As nations gather at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, top of the agenda will be the culmination of a process known as the “global stocktake”.
This core component of the Paris Agreement involves an exhaustive appraisal of how far the world has come in tackling climate change and how far it still has to go.
Over the past two years, governments, scientists and civil society groups have submitted thousands of documents into this process and spent hundreds of hours debating their contents.
The main technical conclusions emerging from the stocktake are not new. Nations are not cutting emissions fast enough, they are not sufficiently prepared for climate hazards and developed countries are not providing enough support to developing countries,
But the stocktake is more than just a review of progress. It is a key part of the Paris Agreement’s “ratchet mechanism”, which encourages countries to scale up their climate ambitions over time so as to avoid dangerous warming.
Governments have submitted proposals for how the main, political outcome of the stocktake could accelerate climate action. Ideas include phasing out fossil fuels, tripling renewable energy capacity and raising climate finance to the trillions that developing countries need.
At COP28, countries will negotiate which elements make it into the final outcome, which will help determine the pace of change in the coming years.
However, one expert tells Carbon Brief that, with so much on the table, the global stocktake risks becoming a “dumping ground” for “politically thorny discussions”, which may hamper its ability to drive meaningful change.
- What is the Global Stocktake?
- What is the scope of the stocktake?
- How has the stocktake progressed so far?
- How could the global stocktake accelerate climate action?
- What are countries and blocs expecting from the stocktake?
- What do experts and observers expect from the global stocktake and what it means for climate action?
What is the global stocktake?
The global stocktake (GST) is a five-yearly temperature check that is a vital part of the Paris Agreement, housed under Article 14.
Nations that signed on to the agreement in 2015 also agreed to monitor, assess and periodically review collective progress towards meeting the Paris long-term temperature goal and to take stock of their climate actions.
The GST is meant to help countries collectively assess where they are, where they want to go and how to get there in terms of climate action and to identify gaps to course correct.
It is meant to be an assessment of mitigation and adaptation actions so far, as well as climate finance provided and technology transferred from developed to developing countries, “in the light of equity and the best available science”, per the Paris Agreement.
The GST is split into three phases: an information collection phase to gather inputs from all parties and non-parties, a technical assessment phase of these inputs and other evidence, and a “consideration of outputs” phase, for countries to decide what to collectively take away from the process.
The final, political phase is scheduled to conclude at COP28, to inform the next round of submissions of countries’ climate pledges in 2024-2025 and to “enhanc[e] international cooperation for international climate action”.
What is the scope of the stocktake?
The information feeding into the GST comprised more than 170,000 pages of documents from governments, business and civil society groups, supported by over 252 hours of meetings and discussions.
These submissions were categorised into three main areas of climate action, which were decided back in 2018 at COP24 in Katowice, Poland.
Nations agreed to evaluate progress on mitigation – cutting emissions – as well as adaptation to climate hazards and “means of implementation and support”.
The latter point refers to how much finance has been raised to help developing countries take climate action. It also covers nations sharing low-carbon technologies and increasing their capacities to deal with the challenges ahead.
Parties specified numerous “sources of input”, including greenhouse gas inventories, assessments of national climate plans and analysis of adaptation projects.
They also agreed that the stocktake “may take into account, as appropriate” two more major topics.
These were the unavoidable loss and damage resulting from climate change and “response measures”, which includes the social and economic consequences of climate action, for example on people working in the fossil-fuel industry.
In the final synthesis report that emerged from the technical phase of the stocktake, which will inform political decisions taken at COP28, loss and damage was included as part of the section on adaptation. Response measures were filed under mitigation.
However, in the draft GST text that has been prepared ahead of COP28, these issues are separated out under their own subheads. Civil society groups have emphasised the importance of ensuring loss and damage, in particular, is prominent in proceedings.
How has the stocktake progressed so far?
The GST began after COP26 in 2021, with a period of data collection that continued until March 2023. Prior to this, parties had negotiated the rules of the stocktake process and what kind of “inputs” would feed into it.
During this period, country reports, scientific studies and other documents were submitted into the stocktake process for consideration.
The second phase – the technical assessment – began in June 2022. This consisted of three “dialogues” that took place at the UN intersessional talks in Bonn in 2022 and 2023, and at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.
These sessions provided time for evidence to be discussed by country representatives, civil society groups and climate experts.
The dialogues proceeded relatively smoothly within the UN talks but, as Carbon Brief has reported, familiar issues emerged within them.
Examples include disputes between developed and developing countries over historical responsibility for climate change and civil society groups highlighting the role of fossil-fuel lobbyists in the discussions.
The outcomes of each technical dialogue were recorded in summary reports released a few months after the close of each session.
These were followed by a 46-page synthesis report prepared by the stocktake’s co-facilitators, with the assistance of the UN Climate Change secretariat. This serves as a “comprehensive overview” of all the inputs and discussions.
The evidence laid out in this report will serve as the basis for the political part of the GST at COP28.
Nations have already submitted documents to the UN outlining how they interpret the synthesis report’s findings and the stocktake-related outcomes they would like to see emerge from the COP28 summit.
How could the global stocktake accelerate climate action?
The GST synthesis report concludes that there is a “rapidly narrowing window to raise ambition and implement existing commitments in order to limit warming to 1.5C”.
Achieving the 1.5C target, or even the “well below 2C” goal, requires nations to fill the extensive “implementation gaps” between their climate strategies and real-world action.
