Amid a rapidly fracturing geopolitical order, there have been growing calls for China to “step into [the] leadership gap” left by the US on climate change.
While China has resisted such suggestions – at least officially – it has spent much of the past 12 months nurturing its international status as a partner for other countries, in areas ranging from the economy and global governance through to climate change.
President Xi Jinping has maintained a schedule packed with foreign-policy engagements, meeting with world leaders from Russia and India through to the EU.
Moreover, this April he made his first international climate speech since 2021, while attending a meeting on climate and the just transition hosted by Brazil.
As well as underscoring his nation’s ongoing commitment to climate action, Xi’s presence also hinted at the growing coordination between China and Brazil in this area.
More broadly, there is growing recognition of greater alignment between non-western countries – particularly in the global south – in the face of more aggressive US foreign policy.
Analysts note that pressure from the US could push groups such as the BRICS – of which Brazil and China are two founding members, alongside Russia and India – to become more cohesive and develop more concrete cooperation channels.
In a recent interview with Carbon Brief, UK climate envoy Rachel Kyte said that the “world is changing”, becoming “flatter” and that the BRICS – which now includes 11 countries, including South Africa, Egypt and Indonesia – are “more and more important”.
This Q&A explores the membership, climate stance and energy sectors of the BRICS nations, as well as the potential for China and the bloc to lead on climate change.
- What is the BRICS group?
- How do the BRICS approach climate change?
- Are Brazil and China in the BRICS ‘driving seat’?
- What is the role of fossil fuels in the BRICS?
- What is the economic impact of clean-tech?
- Will China and the BRICS emerge as climate leaders?
What is the BRICS group?
The BRICS group represents a number of emerging economies that aim to “strengthen” cooperation amongst themselves and to “increas[e] the influence of global south countries in international governance”.
They coordinate on a range of topics, from international finance to climate diplomacy.
It was founded by Brazil, Russia, India and China – hence, the original name “BRIC” – which later became “BRICS” with the inclusion of South Africa. More recently, it expanded again to include Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Iran.
Saudi Arabia has been formally invited to join the bloc, but has not yet accepted the invitation. A number of others participate in the grouping as partner countries, including Malaysia, Thailand and Nigeria.
Together, the full members of the group represent 27% of global gross domestic product (GDP), 49% of the world’s population and 52% of emissions, according to Carbon Brief calculations illustrated below.
Four of the members – Brazil, China, India and South Africa – also form the BASIC bloc, a group with a significant voice at UN climate summits and other negotiations.
BASIC was formed in Beijing in 2009, with representatives from the four countries meeting to coordinate on climate negotiations from the standpoint of major emerging economies.
This culminated at the COP15 climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009, when the BASIC group issued a joint set of “non-negotiable terms” and went on to work directly with the US to agree the Copenhagen Accord.
The bloc has used less combative tactics in subsequent COPs, but it continues to issue joint statements on climate change and to strongly advocate for certain issues.
At both COP28 and COP29, BASIC submitted a proposal to have “unilateral trade measures related to climate change” – referring to policies such as the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) – added to the meeting agenda.
The request was denied both times.
How do the BRICS approach climate change?
Alongside BASIC, the BRICS group is also becoming increasingly focused on climate policy.
COP30 executive director Ana Toni, speaking at a September 2025 event at Tsinghua University attended online by Carbon Brief, said that BRICS countries have “realised that climate is not just a financial issue or a niche”, but rather a “pillar for prosperity, development and growth”.
Lucas Carlos Lima, professor of international law at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, wrote in an April 2025 article for Modern Diplomacy that recent joint statements show the BRICS had “placed climate change squarely at the centre of the bloc’s agenda”.
The group has also been playing an increasingly significant role in other multilateral fora. For example, a BRICS proposal at the COP16 UN biodiversity negotiations in February formed the basis of an agreement to mobilise at least $200bn per year to protect nature.
Susana Muhamad, president of the COP16 nature talks, told Reuters in March that BRICS nations had been “bridge builders” in the negotiations.
She added:
“I understand there’s a lot of countries wanting to join BRICS, because…if you have to confront something like the US, you are not alone.”
Environment ministers of BRICS countries also recently issued a joint statement that “reaffirm[ed] our steadfast commitments” to addressing climate change, adding that BRICS “can positively contribute to…the global environmental agenda.”
Their finance ministers also agreed in May on a climate-finance framework, outlining priorities including “the reform of multilateral development banks, the scaling up of concessional finance and the mobilising of private capital to support climate efforts in the global south”.
The framework represents “common and collective BRICS action in the area of climate finance” for the first time, notes Tatiana Rosito, international affairs secretary at Brazil’s finance ministry.
The framework was adopted at the BRICS summit in July, where a number of leaders gathered to sign a joint declaration demanding that “accessible, timely and affordable climate finance” is provided to developing countries.
This, it adds, “is a responsibility of developed countries” under the Paris Agreement.
