Published

12 months ago

July 17, 2025

Alice Rush

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:

CarbonBrief · The Carbon Brief Interview: Rachel Kyte

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.

The Carbon Brief Interview: UK climate envoy Rachel Kyte

Climate Change

Interview: COP31 president says electrification is ‘surest way to protect citizens’

Published

2 days ago

July 10, 2026

Alice Rush

Last month, COP31 president-designate Murat Kurum launched a target for 35% of the world’s final energy to come from electricity by 2035.

In an interview with Carbon Brief, Kurum says that the target was not a political choice, but instead reflects the latest evidence on “what is needed to keep 1.5C within reach”.

The ongoing Hormuz crisis means there is an “urgent” need for renewables and electrification, which are the “surest and cleanest way to protect citizens” from high energy prices.

Kurum says that the Brazilian and Ethiopian presidencies of COP30 and COP32, as well as the EU, UK and Canada, have welcomed the target.

He adds that “all have confirmed it will be central to discussions at COP31”.

In the interview, Kurum – who is also Turkey’s minister of environment, urbanisation and climate change – tells Carbon Brief where the target came from and what he expects to happen next.

Carbon Brief: You recently launched a target for 35% of the world’s final energy to come from electricity by 2035. Where did this idea come from?

Murat Kurum: The “35 by 35” target is grounded in technical data and based on the IEA [International Energy Agency] and IRENA [International Renewable Energy Agency] analysis of what is needed to keep [the 1.5C Paris Agreement target] within reach. The level was not chosen politically. Rather, it reflects what the science and the energy modelling tell us is required.

CB: Why do you think an electrification target is important right now?

MK: The case for the target is urgent right now. The latest war in the Gulf has made energy diversification – and, in particular, renewable energy transition and electrification – a top global priority, because it is the surest and cleanest way to protect citizens around the world from high and volatile energy prices.

At a time of real fragmentation in international relations, a single, shared target is needed to focus global efforts by aligning governments, businesses and investors behind a common benchmark and to send a clear market signal.

CB: Which countries are supporting this target so far?

MK: The reaction so far has been extremely positive and, while we presented our target at the UN June climate meetings in Bonn, our earlier conversations with parties at both the Petersberg and Copenhagen climate dialogues paved the way for this launch.

For example, the EU, UK, and Canada have welcomed the target, as have the Brazilian COP30 and Ethiopian COP32 presidencies. All have confirmed it will be central to discussions at COP31.

This support has been reflected in the business community as well, with polling by the We Mean Business Coalition showing that 90% of businesses expect to have largely electrified their operations by 2035 and that 88% expect electrification will make their business more competitive.

CB: How do you hope and expect to see this taken forward at the COP? Could it be in the formal COP outcomes, or part of the second global stocktake?

MK: We are now taking electrification forward as an “action agenda” initiative to bring actors together and drive progress. The action agenda and the [formal COP] negotiations are separate, but complementary, with different processes and thresholds, and it is too early to say what all countries might be able to agree in the negotiations. That is for parties to determine as the year progresses.

We are focused and determined to use COP31 as a moment to spark a global conversation about electrification.

CB: What are the key priorities for reaching the target?

MK: The critical sectors for reaching the target are buildings, transport and industry, which together account for around 45% of global emissions. Financial support for the developing world and investment in grids and infrastructure is also crucial.

The target also builds on COP28’s target to triple renewable energy capacity and seeks to take advantage of the tumbling cost of renewable power and other technologies critical to the energy transition. This is a journey that Turkey itself is taking ambitious steps on, including our plan to reach 120GW [gigawatts] of renewable capacity by 2035.

This interview was first published in the 10 July 2026 edition of Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed weekly newsletter. Sign up for free.

