Rainforest countries from across three continents agreed at the Three Basins Summit in Brazzaville last week to work together to finance and protect their ecosystems – but failed to firm up a unified alliance.
Leaders and experts from the Amazon, the Congo basin and south-east Asia met in the Republic of the Congo’s capital to discuss their shared issues and opportunities.
At the end of the summit, countries committed to combining resources and pushing for more nature funding in a joint declaration.
But the outcome was “underwhelming”, one observer tells Carbon Brief, and the event was hindered by “quite crap” organisation.
While countries agreed to cooperate closely, “the summit did not lead to a tri-basin alliance as hoped”, conservation NGO WWF said.
According to another observer, the declaration might “inform policies and strategies at COP28” – the UN climate conference in Dubai later this month.
Below, Carbon Brief explains the Three Basins Summit, the main outcomes from the meeting in Brazzaville and the reaction from observers.
- What is the ‘Three Basins Summit’?
- What were the main outcomes of the summit?
- Road to COP28
- What was the reaction to the summit’s outcomes?
What is the ‘Three Basins Summit’?
The purpose of the Three Basins Summit, the second of its kind ever, was to enhance cooperation between countries of tropical forest basins – the Amazon, the Congo and the Borneo-Mekong.
Between them, these three river basins are home to two-thirds of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and are rich in both fossil and renewable resources.
The summit was organised by the Republic of the Congo and held in its port capital of Brazzaville.
Denis Sassou Nguesso, president of the Republic of the Congo, had called for the summit at COP27 last year.
Among the key priorities of the meeting were increasing finance for protecting natural forests in the Three Basins, outlining guidance for a carbon market and establishing a “road map” towards regional governance and cooperation.
More than 60 countries were expected to send representatives to the meeting, including 16 from the Congo basin, nine from the Amazon and five from the Mekong, as well as tropical forest countries from the Caribbean, Central America and Africa.
Morocco – convenor of the first summit – the US, EU, Association of Southeast Asian Nations and African Union were also expected to participate.
No heads of state from Amazonia and Asia were present at the meeting, Afrik21 reported – despite previous pledges to attend from Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and French president Emmanuel Macron. In the end, both chose to only send video messages for the high-level leaders’ segment on the last day of the summit.
Brazzaville was also the host of the original Three Basins Summit in May 2011, which had seen more than 35 countries participate.
That summit yielded a 13-point declaration that mandated the president of the Republic of the Congo to facilitate an agreement between all basin states to cooperate on climate, biodiversity and sustainable development.
In the 12 years since the first summit, there has been some progress towards regional climate cooperation, building alliances among basin states and securing finance for biodiversity conservation.
In 2016, three climate commissions – one each for the Congo Basin, the Sahel region and African island states – were established as part of an initiative led by the COP22 Marrakech presidency. These commissions were set up to act as the focal points to coordinate climate action in all member states of the African Union.
COP22 also saw a proposal to establish the Blue Fund for the Congo Basin, which was created in 2018 and co-financed by 16 African member states. It currently hosts a pipeline of projects amounting to $13.6bn meant to serve climate, sustainable development and regional integration goals.
In November last year, Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced an alliance on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Indonesia that campaigners dubbed the “Opec for rainforests”.
The three countries agreed to work towards negotiating “a new sustainable funding mechanism under the provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity”, while also agreeing to advocate for “results-based payments” to stem deforestation and conserve existing forest carbon stocks under a new climate finance target for 2025.
A month later, forests got their own entire section in the COP27 cover decision, a historic first. The COP27 cover text referred to reducing emissions from deforestation, but also alludes to “joint mitigation and adaptation approaches”.
Weeks later, at COP15 in Montreal, countries agreed on a global deal for reversing biodiversity loss in this decade and a financial mechanism to support tropical forest nations.
To the organisers of the Three Basins Summit, these developments “confer responsibility and legitimacy on the world’s three forest and biodiversity ecosystems to define and implement the decade’s operational roadmap for preserving forests and biodiversity”.
In the wake of these meetings, Nguesso announced that his country would host a summit to provide a “space to encourage richer countries to contribute financially” to protect basin regions, Reuters reported earlier this year.
What were the main outcomes of the summit?
Financing
Finance for climate action and conserving biodiversity was one of the central pillars of the summit.
Tropical forest nations have historically and collectively demanded that their countries be paid for reducing deforestation and maintaining their forests as carbon sinks, while calling for existing and new funding mechanisms to support this.
