Amy Youngman is a legal and policy specialist at the campaigning group Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
The chair’s August Aid to Negotiations is being sold as a pragmatic way to rescue the global plastics treaty. However, the text is starting to resemble the architecture of a Paris Agreement-style framework: a patchwork of vague commitments, nationally determined action and reporting, with the hardest substantive decisions left to a future that, my experience following these negotiations tells me, would never arrive.
In March 2022, governments adopted UNEA Resolution 5/14 by consensus, launching negotiations for a legally binding international instrument to end plastic pollution. I joined the global plastics treaty process in Paris in 2023, where hopes of drafting a treaty capable of confronting one of the defining environmental and human health threats of our time were first derailed by procedural warfare.
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Five months later, in Nairobi, I watched the chair close a meeting while delegates still negotiated -allegedly to catch a flight. In 2024 and 2025, in Ottawa, Busan and Geneva, the same small group of blocking states grew bolder, cloaking opposition in language about defending the vulnerable while subsidising a system that fuels the pollution crisis. Offended by ambition, ashamed of nothing.
A year after the last formal attempt to negotiate a treaty, we are tasked with protecting a fragile process. And despite long-standing support, including legal, policy and technical expertise from my own Environmental Investigation Agency, the chair has excluded observers from the rooms where the treaty’s fate is being decided.
In that orchestrated quiet, the loudest proposal emerged: the suggestion that the instrument be a “framework convention.” The new Aid, intended to shape the late-September Heads of Delegation meeting, never uses the word “framework”. It does not need to. It strips back substantive obligations and presupposes future action.
A framework is no match for this crisis
Framework conventions outline broad principles and leave each country to develop its own plan, often delaying tough decisions to future negotiations that may never happen. This tactic is a political shell game: persuading states that want action now to give up meaningful, binding measures to reach agreement.
The Chair’s Aid arrives at a framework by subtraction rather than by proposal, which makes it harder to name and potentially easier to accept. Using the Aid, effectively the rejected text from Geneva, as a basis for the next informal meeting in Bangkok will be sold as a way to preserve a distressed UN system and reach consensus in a fractured geopolitical environment.
This is diplomacy drowning in wishful thinking that the countries fighting binding rules today will approve tougher ones tomorrow. Four years of negotiations and decades of climate diplomacy taught us that this is not a bridge to ambition – this is how ambition dies.
Production is driven by global oil, gas and chemical markets, while products and waste travel across borders. No singular government can regulate its way out of a problem created and amplified by a globalised system.
Countries have tried, and production kept rising. Now there is plastic everywhere we look, and the cost falls hardest on the people least responsible.
That failure is why there was consensus to negotiate a treaty, because this crisis requires global action. The purpose was never to list national efforts and call that progress but to create common global rules to address pollution.
The most politically sensitive issues cannot simply be postponed. How much plastic is produced, which toxic chemicals are allowed in it, which throwaway products are banned, and how future decisions are made are precisely the issues that require global answers. An instrument that refuses to negotiate them will be easier to adopt but useless on arrival.
Learn from climate governance
Supporters of a framework approach may point to the ozone treaty as proof that it can work. But the Vienna Convention succeeded for one reason: governments quickly adopted binding upstream controls on ozone-depleting substances.
Climate offers the opposite warning: a framework followed by contested, delayed and insufficient measures, while emissions keep rising.
The new chair not only deleted a direct reference to “production and consumption” and bracketed similar preambular language copied from the original mandate. The article on reporting borrows language from the Paris Agreement. Another summer of record heat, fires and floods offers a glimpse of how well that model is working.
Nothing suggests that the states blocking binding rules today will suddenly accept them tomorrow, and the exponential rise in unchecked plastic production will not pause while governments wait for courage. Blockage is not being resolved, but just pushed forward.
A framework would lock in the wrong response: unlimited upstream growth with waste management attempting to handle it downstream. No waste system can keep pace with a material engineered for endless growth.
Keeping to 1.5C of warming is no longer possible – but we must still limit the overshoot
After four years of INC negotiations, governments know this. States must reject the false choice that the only path to agreement is an instrument too weak to solve the problem it was created to address. Compromise is part of diplomacy. Surrender is not.
And if the UN keeps pushing that choice, the countries prepared to act must be willing to pursue alternative pathways. Groups of willing governments have built effective agreements before, and existing environmental regimes can deliver new rules without inventing a new empty instrument.
This process was never meant to find a lowest common denominator. It was to create the rules necessary to change our direction. Bangkok in September will be where the second iteration of this text is shaped. If ambitious countries do not push back, the argument about a framework convention will already be lost by default.
