Rachel Kyte CMG was appointed the UK’s special representative for climate in October 2024.
She is professor of practice in climate policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, as well as dean emerita at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Previously, Kyte was the UN secretary-general’s special representative for sustainable energy, the CEO of Sustainable Energy for All and a vice president and special envoy for climate change at the World Bank.
- On her priorities for the role: “It’s really finance, forests and the energy transition externally.”
- On fraught geopolitics: “The Paris Agreement has worked; it just hasn’t worked well enough.”
- On the Paris Agreement: “It’s better than anything else we could negotiate today.”
- On the global response to Trump: “The rest of the world is like, ‘we’re growing, we need to grow, the fastest energy is renewable, how do we get our hands on it?’”
- On keeping 1.5C “alive”: “1.5C is still alive. 1.5C is not in good health.”
- On net-zero: “[T]he whole concept of net-zero is under attack from different political factions in a number of different countries. It is not isolated to one or two countries.”
- On climate pledges from key countries: “Let’s not make a fetish out of under-promising.”
- On delivering these pledges: “The conversations that I am engaged in…are like: ‘There’s no question about the direction of travel. The question is about the pace at which it can be executed.’”
- On COP30 outcomes: “The UK is engaged extensively with Brazil on a…potential large nature-finance package.”
- On climate impacts: “[W]e’ve got to deal with issues of adaptation, because [climate change is] happening right now, right here, right everywhere.”
- On fossil-fuel phaseout: “I think there are lots of informal discussions…around [whether] there [is] something [that] can be done on fossil-fuel subsidies.”
- On the climate-finance gap: “The pressure on our public resources is to make sure that that is targeted at where it can have the most impact.”
- On being an “activist shareholder”: “[T]he UK, which is such a significant shareholder across the multilateral development bank system…we have to be an activist shareholder.”
- On COP reform: “Should there be…summits every two years? People are talking about that.”
- On finance and the global south: “I’m not Pollyanna about this, but people [have] got really big problems in front of them.”
- On calls to slow action: “[W]hat I think we’re very forceful about is that you can’t take two to three years out of climate conferences just because the world’s really difficult.”
- On the impact of US tariffs: “[T]he sort of tariff era we’re in, the risk is that it slows down the investment in the clean-energy transition at a time when it needs to speed up.”
- On China’s role in the absence of the US: “They already were a major player. The world had already shifted in that direction.”
- On her climate “epiphany”: “I remember some very, very, strange meeting somewhere in eastern Europe and watching a really badly made movie about migration.”
Listen to this interview:
Carbon Brief: You were appointed the UK special representative for climate last October, a role that’s been held by the likes of John Ashton, David King and Nick Bridge over the last 15 years or so, and was left unfilled towards the tailend of the last government. Please, can you just explain what the role is and what your priorities are for it?
Rachel Kyte: So, it’s good to talk to you, nice to be here. So, the Labour government decided to appoint two envoys. They are politically appointed, so that does distinguish it a little bit from the past and so we are not civil servants; we occupy this space in support of ministers and in support of the civil service. So I’m the climate envoy and Ruth Davis is the nature envoy. I report to the foreign secretary [David Lammy] and the secretary of state for net-zero [Ed Miliband], and Ruth reports to the foreign secretary and to the secretary for Defra [Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs] [Steven Reed].
And our role is to help ministers project British climate and nature priorities in our engagements in the world. So we are externally focused, outside of the UK, and I think that Ruth and I coming in, and in discussion with ministers in the first weeks that we were here, focused in on the energy transition internationally, which is the extension of the energy mission domestically. Really progress around forest protection [and] tropical forest protection, because this is obviously on the critical path to getting to net-zero and, with COP30 coming up, and, having COP in the forest, this seemed to be an urgent policy. And then, for me, finance. And, of course, there’s climate finance, which is what gets negotiated in the COPs. And then there’s the financing of climate, which engages in a wider cross-Whitehall conversation around how we are building [the City of] London as the green financial centre [and] how we are exploiting the fact that the green economy is growing faster than the economy [overall].
So, inward trade investment, but outward trade investment. How we are mobilising private-sector finance. So, it’s really finance, forests and the energy transition externally.
You can imagine that the foreign secretary has a world that has got an awful lot more complicated in recent years. We’ve got more wars than we’ve had. We’ve got more grade-four famines. It’s a very, very complicated world.
So I think the envoys are there to try to support the prioritisation of climate and nature at the heart of foreign policy, which is what [the foreign secretary] said in his Kew speech. But then helping the service of the [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] deliver that externally.
CB: Thanks, Rachel. You nicely segued into our next question. We can definitely all agree that geopolitics is pretty fraught at the moment, perhaps more so than any time for decades. Multilateralism is under extreme pressure. We’ve seen that through recent UN summits, not just the COP. How does international climate policymaking – and, in particular, the Paris Agreement – survive this period of turbulence in your view? And, from some actors, there’s obviously outright hostility coming from some angles.
RK: So, it’s a great question. At the core of all of that is the fact that the Paris Agreement has worked; it just hasn’t worked well enough. And so how do we keep the conceit of the Paris Agreement? Which is that countries would have their nationally determined contributions, and that that ambition would filter up, and then when you put a wrap around it, you’ve got something that is on a line to net-zero by the middle of the century.
If countries start to slow down, or if countries start to walk away from that, how does the Paris Agreement still live? And we’re in that moment now.
But I think we have to hold two truths in our minds at the same time [within] a lot of climate, energy, nature policy. So, on the one hand, there is a direct attack; the United States has decided to leave the Paris Agreement. And I think there are many other countries looking for clarity from the United States about whether it will leave the underlying convention [the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] as well. We don’t know.
But when I travel around the world, not withstanding that and notwithstanding some of the transactional interactions of the United States with other countries on a whole range of issues, the rest of the world is like, “well, we need to grow, we need to grow fast, we need fast energy, in particular”, right? Because I think countries really are worried that if they can’t get the energy security that they need that it becomes difficult for them to manage their economies and meet their people’s needs, but they’re also very worried about missing out on the AI [artificial intelligence] revolution.
So everybody wants a data centre, everybody wants to have enough energy for AI. But I think many emerging markets and developing economies are really worried that if they miss this next S-curve this would be defining for them for the next step. So the rest of the world is like, “we’re growing, we need to grow green, the fastest energy is renewable, how do we get our hands on it?”
At the same time, obviously, we still haven’t peaked emissions from fossil fuels. There’s a short-term economy, which is alive and well and funding into gas, etc. And we have two world views about what the future of the energy transition is. We have a US view, which is that climate change…what seems to be being articulated now is “climate change is real, but it’s just not a priority for us right now and we’re doubling down on the fossil-fuel economy”.
And then kind of the rest of the world, which is, like, “yeah, we are in transition, maybe we need to slow the transition, because the world is insecure and unstable”, but, at the end of the day, they can only meet their goals with access to more clean energy.
So I’ve reduced it down to energy, but you can have that conversation on a number of other aspects. So, yes, we have to keep the Paris Agreement as the place where we move forward from. It’s better than anything else we could negotiate today. And I think that it, therefore, does need to transform itself a little bit into a way of moving implementation forward and to move outside of the confines.
So, for example, we discuss resilience in the global economy, we discuss resilience in conflict, and we discuss resilience in development and, in climate, we talk about adaptation finance. Those two things have different origins, but they are, at the end of the day, going to come together in the same sets of decisions that countries make. So, how do we move forward in that debate?
And then, in particular, for those countries that come to COPs every year and don’t get what they want and face the existential crisis, how does this continue to be meaningful for them? And I think we have to answer that question over the next couple of years.
CB: You mentioned the Paris Agreement. We’re almost 10 years on from that landmark moment. One of the central calls at that moment 10 years ago [was] “1.5C to stay alive”. Is 1.5C alive still?