It would also require them to come forward with new strategies that are Paris Agreement-aligned. According to the synthesis report, existing pledges would result in warming of 2.4-2.6C, with the possibility of cutting this to 1.7-2.1C if long-term net-zero targets are fully implemented.
As part of the Paris Agreement’s “ratchet mechanism”, the stocktake is explicitly intended to encourage such raising of ambition. There are several ways in which governments and civil society groups are proposing it could achieve this.
Much of the focus is on signalling to countries what they should submit in their new, enhanced climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
Nations are obliged to submit NDCs every five years and the next round is due in 2025. The synthesis report notes that “more ambitious mitigation targets in NDCs are needed to reduce emissions more rapidly”.
Greater ambition could involve new targets for both 2030 and 2035, and NDCs that cover emissions from entire national economies, not just parts of them.
It could also involve NDCs based on absolute emissions reductions rather than cuts in emissions intensity. (Many nations have targets based on reducing emissions per unit of GDP, even as their overall emissions increase.)
Article 4.4 of the Paris text says that developed countries should “tak[e] the lead” with “economy-wide absolute emission reduction targets”, whereas developing countries were “encouraged” to move towards “economy-wide emission reduction or limitation targets”.
As it stands, many developing countries with high emissions, including China, India and Saudi Arabia, have less comprehensive NDCs, as Tom Evans, a policy advisor on climate diplomacy at E3G, tells Carbon Brief:
“There [was] this agreement that developed countries would set economy-wide targets from the get go, and the developing countries would move towards setting them over time… Many of the developed countries – the EU and the US – [say] ‘over time’ is now.”
At COP26, nations were “requested” to come forward with more ambitious plans in 2022, but this was largely ignored. The 2025 deadline for new NDCs, on the other hand, is part of the original Paris Agreement and is therefore widely accepted.
In their suggestions for the GST outcome, some have made a point of emphasising that new NDCs should be submitted as early as possible – either “well ahead of” or up to a year before COP30, at the end of 2025.
Perhaps the most high-profile elements being considered for inclusion in the final stocktake outcome are sector-specific proposals, including targets for phasing out fossil fuels, tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency around the world. (For more on these ideas, and others, see: What are countries and blocs expecting from the stocktake?)
Another priority for some is ensuring that, beyond simply committing to global goals, countries use their new NDCs to explain how exactly they would contribute to such targets.
Evans tells Carbon Brief that while there is a lot of focus on “flashy” topics such as fossil fuel phaseout, NDCs remain the main mechanism for making the Paris Agreement work. “The NDCs are what you can actually hold everyone accountable to. It’s the agreed terrain,” he says.
Alongside measures to cut emissions, developing nations in particular would like to see the GST usher in greater ambition around climate adaptation.
The synthesis report concludes that progress on both adaptation and loss and damage “must undergo a step change in fulfilling the ambition set out in the Paris Agreement”.
Negotiations over a “global goal on adaptation” (GGA) will still be on-going at COP28. As a result, this component in the international effort to make countries more resilient to climate change will not feed into the stocktake.
However, Sandeep Chamling Rai, a global advisor on adaptation policy at WWF, tells Carbon Brief that the stocktake could still work to inform and reinforce the GGA:
“For this first round of the GST, parties might create a concrete link with the GGA and might have more concrete links established for the second global stocktake cycle.”
A key element of adaptation and mitigation efforts for many developing countries will be assurances that adequate climate finance is provided after the first stocktake.
Groups such as the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) have made it clear that, from their perspective, any scaling up of mitigation ambition needs to go hand-in-hand with scaling up climate finance.
Avantika Goswami, a climate policy researcher at the Centre for Science and Environment in India, tells Carbon Brief:
“Without dedicated efforts to ramp up finance, you’re not going to achieve the triple [renewable] energy target, so that’s definitely something that needs to be reckoned with in the global stocktake outcome.”
The synthesis report concludes that “accelerated action is required to scale up climate finance from a wide variety of sources, instruments and channels, noting the significant role of public funds”.
More broadly, the report also says it is “essential to unlock and redeploy trillions of dollars to meet global investment needs” and make global financial flows consistent with Paris Agreement goals.
Countries must finalise a “new collective quantified goal” (NCQG) for developing country climate finance in 2024.
Developing countries want to see a goal that is more ambitious and based on an assessment of their needs – rather than picked arbitrarily, as with the previous “$100bn by 2020” target. Many have stated they want to see the analysis from the stocktake inform this new goal.
Alongside finance, developing countries have also pushed for the GST outcome to include language that encourages developed countries to share their climate technologies and provide more support for capacity building in developing countries.
What are countries and blocs expecting from the stocktake?
From “keeping 1.5C alive” and fossil fuel phase-down language, to addressing unkept climate finance promises, countries’ expectations from the GST are varied.
Submissions made this year against the backdrop of increasing climate impacts reveal growing divergence between developed and developing countries.
Broader conversations suggest that the GST is being seen both as a defining moment for climate ambition for the coming decade and as a moment of accountability for decades of inaction.
Forward versus backward
One of the chief differences in expectation is whether the GST looks back at the lack of climate progress from the developed world to date – and if so, how far back does it look.
Alternatively, it could look more to the future and what should be done now, at a time when emerging economies contribute significantly to rising emissions and could arguably be expected to pledge more.
Developing countries that are part of the G77+China negotiating bloc demanded a full assessment of how rich countries have delivered – or failed to deliver – on their pre-2020 and post-2020 climate commitments.
