The United Arab Emirates – host nation of last year’s COP28 climate summit – has become the first country to submit a climate action plan to the United Nations under the latest round of updates, setting an emissions reduction target for 2035.
In its third Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), the oil and gas rich Gulf state said it will aim to reduce emissions by 47% between 2019 and 2035 on its way to reaching net zero by 2050.
The plan says that the UAE “recognises the urgency of the climate crisis” and its new NDC is “paving the way to ensure 1.5C remains within reach”.
It plans to cut emissions through measures like installing solar and nuclear power, investing in carbon capture and storage and carbon dioxide removal technologies and producing oil and gas in a less polluting way.
As called for by the UN’s climate chief Simon Stiell last month, the target includes all greenhouse gases and all sectors of the economy.
Climate campaigners criticised the UAE, however, for failing to include any measures to restrain the production of oil and gas, which is projected to rise by a third by 2035. Under UN carbon accounting rules, the emissions from the consumption of the UAE’s oil and gas abroad are not counted towards its own emissions.
While the UAE aims for a 47% cut, climate scientists working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say that global emissions need to fall 60% between 2019 and 2035. But countries are expected to move at different paces towards that target depending on their levels of development.
In its new NDC, the UAE says that its 2035 emission reduction target “balances ambition with fairness, ensuring that its contributions are significant but achievable given its national circumstances”.
The UAE’s previous NDC contained a target to reduce emissions 19% by 2030. But Climate Action Tracker has said that, based on its current policies, emissions instead look set to rise by about 16-20% by the end of the decade.
Fresh round of NDCs
All the 194 countries that signed up to the Paris climate agreement are supposed to submit a more ambitious NDC every five years.
The first set was produced just after the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, the second came in around the COP26 climate summit in 2020 and this third iteration is supposed to be published by February next year.
The UAE is the first country to publish a new NDC in this round. A few others – particularly those of the COP29 host country Azerbaijan and the COP30 host Brazil – are expected to be announced at COP29 or by the end of the year.
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All three governments, known as the “Troika”, have said their targets will be aligned with the strongest Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5C. But, as Brazilian climate negotiator Liliam Chagas said in June, “there is no multilaterally agreed methodology” on what that means in practice. “It’s up to each one to decide,” she said.
While it has not been agreed between governments, the Climate Action Tracker project has a methodology for judging what level of global warming individual NDCs are compatible with.
It found that no NDC in the second round was compatible with the 1.5C limit and only a handful – including the UAE’s – were compatible with keeping the rise in global temperatures below 2C. It has yet to judge the UAE’s latest NDC.
Calls to end fossil fuel expansion
E3G analyst Steffen Menzel praised the UAE for keeping its promise to publish an early NDC. But, he said, the “ambition level and determination towards decarbonisation is debatable and needs further scrutiny”.
“Promoting further fossil fuel expansion cannot be ‘1.5-aligned’,” he added – a sentiment widely shared by other campaigners.
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Shady Khalil, Oil Change International strategist, said the UAE’s NDC ignores the “urgent need to immediately halt fossil fuel expansion everywhere”. Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa campaigner Hanen Keskes said the UAE’s wealth and influence give it a unique opportunity to be the first major oil and gas producer “to take the bold step of halting fossil fuel expansion”.
The International Energy Agency has said that new projects to expand fossil fuel production are not compatible with the 1.5C warming limit.
Under UN carbon accounting rules, emissions are counted where they are released into the atmosphere. A barrel of oil produced in the UAE but burned in a power station in the US is counted towards the US’s emissions.
Climate Action Tracker researcher Niklas Höhne told a webinar on Thursday that the emissions from the UAE’s fossil fuel exports are three times as high as the country’s domestic emissions.
Because of these accounting rules, the vast majority of NDCs do not include plans to restrain fossil fuel production. On the same webinar, Climate Home asked Selwin Hart, climate adviser to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, whether they should.
Selwin Hart, special adviser to the UN secretary-general on climate action (Photo: Juan Manuel Herrera/OAS/OEA/Flickr)
He replied that he “would love to see all of the NDCs address both production and consumption of fossil fuels” – but they are “nationally determined documents”, so “countries can decide what they wish to include”.
Speaking after him, E3G analyst Alden Meyer said he could be “a little more blunt than someone is able to be in [Hart’s] diplomatic position”. “If a country wants to be viewed as 1.5C-aligned and it’s a major producer and exporter of fossil fuels, it has to show how it’s going to address both the supply and demand side there and have a credible transition strategy,” Meyer said.
Andreas Sieber, associate policy and campaigns director at 350.org, told Climate Home he expected Colombia and perhaps the UK to include halting of oil and gas expansion in their new NDCs.
Oil Change’s Khalil called for Brazil and Azerbaijan – likely to be among the next few countries to publish an updated NDC – to “step up”. “If they want to be climate champions, they must call for a halt on fossil fuel expansion,” he said.
(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)
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Climate Change
“Sink or swim”: WA Gov hugely underestimating decline in regional gas demand while sleeping on green exports, new report finds
PERTH, Tuesday 13 October 2026 — A new report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals green commodity exports are an untapped economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, while offering a genuine solution for decarbonising Asia.