RK: 1.5C is still alive. 1.5C is not in good health. And so there is an important moment that, between now and COP30 [in Brazil this November], and then coming out of COP30, we will receive the synthesis report from the UN based on all of the NDCs [nationally determined contributions]. And we will get a sense of what kind of critical condition 1.5C is in.
And then I think we have to, as an international community, work out how to address that, but also how to communicate that to the world’s publics. Because, obviously, the whole concept of net-zero is under attack from different political factions in a number of different countries. It is not isolated to one or two countries.
So, I think the question of how we communicate where we are in the transition, it has to be addressed once we see the synthesis report. But that also goes to what’s really important for the next few weeks for me and the British government, which is to still encourage those countries that have to file their NDCs to have NDCs which are stretch targets; realistic, but ambitious.
We’ve still got the EU to come in. Still got China to come in. There are a number of key economies that haven’t filed their NDCs yet, so we can sort of get very doom-laden about where we are, but there is an opportunity for a number of key blocs to still maintain the ability to be ambitious.
CB: What are you particularly looking for from, say, the EU or China, some of these key NDCs?
RK: Well, to not walk away from ambition. There are all kinds of factors that go into a country’s NDCs; the capability, the rates of economic growth, the politics and the different political cultures have a different approach to under-promising and over-delivering, versus over-promising and under-delivering.
And, while you can respect under-promising and over-delivering, the delivery is important at this particular moment with [the] Paris [Agreement] fragile. I would say that this is the moment to promise realistically, right? And I think that’s where British diplomacy is focused at the moment. Let’s not make a fetish out of under-promising.
CB: Do you think that message is landing?
RK: Yeah, I think people are…So, my impression is that no country in the world is not living in the world, right? So people are watching the tariff wars, but…this is complicated. What does this mean for us?
I was in Southeast Asia a few weeks ago. Every country is trying to get a deal with the US and understand whether things are stable, or whether they’re going to change. It has direct impacts on the flow of finance into the clean-energy infrastructure that needs to be built. It has a direct impact on the cost of capital, etc.
Every country is watching the broader geopolitics. Everybody’s watching people become distracted by other wars and conflicts. And, in the middle of that, you’ve got to plot your way through to growth, right? And then that growth has to be greener, because [of] the cost of clean air or the benefit of clean air, the benefit of jobs, etc. This is understood, but this is a particularly difficult environment in which to navigate.
And, in the middle of that, we’re asking countries to plot out how they’re going to get to where they are committed to being. And for countries that produce conditional NDCs – ie if the finance is there, then we can do this – both trade and finance and international cooperation have been disrupted over the last year.
So, NDCs are complicated things to produce at the moment, just like any other growth plan. And so the conversations that I am engaged in, the further east and south you go, are like: “There’s no question about the direction of travel. The question is about the pace at which it can be executed.”
CB: Looking ahead to COP30 in Brazil later this year, realistically, you’ve already talked about a lot of different tensions that we’re facing, So what kind of outcomes are you expecting? And what are you pushing for?
RK: The UK is engaged extensively with Brazil on a couple of things. One is, I would describe it as a potential large nature finance package, right? Carbon markets, we agreed Article 6. There’s technical work that’s going on. There’s a lot of Article 6.2 activity. We are leading the coalition with Singapore and Kenya on demand for voluntary carbon markets. The Brazilians are very interested in the interoperability of compliance markets. So a piece around really driving carbon markets forward, because that would be a new stream of revenue, much needed, right? And answers part of the climate-finance problems.
Secondly, is the TFFF, the tropical forest – I always get it wrong –Tropical Forest Forever Facility. This is a flagship initiative of the Brazilian government and, if we have a COP in the forest, then we should be able to make breakthroughs in how we address the need to have a flow of finance into tropical-forest countries.
So, we’re working extensively with the Brazilians and we’re waiting for them to come forward with the prospectus. And then the question is our contribution [to the TFFF], if we make one with others, and also our ability to help the Brazilians go, basically, on a road show, right? And get other private-asset owners and asset managers and others into this fund.
And then maybe other nature finance things to do. Remember that biodiversity COPs always talk about climate, climate COPs never talk about nature, so we can correct for that. So that would be one bucket.
Then there’s going to be, this will not be negotiated, but the Brazilians will produce, together with the Azerbaijanis, a Baku-to-Belém roadmap. This, hopefully, will demystify how we get from $300bn to $1.3tn, or whatever the number is, and start to talk about how we scale; the leverage of public money for private money. So this is issues of standardisation of different asset classes, new asset classes [and] new ways of issuing bonds. So all of the mechanics of international finance that can be mobilised. And I think this is not well understood in a COP. It might be well understood in the City [of London] or in Frankfurt or Wall Street, but maybe this roadmap can demystify it.
And then I think we’ve got to deal with issues of adaptation, because it’s happening right now, right here, right everywhere, and the questions of adaptation finance, which isn’t just about the “quantum”. It’s also about what kind of financing: the grants, the need for concessional [financing], where the private sector is really able to mobilise and also quality [finance], and it’s also the accessibility of that finance.
We’re seeing huge improvement in the performance of the Green Climate Fund. The multilateral climate funds are just emerging now into an era where they can start to really deliver at scale. And then we’ve got the reform of the MDBs [multilateral development banks], where we, I think, have to be a much more activist shareholder.
So, finance, forests, bigger package on nature. I mean, there’s a lot more that needs to be negotiated, but I think those would be things that we can do, not withstanding the geopolitics.
CB: I’m quite struck that almost all of those things that you talked about are outside of the formal [COP30] negotiations. What do you think is going to happen on something like carrying forward the fossil-fuel transition outcome from Dubai?
RK: So I think there’s two things going on, right? One is what can we negotiate in the current environment, with the current postures of different groupings and different countries, and getting moving on the action around tripling renewables, doubling efficiency and transitioning away [from fossil fuels] is very important.
So, what could that look like? I think there are lots of informal discussions at the moment between different groups and with the Brazilians around [whether] there [is] something [that] can be done on fossil-fuel subsidies? Can we set targets within that that would allow us to measure progress? What can we usefully agree on that, this year?
And, then, I think there [are] conversations around where does the stuff that’s happening outside of COP land in a negotiated text? Or how does it get referenced?
I think we’re waiting for clarity from the Brazilians about their approach to a “cover text” and things like this. And I think this is still in the air. But these things that could happen outside of the negotiated text, referenced appropriately, give life and meaning to some of the paragraphs that need to be negotiated.
CB: With many major donors, including the UK, cutting their own budgets, even as countries made this collective pledge to scale up climate finance that you referenced, there’s a lot of expectation now on institutions like the World Bank and the multilateral development banks. Are these institutions capable of filling this climate-finance gap? Or where else should developing countries be looking? You mentioned maybe some of the carbon-market kind of revenue-raising, potentially? But, just on the wider pressures they are now facing, as we already alluded to, the kind of pressure on those multilateral institutions…
RK: Yes. So, we’re now basically – across the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] – with a lot of countries hovering at like 0.3% GDP for ODA [official development assistance]. So, first of all, the war on nature and the climate crisis are one and the same thing, [they] are the context within which all growth and development happens, right? So the pressure on our public resources is to make sure that that is targeted at where it can have the most impact, where it’s needed most, and targeted at where it can be, where it can leverage itself, right?
So, we can talk about how we use ODA to sort of reduce emissions. There are certain geographies where emissions need to be curbed in order for us to get to 1.5C and then how do we use the public money to leverage other resources to crowd in and end the destruction of tropical rainforest or the protection of mangroves. So you take your climate-critical path, and you look at your ODA and you say: “How do we apply this the most effectively?”
For a country like the UK, which is such a significant shareholder across the multilateral development bank system, then we have to be an activist shareholder. And, yes, the answer is that the MDBs could do more. First of all, they’re doing more now than they were a few years ago. And they could do even more.