The post Interview: COP31 president says electrification is ‘surest way to protect citizens’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Interview: COP31 president says electrification is ‘surest way to protect citizens’

Climate Change

DeBriefed 10 July 2026: Deadly Europe heat | EU electrification leak | COP31 president interview

Published

3 days ago

July 10, 2026

Alice Rush

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

‘Catastrophic’ climate impacts

RECORD HEAT: Western Europe experienced its hottest June on record – some 3C above average – according to analysis covered by the Guardian. It said the finding came “as the UK enters its third heatwave of the year and wildfires ravage France and Spain”. Le Monde said 10,000 people had been evacuated due to wildfires in southern France.

‘EXCESS DEATHS’: The June heatwave killed more than 2,700 people in France, according to a guest post analysis for Carbon Brief. Similar analysis for Germany said there had been more than 5,000 “excess deaths”, reported Bloomberg. Meanwhile, an ongoing heatwave in the US has killed at least 30 people, said USA Today.

STORM TEST: Floods have killed 39 people in Guangxi province in southern China, said state-run newspaper China Daily. Scientists warned that climate change and the weather phenomenon El Niño are exposing China to “catastrophic storms” that will test its resilience in 2026, reported Reuters. The nation’s latest official climate report found that “extreme weather and climate events…have become more frequent and severe”, said China National Radio.

Around the world

EU ELECTRIFICATION: The European Commission is set to unveil a 2040 target for EU electrification on 17 July, reported Bloomberg. Citing a leaked draft, it said the plan would aim to cut oil use in half and gas use by two-thirds.
PEAKING PLAN: China has published an “action plan” for peaking emissions during the 15th five-year plan period to 2030, reported Xinhua. It lists targets including “new energy vehicles” making up 30% of cars on the road by 2030, said Reuters.
CLIMATE ‘FLAT EARTHER’: The Trump administration has appointed Matthew Wielicki, described by Politico as a “climate critic”, to lead the office in charge of the US national climate assessment. Common Dreams quoted a scientist describing the move as “like putting a flat-earther in charge of NASA”.
UGANDAN SUIT: A group of farmers from Uganda have launched a legal suit in London against the East African oil pipeline, according to Climate Home News.

23%

The share of Irish electricity used by data centres in 2025, reported the Irish Times.

2%

The share of global electricity used by data centres in the same year, according to Carbon Brief analysis of the Energy Institute statistical review.

Latest climate research

Meltwater from the western Himalayan glaciers will peak at around 2C of warming, before declining at higher warming levels | Environmental Research Letters
Current coral restoration efforts may be unsuitable for temperate reefs, including those in the Mediterranean | Nature Ecology & Evolution
People tend to underestimate the level of “broad public support” for climate action | Nature Climate Change

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

Average number of days per year with a daily maximum temperature of at least 30C in a selection of major European cities, for each decade since the 1950s

Carbon Brief explained – via eight facts – why air conditioning rates in some parts of Europe are relatively low, as the technology emerges as a new front in the global “culture war” over climate action. Analysis for the article illustrated that, in many parts of the world’s fastest-warming continent, air conditioning simply was not needed in the past.

Spotlight

COP31 president speaks to Carbon Brief on electrification

This week, Carbon Brief interviews Murat Kurum, president-designate of the COP31 UN climate talks in November and Turkey’s minister of environment, urbanisation and climate change, on his target to boost global electrification.

Carbon Brief: You recently launched a target for 35% of the world’s final energy to come from electricity by 2035. Where did this idea come from?

CB: Why do you think an electrification target is important right now?

COP31 president-designate Murat Kurum. Credit: Supplied by COP31 secretariat

CB: Which countries are supporting this target so far?

For example, the EU, UK, and Canada have welcomed the target, as have the Brazilian COP30 and Ethiopian COP32 presidencies. All have confirmed it will be central to discussions at COP31.

CB: How do you hope and expect to see this taken forward at the COP? Could it be in the formal COP outcomes, or part of the second global stocktake?

We are focused and determined to use COP31 as a moment to spark a global conversation about electrification.

CB: What are the key priorities for reaching the target?