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State is a comprehensive analysis of the declining gas market in Asia, and the untapped economic opportunity for WA to become a global leader in green commodity exports while driving the regional shift away from fossil fuels.
The report offers key recommendations for the WA Government to support regional decarbonisation through an orderly phase out of gas exports in favour of green iron and other green exports. It comes as global climate leaders from across business, politics and advocacy prepare to meet for the Global Citizen Now: Perth event focused on decarbonising WA.
Key findings:
- Gas demand is falling across WA’s core markets in Asia: Gas demand fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline, driven by a combination of global geopolitical factors and domestic concerns.
- Policy shifts in key markets since the war on Iran now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas: Japan, South Korea and China have legislated energy plans that prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- New WA gas would arrive in a saturated, uncertain Asian market filled with cheaper gas: The US is now the world’s largest liquefied gas producer and plans to double its capacity as it also targets Asian markets.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to sustain WA’s economy: WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars.
- Exporting more WA gas is likely to delay or impede Asia decarbonisation: Despite claims by the gas industry, there is no evidence that WA gas is displacing coal in Asia, and in fact diverts resources from genuine decarbonisation options.
Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific said: “As our export partners in Asia shift away from expensive and polluting gas, the WA Government has a golden opportunity to pivot our economy to green exports, like green iron, which is the most effective way to help our region to decarbonise.
“The writing is on the wall: gas is in decline, renewables are our future. In this context, it makes zero sense for the government to encourage high risk projects like Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal at Scott Reef.
“This report clearly shows that the WA Government faces a choice: sink or swim. They can either allow the gas industry to keep ripping off West Australians and continue propping up its decline, or choose the path that will deliver enormous benefits to the state and the world by becoming a leader in the rapidly expanding green economy.”
Tom Quinn, Managing Director of Springmount Advisory: “Western Australia prospers when it looks to the future and builds for future demand. Twenty years from now, what the world needs is green commodities made using WAs abundant renewable resources. Just like it did with iron ore in the 1950s and gas in the 1970s, WA should look to the future and build what the world will need, not sunsetting industries like gas that are already past their peak.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org
A report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals the untapped green economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, which also offers a genuine solution for decarbonisation in Asia.
Is Western Australia clinging to a fading gas industry while a thriving green future passes it by? As major Asian trading partners rapidly pivot away from volatile gas imports toward cheap solar and battery storage, this report exposes a high-stakes choice: risk becoming stranded in an oversupplied fossil fuel market, or harness WA’s unmatched sun and wind to lead the global clean energy transition.
Summary
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State reveals that Western Australia (WA) faces a critical juncture as falling Asian gas demand, geopolitical gas supply volatility and accelerating renewable energy deployment undermine the long-term economic viability of gas exports. By harnessing its world-class wind and solar resources, the report demonstrates that WA can execute an orderly phase-out of gas and pioneer a green commodity export economy that could generate $987 billion in economic value by 2060, create 24,000 ongoing jobs, and drive a 9.6% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Key Findings
- Gas demand is falling in Asia – WA can no longer rely on gas exports: Gas demand in core Asian markets fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline in 2026. Legislated energy plans in Japan, South Korea, and China now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- Asia is increasing renewables, importing gas just gets in the way: Evidence from markets like Thailand suggests that gas imports are increasingly crowding out cheaper renewable energy investments and battery storage rather than displacing coal, locking in more emissions over time.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to decarbonise Asia – this is a major win for WA: With world-class renewables, WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars ($987 billion) and support a genuine 9.6% reduction in global emissions.
Recommendations to WA government
Recommendation 1: Plan an orderly gas phase-out aligned with a trading partner pivot plan
Implement a managed, orderly phase-out of gas exports aligned with trading partners’ decarbonisation pathways, rather than waiting for demand to collapse, by:
- Developing and implementing a staged phase-out of gas facilities aligned with feedstock supply expiry or typical end of facility lifespans.
- Committing to no new gas development for gas expansion, including Browse and Kimberley fields.
- Developing new, reciprocal trade relationships with existing gas trade partners, structured to progressively replace gas exports with green commodities – integrated with recommendation 2.
Recommendation 2: Develop an integrated green commodity export strategy, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub
Establish an integrated green commodity export strategy that immediately prioritises green iron development, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub, by:
- Committing to green commodity export targets to give industry and investors a clear demand signal.
- Prioritising green iron as the lead sector within the broader green commodity strategy, given WA’s iron ore endowment and first-mover potential.
Recommendation 3: Reject false solutions such as carbon dumping (CCS) and blue hydrogen
Reject carbon dumping (also described as carbon capture and storage, or CCS) and blue hydrogen as viable decarbonisation technologies, and prioritise green hydrogen and proven renewables for clean energy and fuel production by:
- Excluding blue hydrogen projects (and CCS-dependent projects) from all government support programs.
