dominated states.”
As the planet continues to warm, the likelihood of crossing key thresholds increases. The report also draws on research recently published by McKay, which assesses how many tipping points could be triggered at different levels of global warming.
The upper half of the plot below shows the likelihood of triggering 15 tipping elements at different temperature levels. Yellow indicates a low likelihood and red indicates a high likelihood, while the dotted line indicates a central estimate.
The grey line underneath shows observed warming to the present day and projections out to 2100 from 1.5C (green) to more than 4C (red). The grey shading in the upper chart indicates expected warming given current climate policies.
The report says that five different tipping points are already “at risk of being crossed due to warming right now”. These are Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet collapse, warm-water coral reef die-off, widespread localised abrupt thaw in permafrost and overturning circulation collapse in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre.
The North Atlantic subpolar gyre is a counter-clockwise ocean current to the south of Greenland, which drives the oceanic currents and redistributes heat and freshwater in the high latitude North Atlantic. The gyre is a component of AMOC, and is considered as a major tipping element of the climate system.
The report adds that three more tipping points are at risk of being crossed in the 2030s as the world exceeds 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
However, the report warns that key thresholds could be crossed “at lower levels of global warming than previously thought”, adding:
“Our best models likely underestimate tipping point risks. The world is largely flying blind into this vast threat.”
This underestimation is largely due to “patchy and fragmented” knowledge, the authors say. For example, they note that “typical modelling approaches struggle to accurately represent ice sheet dynamics”.
The authors of the report support a proposal for the IPCC to prepare a special report on the topic of tipping points. The proposal was put forward by Switzerland in May 2022 and is currently under consideration.
What are the impacts of crossing tipping points?
The impacts of crossing Earth system tipping points “could be catastrophic”, the report warns.
Melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets would endanger coastal communities, and could lead to the complete loss of many small island nations, the report finds. Antarctic ice sheet instability alone could lead to a potential sea level rise of two metres by 2100, exposing 480 million people to annual coastal flooding events, it says.
Amazon dieback would be a “catastrophe for biodiversity”, the report finds. Reduced river flow would lead to transport difficulties in the region, and some six million people would face “extreme heat stress risk”. Overall, the report estimates that a complete Amazon dieback would cause damages of between $1tn and $3.5tn.
Thawing permafrost causes the ground to become unstable or “slump”, and the report warns that 70% of current infrastructure in permafrost regions is in areas with “high potential for thaw by 2050”.
It adds that crossing a tipping point in the AMOC would lead to global changes in rainfall patterns, with implications for water security and crop production around the world. The warm water that the AMOC carries northwards releases heat into the atmosphere, which means it plays a crucial role in keeping Western Europe warm.
However, the Earth system tipping points do not act in isolation. The authors find that crossing some tipping points, such as the dieback of rainforests or thawing of permafrost, releases more CO2 into the atmosphere, causing further warming.
Furthermore, many Earth systems are interlinked, meaning that crossing one tipping point can increase the likelihood of crossing others. The authors describe this as a “domino effect” or “tipping cascade”.
The map below shows these interactions. Red arrows indicate that crossing one tipping point causes another system to become more unstable, making it more likely to tip. Blue arrows indicate the opposite. Grey arrows indicate unclear effects.
Systems that may not tip on their own – but are still important due to their interactions with other systems – are shown with a blue outer circle. Tipping systems that exert a notable feedback on global average temperature when they tip are denoted by a red inner ring.
The report finds that the majority of interactions between climate tipping systems are destabilising – indicating that crossing one tipping point will generally lead to further tipping points being crossed.
For example, disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet would result in large volumes of cool freshwater flowing into the ocean, which could push the AMOC beyond a tipping point. This, in turn, could lead to an intensification of ENSO, which could go on to influence weather patterns over the Amazon, causing rainforest dieback, the report explains.
Crossing key tipping points “could have catastrophic impacts on human societies”, including an increase in violence and conflict, large-scale displacement and financial destabilisation, the authors warn.
The report says that Earth system destabilisation could lead to “social cohesion breaking down”, driving an increase in “mental disorders”, as well as “greater radicalisation of various groups and polarisation, making it harder to find collective solutions”. The report adds:
“These impacts could escalate to threaten the breakdown of economic, social and political systems, triggering destructive tipping points in societies experiencing stresses beyond their ability to cope.”
The authors add that each time a tipping point is crossed, humanity will be forced to divert more attention and resources into disaster response, “eroding away some of our agency
to tackle the underlying drivers”. This in turn would make it more likely for more tipping points to be crossed in the future, creating a “vicious cycle”, they say.
Can ‘positive tipping points’ mitigate the risks?
“The existence of tipping points means that ‘business as usual’ is now over,” the report warns. It adds:
“Rapid changes to nature and society are occurring, and more are coming. If we don’t revise our governance approach, these changes could overwhelm societies as the natural world rapidly comes apart.”
However, the authors add that “currently, there is no adequate global governance at the scale of the threats posed by negative tipping points”.
The authors argue that “positive social tipping points” – feedbacks in socio-behavioural, technological, economic and political systems that trigger a positive change – could be “the only realistic systemic risk governance option” to limit the risks.
Lenton told the press briefing that humanity has “left it basically too late for incremental action on the climate crisis”, adding that positive tipping points are key to limiting dangerous levels of warming.
Many positive social tipping points are being reached or have already been crossed, the authors say.
For example, they say that renewable energy has reached a tipping point of cost parity with fossil-fuelled power generation. They add that electric vehicles “show evidence of passing or approaching tipping points in major markets including China and Europe”.
Dr Tom Powell – a research impact fellow at Exeter’s Global Systems Institute and section lead on the report – told the press briefing that “the more of something we build, the cheaper it gets to build”.
He called this a “powerful reinforcing feedback”, adding that it is responsible for some of those cost reductions and renewable energies and electric vehicles.
In a similar way to negative Earth system tipping points, one positive social tipping point can trigger another, leading to a domino or cascade that generates “widespread societal change”, the authors say. Lenton outlined a positive tipping cascade in electric vehicle manufacture:
“As electric vehicles pass the positive tipping point of market dominance, this produces lots of cheap batteries, and those low cost batteries are crucial to provide essential storage capacity to reinforce a different positive tipping point towards renewable energy for our power supply.
“And that can in turn trigger positive tipping points in producing green ammonia and green hydrogen fuels for fertiliser, shipping and so on.”
Powell adds that “social contagion is a really powerful force”, noting that “the more people around you who are adopting sustainable choices, the more likely you are to do so yourself”. He adds:
“The more visible sustainable choices are among the general population, the easier it becomes for politicians to make policy choices that might have seemed very difficult a few years ago.”
However, positive social tipping points “don’t just happen by magic”, Lenton told the press briefing. Instead, he said they need “coordinated action”.
The report’s authors call for Earth system tipping point risks, corresponding action and positive tipping point opportunities to be included in the global stocktake under the Paris Agreement, as well as future revisions of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and national and sub-national policy measures.
The most recent iteration of the global stocktake text mentions climate tipping points twice. In one, it invites the scientific community to:
“Generate information relevant for NDCs and aligning them with 1.5C, cross-cutting considerations such as tipping points, guidance on risks and impacts, vulnerability, cryosphere and closing observation gaps.”
Dr Manjana Milkoreit – a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oslo and section lead on the report – adds that decisions and actions taken in the coming decades will commit us to “really long-term changes”, adding that the issue of tipping points is important for our notions of intergenerational justice.
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Q&A: Climate tipping points have put Earth on ‘disastrous trajectory’, says new report
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.
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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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