Watch, read, listen

HEATED: A Financial Times long read asked if Europe – the world’s fastest-warming continent – is “prepared for a world of extreme heat”.

LITIGATED: The Outrage and Optimism podcast spoke to Prof Joana Setzer and Catherine Higham about the latest trends in climate litigation.

‘SHATTERED’: Confidence in fossil-fuel exports via the strait of Hormuz has been “shattered”, wrote IEA chief Fatih Birol for Foreign Policy.

Coming up

13-17 July: Meeting of open-ended working group on the Montreal Protocol, Bangkok, Thailand
13-24 July: International Seabed Authority Council, Kingston, Jamaica
16 July: International Energy Agency critical minerals outlook 2026, online

Pick of the jobs

Wellcome Trust, head of policy – climate and health | Salary: £84,640-£105,800. Location: London
Financial Times, senior reporter, Sustainable Views | Salary: Unknown. Location: London
North Texas Public Broadcasting, climate, energy and environment reporter | Salary: $70,000-$78,000. Location: Fort Worth, Texas
Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, head of communications and engagement | Salary: £65,000-£70,000. Location: London

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 10 July 2026: Deadly Europe heat | EU electrification leak | COP31 president interview appeared first on Carbon Brief.

DeBriefed 10 July 2026: Deadly Europe heat | EU electrification leak | COP31 president interview

Climate Change

Eight facts about air conditioning amid an overheated global debate

Published

3 days ago

July 10, 2026

Alice Rush

As successive heatwaves hit Europe, air-conditioning (AC) has emerged as a new front in the international “culture war” over climate action.

France, Germany and the UK have experienced record-breaking heat and thousands of heat-related deaths this summer, with June temperatures in many regions passing 40C.

This has drawn attention to the relatively low rates of AC use in these countries – and in Europe as a whole – especially when compared to its widespread adoption in the US.

Legacy newspapers, bloggers and even Elon Musk have all weighed in on “European hostility” to AC, criticising Europe’s “cultural conservatism” and “overbearing governments”.

Right-wing politicians, including National Rally in France and the UK Conservatives, have styled themselves as champions of AC, while opposing efforts to tackle climate change.

Missing from most of these interventions is the fact that human-caused climate change has made once-rare heat far more common, in what is the world’s fastest warming continent.

Carbon Brief analysis for this article shows that, until the 2020s, it was rare for many European cities to see days above 30C, making AC an unnecessary expense.

Here, Carbon Brief explains – via eight facts – why AC rates in some parts of Europe are relatively low, as well as clarifies and contextualises some of the misleading claims circulating about the technology.

Much of Europe has not needed AC in the past
AC is already widely used in hotter parts of Europe
Some European nations have ‘resisted’ AC – but its popularity is growing
AC emissions are growing, but its climate impact could be limited
Heat from AC can contribute to directly warming cities
More AC could help to reduce heat deaths in Europe
‘Net-zero rules’ are not blocking AC installation in the UK
AC is not the only answer to overheating cities

Much of Europe has not needed AC in the past

AC installation rates in northern parts of Europe are very low. The best available estimates suggest that 6% of households in Germany and just 4% in England use AC.

However, these rates are largely explained by the historical climates in these nations.

Unlike the US, much of the housing stock and infrastructure in Europe was built at a time when AC did not exist and was not necessary.

Moreover, nations such as France, Germany and the UK have only started to regularly experience extreme heat in recent decades.

The chart below shows the average number of days per year, in each decade since the 1950s, when maximum temperatures have exceeded 30C in major European cities. Capitals such as London and Paris have seen a significant jump since around 2000.

Prof Jan Rosenow, an energy and climate researcher at the University of Oxford, tells Carbon Brief:

“For most of the 20th century, northern Europe simply didn’t need cooling. Homes in Britain and Germany were built to keep heat in, not out, because winters were cold and summers rarely hot.”

Much of the commentary about the relatively low rates of European AC use focuses on cultural or “ideological” factors. (See: Some European nations have ‘resisted’ AC – but its popularity is growing.)

