Climate

خلاصہ: COP30: Carbon Brief’s second ‘ask us anything’ webinarAs COP30 reaches its midway point in the Brazilian city of Belém, Carbon Brief has hosted its second “ask us anything” webinar to exclusively answer questions submitted by holders of the Insider Pass. The webinar kicked off with an overview of where the negotiations are on Day 8, plus what it was like to be among the 70,000-strong “people’s march” on Saturday.  At present, there are 44 agreed texts at COP30, with many negotiating streams remaining highly contested, as shown by Carbon Brief’s live text tracker. Topics discussed during the webinar included the potential of a “cover text” at COP30, plus updates on negotiations such as the global goal on adaptation and the just-transition work programme.  Journalists also answered questions on the potential for a “fossil-fuel phaseout roadmap”, the impact of finance – including the Baku to Belém roadmap, which was released the week before COP30 – and Article 6.  The webinar was moderated by Carbon Brief’s director and editor, Leo Hickman, and featured six of our journalists – half of them on the ground in Belém – covering all elements of the summit: Dr Simon Evans – deputy editor and senior policy editor Daisy Dunne – associate editor Josh Gabbatiss – policy correspondent Orla Dwyer – food, land and nature reporter Aruna Chandrasekhar – land, food systems and nature journalist Molly Lempriere – policy section editor A recording of the webinar (below) is now available to watch on YouTube. Watch Carbon Brief’s first COP30 “ask us anything” webinar here. DeBriefed 14 November 2025: COP30 DeBriefed: Finance and 1.5C loom large at talks; China’s emissions dip; Negotiations explained COP30 Belém | 14.11.25 China Briefing 13 November 2025: COP30 special China Briefing | 13.11.25 Analysis: Which countries have sent the most delegates to COP30? COP30 Belém | 11.11.25 ...

خلاصہ: Analysis: Seven charts showing how the $100bn climate-finance goal was metDeveloped countries have poured billions of dollars into railways across Asia, solar projects in Africa and thousands of other climate-related initiatives overseas, according to a joint investigation by Carbon Brief and the Guardian. A group of nations, including much of Europe, the US and Japan, is obliged under the Paris Agreement to provide international “climate finance” to developing countries. This financial support can come in forms such as grants and loans from various sources, including aid budgets, multilateral development banks (MDBs) and private investments. The flagship climate-finance target for more than a decade was to hit “$100bn a year” by 2020, which developed countries met – albeit two years late – in 2022. Carbon Brief and the Guardian have analysed data across more than 20,000 global climate projects funded using public money from developed nations, including official 2021 and 2022 figures, which have only just been published. The data provides a detailed insight into how the $100bn goal was reached, including funding for everything from sustainable farming in Niger to electricity projects in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). With developed countries now pledging to ramp up climate finance further, the analysis also shows how donors often rely on loans and private finance to meet their obligations.  The $100bn target was reached in 2022, boosted by private finance and the US Relatively wealthy countries – including China and the UAE – were major recipients A tenth of all direct climate finance went to Japan-backed rail projects There was funding for more than 500 clean-power projects in African countries Some ‘least developed’ countries relied heavily on loans US shares in development banks significantly inflated its total contribution Adaptation finance still lags, but climate-vulnerable countries received more Methodology COP30 Insider Pass A two-week, all-access package designed for those who need much more than headlines. Sign up The $100bn target was reached in 2022, boosted by private finance and the US A small handful of countries have consistently been the top climate-finance donors. This remained the case in 2021 and 2022, with just four countries – Japan, Germany, France and the US – responsible for half of all climate finance, the analysis shows. Not only was 2022 the first year in which the $100bn goal was achieved, it also saw the largest ever single-year increase in climate finance – a rise of $26.3bn, or 29%, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (It is worth noting that while OECD figures are often referenced as the most “official” climate-finance totals, they are contested.) Half of this increase came from a $12.6bn rise in support from MDBs – financial institutions that are owned and funded by member states. The rest can be attributed to two main factors. First, while several donors ramped up spending, the US drove by far the biggest increase in “bilateral” finance, provided directly by the country itself. After years of stalling during the first Donald Trump presidency, when Joe Biden took office in 2021, the nation’s bilateral climate aid more than tripled between that year and the next. Meanwhile, after years of “stagnating” at around $15bn, the amount of private investments “mobilised” in developing countries by developed-country spending surged to around $22bn in 2022, according to OECD estimates.  As the chart below shows, the combination of increased US contributions and higher private investments pushed climate finance up by nearly $14bn in 2022, helping it to reach $115.9bn in total. Both of these trends are still pertinent in 2025, following a new pledge made at COP29 by developed countries to ramp up climate finance to “at least” $300bn a year by 2035. After years of increasing rapidly under Biden, US bilateral climate finance for developing countries has been effectively eliminated during Trump’s second presidential term. Other major donors, including Germany, France and the UK, have also cut their aid budgets. This means there will be more pressure on other sources of climate finance in the coming years. In particular, developed countries hope that private finance can help to raise finance into the trillions of dollars required to achieve developing countries’ climate goals. Back to top Some higher-income countries – including China and the UAE – were major recipients The greatest beneficiaries of international climate finance tend to be large, middle-income countries, such as Egypt, the Philippines and Brazil, according to the analysis. (The World Bank classifies countries as being low-, lower-middle, upper-middle or high-income, according to their gross national income per person.) Lower-middle income India received $14.1bn in 2021 and 2022 – nearly all as loans – making it by far the largest recipient, as the chart below shows.  Most of India’s top projects were metro and rail lines in cities, such as Delhi and Mumbai, which accounted for 46% of its total climate finance in those years, Carbon Brief analysis shows. (See: A tenth of all direct climate finance went to Japan-backed rail projects.) As the world’s second-largest economy and a major funder of energy projects overseas, China – classified as upper-middle income by the World Bank – has faced mounting pressure to start officially providing climate finance. At the same time, the nation received more than $3bn of climate finance over this period, as it is still classed as...