The statement also highlighted the nations’ “resolve to remain united in the pursuit of the purpose and goals of the Paris Agreement”, featuring 21 paragraphs in a section on climate change spanning just transitions, carbon markets and critical minerals.
“It is encouraging that BRICS nations called for more climate lending, deeper green bond markets and better carbon accounting,” Mirela Sandrini, interim executive director for Brazil at the World Resources Institute, said in a statement. She added:
“South-south collaboration of this scale and ambition can inject much-needed momentum into international climate diplomacy ahead of COP30.”
However, the BRICS leaders’ declaration also “acknowledge[s] fossil fuels will still play an important role in the world’s energy mix, particularly for emerging markets and developing economies”.
The inclusion of this language “undermin[es] the positives” of the bloc’s other statements on climate action, according to a response from Jacobo Ocharan, head of political strategies at Climate Action Network International.
Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, global climate and energy lead at WWF, agrees, saying climate change is “treated as background noise” in the joint statement, with “no clear articulation of the BRICS+ role in the global climate response”.
Are Brazil and China in the BRICS ‘driving seat’?
Much of the recent BRICS focus on climate change is due to Brazil being “in the driver’s seat”, says Kate Logan, director of the China climate hub and climate diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), speaking to Carbon Brief.
As well as hosting COP30, Brazil recently chaired the G20 and is currently presiding over the BRICS. It used both of these forums to prioritise climate action on the agenda, she adds.
There has been frequent coordination between COP30, Brazilian and Chinese officials in the run-up to the conference.
This included a meeting of BRICS environment ministers held in April 2025, a separate April meeting between COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago and Chinese minister for the environment and ecology Huang Runqiu, as well as an earlier meeting in March between Huang and UN climate chief Simon Stiell.
Most significantly, Chinese president Xi Jinping appeared at a closed-door April 2025 meeting of global leaders organised by the UN and Brazil, telling his audience that “China’s actions to address climate change will not slow down”.
Many analysts saw the statement as a clear signal of China’s support for multilateralism, in sharp contrast to the US withdrawing from climate negotiations.
Xi’s participation in the meeting also underscored growing solidarity between China and Brazil on accelerating climate action.
Brazil and China have a long history of cooperation on environmental issues, including through the China-Brazil High-Level Coordination and Cooperation Commission (COSBAN).
The Brazilian government describes COSBAN as the “highest-level governmental mechanism” between the two countries. It includes tracks specifically focused on energy, agriculture and mining, as well as the environment and climate change.
But there has been a notable uptick in engagement under the new Lula administration.
For the current Brazilian administration, China is an “essential partner in global climate solutions”, according to a briefing note published by the Brazilian climate network Observatório do Clima.
A related opinion article in Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paolo, written by Stela Herschmann, climate policy specialist at the Observatório do Clima, and Beibei Yin, founder of environmental consultancy Bambu Consulting, argues that China and Brazil could form the “new G2” – the moniker given to the US-China alignment that they say shaped global climate policy for “more than two decades”.
They add that Brazil, through its unique role in the world and current position, can help “fill the current vacuum” of climate leadership. They write:
“Brazil enjoys the respect of the international community because it often mediates the divisions between developed and developing countries in climate negotiations…The presidency of COP30 and BRICS adds to this, making the country a natural candidate to fill the current vacuum of climate leadership.”
However, the two countries’ climate approaches have diverged at times.
Jennifer Allan, senior lecturer in international relations at Cardiff University, tells Carbon Brief: “These countries have several similar views, but also have diverged in the past.”
For example, she says, Brazil’s suggestion at COP26 of a “concentric” approach to cutting emissions, with emerging economies offering more stringent targets than other developing countries, was opposed by China, which wanted to “maintain the firewall” between developed and developing countries.
What is the role of fossil fuels in the BRICS?
Many BRICS nations remain heavily reliant on fossil fuels, both for electricity generation and to support their wider energy systems.
However, this picture is starting to shift, with almost all BRICS members having adopted net-zero targets ranging from 2050 for Brazil, South Africa and others, through to 2060 for China and Russia, or 2070 for India.
More tangibly, the addition of new clean-power projects means that fossil-fueled electricity generating capacity now makes up less than half of the installed total in the BRICS group as a whole in 2024, as shown in the figure below.
Non-fossil power, driven by “unprecedented” renewable energy growth in China, India and Brazil, accounted for 53% of the installed electricity generating capacity in BRICS countries overall in 2024, according to recent analysis by the thinktank Global Energy Monitor (GEM). This puts them in line with the global average.
Ethiopia, Brazil and China boast higher-than-average shares of clean capacity – at 100%, 88% and 57% respectively. India’s clean-capacity share stands at 43%.
Continued BRICS focus on clean energy makes it “unlikely that fossil capacity will overtake non-fossil again”, James Norman, research analyst at GEM, tells Carbon Brief, adding that much of this is driven by significant renewable additions in some members, particularly China.
