At COP28 in Dubai, Carbon Brief’s Anika Patel spoke with Prof Pan Jiahua, vice-chair of the national expert panel on climate change of China, about his ideas for how to move to a zero-carbon future.
This interview covers a wide range of topics, including China’s stance on fossil fuels, the concept of an “ecological civilisation”, the usefulness of a global “loss-and-damage fund”, and prospects for distributed solar and power market reform in China. It is transcribed in full below, following a summary of key quotes.
China’s national expert committee on climate change, of which Prof Pan is vice-chair, is an advisory body under the national leaders group on climate change, energy-saving and emissions reduction.
He is also a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and director of its Research Center for Sustainable Development, as well as director of Beijing University of Technology’s Institute of Eco-Civilization Studies and a member of the China Carbon Neutral Fifty Forum.
- On the philosophy of ‘ecological civilisation’: “Human beings, for their own benefit – they ignored the benefit of nature. The welfare of nature. We expose nature, we deplete our natural resources…[Under ecological civilisation] the basic idea [is] that [if we can achieve] harmony with nature [and] harmony among our nations, then we can go long into the future.”
- On the success of UN climate summits: “COP is the only thing that [has lasted] over 30 years…We have different views, different arguments, different interests but, all in all, we’ve come a long way…we agreed the Paris targets – in 1990 nobody would believe that [was possible].”
- On the ‘loss-and-damage fund’: “Losses and damages should be compensated, but not in a way that we divert our energy and resources for [the sake of] compensation. We should use all our energy, resources, spirits – everything – for the zero-carbon transition.”
- On the ‘climate paradox’: “If you divert the limited resources for compensating losses and damages, then the zero-carbon transition would be delayed. And if you delay such a transition, there will be more and more losses and damages. I call this the climate paradox.”
- On tripling renewable energy: “Tripling renewable energy is not enough. Why are we only tripling? Why not more and more, the more the better. Because look at China – [we] doubled and doubled and doubled [our renewable energy] all the time. This year we doubled installed capacity over the last year. Why shouldn’t we do more than just tripling?”
- On replacing energy infrastructure: “Renewables would not require a huge amount of investment in infrastructure. Fossil fuels, coal electricity generation – the investment is very capital intensive…right? Waste of money.”
- On subsidies and industrial policy: “Like a plant – in the very beginning when it’s a seed then you need to take care of it. But when it grows and becomes mature, then it can stand on its own and be competitive.”
- On an alternative to a centralised electricity grid: “I use the term ‘prosumerism’. Production, consumption and storage all in one, right? You do not require a very capital intensive power grid.…And also, this is consumer sovereignty – when you have your own system, you have a say and then…you are not totally reliant on the power grid.”
- On western suspicion: “Why did China suddenly become number one in zero-carbon renewables? It’s simply because the United States and Europe used anti-dumping subsidies and section 301 investigations in 2010. Then the Chinese competitive products, solar panels, were not able to go to the world market, so we thought we should…install everything inside of China and immediately China became number one in the world. Now you see the United States and Europe again say ‘no, it’s [a question of] supply chain security’. Right? This is really self-conflicting. On one hand they say ‘climate security’, on the other they say their ‘own security’.”
- On phasing out fossil fuels: “We want to have everything competitive enough to phase out fossil fuels, through the market process. Not command and control.”
- On abating fossil fuels: “I think that abated fossil fuels is a false statement. Because abated is not compatible, they have no competitiveness. When you abate it, it is more expensive. You think the consumers are silly? They will simply vote for competitive[ly priced] electricity.”
- On the future of fossil fuels: “Fossil fuels are fossils. They are a thing of the past.”
- On the ‘global stocktake’ negotiations: “[We talk about] responsibility sharing, carbon emissions reduction. But everybody will say ‘No, I will not [accept] any limits. You want to limit me, I want to do more.’ This is human psychology, right?”
- On the challenges of power market reform: “Only the monopoly people will [call for] ‘reform’, and through reform they gain more power, they gain more monopoly. The prosumerism system will destroy such monopolies.”
- On the urgency of ‘global boiling’: “Global warming is not global warming, it’s global boiling…Renewables are good for welfare, for wellbeing, for growing the economy, for a better environment. It’s for everybody and for the future. Fossil fuels are not for the future.”