The bloc called on the stocktake, in its political outputs, to highlight historical gaps in mitigation actions “since the start of the multilateral climate regime”. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was agreed in 1992.
The G77+China also asked that the GST cover results of work under the Kyoto Protocol, the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, while also suggesting that its outputs be “both backward and forward-looking”.
In contrast, developed countries including the UK, US, Japan and Australia stress the need for “forward-looking” GST outcomes, which encourage “major emitters” [a term seen by many as a loaded reference to India and China that obscures equity and historical responsibility for emissions] to “aggressively” increase the ambition of their 2030 and 2035 climate pledges.
Other developing country blocs, such as AILAC, have stated that the insistence on pre-2020 discussions “has only served to delay current deliberations” and that the “historical emissions gap is narrowing between developed countries and developing countries that have substantially increased their emissions.” The group called on “all Parties to be actively involved in climate action” but that “developed nations must exhibit stronger global leadership”.
According to analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment, BASIC, LMDC and African countries also raised the issue of inequities in IPCC models and their implications for decarbonisation, going forward.
Mitigation
The idea of “keeping 1.5C alive” has historically been a rallying cry from Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries.
In their submissions, most developed countries, including the UK and Japan, called for a GST outcome that recommends policies that “keep 1.5 alive”, for global emissions to peak in 2025 and for all 2030 targets of “major emitters” to be 1.5C aligned.
The US called for “phasing down unabated fossil fuel generation steadily and rapidly”, including “immediately ceasing to permit new unabated coal power generation”, as well as “increasing global carbon management capacity to capture 1.5bn tons of CO2 (GtCO2) annually by 2035.”
Russia, meanwhile, dubbed it “unacceptable” to analyse progress towards limiting the temperature rise to 1.5C instead of 2C, while suggesting gas should be considered “a transitional fuel”.
In turn, LMDCs submitted that the GST should “urge developed countries to achieve net-zero significantly ahead of the global timeframe”.
Meanwhile, Zambia on behalf of the African Group of Nations urged for “a political signal from COP28” that “affirms differentiated pathways for countries in the pursuit of net-zero and fossil fuel phasedown”.
It also suggested “no further exploration of fossil fuels in developed countries is targeted well ahead of 2030”, affording developing countries breathing space to close their energy access gap in the short-term.
In a joint US-China statement issued on 14 November, both countries stated that they were working together and with other countries to reach a consensus on a GST decision that could be adopted at COP28.
Elements put forward in the statement – such as “send[ing] signals with respect to the energy transition (renewable energy, coal/oil/gas)” – were significantly different from their individual positions on fossil fuels and on trade, indicating ongoing divergence.
Finance
Another key expectation from the GST is an assessment of climate finance failures so far, and how a new climate finance target can be informed by them.
“Trust has been eroded by inadequate delivery on the commitments made by developed Parties, including the failure to deliver on the $100bn target for the mobilisation of climate finance, and also by the failure of leadership by developed countries which led to a woefully inadequate mitigation outcome in 2020, putting more pressure on developing countries with less resources,” said South Africa in its submission.
While developed countries, such as Australia, acknowledge the failure to deliver on the $100bn target, they state that the stocktake should “celebrate and welcome the confidence of Parties that the goal is expected to be met” imminently and ask that “this should be more than a statement of disappointment, but a constructive reflection”.
Both Australia and the US called to increase the scope of countries providing climate finance, along with an assessment on whether finance furnished by rich countries so far has been effective, to increase donor confidence.
“The scope of countries that are capable of such support has evolved considerably since 2015, and the stocktake should reflect their responsibility in the decade of the 2020s and beyond,” said the US, in its submission to the GST.
Developing countries, including the Climate Vulnerable Forum, called for an assessment of pre-2020 climate finance, reform of multilateral development banks and not increasing the debt burden on vulnerable countries.
Adaptation and loss and damage
In their submissions, countries and blocs were generally in agreement that the framework for the Global Goal on Adaptation be finalised, and its targets inform and evolve with the GST.
On behalf of the African Group of Nations, Zambia called for the GST’s preamble to note “the lack of parity and balance in support between mitigation and adaptation” and to “affirm the understanding that adaptation and loss and damage are a global responsibility because they were caused by global emissions”.
The Least Developed Countries bloc called for a separate section on loss and damage, distinct from adaptation in the GST, while some developed countries sought to retain the existing structure.
While most developed countries echoed the need to operationalise the loss and damage fund that they agreed to at COP27, many referred to a “mosaic” of different sources and emphasised private finance mobilisation, with the US pointing to insurance solutions for loss and damage.
Trade, response measures and just transition
Trade policies, response measures and international cooperation also feature heavily in stocktake submissions, reflecting an external atmosphere pockmarked by geopolitical conflict.
In its September submission, China stated it wants the preamble to “acknowledge that the first global stocktake is taking place in rising unilateralism, protectionism, and anti-globalism, and enabling environment for climate actions is undergoing critical challenges, including inadequate means of implementation support, sanctions on low-carbon products and industries, restrictions on technology investment and cooperation, green barriers, discriminatory legislation [and] plurilateral constraints”.
G77+China, along with the LMDCs, expect the GST to “identify challenges to global cooperation” and prioritise multilateral measures over unilateral ones, such as trade barriers.
Latin American countries, in their submission, hoped for a broadening of the stocktake’s assessment of the socio-economic impact of response measures, given “unexpected consequences from initiatives such as deforestation control measures and low-carbon agricultural systems”.