While some BRICS members are continuing to commission “significant amounts of new coal-fired capacity”, he says, it remains uncertain whether these new plants will be completed, or if they will go on to operate at full capacity.
Several BRICS members are also leading producers and exporters of fossil fuels. Russia is a major exporter of all types of fossil fuels, the Statistical Review of World Energy shows, while the UAE, Iran and Indonesia have large oil- or coal-exporting industries.
The data shows that China and India, meanwhile, are by some distance the world’s largest and second-largest coal users, respectively, predominantly fueled by domestic mining. China alone accounts for more than half of global coal production and use.
Norman acknowledges that “fossil dominance remains largely unchanged” among some BRICS members.
He states that countries such as Iran, with “entrenched modes of power production”, or with “limited strategic interest in overhauling the energy sector, such as Russia”, are on a different trajectory to countries such as Brazil or China.
Nevertheless, he says, the “strong economic case for solar and wind”, as well as the fact that nearly all BRICS countries have announced renewable energy targets, “makes continued growth in clean energy across the group highly likely”.
In the short term, meanwhile, the continued reliance of some members on fossil fuels might not lessen the BRICS group’s climate ambition overall. It is “notable” that Russia does not seem to be “blocking” the “solid outcomes” of recent BRICS climate negotiations, Logan tells Carbon Brief.
Indeed, the 2024 Kazan declaration, which featured a lengthy and detailed section on climate change, was released under the Russian BRICS presidency.
Still, the group is not a united front in all areas, for example the rivalry between China and India. Tensions remain high between the two countries on a number of issues, from border disputes to supply chains and geopolitical alliances.
This has spilled into climate-related topics, with India complaining about China’s construction of mega-dams in the Himalayas and launching anti-dumping investigations into solar imports from China.
At COP29, China and India at times took up conflicting stances during negotiations – most notably during the final stages of the climate finance deal, where China “helped prevent” efforts by India to block the deal, Logan wrote in an analysis for Dialogue Earth.
Another area of contention for India at COP29 was CBAM, which it said contributed to a “very, very competitive, hostile environment” that made it “difficult” to enable an energy transition.
By contrast, Logan tells Carbon Brief, China is “much less worried” about CBAM.
(Brazil, too, is unlikely to push hard to include CBAM and other “unilateral” trade measures in the COP30 agenda, Allan says, in order to maintain its “neutral” position as the holder of the COP presidency and the trust of other parties. Indeed, it is reportedly pushing for this issue to be taken up in a new forum, completely outside the climate talks.)
Nevertheless, India and China are united in climate negotiations by their commitment to ensuring all agreements uphold the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC).
“This is something [in which] they’ll continue to be aligned”, Logan says, “but how it plays out in practice is where you start to see divergences”.
A recent rapprochement in China-India relations saw Indian prime minister Narendra Modi visit China for the first time in seven years.
The two countries also came together at the International Maritime Organization, where they successfully pushed for publicly-available data on shipping emissions to be anonymised.
Earlier, Brazil, China, South Africa and several other developing countries also lobbied against the creation of a global levy on shipping emissions.
Allen notes that whether or not BRICS and BASIC can align on climate may, ultimately, be a moot point, given that BASIC is just one of several coalitions that China operates in and that it is currently “less active” than other coalitions.
For example, she says, unlike the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) group, BASIC “doesn’t negotiate as a group in contact groups” at the UN climate talks. She adds:
“Multiple coalitions are a way for [a country] to multipl[y] their influence, while also perhaps hiding its individual views among those of the group.”
What is the economic impact of clean-tech?
Beyond the realms of climate diplomacy, it is increasingly clear that there is a hard-nosed economic reality to the positions being taken by China and other BRICS nations.
Indeed, as China works with Brazil and the BRICS to centre emerging markets’ concerns in climate policy, it also plays a key role in the economics of the energy transition.
The country accounts for more than 80% of global solar manufacturing, more than 70% of electric vehicle production and more than 75% of battery production.
While most of this is consumed domestically, exports of each of these categories – which it often calls the “new-three” – are “booming”, finance news outlet Caixin reports.
Historically these exports would have been destined for developed countries. But, in 2024, “half of all China’s exports of solar and wind power equipment and electric vehicles (EVs) [went] to the global south”, Lauri Myllyvirta and Hubert Thieriot, lead analyst and data lead at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), write at Dialogue Earth.
Separate analysis by Myllyvirta for Carbon Brief revealed that China’s exports of clean-energy technologies in 2024 alone will reduce emissions in the rest of the world by 1%, avoiding some 4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2 over their lifetimes).
Moreover, clean-energy industries accounted for more than 10% of China’s GDP in 2024 for the first time ever, driving a quarter of economic growth that year.
Meanwhile, Chinese lending overseas is also increasingly focused on low-carbon infrastructure, according to the Boston University Global Development Policy Center.
