President Donald Trump’s cuts to the US overseas aid budget are fuelling concern in African communities about how they will deal with the worsening impacts of climate change, as Climate Home found when visiting a now-halted project in Malawi that protected forests and provided poorer, rural people with ways of making money that enabled them to cope better with drought.
Malawians in the areas that benefited from the USAID-backed programme criticised the decision. The chair of Mbatamile village’s natural resources management committee, Lucia Kasimu, said: “It is our plea that the US government rescind its decision – to help the poor. It is their money we know, but this will leave many people suffering from climate change.”
Since 2019, the Modern Cooking for Healthy Forests Accelerator (MCHF) programme – co-funded by the UK – has been teaching people in Salima district to make stoves that use less firewood, cultivate mangoes, produce honey from bee-keeping and grow trees, whose wood they can use or sell.
But a spokesperson for American consulting firm Tetra Tech, which led the MCHF project, told Climate Home last month it was “under a stop-work order from USAID until further notice”, after Trump implemented a 90-day freeze on foreign assistance, including climate projects, on his first day in office.
Drought resilience
Last year, drought killed thousands of cattle across Southern Africa, including in Malawi, as there was not enough grass and water to sustain them. The vice-chair of Mbatmile’s resources committee, Enock Joseph, said the skills taught by theforest programme allowed villagers to earn additional income and buy food when drought or other climate–driven disasters strike.
“Animals are dying due to drought and people are suffering as a result of climate change. Salima is prone to drought – and when there is hunger, people rely on these economic activities to survive,” he said.
With more efficient cookstoves, the project also aimed to reduce demand for firewood in a bid to protect Malawi’s forests. Almost all Malawian households depend on wood or charcoal for cooking and heating. The MCHF also supported the government’s national forest inventory, which tracks levels of forest cover.
An efficient cookstove (left). Charcoal for sale along the road in Malawi (below).
Joseph said nobody else would be trained to produce cookstoves, honey or mangoes and patrols to stop logging in Thuma forest would end, warning that tree-cutting for charcoal was likely to increase.
He told Climate Home it was wrong for the US to cut aid so abruptly, leaving recipients and employees out of pocket in a food crisis. “For the project to end just like this is like removing an oxygen supply machine from a patient in an ICU so that he dies quickly,” Joseph added.
Tetra Tech declined to comment further. The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office did not comment on its specific support for the MCHF project but told Climate Home it is working “to assess the implications of the US funding pause across development programmes”.
While Trump had criticised USAID in general before winning the presidential election, there was no indication he would immediately freeze its spending or launch drastic cuts so rapidly.
Since he took power, his administration has said in court filings it will try to slash over 90% of the foreign aid agency’s budget – although it remains unclear if that effort will be successful, given that USAID’s budget is controlled largely by Congress.
After Trump’s move, the UK followed suit by announcing plans to slash its aid budget from 0.5% of GDP to 0.3%. Germany, France, the Netherlands and several other European nations have also proposed aid cuts in recent months.
Trump’s cuts to USAID projects are hurting communities in the Global South, particularly in Africa. Bloomberg reported that US has scrapped support for the Power Africa programme, which provided grants for renewable energy on the continent, and the World Food Programme this week said it would have to close its Southern Africa office in Johannesburg in expectation of US and European funding cuts.
The US has also ended its participation in – and financing for – the Just Energy Transition Partnerships, which aimed to shift South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam from coal to clean energy. German Development State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth said the US move was “regrettable” but with European nations, Canada and Japan still involved he was “convinced” the partnerships would be successful.
But Mattias Söderberg, global climate lead at DanChurchAid, told Climate Home that USAID cuts will have not only humanitarian impacts on people but also “huge security and geopolitical consequences”.
“I understand if there is a political will to change the policies in USA,” he said. “However, I can’t understand the way the cut was done. Funding commitments were cancelled and contracts broken. This way of closing down is disrupting the work of local organisations, and development actors.”
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed. An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Blazing heat hits Europe
FANNING THE FLAMES: Wildfires “fanned by a heatwave and strong winds” caused havoc across southern Europe, Reuters reported. It added: “Fire has affected nearly 440,000 hectares (1,700 square miles) in the eurozone so far in 2025, double the average for the same period of the year since 2006.” Extreme heat is “breaking temperature records across Europe”, the Guardian said, with several countries reporting readings of around 40C.
HUMAN TOLL: At least three people have died in the wildfires erupting across Spain, Turkey and Albania, France24 said, adding that the fires have “displaced thousands in Greece and Albania”. Le Monde reported that a child in Italy “died of heatstroke”, while thousands were evacuated from Spain and firefighters “battled three large wildfires” in Portugal.
UK WILDFIRE RISK: The UK saw temperatures as high as 33.4C this week as England “entered its fourth heatwave”, BBC News said. The high heat is causing “nationally significant” water shortfalls, it added, “hitting farms, damaging wildlife and increasing wildfires”. The Daily Mirror noted that these conditions “could last until mid-autumn”. Scientists warn the UK faces possible “firewaves” due to climate change, BBC News also reported.
Around the world
GRID PRESSURES: Iraq suffered a “near nationwide blackout” as elevated power demand – due to extreme temperatures of around 50C – triggered a transmission line failure, Bloomberg reported.
‘DIRE’ DOWN UNDER: The Australian government is keeping a climate risk assessment that contains “dire” implications for the continent “under wraps”, the Australian Financial Review said.
EXTREME RAINFALL: Mexico City is “seeing one of its heaviest rainy seasons in years”, the Washington Post said. Downpours in the Japanese island of Kyushu “caused flooding and mudslides”, according to Politico. In Kashmir, flash floods killed 56 and left “scores missing”, the Associated Press said.
SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION: China and Brazil agreed to “ensure the success” of COP30 in a recent phone call, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
PLASTIC ‘DEADLOCK’: Talks on a plastic pollution treaty have failed again at a summit in Geneva, according to the Guardian, with countries “deadlocked” on whether it should include “curbs on production and toxic chemicals”.
15
The number of times by which the most ethnically-diverse areas in England are more likely to experience extreme heat than its “least diverse” areas, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
As many as 13 minerals critical for low-carbon energy may face shortages under 2C pathways | Nature Climate Change
A “scoping review” examined the impact of climate change on poor sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa | PLOS One
A UK university cut the carbon footprint of its weekly canteen menu by 31% “without students noticing” | Nature Food
A report commissioned by the US government to justify rolling back climate regulations contains “at least 100 false or misleading statements”, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists. The report, compiled in two months by five hand-picked researchers, inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed” and misleadingly states that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”80
Spotlight
Does Xi Jinping care about climate change?
This week, Carbon Brief unpacks new research on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s policy priorities.
On this day in 2005, Xi Jinping, a local official in eastern China, made an unplanned speech when touring a small village – a rare occurrence in China’s highly-choreographed political culture.
In it, he observed that “lucid waters and lush mountains are mountains of silver and gold” – that is, the environment cannot be sacrificed for the sake of growth.
(The full text of the speech is not available, although Xi discussed the concept in a brief newspaper column – see below – a few days later.)
In a time where most government officials were laser-focused on delivering economic growth, this message was highly unusual.
Forward-thinking on environment
As a local official in the early 2000s, Xi endorsed the concept of “green GDP”, which integrates the value of natural resources and the environment into GDP calculations.
He also penned a regular newspaper column, 22 of which discussed environmental protection – although “climate change” was never mentioned.
This focus carried over to China’s national agenda when Xi became president.
New research from the Asia Society Policy Institute tracked policies in which Xi is reported by state media to have “personally” taken action.
It found that environmental protection is one of six topics in which he is often said to have directly steered policymaking.
“It’s important to know what Xi’s priorities are because the top leader wields outsized influence in the Chinese political system,” Neil Thomas, Asia Society Policy Institute fellow and report co-author, told Carbon Brief.
Local policymakers are “more likely” to invest resources in addressing policies they know have Xi’s attention, to increase their chances for promotion, he added.
What about climate and energy?
However, the research noted, climate and energy policies have not been publicised as bearing Xi’s personal touch.
“I think Xi prioritises environmental protection more than climate change because reducing pollution is an issue of social stability,” Thomas said, noting that “smoggy skies and polluted rivers” were more visible and more likely to trigger civil society pushback than gradual temperature increases.
The paper also said topics might not be linked to Xi personally when they are “too technical” or “politically sensitive”.
For example, Xi’s landmark decision for China to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 is widely reported as having only been made after climate modelling – facilitated by former climate envoy Xie Zhenhua – showed that this goal was achievable.
Prior to this, Xi had never spoken publicly about carbon neutrality.
Prof Alex Wang, a University of California, Los Angeles professor of law not involved in the research, noted that emphasising Xi’s personal attention may signal “top” political priorities, but not necessarily Xi’s “personal interests”.
By not emphasising climate, he said, Xi may be trying to avoid “pushing the system to overprioritise climate to the exclusion of the other priorities”.
There are other ways to know where climate ranks on the policy agenda, Thomas noted:
“Climate watchers should look at what Xi says, what Xi does and what policies Xi authorises in the name of the ‘central committee’. Is Xi talking more about climate? Is Xi establishing institutions and convening meetings that focus on climate? Is climate becoming a more prominent theme in top-level documents?”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP EFFECT: The Columbia Energy Exchange podcast examined how pressure from US tariffs could affect India’s clean energy transition.
NAMIBIAN ‘DESTRUCTION’: The National Observer investigated the failure to address “human rights abuses and environmental destruction” claims against a Canadian oil company in Namibia.
The specter of a “gas-for-wind” compromise between the governor and the White House is drawing the ire of residents as a deadline looms.
By Deep Vakil
Hundreds of New Yorkers rallied against new natural gas pipelines in their state as a deadline loomed for the public to comment on a revived proposal to expand the gas pipeline that supplies downstate New York.
A “critical assessment” report commissioned by the Trump administration to justify a rollback of US climate regulations contains at least 100 false or misleading statements, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists.
The executive summary of the controversial report inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed”.
It also states misleadingly that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”.
Compiled in just two months by five “independent” researchers hand-selected by the climate-sceptic US secretary of energy Chris Wright, the document has sparked fierce criticism from climate scientists, who have pointed to factual errors, misrepresentation of research, messy citations and the cherry-picking of data.
Experts have also noted the authors’ track record of promoting views at odds with the mainstream understanding of climate science.
Wright’s department claims the report – which is currently open to public comment as part of a 30-day review – underwent an “internal peer-review period amongst [the] DoE’s scientific research community”.
The report is designed to provide a scientific underpinning to one flank of the Trump administration’s plans to rescind a finding that serves as the legal prerequisite for federal emissions regulation. (The second flank is about legal authority to regulate emissions.)
The “endangerment finding” – enacted by the Obama administration in 2009 – states that six greenhouse gases are contributing to the net-negative impacts of climate change and, thus, put the public in danger.
In a press release on 29 July, the US Environmental Protection Agency said “updated studies and information” set out in the new report would “challenge the assumptions” of the 2009 finding.
Carbon Brief asked a wide range of climate scientists, including those cited in the “critical review” itself, to factcheck the report’s various claims and statements.
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