Climate Change News

A fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are linked to international trade in goods and services, a new tracker shows, spotlighting a little-studied issue that researchers say should be tackled by the UN climate process.

Currently, as part of the Paris Agreement, every country is responsible for counting and reducing the planet-heating emissions that are produced within its territory. Manufacturing countries, for example, may have high emissions even if what they make is exported for consumption elsewhere.

But new analysis from the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and climate consultancy Matière, based on the tracker’s data, shows that some countries have a high footprint of “imported emissions” from goods and services they ship in. These emissions are often ignored in the places where the products are consumed because they are not formally counted under greenhouse gas inventories.

In the European Union, for example, while domestic emissions have declined since 2015, imported emissions have remained unchanged, the analysis shows. In some countries, like Austria or Sweden, they are as high as the country’s entire annual carbon footprint.

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Former EU lead climate negotiator Jacob Werksman said that under the Paris Agreement, these traded emissions are accounted for in the countries where they are originally produced, but importing countries can also take responsibility for their consumption.

“It starts with a wide recognition by many jurisdictions around the world that we need to know the carbon content of these products, and we then need to agree what is a fair, effective, transparent and relatively easy-to-implement way of measuring that carbon in traded products,” he told a launch event for the trade emissions tracker, which contains data for different countries, sectors and gases.

Trade and its role in addressing climate change has become a higher priority at UN climate talks after a push led by emerging economies including China, India and South Africa led to the first trade and climate change dialogue held this year at the mid-year session in Bonn.

At the upcoming COP31 UN summit in Antalya, some voluntary initiatives like the Brazil-led Integrated Forum on Climate Change and Trade are expected to continue, but the issue does not feature in Türkiye’s Action Agenda of climate initiatives and formal negotiations are not scheduled on the topic.

China: the world’s top emissions exporter

As a manufacturing powerhouse, China ranks first in the new tracker as the world’s top-emitting country, but the data shows that a large chunk of the country’s carbon emissions – an amount larger than Brazil’s entire annual carbon footprint – are linked to products that are exported and consumed abroad.

Russia, Brazil, the US and the EU rank as the top destinations for Chinese trade-related emissions, which are mostly linked to components for power generation, basic metals like copper and lead, and non-metallic minerals like graphite and phosphorus.

Yet China is also the world’s top emissions importer, related mostly to agricultural products, fossil fuels and minerals brought from the US, the EU, Japan and India, among others. The US ranks second by a close margin, with both countries importing about 1.6 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

China’s industrial engine starts to break its fossil fuel habit

Richard Baron, ECF’s industrial policy and trade director, said Chinese clean energy products are key for reducing emissions around the world, adding that Europe is “not able to do without those technologies” for its energy transition.

“China has an emissions trading system that counts CO2 differently there. But if China and the EU were to agree on some kind of translation mechanism to say ‘this is how we measure it’, and companies can understand the protocol to navigate both markets, that would set the tone for a lot of other conversations,” he said at the platform’s launch event last week.

The analysis suggests that if the EU and China aligned their climate requirements for products, the resulting standards could influence trade flows representing about 7% of global emissions.

Baron said there’s “a plethora” of multilateral spaces to hold these discussions, including the climate and trade dialogue at the UN climate talks or the Climate Club at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which seeks to cut industrial emissions.

Trade breaks into agenda of UN climate talks – but will it have teeth?

Controversial trade measures

Instruments like the Europe’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) – a recent piece of legislation that penalises emissions-heavy imported products – are one tool that could be used to address trade-related emissions, said Antoine Oger, executive director at the Institute for European Environmental Policy.

He said a significant portion of imported emissions in Europe are already covered by CBAM, as it includes sectors like cement, iron and steel, fertilisers and aluminium. This then allows the EU “to engage in constructive dialogue with our trade partners”, he added.

An employee of Dirostahl, a medium-size forging steel firm that produces large parts, works on a glowing steel element that has been heated in a classic natural gas-fired furnace to 1,200C in Remscheid, Germany, June 30, 2025. (Photo: REUTERS/Thilo Schmuelgen) An employee of Dirostahl, a medium-size forging steel firm that produces large parts, works on a glowing steel element that has been heated in a classic natural gas-fired furnace to 1,200C in Remscheid, Germany, June 30, 2025. (Photo: REUTERS/Thilo Schmuelgen)

But across diplomatic summits, including at UN climate talks, emerging economies have pushed back heavily against the CBAM and other trade measures. The most recent BRICS declaration adopted on Saturday by 11 such countries – including China, India and Russia – condemns “protectionism under the guise of environmental objectives”.