Their analysis finds that the “share of renewable energy in China’s portfolio has increased significantly”, with solar and wind projects “dominat[ing]” the types of projects funded in 2022 and 2023.
This stands in sharp contrast to typical Chinese lending activity before 2021, which showed a preference for conventional power projects, such as coal and hydropower.
According to Myllyvirta and Thieriot, the “important role that clean-energy technology plays in the country’s economy and exports” will encourage China to ensure that the global energy transition “keeps accelerating”.
They add: “That will be seen in bilateral lending and diplomacy, and could also lead the country to take more forward-leaning positions in multilateral climate negotiations.”
Will China and the BRICS emerge as climate leaders?
With the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement under the Trump administration, there have been increasing calls for China to take up the mantle of climate leadership.
Many are watching for signs of whether China’s upcoming international climate pledge, which may be published by the UN general assembly meeting next week, will contain ambitious targets that will encourage greater global ambition.
Beatriz Mattos, research coordinator at Brazil-based climate-research institute Plataforma CIPÓ, tells Carbon Brief that China’s position as a “major investor in the renewable energy sector” means there is “enormous potential” for both it and the BRICS to assume a climate leadership role.
China, at least publicly, is eschewing these calls. In an interview with state-owned magazine China Newsweek, climate envoy Liu Zhenmin said in response to a question about China’s climate leadership that the calls are just “the west giving us a ‘tall hat’” – an expression meaning trying to flatter China. He added:
“Of course, within their respective camps, major countries should play a more leading role, such as the EU and US in the developed countries camp, and the BASIC countries in the developing countries camp. But BASIC cannot be a substitute for all developing countries, and developing countries will still participate in [climate] negotiations within the framework of ‘G77+China’. This is the basis for cooperation in the global south.”
Notably, this does not seem to preclude China from agreeing to “demonstrate leadership” in tandem with others, as seen in an EU-China joint statement on climate change published in late July.
BASIC is “important for China in climate negotiations given the influence of other large emerging economies”, Yixian Sun, associate professor in international development at the University of Bath, tells Carbon Brief.
“On many issues (especially sensitive issues regarding its developing country status), China doesn’t want to stand out by itself,” he says, with the grouping providing cover in negotiations.
Mattos agrees, stating that “remaining part of this group serves as a way [for China] to reinforce its identity as a developing country in climate negotiations”.
More broadly, it will likely continue to align with the other BRICS nations, when this offers a way to advance its positions in climate negotiations.
Sun expects Brazil and China to sustain their elevated levels of climate cooperation even after Brazil hands over the COP presidency, based on their 2023 joint statement. However, he says there are still questions around what new bilateral climate initiatives would look like and how “concrete” they would be in practice.
Looking ahead, Logan notes, BRICS could also be in a position to sustain its influence if India hosts COP33 in 2028.
“BRICS has in multiple documents endorsed India’s bid for COP33”, she says, which, given India’s presidency of BRICS in 2026, could allow Brazil and China to “influence India in a more constructive direction” on climate, over a number of years.
The post Q&A: Will China and the BRICS fill the ‘leadership gap’ on climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: Will China and the BRICS fill the ‘leadership gap’ on climate change?
More than 1,000 operations at NHS hospitals were cancelled due to heat during the UK’s record May and June heatwaves, Carbon Brief can reveal.
This includes 167 orthopaedic surgeries, such as knee and hip replacements, as well as heart, eye and skin cancer operations.
At least 10 emergency surgeries – those for “life-threatening” conditions – had to be cancelled because of the record-breaking heat, according to the investigation.
Carbon Brief sent freedom-of-information (FOI) requests to 140 NHS trusts to investigate the impact of heatwaves on operations being cancelled in England and Wales.
Areas with the most operations cancelled due to heat include Surrey and Sussex, south Essex and parts of London – all regions experiencing among the highest temperatures.
High temperatures can threaten patient safety by stopping the ventilation systems used in theatres from working, increasing the risk of infection, experts tell Carbon Brief.
Less than half of the NHS trusts provided details of heat-related surgery cancellations – and Carbon Brief understands that many hospitals do not routinely record this information.
Carbon Brief’s figure is therefore likely to be a significant underestimate, but still provides an unprecedented insight into a surgical system “poorly prepared” for heatwaves and the impact on patients.
Overheating operations
The record-breaking heatwaves that have repeatedly struck the UK in 2026 – amplified by climate change – have already been linked to thousands of deaths.
High temperatures can lead to all sorts of health complications and worsen respiratory, cardiovascular and kidney diseases.
Extreme heat also threatens healthcare systems. News outlets have reported on the NHS “struggling”, as it faces record A&E demand, hospital wards reaching “unsafe” temperatures and equipment failing due to heat.
Among these reports was coverage of hospitals being forced to cancel operations, or even abandon them midway through, as surgical theatres became intolerably hot.
To investigate this problem, Carbon Brief sent FOI requests to the 140 NHS trusts and health boards in England and Wales responsible for hospitals with surgical theatres.