خلاصہ: China Briefing 13 November 2025: COP30 specialWelcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing. China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here. Key developments Gearing up PRE-COP COMMITMENTS: China has “become the defender of international cooperation on climate change”, said state-sponsored newspaper Global Times the day before COP30 opened. China’s commitment to “dual carbon” goals will be the “driving force” of building a “beautiful China”, said an article by the Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily under the byline of Wang Huning, chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. 上微信关注《碳简报》 WORLD’S EXPECTATIONS: China’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Geng Shuang, said the country is “globally recognised as the with the strongest determination, the most vigorous actions” on tackling climate issues, reported news agency Xinhua. John Kerry, former US climate envoy, told the Shanghai-based Paper: “The global climate agenda has undergone a fundamental shift, and calls are being made for China to continue playing a leading role in the event of a possible absence of the US.” Subscribe: China Briefing Sign up to Carbon Brief's free "China Briefing" email newsletter. All you need to know about the latest developments relating to China and climate change. Sent to your inbox every Thursday. FINANCE PLEA: Meanwhile, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva “urged” China’s vice premier Ding Xuexiang at a pre-COP30 meeting to “join financing initiatives for climate transition and resilience” and “help fund green technology and investment projects”, said the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP).  ‘OUTPERFORM’ TARGETS: Most experts in a new survey expect China to “outperform” its 2035 emissions-reduction target, reported Bloomberg. About 71% of the surveyed experts believe China’s carbon-emission peak will “happen between 2026 and 2030, with most expecting it in 2028” – ahead of the official timeline of 2030, said Agence France-Presse. Early moves ‘PROMISES KEPT’: China “keeps its promises and delivers on its commitments” on climate change, Ding said on 6 November, in remarks at COP30’s leaders summit, according to a transcript published by Communist party-affiliated newspaper the People’s Daily. Ding suggested that, to “advance” climate action, the world must “stay on the right track”, balancing “environmental protection, economic development, job creation and poverty eradication”. In addition, Ding said countries must “remove trade barriers” if the world is to meet its targets, said BBC News. BUILDING COALITIONS: Over the weekend ahead of COP, Brazil, China and the UK co-led a summit on methane, launching initiatives that could “accelerate global action on methane and other non-CO2 greenhouse gases”, said a press release published on the COP30 website. These included “mobilising” at least $150m to support seven developing countries’ efforts, it added. China and the EU also agreed to join a Brazilian-led carbon-market coalition, Bloomberg reported, which “aims to develop common standards for monitoring, reporting and verification”.  TFFF FOREGONE: There are “still no guarantees” that China will contribute to Brazil’s Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), CNN Brasil said, contrary to reporting by Reuters in July that China might invest in the fund. The outlet added that Brazil may be able to push for Chinese participation again at the G20 meeting in late November. SCMP said “Chinese negotiators told their Brazilian counterparts that Beijing supported the fund in principle”, but cited the common but differentiated responsibilities concept as a reason not to commit. OPENING STATEMENTS: In the face of an “intensifying” climate crisis, China “will not stop supporting” international action, Huang said at the opening of the China pavilion at COP30, attended by Carbon Brief. A number of representatives of major international organisations – including the UNFCCC’s Simon Stiell, the UN climate advisor Selwin Hart, UNEP executive director Inger Andersen – as well as Chinese climate envoy Liu Zhenmin all spoke at the event. Hart captured the mood, saying: “We are certain to count on the leadership of China over the course of the next two weeks, and also over the next decade.” Trade spats AGENDA FIGHT: The agenda for COP30 was “adopted on Monday as originally drafted without any amendments”, despite a request by a country group that includes China that the lineup include “provision of finance from rich countries and unilateral trade measures” such as the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, Climate Home News reported. The topics are instead being discussed in presidency-led consultations, alongside calls from small-island states to push for greater emissions-cutting ambition and from the EU on emissions reporting. Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans set out the issues on Bluesky. RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW: The Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) group – of which China is a part – together with the Arab Group stated that unilateral trade measures “penalise developing countries and impact their ability to take action to address climate change”, reported Earth Negotiation Bulletin. They pushed back against arguments by Japan, the EU and others that discussions of unilateral trade measures would be “more appropriate under the World Trade Organization”, it added. PRESIDENCY PAUSE: A “stocktaking plenary” on Wednesday ended abruptly with COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago announcing a further plenary on Saturday. Do Lago said that – despite “more than eight hours” of discussions – further consultations were still needed. Rumours are flying around how Brazil will manage this, with many expecting a COP30 decision responding to these thorny issues. It may be called a “cover decision” or be part of a “mutirão package”, a reference to an Indigenous word for collective efforts. Cough up the cash INDIA FOR BASIC: Meanwhile, according to a government press release, India has submitted a statement on behalf of the BASIC group, an institution initiated by China, as well as LMDCs, reaffirming that the “architecture of the Paris Agreement must not be altered, and that remains the cornerstone of the global climate regime”. It added that “developed countries must…fulfil their obligations on finance, technology transfer and capacity-building to developing countries”, in particular by increasing adaptation finance flows by “nearly fifteen times” from current levels.  STATUS QUO: Chinese delegates have repeatedly emphasised China’s status as a developing country and the need for CBDR in early statements at COP. Writing in...

خلاصہ: Met Office: Ten years of naming UK storms to warn the publicThis month marks 10 years since the UK recorded its first named storm.  Storm Abigail struck in November 2015, bringing high winds, lightning and snow and causing power cuts and school closures in northern Scotland. In the decade that has passed, storm naming has become a key part of how the Met Office warns the public about impending storms. Storm naming is a public safety tool that makes severe weather easier to remember, talk about and follow.  The success of the scheme offers lessons for how clear communication can help communities prepare, adapt and build resilience in a changing climate. Here, we look back at a decade of naming storms in the UK and some of the most notable events. Storms in the UK Storms in the UK typically take place during the autumn and winter months and last for between two and three days. The number of named storms varies from year to year. Some storm seasons – for example, 2023–24 – are exceptionally active, while others are much quieter.  The UK owes its stormy climate in large part due to the jet stream – fast-moving winds that blow from west to east high in the atmosphere and push low-pressure weather systems across the Atlantic.  These low-pressure systems can bring heavy rain and strong winds to the UK, which, in turn, causes storms.  Storms in the UK can cause serious damage, felling trees, destroying infrastructure and causing travel disruptions. Some have resulted in widespread flooding – and others, tragically, in loss of life.  Over the last decade, the UK has seen a number of storms with extreme wind speeds and heavy rainfall.  The table below sets out a list of records set by storms between November 2015 and October 2025. Maximum hourly gust speedsStorm Eunice, 2022122 miles per hour (mph) Highest daily rainfall totalStorm Desmond, 2015264.4mm Lowest mean sea level pressureStorm Éowyn, 2025941.9 hectopascals (hPa) UK storm records for the period November 2015–October 2025. Source: Met Office Storm naming Storm naming was introduced in the UK and Ireland at the start of the 2015 storm season. Launched by the Met Office and Ireland’s weather service, Met Éireann, Dutch weather service the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) joined the storm-naming scheme in 2019.  This collaboration between the UK, Ireland and Netherlands is one of three storm-naming groups in Europe. Each group releases a new alphabetical list of storm names in September. The graphic below highlights the storm names picked by the Western European storm-naming group for 2025-26. Not all storms are named. A storm will be named if the Met Office anticipates it having potential to cause disruption or damage.  This is often linked to whether strong winds are expected, but impacts caused by other weather types – for instance, heavy rain, hail or snow – are also considered.  Once named, the storm is referred to consistently by weather services and other authorities in Ireland, Netherlands and the UK.  Storm naming was introduced to improve communication of the weather forecast to the public and help people stay safe during severe weather.  Using a single, authoritative name for a storm allows government and media outlets to deliver a consistent message about approaching severe weather.  In this way, the public will be better placed to keep themselves, their homes and businesses safe. There have typically been around half a dozen named storms each year since November 2015, although this varies on a year-to-year basis.  The 2023-24 storm season saw the most named storms to date. In August 2024, Storm Lillian became the 12th named storm of that season. Below is a table of all the storms that have been named since 2015. 2015-162016-172017-182018-192019-202020-212021-222022-232023-242024-252025-26 Abigail (12-13 Nov)Angus (20 Nov)Aileen (12-13 Sept)Ali (19 Sept)Atiyah (8-9 Dec)Aiden (31 Oct)Arwen (26-27 Nov)Antoni (5 Aug)Agnes (27-28 Sept)Ashley (20-21 Oct)Amy (3-4 Oct) Barney (17-18 Nov)Barbara (23-24 Dec)Brian (21 Oct)Bronagh (20-21 Sept)Brendan (13-14 Jan)Bella (26-27 Dec)Barra (7-8 Dec)Betty (18-19 Aug)Babet (18-21 Oct)Bert (22-25 Nov) Clodagh (29 Nov)Conor (25-26 Dec)Caroline (7 Dec)Callum (12-13 Oct)Ciara (8-9 Feb)Christoph (19-22 Jan)Corrie (29 Jan)Ciarán (1-2 Nov)Conall (26-27 Nov) Desmond (5-6 Dec)Doris (23 Feb)Dylan (30-31 Dec)Deirdre (15-16 Dec)Dennis (15-16 Feb)Darcy (6-8 Feb)Dudley (16-17 Feb)Debi (12-13 Nov)Darragh (6-7 Dec) Eva (24 Dec)Ewan (26 Feb)Eleanor (2-3 Jan)Erik (8-9 Feb)Ellen (19-20 Aug)Evert (30 Jul)Eunice (18 Feb)Elin (9 Dec)Éowyn (24 Jan) Frank (29-30 Dec)Fionn (16 Jan)Freya (3-4 Mar)Francis (25 Aug)Franklin (20-21 Feb)Fergus (10 Dec)Floris (4-5 Aug) Gertrude (29 Jan)Georgina (24 Jan)Gareth (12-13 Mar)Gerrit (27-28 Dec) Henry (1-2 Feb)Hector (13-14 Jun)Hannah (27 Apr)Henk (2 Jan) Imogen (8 Feb)Isha (21-22 Jan) Jake (2 Mar)Jocelyn (23-24 Jan) Katie (27-28 Mar)Kathleen (6-7 Apr) Lilian (23 Aug) Storms named between November 2015 and October 2025. Source: Met Office. Notable named storms While every year since the scheme began has seen storms strong enough to be named, some storms have been particularly significant. Storm Desmond, December 2015 Storm Desmond brought extreme rainfall to north-west England. The weather station in Honister Pass in Cumbria recorded 34.1cm of rainfall in just 24 hours in a new UK record. Another record was set when 405mm of rain fell at Thirlmere in Cumbria over two consecutive days.  The subsequent floods affected thousands of homes and businesses across Cumbria and other parts of northern England, sweeping away several bridges and cutting road and rail links.  Storm Desmond led to the government launching the National Flood Resilience Review. Storm Arwen, November 2021 Storm Arwen is an example of how the damages caused by a storm depends on more than its overall strength. A storm’s location, duration and wind direction also plays a role.  This storm occurred after an area of pressure in the North Sea drove very strong northerly winds across north-eastern parts of the UK. Winds gusted at up to 98mph at Brizlee Wood in Northumberland.  The unusual wind direction of Storm Arwen resulted in the felling of thousands of trees and left more than a million homes without power. Parts of the Pennines also saw significant disruption from lying snow. Storms, like Arwen, that have a wind direction different to the prevailing south-westerly direction are less frequent, but are nevertheless a key part of the UK’s climate.  Storm Eunice, February 2022 In February 2022, three named storms affected the UK within the space of a week. The second of these storms was Storm Eunice. Storms in...

