China’s Third Plenum, an important five-yearly meeting traditionally associated with major economic reforms, concluded on 18 July in Beijing.
Observers have been eagerly anticipating signals from the meeting about the leadership’s plans for economic growth and wider development, including on climate action.
The official readout from the meeting of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party calls on policymakers to pursue a range of relevant reforms.
These include a focus on “high-quality economic development” (高质量发展), as well as “supporting all-around innovation” (支持全面创新) and “deepening reform in ecological conservation systems” (深化生态文明体制改革), among other areas.
It also urges officials to “make concerted efforts to cut carbon emissions” and “actively respond to climate change”. This is the first time carbon emissions have been mentioned in a plenum document.
A key step to achieve this, it adds, is through “improving institutional mechanisms for developing new quality productive forces” (NQPF, 新质生产力).
Since its first appearance in official rhetoric in September last year, this term has featured in Chinese state media in numerous high-level policy documents and commentaries about industrial development and low-carbon growth.
According to Chinese president Xi Jinping, one important element of NQPF is “green development”, which he has described as the “base colour of high-quality development”. In comments made in January 2024, he added that “new quality productivity itself is green productivity” (新质生产力本身就是绿色生产力).
This encapsulates both the development of low-carbon technologies, such as electric vehicles (EVs), and the “green transformation” of the economy.
However, there is significant debate as to whether the concept, which can also be translated as “new productive forces” or “new quality productivity”, will result in concrete policy outcomes and support further development of industries critical to China’s energy transition.
In this article, Carbon Brief unpacks the concepts underpinning new quality productive forces, and what it means for China’s climate, energy and industrial policy.
- What does ‘new quality productive forces’ mean?
- How significant is this for low-carbon development?
- Why is the concept important?
- What does this mean for China’s low-carbon technology industries?
- What are the concerns over NQPF?
- Will NQPF translate into concrete climate policy?
What does ‘new quality productive forces’ mean?
The phrase was first mentioned by Xi during a visit to Heilongjiang province, located in the “rust belt” of northeast China, in 2023.
In January 2024, he further defined it as innovation-led development that creates “a break with traditional economic growth models and development pathways”, resulting in a “high level of technology, efficiency and quality” (高科技、高效能、高质量) as well as an “in-depth transformation and upgrading of industry” (产业深度转型升级).
This has led to a “ubiquitous” focus on innovation across official discussions about NQPF, according to the University of Cambridge-affiliated thinktank Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy.
Unleashing this innovation, according to official interpretations, will lead to a cascade of changes across China’s industrial system – “both technological and institutional” – that will improve China’s advanced manufacturing capabilities.
Nevertheless, innovation and advanced technology are not the only focus. Analysis by the Council on Geostrategy says the framing of NQPF “suggests that, while scientific and technological innovation is essential, [China recognises there] needs also to be deeper reforms of the…economic model”.
Priority areas for reform include the market-based economy; state owned enterprises (SOE); and China’s fiscal, household registration and healthcare systems.
These economic reforms, driven both by “the government’s ‘visible hand’ and the market’s ‘invisible hand’”, are necessary for China’s continuous prosperity, according to the Xinhua Institute, a thinktank affiliated with state news agency Xinhua.
The institute links NQPF with Marxism, arguing this is in line with improving “means of production” – an important force in Marxist theory for production, reform and human development.
Most official explanations of the concept are relatively broad and unspecific. However, low-carbon development is one of the few named priorities.
How significant is this for low-carbon development?
NQPF will provide an “important support for green development”, according to a commentary in the Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily, which was reposted on the website of China’s National Energy Administration.
“Protecting the ecological environment is to protect productivity and improving the ecological environment is to develop productivity,” it adds.
Some analysis takes this further. Prof Zhang Yunfei, from the Marxism studies department at Renmin University in Beijing and researcher at its National Institute of Development and Strategy, tells the government-affiliated newspaper China Environment News that NQPF represents a development model specific to China.
This contrasts with “traditional productive forces in Western societies”, or “black productivity” (黑色生产力), which saw “high consumption of resources and energy, and high pollution of the ecological environment”, he says.
Instead, NQPF signifies “green productivity”, which will help China “shift from conforming to leading globalisation, and promote the country’s healthy and green development”.
“Green productivity”, Zhang adds, is sustainable productivity that focuses both on increasingly productive “ecologicalisation” (生态化) and increasingly ecological productive forces driving wider development.
These forces are fundamentally provided by and rooted in nature, he explains. Driving forces include “sustainable resources such as information”, a “new generation of workers” that understand the concept of ecological civilisation and an enhanced “level of sustainable development” based on “green science and technology”.
Why is the concept important?
This concept of NQPF is a holistic approach “designed to address complex, interrelated challenges faced by China and to create a more resilient and dynamic economy that will bring long-term prosperity”, Dr Muyi Yang, senior electricity policy analyst for China from the thinktank Ember, tells Carbon Brief.