They were asked about all the operations that were cancelled due to extreme heat during the May and June heatwaves, when “amber” and “red” heat warnings were in place.
In total, 59 trusts and health boards responded with details of 1,110 heat-related cancellations across the 17-day period covering 22-28 May and 18-27 June.
(Of the 63 trusts that responded but did not provide details of heat-related disruption, many said that they simply did not record this data, rather than stating that heat was not a problem. See Methodology for more details.)
The map below shows the location of these cancelled surgeries, which cover everything from routine hernia operations to heart surgeries.
Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust reported the most cancellations – 140 in total – all in the surgery unit at Crawley Hospital. This hospital was in one of the hottest parts of the country in June, with temperatures approaching 36C.
Other hotspots for cancellations include south Essex, Dudley in the West Midlands, south Wales and parts of London. Many of the hardest-hit hospitals were in southern England, where temperatures were highest.
Of the trusts that provided full datasets of all surgery cancellations in the period, around 7% were heat-related. This data illustrates how heat is placing more strain on an already stretched NHS, adding to existing issues such as staff shortages and lack of beds.
Nearly all of the cancelled surgeries were “elective”, meaning they were scheduled in advance and not immediately life-saving. Nevertheless, the list of cancellations includes at least eight heart operations and seven skin-cancer removals.
There were also 10 “emergency” operations cancelled due to heat in surgical theatres. Another 18 surgeries had to be abandoned mid-way through.
Dr Dmitri Nepogodiev, a public health researcher focusing on surgery at the University of Birmingham, says hospitals will always prioritise “time-sensitive, life-threatening” surgeries.
Nevertheless, he tells Carbon Brief that every cancellation can cause significant “distress” and harm to patients’ quality of life, adding:
“Behind all of these statistics…are real people who have probably already been waiting a long time.”
Each dot in the graphic below indicates a cancelled surgery. Of the 596 for which trusts provided details, 167 are orthopaedic surgeries, such as knee and hip replacements.
Eye surgeries, gynaecological and urological surgeries are also among the most frequently cancelled, broadly reflecting how common such procedures are.
Richard Egan, an endocrine surgeon and a national clinical director within NHS Wales, notes the knock-on effects of cancelling surgeries for several days during heatwaves. He tells Carbon Brief:
“That’s a significant impact on waiting lists…For every week that patients are waiting on a waiting list, their condition could get worse and deteriorate.”
‘Increased risks’
When providing specific reasons for cancellations, most NHS trusts simply indicated that surgical theatres were “too hot and humid”.
Sometimes, this was accompanied by comments about “risk of infection” or “overheating for both patients and staff”.
There are several reasons why it can get “too hot” for operations to take place, but the main one is that the complex ventilation systems installed in theatres can stop working above a certain temperature, explains Dr Ed Robinson, an NHS anaesthetist. He tells Carbon Brief:
“An operating theatre is a very tightly engineered clinical environment. There are quite complicated ventilation systems, which dilute airborne contaminants, remove fumes from different [medications] and anaesthetic gases.
“We have generalised airflow systems that make the air in theatre flow outwards to adjacent areas, so pathogens and fumes get carried away from the patient into non-clinical areas. When it gets to a certain heat, those systems can fail.”
These systems are also responsible for controlling heat and humidity levels inside theatres, says Robinson.
When the systems fail, it is not possible to guarantee patient safety, he continues, meaning surgeries may need to be cancelled.
Although most hospitals simply stated that it was “too hot” for operations to take place during the heatwaves, there were 48 cases where staff specified that this was due to air conditioning or ventilation units that were either broken or unable to sustain appropriate temperatures.
Tim Lane, a urological surgeon and president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England), tells Carbon Brief that heat places “extra physical strain” on patients:
“Extreme heat can increase risks and make it harder to deliver care under the conditions clinicians would consider ideal.”
If air in operating theatres is too humid, excess moisture can condense on surgical implements and transmit infections, he says.
Extreme heat and humidity inside theatres can also pose a risk to staff having to wear heavy protective clothing. Robinson explains:
“Staff are usually wearing PPE [personal protective equipment]. If it’s orthopaedics, they will be wearing ‘leads’ a lot of the time. This is because they will be doing lots of X-rays, and there’s no time to descrub and rescrub every time.
“So if the ventilation system is not working, you’re going to overheat [and] that’s going to affect your ability to concentrate and perform a safe operation. You just wouldn’t start under those conditions.”
There are also “certain pieces of equipment and medications” that are not “validated to be used outside of certain ranges of temperature”, he says.
This includes specialised “cement” used to secure hip and knee replacements, which can set too quickly at higher temperatures, according to Lane.
‘Poorly prepared’
Following the record-breaking heat of 2022, one study found that surgical services in the UK were “poorly prepared for heatwaves”.