خلاصہ: IEA: Fossil-fuel use will peak before 2030 – unless ‘stated policies’ are abandonedThe world’s fossil-fuel use is still on track to peak before 2030, despite a surge in political support for coal, oil and gas, according to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook 2025, published during the opening days of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, shows coal at or close to a peak, with oil set to follow around 2030 and gas by 2035, based on the stated policy intentions of the world’s governments. Under the same assumptions, the IEA says that clean-energy use will surge, as nuclear power rises 39% by 2035, solar by 344% and wind by 178%. Still, the outlook has some notable shifts since last year, with coal use revised up by around 6% in the near term, oil seeing a shallower post-peak decline and gas plateauing at higher levels. This means that the IEA expects global warming to reach 2.5C this century if “stated policies” are implemented as planned, up marginally from 2.4C in last year’s outlook. In addition, after pressure from the Trump administration in the US, the IEA has resurrected its “current policies scenario”, which – effectively – assumes that governments around the world abandon their stated intentions and only policies already set in legislation are continued. If this were to happen, the IEA warns, global warming would reach 2.9C by 2100, as oil and gas demand would continue to rise and the decline in coal use would proceed at a slower rate. This year’s outlook also includes a pathway that limits warming to 1.5C in 2100, but says that this would only be possible after a period of “overshoot”, where temperature rise peaks at 1.65C. The IEA will publish its “announced pledges scenario” at a later date, to illustrate the impact of new national climate pledges being implemented on time and in full. (See Carbon Brief’s coverage of previous IEA world energy outlooks from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015.) World energy outlook The IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook (WEO) is published every autumn. It is regarded as one of the most influential annual contributions to the understanding of energy and emissions trends. The outlook explores a range of scenarios, representing different possible futures for the global energy system. These are developed using the IEA’s “global energy and climate model”. The latest report stresses that “none of should be regarded as a forecast”. However, this year’s outlook marks a major shift in emphasis between the scenarios – and it reintroduces a pathway where oil and gas demand continues to rise for many decades. This pathway is named the “current policies scenario” (CPS), which assumes that governments abandon their planned policies, leaving only those that are already set in legislation. If the world followed this path, then global temperatures would reach 2.9C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 and would be “set to keep rising from there”, the IEA says. The CPS was part of the annual outlook until 2020, when the IEA said that it was “difficult to imagine” such a pathway “prevailing in today’s circumstances”. It has been resurrected following heavy pressure from the US, which is a major funder of the IEA that accounts for 14% of the agency’s budget. For example, in July Politico reported “a ratcheted-up US pressure campaign” and “months of public frustrations with the IEA from top Trump administration officials”. It noted: “Some Republicans say the IEA has discouraged investment in fossil fuels by publishing analyses that show near-term peaks in global demand for oil and gas.” The CPS is the first scenario to be discussed in detail in the report, appearing in chapter three. The CPS similarly appears first in Annex A, the data tables for the report. The second scenario is the “stated policies scenario” (STEPS), featured in chapter four of this year’s outlook. Here, the outlook also includes policies that governments say they intend to bring forward and that the IEA judges as likely to be implemented in practice. In this world, global warming would reach 2.5C by 2100 – up marginally from the 2.4C expected in the 2024 edition of the outlook. Beyond the STEPS and the CPS, the outlook includes two further scenarios. One is the “net-zero emissions by 2050” (NZE) scenario, which illustrates how the world’s energy system would need to change in order to limit warming in 2100 to 1.5C. The NZE was first floated in the 2020 edition of the report and was then formally featured in 2021. The report notes that, unlike in previous editions, this scenario would see warming peak at more than 1.6C above pre-industrial temperatures, before returning to 1.5C by the end of the century. This means it would include a high level of temporary “overshoot” of the 1.5C target. The IEA explains that this results from the “reality of persistently high emissions in recent years”. It adds: “In addition to very rapid progress with the transformation of the energy sector, bringing the temperature rise back down below 1.5C by 2100 also requires widespread deployment of CO2 removal technologies that are currently unproven at large scale.” Finally, the outlook includes a new scenario where everyone in the world is able to gain access to electricity by 2035 and to clean cooking by 2040, named “ACCESS”. While the STEPS appears second in the running order of the report, it is mentioned slightly more frequently than the CPS, as shown in the figure below. The CPS is a close second, however, whereas the IEA’s 1.5C pathway (NZE) receives a declining level of attention. Number of mentions of each scenario per 100 pages of text. Source: Carbon Brief analysis. US critics of the IEA have presented its stated policies scenario as “disconnected from reality”, in contrast to what they describe as the “likely scenario” of “business as usual”. Yet the current policies scenario is far from a “business-as-usual” pathway. The IEA says this explicitly in an article published ahead of the outlook: “The CPS might seem like a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario, but this terminology can be misleading in an energy system where new technologies are already being deployed at scale, underpinned by robust...

خلاصہ: Analysis: Which countries have sent the most delegates to COP30?For the first time in the history of COP climate summits, the US – the world’s largest historical emitter – has not sent a delegation to the talks. Back in January, newly inaugurated US president Donald Trump signed a letter to the UN to trigger the start of a US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement for a second time.  Although this process is not yet complete, the White House confirmed earlier this month that no “high-level officials” would be attending COP30 in Belém, Brazil. The US joins Afghanistan, Myanmar and San Marino as the only countries not registering a delegation for the summit, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis of the provisional lists of delegates published by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Despite these absences, more than 56,000 delegates have signed up to attend COP30 in person, provisionally placing the summit as one of the largest in COP history. This is despite the run-up to the negotiations being dogged by reports of a shortage of beds and “sky-high” accommodation costs. Brazil even offered free cabins on cruise ships moored in Belém to delegations from low-income nations who were otherwise unable to attend. COP30 Insider Pass A two-week, all-access package designed for those who need much more than headlines. Sign up According to the provisional figures, 193 countries, plus the European Union, have registered a delegation for the summit. Unsurprisingly, the largest delegation comes from COP30 hosts Brazil, with 3,805 people registered. This is followed, in order, by China, Nigeria, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This year also sees the largest number of “virtual” delegates, with more than 5,000 people signed up to attend the talks online. Party delegations With 56,118 delegates registered, COP30 is provisionally the second-largest COP in history, behind only COP28 in Dubai, which was attended by more than 80,000 people. This is the provisional total, based on the delegates that have registered to be at the summit in person. At recent COPs, the final total is at least 10,000 lower, which would drop COP30 down to the fourth largest. (The UNFCCC releases the final figures – based on participants collecting a physical badge at the venue – after the summit has closed.) The chart below shows how the provisional figures for COP30 compare to the final totals in past COPs – going back to COP1 in Berlin in 1995. The participant lists provided by the UNFCCC are divided between the different types of groups and organisations attending the summit. The largest group at COP30 is for delegates representing parties. These are nation states, plus the European Union, that have ratified the convention and play a full part in negotiations. This group adds up to 11,519 delegates – the fourth largest behind the past three COPs. (In keeping with recent COPs, the UNFCCC has published spreadsheets that name every single person that has registered for the summit – excluding support staff. Previously, COPs have typically included thousands of “overflow” participants in which countries and UN agencies could nominate delegates without their names appearing on their official lists.) For consistency with Carbon Brief’s analysis of previous COPs, the above chart includes overflow delegates as a single group. However, the participant lists do divide the overflow delegates between parties and observer groups. Including the overflow numbers approximately doubles the total for party representatives to 23,509. US no-show Overall, of the 198 parties to the UNFCCC, 194 have registered delegations for COP30. The most notable absentee is the US, which has been present at every other COP in history – even throughout Donald Trump’s first presidency. On average, the US sends a delegation of around 100 people, typically making it one of the larger groups at the talks.  The absent parties – Afghanistan, Myanmar and San Marino – have been more sporadic attendees at past COPs.  Despite reports of a “logistical nightmare” hosting a COP summit in the Amazon, there has been no drop-off in the number of countries registering delegations for COP30. In addition to hotel rooms and rental properties in Belém, beds have been made available on cruise ships, in converted shipping containers and in motels that Reuters primly described as being typically “aimed at amorous couples”. Reports suggested that many developing nations considered scaling back their presence at COP30, with smaller delegations or attendees only coming for a few days.  While the average party delegation size of 59 (excluding overflows) is lower than the previous two COPs, it is similar to the average in COP26 in Glasgow and COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh. The map and table below present the delegation size – split between party and overflow badges – for all the countries registered for COP30. The darker the shading, the more delegates that country has signed up. Use the search box to find the data for a specific party. Source InformationPublisher: Carbon BriefOriginal Source: Read more