Arthur Kroeber, founding partner and head of research at research firm Gavekal Dragonomics, tells Carbon Brief that NQPF is “the latest iteration of a long-running trend towards industrial policy, technology and intensive growth”.
This is “essentially a new bottle for old wine”, Kroeber adds. “I think what it does do is emphasise the point that there is a national mission” to build China into a technological superpower.
“It is a big deal”, Bill Bishop, author of the Sinocism newsletter, told Bloomberg, as Xi “putting a stamp” on the idea will “send a powerful signal” to stakeholders across the system.
The idea addresses specific anxieties facing China’s leadership. As well as supporting economic growth, some argue that strengthening the country’s ability to innovate provides China with a greater sense of security.
According to the Chinese Communist party’s leading theoretical journal Qiushi, for example, Xi believes that China is “still reliant on others for some core technologies…our industry is still not strong enough in spite of its size and falls short of excellence…and we face significant pressure in making the transition to green and low-carbon production modes”.
Prof Yao Yang, liberal arts chair professor at the China Center for Economic Research and the National School of Development at Peking University in Beijing, echoes this, writing in a comment for China Daily that the “significance” of the concept is the overarching aim of “laying a solid foundation for the future of the Chinese economy”.
Kroeber tells Carbon Brief that this is also driven, in part, by historical parallels between China’s fear of being cut off from US technological advancements and the rupture with the Soviet Union in the Mao era. He says:
“After the Sino-Soviet split, Soviet advisors who went [to China] to help build steel plants and develop the petrochemical industry, for example, all left. China was left [to develop its economy] on its own…Xi Jinping has drawn a specific connection [to that].”
What does this mean for China’s low-carbon technology industries?
A primary aim of NQPF is to expand “strategic emerging industries” and “nurture future industries”, Deng Zhou, associate research fellow at the Institute of Industrial Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, writes in the state-run newspaper China Daily.
“Strategic industries” include “new energy”, “new energy vehicles” and “energy conservation and environmental protection”. Recent analysis for Carbon Brief found that “clean energy” sectors contributed 11.4tn yuan ($1.6tn) to China’s economy in 2023.
“Future industries”, according to a policy document issued in January, include nuclear energy, nuclear fusion, hydrogen, biomass, crystalline silicon solar cells, thin-film solar cells and new energy storage such as batteries, among other areas.
These are “implied to be the major sectoral targets” for the NQPF, according to Kroeber.
In his January speech, Xi said that successful deployment of NQPF requires “accelerating green science and technology innovation…promoting application of advanced green technology…strengthening the green manufacturing industry…growing the green energy industry…[and] developing green and low-carbon industrial and supply chains”.
Much of this will be driven by state-coordinated efforts. China Daily says that efforts to cultivate NQPF “will encourage its centrally administered state-owned enterprises [SOEs] to deploy more resources toward developing strategic emerging industries”.
Kroeber believes that this will lead to “national resources [being] mobilised through a ‘new national system’ (新型举国体制)”.
He tells Carbon Brief that the system is an attempt to “create better coordination mechanisms” between the central and local governments in order to better achieve policy goals, such as through research consortiums focused on technological innovations.
This is inspired by the success of China’s electric vehicle (EV) industry, which benefited both from significant state support and from the emergence of innovative and intensely competitive businesses.
Several commentaries and articles highlight EVs as a key example of NQPF working in practice.
Wang Yiming, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges and former vice minister of the Development Research Center of the State Council, wrote in the state-sponsored Guangming Daily that “the rapid development of China’s EVs is a vivid case of NQPF, formed by the deep transformation and upgrading of industry”.
Using innovation to foster leading expertise across different industries, China hopes, will allow the country to replicate its achievements in the EV sector in other industries.
For example, a blog post on Yuyuan Tantian, a WeChat account affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV, draws a link between China’s experience in manufacturing LCD televisions and its later success in developing solar technologies, which require similar manufacturing technologies and processes.
Prof Zhang tells China Environment News:
“New quality productive forces are not simply a process of transformation from old productivity to new productivity…It is a qualitative leap in productivity based on the achievements of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, which is characterised by green, intelligent and ubiquitous (绿色、智能、泛在) trends.”
What are the concerns over NQPF?
China’s use of state resources to support strategically important industries, such as EVs, has recently fuelled anxieties about “overcapacity” in some countries.
Both the US and the EU have imposed tariffs on China-made EV imports. The EU’s tariff rate for individual automakers is based on the amount of state subsidies, including R&D grants, that the bloc determined those companies to have received.
There are also concerns around overcapacity domestically. A March Reuters article quoted an anonymous Chinese policy adviser saying: “The direction of promoting tech innovation is right, but my worry is how to achieve it – what path and what institutional mechanisms should we rely on?”
