Astrid Schomaker is the new executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Schomaker, who is German, was previously the director for green diplomacy and multilateralism with the European Commission.
She took over as the UN’s biodiversity chief in July this year, just months out from the major UN biodiversity summit, COP16, which will take place in Cali, Colombia from 21 October to 1 November.
Carbon Brief spoke to Schomaker ahead of the Cali talks to discuss progress on nature targets, key negotiation sticking points and boosting the profile of biodiversity COPs.
- On COP16: “We had an ambitious framework put in place just two years ago and now we need to look at whether this has actually been the game-changer that people think it has been.”
- On low national biodiversity plan submissions: “The start was never going to be fast. I think the important thing we’re looking at is the work is underway.”
- On combining the efforts of the biodiversity, climate and desertification COPs: “What one would hope is that these three COPs now can actually give a push to countries committing to bringing this together.”
- On biodiversity finance: “There is movement across the world and, therefore, I think the outlook is broadly positive. Is it enough? No. Does it have to be scaled up? Absolutely.”
- On Colombia as host: “They’ve made a lot of efforts to make this COP a success. And, in Susana Muhamad, we have a very knowledgeable and a very charismatic and very dedicated COP host.”
- On security: “We are reassured that good security arrangements are in place, both in the city of Cali and for the COP specifically as well.”
- On world leaders at COP16: “The nature crisis has to be understood as being at the same level of seriousness as the climate crisis and, therefore, also requiring the same level of political attention.”
- On the US and the CBD: “Whatever the outcome of the next elections will be, ratification has not been a subject that was actively discussed in the US recently.”
- On Indigenous input: “This is actually a big issue on our agenda and also one that’s very important for Colombia.”
- On COP17 hosts: “We have two offers on the table at the moment – Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
- On genetic resources: “We think this could actually generate considerable finance streams for biodiversity-rich countries and, therefore, it’s important that we move ahead with it and put in place a mechanism that is workable.”
Carbon Brief: We are less than two weeks out from the start of COP16. There are thousands of people all around the world getting ready to head to Cali in Colombia to discuss implementation of the 2030 targets, sharing of genetic resources, biodiversity finance, all of this range of other issues. I assume this is going to be a huge moment for you in your role, especially as you only took it up in July. How are you feeling ahead of the talks? Are you excited, intimidated?
Astrid Schomaker: Well, mostly excited, and quite optimistic. I think for us in the convention, it’s a big moment. We had an ambitious framework put in place just two years ago [at COP15] and now we need to look at whether this has actually been the game-changer that people think it has been. And that, of course, means we need to look [to see if] these commitments[are being] actually implemented, and COP will give us a good chance.
For us, it’s important to see also the huge mobilisation. We have the biggest COP ever. We have the biggest green zone. We have more media, more business, more stakeholders [and] more delegates than we ever had before.
So we think that, in a way, when people say it’s nature’s moment, now really is nature’s moment. People [have] come to realise that we need to have a different relationship with nature. Take better care of nature. Look at nature together with climate change and see that we cannot solve the climate crisis without looking at the nature crisis. So it’s mostly a moment of anticipation and excitement.
CB: Broadly speaking, what are the main outcomes you want to see from COP16?
AS: The first thing is to have a look at how implementation is actually progressing. We said at COP15 [that] countries should prioritise national targets. So far, we have 79 countries that have put national targets in place. We expect more by COP, and maybe also some to be announced at COP. So that’s quite a good number.
What is important in particular, and then compared to what happened previously under the Aichi process, is that most of these national targets actually reflect the global targets, so they make direct linkages. And also, it’s not just a kind of pick-and-choose approach. But it’s in the majority, actually, [that] all targets of the GBF [Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework] are reflected in the national targets. Or at least, I think more than 75% of those targets are reflected in national targets. So that’s a good number.
On the national biodiversity strategies and action plans [NBSAPs], the number does not look quite so good. We are at 20 so far. Again, we know lots of countries are now finalising their plans, stepping up action. One may think it’s a low number – and certainly this has been pointed out by some NGOs.
On the other hand, we have been holding workshops around the world, and we’ve seen that countries literally around the world are working on these action plans and, in a way, they take longer because countries have taken to heart this call for a whole of government approach.
So it’s not an environment ministry which sits somewhere, drafts a plan, adopts it and submits it. It’s really an exercise where governments come together across the board, where stakeholders are being consulted and then often also where these action plans are then adopted at a higher political level.
So at the COP, we will have an opportunity to look at these first action plans and targets. We have a pre-meeting, our subsidiary body on implementation, that’s basically entirely dedicated to looking at these plans and then to discussing where are the bottlenecks, where are the difficulties, where are the good practices that can be shared.
CB: Back on the NBSAPs then. As you say, there has been criticism from NGOs like WWF and other places about this figure of 20-odd countries at the moment out of 196 – about 10% – that have submitted these national biodiversity plans. That seems like a very low number, especially if you think about the climate COP. If only that number of nationally determined contributions were submitted, there would be uproar, let’s say. Were you surprised by this low level of submissions so far? And also, are you worried that it could indicate that countries are not taking global nature pledges seriously and even that they could not be met by 2030 as a result?