Negotiations cannot end with governments accepting the crisis rather than solving it. The science is clear and the damage is accelerating. The world does not need another promise to act later. It needs the treaty governments promised to deliver in 2022.
The post The world doesn’t need a Paris Agreement for plastics appeared first on Climate Home News.
The UK has avoided the need for gas imports worth £5.9bn since the start of the Hormuz crisis as a result of record electricity generation from wind and solar, reveals Carbon Brief analysis.
While gas prices are surging towards levels not seen since the 2022 energy crisis, the UK has been generating record amounts of power from wind and solar, up 14% year-on-year.
This unprecedented clean-power generation is directly cutting the need for gas-fired electricity, which is down by nearly 10% year-on-year in 2026 to date.
In total, wind and solar have generated a record 41% share of the UK’s electricity needs in 2026 to date, compared with 25% from gas, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis.
The figure below shows that wind and solar generation has avoided the need for UK gas imports worth a total of £5.9bn since the outbreak of war between the US and Iran in February 2026.
The analysis shows that these avoided gas imports would have required the UK to secure the equivalent of more than 100 additional tanker deliveries of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
The £1.3bn import saving in September 2026 to date is the result of record wind and solar output, at nearly 10 terawatt hours (TWh), combined with surging gas prices.
Wholesale gas prices in the UK have remained elevated ever since Russia cut off supplies to Europe in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Gas averaged 90p per therm from 2023 until the start of this year, roughly three times above 2019 prices, before the Covid and Ukraine crises.
Since the outbreak of war in the Middle East in March, gas prices have climbed higher still, averaging 134p per therm or nearly four times the level seen in 2019.
In September 2026 to date, gas prices have averaged 189p per therm, reaching their highest level since the global energy crisis in 2022, as shown in the figure below.
UK gas prices are spiking again because winter is approaching – meaning higher demand for heating – and there is no end in sight for the Hormuz crisis.
At the same time, European gas stocks are low. This means Europe will have to compete with Asia to secure the cargoes of LNG needed to keep warm.
In the UK, high wholesale gas prices are hitting household gas bills under the price cap set by energy regulator Ofgem – but thanks to clean energy, electricity bills have barely increased.
From this Thursday, 1 October, typical household gas bills will be 33% higher than they were in April, some £200 per year, according to thinktank Nesta.
In contrast, household electricity bills will only have risen 4%, according to Nesta’s analysis.
Andrew Sissons, director for sustainable future at Nesta, explained in a social media post that “the link between electricity and gas prices has already begun to break”.
The UK and other fossil-fuel importing nations are being hit not only by high gas prices, but also by high prices for oil, diesel and other refined fuels. The EU has reportedly had to pay an extra €100bn for fossil-fuel imports since the start of the crisis.
For example, UK diesel prices this week hit record levels of nearly £2 per litre. In contrast, recent Carbon Brief analysis shows that electric cars are up to nine times cheaper to drive.
In her speech to the Labour party conference this week, energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh said that energy bills were high because the UK is “exposed to global fossil-fuel markets”.
In his own conference speech, prime minister Andy Burnham said the expansion of clean energy was easing the impact of high gas prices on electricity bills. He said:
“We are already taking more control of our electricity prices with a massive expansion of home-grown renewables and nuclear. I have asked Miatta to speed up the breaking of the link between what we pay for power at home and the international gas market, to get bills down.”
The post Analysis: Wind and solar save UK from gas imports worth £5.9bn during Hormuz crisis appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Wind and solar save UK from gas imports worth £5.9bn during Hormuz crisis
The deadly flash flood that thundered down Nepal’s Bhote Koshi valley a month ago may have been hard to predict given the complexity of monitoring glacial slopes in the high mountains. But it should come as a surprise to no one that such a disaster could happen in a world set to barrel past the 1.5C warming limit governments agreed to in 2015.
I say this with confidence because even before the ink was dry on the Paris Agreement, former colleagues and I were writing extensively about the dangers posed by accelerating glacier melt in the Himalayas. I went back to look at what we covered, often working with local journalists in Pakistan, India and Nepal. It was substantial.
Comment: The response to Nepal’s disaster is a test for global climate institutions
In one story from a conference on climate change and geology, Bill McGuire, a professor who then led the Benfield Hazard Research Centre at University College London, was quoted as saying: “The most likely thing we are going to see soon is an increased level in giant landslides in mountainous terrains, huge collapses, millions of cubic metres of rock.”