If we look at the leverage rates of the MDBs, those could go up. And I think in the conversations around the $300bn at COP29 it was very clear, especially from the regional development banks, that they thought that they could do more. And I think that in some instruments and in some ways in which they work, they could do a lot more. So I think those leverage rates should be over $1 for certain facilities, etc.
We know a lot more about how to use guarantees. We know a lot more about how to leverage the private sector using MDBs. The classic example for us was taking the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), putting a bond structure around their performing portfolio, and then listing it in London [on the stock exchange] and raising $7bn [$500m, following clarification after the interview], which then goes back to the CIF to be reinvested. I think there’s just been recent stories about the Inter-American Development Bank [IADB], which has a set of performing assets in its portfolio of renewable energy that can be turned into an instrument that can be listed, that generates money, that goes back into IADB.
So I think this is learnt now and, because of the ODA cuts, this becomes very, very important. So I am confident that there is a “to-do list” and that to-do list has come out of MDB reform work. It’s come out of the G20, TF-CLIMA, it’s come out of the Brazilians last year. It’s come out of other work that other thinktanks and others have been doing. London just listed…the government just announced a sustainable debt work here in the UK. So, that to-do list is a kind of “known known”. Right now the question is implementing it and that will require political leadership, for sure. And the Brazilians have created a circle of climate ministers, sort of 30 climate ministers to lead that. And there is a coalition of finance ministers convened by the World Bank.
We know what we need to do and now we need to start working out how to do it. The other thing is that we have an investor taskforce that the Treasury and the Foreign Office and leaders from the private sector have set up. And that’s sort of crunching its way through the mechanics of some of these things. But I think, as they start to go to market, we should be able to invest.
And there are a couple of things where we haven’t really faced up to yet. So, first of all, the private sector is investing in resilience, a) because it’s losing money, so it’s backstopping. And, secondly, because it can see how the world is being impacted by climate change, they are investing in their resilience in changed circumstances. That is captured as a cost in most countries in their accounts. That is not seen as an investment.
And also, I think in most countries – and certainly in the UN – we have no way to capture that. So we don’t really capture how much the private sector is already investing in its ability to just continue to operate under current climate conditions.
CB: It’s been really interesting over this year so far to see the Brazilian presidency of COP30 and also conversations at the Bonn talks in June explicitly referencing this idea of COP reform. What reforms would you propose or support?
RK: So, there’s no fixed British position on this yet, right? But I think what’s being discussed is there’s a utility to walking up to a mountain and putting a flag on the mountain every year, right? But, actually, we’re sort of in a more undulating landscape of implementation, where we need to be working throughout the year, right?
So, should there be Rio Trio summits every two years? People are talking about that. I think you could argue backwards and forwards, right or wrong, on that. What happens between the COPs? How do you bring the external world into the COPs? How do you let subnational actors and voices be heard at the COPs? These are all live topics and I think we need to move forward on most of them.
And then are we getting to the point where only certain countries can host them because they’re so big? I don’t know. Do you have thematic meetings throughout the year? How do we better keep real-time track of progress? So the next time we do a stocktake, in the world of AI and other things, is there a better and easier way? And can we still make that more transparent?
It would be great if the public could look at a sort of traffic-light spreadsheet and [say], “OK, we’re on track and not on track”. So I think all of those [questions are being asked] and it poses real challenges to the UN, which itself is in a process of reform now, in part, as a response to the US’s sort of questioning of the efficacy of parts of the UN, but also, I think, because the world is significantly changing.
CB: In your role, you’ve been in meetings over recent months with counterparts in Indonesia, China, South Africa, etc. What have been, particularly for some of those key countries, what have been the specific points of conversation you’ve had with them? Is it all about finance, or other important ingredients to those discussions?
RK: No, I think the starting point is, well, a lot of it is about finance, but, it’s about investment. It’s about growth and investment, right? It’s green growth and investment. And then finance fits into that.
So it’s not the finer points of the way finance is described in the COP. It is huge demand for the technical capacity of the UK, whether it is sophisticated demand-side management in grids, or how we regulate and how we oversee our grids in this country. Or how we exited from coal. Or what we are planning on some other dimension of the energy transition, our technical capacity and civil nuclear management. The desire for UK Inc’s knowledge about how we do things on things that we have actually been successful in – and also lessons of failure as well, honestly. So, everybody is figuring out how to do this.
There’s a strong desire for a pragmatic UK that is capable of convening across traditional blocs. I think we are seen as having a relationship with Brussels, a relationship with the US, a dialogue with China, a new free-trade agreement with India and a dialogue with India, [as well as] relationships through the Commonwealth and directly with small island states and least developed countries. We are seen as someone that already has bridges in place [and] could help strengthen those bridges.
So, what’s really been striking to me is it isn’t a conversation about, “oh woe is us, what we’re going to do?” It’s a conversation like: “I have a 10% growth rate. I need to do this. I would like you to be investing more.” It’s that kind of conversation – and that’s whether I’m meeting the minister of energy, finance, mines, environment, whoever I’m meeting with, that’s kind of the focus.
So I’m not Pollyanna about this, but people have got really big problems in front of them and it’s about their economic growth and development. And it’s, how can we help? I think the other thing that’s really coming through is just the cost of the impacts already, every flood, every failed harvest, every pressure on a city. I mean, this is really, really, really now…you can’t escape it, every country’s in the middle of it, we’re in the middle of it, domestically. And how this gets addressed, I think it is a question for this COP and the next COP.
CB: Other than the prime minister [Keir Starmer] and also your bosses, Ed Miliband and David Lammy, you’re kind of one of the key “faces” on the international stage representing just how invested the current UK government is in this issue of climate change. How do you think the UK’s role in this is perceived by other countries, ranging from China and other climate vulnerables, to the likes of the EU and the US?
RK: So, I think my perception of the external view of us is that – and what we’ve been trying to project as well – is “don’t do as we say, do as we do”. That means that we need to do a lot of things building on [the progress we’ve already made]. And I think that the beginning of the inward investment, just in the last year, into the clean-energy economy here [in the UK], that’s upwards of £50bn. So we’re open for business.
There’s one thing to talk about the City as a green financial centre, which has happened because of the leadership of City leaders, but now there’s this dialogue between government and the City about how to make that even broader. And, of course, that would mean becoming the western world’s heart of the carbon markets, if Singapore is the heart of the sort of eastern world’s carbon markets. It would mean that London helps define what a good biodiversity credit looks like, what a standardised swap looks like. There’s so much more that could be done there and I think that that’s what people want from us, but it’s also what we are trying to be able to build ourselves up to offer.
I think people want us engaged in the dialogue. So there’s a strategic dialogue with China. You could say that the strategic dialogue between China, the UK and the EU is the sort of triangular underpinning, actually, of the strength of the Paris Agreement. And, of course, we’re just about to see the EU-China summit, which will be important.
Our dialogue with India is interesting, right? So India found itself in a very difficult position at the end of COP29. In our free-trade agreement and in our strategic partnership with India climate and energy is a big part of that conversation. That’s all about technical lessons, learning and investment in both directions.
And then with the EU, the EU/UK reset is in the rearview mirror now. So now we need to get into the negotiations around the proximity, or the alignment between the ETSs [emissions trading schemes] shared stances on other issues and then how we show up as the sort of “liberal west” in the COPs.
So, the world is changing. It’s flatter. The BRICS are more and more important. We have, I think, powerful relationships with a number of key countries within the BRICS and that is an object of foreign policy, as well. And so how do we as the UK build up our agility, our global sense of the world and our place in it, so that we can help everybody stay on track for the kind of results we need by the middle of the century.
But what I think we’re very forceful about is that you can’t take two to three years out of climate conferences just because the world’s really difficult. And that has to be argued domestically and it has to be argued with [our] international partners. We don’t have time to just sort of say, “Oh, well, we’ll come back to that”. We have to build it in now.
CB: Specifically around the damage that’s been caused by the current trade tensions caused by the US, how do you think that is directly impacting the kind of wider climate negotiations, but also just the push towards the transition? Is this a key stumbling block now?