خلاصہ: Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been flat or falling for 18 monthsChina’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were unchanged from a year earlier in the third quarter of 2025, extending a flat or falling trend that started in March 2024. The rapid adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) saw CO2 emissions from transport fuel drop by 5% year-on-year, while there were also declines from cement and steel production. The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that while emissions from the power sector were flat year-on-year, a big rise in the chemical industry’s CO2 output offset reductions elsewhere. Other key findings include: Power-sector CO2 emissions were flat in the third quarter, even as electricity demand growth accelerated to 6.1%, from 3.7% in the first half of the year. This was achieved thanks to electricity generation from solar growing by 46% and wind by 11% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2025. In the first nine months of the year, China completed 240 gigawatts (GW) of solar and 61GW of wind capacity, putting it on track for a new renewable record in 2025. Oil demand and emissions in the transport sector fell by 5% in the third quarter, but grew elsewhere by 10%, as the production of plastics and other chemicals surged. After the first three quarters of the year, China’s CO2 emissions in 2025 are now finely balanced between a small fall or rise, depending on what happens in the last quarter. A drop in the full-year total became much more likely after September, which recorded an approximately 3% drop in emissions year-on-year. Electricity demand – and associated emissions – have tended to grow fastest during the summer months, due to rapidly rising demand for air conditioning amid hotter summers. If this pattern repeats, then China’s CO2 emissions will record a fall for the full year of 2025. While an emission increase or decrease of 1% or less might not make a huge difference in an objective sense, it has heightened symbolic meaning, as China’s policymakers have left room for emissions to increase for several more years, leaving the timing of the peak open. Either way, China is set to miss its target to cut carbon intensity – the CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – from 2020 to 2025, meaning steeper reductions are needed to hit the county’s 2030 goal. Finely balanced emissions  China’s CO2 emissions have now been flat or falling for 18 months, starting in March 2024. This trend continued in the third quarter of 2025, when emissions were unchanged year-on-year. This picture is finely balanced, however, with contrasting trends in different sectors of the economy underlying the ongoing plateau in CO2 emissions, shown in the figure below. Emissions from the production of cement and other building materials fell by 7% in the third quarter of 2025, while emissions from the metals industry fell 1%. This is due to the ongoing real-estate contraction, as the construction sector uses most of the country’s steel and cement output. Emission reductions from steel production continued to lag the reductions in output, which fell 3%. This is because the fall in demand was absorbed by the lower-carbon electric-arc steelmakers, whereas carbon-intensive coal-based steel production was less affected. China has struggled to increase the share of electric-arc steelmaking despite targets, due to the large capacity base and entrenched position of coal-based steelmaking crowding out the lower-emission producers. Power-sector emissions were unchanged year-on-year in the third quarter, as strong growth from solar and wind generation, along with small increases from nuclear and hydro, nearly matched a rapid rise in demand. Emissions from transport fell by 5% over the period, but oil consumption in other sectors grew by 10%, driven by chemical industry expansion. This resulted in a 2% rise in oil consumption overall. Gas demand and emissions grew by 3% overall in the three-month period, with consumption in the power sector up by 9% and by 2% in other sectors. The figure below shows how emissions in each of these sectors has changed in the first nine months of 2025, for example, power-sector CO2 output is down 2% in the year so far. The rapid recent growth of CO2 emissions in the chemical industry is a continuation of recent trends and, as such, the sector’s coal and oil use have both surged in 2025 to date. The outlook for emissions in the final quarter of 2025 – and the year as a whole – depends on whether further declines in cement, transport and power are enough to offset increases elsewhere. Solar and wind growth keep power sector emissions flat In the power sector, China’s dominant source of CO2, emissions remained flat in the third quarter even as electricity demand grew strongly. Electricity generation from solar and wind grew by 30%, with solar up 46% and wind power generation increasing 11%. With small increases from nuclear and hydropower, non-fossil power sources covered almost 90% of the increase in demand, even as demand growth accelerated to 6.1% in the third quarter, up from 3.7% in the first half of the year. This is illustrated in the figure below, where the columns show the change in generation by each source of non-fossil power every quarter and the line shows the increase in electricity demand. Despite a small increase in electricity generation from fossil fuels to cover the remaining 10% of demand growth, power sector emissions stayed unchanged in the third quarter of 2025. This is because the average thermal efficiency of coal power – the amount of fuel per unit of output – improved slightly, while the share of gas-fired generation increased at the expense of coal. The figure above shows that the growth in clean-power sources has been covering all or nearly all of the rise in electricity demand in recent quarters, but once again there is a fine balance. As such, the outlook for the final quarter of 2025 and for power-sector emissions over the years ahead depends on the relative strength of rising demand and clean-power output. From 2021 to 2025, there has been a marked seasonal pattern in electricity demand growth, with more rapid rises in the summer peak “cooling season”, from June to August. In these months, residential electricity consumption grew by...

خلاصہ: Webinar: Carbon Brief’s first ‘ask us anything’ at COP30As COP30 began in the Brazilian city of Belém, Carbon Brief hosted the first of three webinars to exclusively answer questions submitted by holders of the Insider Pass. Topics ranged from China’s priorities and the absence of the US through to narratives around geoengineering.  Expected key outcomes at COP30 were also discussed, including the Tropical Forest Forever Fund (TFFF), agreed indicators under the global goal on adaptation and a “Belém action mechanism” within the just-transition work programme.  Climate finance continued to be a key feature across the numerous topics raised, in particular in the wake of the Baku to Belém roadmap – published just five days before the start of COP30.  The webinar featured six Carbon Brief journalists – including three on the ground in Belém – covering all elements of the summit: Dr Simon Evans – deputy editor and senior policy editor Daisy Dunne – associate editor Josh Gabbatiss – policy correspondent Anika Patel – China analyst Aruna Chandrasekhar – land, food systems and nature journalist Molly Lempriere – policy section editor A recording of the webinar (below) is now available to watch on YouTube. The post Webinar: Carbon Brief’s first ‘ask us anything’ at COP30 appeared first on Carbon Brief.Source InformationPublisher: Carbon BriefOriginal Source: Read more