However, Rosenow says people’s views on AC in these countries likely stem from their historically colder climates. He adds:

“Attitudes formed around those facts, not the other way round…There is a cultural element, but it is the product of climate, not of some green ideological project.”

In the past, many in Europe relied on traditional methods to keep buildings cool. Richard Black, head of communications at Climate Analytics, made this point in a post on LinkedIn:

“Once, residents of cities such as Paris could cope with summer heatwaves by opening shutters and windows during the night, and closing them again in the morning to trap the cool air inside…We’ve reached a limit to this sort of adaptation.”

Now, with Europe around 2.5C warmer than pre-industrial levels, climate change is routinely driving record-breaking heatwaves, even in the north of the continent.

This is forcing a reappraisal of societies that were “built for a climate that no longer exists”, as the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) put it in a recent report.

Experts broadly agree that much of Europe will indeed need more AC, particularly in spaces housing the most vulnerable populations, such as care homes, schools and hospitals.

At the same time, they also emphasise broader, “passive” efforts to make cities and homes cooler alongside increased AC use. (See: AC is not the only answer to overheating cities.)

Back to top

AC is already widely used in hotter parts of Europe

During periods of extreme heat, articles criticising “European hostility” towards the technology frequently note that “only about 20%” of households in Europe have AC.

Often, this is contrasted with the US, where more than 90% of households have AC installed. (In fact, the US is something of a global outlier, matched only by Japan.)

However, the continent-wide figure for Europe obscures the reality. In southern Europe – where temperatures are and have always been higher – AC is relatively common.

The map below, based on official EU data, shows that southern European nations use far more household energy for “space cooling” than those in the north.

Percentage share of household energy consumption used for “space cooling”, including AC, in EU member states and the Balkans. Source: Eurostat.

Government figures show that nearly 60% of Italian households have AC. Household-level data in many countries is patchy, but various analyses have placed that figure at 70-80% in Greece and 41% in Spain – with higher penetration in the hotter, southern part of the country.

The same pattern can be seen within France. International coverage has stressed the country’s “cultural resistance to AC”, citing a nationwide figure from 2020 that suggests “only” 25% of French households have AC.

However, polling data from customers of the Hello Watt energy app suggests that there is a distinct north-south divide in French uptake. At least 60% of households in Mediterranean regions of France are equipped with AC, according to these figures.

This can be seen in the map below, with households across northern regions, including Paris, reporting far lower AC installation rates, often below 5%.

Percentage share of households equipped with AC in departments of mainland France, according to polling data. Source: Hello Watt.

Finally, when making such comparisons to Europe, it is worth noting that high rates of AC use reported for the entire US also obscure significant differences between – and within – US states. This, too, aligns with differences in regional climate.

Hotter states in the US south have near-universal AC access. But in Washington, a north-western state with a climate more comparable to that of western Europe, 66% of people have AC in their homes.

Back to top

Some European nations have ‘resisted’ AC – but its popularity is growing

International commentators have written extensively about Europe’s “longstanding resistance to cooling technology”, especially when compared to the US.

Newspaper editorials in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, alongside numerous op-eds and blog posts, have added fuel to this “culture war”. Elon Musk has even promoted an AI-generated message stating that Europeans “should just install AC”.

Often, European attitudes are attributed to “guilt” about AC’s energy demand, “cultural conservatism” or “overbearing governments”. One commentator ascribed divergent attitudes in Europe and the US to “different ideas about physical suffering and sacrifice”.

Meanwhile, right-leaning commentators and climate-sceptic groups have blamed “climate policies, which view AC as an unnecessary luxury”.

In general, these critiques often fail to consider the most obvious explanation, which is that AC adoption is low in northern Europe because the historical climate made AC unnecessary.

Critical articles have instead drawn attention to restrictions on AC use in some European countries, as well as the lack of support for AC in official heatwave guidance.