AS: I think if we look at the deadline, it was very short. I mean, COP15 took place in December 2022, so it’s less than two years. Many countries had to put new processes in place, had to get funding. So I mean, the start was never going to be fast. I think the important thing we’re looking at is the work is underway. And there, I’m confident to say, it’s literally underway around the world in countries. So whether the deadline itself is met on the dot is not what I think we’re really looking at. We’re looking at how far countries advance, how are they talking to their stakeholders, how are they managing to also have these new processes that would involve better reflecting traditional knowledge, for example, involving Indigenous people, where that’s relevant.
Bringing the business sector on board was, as you know, in the Global Biodiversity Framework. There are also targets for business. So all of that takes time. Since we’ve done these workshops, and we understand that countries are working on that, I think our assessment is globally positive. This is not to say that more than 20 would [not] have been better, but I think the important thing is to look that progress is there. And I’m confident that by the end of the year, the number will be significantly higher.
CB: Do you have any estimate of what that number could be?
AS: No, I don’t.
CB: Will CBD analysis on the plans and targets put forward by countries still be done this year, in light of the low number of NBSAP submissions?
AS: The full analysis is basically for COP17. That’s when we have our stocktake. So what we’ve done now, and you can see that in the documents that have been published, we’ve been just looking basically at how the targets are reflected. We haven’t got an in-depth analysis and also, at this point in time, countries were asked to submit their targets. They were not asked to report to us how they are implementing those targets. So we’re basically still at this level of really demonstrating that the commitments were taken seriously and looking at how they’re being translated into targets, but we’re not at the stage of analysing implementation.
CB: Do you think that the NBSAP issue indicates that there needs to be a wider, more UN COP-level reform? Susana Muhamad this week was talking about unifying these targets that are put forward to the climate change, biodiversity and desertification COPs. What is your take on that opinion?
AS: I don’t think that’s a call for UN reform or necessarily unifying targets. I think what everybody is looking at is, first of all, the opportunity that we have this year with these three Rio Conventions having their COPs in rapid succession. And, of course, with basically planning processes going on under land degradation neutrality for desertification, and then national adaptation plans and the enhancement of the NDCs [nationally determined contributions] under the climate convention, then our NBSAPs.
What we have all been saying – specifically two weeks ago in New York when the Rio Trio initiative was launched – [is] that it makes sense to bring this planning process together, especially at the national level. We very often have different focal points for climate change, desertification and biodiversity. They don’t necessarily talk to each other. They are often in different ministries.
These planning processes are often subject to different funding streams and support, so it’s actually difficult to bring them together at a national level. But it would make a lot more sense and we’ve seen the potential is big [as] the numbers, the percentages, where the plans refer to each other are not high. So there’s scope for improvement.
What one would hope is that these three COPs now can actually give a push to countries committing to bringing this together and, ideally, also to us as convention secretariats to get a mandate to support this better coordination of processes at national level.
CB: I wanted to ask about finance, because that is obviously going to be a huge talking point as well at this COP. How would you like to see developed countries showing leadership at COP16 in meeting the nature finance target in particular of hitting at least $20 billion per year by 2025 for developing countries? Are you optimistic that this goal will be achieved?
AS: Well, that’s a difficult question. First of all, the goal on ODA [official development assistance] is part of a broader financing goal, of course. But since you asked specifically about ODA, we don’t have figures beyond 2022. The figures that the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] has published, which you may have seen, indicate a very positive trend on nature finance up to 2022. We have no reason to believe that this trend would have changed and if the trend persists, we are probably on a good way towards the $20 billion by 2025.
From the perspective of many developing countries, I think the expectation was that more funds would have been put into the newly created Global Biodiversity Framework Fund at the GEF [Global Environment Facility]. So we hope that at the COP, indeed, new pledges will be made so that this fund will see more funding.
But I think we have to realise that most biodiversity finance streams are bilateral streams and don’t go through the funds. We also have to see that in addition to the framework fund, there is the Kunming Biodiversity Fund that China put in place that has also been capitalised with $200 million.
So there is movement across the world and, therefore, I think the outlook is broadly positive. Is it enough? No. Does it have to be scaled up? Absolutely. I think we will have good discussions at COP [on] how that can be done. And, of course, we also need to continue in the same vein as we discussed before, how the climate and biodiversity crises overlap and how also these funding streams, to an extent, overlap.
CB: Looking then at Colombia’s role as host country for this COP and Susana Muhamad’s role as summit president. Do you think that the profile of both the country and her as president will have a positive impact on the outcome of the talks? Especially compared to COP15, which didn’t end up taking place in the host country of China.
AS: At COP15, we had a very active presidency and then supported by an active host. So there was almost a beautiful coming together of China and Canada and we had an excellent outcome.
For COP16, yes, I think the fact, first of all, that the COP is taking place in a biodiversity-rich country is already positive. We have seen Colombia take leadership on biodiversity issues for many years. Including, for example, at COP15, when they led with Germany on the accelerator initiative.