Carbon Brief: If you don’t mind, I’d like to jump straight in. I read a lot about your work on defining the concept of an ecological civilisation, which is a concept that’s not very well understood outside China. In your previous work, you’ve described it as realising harmony between humans and nature in contrast to industrial civilisation. Could you give an overview of what an ecological civilisation is and how this concept has evolved?
Pan Jiahua: Well, from [the beginning of] human civilisation, from primitive agrarian society, human beings have relied somewhat completely on nature. The ability to live more comfortably was very limited and then, with technological innovation and the industrial revolution, we have entered the new era: the industrial stage. A sort of industrial civilisation.
Under industrial civilisation, we have an ethical principle, which is utilitarian. Measurement of happiness in human beings – we would like to be happy – and how to measure happiness? Then the British philosophers, they invented the idea of utilitarianism, which means that, once you have some sort of self-interest, self-achievement or self-realisation, then you are happy. And then happy, you need some sort of measurement. That is utilitarianism, everything is useful, everything brings you benefits, then you would be happier, right? This is utilitarian. And then the measurement in economic terminology, that is utility right? Everything has a utility and then that brings happiness to human beings. So that is utilitarianism, and then when there is no utility, then there is nothing to bring you happiness.
So this is the philosophy, the ethical foundation or ethical principle. And let’s put it another way: because of this ethical principle, that means that everybody tries to optimise his own utility. At the same time, when he maximises his own utility, he tries to provide services to other people and then the social welfare, social wellbeing in total is further improved, right? So this is the whole idea of the industrial revolution and industrialisation, that everybody would benefit.
But now, because human beings, for their own benefit – they ignored the benefit of nature. The welfare of nature. We expose nature, we deplete our natural resources, you know? And then nature is depleted and nature is destroyed, damaged, lost. And then we found that: “Oh my god, this is not sustainable.” We need to change back our principle, and not be utilitarian. We need to have something in harmony with nature, right?
Now, when we talk about security, right? Under an industrial utilitarian principle, security just [means] your own security – like the United States, like Donald Trump saying “America first”. The others, they are nobody, just America first. Others are secondary or tertiary or not important at all, only the United States is the most important. Right? Let’s get a slogan ‘America First’, so the others are not important and now it is the same. They talk about national security, their own security. The others, they don’t care. Like Russia’s own security. The others’ security is not on their agenda, right? So this is utilitarianism, this is self-interest. [Under the concept of ecological civilisation], security is not only for one but for all, for everybody, for man and nature.
CB: And does this include energy security?
PJH: Of course, energy security is one of many securities. So we need to understand security through a new mentality. This mentality has security for all. All the securities are important and should be treated equally, not that one security is superior to the others, all securities are important, should be treated equally, right? So this is harmony between man and nature. That means that not only in the United States, Russia, China, other developing countries – they should be treated equally. Your security, Russian security, Chinese security, all the securities should be treated at a similar level, as equally important. So this is a harmonious society, a harmonious world, harmonious human beings. Otherwise just your own security, the others’ security, they are not secure, and then how can they be guaranteed?
So this is the logic, and then, human beings are part of society, we are part of [the community of life on] Earth. Human beings are all one race. We have so many other species. Other species should also be treated equally. Their security, the plants, the animals and all the other forms of life. They should be treated equally, their security, not only human beings’ security, the security of nature, security of better diversity. So, this is all the securities, man and nature in harmony, living in harmony with nature. This is the principle. This principle is different from utilitarianism. That means on Earth we all are one community, an Earth community, a life community, we share our own planet, we share our future, not only one nation, one race, but everybody – not only [the] current generation, but future generations as well. So this is the basic idea that [if we can achieve] harmony with nature [and] harmony among our nations, then we can go long into the future. Otherwise, there’s conflicts among our nations, conflicts among culture, and then conflicts between man and nature. And then we will not have a future.
CB: You’ve actually teed up my next question really well. Given these hopes for harmony between different countries and harmony between man and nature, do you see the seeds of harmony at COP28?
PJH: I think that COP is the only thing that [has lasted] over 30 years. In 1990, when the United Nations created the intergovernmental negotiation committee, which resulted in the UNFCCC – this was agreed in 1992, and then in 1994 it came into force. This is the only one that lasts so long. And we have different views, different arguments, different interests but, all in all, we’ve come a long way, and now we come together and we agreed the Paris targets – in 1990 nobody would believe that [was possible]. “Oh no, global warming, that’s not my business, that’s something the rich guys should do, not us poor guys.” Right? And then at Copenhagen, when the 2C target was included in the Copenhagen Accord, that was no success at all.