To a point, these concerns are also shared by the leadership. In an article translated by the Pekingology newsletter, Han Wenxiu, a top economic policy planner, cautioned against “campaign-style” implementation of NQPF policies that lead to “neglecting or abandoning traditional industries”, as well as “blind conformity and bubbles”.
Some analysts have linked NQPF to a broader push for faster economic growth and challenges tackling “deep-seated difficulties” in economic reform, which has led to a “lack of more radical action on consumption”.
Michael Pettis, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, is quoted by the Financial Times saying that “the exit strategy has to be, at the end of the day, consumption – there’s no point producing all this stuff if no one’s going to buy it”.
But given current tensions with the US, Kroeber tells Carbon Brief, China “can’t rely on imports of technology in the same way…It must have an all-of-nation effort to develop its own alternatives for the technologies it used to import.”
In his view, efforts to foster NQPF “could” lead to the creation of more capacity – although he finds concerns around overcapacity to be overly “politicised”.
He says that any spikes in capacity may be “unintentional” as “the Europeans and Chinese are actually starting discussions on [resolving concerns around] EVs”.
Yang tells Carbon Brief that “innovative technologies are often not commercially viable and struggle to compete with mature technologies in the market”, highlighting the need for government support to make the EV industry viable. He adds:
“The world needs to achieve rapid and deep decarbonisation within a very short timeframe. The market often drives incremental change. But what is required now is more radical, fundamental change.”
Will NQPF translate into concrete climate policy?
At a press conference on 24 June, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) announced that it will release a ‘1+N’ policy on NQPF, which will “promote the accelerated development of NQPF” and “thicken” the “green-ness” of high-quality development (厚植高质量发展的绿色底色).
This followed an article in Qiushi by MEE minister Huang Runqiu and party secretary Sun Jinlong, who wrote that “ecology is itself the economy – if you protect ecology, ecology will give you returns”.
The ‘1+N’ framework is well-established in Chinese environmental policymaking, forming the basis for China’s climate policy.
It refers to “1” policy setting overarching objectives, which guides numerous (“N”) action plans and policy measures that include more concrete targets.
The MEE said that NQPF “can help promote the significant decline of pollutants and carbon emissions, and radically improve the quality of the ecological environment”.
On 11 July, it released one of the first “N” policies in the system – regulations to update “management of ecological environment zoning control”.
Analysis by consulting firm Trivium China questions whether this “will directly contribute” to development of NQPF, but adds that it could signal the MEE “leveraging” the concept to “push through reforms that might otherwise be stymied” by other stakeholders.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) announced on 17 July that it will establish a centre for promoting NQPF. This may improve MOST’s “autonomy” in policy planning for science and technology innovation, an analyst told finance newspaper 21st Century Business Herald.
Kroeber says that “every document the government comes out with now has to have some reference to NQPF. It’s just a way for bureaucrats to say ‘we have heard the signal [from Beijing] and we are pursuing [those goals]’”.
He adds that one area in which China may issue more concrete policies is power market reform.
China has been trying to “introduce more competition” into its power market to address a range of challenges inherent to the old grid system, including increasing the share of renewable power in overall power generation.
It is “an area where this idea of coordination and the state playing a more leading role in getting everyone to move together” is crucial, Kroeber says, given the importance of access to abundant, low-cost electricity to power development of more technology.
Seeing further progress “would be the litmus test of whether the government is pursuing its aims [around NQPF] in an effective way”, he adds.
However, Yang tells Carbon Brief that while NQPF “has theoretical underpinnings, it is far from being purely conceptual”.
He says: “I believe more actions in various sectors will come soon to translate it into concrete initiatives and programs.”
The post Q&A: What China’s push for ‘new quality productive forces’ means for climate action appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What China’s push for ‘new quality productive forces’ means for climate action
Our Fix Our Forests advocacy in 2025
By Elissa Tennant
Healthy forests are a key part of the climate puzzle — and they’ve been a big part of our advocacy in 2025!
In January of this year, CCL volunteers sent 7,100 messages to Congress urging them to work together to reduce wildfire risk. Soon after, the Fix Our Forests Act was introduced in the House as H.R. 471 and passed the House by a bipartisan vote of 279–141.
At our Conservative Climate Conference and Lobby Day in March, we raised the Fix Our Forests Act as a secondary ask in 47 lobby meetings on Capitol Hill. The next month, an improved version of the bill was then introduced in the Senate as S. 1462 and referred to the Senate Agriculture Committee.
The bill was scheduled for a committee vote in October. CCLers placed more than 2,000 calls to senators on the committee and generated a flurry of local media in their states before the vote. In October, the bill passed the Senate Agriculture Committee with strong bipartisan support.
It’s clear that this legislation has momentum! As the Fix Our Forests Act now awaits a floor vote in the Senate, let’s take a look back at our 2025 advocacy efforts to advance this bill — and why it’s so important.