The final declaration, which listed seven commitments (highlighted in the image below), included that the countries would “encourage financial mobilisation and the development of traditional and innovative financing mechanisms”.
It said that developed countries must “urgently” meet their international finance commitments, including to provide $100bn per year in “new, additional, predictable and adequate resources” for climate finance and to mobilise $200bn per year for biodiversity action by 2030.
The declaration also reiterated the need for both a loss-and-damage fund to help global-south countries deal with the impacts of climate change and a commitment from developed countries to provide 0.7% of their gross national income in official development assistance.
Oscar Soria, the campaign director at Avaaz, notes that the declaration marks the “first time that countries of these basins, in a united front” are calling on developed countries to realise their commitments to climate and biodiversity finance. He tells Carbon Brief that the “encouragement of financial mobilisation” was one of the “crucial steps” made at the summit. He adds:
“The big question is how the nations of the Three Basins will use that declaration, which is very specific on calling for funding, but very general on what are the actions that will take place to protect their forests.”
Prof Simon Lewis, a global-change scientist at the University of Leeds and University College London, tells Carbon Brief:
“The complexity here is that countries are quite different, for example, with Democratic Republic of the Congo losing 500,000 hectares of forest a year, but driven by poverty, which is a very different situation compared to Brazil or Indonesia.
“Politically, the main sticking point is, as ever, on finance, and how to generate sufficient funds and get them on the ground in countries to protect forests while helping to eliminate poverty, improve livelihoods [and] bring income to central governments.”
Carbon markets
One of the summit’s key objectives was to put in place the architecture “for the creation of a sovereign carbon market on a global scale” to allow “fair remuneration for the ecosystem services produced by the Three Basins”.
A “sovereign” carbon market is one that allows countries to trade carbon credits generated from projects reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, known as REDD+. The UN developed REDD+ in the late 2000s as a way to help developing countries preserve their forests and is part of the Paris Agreement on climate change.
The Coalition for Rainforest Nations has pushed for such a “sovereign carbon” market at COP27 and at other international meetings.
However, UN REDD+ credits are currently excluded from Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement, which allows countries to voluntarily trade “mitigation outcomes” for use towards their Paris pledges.
Several observers tell Carbon Brief that carbon and biodiversity offset and credit markets “dominated” the summit.
In a draft version of the summit declaration, “sovereign” carbon markets were the only option for financial mobilisation explicitly mentioned.
The draft called for countries to turn to the private sector to “develop” such a market, account for biodiversity restoration as an activity that could generate “premium sovereign carbon” credits and support compliance to make such a market “bankable”.
It suggested the creation of a carbon market based on the “polluter pays” principle, where the party responsible for emissions pays for damage to the natural environment. The draft set out a floor price of $30 per tonne for REDD+ credits and $70 per tonne for internationally traded mitigation outcomes, which was subsequently missing in the final version of the declaration.
Savio Carvalho, the global campaign leader for food and forests at Greenpeace International, tells Carbon Brief that a “sovereign” system to set carbon credit rules between basin countries and trade collectively with other countries around the world could be a “path to hell” without international accountability. He adds:
“If there is any mechanism required, they need to have an architecture that has scrutiny at the highest level and not just some countries having this deal among themselves.”
However, Carvalho tells Carbon Brief that there were some dissenting voices – “even the World Bank”, which spoke out against relying too much on carbon markets. He adds:
“There was also David Cooper [acting executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity], who also said that there are other options also on financing and we need to look at the other options, too.”
In the final version of the declaration, all explicit mentions of a sovereign carbon market were removed. The document instead alludes to developing “innovative financing mechanisms” and a “sustainable system of remuneration for ecosystem services provided by the Three Basins”.
Deforestation
Deforestation is a widespread issue for tropical forests in the Amazon, Congo and south-east Asian regions.
The Brazzaville summit “provided a good start on important discussions about the future of these forests” and finding solutions to issues such as deforestation, the WWF global forests lead, Fran Price, said in a statement. She added:
“Going forward, it will be important to have more robust representation and high-level leadership from all three regions and a more structured discussion on topics such as how to collectively tackle drivers of deforestation, [and] promote restoration and sustainable forest management.”
In the Three Basins Summit declaration, countries reaffirmed their commitment to “combat deforestation”, with an added caveat that this does not remove the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.
More than 140 countries previously pledged to “halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030” at the UN climate summit COP26 in Glasgow in 2021. Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were among the signatories.
However, one year on from the pledge, there have been no major meetings to make progress on the pledge nor any organisation set up to push it forward, Climate Home News reported.
At COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh last year, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Brazil and Indonesia were not among the 26 countries that committed to an initiative to build on the 2030 pledge.
A recent report from the Forest Declaration Assessment found that the world is off track to halt deforestation by the end of this decade.
On the sidelines of the Brazzaville summit, the European environment commissioner, Virginijus Sinkevičius, signed a roadmap for the implementation of the EU-Congo forest partnership. This is an EU initiative aimed to help forested countries protect their forests and ensure sustainable trade under the requirements of the EU’s deforestation law.
In a statement, Sinkevičius said the roadmap will progress talks in “addressing deforestation and forest degradation in Congo and working towards a sustainable forest economy”.
Soria tells Carbon Brief that “increased awareness about the significance of tropical forests and the urgent need for their protection” was one of the main positive takeaways from the summit. He adds:
“Additionally, the focus on inclusive governance involving Indigenous peoples, youth, and civil society indicated a holistic and inclusive approach to forest conservation.”
South-south cooperation
The Three Basins Summit was supposed to define and adopt how regional governance and cooperation across the Three Basins on climate and biodiversity would work and to set up a roadmap and work programme to get there.
Arlette Soudan Nonault, the Republic of the Congo’s environment minister, said at the summit that “joining forces is an absolute necessity”.
Au terme de leurs travaux, les Chefs d’Etat et de Gouvernement s’engagent à persévérer la biodiversité des 3 bassins forestiers tropicaux de la planète. #S3B2023 #Sommet3bassins@summitof3basins pic.twitter.com/54BtVVdQfV
— Présidence de la République du Congo – Officiel (@PR_Congo) October 29, 2023
The final declaration recognised the need to “pool and capitalise on existing knowledge, experience, resources and achievements in each of the basins”. It also “recognise[d] the value of enhanced cooperation between the Three Basins” and called for the development of solutions together at “the institutional, diplomatic, legal, scientific, technical and technological levels”.
Lewis says that “scientific cooperation was one important strand of the talks”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“Very positively, on the margins of the summit, scientists from the region launch[ed] the Congo Basin Science Initiative, inspired by the successes of Brazilian science, to drive investment into the region’s science and scientists. This could, in time, end some of the major data deficits in this crucial part of the world.”
The summit was “a good initiative” to coordinate between the states of the Three Basins, says Bonaventure Bondo, a youth climate activist and the coordinator of the Democratic Republic of the Congo-based advocacy group Youth Movement for Environmental Protection (MJPE-RDC). But, he adds:
“The absence of some of the people from Amazonia and south Asia certainly had an impact on the quality of the collaboration. We wanted to see all the leaders from the Three Basins gathered around a table to reflect on a common position to defend and to build a real coalition to protect the ecosystems of the three forest massifs in the world.
“This attitude leads us to believe that the resolutions of the Three Basins Declaration will be difficult to implement.”
Soria tells Carbon Brief that “while there was enthusiasm for international collaboration…there was also frustration due to the lack of a formal alliance and specificity in shared goals.” He continues:
“Clearly, there’s no shared understanding on the specific direction and goals of this coalition, although there’s a political will to work together, at least in the rhetoric.”
According to Africanews, participants at the summit “expressed their desire for these meetings to occur regularly”.
In a speech on the final day of the summit, Kenyan president William Ruto announced that his country will end visa requirements for all African countries by the end of the year. Ruto also called on other African nations to work to similarly reduce barriers to cooperation, trade and travel.
Fossil-fuel extraction
In the days leading up to the summit, the environmental research and advocacy group Earth InSight released a report highlighting the dangers that fossil-fuel extraction poses to tropical forests.
The report, based on official government publications, satellite observations and field data, found that nearly 20% of intact tropical forests across the Three Basins overlap with “active and potential” fossil-fuel concessions. Nearly one-quarter of the intact forests are within mining concessions.
The report stressed the need to end deforestation and degradation, adding:
“Without a halt to extractive activities – and adequate protection and enforcement, the remaining forests and the Indigenous and local communities that depend on them will continue to be severely impacted.”
More than 60 environmental, human-rights, youth and Indigenous advocacy groups signed a joint statement ahead of the summit welcoming cooperation between the basins. However, it added, the groups were “deeply concerned” with the summit’s focus on carbon markets and a lack of attention paid to Indigenous peoples and environmental defenders.