Based on staff surveys, the study concluded that ambient temperatures “could not be controlled” in two-fifths of NHS operating theatres.
With hospitals once again under significant pressure this summer, health secretary Yvette Cooper told the Guardian that the NHS “has to make sure we are preparing for summer pressures now in the same way we prepare for winter”.
Nepogodiev notes that the problem of extreme heat extends from increased patient numbers to staff shortages, which can be the result of a range of wider factors such as heat-related train cancellations. He tells Carbon Brief.
“There isn’t a single magic solution because it’s a kind of complex, multifactorial challenge – so it also underlines the importance of broader preparedness.”
Egan, who is investigating ways to prepare surgical theatres for extreme heat, says the response so far has been “ad hoc”. He suggests it may be possible to continue with less risky operations, even at higher humidity levels.
As it stands, many NHS hospitals are old and not designed for increasingly extreme temperatures.
Government advisers at the Climate Change Committee (CCC) have recommended that all healthcare buildings should work to “maintain safe and appropriate temperatures” by 2035.
The UK’s national adaptation programme already says NHS England will work to “adapt NHS infrastructure to extreme weather events and overheating risks”, by incorporating adaptation measures into plans for new buildings.
However, years of underinvestment have left many sites with what the King’s Fund thinktank calls “deteriorating buildings” and “outdated technology”.
Following the extreme heat this summer, the government has announced £32m from a £1.5bn spending programme for projects that strengthen hospitals’ “resilience to extreme heat, including improved “cooling and ventilation systems”.
RCS England president Lane tells Carbon Brief that heat-related surgical cancellations underline the need for investment in hospitals, ventilation systems and modern equipment:
“NHS staff work incredibly hard to adapt, often reorganising services and finding practical solutions to keep care running, but resilience alone cannot compensate indefinitely for outdated infrastructure or sustainability.”
Methodology
Carbon Brief contacted 140 NHS trusts and health boards in England and Wales, only including those that perform surgical procedures. Mental health trusts, community trusts and other specialist trusts were therefore excluded.
These requests covered the periods 22-28 May 2026 and 18-27 June 2026, when heatwaves affected much of England and Wales.
At the time of filing the FOIs, these were the two periods when the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) had issued “amber” or “red” heat-health alerts across much or all of England. There were also comparable weather warnings in place across Wales for some of this time.
(Scotland and Northern Ireland were excluded from the analysis, on the basis that they did not experience such extreme heat.)
The FOI requests asked for details of all surgical procedures – both elective and emergency – that were cancelled during this period. Specifically, the requests also asked trusts to state which cancellations were related to extreme heat. Of these, 59 provided details of surgeries that were cancelled due to heat.
Of the remaining 63 that responded to the FOI requests, only a few stated explicitly that there were no surgeries cancelled due to heat. Most either said that they did not record this information, or provided lists with standard cancellation reasons that may – or may not – indicate heat as a factor, such as “failure of equipment”. The remaining 19 did not respond to the request by the time of publication.
NHS trusts and health boards responded to Carbon Brief’s FOI requests in a large variety of ways, reflecting the inconsistent way in which heat-related cancellations are recorded.
Among those that disclosed data, some provided all the information requested while others only provided parts. Some would not provide exact numbers when the number of cancellations was five or less. In those cases, Carbon Brief assumed that two surgeries had been cancelled. (This assumption accounts for fewer than 50 of the 1,110 cancellations.)
The full dataset is available here, with details of all the surgeries cancelled and the reasons given for their cancellations.
The post Revealed: More than 1,000 NHS operations cancelled due to record UK heatwaves appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Revealed: More than 1,000 NHS operations cancelled due to record UK heatwaves
What a week! Our Pacific team is back from Palau and the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting, and preparing for the next big moment in our campaign for Pacific climate justice — the Pacific Pre-COP.
So grab a cuppa as we take stock of what unfolded in Palau and what it means for the voyage ahead.
Keeping 1.5°C Alive
Immediately before leaders sat down for their negotiations, the UN Environment Program dropped a bombshell report confirming the world is set to overshoot the all-important goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C.
Limiting warming to 1.5°C is a non-negotiable survival line for Pacific communities. Every year above 1.5°C will increase irreversible harms to communities in the Pacific and around the world. The task now is to minimise the magnitude and duration of any temperature overshoot, and to return warming to 1.5°C as soon as possible.
The good news — there is a path back to 1.5°C. But it’s going to demand the very best of humanity, and all of us working together.
As a person from the Pacific, I know our communities will not quietly accept these dire warnings of climate overshoot as our fate; we are already living and fiercely resisting this reality every single day. With every increment of warming, our lands, our livelihoods, and our island homes are threatened, but the Pacific’s resolve only grows stronger.
Shiva Gounden, Head of Pacific, responds to the UNEP Limiting Overshoot report
Australia, get it together
In just two months, Australia will be chairing the world’s global climate negotiations — a role it has pledged to undertake in meaningful partnership with the Pacific. It’s a major responsibility, at a critical moment in the world’s response to the climate and energy crisis, and one that requires a focussed, all-of-government effort from Australia.