And then, only five or six years later in 2015, we successfully completed the Paris Agreement. Not only 2C but 1.5C as well. And now step by step we come to a consensus. 1.5C should be the target and all our efforts should be focused on complying with 1.5C, and that’s the target. I think that’s why, in the UK for COP26 in Glasgow, [we had] 1.5C and then last year, at COP27, 1.5C was reiterated and reaffirmed, and this year [2023] I think that we should have no dissenting voices, right? So this is a great achievement and that means that all human beings can reach a consensus and can go further and further continuously. In the past, we would take a step forward and then go backward. And now at the climate conferences, we always go forward and make progress all the time. So this is really great.
But now I do have a different view. That is the global stocktake. I think that this is necessary, but [within the] global stocktake there are quite a few that are on a set track – [will they] derail or progress?
One is the “loss-and-damage fund”. Some people say that, okay, the climate morale requires the most vulnerable nations to be compensated for climate damages and climate losses. When on the first sight, it is reasonable, it is based on climate morale because they are not at any fault [for climate change] and they are suffering, so they should be compensated. I have a different view. Losses and damages should be compensated, but not in a way that we divert our energy and resources for [the sake of] compensation. We should use all our energy, resources, spirits – everything – for the zero-carbon transition. Because if you divert the limited resources for compensating losses and damages, then the zero-carbon transition would be delayed. And if you delay such a transition, there will be more and more losses and damages. I call this the climate paradox. The paradox of climate and morale.
CB: So is it a battle between short-term and long-term thinking?
PJH: No, it’s not short-term and long-term. You know, the mentality is not right. The mentality is that the focus should be zero-carbon transition. Because if you spend your time, resources, energy, negotiating the losses and damages fund – who suffers and who should pay and how the resources should be allocated – this is a waste of resources and a waste of time. Instead, we should focus our attention on zero-carbon transformation. Everything should be zero-carbon. All the people, all the countries, all the parties, all the resources: zero-carbon. And then, in the future, we would minimise our losses and damages. Otherwise, we will divert limited resources and then we will not be able to concentrate our efforts on zero-carbon transformation. So this is the mentality. I think that [the purpose of the] loss and damages [should] not be for compensation but for zero-carbon transition, zero-carbon transformation, zero carbon development.
Now if we see zero-carbon development, it is high quality. For instance, solar energy. Instead of compensation for losses and damages, you install solar panels and then you have energy. That is well-being, that is income, that is ability to develop, instead of some sort of imaginary losses and damages. Right?
CB: A critic might say, firstly countries are pledging to triple global renewables – so there is still focus on mitigation – but they might also say that countries that are seeing their infrastructure destroyed, for example through conflict, have the opportunity to develop new low-carbon infrastructure.
PJH: This is wrong. For one thing, tripling renewable energy is not enough. Why are we only tripling? Why not more and more, the more the better. Because look at China – [we] doubled and doubled and doubled [our renewable energy] all the time. This year we doubled installed capacity over the last year. Why shouldn’t we do more than just tripling? Insufficient, not enough, we should do more and more and more and more, not only tripling, it is not enough.
And the second thing: when you talk about replacing energy infrastructure. Renewables would not require a huge amount of investment in infrastructure. Fossil fuels, coal electricity generation – the investment is very capital intensive. It would require investment of a huge amount of money for construction of the thermal power plants, it would require a huge amount of investment into the power grid and distribution. Right? Waste of money.
If you go to zero-carbon solar panels on top of your roof, you have your electricity. And then when it’s intermittent, you see [we have] power batteries, which are so cheap. You should go to China to have a look at power batteries – 20 years ago, who would have imagined that electric vehicles would be competitive. Even three years ago nobody [would have thought so]. And now you see, [they are] so competitive.
CB: That’s so true, in my Beijing apartment, we didn’t have solar panels, but we did have EV charging points.
PJH: Right? So that means the infrastructure, everything is under your own control, you will not be reliant on capitalists. So that is the difference, right? Infrastructure. That’s why I say the “loss-and-damages fund” does nothing. Just zero-carbon transition, zero-carbon energy, zero-carbon development, zero-carbon welfare, zero-carbon well-being.