Protecting forests and improving climate outcomes
Wildfires are getting worse. In the U.S., the annual area burned by wildfires has more than doubled over the past 30 years. In California alone, the acreage burned by wildfires every year has more than tripled over the past 40 years.
American forests currently offset 12% of our annual climate pollution, with the potential to do even more. We need to take action to reduce wildfire, so forests can keep doing their important work pulling climate pollution out of the atmosphere.
The bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act:
- Protects America’s forests by supporting time-tested tools, like prescribed fire and reforestation, that make our forests healthy and able to better withstand and recover from severe wildfire and other extreme weather.
- Protects communities across the nation by reducing wildfire risks to people, homes, and water supplies and adopting new technologies.
- Protects livelihoods by supporting rural jobs and recreation areas and sustaining the forests that house and feed us.
CCL supports this bill alongside many organizations including American Forests, The Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, National Audubon Society, The Western Fire Chiefs Association, The Federation of American Scientists and more.
A deeper dive into our efforts
All year long, CCL’s Government Relations staff has been in conversation with congressional offices to share CCL’s perspective on the legislation and understand the opportunities and challenges facing the bill. Our Government Relations team played a key role in helping us understand when and how to provide an extra grassroots push to keep the bill moving.
Starting Sept. 9 through the committee vote, CCLers represented by senators on the Senate Agriculture Committee made 2,022 calls to committee members in support of FOFA. CCL also signed a national coalition letter to Senate leadership in support of the bill, joining organizations like the American Conservation Coalition Action, Bipartisan Policy Center Action, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, and more.
In October, we launched a local media initiative in support of FOFA, focused on states with senators on the Agriculture Committee. Volunteers published letters to the editor and op-eds in California, Minnesota, Colorado, and more. In one state, the senator’s office saw a CCLer’s op-ed in the local newspaper, and reached out to schedule a meeting with those volunteers to discuss the bill! CCL’s Government Relations team joined in to make the most of the conversation.
As soon as the committee vote was scheduled for October 21, our Government Relations staff put out a call for volunteers to generate local endorsement letters from trusted messengers. CCL staff prepared short endorsement letter templates for each state that chapters could personalize and submit to their senator’s office. Each version included clear instructions, contact info, and space for volunteers to add their local context, like a short story or relevant example of how wildfires have impacted their area.
Then, CCL state coordinators worked with the CCL chapters in their states to make sure they prepared and sent the signed letters to the appropriate senate office, and to alert CCL’s Government Affairs staff so they could follow up and keep the conversation going on Capitol Hill.
Individually, our voices as climate advocates struggle to break through and make change. But it’s this kind of coordinated nationwide effort, with well-informed staff partnering with motivated local volunteers, that makes CCL effective at moving the needle in Congress.
On October 21, the Fix Our Forests Act officially passed the Senate Agriculture Committee with a vote of 18-5.
Building on the momentum
After committee passage, FOFA is now waiting to be taken up by the full Senate for a floor vote. It’s not clear yet if it will move as a standalone bill or included in a package of other legislation.
But to continue building support, we spent a large portion of our Fall Conference training our volunteers on the latest information about the bill, and we included FOFA as a primary ask in our Fall Lobby Week meetings.
Volunteers are now messaging all senators in support of FOFA. If you haven’t already, add your voice by sending messages to your senators about this legislation. With strategy, organization, and a group of dedicated people, we can help pass the Fix Our Forests Act, reducing wildfire risk and helping forests remove more climate pollution.
Help us keep the momentum going! Write to your Senator in support of the Fix Our Forests Act.
The post Our Fix Our Forests advocacy in 2025 appeared first on Citizens' Climate Lobby.
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 5 December: Deadly Asia floods; Adaptation finance target examined; Global south IPCC scientists speak out
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Deadly floods in Asia
MOUNTING DEVASTATION: The Associated Press reported that the death toll from catastrophic floods in south-east Asia had reached 1,500, with Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand most affected and hundreds still missing. The newswire said “thousands” more face “severe” food and clean-water shortages. Heavy rains and thunderstorms are expected this weekend, it added, with “saturated soil and swollen rivers leaving communities on edge”. Earlier in the week, Bloomberg said the floods had caused “at least $20bn in losses”.
CLIMATE CHANGE LINKS: A number of outlets have investigated the links between the floods and human-caused climate change. Agence France-Presse explained that climate change was “producing more intense rain events because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture and warmer oceans can turbocharge storms”. Meanwhile, environmental groups told the Associated Press the situation had been exacerbated by “decades of deforestation”, which had “stripped away natural defenses that once absorbed rainfall and stabilised soil”.