The statement included a call to “halt and reverse” ecosystem degradation due to “large-scale agriculture, mining, extractives and other industries, such as through a global moratorium on industrial activities in primary forests as well as priority forests”. Additionally, it highlighted the need for a just energy transition and low-carbon development in tropical forest nations.
Ultimately, no mention was made of the impacts of fossil fuel extraction in the summit’s final declaration.
Bondo, whose group MJPE-RDC was one of the signatories of the open letter, tells Carbon Brief:
“Our message has never been well received, because we denounce those companies that violate the rights of communities and destroy our planet for their own selfish interests…We deplore the fact that the African states have not taken clear and concrete decisions to stop all industrial and extractive activities in the forests of the Three Basins.”
Indigenous rights
The crucial role of Indigenous peoples and local communities in protecting forests was cited by many observers as a key part of any discussions and outcomes at the summit.
Indigenous peoples’ territories and protected areas play a “vital role” in forest conservation in the Amazon. Indigenous peoples protect as much as 80% of the world’s biodiversity and manage or have tenure rights to more than one-quarter of the world’s land.
A statement from Greenpeace in the lead-up to the summit said that recognising the “fundamental role” of Indigenous peoples and local communities in maintaining forests “is of the utmost importance”. It added:
“Any proposal to conserve these forests that does not integrate the recognition and protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in Africa, Latin America and Indonesia cannot succeed.”
A letter signed by different Indigenous and frontline organisations called on the Three Basins governments to make a number of commitments, including greater recognition of forest communities’ lands and upholding the right of communities to “fully and effectively” take part in decisions for planned developments.
The final declaration from the summit committed to involving “all states and national authorities, including Indigenous peoples” and others such as local communities, young people and non-governmental organisations “in an inclusive manner”.
The role of Indigenous peoples, women and youth in ecosystem management was also discussed at panels during the summit.
The declaration failed to secure “concrete actions” around the “rights and livelihoods” of Indigenous peoples and local communities, Greenpeace said in a statement after the summit.
Soria says that the emphasis on the involvement of Indigenous peoples and local communities “could pave the way for more inclusive and sustainable forest management practices”.
However, Carvalho tells Carbon Brief that he feels Indigenous peoples and youth voices were not sufficiently included in discussions over the three days.
He says there should be “fewer closed doors or more listening and conversation spaces” at future summits. He adds:
“Governments need to ensure that young people and Indigenous communities are not just sitting there, but they are actually involved in the conversations and in the solutions.”
Similar discussions arose at the Amazon Summit in Belém, Brazil in August. The Belém Declaration, which resulted from that summit, said that the active participation and respect of the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities is crucial to advancing a new common agenda for the Amazon.
It established an “Amazon Mechanism for Indigenous Peoples” to “strengthen and promote dialogue between governments and Indigenous peoples in the Amazon region”.
Road to COP28
Reuters reported that experts and policymakers at the Three Basins Summit “discussed shared priorities” ahead of the upcoming UN climate summit COP28, due to begin later this month in Dubai.
The concept of using ”nature-based solutions” to mitigate and adapt to climate change has entered the forefront of discussions around meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement in recent years.
One target of the Kunming-Montreal agreement reached at the COP15 biodiversity summit last December aims to restore 30% of degraded ecosystems by 2030. Ecosystems – such as forests, wetlands and rivers – are natural carbon sinks.
At the climate summit COP27 last November, several countries put forward new global initiatives aimed at stopping deforestation and restoring ecosystems.
Participants told the Brazzaville conference that they hoped the three regions would share unified views at COP28, according to Africanews. Bondo, the youth climate activist, tells Carbon Brief that the summit was useful to “consolidate collaboration” between countries across the Three Basins. He adds:
“It was important for the basin states that make the world breathe to have the same message for the next COP28, and to ensure that the forests they use to save the world bring benefits to the local and Indigenous communities that depend on them.”
He says he hopes that COP28 results in “less talk and more action in favour of the protection of forests and the communities that live in them and depend on them”.
Lewis tells Carbon Brief that “cooperation across Amazon and Congo basin countries was an important stepping stone to COP28 and the vision of tropical forest-rich countries having common policy positions” – although he notes that there was a lack of participation from south-east Asian countries. He adds:
“Common positions would give forest-rich countries more leverage in international negotiations.”
But Carvalho from Greenpeace does not believe that the tropical forest countries will share “one voice” in Dubai. He tells Carbon Brief:
“They have done the groundwork, they have garnered support…They now need to build on that foundation between now and COP30 [so that] at least by the time we are heading towards Brazil [the expected host of COP30 in 2025], this initiative is strong and it’s based on a different paradigm.”