CB: To take China as an example, do you think that there’s more public consciousness around zero-carbon development? EVs makes sense because they were subsidised until recently –
PJH: They’re not subsidised any more. But you’re right, in the past it was. Everything, at the very beginning, was. Just like how when new babies are born, you should take care of them. That’s true for everything new. That’s natural, like a plant – in the very beginning when it’s a seed then you need to take care of it. But when it grows and becomes mature, then it can stand on its own and be competitive.
CB: So then, from the consumer’s point of view, are people interested in solar panels on their rooftops, recycling, things like that?
I think that this [consumer-based approach] is comprehensive and is inclusive. Everybody can contribute, to zero-carbon, to plastics, to energy, right? If you reuse materials, then you will reduce emissions. You would delay the depletion of fossil fuels. Right? So this is one of the approaches. All approaches combined leads to consensus, which is a Chinese value.
Renewables are competitive, electrical vehicles are competitive and batteries have huge potential, and everybody has high expectations that these batteries would become more and more competitive, and then every household, every school can be an independent unit. I call it “prosumerism”. Production of solar and [wind] turbines fuels generation of electricity, that’s production right? And consumption is kitchen utensils, heat pumps, air conditioning, light, everything – consumption. And then you have your storage – power batteries, right? Because of the intermittency of solar, the challenges can be resolved through power battery storage.
So I use the term “prosumerism”. Production, consumption and storage all in one, right? You do not require a very capital intensive power grid. That’s very impressive. And also, this is consumer sovereignty – when you have your own system, you have a say and then…you are not totally reliant on the power grid. If [the grid operators] say something is wrong, then you have no control, if they increase the price, then you have to accept it, you have no argument, everything is under their control. With prosumerism, everything is under your own control. I call it consumer sovereignty.
So why should developing countries spend money and waste money on the power grid? Just [adopt] an independent prosumerist system.
CB: I think the EU and the US now recognise they need to catch up with China’s solar industry, and we see them recognising the benefits of nurturing their “baby” industries –
PJH: Let me tell you, the EU and the United States, they always say one thing and do another, they’re very contradictory. Why did China suddenly become number one in zero-carbon renewables? It’s simply because the United States and Europe used anti-dumping subsidies and section 301 investigations in 2010. Then the Chinese competitive products, solar panels, were not able to go to the world market, so we thought we should do everything ourselves – then suddenly we should install everything inside of China and immediately China became number one in the world. Now you see the United States and Europe again say “no, it’s [a question of] supply chain security”. Right? This is really self-conflicting. On one hand they say “climate security”, on the other they say their “own security”. They don’t care about others, they don’t care about the climate. Because Chinese products are the most competitive in the world. If they are competitive, then everybody gains the lowest cost for installation of solar and wind.
CB: That’s very valid from a consumer point of view. I think everyone recognises that China is growing its renewable capacity at such a high rate, but can it sustain that indefinitely? Or will renewable energy eventually plateau? And at what point will it plateau?
PJH: I think that this is a good question. You know, for everything we have a process of very, very slow progress and then, suddenly, we have acceleration and we go to maturity. Once you get to maturity, you do not [need as much support], because, [like] human beings…once you are big enough, you do not require too much to eat, you do not require more food, right?
It’s the same, when zero-carbon energy is sufficient to meet your demand, that is enough. You do not need to produce more for nothing, for wasting, right? So that answers your question, that is when we have sufficient capacity, then there’s no need to produce more for China. But we do have [to have] such capacity, [because] we need renewables. We do have to have new technologies, right? It’s progress for China.
Now I think that we are developing very fast, we want to have everything competitive enough to phase out fossil fuels, through the market process. Not command and control. Use market forces to phase out fossil fuels because now, you see solar electricity, wind electricity, it’s only a fraction of coal-fired electricity, that’s still competitive. And now the intermittency challenge is resolved through storage, because what we need is energy services. We do not require carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is nothing.
CB: To clarify, you’re not talking about phasing out unabated fossil fuels, you’re talking about phasing out all fossil fuels?
PJH: I think that abated fossil fuels is a false statement. Because abated is not compatible, they have no competitiveness. When you abate it, it is more expensive. You think the consumers are silly? They will simply vote for competitive[ly priced] electricity. Right? So, I think that abated fossil fuels is a false statement. It does not stand. You know what I mean?
It is really a silly statement. I’ll give you an example – gasoline automobiles. Nowadays in China, you see the young people, who cares to buy [gasoline vehicles]? You have no market at all, nobody cares, nobody buys. Purely electric vehicles – that’s the market. Gasoline vehicles, no matter if they are ‘abated’ or ‘unabated’ – nobody cares. This is one illustrative example. So, the [idea of] abated fossil fuels really is nonsense. Nonsense.