‘NEW NORMAL’: The Associated Press quoted Malaysian researcher Dr Jemilah Mahmood saying: “South-east Asia should brace for a likely continuation and potential worsening of extreme weather in 2026 and for many years.” Al Jazeera reported that the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies had called for “stronger legal and policy frameworks to protect people in disasters”. The organisation’s Asia-Pacific director said the floods were a “stark reminder that climate-driven disasters are becoming the new normal”, the outlet said.
Around the world
- REVOKED: The UK and Netherlands withdrew $2.2bn of financial backing from a controversial liquified natural gas (LNG) project in Mozambique, Reuters reported. The Guardian noted that TotalEnergies’ “giant” project stood accused of “fuelling the climate crisis and deadly terror attacks”.
- REVERSED: US president Donald Trump announced plans to “significantly weaken” Biden-era fuel efficiency requirements for cars, the New York Times said.
- RESTRICTED: EU leaders agreed to ban the import of Russian gas from autumn 2027, the Financial Times reported. Meanwhile, Reuters said it is “likely” the European Commission will delay announcing a plan on auto sector climate targets next week, following pressure to “weaken” a 2035 cut-off for combustion engines.
- RETRACTED: An influential Nature study that looked at the economic consequences of climate change has been withdrawn after “criticism from peers”, according to Bloomberg. [The research came second in Carbon Brief’s ranking of the climate papers most covered by the media in 2024.]
- REBUKED: The federal government of Canada faced a backlash over an oil pipeline deal struck last week with the province of Alberta. CBC News noted that First Nations chiefs voted “unanimously” to demand the withdrawal of the deal and Canada’s National Observer quoted author Naomi Klein as saying that the prime minister was “completely trashing Canada’s climate commitments”.
- RESCHEDULED: The Indonesian government has cancelled plans to close a coal plant seven years early, Bloomberg reported. Meanwhile, Bloomberg separately reported that India is mulling an “unprecedented increase” in coal-power capacity that could see plants built “until at least 2047”.
$518 billion a year
The projected coastal flood damages for the Asia-Pacific region by 2100 if current policies continue, according to a Scientific Reports study covered this week by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- More than 100 “climate-sensitive rivers” worldwide are experiencing “large and severe changes in streamflow volume and timing” | Environmental Research Letters
- Africa’s forests have switched from a carbon sink into a source | Scientific Reports
- Increasing urbanisation can “substantially intensify warming”, contributing up to 0.44C of additional temperature rise per year through 2060 | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
A new target for developed nations to triple adaptation finance by 2035, agreed at the COP30 climate summit, would not cover more than a third of developing countries’ estimated needs, Carbon Brief analysis showed. The chart above compares a straight line to meeting the adaptation finance target (blue), alongside an estimate of countries’ adaptation needs (grey), which was calculated using figures from the latest UN Environmental Programme adaptation gap report, which were based on countries’ UN climate plans (called “nationally determined contributions” or NDCs) and national adaptation plans (NAPs).
Spotlight
Inclusivity at the IPCC
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to an IPCC lead author researching ways to improve the experience of global south scientists taking part in producing the UN climate body’s assessments.
Hundreds of climate scientists from around the world met in Paris this week to start work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) newest set of climate reports.
The IPCC is the UN body responsible for producing the world’s most authoritative climate science reports. Hundreds of scientists from across the globe contribute to each “assessment cycle”, which sees researchers aim to condense all published climate science over several years into three “working group” reports.
The reports inform the decisions of governments – including at UN climate talks – as well as the public understanding of climate change.
The experts gathering in Paris are the most diverse group ever convened by the IPCC.
Earlier this year, Carbon Brief analysis found that – for the first time in an IPCC cycle – citizens of the global south make up 50% of authors of the three working group reports. The IPCC has celebrated this milestone, with IPCC chair Prof Jim Skea touting the seventh assessment report’s (AR7’s) “increased diversity” in August.
But some IPCC scientists have cautioned that the growing involvement of global south scientists does not translate into an inclusive process.
“What happens behind closed doors in these meeting rooms doesn’t necessarily mirror what the diversity numbers say,” Dr Shobha Maharaj, a Trinidadian climate scientist who is a coordinating lead author for working group two (WG2) of AR7, told Carbon Brief.
Global south perspective
Motivated by conversations with colleagues and her own “uncomfortable” experience working on the small-islands chapter of the sixth assessment cycle (AR6) WG2 report, Maharaj – an adjunct professor at the University of Fiji – reached out to dozens of fellow contributors to understand their experience.
The exercise, she said, revealed a “dominance of thinking and opinions from global north scientists, whereas the global south scientists – the scientists who were people of colour – were generally suppressed”.
The perspectives of scientists who took part in the survey and future recommendations for the IPCC are set out in a peer-reviewed essay – co-authored by 20 researchers – slated for publication in the journal PLOS Climate. (Maharaj also presented the findings to the IPCC in September.)