The US meanwhile, highlighted its own domestic just transition policies, saying that “lack of implementation of response measures, especially by major emitters…building new unabated fossil fuel infrastructure not only contributes to global GHG emissions, but also risks stranded assets and job losses”.
Russia stated that the GST should “specifically consider the socio-economic risks and negative consequences of an accelerated phase-out of fossil fuels, including rising electricity prices, unemployment and capital expenditures for re-equipment of facilities.”
What do experts and observers expect from the global stocktake and what it means for climate action?
COP watchers, commentators and participants have markedly different views on what the outcomes of the GST will be and what they could achieve, much like the parties themselves.
The stocktake has been framed as a moment of reckoning, especially by those involved in the two-year process. UN Climate Change’s executive secretary Simon Stiell has described the GST as a “moment for course correction”, an opportunity to “bend the curve decisively on emissions” and as an “ambition, accountability and acceleration exercise”.
The US’ climate envoy John Kerry previously “expressed hope” that the stocktake and COP28 “will mark a chance to renew climate action”, Energy Monitor reported. Kerry is quoted as saying:
“A lot of interested parties around the world – whether NGOs, activists or companies – are no longer going to be impressed by repetition of previously announced things, or by sidestepping some of the realities of where we clearly now find ourselves.”
According to Farhan Akhtar, one of the co-facilitators of the stocktake’s technical dialogues, the process had the “broad participation” of all stakeholders: governments, experts and non-state actors. He stated:
“Across discussions, it was clear that the Paris Agreement has inspired widespread action that has significantly reduced forecasts of future warming. This global stocktake is taking place at a crucial moment to inspire further global action in responding to the climate crisis.”
While the stocktake’s synthesis report sparked headlines, the form of the final deal is a key question ahead of COP28.
Dr Jennifer Allan at Cardiff University’s School of Law and Politics tells Carbon Brief that while the technical process has been “very inclusive” and has an “incredibly wide scope”, the format that its outcomes will take is “really uncertain…partly because the Paris Agreement and its rulebook are vague and silent on a lot of important issues”. These include a lack of clarity on how exactly the stocktake will inform the next set of pledges.
The stocktake is supposed to be in its political phase at this COP, but the text for a ministerial declaration is “nowhere near the level of completeness” for delegates to finalise quickly, warns Allan, stating that “it’s too late for a ministerial declaration, if that was ever envisioned.” This makes it likely that the outcome is restricted to a COP decision. She adds:
“For me, personally, this falls short of the type of political signalling that we need in order to ratchet up ambition. I think we’ll land at a short decision encompassing the few points on which parties agree.”
“What worries me is that there are many placeholders and calls for other agenda items to be brought in. If the GST decision becomes a dumping ground for other politically thorny discussions, like the mitigation work programme, then it will be very difficult to untie and land a solution. We may end up with something vague, which again could undermine its ability to inform more ambitious NDCs targeted to the priorities identified by the GST technical phase.”
The enormous variety and divergence in submissions and countries’ own wishlists for the final form of the deal – be it a target to double green hydrogen production or references to protectionism – make agreement in limited time seem unlikely.
Experts, therefore, welcomed the US-China statement and efforts to work with other countries towards consensus on a broad political GST decision, even if countries don’t see eye-to-eye on many, significant details.
For Indrajit Bose, climate change adviser at the Third World Network, the stocktake is an opportunity to “correct injustice”. Developed countries, he tells Carbon Brief, “must assume responsibility for this gap”, as they have “consistently failed to deliver their commitments under the Convention and tried to transfer the burden of their inaction onto developing countries”. He adds:
“They call for fossil fuel phase-out, but they have huge fossil fuel expansion plans. They speak of the importance of finance, but they have not delivered their past commitments and rely unrealistically on the private sector to do their job. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.”
According to Bose, the argument by developed countries to end differentiation between developed and developing countries based on the fact that the world has changed since the first climate agreements in 1992 “rings hollow”. He explains:
“[I]n more ways than one, the world has not changed. There is still massive poverty and development needs in the global south. Regular climate-induced disasters are further exacerbating their challenges. The global stocktake must correct this injustice and developed countries must show leadership in climate action, engage in good faith and stop considering people in the global south as unimportant, second-class citizens.”
To Dr Lavanya Rajamani, professor of international environmental law at the University of Oxford, this stocktake is the “most consequential because it’s coming in the middle of the critical decade up to 2030” and provides a template for future stocktakes.
However, its actual outcome, she told Carbon Brief last month, “is not likely to tell us something we don’t know”. She adds:
“There are gaps in implementation, ambition, fairness and accountability. These have all been documented very well in the synthesis report of the GST’s technical dialogue. I think what we might see – which would be helpful – is ways of actually plugging those gaps. How do we get back on track?”
Rajamani believes there will be an emphasis on scaling up renewable energy, phasing out all unabated fossil fuels and that there will “need to be a strong outcome on finance and support countries to actually be able to do these things”.
While she hopes that there is a “strong follow-up process” embedded in the stocktake to inform new pledges in 2025, she believes there has been a “subtle shift” in the framing around target-setting following on from the stocktake.
Rajamani explains:
“I think there is a pivot towards focusing on implementation and understanding that implementation triggers iteratively increasing ambition. Ramping up pressure on states to just set target after target is like building a house of cards.”
The second important shift to Rajamani is that “equity and fairness have been reframed”, both in terms of systems transitions domestically, and between states, where green development can be seen as “something that fosters ambition rather than something that detracts from it.”