CB: You mean that both the idea of unabated and abated fossil fuels are nonsense?
PJH: Both. Zero-carbon renewables are so competitive. They simply bring more employment, more revenue, better health and wellbeing. Right? And they give zero-carbon emissions. There are multiple wins.
CB: We’ve seen reports of particularly local governments building more coal capacity, perhaps to boost local economic growth. What do you think it would take –
PJH: You are right. In all societies, different people and different groups have different interests. For fossil fuels, in the past they were so powerful. They want to keep their power, they want to keep their influence, they want to keep their monopoly. It’s understandable. I don’t care at all – “okay, you do it”. But the next day, you guys realised it was wrong.
So I don’t care at all, [even though] so many people say in China local governments and state power companies are investing a huge amount in coal power. Never mind. They will be phased out automatically through the market. As I said, it is not command and control [that will drive the energy transition]. It’s market forces. It’s market power. Believe in market power.
CB: I heard someone make the argument that, as China tried to control the impact that the Covid-19 outbreak had on the economy, that coal interest groups may have lost some of their power and ‘new energy’ interest groups may have gained some power. Would you agree?
PJH: Well, we really don’t need to worry about this. The coal and fossil fuels industries are very powerful – state-owned and state-dominated. Very powerful. But I think “Okay, you are powerful. But, the sooner solar is [widely adopted], everybody can do it themselves, then we do not have to rely on them. We can let them be.” No matter how powerful they are today, I have no confidence that they will continue to hold a monopoly in the future, like the automobile sector. You know, in China automobile companies were state-owned companies, and so powerful in the past.
Now the evidence shows that fossil fuels are fossils. They are a thing of the past, they have no future. That’s why I think the global stocktake at COP28, the direction is wrong. We say “Oh the emissions reduction gap.” The gap is nothing.
CB: So what language do you expect to see out of the global stocktake?
PJH: The current language is wrong. [We talk about] responsibility sharing, carbon emissions reduction. But everybody will say “No, I will not [accept] any limits. You want to limit me, I want to do more.” This is human psychology, right? And so you say “No limits, you just do what you can.”
Zero-carbon renewable energy will bring employment, growth of the economy, wellbeing and a better environment. One example is electric vehicles: 100 kilometres (km) of drive, in China’s case, requires 12 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity. 1 kWh of electricity, if you use solar together with power storage, would cost four, or at most five, US cents. Only five cents. That means that, less than one dollar – maybe 60 cents – will give you 100km distance, right? Using gasoline costs 10 times more. Consumers have the choice, it’s as simple as that.
If everybody knows that, who would say “Oh I want more fossil fuels, I want more emissions”? Emissions [would be] nothing, nobody [would need to] care about emissions. So I think that we should go in the right direction. Renewables, zero-carbon, that’s the right direction. Renewables, power batteries, electric vehicles, heat pumps. All of these are [good] for development, for quality of growth, for quality of living. That is the right direction, instead of [focusing on] “limit, limit, reduction, reduction”. Psychologically, nobody would accept limits. So that’s the logic – for growth, for the environment, for better wellbeing, that’s the logic.
CB: Will this be accelerated by expected reforms to the power spot market?
PJH: The power spot market, that’s also what the monopoly people will say. Right? And then if we [adopt the] prosumerism system, there’s no need to reform, right? We have millions and billions of [sources for] prosumerism. One household is a prosumerist unit. The market has nothing to do with the individual prosumerist system. Right?
So only the monopoly people will [call for] “reform”, and through reform they gain more power, they gain more monopoly. The prosumerism system will destroy such monopolies. I have my own system, I consume the electricity I generate, I can have everything stored in my own battery and I drive my electric vehicle. I have an independent, self-sufficient system. With monopolies – like the oil companies – the price is so volatile, because they want it to be volatile, so they can monopolise more and they can control the price. Now with electric vehicles, the oil companies are not able to control the drivers. Reform has nothing to do with it.
CB: Moving towards a zero-carbon society?
PJH: Exactly, that’s why [we are advocating for] the prosumerism system…we are going to do it inside China and then we’re going to introduce it to the world. We see a zero-carbon energy prosumerism system as a solution to a carbon neutral world. And then, in the prosumerist system, all the oil companies, all the fossil fuels – they are nobody, they are nothing. Consumers, households, they won’t care [about the fate of these companies]. That’s the solution, instead of price reform – that’s really the wrong direction. I am very confident that we have a solution, that’s the zero-carbon prosumerism system.