خلاصہ: DeBriefed 7 November 2025: Belém COP begins; UN warns of 1.5C breach; changing roles of climate scientistsWelcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed. An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change. This week Eve of COP30  MULTILATERAL HOPES A gathering of world leaders kicked off in Belém, Brazil, ahead of the official opening of COP30 next week. The leaders of China, the US and India – the “planet’s three biggest polluters” – are “notably absent” from the two-day leaders summit, reported the Associated Press. Some Latin American leaders “were openly critical” of the US president’s stance on climate change in their speeches at the “diminished” summit, noted the Financial Times. ‘MORAL FAILURE’: Speaking at the world leaders summit, UN secretary-general António Guterres described failing to remain below 1.5C as a “moral failure and deadly negligence”, reported the Guardian. Guterres added: “Every fraction of a degree means more hunger, displacement and loss – especially for those least responsible.” The UN chief’s speech came as the World Meteorological Organization confirmed that 2025 is “on track to be the second or third warmest globally”, noted Reuters. ‘POSITIVE TIPPING POINT’: The Brazilian COP presidency published a “Baku to Belém roadmap” detailing how climate finance for developing nations could be scaled up to $1.3tn a year by 2035, Climate Home News reported. The roadmap was published ahead of the UN climate talks, but will not be formally discussed as part of the negotiations, the outlet added. Read Carbon Brief’s summary of what the roadmap means for climate finance. FORESTS NOT FOREVER: Brazil also launched its Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) this week, said Agence France-Presse, designed to help tropical countries protect their forests. Norway has joined France and Brazil in investing in the fund, while Germany will announce its contribution on Friday, noted Bloomberg. The Guardian dubbed the UK’s decision to opt out as “a major letdown”. For more on the TFFF, see Carbon Brief’s explainer. COP30 Insider Pass A two-week, all-access package designed for those who need much more than headlines. Sign up UN report says world is heading for 2.8C UNFULFILLING: The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) annual “emissions gap” report warned that global temperature rise could be heading for 2.8C this century, if only current policies are fulfilled, the Financial Times reported. The rise could be limited to 2.5C, if unconditional national pledges are met in full – or to 2.3C, if pledges conditional on financial support are put into action, the newspaper noted. STALLED PROGRESS: The world’s warming trajectory is now “0.3C lower than it was a year ago…meaning new plans announced this year have done little to move the needle”, noted Reuters. Some of this progress will be “cancelled” out, the New York Times added, once the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement takes effect. See Carbon Brief’s in-depth coverage of the UNEP report. Around the world WATERED DOWN: The EU finally confirmed a “significantly weakened” plan to cut emissions to 90% below 1990 levels by 2040, reported the Financial Times. DEADLY DISASTER: The Philippines is in a state of emergency after Typhoon Kalmaegi left at least 114 people dead and nearly 130 missing. DROPPING COMMITMENTS: The junior partner in Australia’s opposition Coalition  – the Nationals – has formally abandoned a commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, reported ABC News. MAYORAL WIN: Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral election, having “refram climate policy as a quality-of-life issue”, Inside Climate News reported. 100 The number of proposed indicators to track progress towards the “global goal on adaptation” that will be negotiated at COP, according to Carbon Brief‘s new Q&A. Latest climate research Rising temperatures could affect the muscles that Arctic bumblebees use to generate their “charismatic buzz” | Nature Communications  The release of CO2 from the the Southern Ocean has been “underestimated” by up to 40% in previous studies | Science Outdoor heat stress has led to a 10% decline in labour capacity in “rural to urban migration hotspots” in India | Environmental Research Letters  (For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.) Captured IPCC funding shortfall  Carbon Brief covered the latest meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Lima, Peru. Alongside funding from parent organisations the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and UN Environment Programme, voluntary contributions by countries help pay for the work of the IPCC. The biggest contributors so far in 2025 are Norway, the UNFCCC, Canada and the WMO. The red bars show how US contributions have dropped off during Trump’s two terms in office. Having provided 30% of direct contributions throughout the IPCC’s history, the US has not made a contribution so far this year.  Spotlight ‘With knowledge comes responsibility’: the changing role of climate scientists in a warming world This week, Carbon Brief speaks to a researcher about the different ways climate scientists are feeling and taking responsibility for the knowledge they hold.  From calling for action in Belém to defending science against attempts to discredit or downplay it, climate scientists are responding to world events in ever-more visible ways. Dr Friederike Hartz is a research and policy associate at University College London.  For her PhD thesis, carried out at the...

خلاصہ: Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP30 climate summitThe centrepiece of every UN climate summit is for countries to negotiate the wording of a large number of legal agreements – and COP30 in the Brazilian city of Belém is no different. These texts are hashed out behind closed doors in the “blue zone” at the COP, where diplomats from nearly 200 nations haggle over every paragraph and each individual verb. Over the course of the two-week summit, negotiators will be trying to reach consensus on more than 100 separate agreements – but, first, they must agree which issues are on the agenda. The complexity of this process can make it challenging to keep track of what countries are fighting about and how negotiations are progressing. Carbon Brief’s real-time text tracker, below, offers a helping hand by decoding the agenda and keeping a searchable record of every document for each part of the negotiations. The first column of the interactive tracker lists the topic of each agenda item, with further columns including dates, page counts and links to the original PDFs. The table is searchable via the interactive text box and can be sorted using the arrow icons. Key negotiations at COP30 include those on the “global goal on adaptation”, as well as the question of whether or how to reform the COP process itself, a discussion that appears on the agenda under the innocuous heading: “Arrangements for intergovernmental meetings.” While most of the items on the agenda are agreed in advance, parties can suggest late additions. These must be signed off before negotiations can begin, often resulting in an “agenda fight”. COP30 Insider Pass A two-week, all-access package designed for those who need much more than headlines. Sign up Recent negotiations have all started with an agenda fight over two proposals from the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) – a group that includes China, India and Saudi Arabia. The LMDC proposals relate to the provision of climate finance by developed countries – under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement – and to what they describe as “unilateral trade measures”, a term understood to include the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM). The LMDCs have asked again that these issues be included on the agenda at COP30. Ahead of the opening of the summit, Carbon Brief’s text tracker counts 111 substantive items on the agenda, not including procedural matters, such as the election of COP officials. However, it is likely that not all of these items will ultimately end up being included. The figure below illustrates the status of the COP30 negotiations overall, in a traffic-light format. Each agenda item is colour-coded according to its current status. For topics shown in red, negotiators have not yet managed to put anything down on paper, perhaps because parties have fundamentally different views on how they should proceed. For items in orange, negotiators are working on an “informal text”, which is an early draft setting out the views of different parties, but not yet expressed in formal legal language. Once a draft legal agreement becomes available, topics will be colour-coded yellow. At this point, areas of remaining disagreement will be denoted in the text with and “options”. As such, texts with many square brackets or options tend to be an indicator of a high level of disagreement between parties within this negotiation track. For this reason, the tracker table above counts and displays the number of outstanding brackets and options in each document. During the course of the summit, negotiators may work through multiple iterations of text on each agenda item. These documents may include “bridging text”, designed to resolve differences of opinion and to find a “landing zone” that all groups can agree on. Agreement is reached on a given topic once all brackets and options have been resolved, at which point the issue will be coloured green in Carbon Brief’s traffic-light chart. Where agreement cannot be reached, discussions may be subject to “rule 16”, meaning negotiations are postponed until the next session. These topics are colour-coded grey. The figure below gives an at-a-glance overview of the status of the main topics up for negotiation. As parties narrow down the options and brackets towards the end of each summit, they start to generate “clean” texts, which contain no areas of disagreement and can be converted into “draft decisions” that are ready for formal adoption at the closing plenary of the meeting. Finally, at the closing plenary, each draft decision must be gavelled through by the COP president, signifying its formal adoption as a legal agreement and outcome of the summit. This last step is usually a formality, but dramatic exceptions are possible. During the closing plenary at COP29, the president of the meeting failed to adopt a deal relating to the “global stocktake” from 2023, which had called for “transitioning away” from fossil fuels.Carbon Brief also ran text trackers for COP28 and COP29. ...