She adds:
“We’re not going to get to where we need to without engaging with a wider landscape of action and actors, and engaging with the idea of the stocktake and the Paris Agreement as trigger[s] and catalys[ts for] domestic policy shifts towards the transformations that we need.”
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Q&A: What is the ‘global stocktake’ and could it accelerate climate action?
In 2026, the dangers of fossil fuel dependence have been laid bare like never before. The illegal invasion of Iran has brought pain and destruction to millions across the Middle East and triggered a global energy crisis impacting us all. Communities in the Pacific have been hit especially hard by rising fuel prices, and Australians have seen their cost-of-living woes deepen.
Such moments of crisis and upheaval can lead to positive transformation. But only when leaders act with courage and foresight.
There is no clearer statement of a government’s plans and priorities for the nation than its budget — how it plans to raise money, and what services, communities, and industries it will invest in.
As we count down the days to the 2026-27 Federal Budget, will the Albanese Government deliver a budget for our times? One that starts breaking the shackles of fossil fuels, accelerates the shift to clean energy, protects nature, and sees us work together with other countries towards a safer future for all? Or one that doubles down on coal and gas, locks in more climate chaos, and keeps us beholden to the whims of tyrants and billionaires.
Here’s what we think the moment demands, and what we’ll be looking out for when Treasurer Jim Chalmers steps up to the dispatch box on 12 May.
1. Stop fuelling the fire
2. Make big polluters pay
3. Support everyone to be part of the solution
4. Build the industries of the future
5. Build community resilience
6. Be a better neighbour
7. Protect nature
1. Stop fuelling the fire
In mid-April, Pacific governments and civil society met to redouble their efforts towards a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific. Moving beyond coal, oil and gas is fundamental to limiting warming to 1.5°C — a survival line for vulnerable communities and ecosystems. And as our Head of Pacific, Shiva Gounden, explained, it is “also a path of liberation that frees us from expensive, extractive and polluting fossil fuel imports and uplifts our communities”.
Pacific countries are at the forefront of growing global momentum towards a just transition away from fossil fuels, and it is way past time for Australia to get with the program. It is no longer a question of whether fossil fuel extraction will end, but whether that end will be appropriately managed and see communities supported through the transition, or whether it will be chaotic and disruptive.
So will this budget support the transition away from fossil fuels, or will it continue to prop up coal and gas?
When it comes to sensible moves the government can make right now, one stands out as a genuine low hanging fruit. Mining companies get a full rebate of the excise (or tax) that the rest of us pay on diesel fuel. This lowers their operating costs and acts as a large, ongoing subsidy on fossil fuel production — to the tune of $11 billion a year!
Greenpeace has long called for coal and gas companies to be removed from this outdated scheme, and for the billions in savings to be used to support the clean energy transition and to assist communities with adapting to the impacts of climate change. Will we see the government finally make this long overdue change, or will it once again cave to the fossil fuel lobby?
2. Make big polluters pay
While our communities continue to suffer the escalating costs of climate-fuelled disasters, our Government continues to support a massive expansion of Australia’s export gas industry. Gas is a dangerous fossil fuel, with every tonne of Australian gas adding to the global heating that endangers us all.
Moreover, companies like Santos and Woodside pay very little tax for the privilege of digging up and selling Australians’ natural endowment of fossil gas. Remarkably, the Government currently raises more tax from beer than from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) — the main tax on gas profits.
Momentum has been building to replace or supplement the PRRT with a 25% tax on gas exports. This could raise up to $17 billion a year — funds that, like savings from removing the diesel tax rebate for coal and gas companies, could be spent on supporting the clean energy transition and assisting communities with adapting to worsening fires, floods, heatwaves and other impacts of climate change.
As politicians arrive in Canberra for budget week, they will be confronted by billboards calling for a fair tax on gas exports. The push now has the support of dozens of organisations and a growing number of politicians. Let’s hope the Treasurer seizes this rare window for reform.
3. Support everyone to be part of the solution
As the price of petrol and diesel rises, electric vehicles (EVs) are helping people cut fuel use and save money. However, while EV sales have jumped since the invasion of Iran sent fuel prices rising, they still only make up a fraction of total new car sales. This budget should help more Australians switch to electric vehicles and, even more importantly, enable more Australians to get around by bike, on foot, and on public transport. This means maintaining the EV discount, investing in public and active transport, and removing tax breaks for fuel-hungry utes and vans.
Millions of Australians already enjoy the cost-saving benefits of rooftop solar, batteries, and getting off gas. This budget should enable more households, and in particular those on lower incomes, to access these benefits. This means maintaining the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, and building on the Household Energy Upgrades Fund.
4. Build the industries of the future
If we’re to transition away from fossil fuels, we need to be building the clean industries of the future.
No state is more pivotal to Australia’s energy and industrial transformation than Western Australia. The state has unrivaled potential for renewable energy development and for replacing fossil fuel exports with clean exports like green iron. Such industries offer Western Australia the promise of a vibrant economic future, and for Australia to play an outsized positive role in the world’s efforts to reduce emissions.
However, realising this potential will require focussed support from the Federal Government. Among other measures, Greenpeace has recommended establishing the Australasian Green Iron Corporation as a joint venture between the Australian and Western Australian governments, a key trading partner, a major iron ore miner and steel makers. This would unite these central players around the complex task of building a large-scale green iron industry, and unleash Western Australia’s potential as a green industrial powerhouse.