There’s a lot that this country can bring to the debate including, incidentally, in terms of a very lively Indigenous community and a lot of traditional knowledge and discussion around that which will, in any case, take place at our COP.
So I think Colombia is an excellent host. They’ve made a lot of efforts to make this COP a success. And in Susana Muhamad, we have a very knowledgeable and a very charismatic and very dedicated COP host. So I think the ingredients are in place for this to be a very good, successful COP.
CB: Also, though, their role as host has not been without a couple of difficulties along the way. There were reports during the summer that there was a dissident rebel group threatening to disrupt the COP, although the threat has since been withdrawn. Also there are peace talks ongoing between the government and the ELN [National Liberation Army]. Are you, and the CBD in general, reassured about the security of the summit?
AS: Yes, we are. Of course, we know that Colombia is a country with an ongoing internal conflict. We know that there is an ongoing peace process to which the government is dedicating a lot of attention. We have worked very closely with the government, both at country level, then also at sub-national level with the Valle del Cauca and with the city to look at the security plans. We have seen the government come together, ministries across the board working on that. So, yes, I think, we are reassured that good security arrangements are in place both in the city of Cali and for the COP specifically as well.
CB: There are going to be several world leaders there that you were announcing a couple of weeks ago – Lula, the president of Brazil, the newly inaugurated President Sheinbaum in Mexico, alongside other world leaders. This is definitely a change of pace from COP15 and previous biodiversity COPs, where there was not this same politicking around it, especially compared to climate COPs. Do you think that this will help to bring more attention to the biodiversity COP, given that it generally receives a fraction of the coverage and the interest compared to the climate COP in particular? Was it the aim of inviting world leaders to amp up the profile?
AS: Yes to both. I think the presence of world leaders amplifies the profile of the convention. I think the intention of Colombia as a host – and, of course, we very much support that – is to demonstrate that the nature crisis has to be understood as being at the same level of seriousness as the climate crisis and therefore also requiring the same level of political attention.
That’s why they have invited heads of state and government to come to the COP. We think that’s a very good signal, especially because, as I think Susana Muhamad always indicates, and I mentioned earlier, we will not be able to look at climate change in isolation from the nature and biodiversity crisis.
So if we want the climate targets of 1.5C to be within reach, we really also need to look at how nature can contribute. And by bringing heads of state and government that are talking about this a lot to our COP, I think we will succeed more to get this message heard by a wider audience.
CB: My next question is slightly off topic but, out of curiosity, has the CBD engaged in any talks with the US in recent years about them ratifying the convention? And also, could the upcoming presidential election have any impact on this prospect?
AS: I mean, we always have contacts with the United States. We’re just across the border [at the CBD headquarters in Montreal], so we regularly talk to the government. The United States are always participating at the COPs with reasonably big delegations. They are engaged in all our meetings. I’m not aware that we have had specific discussions about ratification and, at the same level, whatever the outcome of the next elections will be, ratification has not been a subject that was actively discussed in the US recently. As well as I know, inter alia, because it needs a congressional majority that has not been available in the past years.
CB: Looking at your own background in the European Commission, you must be well versed in figuring out how to make policies work for both developed and developing countries. Particularly around policies like the anti-deforestation regulation, which was recently postponed for a year. How do you plan to ensure that the input of biodiverse, developing countries and also Indigenous peoples and local communities, these other key stakeholders, remain at the front and centre of COP16 talks?
AS: Well, especially on this latter issue, on the Indigenous peoples and local communities, this is actually a big issue on our agenda and also one that’s very important for Colombia. [It’s] where a lot of mobilisation has taken place over the past weeks, of Indigenous groups coming together and formulating their policies.
So what we think will happen at the COP is that we will adopt a new work programme for Indigenous people, but possibly also look at the upgrading of what we currently have as a working group to a proper subsidiary body. So that would elevate, in a way, the voice of Indigenous people and all the traditional knowledge they bring to the debate.
For developing countries, I mean more broadly, I think everybody realises that, like climate change, biodiversity may be a localised issue, but it is a global challenge. So we need action at all levels and the biodiversity-rich countries are, notably, [largely] in the global south.
So that’s why we have such a big discussion on resource mobilisation, why we have a big discussion on sharing of expertise, of knowledge and technology. This will have to continue at COP. There’s a lot of south-south cooperation that we also like to support and there’s a lot of, let’s say, willingness and mobilisation across the global south that will also come with big delegations that we hope to support through the COP discussions and also through the decisions that are being taken and through the various support programmes that UN agencies like UNEP [UN Environment Programme] and UNDP [UN Development Programme] run, for example, in supporting NBSAP processes and others.
CB: Looking far ahead into the future, it was recently confirmed that Azerbaijan has put its name forward to host COP17, the next UN biodiversity summit. Firstly, what is your reaction to that, especially given some of the controversies around their hosting of the climate COP – given that they are a petrostate – and also their human rights issues? Also, when will the next host be decided? Will the announcement be made at the end of COP16?