خلاصہ: Ongoing failure to agree AR7 timeline is ‘unprecedented’ in IPCC historyGovernments have, once again, failed to agree on a timeline for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seventh assessment cycle (AR7), two years into the process. Last week, more than 300 scientists and government officials from around the world met in Lima, Peru for the 63rd session of the IPCC (IPCC-63). According to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB), reporting exclusively from inside the four-day meeting, the closed-door talks were characterised by “fraught deliberations” where “once-routine” issues became “deeply controversial and time-consuming”. Countries reached a compromise on the content of a methodology report on carbon dioxide removal technologies – a sticking point at the last IPCC meeting. However, the meeting marked the fourth time in a row that delegates could not reach consensus on the timings of the IPCC’s influential three-part assessment report, after deadlocked talks in Hangzhou, China earlier this year and Sofia, Bulgaria and Istanbul, Turkey in 2024. Observers told Carbon Brief of an atmosphere of “deepening mistrust” at the meeting, as emerging economies clashed with a coalition of small-island states and developed nations amid repeated accusations of “micromanagement”. IPCC chair Prof Jim Skea reportedly lamented in his closing remarks that “as a category five hurricane swept through the Carribean, IPCC-63 was deliberating on pronouns and footnotes”. One former IPCC author tells Carbon Brief that certain countries’ opposition to agreeing a “deadline for AR7” was a “clear tactic for playing down the importance of IPCC climate science in decision-making on climate change”. Historic splits Each assessment cycle, the IPCC publishes three “working group” reports that focus on climate science (WG1), impacts and adaptation (WG2) and mitigation (WG3). It also publishes a small number of special reports and methodology reports. The IPCC’s current assessment cycle has been underway since July 2023, with the authors for its three headline reports confirmed earlier this year.  It is atypical for the IPCC to have not yet agreed when these reports would be published so far into an assessment cycle. The workplans for AR5 and AR6 were “agreed with little difficulty”, the ENB notes in its summary of the event, adding: “The debate about the timeline is unprecedented in the history of the IPCC.” There are, broadly speaking, two camps in the debate around timelines for AR7. The first wants a timeline that would align the publication of the IPCC’s three headline reports, plus special and methodology reports, with the second “global stocktake” (GST). The GST is an appraisal of global progress on tackling climate change, which takes place every five years under the Paris Agreement. The second GST is scheduled to conclude at COP33 at the end of 2028, so that its findings can inform the fourth round of national climate pledges due a few years later.  Other countries, however, have advocated for a longer timeline. Among their concerns are the potential burden reviewing reports back-to-back could place on more resource-strapped countries, as well as whether the current schedule offers enough time for gaps in scientific literature to be filled.  As proceedings kicked off in Peru, the IPCC proposed a timeline for AR7 which would see all three of its headline reports published in 2028, with approval sessions earmarked for May, June and July of that year for the three working group reports.  WGI co-chair Dr Robert Vautard noted that the ongoing uncertainty on timelines was stressful for both the authors of reports, as well as for scientists wishing to submit research for the cycle, according to the ENB. The delegation from Antigua and Barbuda, meanwhile, noted that agreement on the timeline is typically procedural and “not negotiated by governments”. It also said the proposed cycle length of around six-and-a-half years was consistent with the IPCC’s last two assessment cycles. ‘Compromise’ timeline  Throughout the four-day meeting, positions on both sides on the debate around AR7 remained “entrenched”, the ENB notes.  A “majority” of countries were in favour of a workplan which would align AR7 with the GST, the ENB says. However, this group was opposed by a “smaller, but growing” number of countries in favour of a less compressed timeline.  Early on in proceedings, for example, Kenya described a slower timeline as a “great equaliser” and said a more compressed timeline did not favour authors, nor the coordinating agencies, from developing countries, ENB says.  Meanwhile, India argued that the GST was “extraneous” to the IPCC and said there were no formal IPCC rules about aligning with the stocktaking exercise, according to ENB. Algeria, China, Libya, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa also reportedly voiced their opposition to the IPCC’s proposals. Inclusivity concerns were also cited by countries in favour of the IPCC’s timeline. For example, the small-island state of Vanuatu reportedly said that delaying the reports would deprive countries of important scientific information ahead of key international meetings.  Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, France, the Gambia, Korea and Nepal were among the countries to speak up in favour of the IPCC’s proposed timeline, according to ENB. Simon Steill, executive director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), urged countries to agree on a timeline which aligned AR7 with the GST. In his opening address to the Lima meeting, he said: “Taken together, the reports will be indispensable and I will continue to urge all countries to agree on timelines that ensure all three assessments inform the second global stocktake.  “Because the stocktake is not just a technical exercise. It is a crucial moment for the world to recognise the state of play, reaffirm its commitment to Paris and respond with action and support at the pace and scale that science demands.”  The ENB reports that a contact group was set up on Monday to work through the issue, co-chaired by Brazil and Denmark. On Tuesday, a revised timeline for AR7 was presented by WG1 co-chair Dr Xiaoye Zhang and WG2 co-chair Dr Bart Van den Hurk, which took into account deliberations from the contact group, the ENB says. It set out a number of changes to the initial timeline, concentrated at the end of the cycle so as to address government concerns while limiting impacts on...

خلاصہ: Cropped 5 November 2025: Nature finance at COP30; Storms devastate crops; Brazilian deforestation declineWe handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight. This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here. Key developments COP30 build-up FOREST FIX: In the run-up to COP30, Brazil announced that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped by 11% between August 2024 and July 2025, the Associated Press reported. Data showed that almost 5,800km2 of forest was cleared during this time, the outlet said – a “significant drop from the previous year and the lowest level in nearly a decade”. Mongabay noted that deforestation also fell by around 11% in the Cerrado ecosystem in the past year. The Times, meanwhile, assessed global progress on a pledge to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. AIMS AND AMBITION: Malaysia and Indonesia, two of the world’s most biodiverse countries, announced updated climate targets ahead of COP30, according to Eco-Business. Malaysia’s new pledge outlined that its greenhouse gas emissions will peak between 2029-34, the outlet reported, while Indonesia’s pledge detailed plans to hit peak emissions by 2030. Antara reported that Indonesia’s environment minister, Hanif Faisol Nurofiq, said “large-scale reforestation” in the land-use sector will be key to achieving these targets.  NATURE TALKS: Elsewhere, intersessional talks for UN biodiversity negotiations failed to agree on a “clear set of recommendations” for the next major round of discussions, to be held in October 2026, Down to Earth reported. Countries focused on a number of topics, including the first global report on progress towards meeting 2030 nature targets. Another Down to Earth article reported on the outcomes of the first meeting of the permanent body for Indigenous peoples, which “ended with recommendations for how this new body will function”, the outlet said. These will be put forward to countries at the COP17 summit in Armenia next year. Deadly cyclones damage crops ‘HEAVY BLOW’: Hurricane Melissa – “one of the strongest landfalling Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded” – tore through several Caribbean nations and dealt a “heavy blow” to fisherfolk and farmers in Jamaica, the Associated Press reported. The island is still recovering from last year’s Hurricane Beryl, causing farmers to “warn of food shortages”, according to the Guardian. The Gleaner, a Jamaican newspaper, wrote that fisherfolk in the country’s largest parish, St. Ann, “credited early and proactive preparations” for averting the loss of “boats, equipment and livelihoods”. AG SECTOR SUFFERS: The same week, Cyclone Montha “battered” the eastern coast of India, “bringing heavy rain and gusty winds that damaged crops”, Reuters said. It added that the storm killed 120 animals in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh and that the agricultural sector “suffered the highest losses”. According to the Press Trust of India, nearly 80,000 farmers in the state were affected by flooding and damaged crops. One farmer died by suicide “after his cotton and maize crops were damaged” by the storm, Telangana Today reported. Subscribe: CroppedSign up to Carbon Brief's free "Cropped" email newsletter. A fortnightly digest of food, land and nature news and views. Sent to your inbox every other Wednesday. ‘RUN OF DISASTERS’: Earlier this week, Typhoon Kalmaegi killed 66 people in the Philippines, the Guardian reported. Al Jazeera said that the country is still “recovering from a run of disasters, including earthquakes and severe weather events, in recent months”. In the Philippine Daily Inquirer, retired scientist Prof Teodoro Mendoza wrote that the country is “at a crossroads of food fragility and food security”. He called for “rooting strategies in local knowledge, climate adaptation and food sovereignty”. News and views CARBON COMMITMENT: Nigeria approved a “new national carbon market framework”, with an aim to “unlock up to $3bn annually in carbon finance”, Carbon Pulse reported. The Premium Times noted that, in addition to the framework, the country approved the operationalisation of a national climate change fund and reinstated funding for the National Council on Climate Change. The newspaper added that Nigerian president Bola Tinubu had “reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to mainstreaming climate action into national development”. DEGRADATION TRENDS: Around 1.7 billion people worldwide are living in places where human-driven land degradation is leading to falling crop yields, representing a “growing threat to agricultural productivity and food security”, according to a new report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The annual “state of food and agriculture” report said the large-scale degradation was a “troubling pattern” that “may drive further agricultural expansion into fragile ecosystems” – with implications for climate change and biodiversity loss. ‘DECISIVE WIN’: Argentine president Javier Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party secured a “decisive win” in the country’s midterm elections, Reuters said. Before the vote, Reuters reported that farmers were “renewing their vote of confidence” in Milei for “lowering unpopular export taxes”. In September, Reuters reported that these lowered taxes were increasing soya bean exports to China, particularly in the face of “Washington’s trade war with Beijing”. LICENCE TO KRILL: Russia “spark diplomatic row” after illegally detaining a Ukrainian biologist, the Guardian reported. Russia has accused Dr Leonid Pshenichnov of “high treason” by encouraging restrictions to krill harvesting around Antarctica, which “would harm the economic interests of Russia”, according to arrest documents seen by the newspaper. It added: “This year, for the first time, the amount of krill fished in Antarctic waters reached what scientists believe is an unsustainable level.” JUST CAUSE: American pop star Billie Eilish announced that she will be donating $11.5m of the proceeds from her upcoming tour to “causes dedicated to food equity, climate justice and reducing carbon pollution”, CBS News reported. Eilish also called for the world’s “ultra-wealthy” to donate more of their money to helping others, the outlet added. Meanwhile, Sir David Attenborough has “urged” people to support an effort to raise £30m to purchase the Rothbury Estate in north-east England, “with plans to boost wildlife, restore bogs and promote nature-friendly farming”, BBC News said. EEL-EGAL TRADE: Eel trafficking is “Europe’s biggest wildlife crime” – an industry worth about €2.5bn annually – and, combined with “habitat loss, pollution and the climate crisis”,...

