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Climate Change
This Year’s US Wildfires Have Already Set Records That Could Foreshadow a Smoky, Fiery Summer
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Climate Change
DeBriefed 27 Mach 2026: North Sea myths debunked | India’s climate plan | IPCC and Indigenous knowledge
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Hormuz latest
DELAYED ULTIMATUM: The week started with US president Donald Trump giving Iran 48 hours to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital supply route for oil and gas, or the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants, reported the Guardian. By the end of the week, Reuters was reporting Trump’s statement that he would “pause” the threat of strikes for 10 days, claiming talks with Iran were “going very well”.
CLOGGED SUPPLY: Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, called the ongoing blockage of oil and gas supplies through the Strait “the greatest global energy security threat in history”, according to the Financial Times. A separate article in the Financial Times reported that countries are “facing a cliff-edge as the flow of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Gulf comes to an abrupt end in the next 10 days”.
COAL RESURGENCE: Asian countries are “shifting back to coal” amid disruptions to LNG supplies sparked by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, reported the Associated Press. Similarly, Japan announced plans to allow more use of coal power plants in an effort to boost energy security, noted Bloomberg. Elsewhere, analysts told CNBC how the crisis could “accelerate a shift into renewables” in a “watershed” moment for the energy transition.
UK fallout of Iran war
RENEWABLE HIGHS: The UK’s renewable output hit a record high on Wednesday, “helping to blunt the impact of the Middle East war on power prices”, reported Bloomberg. Meanwhile, the Press Association described a new government announcement on solar panels and heat pumps for all new homes from 2028 as “doubling down on its clean-energy drive in response to the Iran war”. At a household level, the Times reported that UK homeowners are “rush[ing] to install solar panels amid [the] Iran conflict”.
NORTH SEA MYTHS: Using a comment piece in the Sunday Telegraph, Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch led calls predominately coming from right-leaning politicians and media to issue more oil and gas licences in the North Sea. Carbon Brief has published a factcheck exposing nine false or misleading claims about the impact on household bills, emissions and energy security of more North Sea drilling.
Around the world
- CLIMATE PROTECTION: Germany unveiled a plan to help it reach its 2030 climate target and reduce its dependence on “volatile fossil-fuel imports”, reported Reuters.
- DIAGNOSIS: A long-awaited report into the unprecedented blackout that left Spain and Portugal without electricity last April concluded that the “problem did not lie with solar and wind power”, said the Financial Times.
- DELUGED: The US state of Hawaii struggled in the aftermath of “catastrophic flooding” that could cost over $1bn in damages, reported USA Today.
- ARCTIC LOW: Sea ice in the Arctic has tied last year’s record for the lowest-ever peak winter extent, reported Carbon Brief.
91%
The amount of excess heat trapped by the Earth that is stored in the ocean, according to a UN World Meteorological Organization report covered by Agence France-Presse.
Latest climate research
- Extreme events and climate change pose “major threats” to the preservation of underwater cultural heritage, such as sunken ruins, wrecks and archaeological remains | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Human-driven climate change made extreme fires across the Arctic from 2019-21 more than 200 times more likely | Environmental Research Letters
- A county-level study in the US from 2013-24 suggests “higher temperatures are associated with increased risk of police violence” | PLOS One
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
India’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions grew by 0.5% in the second half of 2025 and by just 0.7% in the year as a whole, the slowest rate in more than two decades, according to analysis for Carbon Brief published this week. This marks a sharp slowdown from 4-11% in the preceding four years and is largely explained by increases in steel and cement production being compensated by falling emissions in the power sector. Carbon Brief also took an in-depth look at India’s delayed nationally determined contribution (NDC) published this week, which contains a new target to reduce its emissions intensity to 47% below 2005 levels by 2035.
Spotlight
The IPCC and Indigenous representation
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to researchers about how the UN’s climate science panel can better incorporate Indigenous peoples and their knowledge into its highly influential reports.
From the Quechua people in Latin America to the Oraon Tribe in Asia, Indigenous peoples’ lands cover more than a quarter of Earth’s surface.
Built up over millenia and transferred through generations, Indigenous knowledge is vital in conserving the world’s remaining biodiversity and building climate resilience.
Prof Pasang Yangjee Sherpa is a Sherpa woman from the Mount Everest region in Nepal and an assistant professor of lifeways in Indigenous Asia at the University of British Columbia, Canada.
Her research advocates for the inclusion of Indigenous people and their knowledge in climate science, particularly in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Sherpa told Carbon Brief:
“If we are really interested in planetary health…we have to make sure that Indigenous peoples and Indigenous peoples’ knowledge is also on the table next to physical science and Euro-Western science.”