AS: The way that works for the biodiversity convention, we adopted a decision I think at COP13 that looks at a regional rotation. And, indeed, COP17 should be hosted by the eastern European group. We have two offers on the table at the moment – Azerbaijan and Armenia. If there would be no consensus in the eastern European group, that they would sort of put forward one or the other, the way this works for us is that this is a procedural decision. Such procedural decisions could be taken by vote at the end of the COP.
CB: What is your reaction then to both Azerbaijan and Armenia having put their names forward for it? Are you excited about either option?
AS: Well, hosting a COP is a huge responsibility and I think Azerbaijan experiences this now as they’re getting ready to host the climate COP. If a country puts itself forward, it puts its national policies under a global spotlight. So I think it takes courage to do it and we’re grateful that we have two candidates that want to host us in 2026.
CB: Thank you for taking the time to speak, I really appreciate it. Is there anything else you wanted to add, or anything else you think would be good to mention just two weeks out from the start of COP?
AS: As you mentioned yourself in the beginning, there are important decisions to be taken. You might think it’s just an implementation COP, but it is an implementation COP. And implementation, in many ways, is just as important or more important than making new commitments.
Maybe one area I would highlight in addition to the ones we discussed, and that’s that of digital sequencing information [DSI]. At COP15, we already put in place a decision to say that we wanted a multilateral mechanism that looks at how this digital sequence information from genetic information, [how] the benefits of it could be shared more equitably.
So we are looking forward to this complex issue now being resolved at COP16 with such a mechanism being instituted. Because we think this could actually generate considerable finance streams for biodiversity-rich countries and, therefore, it’s important that we move ahead with it and put in place a mechanism that is workable for all countries and that allows us, in a way, to move ahead with this mindset shift that we see in the business world. With more and more businesses coming to the discussion, but also the businesses realising that you cannot build your business model and your business success on nature for free.
So there is a price to be paid and the sequencing information discussion sort of exemplifies this very well. As, in general, the fact that business is now coming to the table in greater numbers and is asking a lot of questions about how they can measure their impacts, how they can disclose what are the right metrics.
All these discussions that will take place at COP16, I think, are very important given that business is not only very dependent on nature, but also has important impacts on nature. They just need to be part of the discussion along with everybody else.
CB: On that, on both DSI and also businesses showing up in greater numbers at COP, are you worried about a potential impact of lobbying weakening the text around DSI, in particular now that the talks that have been ongoing for so long are reaching their end stage and everything is going to hit the fan, essentially, with businesses and countries needing to start taking these things into account? Are you worried that there could be a ramping up of this lobbying at this COP?
AS: Well, I think there are different groups of businesses that will be involved at COP, and there’s only a certain subset of businesses that might be concerned in the first place by the DSI.
So yes, of course, if you are a company, you are worried about how this mechanism will work and I think they will come to the table expressing their concerns and arguing for a workable mechanism.
But we have heard lots of companies from sectors that are most concerned, of pharmaceuticals, biotech, etc, that have actually already done this what I call the ‘mindset shift’ and that have said ‘we realise this is something we need to do, we want to do, but we also want it to be workable’. And I think that’s an important consideration and they will bring that to the table for sure.
CB: Great, thanks again.
AS: Thank you and see you in Cali.
The post The Carbon Brief Interview: UN biodiversity chief Astrid Schomaker appeared first on Carbon Brief.
The Carbon Brief Interview: UN biodiversity chief Astrid Schomaker
In 2026, the dangers of fossil fuel dependence have been laid bare like never before. The illegal invasion of Iran has brought pain and destruction to millions across the Middle East and triggered a global energy crisis impacting us all. Communities in the Pacific have been hit especially hard by rising fuel prices, and Australians have seen their cost-of-living woes deepen.
Such moments of crisis and upheaval can lead to positive transformation. But only when leaders act with courage and foresight.
There is no clearer statement of a government’s plans and priorities for the nation than its budget — how it plans to raise money, and what services, communities, and industries it will invest in.
As we count down the days to the 2026-27 Federal Budget, will the Albanese Government deliver a budget for our times? One that starts breaking the shackles of fossil fuels, accelerates the shift to clean energy, protects nature, and sees us work together with other countries towards a safer future for all? Or one that doubles down on coal and gas, locks in more climate chaos, and keeps us beholden to the whims of tyrants and billionaires.
Here’s what we think the moment demands, and what we’ll be looking out for when Treasurer Jim Chalmers steps up to the dispatch box on 12 May.
1. Stop fuelling the fire
2. Make big polluters pay
3. Support everyone to be part of the solution
4. Build the industries of the future
5. Build community resilience
6. Be a better neighbour
7. Protect nature
1. Stop fuelling the fire
In mid-April, Pacific governments and civil society met to redouble their efforts towards a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific. Moving beyond coal, oil and gas is fundamental to limiting warming to 1.5°C — a survival line for vulnerable communities and ecosystems. And as our Head of Pacific, Shiva Gounden, explained, it is “also a path of liberation that frees us from expensive, extractive and polluting fossil fuel imports and uplifts our communities”.