RK: Investment flows when everybody feels confident, right? And it just begs a whole bunch of questions and I think that’s slowing down investment decision-making.
So, I don’t think it’s specifically anti-climate, or whatever. I think it’s, generically, like if I don’t know if the tariff is 10%, 20%, 25%, 56%, whatever, well, let me put it off till the next quarter to make that investment decision. And I think that that’s what we’re beginning to see. So that, for me, is the main [thing]…It’s the hesitancy that it puts in the mind of government, but also in the mind of investors and the private sector.
I mean, it’s a little bit too early to tell in terms of investment not going into the US and going elsewhere, or individual supply chains for individual pieces of the clean transition, but I think the main problem globally is just this hesitation.
I would have to say that other things, including, perhaps, the ability of NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] and the National Weather Service to continue to provide services to the Caribbean and Central America, that the impact of the cuts to USAid [US Agency for International Development] in certain geographies are profound. But, generally, the sort of tariff era we’re in, the risk is that it slows down the investment in the clean-energy transition at a time when it needs to speed up.
CB: With the US in retreat, is China now the most important country in the world when it comes to climate action? Can you give a sense of your recent conversations with your Chinese counterparts, both recently, but also how they might have changed over recent years?
RK: So China’s posture before…there is obviously a China-US dynamic, but aside from that dynamic, China’s posture has been that “we are multilateralists, we want multilateralism to thrive and we’re all in”, right? And they’ve repeated that in every possible forum and they’ve repeated that at the highest level, including in [Chinese president] Xi Jinping’s statements at the leaders summit hosted by the UN secretary-general [António Guterres] and [Brazil’s] President Lula. So they are in.
Are they taking up space that would have been occupied by the US before? Nature abhors a vacuum, so all kinds of people are coming in. And the world moves towards China because of the fact that, over the last 25 years, it’s emerged as dominant in the solar-energy supply chain, with all of the problems that that has brought as well.
And then, financially, because of the way in which the [UNFCCC] convention is framed, they are a developing country, so they quite rightly only want their contributions to be made voluntarily, but they are a major player, right?
They already were a major player. The world had already shifted in that direction. Our conversation with them is technical and collegial and, I think, really frank. And we hosted the ministry of environment [Huang Runqiu] here recently [and] met with both the secretary of state for energy and the secretary of state for environment, and I was just really struck at how wide-ranging the issues that they would like to discuss is, and just how sort of practical, pragmatic and how sort of sleeves rolled up it was. And I think that’s also what is observed in their relationship with the conversations they’re having at a technical level in Brussels.
So it’s a complicated, nuanced relationship across all issues of trade, security, investment and climate. But they’re living in a world where climate is going to disrupt their own economy, if they don’t build their resilience. And of course, China has its tentacles everywhere. So maintaining our ability to talk to China about these issues, notwithstanding all of the other tensions and difficulties and opportunities, is “sine qua non”, I think. So let’s see how they show up in Belém.
CB: Just the final question, which is a bit more of a personal question, which we like to ask this of our interviewees, what is your first moment of epiphany on climate change? Can you remember? Was it a book, a lecture, a documentary, a conversation, or a trip you went on? Can you remember where that penny really dropped and you thought, I need to work on this, professionally and hard?
RK: There were two. One was very early on in my career. I was working on international youth politics in Europe. And, at that time, the Iron Curtain was up – I’m that old [smiles] – and sulfuric acid would go up from power plants in the east and it would land in the west and destroy the forest in Norway. And the conversation was: “Well, do you have ever-higher limits on the Norwegian industry?” Or do you go to Poland and say: “Look, can we put scrubbers on your [power plants]?” And it was the interconnected [nature of all this].
And, of course, at that time, young people in both east and western Europe wanted to build a more benign presence of Europe in the world and we wanted to be united, right? Or wanted the wall to come down. And that was a question of peace and environment. And it was the environment movement that was at the heart of the peace movement. So that was [a moment of thinking], “so I want to work on this”.
And I remember some very, very, strange meeting somewhere in eastern Europe and watching a really badly made movie about migration and the idea that, if we didn’t cope with this [climate change], people would come in boats across, presumably the Mediterranean. And I was, like, this is a global problem.
The second thing was just before Paris [in 2015]. There were these sort of famous rumours about all these women that got together and worked together to try to help the Paris Agreement happen. And so I was in a meeting with a bunch of women and two leaders from emerging markets, developing economies – it was very juxtaposed, because I was, at that point, the vice president of the World Bank – and we were having a discussion about 1.5C and whether, did it make sense as a strategy. And I was like: “2C is going to be difficult enough, you want to negotiate 1.5C?” And then we sort of broke. And then the next morning, we reconvened and we were just reflecting on the day before’s conversations and they both said to me: “You can’t just throw these numbers around as if they’re points of negotiation, because, for my culture, the difference between 2C and 1.5C is existence or non-existence”. And that was important.
CB: OK, thank you very much, Rachel.
RK: Thank you.
The post The Carbon Brief Interview: UK climate envoy Rachel Kyte appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Drought and heatwaves occurring together – known as “compound” events – have “surged” across the world since the early 2000s, a new study shows.
Compound drought and heat events (CDHEs) can have devastating effects, creating the ideal conditions for intense wildfires, such as Australia’s “Black Summer” of 2019-20 where bushfires burned 24m hectares and killed 33 people.
The research, published in Science Advances, finds that the increase in CDHEs is predominantly being driven by events that start with a heatwave.
The global area affected by such “heatwave-led” compound events has more than doubled between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, the study says.
The rapid increase in these events over the last 23 years cannot be explained solely by global warming, the authors note.
Since the late 1990s, feedbacks between the land and the atmosphere have become stronger, making heatwaves more likely to trigger drought conditions, they explain.
One of the study authors tells Carbon Brief that societies must pay greater attention to compound events, which can “cause severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and society”.
Compound events
CDHEs are extreme weather events where drought and heatwave conditions occur simultaneously – or shortly after each other – in the same region.
These events are often triggered by large-scale weather patterns, such as “blocking” highs, which can produce “prolonged” hot and dry conditions, according to the study.
Prof Sang-Wook Yeh is one of the study authors and a professor at the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When heatwaves and droughts occur together, the two hazards reinforce each other through land-atmosphere interactions. This amplifies surface heating and soil moisture deficits, making compound events more intense and damaging than single hazards.”
CDHEs can begin with either a heatwave or a drought.
The sequence of these extremes is important, the study says, as they have different drivers and impacts.
For example, in a CDHE where the heatwave was the precursor, increased direct sunshine causes more moisture loss from soils and plants, leading to a drought.
Conversely, in an event where the drought was the precursor, the lack of soil moisture means that less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporation and more goes into warming the Earth’s surface. This produces favourable conditions for heatwaves.
The study shows that the majority of CDHEs globally start out as a drought.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on these events due to the devastating impact they have on agriculture, ecosystems and public health.
In Russia in the summer of 2010, a compound drought-heatwave event – and the associated wildfires – caused the death of nearly 55,000 people, the study notes.
The record-breaking Pacific north-west “heat dome” in 2021 triggered extreme drought conditions that caused “significant declines” in wheat yields, as well as in barley, canola and fruit production in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, says the study.
Increasing events
To assess how CDHEs are changing, the researchers use daily reanalysis data to identify droughts and heatwaves events. (Reanalysis data combines past observations with climate models to create a historical climate record.) Then, using an algorithm, they analyse how these events overlap in both time and space.
The study covers the period from 1980 to 2023 and the world’s land surface, excluding polar regions where CDHEs are rare.
The research finds that the area of land affected by CDHEs has “increased substantially” since the early 2000s.
Heatwave-led events have been the main contributor to this increase, the study says, with their spatial extent rising 110% between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, compared to a 59% increase for drought-led events.