For France, in particular, polling has indeed highlighted widespread disapproval of AC, both on environmental grounds and due to alleged health impacts. Such messages have also been voiced regularly in French media and by left-leaning and green politicians.

However, across Europe there are plenty of signs that such attitudes are shifting, following successive spells of extreme heat.

Amid the June heatwave, there were reports from Germany, France and the UK of “skyrocketing” AC sales. This surge was even acknowledged by the foreign ministry in China, due to the nation’s role in supplying many of these products.

The shift is taking place in politics as well. Marine Tondelier, leader of the French Green party – which has traditionally opposed AC – recently stated that “there are places where we just can’t do without AC anymore”.

Overall, AC has been on the rise across Europe, with France, Spain and the Netherlands all using more than twice as much energy for AC and other “space cooling” technologies in 2024 as they did in 2015.

AC production in Germany has also risen by at least 75% in recent years and a growing share of German homes are being built with it installed.

Notably, there is little evidence that “climate policies” are blocking Europeans from installing AC. Polling in Germany shows that, while people are concerned about environmental impacts, the high costs of installing and running it are perceived as greater barriers.

Finally, there is an important distinction between individual AC units in people’s homes and installing them in public spaces, such as hospitals, care homes and schools.

While neither is widespread in France, support for the latter can increasingly be found across the political spectrum, from Greens to the far-right National Rally (RN).

Back to top

AC emissions are growing, but its climate impact could be limited

Some people have noted that a wider rollout of AC in Europe could drive up emissions.

As noted in the Financial Times by columnist and chief data reporter John Burn-Murdoch, there is a logic to this argument, “at least superficially”. He writes:

“AC uses a lot of energy; if the proposed defence against emissions-driven global warming means emitting more, then we have an obvious problem.”

The emissions impact of AC depends heavily on the generation mix of a country’s power sector.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), “space cooling” – mostly AC, but this does include some fans – used 2,100 terawatt-hours (TWh) of power globally in 2022.

As such, it was responsible for 1bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from electricity use globally. This equates to around 2.7% of total CO2 emissions globally from fossil fuels and industry.

(As well as indirect emissions through power use, AC units can also directly release greenhouse gases – used as AC refrigerants – when they leak or are improperly disposed of. Following the 2016 Kigali Amendment, countries are progressively trying to phase down the use of potent greenhouse gases in AC units.)

In a LinkedIn post, Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and regular Carbon Brief contributor, says:

“There is a lot of alarmist messaging about how much electricity AC uses. However, on an annual basis, the demand is not that substantial. Currently, AC uses about 1% of electricity in the EU and catching up to adoption rates in the US would double this.”

According to the IEA estimates from 2018, “if left unchecked, energy demand from AC will more than triple by 2050”, reaching 6,200TWh of power.

By mid-century, households would contribute the most to the increase (70%), with at least two-thirds of the world’s households potentially having AC, according to the Paris-based agency.

Decarbonising electricity grids and energy-efficiency improvements can reduce AC emissions and their impact on climate.

For instance, in countries with a low-carbon electricity mix – such as France, where nuclear energy accounts for 67% of its electricity generation – expanding AC would have a more limited climate impact than in other countries.

In countries such as India, there could be a more significant increase in emissions as AC is adopted, due to the role coal plays in the country’s energy mix, especially during the night. Demand is growing fast – following low access historically – and many AC units are inefficient, with high electricity use.

According to a new working paper from the India Energy and Climate Center (IECC) at the University of California, Berkeley, “room AC” – portable plug-in units, as opposed to those permanently installed in buildings – already accounts for nearly one-quarter of India’s peak electricity demand (60-70GW) – and this is before the majority of Indian households have bought their first AC unit.

Dr Nikit Abhyankar, co-faculty director of the IECC, tells Carbon Brief that, as AC use is expanded across the world, it should be paired with solar and battery storage, where the “economics have completely shifted” in the last few years. This will help to cut both energy bills and emissions.