- Requiring existing hydrogen-based production (including ammonia, methanol, synthetic fuels) to have clear, near-term transition timelines to switch to green hydrogen production.
What you can do
Together, we can push for a prosperous green future.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
REPORT: “From Gas to Green” Building Western Australia’s Future State
Cleaner cooking projects in the UN carbon market will have to set aside a share of their credits to insure against the risk that the trees they save are lost to fire, drought or logging, after the market’s regulator rejected calls to exempt the sector.
The requirement is part of a new rulebook that the Paris Agreement carbon market regulator – the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body – approved last Friday for programmes that aim to cut emissions by distributing new and cleaner cookstoves in regions that still burn wood or charcoal for cooking.
These are the UN mechanism’s first rulebooks for cookstoves, one of the carbon market’s most popular credit types and also one of its most criticised for overstating climate benefits.
They consist of two methodologies: one for programmes that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by distributing more efficient cookstoves that burn less wood or charcoal, and a separate methodology for projects shifting households to lower-emissions cookers running on electricity or liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Supervisory Body, said “this decision gives cleaner cooking projects a new pathway under the UN carbon market, with clear rules to ensure that each credit represents a real and credible emission reduction”.
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Exemption push rejected
More efficient cookstove projects earn credits based on the amount of carbon they save by preserving trees that would have otherwise been cut down and burned for fuel. But if those trees later burn in a wildfire or are logged, the carbon stored would be released anyway, erasing the climate benefits of the credits.
Several carbon credit developers, conservation NGOs and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) disputed that cookstove projects face this risk, in what critics described as a “coordinated lobbying campaign”.
They argued that, unlike forest protection schemes, this type of credit represents a “flow” of avoided emissions rather than a “stock” of stored carbon that can be released. They also warned that requiring a buffer would impose disproportionate costs and undermine the financial viability of these activities.
But the UN carbon market regulator was not persuaded by the argument. It decided that projects would have to protect against this reversal risk by handing over a percentage of credits to a so-called “buffer pool” instead of selling them.
‘New paradigm’
The amount of credits to be given up is calculated by applying different methods for natural risks, like wildfires, droughts or hurricanes, and human-caused ones, such as logging or land clearing.
For natural risks, project developers will need to apply local risk values derived from new modelling published by a group of independent scientists.
Campaigners have broadly welcomed the decision. Federica Dossi, an expert at Brussels-based advocacy group Carbon Market Watch, said it sets a new paradigm for calculating reversal risk based on empirical data. “This approach is grounded in science and we hope to see this now being adopted by other carbon crediting mechanisms in the voluntary market,” she added.
Backers claim this method is more rigorous than current practice in the voluntary carbon market, which largely relies on expert guesswork.
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Pushback over science
As Climate Home News previously revealed, the same industry and NGO groups that sought an exemption from the “buffer pool”, along with some corporate buyers, criticised the use of a study backed by the UN carbon market’s experts that recommended the new risk assessment approach.
The groups pushed for more flexible rules that would have allowed natural risk values drawn from other sources, including national databases, or from the project developers themselves.
While the Supervisory Body rejected this approach, it gave project developers and countries the option to propose alternative values that would first need to be vetted by the mechanism’s expert panel and then approved by the regulator.
A carbon market expert told Climate Home News that, while it is too early to say how this provision will be used, they expect requests will have to be backed up with solid scientific evidence, lowering the risk of unfounded claims.
Policy discounts questioned
To guard against human-caused risks, projects will need to apply a flat 20% value set by the Supervisory Body, at the bottom of the 20-45% range recommended by its technical experts ahead of last week’s meeting.
That value can be further reduced by up to two-thirds if the host country has an emission-reduction plan covering forests, a long-term climate strategy and a framework for the UN’s REDD+ forest protection scheme.
Injy Johnstone, senior research fellow at the Munich-based Max Planck Institute, said that, while these are important governance measures, their existence does not necessarily demonstrate that the underlying risk of forest carbon loss has been reduced.
“It is important to distinguish between evidence of actual risk reduction and assumptions about the effectiveness of policy commitments,” she added.
Moving target
A UN source told Climate Home News that, under the approved formula, improved cookstove projects must set aside at least 9% of credits linked to saved wood if they operate in the lowest-risk areas and the host country can claim all available discounts. The share of credits rises significantly in regions with high natural risk values, such as Guyana, Sri Lanka and Timor Leste, or that do not have REDD+ programmes.
These factors could change in the future as the Supervisory Body asked its technical experts to recommend revisiting the risk values “should credible new evidence arise”.
Climate change is likely to make forest destruction events, such as wildfires or hurricanes, more frequent and more severe in certain regions. Meanwhile, national policies on forest protection can shift significantly depending on government changes.
Johnstone said the UN carbon market needs periodic reassessment to respond to new evidence showing that previously assumed levels of risk were too low.
“The integrity of credits is not guaranteed simply because a reversal risk tool exists,” she added. “The real test will be whether the mechanism provides equivalent atmospheric protection over time, rather than simply introducing another layer of accounting requirements”.
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UN carbon market forces cookstove projects to protect against forest loss