Ways of knowing
Last month, the IPCC held a workshop in Reading, UK, on engaging diverse knowledge systems in ways that are “inclusive, equitable and aligned with future needs”.
The workshop is expected to produce a set of recommendations, but the report is not yet available and the workshop itself was closed to journalists.
Sherpa was co-author of an independent report that informed the IPCC workshop. The research, funded by Wellcome, combined the team’s experience with a literature review and multilingual “listening sessions” with Indigenous scholars, leaders and thinkers.
The report explained how Indigenous peoples are disproportionately affected by climate change due to “historical and contemporary colonial processes of territorial dispossession, political exclusion and structural inequality”.
But the inclusion in climate science of Indigenous peoples and their knowledge is not just a justice issue, the report continues:
“Indigenous peoples are not merely vulnerable populations – they are frontline climate leaders whose territorial governance and sciences are essential to understanding and responding to the climate crisis.”
Addressing marginalisation
The report makes some “immediate” recommendations that can be done in the current seventh assessment cycle “to prevent harm, ensure equitable participation and begin redressing historical exclusions”.
These include appointing a minimum of two Indigenous contributing authors per relevant chapter and establishing an ad-hoc Indigenous advisory group.
Looking further ahead, the authors argue the eighth assessment cycle (likely due in the 2030s) requires “institutional transformation” to “reshape governance, methodologies and participation structures”.
Sherpa told Carbon Brief:
“It’s very interesting to me that when you look at the UN and other policymaking spheres, Indigenous peoples from around the world have been actively involved for decades. It’s almost like academia has to catch up to reality, globally.”
Dr Rosario Carmona, also a co-author on the report, is a Chilean anthropologist with the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. She was also part of the scientific steering committee that proposed the IPCC workshop, on behalf of the Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Research in Chile. Carmona told Carbon Brief:
“There are good precedents – and the IPCC works on these precedents – that recognise Indigenous knowledge systems as standalone, that don’t need to be validated [by other types of knowledge].”
Soul-searching
The IPCC has been convening this week in Bangkok, Thailand, to consider, among other things, fundamental questions about how it does things, for what purpose and on what timelines.
Now is a good opportunity for wider change in the IPCC mindset, Carmona told Carbon Brief:
“I feel that there is a critical moment now – and there is a huge awareness and a willingness to do things better.”
Watch, read, listen
CHOKING OF HORMUZ: The New York Times took a look inside the “global, exceptionally critical journey of oil and gas, now upended by war”.
WARMING LIMITS: Writing in the Kathmandu Post, Maheswar Rupakheti, vice-chair of Working Group I of the IPCC, and policy researcher Gobinda Prasad Pokharel explored “climate overshoot”.
REFORM RECKONING: A feature in the Guardian examined how residents of flood-stricken Lincolnshire are growing tired with the climate-sceptic views of their MP, Reform deputy leader Richard Tice.
Coming up
- 22-29 March: COP15 for migratory species, Campo Grande, Brazil
- 23 March-2 April: Third meeting of the preparatory commission for the High Seas Treaty, New York
- 30 March: International Energy Agency energy technology perspectives 2026 report launch
Pick of the jobs
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, secretary | Salary: Unknown Location: Geneva, Switzerland
- International Institute for Sustainable Development, policy adviser, trade and climate change | Salary: Unknown. Location: Manila, Philippines, Jakarta, Indonesia or remote
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, research scholar/modeller – global land carbon cycle and land-use change | Salary: €55,215.00. Location: Laxenburg, Austria
- Beyond Fossil Fuels, energy campaigner in Poland | Salary: €33,000-€37,000. Location: Poland
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 27 Mach 2026: North Sea myths debunked | India’s climate plan | IPCC and Indigenous knowledge appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Arctic sea ice has reached its peak extent for this winter, clocking in as the joint-smallest in a satellite record going back almost half a century.
Provisional data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that sea ice extent peaked at 14.29m square kilometres (km2) on 15 March.
This is slightly smaller than the previous record for the annual maximum – set just last year – but it counts as a statistical tie, the NSIDC says.
The annual maximum is a key marker in a cycle that sees sea ice extent grow through the cold, dark winter, before melting in spring and summer to a yearly minimum.
The joint record marks a “very alarming” winter for Arctic sea ice, Dr Zack Labe – a scientist at Climate Central – tells Carbon Brief.
And there is more “grim news”, Labe says, as the thickness of the ice is near record lows – meaning that Arctic sea ice is “entering late winter in one of its weakest states in the satellite record”.
‘Unusually warm’
The past six months has seen Arctic sea ice extent “at record or near-record lows, alongside unusually warm conditions” across much of the region, says Dr Lettie Roach, a polar climate scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute.