5. Build community resilience
Believe it or not, our Government continues to spend far more on subsidising fossil fuel production — and on clearing up after climate-fuelled disasters — than it does on helping communities and industries reduce disaster costs through practical, proven methods for building their resilience.
Last year, the Government estimated that the cost of recovery from disasters like the devastating 2022 east coast floods on 2019-20 fires will rise to $13.5 billion. For contrast, the Government’s Disaster Ready Fund – the main national source of funding for disaster resilience – invests just $200 million a year in grants to support disaster preparedness and resilience building. This is despite the Government’s own National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) estimating that for every dollar spent on disaster risk reduction, there is a $9.60 return on investment.
By redirecting funds currently spent on subsidising fossil fuel production, the Government can both stop incentivising climate destruction in the first place, and ensure that Australian communities and industries are better protected from worsening climate extremes.
No communities have more to lose from climate damage, or carry more knowledge of practical solutions, than Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The budget should include a dedicated First Nations climate adaptation fund, ensuring First Nations communities can develop solutions on their own terms, and access the support they need with adapting to extreme heat, coastal erosion and other escalating challenges.
6. Be a better neighbour
The global response to climate change depends on the adequate flow of support from developed economies like Australia to lower income nations with shifting to clean energy, adapting to the impacts of climate change, and addressing loss and damage.
Such support is vital to building trust and cooperation, reducing global emissions, and supporting regional and global security by enabling countries to transition away from fossil fuels and build greater resilience.
Despite its central leadership role in this year’s global climate negotiations, our Government is yet to announce its contribution to international climate finance for 2025-2030. Greenpeace recommends a commitment of $11 billion for this five year period, which is aligned with the global goal under the Paris Agreement to triple international climate finance from current levels.
This new commitment should include additional funding to address loss and damage from climate change and a substantial contribution to the Pacific Resilience Facility, ensuring support is accessible to countries and communities that need it most. It should also see Australia get firmly behind the vision of a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific.
7. Protect nature
There is no safe planet without protection of the ecosystems and biodiversity that sustain us and regulate our climate.
Last year the Parliament passed important and long overdue reforms to our national environment laws to ensure better protection for our forests and other critical ecosystems. However, the Government will need to provide sufficient funding to ensure the effective implementation of these reforms.
Greenpeace has recommended $500 million over four years to establish the National Environment Agency — the body responsible for enforcing and monitoring the new laws — and a further $50 million to Environment Information Australia for providing critical information and tools.
Further resourcing will also be required to fulfil the crucial goal of fully protecting 30% of Australian land and seas by 2030. This should include $1 billion towards ending deforestation by enabling farmers and loggers to retool away from destructive practices, $2 billion a year for restoring degraded lands, $5 billion for purchasing and creating new protected areas, and $200 million for expanding domestic and international marine protected areas.
Conclusion
This is not the first time that conflict overseas has triggered an energy crisis, or that a budget has been preceded by a summer of extreme weather disasters, highlighting the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels. What’s different in 2026 is the availability of solutions. Renewable energy is now cheaper and more accessible than ever before. Global momentum is firmly behind the transition away from fossil fuels. The Albanese Government, with its overwhelming majority, has the chance to set our nation up for the future, or keep us stranded in the past. Let’s hope it makes some smart choices.
The 2026 budget test: Will Australia break free from fossil fuels?
Anne Jellema is Executive Director of 350.org.
The war on Iran and Lebanon is a deeply unjust and devastating conflict, killing civilians at home, destroying lives, and at the same time sending shockwaves through the global economy. We, at 350.org, have calculated, drawing on price forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Goldman Sachs, just how much that volatility is costing us.
Even under the IMF’s baseline scenario – a de facto “best case” scenario with a near-term end to the war and related supply chain disruptions – oil and gas price spikes are projected to cost households and businesses globally more than $600 billion by the end of the year. Under the IMF’s “adverse scenario”, with prolonged conflict and sustained price pressures, we estimate those additional costs could exceed $1 trillion, even after accounting for reduced demand.
Which is why we urgently need a power shift. Governments are under growing pressure to respond to rising fuel and food costs and deepening energy poverty. And it’s becoming clearer to both voters and elected officials that fossil dependence is not only expensive and risky, but unnecessary.
People who can are voting with their wallets: sales of solar panels and electric vehicles are increasing sharply in many countries. But the working people who have nothing to spare, ironically, are the ones stuck with using oil and gas that is either exorbitantly expensive or simply impossible to get.
Drain on households and economies
In India, street food vendors can’t get cooking gas and in the Philippines, fishermen can’t afford to take their boats to sea. A quarter of British people say that rising energy tariffs will leave them completely unable to pay their bills. This is the moment for a global push to bring abundant and affordable clean energy to all.
In April, we released Out of Pocket, our new research report on how fossil fuels are draining households and economies. We were surprised by the scale of what we found. For decades, governments have reassured people that energy price spikes are unfortunate but unavoidable – the result of distant conflicts, market forces or geopolitical shocks beyond anyone’s control. But the numbers tell a different story.
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Santa Marta: Ministers grapple with practicalities of fossil fuel phase-out
Around 60 governments that want to make progress on transitioning away from coal, oil and gas are meeting in Colombia to work out how they can do it an equitable way -
Why the transition beyond fossil fuels depends on cities and collective action
Cities will help identify concrete pathways for an equitable shift to clean energy at the Santa Marta conference, with C40 members aiming to halve their fossil fuel use by 2030
What we are living through today is not an energy crisis. It is a fossil fuel crisis. In just the first 50 days of the Middle East conflict, soaring oil and gas prices have siphoned an estimated $158 billion–$166 billion from households and businesses worldwide. That is money extracted directly from people’s pockets and transferred, almost instantly, into fossil fuel company balance sheets. And this figure only captures the immediate impact of price spikes, not the permanent economic drain of fossil dependence. Fossil fuels don’t just cost us once, they cost us over and over again.