Soria says aspects of the Brazzaville declaration around financial mobilisation and payments for ecosystem services “will likely emerge in the COP28 negotiations”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“The discussions and commitments made in Brazzaville can inform policies and strategies at COP28. The disappointment from the lack of a formal alliance might serve as a catalyst, prompting nations to work harder toward consensus.”
What was the reaction to the summit’s outcomes?
The summit’s outcome was “underwhelming”, with “no major breakthroughs” achieved, Carvalho says. He tells Carbon Brief:
“There was lots of pomp and all that goes with it, lots of grandstanding and laughter and fun. But, at the end of the day, where do we go from here? Do we have a concrete pathway? There was a lack of clarity on that.”
One success from the summit is that it “managed to garner pan-Africanism in the space”, he adds, especially around forests and nature conservation. Around a dozen African heads of state attended the summit. He says:
“While they haven’t got horizontal Three Basins collaboration, they’ve got quite a horizontal and vertical pan-African buy-in that we need to save the forests and we need to invest in nature protection.”
Soria echoes that sentiment, telling Carbon Brief that “the absence of all heads of state of the Amazon basin and the Borneo Mekong basin countries made this summit an African summit in essence”. He adds:
“While it’s a positive step for the region to start a dialogue to build common positions on biodiversity, climate and land, it lacks that global geopolitical appeal that could build enthusiasm among donor and developed nations.”
The fact that the summit was unable to achieve a “formal alliance” highlights “the complexities involved in aligning the diverse interests and policies of the participating nations”, Soria says.
In a statement released after the summit, Greenpeace called out the final declaration, saying it “fails to commit to any concrete actions for the protection and restoration of nature”.
Greenpeace continued by pointing out that the focus on “controversial” carbon markets “will only reinforce the commodification of nature and human rights violations if they become the primary such mechanism” for funding conservation.
In addition to the lack of concrete outcomes, the summit itself had a very full schedule and the “logistics were quite crap”, Carvalho says. Many parts of the summit were “utter chaos” with poor organisation and “no space” for civil society to meet, he says.
Another observer tells Carbon Brief that the organisation of the summit was “a mess”.
Ultimately, Soria says, the summit can be regarded with a “mix of hope and disappointment”. He adds:
“Despite the limitations, the summit initiated crucial discussions and commitments for future forest preservation efforts. The declaration, which includes a seven-point plan, disappoints in specificity of actions and commitments from the countries that are part of the Three Basins.”
The post Q&A: What the ‘underwhelming’ Three Basins Summit means for tropical forests appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What the ‘underwhelming’ Three Basins Summit means for tropical forests
Climate Change
DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Absolute State of the Union
‘DRILL, BABY’: US president Donald Trump “doubled down on his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda” in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, said the Los Angeles Times. He “tout[ed] his support of the fossil-fuel industry and renew[ed] his focus on electricity affordability”, reported the Financial Times. Trump also attacked the “green new scam”, noted Carbon Brief’s SOTU tracker.
COAL REPRIEVE: Earlier in the week, the Trump administration had watered down limits on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, reported the Financial Times. It remains “unclear” if this will be enough to prevent the decline of coal power, said Bloomberg, in the face of lower-cost gas and renewables. Reuters noted that US coal plants are “ageing”.
OIL STAY: The US Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments brought by the oil industry in a “major lawsuit”, reported the New York Times. The newspaper said the firms are attempting to head off dozens of other lawsuits at state level, relating to their role in global warming.
SHIP-SHILLING: The Trump administration is working to “kill” a global carbon levy on shipping “permanently”, reported Politico, after succeeding in delaying the measure late last year. The Guardian said US “bullying” could be “paying off”, after Panama signalled it was reversing its support for the levy in a proposal submitted to the UN shipping body.
Around the world
- RARE EARTHS: The governments of Brazil and India signed a deal on rare earths, said the Times of India, as well as agreeing to collaborate on renewable energy.
- HEAT ROLLBACK: German homes will be allowed to continue installing gas and oil heating, under watered-down government plans covered by Clean Energy Wire.
- BRAZIL FLOODS: At least 53 people died in floods in the state of Minas Gerais, after some areas saw 170mm of rain in a few hours, reported CNN Brasil.
- ITALY’S ATTACK: Italy is calling for the EU to “suspend” its emissions trading system (ETS) ahead of a review later this year, said Politico.