The draft version of the essay notes that global south scientists working on WG2 in AR6 said they confronted a number of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) issues, including “skewed” author selection, “unequal” power dynamics and a “lack of respect and trust”. The researchers also pointed to logistical constraints faced by global south authors, such as visa issues and limited access to journals.
The anonymous quotations from more than 30 scientists included in the essay, Maharaj said, are “clear data points” that she believes can advance a discussion about how to make academia more inclusive.
“The literature is full of the problems that people of colour or global south authors have in academia, but what you don’t find very often is quotations – especially from climate scientists,” she said. “We tend to be quite a conservative bunch.”
Road to ‘improvement’
Among the recommendations set out in the essay are for DEI training, the appointment of a “diversity and inclusion ombudsman” and for updated codes of conduct.
Marharaj said that these “tactical measures” need to occur alongside “transformative approaches” that help “address value systems, dismantle power structures [and] change the rules of participation”.
With drafting of the AR7 reports now underway, Maharaj said she is “hopeful” the new cycle can be an improvement on the last, pointing to a number of “welcome” steps from the IPCC.
This includes holding the first-ever expert meeting on DEI this autumn, new mechanisms where authors can flag concerns and the recruitment of a “science and capacity officer” to support WG2 authors.
The hope, Maharaj explained, is to enhance – not undermine – climate science.
“The idea here was to move forward and to improve the IPCC, rather than attack it,” she said. “Because we all love the science – and we really value what the IPCC brings to the world.”
Watch, read, listen
BROKEN PROMISES: Climate Home News spoke to communities in Nigeria let down by the government’s failure to clean up oil spills by foreign companies.
‘WHEN A ROAD GOES WRONG’: Inside Climate News looked at how a new road from Brazil’s western Amazon to Peru has become a “conduit for rampant deforestation and illegal gold mining”.
SHADOWY COURTS: In the Guardian, George Monbiot lamented the rise of investor-state dispute settlements, which he described as “undemocratic offshore tribunals” that are already having a “chilling effect” on countries’ climate ambitions.
Coming up
- 1-12 December: UN Environment Assembly 7, Nairobi, Kenya
- 7 December: Hong Kong legislative elections
- 11 December: Falkland Islands legislative assembly elections
Pick of the jobs
- Greenpeace International, engagement manager – climate and energy | Salary: Unknown. Location: Various
- The Energy, newsletter editor | Salary: Unknown. Location: Australia (remote)
- University of Groningen, PhD position in motivating people to contribute to societal transitions | Salary: €3,059-€3,881 per month. Location: Groningen, the Netherlands
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 5 December: Deadly Asia floods; Adaptation finance target examined; Global south IPCC scientists speak out appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Greenhouse Gases
Cropped 3 December 2025: Extreme weather in Africa; COP30 roundup; Saudi minister interview
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
COP30 roundup
FOOD OFF THE MENU: COP30 wrapped up in the Brazilian Amazon city of Belém, with several new announcements for forest protection, but with experts saying that food systems were seemingly “erased” from official negotiations, Carbon Brief reported. Other observers told the Independent that the lack of mention of food in some of the main negotiated outcomes was “surprising” and “deeply disappointing”. The outlet noted that smallholder farmers spend an “estimated 20 to 40% of their annual income on adaptive measures…despite having done next to nothing to contribute to the climate crisis”.
‘BITTERSWEET’: Meanwhile, Reuters said that the summit’s outcomes for trees and Indigenous peoples were “unprecedented”, but “bittersweet”. It noted that countries had “unlocked billions in new funds for forests” through the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. (For more on that fund, see Carbon Brief’s explainer.) However, the newswire added, “nations failed to agree on a plan to keep trees standing as they have repeatedly promised to do in recent summits”. Mongabay noted that pledges to the new forest fund totalled “less than a quarter of the $25bn initially required for a full-scale rollout”.
‘MIXED OUTCOMES’: A separate piece in Mongabay said that COP30 “delivered mixed outcomes” for Indigenous peoples. One positive outcome was a “historic pledge to recognise Indigenous land tenure rights over 160m hectares” of tropical forest land, the outlet said. This was accompanied by a monetary pledge of $1.8bn to support “Indigenous peoples, local and Afro-descendant communities in securing land rights over the next five years”, it added. However, Mongabay wrote, there were some “major disappointments” around the summit’s outcomes, particularly around the absence of mention of critical minerals and fossil-fuel phaseout in the final texts.
Africa on edge
SOMALIA DROUGHT: Somalia officially declared a drought emergency last month “after four consecutive failed rainy seasons left millions at risk of hunger and displacement”, allAfrica reported, with 130,000 people in “immediate life-threatening need”. According to Al Jazeera, more than 4.5 million people “face starvation”, as “failed rains and heat devastated” the country, with displaced communities also “escaping fighting” in their villages and aid cuts impacting relief. Down to Earth, meanwhile, covered an Amnesty International report that demonstrated that Somalia failed to “implement a functional social-security system for the marginalised, particularly those negatively affected by drought”.