According to the IEA, accelerating energy efficiency improvements could deliver more than one-third of all CO2 emission reductions between now and 2030.

The global energy demand needed to run ACs alone in 2050 could be reduced by 1,300GW – the equivalent of all of China and India’s coal plants – through energy efficiency measures, it estimates.

Aditya Valiathan Pillai, a climate adaptation researcher at King’s College London, tells Carbon Brief that, as the use of AC expands, there is a conversation to be had about where and “what type of technology [is used] and who gets access” to it.

A final point is that many AC units are air-to-air heat pumps, which can efficiently heat homes, as well as keeping them cool. As such, wider AC adoption could boost the adoption of electrified heat, helping to cut emissions from gas boilers.

Back to top

Heat from AC can contribute to directly warming cities

Some critics of AC mention its electricity demands and associated CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion, which contribute to raising the temperature of the entire planet. (See: AC emissions are growing, but its climate impact could be limited.)

But AC also has a localised impact. It works by removing heat from indoor air and pushing it outdoors, raising temperatures on the street and exacerbating the “urban heat island” effect.

Left-leaning French politicians are among those citing this as an argument against AC, particularly in cities. Indeed, Emmanuel Grégoire, the Socialist mayor of Paris, appeared to be making this point in an interview with Le Monde, during the June heatwave:

“[AC] can be useful for cooling collective spaces and protecting the most vulnerable populations, but individual AC is a scourge – it makes the problem worse by heating the city even more.”

One study concludes that, in a city such as Phoenix, Arizona, where the technology is widespread, AC use during a heatwave can raise night-time temperatures by 1-1.5C.

Another models a nine-day heatwave in Paris – in a future with “massive” AC use – and finds an increase in external temperature of more than 2C, due to heat emitted by the units.

Given this, some scientists argue that AC can be a form of climate “maladaptation” – referring to actions that backfire and make people more vulnerable to global warming.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted this issue, concluding:

“AC may constitute a maladaptation because of its high demands on energy and associated heat emissions, especially in high-density cities.”

Compared to the US, more people in Europe live in dense, urban areas. According to Dr Vincent Viguié, a climate change economist at École des Ponts ParisTech, this could leave Europeans more exposed to heat from AC units. He tells Carbon Brief:

“If you live in a neighbourhood that is not dense, like in a suburban neighbourhood or in the countryside, you don’t care about this…So, once again, there is a key difference between US and European cities.”

Viguié is among the experts arguing that other climate-adaptation measures should be considered alongside AC, to keep entire cities cool – not just individual homes. He says:

“It’s not to say that the heat released by AC by itself is a reason to forbid AC…It’s just that not taking that into account may lead to bad decisions.”

Back to top

More AC could help to reduce heat deaths in Europe

Heatwaves can be deadly, especially for older or vulnerable members of society.

According to climate scientists at World Weather Attribution, “heatwaves cause more deaths in Europe than all other natural hazards combined”.

The heatwave in June 2026 is estimated to have killed more than 20,000 people in Europe. In France – which has seen some of the hottest temperatures – the heatwave caused more than 2,700 heat-related deaths, according to analysis published by Carbon Brief.

AC does help to protect people from the effects of extreme heat. A 2021 study found that globally, AC averted an estimated 190,000 heat-related deaths annually during 2019-21.

With its much higher penetration of AC, the US has fewer deaths due to extreme heat than Europe.

Heat kills around 11 people out of every 100,000 in Europe, compared to around two people in the US, according to analysis by data scientist Dr Hannah Ritchie from Our World in Data.

Several publications have pointed out that “Europe’s heatwaves are deadlier than American gun violence”. While this is technically accurate in absolute terms, Ritchie says the comparison is “a bit silly” for a number of reasons, not least because on a per-capita basis, US gun deaths are higher.

Average annual deaths per 100,000 for heat and gun deaths in the US (red) and Europe (blue) to as close to the end of 2024 as possible. Heat deaths are based on excess death methodology, not death certificates. Source: By the Numbers.