The declaration calls for the “elimination of such unlawful measures”, which they argue have “far-reaching negative implications for the human rights, including the rights to development, health and food security” of vulnerable communities.

“The question of responsibility is a political question,” Oger said. “These emissions exist – they are emitted somewhere to make a product that will be consumed elsewhere. So you can debate responsibility but the idea is for the two parts to recognise there’s a problem.”

The aim, he added “is not to point fingers, but to accept this is a reality of our emissions profiles and ask what we can do about it”.

The post International trade linked to 20% of global emissions – but imports ignored appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a bright, spacious factory on the outskirts of Lagos, young engineers in overalls work their way along the production line, carefully inspecting the shimmery blue solar cells that turn sunlight into electricity.

Quality checks completed, the finished solar panels are loaded onto forklifts and taken to a warehouse – ready for delivery to buyers across Nigeria and in neighbouring West African countries. Each panel is labelled “Made in Nigeria”.

But for Emmanuel Agbola, operations manager at Nigerian solar company LPV Technologies, the company’s mission goes beyond quality control and meeting customer orders.

“We are looking at addressing the immediate power needs of Nigeria,” Agbola told Climate Home News in a quiet room away from the steady hum of machinery on the factory floor, where production began last year.

That is no small task. About four out of 10 Nigerians – more than 85 million people – still lack reliable access to grid electricity, according to Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency.

An engineer works on a solar module inside LPV factory, Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News) An engineer works on a solar module inside LPV factory, Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News)

LPV Technologies is among a handful of startups making headway on the nation’s bold ambitions to build a domestic solar panel manufacturing industry, as solar becomes the go-to choice for Nigerian businesses and households fed up with frequent blackouts.

Nigeria’s national grid has collapsed about 22 times during the last two years due to transmission constraints, gas shortages and ageing infrastructure.

That is exactly why local solar panel manufacturing matters, according to Agbola.

“One of our slogans is ‘Make the sun pay for your bills’,” he said.

Solar transforms life for homes and businesses

Nigeria has become one of Africa’s fastest-growing markets for increasingly affordable solar systems, which are providing more reliable and cheaper electricity for homes and workplaces than the fragile power grid.

Solar panels installed across rooftops of shops in Wuse Market, Abuja, July, 2026 (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News) Solar panels installed across rooftops of shops in Wuse Market, Abuja, July, 2026 (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News)

Nigeria’s rapid solar adoption is being met mostly by small-scale solar installations which have helped bring the country’s total cumulative solar capacity to about 6 gigawatts (GW), according to a report by research provider BloombergNEF.

But almost every panel installed on homes, factories and public buildings across the country is imported – the vast majority from China – something the government wants to change.

“We are preparing to produce in this country the solar technologies that the entire continent will use,” President Bola Tinubu told a group of Chinese investors in 2024.

“Nigeria is a huge market for solar panels. Africa is a major consumer of solar technologies. I do not see why these panels and batteries cannot be produced here,” he said.

Two years on, that ambition is starting to bear fruit.

Not far from LPV’s factory, in the Agege neighbourhood of Lagos, workers are putting the finishing touches to a new commercial-scale veterinary vaccine cold-storage facility.

Up on the roof, 100 of LPV’s “Made in Nigeria” solar panels have been fixed into position. 

Once operational, the panels and attached battery storage will provide round-the-clock electricity for offices, laboratories and cold-storage rooms at the site, helping to keep millions of vaccine doses safely refrigerated even when the national grid fails.

“This will never go off – all year round,” said the civil engineer overseeing work at the site, pointing to the rooftop installation. “It’s off-grid – 24 hours, seven days; constant electricity to run these two cooling units.”

A worker looks over solar cells at the LPV factory in Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News) Government bets on local manufacturing

The Nigerian government wants solar power to play a central role in bridging the country’s electricity access gap, but it also wants the equipment that will drive that transition to be produced at home to create new jobs and reduce imports. That aligns with its wider Nigeria First industry policy.

Nigeria’s booming solar market is still overwhelmingly supplied by foreign-made panels. 

Last year, it imported about 2.9 million panels worth more than 400 billion naira ($295 million). More than 70% of them came from China, making Nigeria Africa’s second-largest importer of Chinese panels after South Africa. 

China dominates almost every stage of the global solar manufacturing supply chain and a series of government-led initiatives to kickstart local production have yet to make major headway.