So you can imagine our shock at the start of the week, as images appeared of Australian Minister for Resources Madeleine King celebrating the first extraction of gas from the giant Beetaloo Basin, alongside Chief Minister of the Northern Territory Lia Finocchiaro. Needless to say, the image of the two leaders laughing as they turned on Australia’s largest gas tap, amid the still unfolding flood disaster in Nepal-Tibet, will not age well. Skip to Thursday, and the news came that the Australian Government had approved an expansion of one of Queensland’s largest coal mines. This was the 37th new, expanded or extended fossil fuel project approved by the Albanese Government since it was elected, and the second year in a row that Australia has approved a major fossil fuel expansion during the Pacific Islands Forum.
This is not the allyship that the Pacific has been promised from Australia, the largest member of the Forum, or the leadership the world needs. Expanding fossil fuel production is utterly incompatible with our moral, legal and scientific imperative to limit warming to 1.5°C.
Australia is not doing enough. Australia is a major producer of fossil fuels. We all know fossil fuels are the primary driver of the climate crisis. The very least a country like Australia should be doing is stopping future expansion, and it’s not doing that.
Ralph Regenvanu, Minister for Climate Change, Vanuatu
@greenpeaceap 1.5°C has never been just a number for the Pacific. It is our homes, ocean, cultures, people and our future at stake. Greenpeace is on the ground at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Palau and we have a message of determination and a call for united, urgent and immediate action. Every fraction of a degree matters. This is not the moment to give up on 1.5°C. The pathway back cannot be paved with more fossil fuels. We need all hands, all heart, all minds, in this fight together
We need all hands, all heart, all minds, in this fight together
Moemoana Schwenke, Pacific Climate Campaigner
Powering up the Blue Pacific
On the bright side, the week helped bring the vision of a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific one step closer to reality.
Nowhere on Earth are the perils of fossil fuel dependence and the opportunities of renewable energy clearer than in the Pacific, where countries currently spend up to 25% of GDP on fuel imports, and renewables truly are the path to greater energy security, affordability and sovereignty.
Tuesday saw the launch of a 100% Renewable Blue Pacific Investment Prospectus, designed to attract more than $2 billion in investment to advance the vision of a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific.
Protecting our oceans
While sometimes called ‘small island states’ owing to their small land area and population, Pacific island countries are far better understood as ‘large ocean states’. If you were to divide Tuvalu’s ocean area by its population, you’d find that Tuvaluans are responsible for around 250x more ocean per person than Australians.
Pacific islanders are the world’s ocean protectors, and right now are in a fight to protect the ocean floor from deep sea mining. This year our team, led by Rae Bainteiti, hosted a moving talanoa on deep sea mining, with diverse perspectives grounded in Pacific values.
Greenpeace has been working hard to encourage more Pacific governments to join the call for a moratorium on deep sea mining, so that this destructive new industry can be stopped before it gets fully underway.
The voyage ahead
Earlier this week, a large crowd of Greenpeace staff and volunteers gathered on the dock to bid fair winds to our campaign ship Oceania as she set sail for Fiji and next month’s Pacific Pre-COP.
Hot on the heels of the Pacific Islands Forum, the Pacific Pre-COP is the next crucial moment in our voyage towards the year’s global climate negotiations (COP31) in Antalya. It is a unique opportunity to amplify Pacific leadership, and to ensure that the core priorities of keeping 1.5°C alive, accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels, and ensuring communities can access the financial support they need, are high on the agenda for COP31.
Follow our journey, and check back here for more ways to join the movement for climate justice.
Extreme heat is one of the deadliest climate hazards, but no two heatwaves are the same.
Heat extremes that happen outside of the peak summer months are often more dangerous because they can catch people off guard.
Heatwaves that hit during the spring or the first heatwave of the summer are riskier because people’s bodies are not yet accustomed to the heat and cooling strategies, such as air conditioning or public cooling centres, might not be available.
On the other hand, heatwaves that happen in the autumn, after a long summer season of heat exposure, can place further strain on bodies and local infrastructure that are already under stress.
As the climate changes and global temperatures rise, research has shown that heatwaves are becoming more frequent, intense and lengthy.
Our study, published in AGU Advances, is the first to measure whether the timing of extreme heat during the calendar year is changing around the world.
We find that, in more than half of the world, extreme heat events are spreading into the “shoulder seasons”, but doing so unevenly – in other words, they tend to creep more into autumn or spring, depending on the location.
Defining heat seasons
Meteorological summer is often assumed to be the warmest three-month period of the year. It is simplistically defined as June to August in the northern hemisphere and December to February in the southern hemisphere.
However, extreme heat seasons vary from place to place and do not always neatly map on to these defined periods.