The map below shows the global distribution of CDHEs over 1980-2023. The charts show the percentage of the land surface affected by a heatwave-led CDHE (red) or a drought-led CDHE (yellow) in a given year (left) and relative increase in each CDHE type (right).
The study finds that CDHEs have occurred most frequently in northern South America, the southern US, eastern Europe, central Africa and south Asia.
Threshold passed
The authors explain that the increase in heatwave-led CDHEs is related to rising global temperatures, but that this does not tell the whole story.
In the earlier 22-year period of 1980-2001, the study finds that the spatial extent of heatwave-led CDHEs rises by 1.6% per 1C of global temperature rise. For the more-recent period of 2022-23, this increases “nearly eightfold” to 13.1%.
The change suggests that the rapid increase in the heatwave-led CDHEs occurred after the global average temperature “surpasse[d] a certain temperature threshold”, the paper says.
This threshold is an absolute global average temperature of 14.3C, the authors estimate (based on an 11-year average), which the world passed around the year 2000.
Investigating the recent surge in heatwave-leading CDHEs further, the researchers find a “regime shift” in land-atmosphere dynamics “toward a persistently intensified state after the late 1990s”.
In other words, the way that drier soils drive higher surface temperatures, and vice versa, is becoming stronger, resulting in more heatwave-led compound events.
Daily data
The research has some advantages over other previous studies, Yeh says. For instance, the new work uses daily estimations of CDHEs, compared to monthly data used in past research. This is “important for capturing the detailed occurrence” of these events, says Yeh.
He adds that another advantage of their study is that it distinguishes the sequence of droughts and heatwaves, which allows them to “better understand the differences” in the characteristics of CDHEs.
Dr Meryem Tanarhte is a climate scientist at the University Hassan II in Morocco, and Dr Ruth Cerezo Mota is a climatologist and a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Both scientists, who were not involved in the study, agree that the daily estimations give a clearer picture of how CDHEs are changing.
Cerezo-Mota adds that another major contribution of the study is its global focus. She tells Carbon Brief that in some regions, such as Mexico and Africa, there is a lack of studies on CDHEs:
“Not because the events do not occur, but perhaps because [these regions] do not have all the data or the expertise to do so.”
However, she notes that the reanalysis data used by the study does have limitations with how it represents rainfall in some parts of the world.
Compound impacts
The study notes that if CDHEs continue to intensify – particularly events where heatwaves are the precursors – they could drive declining crop productivity, increased wildfire frequency and severe public health crises.
These impacts could be “much more rapid and severe as global warming continues”, Yeh tells Carbon Brief.
Tanarhte notes that these events can be forecasted up to 10 days ahead in many regions. Furthermore, she says, the strongest impacts can be prevented “through preparedness and adaptation”, including through “water management for agriculture, heatwave mitigation measures and wildfire mitigation”.
The study recommends reassessing current risk management strategies for these compound events. It also suggests incorporating the sequences of drought and heatwaves into compound event analysis frameworks “to enhance climate risk management”.
Cerezo-Mota says that it is clear that the world needs to be prepared for the increased occurrence of these events. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These [risk assessments and strategies] need to be carried out at the local level to understand the complexities of each region.”
The post Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Energy crisis
ENERGY SPIKE: US-Israeli attacks on Iran and subsequent counterattacks across the Middle East have sent energy prices “soaring”, according to Reuters. The newswire reported that the region “accounts for just under a third of global oil production and almost a fifth of gas”. The Guardian noted that shipping traffic through the strait of Hormuz, which normally ferries 20% of the world’s oil, “all but ground to a halt”. The Financial Times reported that attacks by Iran on Middle East energy facilities – notably in Qatar – triggered the “biggest rise in gas prices since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.
‘RISK’ AND ‘BENEFITS’: Bloomberg reported on increases in diesel prices in Europe and the US, speculating that rising fuel costs could be “a risk for president Donald Trump”. US gas producers are “poised to benefit from the big disruption in global supply”, according to CNBC. Indian government sources told the Economic Times that Russia is prepared to “fulfil India’s energy demands”. China Daily quoted experts who said “China’s energy security remains fundamentally unshaken”, thanks to “emergency stockpiles and a wide array of import channels”.
‘ESSENTIAL’ RENEWABLES: Energy analysts said governments should cut their fossil-fuel reliance by investing in renewables, “rather than just seeking non-Gulf oil and gas suppliers”, reported Climate Home News. This message was echoed by UK business secretary Peter Kyle, who said “doubling down on renewables” was “essential” amid “regional instability”, according to the Daily Telegraph.
China’s climate plan
PEAK COAL?: China has set out its next “five-year plan” at the annual “two sessions” meeting of the National People’s Congress, including its climate strategy out to 2030, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. The plan called for China to cut its carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 17% from 2026 to 2030, which “may allow for continued increase in emissions given the rate of GDP growth”, reported Reuters. The newswire added that the plan also had targets to reach peak coal in the next five years and replace 30m tonnes per year of coal with renewables.
ACTIVE YET PRUDENT: Bloomberg described the new plan as “cautious”, stating that it “frustrat[es] hopes for tighter policy that would drive the nation to peak carbon emissions well before president Xi Jinping’s 2030 deadline”. Carbon Brief has just published an in-depth analysis of the plan. China Daily reported that the strategy “highlights measures to promote the climate targets of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030”, which China said it would work towards “actively yet prudently”.
Around the world
- EU RULES: The European Commission has proposed new “made in Europe” rules to support domestic low-carbon industries, “against fierce competition from China”, reported Agence France-Presse. Carbon Brief examined what it means for climate efforts.
- RECORD HEAT: The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said there is a 50-60% chance that the El Niño weather pattern could return this year, amplifying the effect of global warming and potentially driving temperatures to “record highs”, according to Euronews.
- FLAGSHIP FUND: The African Development Bank’s “flagship clean energy fund” plans to more than double its financing to $2.5bn for African renewables over the next two years, reported the Associated Press.
- NO WITHDRAWAL: Vanuatu has defied US efforts to force the Pacific-island nation to drop a UN draft resolution calling on the world to implement a landmark International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on climate, according to the Guardian.
98
The number of nations that submitted their national reports on tackling nature loss to the UN on time – just half of the 196 countries that are part of the UN biodiversity treaty – according to analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Sea levels are already “much higher than assumed” in most assessments of the threat posed by sea-level rise, due to “inadequate” modelling assumptions | Nature
- Accelerating human-caused global warming could see the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit crossed before 2030 | Geophysical Research Letters covered by Carbon Brief
- Future “super El Niño events” could “significantly lower” solar power generation due to a reduction in solar irradiance in key regions, such as California and east China | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 fell to 54% below 1990 levels, the baseline year for its legally binding climate goals, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Over the same period, data from the World Bank shows that the UK’s economy has expanded by 95%, meaning that emissions have been decoupling from growth.
Spotlight
Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ community wind turbine
Following the recent launch of the UK government’s local power plan, Carbon Brief visits one of the country’s community-energy success stories.
The Lawrence Weston housing estate is set apart from the main city of Bristol, wedged between the tree-lined grounds of a stately home and a sprawl of warehouses and waste incinerators. It is one of the most deprived areas in the city.
Yet, just across the M5 motorway stands a structure that has brought the spoils of the energy transition directly to this historically forgotten estate – a 4.2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine.
The turbine is owned by local charity Ambition Lawrence Weston and all the profits from its electricity sales – around £100,000 a year – go to the community. In the UK’s local power plan, it was singled out by energy secretary Ed Miliband as a “pioneering” project.
‘Sustainable income’
On a recent visit to the estate by Carbon Brief, Ambition Lawrence Weston’s development manager, Mark Pepper, rattled off the story behind the wind turbine.
In 2012, Pepper and his team were approached by the Bristol Energy Cooperative with a chance to get a slice of the income from a new solar farm. They jumped at the opportunity.
“Austerity measures were kicking in at the time,” Pepper told Carbon Brief. “We needed to generate an income. Our own, sustainable income.”