More than a decade ago, the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure established the country’s first government-backed solar panel factory in Karshi, Abuja. While successive upgrades have increased its production capacity to about 50 MW annually, the facility still supplies only a fraction of Nigeria’s growing demand.

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The government has since announced more ambitious projects, including a Renewable Energy Industrial Park in Nasarawa state, expected to manufacture solar cells, panels and batteries, and a solar module assembly plant under construction by the Energy Commission of Nigeria in Enugu. Neither project has yet begun commercial production.

Last year, the government also proposed restricting solar panel imports to encourage domestic manufacturing, though the idea was swiftly dropped.

Chinese imports dominate solar panel trade

The scale of Nigeria’s challenge is obvious during a visit to Alaba International Market in Lagos, one of Africa’s largest electronics markets and a solar retail hub where thousands of panels change hands every week.

One recent morning in June, cart pushers could be seen weaving their way between crowds of shoppers and traffic jams, their trolleys stacked high with loads of freshly imported solar panels.

Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer and fossil fuel exports have been the cornerstone of the economy for decades. But in the bustling market, solar has become such a good business in recent years that traders call it “the new oil“.

Signs advertising solar energy solutions at Alaba International Market, Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News) A labourer pushes cart full of imported solar panels across a road in Alaba International Market, Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News) Signs advertising solar energy solutions at Alaba International Market, Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News) A labourer pushes cart full of imported solar panels across a road in Alaba International Market, Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News)

Even so, few said they had ever seen panels made in Nigeria.

“Every panel we get is imported,” said wholesaler Ndubuisi Nwobodo, adding that it was the first time he had heard of panels being produced domestically.

At one of the market’s largest solar warehouses, manager Chidiebere Ani watched as workers unloaded another container of supplies from China. He said 95% of the warehouse’s stock of panels came from China.

China controls more than 80% of global manufacturing capacity, according to the International Energy Agency, spanning every stage of the supply chain, from polysilicon and wafers to solar cells and finished modules. 

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Meanwhile, production at the LPV factory in Lagos is running at about 180,000 panels per year, Agbola said.

“If we had 10 LPVs, we still won’t be able to meet [Nigeria’s] demand,” Agbola said. 

Even then, Nigerian producers face a tough contest on price. Imported 550-watt panels retail for about 150,000 naira ($110), the same price that LPV Technologies charges wholesalers.

Policy uncertainty seen as hurdle to investment

Nigeria has plentiful affordable labour and – with a population of roughly 240 million – room for market growth as the falling price of panels makes them accessible to more people.

Chinese firms increasingly see opportunities to build manufacturing partnerships with local businesses, said Susan Li, the founder of Chinese solar company Solar Run Energy.

“We have to grow the industry together,” she said, cautioning that foreign investment in the sector would hinge on stable government policies and a steady exchange rate.

Labourers unload a truck full of imported solar panels at Alaba International Market, Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News) Labourers unload a truck full of imported solar panels at Alaba International Market, Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News)

Last year’s short-lived proposal to ban panel imports, which was scrapped a month after it was floated, highlighted such investment concerns, said Wangari Muchiri, founder of Kenya-based RE.Think Energy.

“[One minute] solar imports were banned, and then they were not banned,” Muchiri said. 

“If investors come in and there is already a clear path such that everyone knows how tariffs and customs duties are handled, then businesses can plan for those costs,” she explained. “But when policies keep changing, the risk becomes much higher.”

Li said she believed that “as time goes by, [policies] will become more stable”.

Nigeria’s challenges to scale up production

While Nigeria is making its first panels, it does not yet have the industrial capacity to produce vital solar cell components such as polysilicon, wafers and ingots. 

At LPV, Agbola said having to import the components – up to 17 of them – eats into the company’s profit margins.

“When we combine [the cost of importing components] with other fixed-cost elements and we want to do our pricing, it becomes a big challenge for us in the market,” he said. 

Because cells are the main component in a solar panel, LPV’s senior brand and marketing manager Kabir Okehi said it would be “a huge relief” to produce them domestically and avoid the high shipping logistics costs associated with imports. It also takes imported solar cells between six weeks and two months to get to Nigeria.

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Many of the materials used in solar manufacturing – including silica, aluminium and steel – are available in Nigeria, but the country still lacks the technical know-how to turn them into higher-value components, experts say. 

“What is missing in our local production is knowledge transfer,” said Mustapha Abdullahi, director-general of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, a government body responsible for strategic national energy policy planning and coordination.

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He said Nigeria is still learning about the technologies needed to make solar cells domestically, with research institutes experimenting with materials such as graphene and production methods that could eventually support upstream manufacturing.