COCOA CRASH: Ivory Coast’s main cocoa harvest is expected to “decline sharply for [the] third consecutive year” due to erratic rainfall, crop disease, ageing farms and poor investment, Reuters reported. Africa Sustainability Matters observed that the delayed implementation of the EU’s deforestation law – announced last week – could impact two million smallholder farmers, who may see “delays in certification processes ripple through payment cycles and export volumes”. Meanwhile, SwissInfo reported that the “disconnect between high global cocoa prices and the price paid to farmers” is leading to “unprecedented cocoa smuggling” in Ghana.
‘FERTILISER CRISIS’: Nyasa Times reported that, “for the first time”, Malawian president Peter Mutharika admitted that the country is “facing a planting season…for which his government is dangerously unprepared”. According to the paper, Mutharika acknowledged that the country is “heading into the rains without adequate fertiliser and with procurement dangerously behind schedule” at a meeting with the International Monetary Fund’s Africa director. “We are struggling with supplies… We are not yet ready in terms of fertiliser,” Mutharika is quoted as saying, with the paper adding that his administration is “overwhelmed” by a fertiliser crisis.
News and views
PLANT TALKS COLLAPSE: “Decade-long” talks aimed at negotiating new rules for seed-sharing “collapsed” after week-long negotiations in Lima, Euractiv reported. The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture allows “any actor to access seed samples of 64 major food crops stored in public gene banks”, but “virtually no money flows back to countries that conserve and share seed diversity”, the outlet said. Observers “criticised the closed-door nature of the final talks”, which attempted to postpone a decision on payments until 2027, it added.
UNSUSTAINABLE: The UK food system is driving nature loss and deepening climate change, according to a new WWF report. The report analysed the impacts on nature, climate and people of 10 UK retailers representing 90% of the domestic grocery market. Most of the retailers committed in 2021 to halving the environmental impact of the UK grocery market by 2030. However, the report found that the retailers are “a long way off” on reducing their emissions and sourcing products from deforestation-free areas.
GREY CARBON: A “flurry” of carbon-credit deals “covering millions of hectares of landmass” across Africa struck by United Arab Emirates-based firm Blue Carbon on the sidelines of COP28 “have gone nowhere”, according to a joint investigation by Agence-France Presse and Code for Africa. In Zimbabwe – where the deal included “about 20% of the country’s landmass” – national climate change authorities said that the UAE company’s memorandum of understanding “lapsed without any action”. AFP attempted multiple ways to contact Blue Carbon, but received no reply. Meanwhile, research covered by New Scientist found that Africa’s forests “are now emitting more CO2 than they absorb”.
UK NATURE: The UK government released an updated “environmental improvement plan” to help England “meet numerous legally binding goals” for environmental restoration, BusinessGreen reported. The outlet added that it included measures such as creating “wildlife-rich habitats” and boosting tree-planting. Elsewhere, a study covered by the Times found that England and Wales lost “almost a third of their grasslands” in the past 90 years. The main causes of grassland decline were “increased mechanisation on farms, new agrochemicals and crop-growing”, the Times said.
IN DANGER: The Trump administration proposed changes to the US Endangered Species Act that “could clear the way for more oil drilling, logging and mining” in key species habitats, reported the New York Times. This act is the “bedrock environmental law intended to prevent animal and plant extinctions”, the newspaper said, adding that one of the proposals could make it harder to protect species from future threats, such as the effects of climate change. It added: “Environmental groups are expected to challenge the proposals in court once they are finalised.”
‘ALREADY OVERSTRETCHED’: Producing enough food to feed the world’s growing population by 2050 “will place additional pressure on the world’s already overstretched” resources, according to the latest “state of the world’s land and water resources” report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The report said that degradation of agricultural lands is “creating unprecedented pressure on the world’s agrifood systems”. It also found that urban areas have “more than doubled in size in just two decades”, consuming 24m hectares “of some of the most fertile croplands” in the process.
Spotlight
Saudi minister interviewed
During the second week of COP30 in Belém, Carbon Brief’s Daisy Dunne conducted a rare interview with a Saudi Arabian minister.
Dr Osama Faqeeha is deputy environment minister for Saudi Arabia and chief adviser to the COP16 presidency on desertification.
Carbon Brief: Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. You represent the Saudi Arabia COP16 presidency on desertification. What are your priorities for linking desertification, biodiversity and climate change at COP30?
Dr Osama Faqeeha: First of all, our priority is to really highlight the linkages – the natural linkage – between land, climate and biodiversity. These are all interconnected, natural pillars for Earth. We need to pursue actions on the three together. In this way, we can achieve multiple goals. We can achieve climate resilience, we can protect biodiversity and we can stop land degradation. And this will really give us multiple benefits – food security, water security, climate resilience, biodiversity and social goals.