With the solar farm proving to be a success, the team started to explore other opportunities. This began a decade-long process that saw them navigate the Conservative government’s “ban” on onshore wind, raise £5.5m in funding and, ultimately, erect the turbine in 2023.
Today, the turbine generates electricity equivalent to Lawrence Weston’s 3,000 households and will save 87,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) over its lifetime.
‘Climate by stealth’
Ambition Lawrence Weston’s hub is at the heart of the estate and the list of activities on offer is seemingly endless: birthday parties, kickboxing, a library, woodworking, help with employment and even a pop-up veterinary clinic. All supported, Pepper said, with the help of a steady income from community-owned energy.
The centre itself is kitted out with solar panels, heat pumps and electric-vehicle charging points, making it a living advertisement for the net-zero transition. Pepper noted that the organisation has also helped people with energy costs amid surging global gas prices.
Gesturing to the England flags dangling limply on lamp posts visible from the kitchen window, he said:
“There’s a bit of resentment around immigration and scarcity of materials and provision, so we’re trying to do our bit around community cohesion.”
This includes supper clubs and an interfaith grand iftar during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Anti-immigration sentiment in the UK has often gone hand-in-hand with opposition to climate action. Right-wing politicians and media outlets promote the idea that net-zero policies will cost people a lot of money – and these ideas have cut through with the public.
Pepper told Carbon Brief he is sympathetic to people’s worries about costs and stressed that community energy is the perfect way to win people over:
“I think the only way you can change that is if, instead of being passive consumers…communities are like us and they’re generating an income to offset that.”
From the outset, Pepper stressed that “we weren’t that concerned about climate because we had other, bigger pressures”, adding:
“But, in time, we’ve delivered climate by stealth.”
Watch, read, listen
OIL WATCH: The Guardian has published a “visual guide” with charts and videos showing how the “escalating Iran conflict is driving up oil and gas prices”.
MURDER IN HONDURAS: Ten years on from the murder of Indigenous environmental justice advocate Berta Cáceres, Drilled asked why Honduras is still so dangerous for environmental activists.
TALKING WEATHER: A new film, narrated by actor Michael Sheen and titled You Told Us To Talk About the Weather, aimed to promote conversation about climate change with a blend of “poetry, folk horror and climate storytelling”.
Coming up
- 8 March: Colombia parliamentary election
- 9-19 March: 31st Annual Session of the International Seabed Authority, Kingston, Jamaica
- 11 March: UN Environment Programme state of finance for nature 2026 report launch
Pick of the jobs
- London School of Economics and Political Science, fellow in the social science of sustainability | Salary: £43,277-£51,714. Location: London
- NORCAP, innovative climate finance expert | Salary: Unknown. Location: Kyiv, Ukraine
- WBHM, environmental reporter | Salary: $50,050-$81,330. Location: Birmingham, Alabama, US
- Climate Cabinet, data engineer | Salary: hourly rate of $60-$120 per hour. Location: Remote anywhere in the US
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China’s leadership has published a draft of its 15th five-year plan setting the strategic direction for the nation out to 2030, including support for clean energy and energy security.
The plan sets a target to cut China’s “carbon intensity” by 17% over the five years from 2026-30, but also changes the basis for calculating this key climate metric.
The plan continues to signal support for China’s clean-energy buildout and, in general, contains no major departures from the country’s current approach to the energy transition.
The government reaffirms support for several clean-energy industries, ranging from solar and electric vehicles (EVs) through to hydrogen and “new-energy” storage.
The plan also emphasises China’s willingness to steer climate governance and be seen as a provider of “global public goods”, in the form of affordable clean-energy technologies.
However, while the document says it will “promote the peaking” of coal and oil use, it does not set out a timeline and continues to call for the “clean and efficient” use of coal.
This shows that tensions remain between China’s climate goals and its focus on energy security, leading some analysts to raise concerns about its carbon-cutting ambition.
Below, Carbon Brief outlines the key climate change and energy aspects of the plan, including targets for carbon intensity, non-fossil energy and forestry.
Note: this article is based on a draft published on 5 March and will be updated if any significant changes are made in the final version of the plan, due to be released at the close next week of the “two sessions” meeting taking place in Beijing.
- What is China’s 15th five-year plan?
- What does the plan say about China’s climate action?
- What is China’s new CO2 intensity target?
- Does the plan encourage further clean-energy additions?
- What does the plan signal about coal?
- How will China approach global climate governance in the next five years?
- What else does the plan cover?
What is China’s 15th five-year plan?
Five-year plans are one of the most important documents in China’s political system.
Addressing everything from economic strategy to climate policy, they outline the planned direction for China’s socio-economic development in a five-year period. The 15th five-year plan covers 2026-30.
These plans include several “main goals”. These are largely quantitative indicators that are seen as particularly important to achieve and which provide a foundation for subsequent policies during the five-year period.
The table below outlines some of the key “main goals” from the draft 15th five-year plan.
| Category | Indicator | Indicator in 2025 | Target by 2030 | Cumulative target over 2026-2030 | Characteristic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Economic development | Gross domestic product (GDP) growth (%) | 5 | Maintained within a reasonable range and proposed annually as appropriate. | Anticipatory | |
| ‘Green and low-carbon | Reduction in CO2 emissions per unit of GDP (%) | 17.7 | 17 | Binding | |
| Share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption (%) | 21.7 | 25 | Binding | ||
| Security guarantee | Comprehensive energy production capacity (100m tonnes of standard coal equivalent) |
51.3 | 58 | Binding |
Select list of targets highlighted in the “main goals” section of the draft 15th five-year plan. Source: Draft 15th five-year plan.
Since the 12th five-year plan, covering 2011-2015, these “main goals” have included energy intensity and carbon intensity as two of five key indicators for “green ecology”.
The previous five-year plan, which ran from 2021-2025, introduced the idea of an absolute “cap” on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, although it did not provide an explicit figure in the document. This has been subsequently addressed by a policy on the “dual-control of carbon” issued in 2024.
The latest plan removes the energy-intensity goal and elevates the carbon-intensity goal, but does not set an absolute cap on emissions (see below).
It covers the years until 2030, before which China has pledged to peak its carbon emissions. (Analysis for Carbon Brief found that emissions have been “flat or falling” since March 2024.)
The plans are released at the two sessions, an annual gathering of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). This year, it runs from 4-12 March.
The plans are often relatively high-level, with subsequent topic-specific five-year plans providing more concrete policy guidance.
Policymakers at the National Energy Agency (NEA) have indicated that in the coming years they will release five sector-specific plans for 2026-2030, covering topics such as the “new energy system”, electricity and renewable energy.
There may also be specific five-year plans covering carbon emissions and environmental protection, as well as the coal and nuclear sectors, according to analysts.
Other documents published during the two sessions include an annual government work report, which outlines key targets and policies for the year ahead.
The gathering is attended by thousands of deputies – delegates from across central and local governments, as well as Chinese Communist party members, members of other political parties, academics, industry leaders and other prominent figures.
What does the plan say about China’s climate action?
Achieving China’s climate targets will remain a key driver of the country’s policies in the next five years, according to the draft 15th five-year plan.
It lists the “acceleration” of China’s energy transition as a “major achievement” in the 14th five-year plan period (2021-2025), noting especially how clean-power capacity had overtaken fossil fuels.
The draft says China will “actively and steadily advance and achieve carbon peaking”, with policymakers continuing to strike a balance between building a “green economy” and ensuring stability.