These go “hand in hand”, Roach tells Carbon Brief, as “warmer air and ocean temperatures help melt the ice and with less ice, the ocean absorbs more heat, which further speeds up warming”.
The chart below shows Arctic sea ice extent in 2025 (dark blue) and 2026 (red) so far. For comparison, the chart shows decadal averages (dotted lines) as well as 2012 (mid blue), the year of the smallest summer sea-ice minimum on record.
Recent months have seen “strong temperature contrasts” over the northern hemisphere, continues Roach:
“In addition to large parts of the Arctic, temperatures were unusually warm in the western US, southern Europe and eastern Eurasia, while northern Eurasia, northern Canada and the north-eastern US experienced unusually cold conditions.
“That’s linked to a more ‘wavy’ jet stream, which can push cold Arctic air southward while bringing warmer air into the Arctic.”
These conditions have contributed to “particularly bad” sea ice levels in regions such as the Sea of Okhotsk, Baffin Bay, Barents Sea and Kara Sea, says Labe. He adds that “one of the only regions with more sea ice relative to normal is across the eastern Bering Sea around Alaska”.
‘Long-term downward trend’
This year’s winter peak is the latest milestone in the “long-term downward trend we’ve observed” in Arctic sea ice since the start of satellite observations in the late 1970s, says Roach.
According to the NSIDC, the 2026 maximum extent is 1.36km2 smaller than the 1981-2010 average. That is “equivalent to about twice the size of Texas”, the centre says.
Arctic sea ice is “not just shrinking in extent”, says Roach, it is “also much thinner and more fragile than it used to be”.
Labe notes the “grim news” that sea ice “near the north pole has had record-low thickness for several months now”, adding:
“In February, total Arctic sea ice volume was the second lowest on record. Taken together, Arctic sea ice is entering late winter in one of its weakest states in the satellite record.”
While there is a “lot of year-to-year variability due to natural fluctuations in the atmosphere and ocean”, this long-term decline is “mainly due to human-caused climate change”, says Roach.
Labe adds:
“Human-caused climate change is completely reshaping the polar environment and this is already having wide-ranging consequences.”
The chart below shows the annual winter maxima (blue) and summer minima (red) since the start of the satellite record.
The chart highlights that the annual maximum has “shown a relatively steady decline over the past 40 years, with the [previous] record low occurring as recently as last year”, says Dr Mika Rantanen, a researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
This is in “sharp contrast to the annual minimum, where the record [low] still dates back to 2012”, he tells Carbon Brief. This indicates that the summer minimum is “more prone” to yearly ups and downs of natural variability, he explains.
It is for this reason that “it is still too early to say” what the low winter peak means for the forthcoming summer melt season as “regional weather can change quickly”, adds Labe:
“But winter of 2025-26 is another clear signal of just how fast the Arctic is shifting.”
‘Average’ Antarctica
At the Earth’s other pole, sea ice around Antarctica has been melting through the southern-hemisphere summer.
It reached its annual minimum extent of 2.58m km2 on 26 February, the NSIDC says, placing this year as the 16th smallest on record.
For most of the summer, Antarctic sea ice has been “below average”, Dr Clare Eayrs, a postdoctoral researcher at the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), tells Carbon Brief. However, she continues:
“That changed in January and February, when a shift in surface winds slowed the retreat. Southerly winds over the Weddell Sea pushed existing sea ice northward, keeping coverage higher than expected in that region, while sea ice cover in the Bellingshausen Sea remained low.”
These winds were mostly “redistributing ice rather than new ice forming in these regions”, Eayrs notes:
“This was enough to keep the summer sea ice coverage much closer to average than in the previous four years…It is a reminder that where a season starts does not always determine where it ends.”
Recent years have seen a series of record-low extents in the sea ice that surrounds Antarctica.
While it is “likely” that climate change is influencing Antarctic sea ice, scientists “remain uncertain about the extent and precise mechanisms involved”, says Eayrs:
“This uncertainty is itself an important part of the story. Antarctic sea ice has always been highly variable and its variability has masked any emerging long-term signal for much of the satellite era.”
However, recent research points to a recent “structural change” in Antarctica’s sea ice system, Eayrs notes. This is marked by a greater persistence of low sea ice and a “weaker tendency for the system to return to its earlier mean state”.
In other words, says Eayrs, “when sea ice drops to unusual lows, it no longer bounces back as readily as it once did”.
The post ‘Very alarming’ winter sees Arctic sea ice hit record-low for second year running appeared first on Carbon Brief.
‘Very alarming’ winter sees Arctic sea ice hit record-low for second year running
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