CB: Thank you professor. And, for my last question: do you talk to your friends and family about climate change?
PJH: Of course! Global warming is not global warming, it’s global boiling. We cannot stand, our biodiversity cannot stand, our future will not be able to sustain. So we have a solution – that’s renewables, and just renewables. Renewables are good for welfare, for wellbeing, for growing the economy, for a better environment. It’s for everybody and for the future. Fossil fuels are not for the future.
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The United Nations Secretary-General and foreign ministers from the UK, France and Spain have blamed the deadly wildfires engulfing Europe on climate change, using the disaster to renew calls for faster cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.
António Guterres told journalists on Friday that the “climate crisis is in overdrive”, adding that global heat seen so far is just a “warm up act” as a phenomenon known as El Niño intensifies “adding fuel to a planet already on fire”.
A new World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) report published on Friday predicts that the weather pattern will grow into a “strong event” between now and October, increasing the risk of higher than normal temperatures across much of the world and disrupted rainfalls.
“That risks shattering every seasonal record – and driving even more severe effects worldwide,” Guterres said.
El Niño builds on top of an already warming world, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. A WMO scientist, who did not want to be named, told journalists that all the heatwaves and other climate impacts seen so far this year are “before the effects of El Niño are really kicking in at a global scale”.
Fossil fuellling the fires
Fires have broken out across much of Europe but are threatening the most people in the south-west of France near Bordeaux and in Central Spain near Madrid. Nearly a quarter of a million people have been evacuated in France with hundreds of homes destroyed while in Spain 80,000 people have had to leave their homes and at least 13 died in one village.
A scientific study published on Friday by the World Weather Attribution group found that man-made climate change made deadly fires in France twice as likely and those in Spain twenty times more likely. Smaller fires in the UK were not analysed by the study.
UN Climate Change leader Simon Stiell blamed fossil fuels for the fires, as well as storms in Chile and heatwaves in North America and Japan in recent weeks. “The climate alarm is blaring”, he said on Wednesday.
Guterres criticised new fossil fuel production projects and fossil fuel subsidies for causing hardship across the world. Discussing his speech, a senior UN official – who did not want to be named – said the subsidies amounted to trillions of US dollars a year and criticised pension funds and institutional investors, including insurance companies, for continuing to invest in fossil fuel projects.
Asked why world leaders and the public are not prioritising climate action, Guterres said they are distracted by wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan and elsewhere and sometimes forget “other aspects that are a sometimes even more dangerous threat”.
Also the fossil fuel industry and “some countries” are campaigning to pretend that climate change does not exist, he said, adding that the UN should be more active in “naming the situations as they are and the responsibilties as they are and mobilising the public opinion”.
After meetings in Paris and Madrid earlier in the week, the UK’s new foreign minister Ed Miliband issued joint statements with his French and Spanish counterparts – Jean-Noël Barrot and José Manuel Albares Bueno – calling on the world to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.
They promised to do more to reduce emissions and protect their people and encouraged other governments to do the same.
The UK-French statement called on governments to publish UN climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which are aligned with the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit global average temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
According to Climate Action Tracker, only three countries – the UK, Nigeria and Norway – have submitted NDCs with 2035 emissions reduction targets which are compatible with 1.5C. Fifty-two countries – including Egypt, Vietnam and Argentina – have yet to submit an NDC at all.
Defending science
Beyond action on emissions, the ministers also intervened in an ongoing dispute over the timing of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC)’s next flagship assessment.
Miliband and Barrot’s statement said they “underline the importance” of scientific report feeding into governments’ next global stocktake of progress on climate action in two years’ time, calling it a “critical input” to that process.
The timing of this report has been a contentious issue in government negotiations at the IPCC and at June’s climate talks in Bonn. While a group of nations calling themselves the “friends of science” want the report before the stocktake, others like Saudi Arabia and India have argued that this would make the report of a worse quality and less inclusive of developing countries’ scientists.
Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks
The UK-Spanish statement weighed in less explicitly on this issue but said that they “recall the importance of scientific evidence and acknowledge the work of the IPCC in this respect.”
The British and French ministers said they would seek to accelerate reductions of emissions in methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, at COP31 in November. They encouraged governments “to work jointly to develop a marketplace for fossil fuels with near-zero methane intensity.”