“We’re still in the pilot stages, doing reverse engineering to see how things are done,” he told Climate Home News.

Companies struggle to access startup capital

Another major challenge for homegrown solar manufacturing is finance, Abdullahi said, adding that several Nigerian companies have expressed interest in manufacturing solar panels, but many struggle to secure the capital needed to establish production lines.

The government has tried to bridge that gap by connecting local companies with international financiers, while offering incentives to prospective investors, he said.

Last year, Nigeria announced a partnership with Chinese solar giant LONGi to establish a 1,000 MW manufacturing facility in the country. The agreement, Abdullahi said, is intended to accelerate technology transfer and help Nigeria expand domestic production far beyond its current assembly capacity of roughly 300 MW of solar panels annually.

That is equivalent to 545,000 panels – of about 550 watts each – per year.

A conveyor belt producing solar cells at the LPV factory in Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News) Solar cells on a production line at the LPV factory in Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News) A conveyor belt producing solar cells at the LPV factory in Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News) Solar cells on a production line at the LPV factory in Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News)

Production will need to increase nearly ten-fold, Abdullahi estimated, to meet projected future demand.

As new investments and joint ventures start to yield results, that might be possible, he said.

“Nigeria can even be the solar panel hub globally, not just for Africa, and compete well even with China,” he added.

China as a partner, not a rival

But Nigeria should not be aiming to compete with China, rather learning from it as it seeks to build up its solar industry ecosystem – from assembling imported components to eventually making more of them locally, said Godson Ikiebey, a renewable energy specialist at PwC Nigeria.

China did not become the world’s solar manufacturing giant overnight, Ikiebey said. It developed a long-term industrial strategy, invested heavily in manufacturing capacity and steadily climbed the value chain.

“For now, it’s good to have the ambition, but the ambition does not yet match the action,” Ikiebey added. 

China dominates global solar manufacturing not simply because it produces panels cheaply, RE.Think Energy’s CEO Muchiri said, but because it controls technology, supply chains and economies of scale built over decades.

Rather than trying to recreate that system from scratch, Nigeria should join forces with Chinese companies to accelerate technology transfer while developing its own workforce and manufacturing base, she said.

Building an African solar industry should also extend beyond Nigeria, with different countries potentially specialising in different parts of the value chain, fostering regional trade. “This is going to be a big opportunity to look at a regional expansion rather than just one country,” she added.

Chidiebere Ani, Foresolar manager, shows solar panels in the warehouse near the Alaba International Market in Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News) Chidiebere Ani, Foresolar manager, shows solar panels in the warehouse near the Alaba International Market in Lagos (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News)

Bringing such plans to fruition will take time and the goals should be realistic, Chinese investor Li said.

Items such as frames and screws could eventually be produced in Nigeria, but more sophisticated components like solar cells would still need to be imported because their production requires highly automated factories and a stable electricity supply, she said.

“You grow step by step. If you look at the long term, if you grow the seed and water it today, you will get the harvest tomorrow,” Li said.

Clean energy jobs for the future workforce

When President Tinubu described his government’s solar hub plans to Chinese investors, he touted the country’s large, young workforce.

“The labour is cheaper. Our youths are vibrant and skilled. Our people are brilliant and adapt to new technology,” he said.

LPV’s factory in Lagos offers a glimpse of that vision.

Ibeimo Biobele explains the module production process inside the LPV factory floor in Ikotun, Lagos, Nigeria (Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News) Ibeimo Biobele explains the module production process inside the LPV factory floor in Ikotun, Lagos, Nigeria (Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News)

A graduate in petroleum engineering, Ibeimo Biobele, 28, had no experience in solar manufacturing when she arrived at the factory a year ago as a member of the National Youth Service Corps – Nigeria’s mandatory one-year national service programme.

Like many university-leavers, Biobele faced an uncertain job market.

More than 93% of Nigerians work in the informal economy, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, meaning there are few skilled jobs for graduates like Biobele.

Today, she works on the production line assembling panels and hopes more such jobs will become available for young Nigerians in the years to come.

“If we had more factories like this, more young engineers would have opportunities after school,” she said.

This article was made possible with support from Surge Africa and One World Media.

Main image: A man carries a solar panel on his head while unloading a truck in Lagos, Nigeria (Photo: Mansur Ibrahim/Climate Home News)

The post Made in Nigeria: The race to build an African solar industry from scratch appeared first on Climate Home News.