That is precisely what unleashed Nepal’s most recent disaster, some 13 years later.
Other articles zoomed in on internationally funded programmes to prevent glacial lake outburst floods; studies warning of the rising risks to downstream communities; and cross-border efforts (or lack of them) to set up monitoring systems. But information has not led to sufficient action.
Falling behind growing impacts
Reporting on climate-related disasters over the past 20 years (it was way back then that UN aid chief John Holmes started referring to extreme weather as the “new normal”) has been a pretty frustrating beat, as things have gotten dramatically worse.
There’s no question that our understanding of the risks has grown hugely – alongside our knowledge of how to protect people and infrastructure in the face of fast-growing threats.
Yet governments and businesses have dragged their feet on adaptation policies and practical measures, even when confronted with the numbers showing it’s far cheaper to prevent and prepare than to clean up and rebuild after a flood or a storm. This intransigence has left a yawning chasm in the world’s ability to deal with climate change-driven impacts.
Let’s call it the adaptation accountability gap.
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These days we see the effects all around us – in hospital emergency rooms where workers and older people struggle with heat exhaustion; in campsites and hotels abandoned by holidaymakers fleeing forest fires; in flooded streets piled high with mud, broken furniture and twisted cars.
The only bright side to the growing climate chaos we’re experiencing is that it’s become practically impossible for politicians and corporate bosses to ignore the evidence – and the rising cost to their balance sheets. Voters who can no longer afford to shoulder the economic and social burden of this damage need to let their leaders know time’s up.
1.5C overshoot means adapting differently
Last week, during Climate Week NYC, I moderated an event packed with experts who work on adapting to climate change – from Nepal to Brazil, from Sierra Leone to the Marshall Islands, and from communities to the top of governments and UN agencies. They spoke of tree-planting to stabilise slopes, heat insurance for informal workers, a climate risk guide for midwives, drought-resistant seeds and solar panels to irrigate farmland along the Nile.
Amid the diversity of experiences and approaches, there were two common threads: first, as underlined by the UN Environment Programme’s new report on overshooting 1.5C, we may have missed the boat to catch up on adaptation as we know it.
With global warming continuing apace, we’ll need to come up with new “transformational” strategies if the coral reefs, ice sheets, oceans and other natural systems on which we rely cross tipping points and unleash cascading consequences. Nepal’s flash flood is being flagged as an example of the kind of disaster that requires a major change in how we think about adaptation.
Second, the investment required to adapt to intensifying climate shocks and stresses can no longer be seen as something to be squeezed out of shrinking foreign aid budgets. There are a growing number of tried-and-tested funds and mechanisms for channelling finance at the local, national and global levels – these must be filled, replenished and used without delay.
Businesses need to get stuck in too, not least to safeguard their assets, operations and profits – but also because in some sectors like agriculture or water there are opportunities for a return. Despite this, there are many activities governments will have no choice but to pay for, such as moving people out of the path of rising seas.
Finance not flowing where needed
Mikko Ollikainen, who heads up the UN’s pioneering Adaptation Fund for developing countries, told the event the fund has a portfolio of projects worth $1.6 billion but a pipeline waiting to be financed to the tune of $1.8 billion. Yet, in recent years, as needs balloon, donor nations have failed to meet its annual fundraising target of $300 million at COP climate summits.
The chair of the UN climate body for implementation, Julia Gardiner, said she expects to see more pressure on governments at November’s COP31 summit in Türkiye to show how they will meet a goal to triple adaptation finance by 2035 and fill the under-resourced coffers of the fledgling Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD).
Nepal, meanwhile, is still waiting for a formal response to its request to the FRLD for urgent support to tackle the aftermath of the flood. Manjeet Dhakal, a Nepali scientist who advises least-developed countries in the UN climate process, said the disaster – which killed over 1,450 people and left nearly 6,000 missing – cannot be treated as just the latest climate crisis that grabs the headlines before it’s replaced by another.
That was backed up by Prakriti Dhakal, personal under-secretary to Nepal’s prime minister, who has been working closely on the emergency response. She said she had received many condolences and warm words of support during her meetings in New York.
But, she asked, “when you go home, will you continue having that sympathy for us that translates into something rational, something long-term, to strengthen the communities in Nepal?” A fitting response would be for governments to get behind a new Himalayan Climate Resilience Mechanism, proposed by Nepal’s leader at the UN last week, as one way to start closing the adaptation accountability gap.
The post Nepal’s disaster has laid bare the world’s adaptation accountability gap appeared first on Climate Home News.