Climate and environment continues to receive its own chapter in the plan. However, the framing and content of this chapter has shifted subtly compared with previous editions, as shown in the table below. For example, unlike previous plans, the first section of this chapter focuses on China’s goal to peak emissions.
| 11th five-year plan (2006-2010) | 12th five-year plan (2011-2015) | 13th five-year plan (2016-2020) | 14th five-year plan (2021-2025) | 15th five-year plan (2026-2030) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chapter title | Part 6: Build a resource-efficient and environmentally-friendly society | Part 6: Green development, building a resource-efficient and environmentally friendly society | Part 10: Ecosystems and the environment | Part 11: Promote green development and facilitate the harmonious coexistence of people and nature | Part 13: Accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development to build a beautiful China |
| Sections | Developing a circular economy | Actively respond to global climate change | Accelerate the development of functional zones | Improve the quality and stability of ecosystems | Actively and steadily advancing and achieving carbon peaking |
| Protecting and restoring natural ecosystems | Strengthen resource conservation and management | Promote economical and intensive resource use | Continue to improve environmental quality | Continuously improving environmental quality | |
| Strengthening environmental protection | Vigorously develop the circular economy | Step up comprehensive environmental governance | Accelerate the green transformation of the development model | Enhancing the diversity, stability, and sustainability of ecosystems | |
| Enhancing resource management | Strengthen environmental protection efforts | Intensify ecological conservation and restoration | Accelerating the formation of green production and lifestyles | ||
| Rational utilisation of marine and climate resources | Promoting ecological conservation and restoration | Respond to global climate change | |||
| Strengthen the development of water conservancy and disaster prevention and mitigation systems | Improve mechanisms for ensuring ecological security | ||||
| Develop green and environmentally-friendly industries |
Title and main sections of the climate and environment-focused chapters in the last five five-year plans. Source: China’s 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th five-year plans.
The climate and environment chapter in the latest plan calls for China to “balance [economic] development and emission reduction” and “ensure the timely achievement of carbon peak targets”.
Under the plan, China will “continue to pursue” its established direction and objectives on climate, Prof Li Zheng, dean of the Tsinghua University Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development (ICCSD), tells Carbon Brief.
What is China’s new CO2 intensity target?
In the lead-up to the release of the plan, analysts were keenly watching for signals around China’s adoption of a system for the “dual-control of carbon”.
This would combine the existing targets for carbon intensity – the CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – with a new cap on China’s total carbon emissions. This would mark a dramatic step for the country, which has never before set itself a binding cap on total emissions.
Policymakers had said last year that this framework would come into effect during the 15th five-year plan period, replacing the previous system for the “dual-control of energy”.
However, the draft 15th five-year plan does not offer further details on when or how both parts of the dual-control of carbon system will be implemented. Instead, it continues to focus on carbon intensity targets alone.
Looking back at the previous five-year plan period, the latest document says China had achieved a carbon-intensity reduction of 17.7%, just shy of its 18% goal.
This is in contrast with calculations by Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which had suggested that China had only cut its carbon intensity by 12% over the past five years.
At the time it was set in 2021, the 18% target had been seen as achievable, with analysts telling Carbon Brief that they expected China to realise reductions of 20% or more.
However, the government had fallen behind on meeting the target.
Last year, ecology and environment minister Huang Runqiu attributed this to the Covid-19 pandemic, extreme weather and trade tensions. He said that China, nevertheless, remained “broadly” on track to meet its 2030 international climate pledge of reducing carbon intensity by more than 65% from 2005 levels.
Myllyvirta tells Carbon Brief that the newly reported figure showing a carbon-intensity reduction of 17.7% is likely due to an “opportunistic” methodological revision. The new methodology now includes industrial process emissions – such as cement and chemicals – as well as the energy sector.
(This is not the first time China has redefined a target, with regulators changing the methodology for energy intensity in 2023.)
For the next five years, the plan sets a target to reduce carbon intensity by 17%, slightly below the previous goal.
However, the change in methodology means that this leaves space for China’s overall emissions to rise by “3-6% over the next five years”, says Myllyvirta. In contrast, he adds that the original methodology would have required a 2% fall in absolute carbon emissions by 2030.
The dashed lines in the chart below show China’s targets for reducing carbon intensity during the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th five-year periods, while the bars show what was achieved under the old (dark blue) and new (light blue) methodology.
The carbon-intensity target is the “clearest signal of Beijing’s climate ambition”, says Li Shuo, director at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s (ASPI) China climate hub.
It also links directly to China’s international pledge – made in 2021 – to cut its carbon intensity to more than 65% below 2005 levels by 2030.
To meet this pledge under the original carbon-intensity methodology, China would have needed to set a target of a 23% reduction within the 15th five-year plan period. However, the country’s more recent 2035 international climate pledge, released last year, did not include a carbon-intensity target.
As such, ASPI’s Li interprets the carbon-intensity target in the draft 15th five-year plan as a “quiet recalibration” that signals “how difficult the original 2030 goal has become”.
Furthermore, the 15th five-year plan does not set an absolute emissions cap.
This leaves “significant ambiguity” over China’s climate plans, says campaign group 350 in a press statement reacting to the draft plan. It explains:
“The plan was widely expected to mark a clearer transition from carbon-intensity targets toward absolute emissions reductions…[but instead] leaves significant ambiguity about how China will translate record renewable deployment into sustained emissions cuts.”
Myllyvirta tells Carbon Brief that this represents a “continuation” of the government’s focus on scaling up clean-energy supply while avoiding setting “strong measurable emission targets”.
He says that he would still expect to see absolute caps being set for power and industrial sectors covered by China’s emissions trading scheme (ETS). In addition, he thinks that an overall absolute emissions cap may still be published later in the five-year period.
Despite the fact that it has yet to be fully implemented, the switch from dual-control of energy to dual-control of carbon represents a “major policy evolution”, Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), tells Carbon Brief. He says that it will allow China to “provide more flexibility for renewable energy expansion while tightening the net on fossil-fuel reliance”.
Does the plan encourage further clean-energy additions?
“How quickly carbon intensity is reduced largely depends on how much renewable energy can be supplied,” says Yao Zhe, global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, in a statement.
The five-year plan continues to call for China’s development of a “new energy system that is clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient” by 2030, with continued additions of “wind, solar, hydro and nuclear power”.
In line with China’s international pledge, it sets a target for raising the share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption to 25% by 2030, up from just under 21.7% in 2025.
The development of “green factories” and “zero-carbon [industrial] parks” has been central to many local governments’ strategies for meeting the non-fossil energy target, according to industry news outlet BJX News. A call to build more of these zero-carbon industrial parks is listed in the five-year plan.
Prof Pan Jiahua, dean of Beijing University of Technology’s Institute of Ecological Civilization, tells Carbon Brief that expanding demand for clean energy through mechanisms such as “green factories” represents an increasingly “bottom-up” and “market-oriented” approach to the energy transition, which will leave “no place for fossil fuels”.
He adds that he is “very much sure that China’s zero-carbon process is being accelerated and fossil fuels are being driven out of the market”, pointing to the rapid adoption of EVs.
The plan says that China will aim to double “non-fossil energy” in 10 years – although it does not clarify whether this means their installed capacity or electricity generation, or what the exact starting year would be.
Research has shown that doubling wind and solar capacity in China between 2025-2035 would be “consistent” with aims to limit global warming to 2C.
While the language “certainly” pushes for greater additions of renewable energy, Yao tells Carbon Brief, it is too “opaque” to be a “direct indication” of the government’s plans for renewable additions.
She adds that “grid stability and healthy, orderly competition” is a higher priority for policymakers than guaranteeing a certain level of capacity additions.
China continues to place emphasis on the need for large-scale clean-energy “bases” and cross-regional power transmission.
The plan says China must develop “clean-energy bases…in the three northern regions” and “integrated hydro-wind-solar complexes” in south-west China.
It specifically encourages construction of “large-scale wind and solar” power bases in desert regions “primarily” for cross-regional power transmission, as well as “major hydropower” projects, including the Yarlung Tsangpo dam in Tibet.
As such, the country should construct “power-transmission corridors” with the capacity to send 420 gigawatts (GW) of electricity from clean-energy bases in western provinces to energy-hungry eastern provinces by 2030, the plan says.