Janet Fleischman is an independent consultant with extensive experience in research, policy advocacy, and narrative storytelling. Jyotsna Uppal is a historian and narrative strategist, who supports individuals and organisations in change processes.

Global climate progress sits at the centre of an acute crisis, as the multilateral order that structured international climate cooperation for three decades frays at the seams.

The Trump administration’s withdrawal from 66 United Nations and international organisations in early 2026, compounded by its exit from the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change itself, has launched a rupture in the governance architecture and the geopolitical consensus that made multilateral climate action conceivable.

Institutions have been stripped of authority, voluntary commitments left contingent on political will.

At this precarious moment, what can and should climate funders be doing?

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We recently examined the state of environmental multilateralism through an extensive literature review and interviews with climate leaders from around the world – policymakers, UN officials, regional actors, philanthropic leaders and advocates.

Their perspectives reinforced a sobering finding: more consequential than any single country’s efforts to undermine the multilateral system is the deeper question of whether that system is still fit for purpose.

Climate philanthropy must do more than fill gaps left by retreating governments; it must ask harder questions about whether gap-filling is the right role at all – and prepare to catalyse the emergence of something new.

Change will not come without pain.

As Sarah Millar, programme director at the Climate Emergency Collaboration Group, an international philanthropic network and strategic regranter, told us: “What we’re trying to do here is fundamentally rewire the global economy… it’s everything everywhere, all at once. And that’s really hard to do.”

Filling the gaps or leading change?

The multilateral climate system, for all its limitations, remains relatively intact. Countries other than the United States continue to submit national climate plans and participate in global negotiations. Yet participation is not the same as effectiveness – many commitments fall short of what’s needed.

Meanwhile, new regional, thematic and plurilateral coalitions are emerging; voluntary groupings of countries, cities, companies, and civil society organisations aligned around specific climate objectives are increasingly filling the action gap.

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Climate philanthropy has often responded to these gaps by substituting for absent public finance. Arunabha Ghosh, the founder and former CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a climate think-tank based in New Delhi, explained: “Philanthropy is having to fill in the gap of public finance where development assistance is failing.” But this instinct deserves scrutiny.

A more fundamental question is whether gap-filling remains the right approach. Does philanthropy keep a failing system limping along, propping up dysfunction – or does it spur transformation and catalyse what comes next? There is no neutrality here – philanthropy cannot pretend its choices are inconsequential. The question is which position advances the transformation the moment requires.

Compounding these strategic questions is a more immediate threat. As formal multilateralism struggles, the civil society actors who might fill the gap face mounting restrictions – a closing of civic space evident not just in the US but in India, Israel, Russia, Turkey, and elsewhere. In the US, the Trump administration has stepped up attacks on philanthropies, threatening legal investigations and the withdrawal of foundations’ tax-exempt status.

A protester holds a placard describing the election of Donald Trump as a ‘climate disaster’ during a demonstration in London. (Photo: SOPA Images) A protester holds a placard describing the election of Donald Trump as a ‘climate disaster’ during a demonstration in London. (Photo: SOPA Images)

For climate philanthropy specifically, there’s a particular risk: support for climate action is increasingly portrayed in some US conservative circles as anti-American.

Conservative actors who emphasise fossil fuels for manufacturing and energy security often equate backing renewables with pro-China stances, since China is the largest green technology manufacturer. Yet the economic evidence points the other way, with the clean energy transition already underway – and the perils of fossil fuel reliance further underscored by the war in Iran.

Winning back the narrative

Underlying all these gaps is a failure of narrative. The story of climate progress – and there is real progress to tell – is not being written by governments.

As Christiana Figueres, an international leader on climate change and the former executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, put it this way: “The story of progress is being written by a plethora of other stakeholders – subnationals, finance corporations, NGOs – all of whom are doing their thing together. They’re writing an amazing story, and nobody’s writing it and nobody’s reading it and nobody’s taking note of it.”

This storytelling also needs to be more integrated: climate can’t remain a siloed concern but must be linked to health, education, gender equity and migration. Philanthropy can help make these linkages legible to policymakers and the public – expanding the coalition of actors who see climate as central to their own agendas.

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Four directions stand out for catalytic philanthropic support in this fragmented landscape:

• Shift who gets supported, and convene diverse actors. New pathways are needed to support local communities, civil society coalitions, and subnational actors implementing national climate plans.
• Support compelling narratives and amplify affected voices. Listening to affected communities is critical to shaping a just transition that gives communities real agency over change.
• Engage the private sector differently. New financing instruments and blended finance opportunities require philanthropy to engage more strategically with private sector and corporate actors – not merely as funders but as partners to design how catalytic capital can flow.
• Take strategic risks. Philanthropy may need to fund approaches to implementation, finance, and technology that governments and financial institutions won’t support.