خلاصہ: COP30: What does the ‘Baku to Belém roadmap’ mean for climate finance?The Brazilian COP30 presidency has published a “Baku to Belém roadmap” on how climate finance could be scaled up to “at least $1.3tn” a year by 2035. The idea for the roadmap was a late addition to the outcome of COP29 last year, following disappointment over the formal $300bn-per-year climate-finance goal agreed in Baku. The new document, published ahead of the UN climate talks in Belém, Brazil, says it is not designed to create new financing schemes or mechanisms. Instead, the roadmap says it provides a “coherent reference framework on existing initiatives, concepts and leverage points to facilitate all actors coming together to scale up climate finance in the short to medium term”. It details suggested actions across grants, concessional finance, private finance, climate portfolios, capital flows and more, designed to drive up climate finance over the next decade.  Despite geopolitical uncertainty, there is hope that this roadmap can lay out a pathway to the “trillions” in climate finance that developing countries say they need to meet their climate targets. Countries have divergent views on how to get there, but some notable trends have emerged from the roadmap, which was spearheaded by the Azerbaijani and Brazilian COP presidencies. Below, Carbon Brief details what the Baku to Belém roadmap is, why it was launched and what the key points within it are.  Why was the ‘Baku to Belém roadmap’ launched? What is the goal of the roadmap? What are different countries’ views on climate finance? What are the solutions that the roadmap has identified? What happens next? Why was the ‘Baku to Belém roadmap’ launched? A mounting body of evidence shows that developing countries will need trillions of dollars in the coming years if they are to achieve their climate goals.  While much of this finance will likely be sourced domestically within those countries, a large slice is expected to come from international actors. This climate finance is part of the “grand bargain” at the heart of the Paris Agreement, whereby developing countries agree to set more ambitious climate plans if they receive financial support from developed countries. Ahead of COP29, developing countries hoped that the post-2025 climate finance target – known as the new collective quantified goal (NCQG) – would reflect their full “needs and priorities”, as set out in the Paris Agreement.  They also pushed for developed-country parties such as the EU, the US and Japan to contribute a large portion of this finance, preferably on favourable terms such as grants. They were left largely disappointed, with a final target that fell well short of what many developing countries had been proposing.  The central target agreed at COP29 was “at least” $300bn a year by 2035, with an expectation that developed countries would “take the lead” in providing these funds from “a wide variety of sources”, including private finance. This goal – which was effectively the successor to the previous $100bn-per-year target – was far short of what developing countries had wanted. However, another key part of the text agreed in Baku alludes to their ambitions, with a loose request that “all actors” scale up finance to at least $1.3tn per year by 2035: “ calls on all actors to work together to enable the scaling up of financing to developing country parties for climate action from all public and private sources to at least $1.3tn per year by 2035.” In contrast to the $300bn target, this $1.3tn figure, which first appeared in a proposal by the African Group in 2021, reflects developing-country demands and needs. It also aligns with influential analysis of developing-country needs by the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance (IHLEG). Yet, this part of the text lacked binding language and detail on who precisely would be responsible for providing these funds. It has therefore been described by civil-society groups as more of an aspirational “call to action” than a target. (“Calls on” is the weakest form of words in which UN legal texts can make a request.) However, the COP29 text contained another relevant decision, added as negotiations drew to a close. It mentioned a “Baku to Belém roadmap to $1.3tn” – a report that could flesh out ways to scale up finance further and help developing countries achieve their climate targets. The Azerbaijani COP29 presidency and the incoming Brazilian presidency were tasked with assembling this roadmap ahead of COP30 in 2025.  In the months that followed, the presidencies engaged with governments, civil-society groups, businesses and other relevant actors. They gathered information to build a “library of knowledge and best practices”, which could boost climate finance for developing countries. Back to top What is the goal of the roadmap? The roadmap comes at a difficult time for climate finance, with a particularly “bleak” outlook for public funding from developed countries. Major donors – particularly the US – have made large cuts to their aid budgets, threatening climate spending overseas. At the same time, private investment has also faltered, with successive economic shocks raising the cost of capital for clean-energy projects in developing countries.  For years, finance experts and development leaders have talked of a “billions to trillions” agenda, suggesting that public money could help to “mobilise” trillions of dollars of private investments that could be used to build low-carbon infrastructure in the global south. Yet, the “billions to trillions” concept has also faced growing scrutiny, with even the World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill branding it “a fantasy”. Critics have highlighted wider issues constraining developing countries, such as high levels of debt. The NCQG text from COP29 set out the roadmap’s overarching goal of scaling up annual climate finance to $1.3tn, through means including “grants, concessional and non-debt-creating instruments, and measures to create fiscal space”.  On the current trajectory, financial sources potentially covered by the target could hit around $427bn for developing countries a year by 2035, less than a third of the goal, according to analysis by the thinktank NRDC. Achieving $1.3tn of finance relies on what one report calls “yet-to-be-defined mechanisms”, which go beyond the ones covered by the $300bn target. Countries and other relevant parties were asked by the presidencies for their views on “short-term” –...