State Grid, China’s largest grid operator, plans to install “another 15 ultra-high voltage [UHV] transmission lines” by 2030, reports Reuters, up from the 45 UHV lines built by last year.
Below are two maps illustrating the interlinkages between clean-energy bases in China in the 15th (top) and 14th (bottom) five-year plan periods.
The yellow dotted areas represent clean energy bases, while the arrows represent cross-regional power transmission. The blue wind-turbine icons represent offshore windfarms and the red cooling tower icons represent coastal nuclear plants.
The 15th five-year plan map shows a consistent approach to the 2021-2025 period. As well as power being transmitted from west to east, China plans for more power to be sent to southern provinces from clean-energy bases in the north-west, while clean-energy bases in the north-east supply China’s eastern coast.
It also maps out “mutual assistance” schemes for power grids in neighbouring provinces.
Offshore wind power should reach 100GW by 2030, while nuclear power should rise to 110GW, according to the plan.
What does the plan signal about coal?
The increased emphasis on grid infrastructure in the draft 15th five-year plan reflects growing concerns from energy planning officials around ensuring China’s energy supply.
Ren Yuzhi, director of the NEA’s development and planning department, wrote ahead of the plan’s release that the “continuous expansion” of China’s energy system has “dramatically increased its complexity”.
He said the NEA felt there was an “urgent need” to enhance the “secure and reliable” replacement of fossil-fuel power with new energy sources, as well as to ensure the system’s “ability to absorb them”.
Meanwhile, broader concerns around energy security have heightened calls for coal capacity to remain in the system as a “ballast stone”.
The plan continues to support the “clean and efficient utilisation of fossil fuels” and does not mention either a cap or peaking timeline for coal consumption.
Xi had previously told fellow world leaders that China would “strictly control” coal-fired power and phase down coal consumption in the 15th five-year plan period.
The “geopolitical situation is increasing energy security concerns” at all levels of government, said the Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress in a note responding to the draft plan, adding that this was creating “uncertainty over coal reduction”.
Ahead of its publication, there were questions around whether the plan would set a peaking deadline for oil and coal. An article posted by state news agency Xinhua last month, examining recommendations for the plan from top policymakers, stated that coal consumption would plateau from “around 2027”, while oil would peak “around 2026”.
However, the plan does not lay out exact years by which the two fossil fuels should peak, only saying that China will “promote the peaking of coal and oil consumption”.
There are similarly no mentions of phasing out coal in general, in line with existing policy.
Nevertheless, there is a heavy emphasis on retrofitting coal-fired power plants. The plan calls for the establishment of “demonstration projects” for coal-plant retrofitting, such as through co-firing with biomass or “green ammonia”.
Such retrofitting could incentivise lower utilisation of coal plants – and thus lower emissions – if they are used to flexibly meet peaks in demand and to cover gaps in clean-energy output, instead of providing a steady and significant share of generation.
The plan also calls for officials to “fully implement low-carbon retrofitting projects for coal-chemical industries”, which have been a notable source of emissions growth in the past year.
However, the coal-chemicals sector will likely remain a key source of demand for China’s coal mining industry, with coal-to-oil and coal-to-gas bases listed as a “key area” for enhancing the country’s “security capabilities”.
Meanwhile, coal-fired boilers and industrial kilns in the paper industry, food processing and textiles should be replaced with “clean” alternatives to the equivalent of 30m tonnes of coal consumption per year, it says.
“China continues to scale up clean energy at an extraordinary pace, but the plan still avoids committing to strong measurable constraints on emissions or fossil fuel use”, says Joseph Dellatte, head of energy and climate studies at the Institut Montaigne. He adds:
“The logic remains supply-driven: deploy massive amounts of clean energy and assume emissions will eventually decline.”
How will China approach global climate governance in the next five years?
Meanwhile, clean-energy technologies continue to play a role in upgrading China’s economy, with several “new energy” sectors listed as key to its industrial policy.
Named sectors include smart EVs, “new solar cells”, new-energy storage, hydrogen and nuclear fusion energy.
“China’s clean-technology development – rather than traditional administrative climate controls – is increasingly becoming the primary driver of emissions reduction,” says ASPI’s Li. He adds that strengthening China’s clean-energy sectors means “more closely aligning Beijing’s economic ambitions with its climate objectives”.
Analysis for Carbon Brief shows that clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025, representing around 11% of China’s whole economy.
The continued support for these sectors in the draft five-year plan comes as the EU outlined its own measures intended to limit China’s hold on clean-energy industries, driven by accusations of “unfair competition” from Chinese firms.
China is unlikely to crack down on clean-tech production capacity, Dr Rebecca Nadin, director of the Centre for Geopolitics of Change at ODI Global, tells Carbon Brief. She says:
“Beijing is treating overcapacity in solar and smart EVs as a strategic choice, not a policy error…and is prepared to pour investment into these sectors to cement global market share, jobs and technological leverage.”
Dellatte echoes these comments, noting that it is “striking” that the plan “barely addresses the issue of industrial overcapacity in clean technologies”, with the focus firmly on “scaling production and deployment”.
At the same time, China is actively positioning itself to be a prominent voice in climate diplomacy and a champion of proactive climate action.
This is clear from the first line in a section on providing “global public goods”. It says:
“As a responsible major country, China will play a more active role in addressing global challenges such as climate change.”
The plan notes that China will “actively participate in and steer [引领] global climate governance”, in line with the principle of “common,but differentiated responsibilities”.
This echoes similar language from last year’s government work report, Yao tells Carbon Brief, demonstrating a “clear willingness” to guide global negotiations. But she notes that this “remains an aspiration that’s yet to be made concrete”. She adds:
“China has always favored collective leadership, so its vision of leadership is never a lone one.”
The country will “deepen south-south cooperation on climate change”, the plan says. In an earlier section on “opening up”, it also notes that China will explore “new avenues for collaboration in green development” with global partners as part of its “Belt and Road Initiative”.
China is “doubling down” on a narrative that it is a “responsible major power” and “champion of south-south climate cooperation”, Nadin says, such as by “presenting its clean‑tech exports and finance as global public goods”. She says:
“China will arrive at future COPs casting itself as the indispensable climate leader for the global south…even though its new five‑year plan still puts growth, energy security and coal ahead of faster emissions cuts at home.”
What else does the plan cover?
The impact of extreme weather – particularly floods – remains a key concern in the plan.
China must “refine” its climate adaptation framework and “enhance its resilience to climate change, particularly extreme-weather events”, it says.
China also aims to “strengthen construction of a national water network” over the next five years in order to help prevent floods and droughts.
An article published a few days before the plan in the state-run newspaper China Daily noted that, “as global warming intensifies, extreme weather events – including torrential rains, severe convective storms, and typhoons – have become more frequent, widespread and severe”.
The plan also touches on critical minerals used for low-carbon technologies. These will likely remain a geopolitical flashpoint, with China saying it will focus during the next five years on “intensifying” exploration and “establishing” a reserve for critical minerals. This reserve will focus on “scarce” energy minerals and critical minerals, as well as other “advantageous mineral resources”.
Dellatte says that this could mean the “competition in the energy transition will increasingly be about control over mineral supply chains”.
Other low-carbon policies listed in the five-year plan include expanding coverage of China’s mandatory carbon market and further developing its voluntary carbon market.
China will “strengthen monitoring and control” of non-CO2 greenhouse gases, the plan says, as well as implementing projects “targeting methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons” in sectors such as coal mining, agriculture and chemicals.
This will create “capacity” for reducing emissions by 30m tonnes of CO2 equivalent, it adds.
Meanwhile, China will develop rules for carbon footprint accounting and push for internationally recognised accounting standards.
It will enhance reform of power markets over the next five years and improve the trading mechanism for green electricity certificates.
It will also “promote” adoption of low-carbon lifestyles and decarbonisation of transport, as well as working to advance electrification of freight and shipping.
The post Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ mean for climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ mean for climate change?
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