- COOKSTOVE CREDITS: The first-ever carbon credits under the Paris Agreement have been issued to a cookstove project in Myanmar, said Climate Home News.
- SAUDI SOLAR: Turkey has signed a “major” solar deal that will see Saudi firm ACWA building 2 gigawatts in the country, according to Agence France-Presse.
$467 billion
The profits made by five major oil firms since prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago, according to a report by Global Witness covered by BusinessGreen.
Latest climate research
- Claims about the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change, made in a recent US Department of Energy report, are “factually incorrect” | AGU Advances
- Large lakes in the Congo Basin are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from “immense ancient stores” | Nature Geoscience
- Shared Socioeconomic Pathways – scenarios used regularly in climate modelling – underrepresent “narratives explicitly centring on democratic principles such as participation, accountability and justice” | npj Climate Action
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The constituency of Richard Tice MP, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of Reform UK, is the second-largest recipient of flood defence spending in England, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Overall, the funding is disproportionately targeted at coastal and urban areas, many of which have Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs.
Spotlight
Is there really a UK ‘greenlash’?
This week, after a historic Green Party byelection win, Carbon Brief looks at whether there really is a “greenlash” against climate policy in the UK.
Over the past year, the UK’s political consensus on climate change has been shattered.
Yet despite a sharp turn against climate action among right-wing politicians and right-leaning media outlets, UK public support for climate action remains strong.
Prof Federica Genovese, who studies climate politics at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief:
“The current ‘war’ on green policy is mostly driven by media and political elites, not by the public.”
Indeed, there is still a greater than two-to-one majority among the UK public in favour of the country’s legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, as shown below.
Steve Akehurst, director of public-opinion research initiative Persuasion UK, also noted the growing divide between the public and “elites”. He told Carbon Brief:
“The biggest movement is, without doubt, in media and elite opinion. There is a bit more polarisation and opposition [to climate action] among voters, but it’s typically no more than 20-25% and mostly confined within core Reform voters.”
Conservative gear shift
For decades, the UK had enjoyed strong, cross-party political support for climate action.
Lord Deben, the Conservative peer and former chair of the Climate Change Committee, told Carbon Brief that the UK’s landmark 2008 Climate Change Act had been born of this cross-party consensus, saying “all parties supported it”.
Since their landslide loss at the 2024 election, however, the Conservatives have turned against the UK’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050, which they legislated for in 2019.
Curiously, while opposition to net-zero has surged among Conservative MPs, there is majority support for the target among those that plan to vote for the party, as shown below.
Dr Adam Corner, advisor to the Climate Barometer initiative that tracks public opinion on climate change, told Carbon Brief that those who currently plan to vote Reform are the only segment who “tend to be more opposed to net-zero goals”. He said:
“Despite the rise in hostile media coverage and the collapse of the political consensus, we find that public support for the net-zero by 2050 target is plateauing – not plummeting.”
Reform, which rejects the scientific evidence on global warming and campaigns against net-zero, has been leading the polls for a year. (However, it was comfortably beaten by the Greens in yesterday’s Gorton and Denton byelection.)
Corner acknowledged that “some of the anti-net zero noise…[is] showing up in our data”, adding:
“We see rising concerns about the near-term costs of policies and an uptick in people [falsely] attributing high energy bills to climate initiatives.”
But Akehurst said that, rather than a big fall in public support, there had been a drop in the “salience” of climate action:
“So many other issues [are] competing for their attention.”
UK newspapers published more editorials opposing climate action than supporting it for the first time on record in 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Global ‘greenlash’?
All of this sits against a challenging global backdrop, in which US president Donald Trump has been repeating climate-sceptic talking points and rolling back related policy.
At the same time, prominent figures have been calling for a change in climate strategy, sold variously as a “reset”, a “pivot”, as “realism”, or as “pragmatism”.
Genovese said that “far-right leaders have succeeded in the past 10 years in capturing net-zero as a poster child of things they are ‘fighting against’”.
She added that “much of this is fodder for conservative media and this whole ecosystem is essentially driving what we call the ‘greenlash’”.
Corner said the “disconnect” between elite views and the wider public “can create problems” – for example, “MPs consistently underestimate support for renewables”. He added:
“There is clearly a risk that the public starts to disengage too, if not enough positive voices are countering the negative ones.”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP’S ‘PETROSTATE’: The US is becoming a “petrostate” that will be “sicker and poorer”, wrote Financial Times associate editor Rana Forohaar.
RHETORIC VS REALITY: Despite a “political mood [that] has darkened”, there is “more green stuff being installed than ever”, said New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells.