خلاصہ: COP30: Could Brazil’s ‘Tropical Forest Forever’ fund help tackle climate change?Billed as the “Amazon COP”, the UN climate talks will see the debut of Brazil’s flagship fund to “reward” tropical countries for keeping their forests intact.  The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) will be launched at the COP30 leaders’ summit on 6 November.  The fund aims to raise and invest $125bn from a range of sources, with excess returns channelled to up to 74 developing countries that sufficiently protect their forests.  This, according to Brazil, would make it one of the biggest multilateral investment funds for nature. (For comparison, the Green Climate Fund’s portfolio is around $18bn.)  While Brazil expects TFFF to “transform the world’s approach to environmental conservation”, many critics remain unconvinced.  They argue that conservation funding for climate-critical forests should not depend on “betting on stock market prices” and instead call for new biodiversity finance.  Here, Carbon Brief takes a closer look at where the fund came from, how it will be set up and how it is supposed to work. What is the Tropical Forest Forever Facility? First officially proposed by Brazil at COP28 in Dubai in 2023, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility aims to pay up to 74 developing tropical forest countries for keeping their existing old-growth forests intact. It plans to do this by raising $25bn in capital from wealthy “sponsor” governments and philanthropies, which – it hopes – will attract an additional $100bn in private investment.  Returns on these investments will go towards paying back investors and making “forest payments” to countries that increase or maintain their forest cover.  On 4 November, Brazil’s finance minister Fernando Haddad told Bloomberg that “he believed the fund could raise $10bn by next year”, less than half the original target. While the facility’s official launch is slated for COP30, its rules are still being finalised after several iterations of “concept notes” and consultations.  However, the idea that underpins the fund is not new.  Former World Bank treasurer Kenneth Lay first floated the idea of a Tropical Forest Finance Facility around 15 years ago. Lay and others later envisioned the TFFF as a “pay-for-performance” sovereign wealth fund for forests. In their design of the TFFF, loans from developed countries and private investors would have been invested in the debt markets of tropical forest countries, with excess returns being allocated annually as “rainforest rewards”.  In their thinking, TFFF offered a “highly-visible, large-scale reward for successfully tackling deforestation without increasing funding demands” on developed countries, according to a 2018 article for the Center for Global Development.  Others central to the TFFF’s current design are Christopher Egerton-Warburton – founder of London-based Lion’s Head Global Partners, who is credited with engineering the facility’s financial structure – and Garo Batmanian, director of Brazil’s forestry service.  What is it designed to achieve? The ultimate goal of the TFFF is to pay for the conservation of the world’s major rainforests, which provide a range of ecosystem services, including carbon storage. In a statement from the COP30 presidency, André Aquino, special advisor on economy and environment at Brazil’s ministry of environment, said: “What the TFFF seeks is for the world to remunerate part of these services. It is to remunerate forests as the basis of life, as the basis of the economy, for our well-being.”   On the ground, this mechanism could help landowners to conserve trees and forests by ensuring that the value they bring as standing forests is higher than from cutting them down. The facility also intends to finance long-term objectives for forest conservation, including policies and programmes for sustainable use and restoration.  More than 70 developing countries that are home to more than 1bn hectares of tropical and sub-tropical forests could be potential recipients from this facility. These countries span the Amazon, Congo and Mekong basins, as well as many other regions. The following map shows the countries that host tropical rainforests and are potentially eligible to receive funds from the TFFF. To be selected as beneficiaries, countries will require transparent financial management systems and must commit to allocating 20% of the funds to Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, according to the draft rules.  These countries would need to have a deforestation rate – averaged over the previous three years – of no more than 0.5% of their total forested area, with standing forest areas having a canopy cover of at least 20-30% in each hectare to be eligible for payments.  The TFFF’s third concept note says that areas that transition from above to below this 20-30% threshold would be “considered deforested”. In a recent Yale Environment 360 article, forest ecologists warned that the low level of this threshold – for what counts as a forested area – is “not scientifically credible” and “would allow payments even where industrial logging is occurring in primary forests”. However, TFFF argues that “including forest areas with lower canopy cover does provide an incentive for maintaining these areas”.  Additionally, payments would be reduced for each hectare of forest loss and for each hectare degraded by fire.  The funds for Indigenous peoples would be “put aside in a different account, following different rules”, Aquino said during a press briefing attended by Carbon Brief. Brazil’s ministry of environment and climate change invited five countries with rainforests to support the creation of the fund: Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Indonesia and Malaysia. Individual national governments that are beneficiaries of the scheme would be free to define how and where the generated funds would be distributed. How will the fund work? The TFFF is split into two entities, with a secretariat to coordinate between them.  The facility is the first of these. It is tasked with setting up the rewards system, eligibility criteria, monitoring methodologies and disbursement rules, as well as engaging with participating recipient countries. The other is the TFFF’s main financial arm, the Tropical Forest Investment Fund (TFIF) – responsible for raising and managing the TFFF’s resources.  So far, five potential sponsor countries have shown interest in supporting the fund: France, Germany, Norway, the United Arab Emirates and the UK.  These countries, along with five potential recipient countries –  Brazil, Colombia, the DRC, Ghana, Indonesia and Malaysia – formed an interim steering committee to shape TFFF’s development. According to its...

خلاصہ: Interactive: Who wants what at the COP30 climate change summitNegotiators from around the world will soon descend on Brazil as it prepares to host the latest round of UN climate talks, on the banks of the Amazon river. COP30 in Belém will see them discuss issues including the best ways to track progress on adaptation and how to pursue a global “just transition”. Some of the event’s most important topics, such as countries’ new climate targets and raising international climate finance to $1.3tn, will officially take place outside the formal negotiations. Nevertheless, these issues will likely drive much of the COP30 narrative. In order to track parties’ positions on key negotiating points at the summit, Carbon Brief has analysed nearly 100 submissions to the UN and captured them in the interactive table below. The first column in the table shows the countries and UN negotiating blocs, the second shows the topics up for debate and the third indicates specific issues within those topics. The final column indicates the positions that the parties have expressed on each topic. These range from “priority” – meaning the party is likely to be pushing the issue – to “oppose”, meaning it is likely to push against it. This is a “living document” that will be updated during the course of COP30. Please get in touch if you would like to offer additions to the table by emailing policy@carbonbrief.org. Explanations of the overarching issues and jargon-filled language that permeate the talks can be found below the interactive table. Adaptation At COP28 in 2023, governments adopted a “framework” for the “global goal on adaptation”, which was originally included in the Paris Agreement, but had seen little progress till then. Over the following two years, negotiators and experts have been discussing a list of measurable “indicators” that can be used to track global progress on adaptation.  At COP30, a final list of 100 of these indicators is expected to be adopted, making it one of the key concrete outcomes expected at the summit in Belém. From an initial list of more than 5,000 potential indicators, a group of experts worked to refine this down into a set of around 500 in June. This has been reduced further to 100 proposed final indicators, which will be negotiated at COP30.  These indicators must be both specific enough to allow for accurate measurement of progress and versatile enough to apply to the vast array of location-specific adaptation practices.   Beyond the list of indicators, divergences between parties remain around the topics of the “Baku Adaptation Roadmap”, the concept of “transformational adaptation” and adaptation finance. (See the Carbon Brief Q&A on the adaptation indicators for more details.) Climate finance As ever, discussions of “climate finance” – the financial resources channelled into climate action in developing countries – are likely to feature prominently at COP30. Last year, countries had a deadline to decide on a new global climate-finance target known as the “new collective quantified goal on climate finance” (NCQG), meaning this issue took centre stage at the COP29 negotiations. In Belém, formal climate-finance negotiations are less prominent. However, the launch of the “Baku to Belém roadmap to $1.3tn” ahead of the summit will provide an opportunity for parties to reflect on the topic and may influence wider negotiations. The roadmap was mandated last year, due to a view among developing countries that the NCQG’s main target of “at least” $300bn a year by 2035 was insufficient. Parties and negotiating blocs have made 36 submissions to the Baku to Belém consultation process, outlining what they want to see reflected in the final roadmap.  While the submissions refer to the Baku to Belém outcome specifically, they tend to reflect countries’ broader positions on the topic of climate finance. Familiar issues, such as developing countries calling for more grant-based finance and developed countries stressing the importance of the private sector, feature prominently. (For more analysis of countries’ positions on the roadmap, see Carbon Brief’s explainer on this topic.) Just transition and global stocktake Besides climate-adaptation indicators, the COP30 presidency has highlighted two other negotiating strands as priorities – the “just transition work programme” (JTWG) and the “dialogue” on implementing the outcome of the first “global stocktake”. The former refers to discussions between parties about how best to support those affected by the transition to a low-carbon world.  As for the stocktake dialogue, this involves taking forward the outcomes from COP28, where countries were called on to contribute to various targets, including “tripling” global renewable energy capacity and “transitioning away” from fossil fuels. There remain fundamental differences between parties about the scope of both of these discussions.  Broadly within the JTWP, developing countries want to see a holistic transition that takes into account not just fossil-fuel workers, but the wider communities and groups impacted by the low-carbon transition, along with financial support from developed countries needed to underpin this.  Developed countries generally want to keep the negotiations focused on labour and how to share knowledge from “best practice” examples of transition management.  Within the stocktake dialogue, some large developing countries – particularly the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) – want discussions to focus on climate finance. Other developing countries and developed countries have pushed for a focus on climate ambition, including transitioning away from fossil fuels. By the start of COP, nations are expected to have submitted their new climate plans under the Paris Agreement, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs).  To date, only around one-third of countries have announced or submitted their 2035 climate pledges, covering roughly half of global emissions.  The ambition – or lack of it – contained in these plans will set the stage for talks in Belém. COP reforms A decade on from the Paris Agreement, many experts have voiced concerns about the way COPs work and called for various reforms. (See Carbon Brief’s “COP experts: How could the UN climate talks be reformed?”)  Some of these proposals – including major changes such as the introduction of majority voting – have come from outside the COP process. However, the Brazilian COP30 presidency has brought some of these discussions into the formal negotiations under the heading of “arrangements for intergovernmental meetings” (AIM). Here, countries have the opportunity to discuss improvements in the...