CB: Observers have accused Saudi Arabia, acting on behalf of the Arab group, of blocking an ambitious outcome on a text on synergies between climate change and biodiversity loss, under the item on cooperation with international organisations. [See Carbon Brief’s full explanation.] What is your response?
OF: We support synergies in the action plans. We support synergies in the financial flows. We support synergies in the political [outcome]. What we don’t support is trying to reduce all of the conventions. We don’t support dissolving the conventions. We need a climate convention, we need a biodiversity convention and we need a desertification convention. There was this incident, but the discussion continued after that and has been clarified. We support synergies. We oppose dissolution. This way we dilute the issues. No. This is a challenge. But we don’t have to address them separately. We need to address them in a comprehensive way so that we can really have a win-win situation.
CB: But as the president of the COP16 talks on desertification, surely more close work on the three Rio conventions would be a priority for you?
OF: First of all, we have to realise the convention is about land. Preventing land degradation and combating drought. These are the two major challenges.
CB: We’re at COP30 now and we’re at a crucial point in the negotiations where a lot of countries have been calling for a roadmap away from fossil fuels. What is Saudi Arabia’s position on agreeing to a roadmap away from fossil fuels?
OF: I think the issue is the emissions, it’s not the fuel. And our position is that we have to cut emissions regardless. In Saudi Arabia, in our nationally determined contribution [NDC], we doubled [the 2030 emissions reductions target] – from 130MtCO2 to 278MtCO2 – on a voluntary basis. So we are very serious about cutting emissions.
CB: The presidency said that some countries see the fossil-fuel roadmap as a red line. Is Saudi Arabia seeing a fossil-fuel roadmap as a red line for agreement in the negotiations?
OF: I think people try to put pressure on the negotiation to go in one way or another. And I think we should avoid that because, trying to demonise a country, that’s not good. Saudi Arabia is a signatory to the Paris Agreement. Saudi Arabia made the Paris Agreement possible. We are committed to the Paris Agreement.
[Carbon Brief obtained the “informal list” of countries that opposed a fossil-fuel roadmap at COP30, which included Saudi Arabia.]
CB: You mention that you feel sometimes the media demonises Saudi Arabia. So could you clarify, what do you hope to be Saudi Arabia’s role in guiding the negotiations to conclusion here at this COP?
OF: I think we have to realise that there is common but differentiated responsibilities. We have developed countries and developing countries. We have to realise that this is very well established in the convention. We can reach the same end point, but with different pathways. And this is what the negotiation is all about. It’s not one size fits all. What works with a certain country may not work with another country. So, I think people misread the negotiations. We, as Saudi Arabia, officially announced that we will reach carbon neutrality by 2060 – and we are putting billions and billions of dollars to reach this goal. But it doesn’t mean that we agree on everything. On every idea. We agree to so many things, you never hear that. Saudi Arabia agrees on one thousand points and we disagree on one point, then suddenly it becomes the news. Now, why does the media do that? Maybe that gives them more attention. I don’t know. But all I can tell you is that Saudi Arabia is part of the process. Saudi Arabia is making the process work.
This interview has been edited for length.
Watch, read, listen
NEW CHALLENGE: CNN discussed the environmental impacts of AI usage and how scientists are using it to conserve biodiversity.
AMAZON COP: In the Conversation, researchers argued that hosting COP30 in the Amazon made the “realities of climate and land-use change jarringly obvious” and Indigenous voices “impossible to ignore”.
DUBIOUS CLAIMS: DeSmog investigated an EU-funded “campaign blitz” that “overstated the environmental benefits of eating meat and dairy, while featuring bizarre and misleading claims”.
WASP’S NEST: In a talk for the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, Prof Seirian Sumner explained the “natural capital” of wasps and why it is important to “love the unlovable parts of nature”.
New science
- Climate change can “exacerbate” the abundance and impacts of plastic pollution on terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems | Frontiers in Science
- The North Sea region accounts for more than 20% of peatland-related emissions within the EU, UK, Norway and Iceland, despite accounting for just 4% of the region’s peatland area | Nature Communications
- Economic damages from climate-related disasters in the Brazilian Amazon rose 370% over 2000-22, with farming experiencing more than 60% of total losses | Nature Communications
In the diary
- 1-5 December: Meeting of the implementation review committee of the UN desertification convention | Panama City
- 2-5 December: Meeting of the contracting parties to the Barcelona Convention on the protection of the Mediterranean Sea | Cairo
- 5 December: World soil day
- 8-12 December: International Water Association water and development congress and exhibition | Bangkok
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Ayesha Tandon also contributed to this issue. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 3 December 2025: Extreme weather in Africa; COP30 roundup; Saudi minister interview appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 3 December 2025: Extreme weather in Africa; COP30 roundup; Saudi minister interview
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