First, through our bills. Every time there is a war, an embargo or a supply disruption, fossil fuel prices surge. For ordinary people, this means higher costs for energy, transport and food. Many Global South countries have little or no fiscal space to buffer the shock; instead, workers and families pay the price.
Second, through our taxes. Governments around the world continue to pour vast sums of public money into fossil fuel subsidies. These are often justified as a way to protect the most vulnerable at the petrol pump or in their homes. But in reality, the benefits are overwhelmingly captured by wealthier households and corporations. The poorest 20% receive just a fraction of this support, while public finances are drained.
Third, through climate impacts. New research across more than 24,000 global locations gives a granular account of the true costs of extreme heat, sea level rise and falling agricultural yields. Using this data to update IMF modelling of the social cost of carbon, we found that fossil fuel impacts on health and livelihoods amount to over $9 trillion a year. This is the biggest subsidy of all, because these massive and mounting costs are not charged to Big Oil – they are paid for by governments and households, with the poorest shouldering the lion’s share.
Massive transfer of wealth to fossil fuel industry
Adding up direct subsidies, tax breaks and the unpaid bill for climate damages, the total transfer of wealth from the public to the fossil fuel industry amounts to $12 trillion even in a “normal” year without a global oil shock. That’s more than 50% higher than the IMF has previously estimated, and equivalent to a staggering $23 million a minute.
The fossil fuel industry has become extraordinarily adept at profiting from instability. When conflict drives up prices, companies do not lose, they gain. In the current crisis, oil producers and commodity traders are on track to secure tens of billions of dollars in additional windfall profits, even as households face rising bills and governments struggle to manage the fallout.
Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say
This growing disconnect is impossible to ignore. Investors are advised to buy into fossil fuel firms precisely because of their ability to generate profits in times of crisis. Meanwhile, ordinary people are told to tighten their belts.
In 2026, unlike during the oil shocks of the 1970s, clean energy is no longer a distant alternative. Now, even more than when gas prices spiked due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, renewables are often the cheapest option available. Solar and wind can be deployed quickly, at scale, and without the volatility that defines fossil fuel markets.
How to transition from dirty to clean energy
The solutions are clear. Governments must implement permanent windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies to ensure that extraordinary profits generated during crises are redirected to support households. These revenues can be used to reduce energy bills, invest in public services, and accelerate the rollout of clean energy.
Second, we must shift subsidies away from fossil fuels and towards renewable solutions, particularly those that can be deployed quickly and equitably, such as rooftop and community solar. This is not just about cutting emissions. It is about building a more stable, fair and resilient energy system.
Finally, we need binding plans to phase out fossil fuels altogether, replacing them with homegrown renewable energy that can shield economies from future shocks. Because what the current crisis has made clear is this: as long as we remain dependent on fossil fuels, we remain vulnerable – to conflict, to price volatility and to the escalating impacts of climate change.
The true price of fossil fuels is no longer hidden. It is visible in rising bills, strained public finances and communities pushed to the brink. And it is being paid, every day, by ordinary people around the world.
It’s time for the great power shift.
Full details on the methodology used for this report are available here.
The Great Power Shift is a new campaign by 350.org global campaign to pressure governments to bring down energy bills for good by ending fossil fuel dependence and investing in clean, affordable energy for all
The post What fossil fuels really cost us in a world at war appeared first on Climate Home News.
Computer models that use artificial intelligence (AI) cannot forecast record-breaking weather as well as traditional climate models, according to a new study.
It is well established that AI climate models have surpassed traditional, physics-based climate models for some aspects of weather forecasting.
However, new research published in Science Advances finds that AI models still “underperform” in forecasting record-breaking extreme weather events.
The authors tested how well both AI and traditional weather models could simulate thousands of record-breaking hot, cold and windy events that were recorded in 2018 and 2020.
They find that AI models underestimate both the frequency and intensity of record-breaking events.
A study author tells Carbon Brief that the analysis is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
AI weather forecasts
Extreme weather events, such as floods, heatwaves and storms, drive hundreds of billions of dollars in damages every year through the destruction of cropland, impacts on infrastructure and the loss of human life.
Many governments have developed early warning systems to prepare the general public and mobilise disaster response teams for imminent extreme weather events. These systems have been shown to minimise damages and save lives.
For decades, scientists have used numerical weather prediction models to simulate the weather days, or weeks, in advance.
These models rely on a series of complex equations that reproduce processes in the atmosphere and ocean. The equations are rooted in fundamental laws of physics, based on decades of research by climate scientists. As a result, these models are referred to as “physics-based” models.
However, AI-based climate models are gaining popularity as an alternative for weather forecasting.
Instead of using physics, these models use a statistical approach. Scientists present AI models with a large batch of historical weather data, known as training data, which teaches the model to recognise patterns and make predictions.
To produce a new forecast, the AI model draws on this bank of knowledge and follows the patterns that it knows.
There are many advantages to AI weather forecasts. For example, they use less computing power than physics-based models, because they do not have to run thousands of mathematical equations.