However, experts suggest that AC is only one part of a wider effort to protect people from extreme heat.

A 2020 study looking at heat-related mortality in Canada, Japan, Spain and the US, found that excess deaths due to heat decreased between 1972 and 2009.

For example, the proportion of deaths due to extreme heat fell from 1.7% to 0.5% over the period in the US and 3.5% to 2.8% in Spain.

However, an increase in AC only explained 16.7% of the drop in the US and 14.3% in Spain.

The research concludes that “other factors have played an equal or more important role in increasing the resilience of populations”. This is supported by research that shows changes to cities, such as planting more trees, as well as behavioural shifts and public-health measures, can all protect people from dangerous heat.

Additionally, across Europe there is already a range of policies and measures in place to protect the most vulnerable from heatwaves. Many of these were brought in following the unprecedented summer of 2003, when 70,000 died from extreme heat.

These policies were highlighted by French environment minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, in response to the far-right National Rally (RN) party’s AC proposals:

“The incompetent RN has just found out that nursing homes need air-conditioned rooms. Thank you, but it’s actually been mandatory since 2004.”

Another study found that measures that have already been rolled out in France would cut the projected death toll of a 2003-like heatwave by more than 75%. This is in part due to the expansion of AC in places such as nursing homes, but also other approaches, such as heat action plans.

For example, France has a multi-tiered action plan, which includes local governments ensuring access to cooled spaces and water, keeping a list of vulnerable individuals for targeted interventions, as well as national information campaigns.

According to the UN’s office for disaster risk reduction, this French plan has led to a “significant reduction in heat-related mortality”.

While action plans have proved successful in a number of nations, less than half of European countries have such a plan in place.

Back to top

‘Net-zero rules’ are not blocking AC installation in the UK

In the UK, Conservative politicians and right-leaning media have tried to pit the adoption of AC against net-zero policy.

Writing in the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph, columnist Matthew Lynn claimed falsely:

“Strict net-zero rules now mean that aircon is effectively banned in the UK.”

(Further down the article, he concedes: “AC is not strictly speaking banned in new-build homes in the UK. But tough environmental rules mean that it is very hard, and expensive, to install in practice.”)

The same narrative has been used in articles by GB News, the Sun and others. A separate article in the Daily Telegraph’s “money” section goes further, claiming that AC had been “torn from homes under net-zero clampdown”.

A blog post from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government rebuts these claims, stating:

“There has been media coverage this week suggesting that AC is banned in homes. This is incorrect.”

For the UK, while it is true that fewer than 5% of homes currently have AC, this is largely due to the fact that it was not hot enough in the past to warrant the expense. Historically, the focus has therefore been on keeping buildings warm, rather than cool.

Extreme heat has previously been rare in the country, so homes were built with insulation and other measures to keep heat in during the “dank winters”. (See: Much of Europe has not needed AC in the past.)

Current regulations do not ban the installation of AC outright. However – as the government’s blog post notes – there is no blanket rule, meaning there are some localised differences.

Certain areas – or certain kinds of properties – may be subject to additional complications for installing AC.

In a 2025 video on Instagram, shadow secretary of state for energy security and net-zero Claire Coutinho referenced the London plan, for example, which is a framework for development in the capital launched in 2021. She said:

“[London mayor] Sadiq Khan says no. The London plan says we shouldn’t have air con because it uses too much energy. But this is mad! This is a poverty mindset that we need to get away from.”

The London Plan does not stop homes from having AC. It simply says that, for new buildings, passive design measures should be prioritised, such as the orientation of the building, the window design and incorporation of measures such as external shading and trees.

A recent response from the mayor added further measures, such as the need to “minimise the necessity for the operation of mechanical measures including AC, which would further add to the heat island effect within urban areas and add operational cost to residents”.

Elsewhere, new-build homes across England must meet the requirements of “part O” of the 2022 building regulation updates. This includes addressing overheating in buildings through energy-efficient design and prioritising passive cooling, with AC as a last resort.