Pacific countries are at the forefront of growing global momentum towards a just transition away from fossil fuels, and it is way past time for Australia to get with the program. It is no longer a question of whether fossil fuel extraction will end, but whether that end will be appropriately managed and see communities supported through the transition, or whether it will be chaotic and disruptive.
So will this budget support the transition away from fossil fuels, or will it continue to prop up coal and gas?
When it comes to sensible moves the government can make right now, one stands out as a genuine low hanging fruit. Mining companies get a full rebate of the excise (or tax) that the rest of us pay on diesel fuel. This lowers their operating costs and acts as a large, ongoing subsidy on fossil fuel production — to the tune of $11 billion a year!
Greenpeace has long called for coal and gas companies to be removed from this outdated scheme, and for the billions in savings to be used to support the clean energy transition and to assist communities with adapting to the impacts of climate change. Will we see the government finally make this long overdue change, or will it once again cave to the fossil fuel lobby?
2. Make big polluters pay
While our communities continue to suffer the escalating costs of climate-fuelled disasters, our Government continues to support a massive expansion of Australia’s export gas industry. Gas is a dangerous fossil fuel, with every tonne of Australian gas adding to the global heating that endangers us all.
Moreover, companies like Santos and Woodside pay very little tax for the privilege of digging up and selling Australians’ natural endowment of fossil gas. Remarkably, the Government currently raises more tax from beer than from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) — the main tax on gas profits.
Momentum has been building to replace or supplement the PRRT with a 25% tax on gas exports. This could raise up to $17 billion a year — funds that, like savings from removing the diesel tax rebate for coal and gas companies, could be spent on supporting the clean energy transition and assisting communities with adapting to worsening fires, floods, heatwaves and other impacts of climate change.
As politicians arrive in Canberra for budget week, they will be confronted by billboards calling for a fair tax on gas exports. The push now has the support of dozens of organisations and a growing number of politicians. Let’s hope the Treasurer seizes this rare window for reform.
3. Support everyone to be part of the solution
As the price of petrol and diesel rises, electric vehicles (EVs) are helping people cut fuel use and save money. However, while EV sales have jumped since the invasion of Iran sent fuel prices rising, they still only make up a fraction of total new car sales. This budget should help more Australians switch to electric vehicles and, even more importantly, enable more Australians to get around by bike, on foot, and on public transport. This means maintaining the EV discount, investing in public and active transport, and removing tax breaks for fuel-hungry utes and vans.
Millions of Australians already enjoy the cost-saving benefits of rooftop solar, batteries, and getting off gas. This budget should enable more households, and in particular those on lower incomes, to access these benefits. This means maintaining the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, and building on the Household Energy Upgrades Fund.
4. Build the industries of the future
If we’re to transition away from fossil fuels, we need to be building the clean industries of the future.
No state is more pivotal to Australia’s energy and industrial transformation than Western Australia. The state has unrivaled potential for renewable energy development and for replacing fossil fuel exports with clean exports like green iron. Such industries offer Western Australia the promise of a vibrant economic future, and for Australia to play an outsized positive role in the world’s efforts to reduce emissions.
However, realising this potential will require focussed support from the Federal Government. Among other measures, Greenpeace has recommended establishing the Australasian Green Iron Corporation as a joint venture between the Australian and Western Australian governments, a key trading partner, a major iron ore miner and steel makers. This would unite these central players around the complex task of building a large-scale green iron industry, and unleash Western Australia’s potential as a green industrial powerhouse.
5. Build community resilience
Believe it or not, our Government continues to spend far more on subsidising fossil fuel production — and on clearing up after climate-fuelled disasters — than it does on helping communities and industries reduce disaster costs through practical, proven methods for building their resilience.
Last year, the Government estimated that the cost of recovery from disasters like the devastating 2022 east coast floods on 2019-20 fires will rise to $13.5 billion. For contrast, the Government’s Disaster Ready Fund – the main national source of funding for disaster resilience – invests just $200 million a year in grants to support disaster preparedness and resilience building. This is despite the Government’s own National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) estimating that for every dollar spent on disaster risk reduction, there is a $9.60 return on investment.
By redirecting funds currently spent on subsidising fossil fuel production, the Government can both stop incentivising climate destruction in the first place, and ensure that Australian communities and industries are better protected from worsening climate extremes.
No communities have more to lose from climate damage, or carry more knowledge of practical solutions, than Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The budget should include a dedicated First Nations climate adaptation fund, ensuring First Nations communities can develop solutions on their own terms, and access the support they need with adapting to extreme heat, coastal erosion and other escalating challenges.
6. Be a better neighbour
The global response to climate change depends on the adequate flow of support from developed economies like Australia to lower income nations with shifting to clean energy, adapting to the impacts of climate change, and addressing loss and damage.
Such support is vital to building trust and cooperation, reducing global emissions, and supporting regional and global security by enabling countries to transition away from fossil fuels and build greater resilience.