Methane leaks from oil, gas and coal production are a major contributor to global warming. Over a 20-year period, methane traps around 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide.
The UK and Spanish statement emphasised the importance of supporting the Global South and underlined the need to mobilise sustainable financing “at scale with the challenge we face”. The previous UK government, in which Miliband was energy minister, cut climate finance to developing countries to pay for increases in military spending.
The UK government led by new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has yet to outline any major changes to climate finance in its two weeks in power but has announced it will convert some finance from grants to loans in order to free up money to subsidise bus travel in England.
More adaptation needed
Guterres said that “it is time to stop treating each disaster as an isolated tragedy and recognise the systemic risk that is unfolding before our eyes.” A recent study found that three-quarters of UK media reports about the British June heatwave did not mention climate change.
As well as reducing emissions, the UN Secretary-General called for measures to adapt vulnerable people to extreme heat. Specifically, he said that buildings should be built and retrofitted for extreme heat and that every city and country should have heat-health action plans and early warning systems. Over 250 cities have joined the UN’s ‘beat the heat’ initiative, he said.
The Portuguese diplomat called for governments and employers to do more to protect their workers from heat, criticising global fashion brands for not setting heat standards for the factories that supply them. “No one should have to risk their life to earn a living,” he said.
The post UN chief warns climate crisis “in overdrive” as El Niño threatens to fuel the fire appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN chief warns climate crisis “in overdrive” as El Niño threatens to fuel the fire
Climate Change
‘Ride the wave of momentum’: Australia announces once-in-a-decade Marine Parks Network review
In response to the federal government announcing its once-in-a-decade review of Australia’s Marine Parks Network, the following lines can be attributed to Elle Lawless, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“Greenpeace Australia Pacific welcomes today’s announcement that the Albanese Government will review Australia’s Commonwealth Marine Parks Network. This is a rare, once-in-a-decade opportunity to strengthen our marine parks and ban industrial fishing in Australia’s marine protected areas.
“Australians would be appalled to know that more than half of Australia’s Marine Parks Network currently allows for extractive industries, like longlining, bottom trawling and oil and gas mining. These so-called ‘protected’ areas were designed to safeguard our beloved ocean wildlife and underwater ecosystems – that is what Australians expect. Damaging industrial industries should not be given a free pass to trawl, fish, drill or extract from our marine parks.”
“With the first Ocean COP just around the corner, and off the back of Australia’s move to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty earlier this year, the Australian government has a unique opportunity to ride the wave of this momentum and solidify itself as a true global ocean leader.
“Greenpeace Australia Pacific is calling for industrial activities to be banned from our protected waters and for at least 30% of Australia’s ocean to be protected as ocean sanctuaries. This review presents a rare opportunity to create more ocean sanctuaries, true blue havens where ocean life can recover, thrive and repopulate the surrounding waters.”
—ENDS—
‘Ride the wave of momentum’: Australia announces once-in-a-decade Marine Parks Network review
In recent days, prominent climate sceptics and rightwing commentators have shared charts on social media incorrectly implying that Europe is having its “quietest” year for wildfires in 2026.
These include Dr Matthew Wielicki, a former University of Alabama geochemist and self-described “professor in exile”, who was recently appointed by the Trump administration to lead the US Global Change Research Program.
However, these charts paint a misleading picture as they are skewed by encompassing the entirety of Russia in the data – including the vast plains of Siberia.
These charts also use data that include fires that are deliberately lit to manage cropland, which is a declining practice across much of Europe.
In this factcheck, Carbon Brief shows that the area burned by wildfires across the European Union in 2026 is second only to 2022 for this time of year.
The latest data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) also shows that France has set a new modern record for area burned and Spain’s wildfire season is among the worst on record.
The fires have displaced more than a third of a million people across south-western Europe, while an impending heatwave has also raised fears of the fires worsening in the coming days.
‘Quietest year’
On 27 July, as wildfires raged across multiple European countries, former Conservative peer and climate-sceptic commentator Matt Ridley posted on Twitter that “2026 is the quietest year for wildfires in Europe by some distance”.
Ridley, who sits on the academic advisory council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a UK-based climate-sceptic lobby group that refuses to reveal the sources of its funding, was responding to an article by Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley.
Stanley’s column, headlined: “Climate change is real – and the right needs to get serious about it”, warned:
“This is no longer a matter of speculation: the wildfires of Europe, pitiless and persistent, are the way we live now.”