Furthermore, many AI models have been found to perform better than traditional physics-based models at weather forecasts.
However, these models also have drawbacks.
Study author Prof Sebastian Engelke, a professor at the research institute for statistics and information science at the University of Geneva, tells Carbon Brief that AI models “depend strongly on the training data” and are “relatively constrained to the range of this dataset”.
In other words, AI models struggle to simulate brand new weather patterns, instead tending forecast events of a similar strength to those seen before. As a result, it is unclear whether AI models can simulate unprecedented, record-breaking extreme events that, by definition, have never been seen before.
Record-breaking extremes
Extreme weather events are becoming more intense and frequent as the climate warms. Record-shattering extremes – those that break existing records by large margins – are also becoming more regular.
For example, during a 2021 heatwave in north-western US and Canada, local temperature records were broken by up to 5C. According to one study, the heatwave would have been “impossible” without human-caused climate change.
The new study explores how accurately AI and physics-based models can forecast such record-breaking extremes.
First, the authors identified every heat, cold and wind event in 2018 and 2020 that broke a record previously set between 1979 and 2017. (They chose these years due to data availability.) The authors use ERA5 reanalysis data to identify these records.
This produced a large sample size of record-breaking events. For the year 2020, the authors identified around 160,000 heat, 33,000 cold and 53,000 wind records, spread across different seasons and world regions.
For their traditional, physics-based model, the authors selected the High RESolution forecast model from the Integrated Forecasting System of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. This is “widely considered as the leading physics-based numerical weather prediction model”, according to the paper.
They also selected three “leading” AI weather models – the GraphCast model from Google Deepmind, Pangu-Weather developed by Huawei Cloud and the Fuxi model, developed by a team from Shanghai.
The authors then assessed how accurately each model could forecast the extremes observed in the year 2020.
Dr Zhongwei Zhang is the lead author on the study and a researcher at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He tells Carbon Brief that many AI weather forecast models were built for “general weather conditions”, as they use all historical weather data to train the models. Meanwhile, forecasting extremes is considered a “secondary task” by the models.
The authors explored a range of different “lead times” – in other words, how far into the future the model is forecasting. For example, a lead time of two days could mean the model uses the weather conditions at midnight on 1 January to simulate weather conditions at midnight on 3 January.
The plot below shows how accurately the models forecasted all extreme events (left) and heat extremes (right) under different lead times. This is measured using “root mean square error” – a metric of how accurate a model is, where a lower value indicates lower error and higher accuracy.
The chart on the left shows how two of the AI models (blue and green) performed better than the physics-based model (black) when forecasting all weather across the year 2020.
However, the chart on the right illustrates how the physics-based model (black) performed better than all three AI models (blue, red and green) when it came to forecasting heat extremes.
The authors note that the performance gap between AI and physics-based models is widest for lower lead times, indicating that AI models have greater difficulty making predictions in the near future.
They find similar results for cold and wind records.
In addition, the authors find that AI models generally “underpredict” temperature during heat records and “overpredict” during cold records.
The study finds that the larger the margin that the record is broken by, the less well the AI model predicts the intensity of the event.
‘Warning shot’
Study author Prof Erich Fischer is a climate scientist at ETH Zurich and a Carbon Brief contributing editor. He tells Carbon Brief that the result is “not unexpected”.
He adds that the analysis is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
The analysis, he continues, is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
AI models are likely to continue to improve, but scientists should “not yet” fully replace traditional forecasting models with AI ones, according to Fischer.
He explains that accurate forecasts are “most needed” in the runup to potential record-breaking extremes, because they are the trigger for early warning systems that help minimise damages caused by extreme weather.
Leonardo Olivetti is a PhD student at Uppsala University, who has published work on AI weather forecasting and was not involved in the study.
He tells Carbon Brief that “many other studies” have identified issues with using AI models for “extremes”, but this paper is novel for its specific focus on extremes.
Olivetti notes that AI models are already used alongside physics-based models at “some of the major weather forecasting centres around the world”. However, the study results suggest “caution against relying too heavily on these [AI] models”, he says.
Prof Martin Schultz, a professor in computational earth system science at the University of Cologne who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the results of the analysis are “very interesting, but not too surprising”.
He adds that the study “justifies the continued use of classical numerical weather models in operational forecasts, in spite of their tremendous computational costs”.
Advances in forecasting
The field of AI weather forecasting is evolving rapidly.
Olivetti notes that the three AI models tested in the study are an “older generation” of AI models. In the last two years, newer “probabilistic” forecast models have emerged that “claim to better capture extremes”, he explains.
The three AI models used in the analysis are “deterministic”, meaning that they only simulate one possible future outcome.
In contrast, study author Engelke tells Carbon Brief that probabilistic models “create several possible future states of the weather” and are therefore more likely to capture record-breaking extremes.
Engelke says it is “important” to evaluate the newer generation of models for their ability to forecast weather extremes.
He adds that this paper has set out a “protocol” for testing the ability of AI models to predict unprecedented extreme events, which he hopes other researchers will go on to use.
The study says that another “promising direction” for future research is to develop models that combine aspects of traditional, physics-based weather forecasts with AI models.
Engelke says this approach would be “best of both worlds”, as it would combine the ability of physics-based models to simulate record-breaking weather with the computational efficiency of AI models.
Dr Kyle Hilburn, a research scientist at Colorado State University, notes that the study does not address extreme rainfall, which he says “presents challenges for both modelling and observing”. This, he says, is an “important” area for future research.
The post Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts
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