Despite its central leadership role in this year’s global climate negotiations, our Government is yet to announce its contribution to international climate finance for 2025-2030. Greenpeace recommends a commitment of $11 billion for this five year period, which is aligned with the global goal under the Paris Agreement to triple international climate finance from current levels.
This new commitment should include additional funding to address loss and damage from climate change and a substantial contribution to the Pacific Resilience Facility, ensuring support is accessible to countries and communities that need it most. It should also see Australia get firmly behind the vision of a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific.
7. Protect nature
There is no safe planet without protection of the ecosystems and biodiversity that sustain us and regulate our climate.
Last year the Parliament passed important and long overdue reforms to our national environment laws to ensure better protection for our forests and other critical ecosystems. However, the Government will need to provide sufficient funding to ensure the effective implementation of these reforms.
Greenpeace has recommended $500 million over four years to establish the National Environment Agency — the body responsible for enforcing and monitoring the new laws — and a further $50 million to Environment Information Australia for providing critical information and tools.
Further resourcing will also be required to fulfil the crucial goal of fully protecting 30% of Australian land and seas by 2030. This should include $1 billion towards ending deforestation by enabling farmers and loggers to retool away from destructive practices, $2 billion a year for restoring degraded lands, $5 billion for purchasing and creating new protected areas, and $200 million for expanding domestic and international marine protected areas.
Conclusion
This is not the first time that conflict overseas has triggered an energy crisis, or that a budget has been preceded by a summer of extreme weather disasters, highlighting the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels. What’s different in 2026 is the availability of solutions. Renewable energy is now cheaper and more accessible than ever before. Global momentum is firmly behind the transition away from fossil fuels. The Albanese Government, with its overwhelming majority, has the chance to set our nation up for the future, or keep us stranded in the past. Let’s hope it makes some smart choices.
The 2026 budget test: Will Australia break free from fossil fuels?
Anne Jellema is Executive Director of 350.org.
The war on Iran and Lebanon is a deeply unjust and devastating conflict, killing civilians at home, destroying lives, and at the same time sending shockwaves through the global economy. We, at 350.org, have calculated, drawing on price forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Goldman Sachs, just how much that volatility is costing us.
Even under the IMF’s baseline scenario – a de facto “best case” scenario with a near-term end to the war and related supply chain disruptions – oil and gas price spikes are projected to cost households and businesses globally more than $600 billion by the end of the year. Under the IMF’s “adverse scenario”, with prolonged conflict and sustained price pressures, we estimate those additional costs could exceed $1 trillion, even after accounting for reduced demand.
Which is why we urgently need a power shift. Governments are under growing pressure to respond to rising fuel and food costs and deepening energy poverty. And it’s becoming clearer to both voters and elected officials that fossil dependence is not only expensive and risky, but unnecessary.
People who can are voting with their wallets: sales of solar panels and electric vehicles are increasing sharply in many countries. But the working people who have nothing to spare, ironically, are the ones stuck with using oil and gas that is either exorbitantly expensive or simply impossible to get.
Drain on households and economies
In India, street food vendors can’t get cooking gas and in the Philippines, fishermen can’t afford to take their boats to sea. A quarter of British people say that rising energy tariffs will leave them completely unable to pay their bills. This is the moment for a global push to bring abundant and affordable clean energy to all.
In April, we released Out of Pocket, our new research report on how fossil fuels are draining households and economies. We were surprised by the scale of what we found. For decades, governments have reassured people that energy price spikes are unfortunate but unavoidable – the result of distant conflicts, market forces or geopolitical shocks beyond anyone’s control. But the numbers tell a different story.
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Santa Marta: Ministers grapple with practicalities of fossil fuel phase-out
Around 60 governments that want to make progress on transitioning away from coal, oil and gas are meeting in Colombia to work out how they can do it an equitable way -
Why the transition beyond fossil fuels depends on cities and collective action
Cities will help identify concrete pathways for an equitable shift to clean energy at the Santa Marta conference, with C40 members aiming to halve their fossil fuel use by 2030
What we are living through today is not an energy crisis. It is a fossil fuel crisis. In just the first 50 days of the Middle East conflict, soaring oil and gas prices have siphoned an estimated $158 billion–$166 billion from households and businesses worldwide. That is money extracted directly from people’s pockets and transferred, almost instantly, into fossil fuel company balance sheets. And this figure only captures the immediate impact of price spikes, not the permanent economic drain of fossil dependence. Fossil fuels don’t just cost us once, they cost us over and over again.
First, through our bills. Every time there is a war, an embargo or a supply disruption, fossil fuel prices surge. For ordinary people, this means higher costs for energy, transport and food. Many Global South countries have little or no fiscal space to buffer the shock; instead, workers and families pay the price.
Second, through our taxes. Governments around the world continue to pour vast sums of public money into fossil fuel subsidies. These are often justified as a way to protect the most vulnerable at the petrol pump or in their homes. But in reality, the benefits are overwhelmingly captured by wealthier households and corporations. The poorest 20% receive just a fraction of this support, while public finances are drained.