Ridley included a chart from Our World In Data, showing the cumulative area burned by wildfires by week for Europe. The chart puts 2026 as having the smallest area for this time of year in a dataset going back to 2012.
Ridley’s post was widely shared by prominent rightwing figures – including Richard Tice, deputy leader of the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform UK party, former Conservative cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and multiple commentators.
Separately, Wielicki also shared a chart on Twitter to imply that wildfires in Europe are declining. Wielicki has previously claimed that the “science is not settled on climate change”.
The charts posted by Ridley and Wielicki both use data from the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS). The GWIS category for “Europe” encompasses all the countries on the continent and includes the whole of Russia.
As a result, Russia accounts for about 74% of the area included in the GWIS definition of “Europe”.
Wildfires in Russia typically account for 80-90% of the burned area in the GWIS Europe dataset. In 2026, fires in Russia are substantially below average. Therefore, including Russia in this comparison creates the false impression that wildfire activity across Europe is unusually low.
Dr Calum Cunningham, a research fellow at the University of Tasmania’s Fire Centre, says that such claims are “highly misleading”, noting that “they rely on aggregating fire activity across an enormous and climatically diverse region”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“A relatively quiet season in Russia can easily mask an exceptionally active season in France or Spain. If the analysis is focused on the regions actually experiencing the current fires, the picture is very different.
“The reality is that western Europe has experienced an extraordinary sequence of climate conditions this year.”
In contrast, the EFFIS provides a subset of wildfire data specifically for the area covered by the 27 nations of the EU, which, therefore, excludes Russia.
Another difference between the two datasets is that GWIS monitors all fires – including those on agricultural land that are intentionally set alight. The burned area as measured by GWIS contains significant cropland area.
By contrast, EFFIS uses land-cover data and other information to filter specifically for forest fires.
Looking at the EU-only data from EFFIS reveals that Europe is far from having its “quietest” year. The bloc’s burned area, as of 29 July, is almost 435,000 hectares (ha) – second only to 2022 for this time of year.
Notably, Wielicki has actually continued to post charts based on GWIS data, even after acknowledging that “includ[ing] all of Russia, including vast areas of Siberia…isn’t a good proxy for Europe”.
French fires
Even looking at EU-wide data misses the scale of this year’s wildfires for some individual countries.
The chart below shows the surge in burned area in France since mid-July.
For much of the first half of the year, the country was having a wildfire season that was only slightly above average in terms of total burned area. However, a notable uptick began in the first week of July.
The third week of the month saw France break its previous cumulative annual record by more than 19,000ha. That gap has widened as the fires continue to burn; as of 29 July, the cumulative burned area in France during 2026 was nearly 24,700ha above the previous record.
The fires in France follow a record-breaking June heatwave that “dried out vegetation across the region, allowing fires to spread quickly”, wrote the New York Times.
On 27 July, French president Emmanuel Macron called a “crisis cabinet meeting” in order to address the fires “ravaging several areas of south-west France”, said France 24.
More than 220,000 people have been evacuated due to the Gironde fire, west of Bordeaux, in “what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation”, reported the Associated Press.
In the Conversation, Cunningham and two other University of Tasmania researchers write that evacuation orders “protec[t] human lives, but makes it more likely houses and other structures will burn if there’s no one to defend them”. They add:
“There is little doubt climate change has made France and Spain’s wildfires worse. They represent yet another reason to redouble our efforts to tackle climate change and stabilise our climate.”
Central Spain scorched
While Spain’s fire season has not broken records in the same way that France’s has, it is on track to be among the worst since EFFIS began reporting data in 2006.
The chart below shows the rapid increase in burned area in Spain since 8 July. The latest data from EFFIS reveal that, as of 29 July, Spain has almost matched its previous record at this point in the year. It is also nearly five times the average area burned for this time of year.
In Spain, the wildfires have been concentrated in the central part of the country, near Madrid.
BBC News reported that the fires outside the capital have burned “an area more than twice as large as the city itself”.
Nearly 90,000 people were forced from their homes in central Spain by the fires, said the Associated Press.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, called the fires a “painful expression” of climate change.
Meanwhile, the UK, French and Spanish governments have issued joint statements this week in response to the fires. The UK/Spain statement begins:
“This summer’s wildfires demonstrated that climate change was now a national security emergency facing Europe and threatening our way of life.”
Related
The post Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires
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