Our study, therefore, goes beyond traditional definitions of seasons and instead focuses on “local heat seasons”. We define these as the three consecutive months when extreme heat events happened most often in the 1980s.
From this starting point, our research looks at how extreme heat is creeping into the two-month periods before and after a local heat season. We call these periods “shoulder seasons”.
This flexible definition of heat and shoulder seasons allows us to measure how the timing of extreme heat has changed over time.
Specifically, we look at the percent of annual heat days that occurred in the heat season and shoulder seasons at each location on Earth and measure how those relative shares have shifted over the last 45 years.
For our analysis, we use climate data from 1980-2024 from the MERRA2 reanalysis dataset. To ensure our results were robust, we repeated the process using ERA5 reanalysis data.
We picked the 1980s as our baseline decade as it was the start of the common time period between the two reanalysis datasets. We compared this to climate data in the decade between 2015-24.
Comparing these two time periods – the opposite ends of our datasets – allowed us to register a larger magnitude change and account for cumulative effects of climate change.
We consider measures of both dry and humid heat, as each has distinct impacts. Dry heat tends to be more dangerous to plant and ecosystem health, while humid heat is more strenuous for humans.
We use the dry-bulb temperature and wet-bulb globe temperature as our measures of dry and humid heat, respectively.
Created in the 1950s by the US military, wet-bulb globe temperature has a long history as an international standard used for outdoor sports and occupational hazard monitoring. It combines measurements of temperature, humidity, wind speed and solar radiation.
Changing heat seasons
Our research finds that, in the 1980s, extreme heat around the world was closely confined to a single heat season. For example, some 93% of the world’s land area experienced more than 80% of extreme dry-heat days during its traditional dry-heat season.
Surprisingly, this was even true in the tropics, where there is much less of a seasonal swing in temperatures.
We also show that extreme dry- and humid-heat seasons are often different from one another, typically offset by one month. This is especially true in places influenced by monsoon systems, such as north-western Mexico and central India, where the extreme dry-heat season precedes the extreme humid-heat season.
But, the edges of these extreme heat seasons are starting to blur.
Extreme heat events are spreading out significantly in the calendar year in more than half of global land areas.
This extension of the extreme dry- and humid-heat seasons means that dangerous heat has started to creep into the shoulder seasons – but not equally so.
The maps below show how, in western Europe, southern Africa and north-western India, a larger fraction of each year’s extreme heat events are happening in the months before the historical dry- and humid-heat seasons. These regions are shaded in green.
On the other hand, in much of the US, eastern China, northern Africa and eastern Europe, extreme heat events are increasing in frequency in the months after the traditional heat seasons. These regions are shaded in purple.
Boosting existing seasons
It is possible that these observed changes have a straightforward – and somewhat simple – explanation.
In many regions, one shoulder season – spring or autumn – is warmer than the other. One hypothesis we explored was whether a simple step up in daily heat across the calendar year makes it more likely for extreme heat days to occur in one shoulder season over the other.
Our research shows that things are not so simple.
To investigate, we created a new, “synthetic” timeseries in order to identify the impact of annual average warming. To do this, we took the baseline 1980s timeseries and “shifted up” the data by the average change in local dry or humid heat between the first and last 10 years of our dataset (1980-89 compared to 2015-24).
We find that, in most locations, intensifying the baseline seasonality in a given location by warming evenly over the course of the year explains the changes in extreme heat timing within the traditional heat season.
However, annual average warming alone cannot explain the uneven changes in how extreme heat is occurring in the shoulder seasons.
As such, we conclude there must be other factors at play.
Long-term changes in seasonal precipitation and soil moisture – whether drying or moistening – could be contributing.
There could also be potential links to land-use changes, such as agricultural intensification or increased irrigation. Natural fluctuations in regional climates, caused by phenomena such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, could also be playing an important role.
To tease out the contributions of each of these drivers, scientists will need to conduct more regionally-focused studies.
Managing hazards
The expansion of extreme heat events into the shoulder seasons indicates that key protections, such as heat early warning systems and the establishment of cooling centres, may be needed outside the traditional summer months.
Further research is also required to look into whether the overlap of extreme heat with other seasonal hazards is increasing.
For example, we find that, throughout much of the US, there is a larger expansion of the heat season into the autumn than the spring. In the western US, extreme heat which stretches later into the year could increase the overlap between the extreme heat and wildfire seasons.
Meanwhile, a similar extension of the heat season into the autumn in the eastern US could increase the overlap between the extreme heat and Atlantic hurricane seasons.
Understanding how the intersection of these seasonal hazards is changing is essential for developing targeted climate adaptation strategies, given that multiple hazards happening at once or in quick succession are much more dangerous than when they happen in isolation.
Ivanovich, C. et al. (2026) Extreme dry- and humid-heat seasons are changing asymmetrically, AGU Advances, doi:10.1029/2026AV002516
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The post Guest post: How extreme heat is ‘creeping’ from summer into autumn and spring appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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