Third, through climate impacts. New research across more than 24,000 global locations gives a granular account of the true costs of extreme heat, sea level rise and falling agricultural yields. Using this data to update IMF modelling of the social cost of carbon, we found that fossil fuel impacts on health and livelihoods amount to over $9 trillion a year. This is the biggest subsidy of all, because these massive and mounting costs are not charged to Big Oil – they are paid for by governments and households, with the poorest shouldering the lion’s share.
Massive transfer of wealth to fossil fuel industry
Adding up direct subsidies, tax breaks and the unpaid bill for climate damages, the total transfer of wealth from the public to the fossil fuel industry amounts to $12 trillion even in a “normal” year without a global oil shock. That’s more than 50% higher than the IMF has previously estimated, and equivalent to a staggering $23 million a minute.
The fossil fuel industry has become extraordinarily adept at profiting from instability. When conflict drives up prices, companies do not lose, they gain. In the current crisis, oil producers and commodity traders are on track to secure tens of billions of dollars in additional windfall profits, even as households face rising bills and governments struggle to manage the fallout.
Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say
This growing disconnect is impossible to ignore. Investors are advised to buy into fossil fuel firms precisely because of their ability to generate profits in times of crisis. Meanwhile, ordinary people are told to tighten their belts.
In 2026, unlike during the oil shocks of the 1970s, clean energy is no longer a distant alternative. Now, even more than when gas prices spiked due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, renewables are often the cheapest option available. Solar and wind can be deployed quickly, at scale, and without the volatility that defines fossil fuel markets.
How to transition from dirty to clean energy
The solutions are clear. Governments must implement permanent windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies to ensure that extraordinary profits generated during crises are redirected to support households. These revenues can be used to reduce energy bills, invest in public services, and accelerate the rollout of clean energy.
Second, we must shift subsidies away from fossil fuels and towards renewable solutions, particularly those that can be deployed quickly and equitably, such as rooftop and community solar. This is not just about cutting emissions. It is about building a more stable, fair and resilient energy system.
Finally, we need binding plans to phase out fossil fuels altogether, replacing them with homegrown renewable energy that can shield economies from future shocks. Because what the current crisis has made clear is this: as long as we remain dependent on fossil fuels, we remain vulnerable – to conflict, to price volatility and to the escalating impacts of climate change.
The true price of fossil fuels is no longer hidden. It is visible in rising bills, strained public finances and communities pushed to the brink. And it is being paid, every day, by ordinary people around the world.
It’s time for the great power shift.
Full details on the methodology used for this report are available here.
The Great Power Shift is a new campaign by 350.org global campaign to pressure governments to bring down energy bills for good by ending fossil fuel dependence and investing in clean, affordable energy for all
The post What fossil fuels really cost us in a world at war appeared first on Climate Home News.
Computer models that use artificial intelligence (AI) cannot forecast record-breaking weather as well as traditional climate models, according to a new study.
It is well established that AI climate models have surpassed traditional, physics-based climate models for some aspects of weather forecasting.
However, new research published in Science Advances finds that AI models still “underperform” in forecasting record-breaking extreme weather events.
The authors tested how well both AI and traditional weather models could simulate thousands of record-breaking hot, cold and windy events that were recorded in 2018 and 2020.
They find that AI models underestimate both the frequency and intensity of record-breaking events.
A study author tells Carbon Brief that the analysis is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
AI weather forecasts
Extreme weather events, such as floods, heatwaves and storms, drive hundreds of billions of dollars in damages every year through the destruction of cropland, impacts on infrastructure and the loss of human life.
Many governments have developed early warning systems to prepare the general public and mobilise disaster response teams for imminent extreme weather events. These systems have been shown to minimise damages and save lives.
For decades, scientists have used numerical weather prediction models to simulate the weather days, or weeks, in advance.
These models rely on a series of complex equations that reproduce processes in the atmosphere and ocean. The equations are rooted in fundamental laws of physics, based on decades of research by climate scientists. As a result, these models are referred to as “physics-based” models.
However, AI-based climate models are gaining popularity as an alternative for weather forecasting.
Instead of using physics, these models use a statistical approach. Scientists present AI models with a large batch of historical weather data, known as training data, which teaches the model to recognise patterns and make predictions.
To produce a new forecast, the AI model draws on this bank of knowledge and follows the patterns that it knows.
There are many advantages to AI weather forecasts. For example, they use less computing power than physics-based models, because they do not have to run thousands of mathematical equations.
Furthermore, many AI models have been found to perform better than traditional physics-based models at weather forecasts.
However, these models also have drawbacks.
Study author Prof Sebastian Engelke, a professor at the research institute for statistics and information science at the University of Geneva, tells Carbon Brief that AI models “depend strongly on the training data” and are “relatively constrained to the range of this dataset”.
In other words, AI models struggle to simulate brand new weather patterns, instead tending forecast events of a similar strength to those seen before. As a result, it is unclear whether AI models can simulate unprecedented, record-breaking extreme events that, by definition, have never been seen before.