Nepal’s disaster has laid bare the world’s adaptation accountability gap
Brazil’s environment minister says he is “very optimistic” that the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) – a new rainforest fund to channel private and public finance to developing nations – can meet a key $10 billion funding target this year, and is not at risk from his country’s elections next month.
The TFFF, launched by Brazil at COP30 in the Amazon last November and co-led by Norway, is intended as an alternative to traditional grant-based forest finance. The fund aims to raise $125bn in public and private capital, invest it in bond markets, and then pay countries that keep their forests standing from the annual returns. Donor contributions needed to get it going have tailed off after an initial burst.
Speaking to Climate Home News on the sidelines of Climate Week in New York, Brazilian environment minister João Paulo Capobianco pointed out that in less than a year since its official launch, the TFFF has already secured $7.3bn from governments.
“How many other initiatives can say that?” he asked. “Of course, if you have $7 billion, it’s easier for more countries to consider their own contribution. And not just countries – non-governmental organisations also. We are expecting even more support.”
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As its initial target, the TFFF aims to raise $10bn in seed capital from governments by the end of 2026, and still needs to fill a gap of $2.7bn. Its backers say that for each dollar in public funding, they can secure $4 from the private sector. Critics say the $10bn goal barely covers the fund’s expenses and would not allow it to make any significant payments to forest countries.
Because setting up its financial architecture, raising the starting capital and making the first investments will take time, experts say the TFFF is unlikely to generate any payments for developing countries before 2028.
Seeking new pledges
Capobianco told Climate Home News that Brazil is still in talks with potential new contributors to the fund, among them China, Korea and Japan, and said he hoped to see more pledges announced at the upcoming biodiversity and climate COPs in October and November. The Netherlands is expected to up its first small contribution and Canada may also come in, according to other sources close to the TFFF.
Because the fund was not created as part of the UN climate talks and is hosted by the World Bank, developing countries can contribute without taking on wider donor responsibilities for climate finance. Brazil and Indonesia – both large emerging rainforest nations – have each pledged $1bn to the TFFF.
Earlier in September, the UK became the latest country to pledge funding – promising a loan of £400 million (about $540 million). Capobianco welcomed the contribution and noted that Britain has also said it will keep “under review” the possibility of putting in more.
Currently the largest donor is Norway, which announced a $3bn pledge last year at COP30 in Belém. However, that pledge came with conditions, among them that the fund must reach $10bn in sponsor capital by 2026, and that Norway’s contribution can’t make up more than 20% of that total. Over the longer term, this means the fund must raise $15bn from governments to unlock Norway’s full investment.
Comment: UK’s budget juggling trick with rainforest loan for bus-fare cap needs transparency
Speaking at a forest finance event in New York, Norway’s environment minister Sigrun Aasland said the country’s pledge was made not “only out of solidarity but because of shared interests”, adding that protecting rainforests is critical for climate and biodiversity goals as well as for national security.
“Tropical deforestation matters to people in the Amazon and in the Congo. But let’s not forget that it also matters to global food production and to the cost of living in Oslo or in London,” she said.
At the event, Guyana’s minister of natural resources Vickram Bharrat said the TFFF is “one in a menu of options” to finance forest protection in developing countries. He added that to boost its capital “maybe we should put some amount of pressure on oil companies to contribute to the fund”.
Upcoming election “not a risk”
Brazil, which has been pivotal to getting the fund off the ground, is now heading into a national election that could see the country swing back to an anti-climate stance if right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro beats current left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Capobianco, however, said the election result does not pose a risk to the TFFF.
“It’s a global initiative, not a Brazilian initiative. We proposed the first idea, but nowadays it’s a global initiative,” he said. “We believe the investor countries and the tropical countries together have the possibility to continue this process.”
In Brazil, the first round of voting is scheduled for Sunday, October 4. If no candidate wins more than 50% of valid votes, a run-off ballot will take place on October 25.
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In July, the TFFF board adopted a charter, which outlines the instrument’s objectives and values, including that 20% of the payments made to tropical countries will go directly to Indigenous people and local communities.
The charter also says the TFFF board may comprise up to 12 member countries during the initial phase. Currently, seven seats are filled by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Germany, Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Indonesia.
The board has also formally incorporated the Tropical Forest Investment Fund (TFIF) – the TFFF’s investment arm that will trade bonds in financial markets – hosted in Luxembourg.
The post Brazil confident new rainforest fund will reach $10bn donor milestone appeared first on Climate Home News.
Brazil confident new rainforest fund will reach $10bn donor milestone
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