For existing buildings, most AC units fall under “permitted development rights”, meaning no planning application is required to install them.

Additionally, regulations were relaxed in 2025 to make it easier to install an air-to-air heat pump – which can both heat and cool air – without planning permission.

This means that, far from blocking the expansion of AC, net-zero policy has made it easier to install specific cooling systems.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Andrew Sissons, director of sustainable future at Nesta, says the government must now implement its announced £2,500 subsidy for air-to-air heat pumps “as quickly as possible”, to further ensure that the technology can be rolled out efficiently. He adds:

“[The government] should also continue to expand permitted development rights for air-to-air heat pumps, with a particular focus on flats and homes in denser areas. As long as heat pumps meet the MCS [Microgeneration Certification Scheme] noise test, there are few reasons to limit their use via the planning system.”

Some properties, such as large homes, listed buildings or those in conservation areas, may still require planning permission to install an air-to-air heat pump or other AC. Sissons notes that this can add cost and delay to installation.

While it cannot be said that AC has been blocked or banned due to net-zero, neither has it been prioritised.

This may shift as temperatures continue to rise. UK government advisors at the Climate Change Committee (CCC) suggest that 22% of the UK’s housing stock will likely need active cooling, such as AC, to cope with 2C of global warming.

The CCC’s recent adaptation report also calls for all new homes to be built using low-cost, passive cooling measures, alongside more AC.

Active cooling such as AC is more likely to be needed for retrofitting existing homes, the report adds.

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AC is not the only answer to overheating cities

AC has become increasingly politicised in Europe, as demonstrated by France’s RN party announcing its “grand plan for AC” in all public buildings.

As noted by Dutch MEP Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, this “far-right” embrace of AC is coming from the same people who for years have “delayed emissions reductions”.

In response, left-leaning policymakers in Europe have frequently downplayed the role of AC, prioritising programmes of urban greening and retrofitting older buildings.

Such approaches for dealing with extreme heat have already proved successful. Therefore, many experts argue that these methods, alongside AC, will be essential to prepare for a hotter world.

According to the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, adaptive infrastructure, such as urban forests and green roofs, can reduce energy use because of cooling, with co-benefits for climate, air quality, physical and mental health.

While retrofitting older buildings for heat as well as insulating them from the cold might prove challenging, urban greening and an active shade policy – one that determines how much of every street is exposed to direct sunlight – are simple measures cities can adopt.

Some experts have also warned about the high cost of running AC, expressing concerns that excessive reliance on the technology could increase energy poverty.

In a Carbon Brief guest post published in 2025, researchers at the Basque Centre for Climate Change found that framing AC as the “default solution” can miss the opportunity to design “more inclusive, human-centred responses” to rising temperatures.

William Lewis, a PhD candidate and one of the guest post’s authors, tells Carbon Brief it is not a case of “one or the other”, when considering AC and other options:

“We have this opportunity in European countries to choose a slightly different path [from the US], which isn’t AC in every single home.”

King’s College London’s Pillai says that, by centring the debate on AC, the far-right response to the heatwaves in Europe has “completely neglected the science of how you cool human beings”.

There are many solutions, he adds, that are already widely used across hot developing countries, such as ceiling fans, windows that open and cross-ventilation, as well as strategies to reduce cumulative hours of heat exposure.

Pillai tells Carbon Brief that, while places reaching 42C and higher “definitely need to think about AC very seriously”, places in the “low to mid 30Cs” could rely on these alternatives.

Behavioural change, he adds, is the “least glamorous part” of heat policy, but “pulls most of the weight” of protecting people. These include a wide range of actions and responses – from reducing heat exposure, to wearing lighter clothing and drinking more water and fluids.

There are also workplace protections. Pillai tells Carbon Brief that these could include legislation on mandatory work breaks, cooling and shade requirements at workplaces, as well as health insurance that covers heat stress days that have been lost by heat-exposed workers.

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