CHINA’S ‘REVOLUTION’: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast reported from China on the “green energy revolution” taking place in the country.
Coming up
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean, Brasília
- 3 March: UK spring statement
- 4-11 March: China’s “two sessions”
- 5 March: Nepal elections
Pick of the jobs
- The Guardian, senior reporter, climate justice | Salary: $123,000-$135,000. Location: New York or Washington DC
- China-Global South Project, non-resident fellow, climate change | Salary: Up to $1,000 a month. Location: Remote
- University of East Anglia, PhD in mobilising community-based climate action through co-designed sports and wellbeing interventions | Salary: Stipend (unknown amount). Location: Norwich, UK
- TABLE and the University of São Paulo, Brazil, postdoctoral researcher in food system narratives | Salary: Unknown. Location: Pirassununga, Brazil
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Seven Pacific island nations say they will demand heftier levies on global shipping emissions if opponents of a green deal for the industry succeed in reopening negotiations on the stalled accord.
The United States and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to grant final approval to the International Maritime Organization’s Net-Zero Framework (NZF) in October and they are now leading a drive for changes to the deal.
In a joint submission seen by Climate Home News, the seven climate-vulnerable Pacific countries said the framework was already a “fragile compromise”, and vowed to push for a universal levy on all ship emissions, as well as higher fees . The deal currently stipulates that fees will be charged when a vessel’s emissions exceed a certain level.
“For many countries, the NZF represents the absolute limit of what they can accept,” said the unpublished submission by Fiji, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands.
The countries said a universal levy and higher charges on shipping would raise more funds to enable a “just and equitable transition leaving no country behind”. They added, however, that “despite its many shortcomings”, the framework should be adopted later this year.
US allies want exemption for ‘transition fuels’
The previous attempt to adopt the framework failed after governments narrowly voted to postpone it by a year. Ahead of the vote, the US threatened governments and their officials with sanctions, tariffs and visa restrictions – and President Donald Trump called the framework a “Green New Scam Tax on Shipping”.
Since then, Liberia – an African nation with a major low-tax shipping registry headquartered in the US state of Virginia – has proposed a new measure under which, rather than staying fixed under the NZF, ships’ emissions intensity targets change depending on “demonstrated uptake” of both “low-carbon and zero-carbon fuels”.
The proposal places stringent conditions on what fuels are taken into consideration when setting these targets, stressing that the low- and zero-carbon fuels should be “scalable”, not cost more than 15% more than standard marine fuels and should be available at “sufficient ports worldwide”.
This proposal would not “penalise transitional fuels” like natural gas and biofuels, they said. In the last decade, the US has built a host of large liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, which the Trump administration is lobbying other countries to purchase from.
The draft motion, seen by Climate Home News, was co-sponsored by US ally Argentina and also by Panama, a shipping hub whose canal the US has threatened to annex. Both countries voted with the US to postpone the last vote on adopting the framework.
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IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay
Arsenio Dominguez said the shipping industry’s net zero emissions goal is not in dispute although countries have stalled on adopting a framework to reach it -
US-led alliance wins a year’s delay in adoption of green shipping deal
The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework will be up for approval again in October 2026, after the US and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to vote on it as planned
The IMO’s Panamanian head Arsenio Dominguez told reporters in January that changes to the framework were now possible.
“It is clear from what happened last year that we need to look into the concerns that have been expressed [and] … make sure that they are somehow addressed within the framework,” he said.
Patchwork of levies
While the European Union pushed firmly for the framework’s adoption, two of its shipping-reliant member states – Greece and Cyprus – abstained in October’s vote.
After a meeting between the Greek shipping minister and Saudi Arabia’s energy minister in January, Greece said a “common position” united Greece, Saudi Arabia and the US on the framework.
If the NZF or a similar instrument is not adopted, the IMO has warned that there will be a patchwork of differing regional levies on pollution – like the EU’s emissions trading system for ships visiting its ports – which will be complicated and expensive to comply with.
This would mean that only countries with their own levies and with lots of ships visiting their ports would raise funds, making it harder for other nations to fund green investments in their ports, seafarers and shipping companies. In contrast, under the NZF, revenues would be disbursed by the IMO to all nations based on set criteria.
Anais Rios, shipping policy officer from green campaign group Seas At Risk, told Climate Home News the proposal by the Pacific nations for a levy on all shipping emissions – not just those above a certain threshold – was “the most credible way to meet the IMO’s climate goals”.