Record-breaking extremes
Extreme weather events are becoming more intense and frequent as the climate warms. Record-shattering extremes – those that break existing records by large margins – are also becoming more regular.
For example, during a 2021 heatwave in north-western US and Canada, local temperature records were broken by up to 5C. According to one study, the heatwave would have been “impossible” without human-caused climate change.
The new study explores how accurately AI and physics-based models can forecast such record-breaking extremes.
First, the authors identified every heat, cold and wind event in 2018 and 2020 that broke a record previously set between 1979 and 2017. (They chose these years due to data availability.) The authors use ERA5 reanalysis data to identify these records.
This produced a large sample size of record-breaking events. For the year 2020, the authors identified around 160,000 heat, 33,000 cold and 53,000 wind records, spread across different seasons and world regions.
For their traditional, physics-based model, the authors selected the High RESolution forecast model from the Integrated Forecasting System of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. This is “widely considered as the leading physics-based numerical weather prediction model”, according to the paper.
They also selected three “leading” AI weather models – the GraphCast model from Google Deepmind, Pangu-Weather developed by Huawei Cloud and the Fuxi model, developed by a team from Shanghai.
The authors then assessed how accurately each model could forecast the extremes observed in the year 2020.
Dr Zhongwei Zhang is the lead author on the study and a researcher at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He tells Carbon Brief that many AI weather forecast models were built for “general weather conditions”, as they use all historical weather data to train the models. Meanwhile, forecasting extremes is considered a “secondary task” by the models.
The authors explored a range of different “lead times” – in other words, how far into the future the model is forecasting. For example, a lead time of two days could mean the model uses the weather conditions at midnight on 1 January to simulate weather conditions at midnight on 3 January.
The plot below shows how accurately the models forecasted all extreme events (left) and heat extremes (right) under different lead times. This is measured using “root mean square error” – a metric of how accurate a model is, where a lower value indicates lower error and higher accuracy.
The chart on the left shows how two of the AI models (blue and green) performed better than the physics-based model (black) when forecasting all weather across the year 2020.
However, the chart on the right illustrates how the physics-based model (black) performed better than all three AI models (blue, red and green) when it came to forecasting heat extremes.
The authors note that the performance gap between AI and physics-based models is widest for lower lead times, indicating that AI models have greater difficulty making predictions in the near future.
They find similar results for cold and wind records.
In addition, the authors find that AI models generally “underpredict” temperature during heat records and “overpredict” during cold records.
The study finds that the larger the margin that the record is broken by, the less well the AI model predicts the intensity of the event.
‘Warning shot’
Study author Prof Erich Fischer is a climate scientist at ETH Zurich and a Carbon Brief contributing editor. He tells Carbon Brief that the result is “not unexpected”.
He adds that the analysis is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
The analysis, he continues, is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
AI models are likely to continue to improve, but scientists should “not yet” fully replace traditional forecasting models with AI ones, according to Fischer.
He explains that accurate forecasts are “most needed” in the runup to potential record-breaking extremes, because they are the trigger for early warning systems that help minimise damages caused by extreme weather.
Leonardo Olivetti is a PhD student at Uppsala University, who has published work on AI weather forecasting and was not involved in the study.
He tells Carbon Brief that “many other studies” have identified issues with using AI models for “extremes”, but this paper is novel for its specific focus on extremes.
Olivetti notes that AI models are already used alongside physics-based models at “some of the major weather forecasting centres around the world”. However, the study results suggest “caution against relying too heavily on these [AI] models”, he says.
Prof Martin Schultz, a professor in computational earth system science at the University of Cologne who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the results of the analysis are “very interesting, but not too surprising”.
He adds that the study “justifies the continued use of classical numerical weather models in operational forecasts, in spite of their tremendous computational costs”.
Advances in forecasting
The field of AI weather forecasting is evolving rapidly.
Olivetti notes that the three AI models tested in the study are an “older generation” of AI models. In the last two years, newer “probabilistic” forecast models have emerged that “claim to better capture extremes”, he explains.
The three AI models used in the analysis are “deterministic”, meaning that they only simulate one possible future outcome.
In contrast, study author Engelke tells Carbon Brief that probabilistic models “create several possible future states of the weather” and are therefore more likely to capture record-breaking extremes.
Engelke says it is “important” to evaluate the newer generation of models for their ability to forecast weather extremes.
He adds that this paper has set out a “protocol” for testing the ability of AI models to predict unprecedented extreme events, which he hopes other researchers will go on to use.
The study says that another “promising direction” for future research is to develop models that combine aspects of traditional, physics-based weather forecasts with AI models.
Engelke says this approach would be “best of both worlds”, as it would combine the ability of physics-based models to simulate record-breaking weather with the computational efficiency of AI models.
Dr Kyle Hilburn, a research scientist at Colorado State University, notes that the study does not address extreme rainfall, which he says “presents challenges for both modelling and observing”. This, he says, is an “important” area for future research.
The post Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts
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