“With geopolitics reframing climate policy, asking the IMO to reopen the discussion on the universal levy is the only way to decarbonise shipping whilst bringing revenue to manage impacts fairly,” Rios said.
“It is […] far stronger than the Net-Zero Framework that is currently on offer.”
The post Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen
Doubts over whether governments will maintain ambitious targets on boosting the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) are a threat to the industry’s growth and play into the hands of fossil fuel companies, investors warned this week.
Several executives from airlines and oil firms have forecast recently that SAF requirements in the European Union, United Kingdom and elsewhere will be eased or scrapped altogether, potentially upending the aviation industry’s main policy to shrink air travel’s growing carbon footprint.
Such speculation poses a “fundamental threat” to the SAF industry, which mainly produces an alternative to traditional kerosene jet fuel using organic feedstocks such as used cooking oil (UCO), Thomas Engelmann, head of energy transition at German investment manager KGAL, told the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Investor conference in London.
He said fossil fuel firms would be the only winners from questions about compulsory SAF blending requirements.
The EU and the UK introduced the world’s first SAF mandates in January 2025, requiring fuel suppliers to blend at least 2% SAF with fossil fuel kerosene. The blending requirement will gradually increase to reach 32% in the EU and 22% in the UK by 2040.
Another case of diluted green rules?
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, CEO of French oil and gas company TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanné said he would bet “that what happened to the car regulation will happen to the SAF regulation in Europe”.
The EU watered down green rules for car-makers in March 2025 after lobbying from car companies, Germany and Italy.
“You will see. Today all the airline companies are fighting [against the EU’s 2030 SAF target of 6%],” Pouyanne said, even though it’s “easy to reach to be honest”.
While most European airline lobbies publicly support the mandates, Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary said last year that the SAF is “nonsense” and is “gradually dying a death, which is what it deserves to do”.
EU and UK stand by SAF targets
But the EU and the British government have disputed that. EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said in November that the EU’s targets are “stable”, warning that “investment decisions and construction must start by 2027, or we will miss the 2030 targets”.
UK aviation minister Keir Mather told this week’s investor event that meeting the country’s SAF blending requirement of 10% by 2030 was “ambitious but, with the right investment, the right innovation and the right outlook, it is absolutely within our reach”.
“We need to go further and we need to go faster,” Mather said.
SAF investors and developers said such certainty on SAF mandates from policymakers was key to drawing the necessary investment to ramp up production of the greener fuel, which needs to scale up in order to bring down high production costs. Currently, SAF is between two and seven times more expensive than traditional jet fuel.
Urbano Perez, global clean molecules lead at Spanish bank Santander, said banks will not invest if there is a perceived regulatory risk.
David Scott, chair of Australian SAF producer Jet Zero Australia, said developing SAF was already challenging due to the risks of “pretty new” technology requiring high capital expenditure.
“That’s a scary model with a volatile political environment, so mandate questioning creates this problem on steroids”, Scott said.
Others played down the risk. Glenn Morgan, partner at investment and advisory firm SkiesFifty, said “policy is always a risk”, adding that traditional oil-based jet fuel could also lose subsidies.
Asian countries join SAF mandate adopters
In Asia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Japan have recently adopted SAF mandates, and Matti Lievonen, CEO of Asia-based SAF producer EcoCeres, predicted that China, Indonesia and Hong Kong would follow suit.
David Fisken, investment director at the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, said the Australian government, which does not have a mandate, was watching to see how the EU and UK’s requirements played out.
The US does not have a SAF mandate and under President Donald Trump the government has slashed tax credits available for SAF producers from $1.75 a gallon to $1.
Is the world’s big idea for greener air travel a flight of fancy?
SAF and energy security
SAF’s potential role in boosting energy security was a major theme of this week’s discussions as geopolitical tensions push the issue to the fore.
Marcella Franchi, chief commercial officer for SAF at France’s Haffner Energy, said the Canadian government, which has “very unsettling neighbours at the moment”, was looking to produce SAF to protect its energy security, especially as it has ample supplies of biomass to use as potential feedstock.
Similarly, German weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall said last year it was working on plans that would enable European armed forces to produce their own synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel “locally and independently of global fossil fuel supply chain”.
Scott said Australia needs SAF to improve its fuel security, as it imports almost 99% of its liquid fuels.
He added that support for Australian SAF production is bipartisan, in part because it appeals to those more concerned about energy security than tackling climate change.
The post Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn appeared first on Climate Home News.
Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn
DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?
Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen
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