This is a precarious moment for multilateralism, civil society and the philanthropic organisations that sustain it.

But that complexity may also provide an opportunity. Philanthropy willing to ask harder questions, take greater risks, and invest in the connective tissue between issues may do more than keep a struggling system afloat.

To catalyse multilateral climate action, many philanthropies recognise that this is the time to deepen their reach. In the words of Ailun Yang, with the environment program at Bloomberg Philanthropies: “Our main way to engage in this is by supporting smart people and innovative ideas. Philanthropy doesn’t necessarily do these things ourselves, and that is really where our superpower is.”

This piece is adapted from a project conducted by Janet Fleischman and Jyotsna Uppal, funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Environment Program; however, all the views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors’ own.

The post With multilateralism in crisis, what’s next for climate philanthropy? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Uncertainty persists over how COP31 will be managed, after Türkiye’s environment minister told journalists this week his country will have the final say at the UN climate conference despite a deal that gave Australia the role of chairing the negotiations in return for withdrawing its bid for the summit.

At COP30, the two governments resolved a deadlock by agreeing that Türkiye would host this year’s annual talks in the resort city of Antalya with its environment minister Murat Kurum serving as COP31 President, while his Australian counterpart Chris Bowen would act as COP31 President of Negotiations.

Previous COPs have occasionally been hosted by one country and presided over by another. For example, COP23 was held in Germany because of the remoteness and small size of Fiji, and COP25 took place in Spain after social unrest flared in Chile. But COP31 will be the first UN climate summit with the powers of the presidency split between two countries.

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Under the unusual arrangement, Türkiye will lead on the Action Agenda, the non-negotiated part of COP which brings together businesses, citizens and local governments to step up climate action in different areas, from curbing methane emissions and protecting health to adaptation in fragile states.

In Brazil last year, when the deal was announced to end the long-running rivalry for COP31, Australia’s Chris Bowen said his role would give him the powers of the COP presidency to manage the official climate negotiations, prepare draft texts and issue any overarching “cover” decision.

But speaking to international media in the Turkish city of Trabzon on Thursday, comments from Kurum – made in Turkish and translated into English by an official translator – suggest that Türkiye sees itself as having ultimate control over the formal outcome of the talks.

Asked how the “co-presidency” would resolve any differences that emerge during the negotiations, he responded: “Türkiye and Australia are not co-presidents. Türkiye is the President of COP31 and Australia is the President of Negotiations. We are in consultation with Australia but the final decision lies with the presidency of COP31.”

“No issues” so far

An official document setting out the “modalities” of the partnership notes that the COP31 President will assign an Australian representative as the “President of Negotiations” and “Vice President of the COP”, to whom the functions of leading the COP31 negotiations are delegated for the duration of the conference and “who will have exclusive authority in relation to the negotiations”.

“If there is a difference of views between Türkiye and Australia, consultations will take place until the difference is resolved to mutual satisfaction,” the document adds.

Kurum said this week that the two countries are working in “good harmony and in shared perspectives. So far, we’ve had no issues. We don’t believe we will have. I mean if Türkiye and Australia cannot agree on something, it’s not realistic to expect 196 countries [at the COP] to agree on the same thing.”

Australia’s pavilion at COP30 is right next to Turkey’s – an interesting dynamic as the two battled it out to be the host of COP31 next year. (Photo: Megan Rowling) Australia’s pavilion at COP30 is right next to Turkey’s – an interesting dynamic as the two battled it out to be the host of COP31 next year. (Photo: Megan Rowling)

Australia’s COP31 team pointed Climate Home News to a speech given by Bowen at the mid-year Bonn climate talks, in which he said: “Australia and Türkiye are working together seamlessly and with one goal.”

The oceans conference in Trabzon, organised by the COP31 presidency, issued a statement on Thursday saying that under Türkiye’s COP31 Presidency, and “in close cooperation” with Australia as President of Negotiations, “we aim to advance action on ocean and seas towards COP31 in Antalya, including through engagement with the Pacific at the Pre-COP”.

Electrification goal to reduce fossil fuels

On other topics, Kurum told reporters that, while the COP31 Action Agenda does not feature any explicit initiatives on transitioning away from fossil fuels, its flagship goal to promote the electrification of economies – through measures like heat pumps and electric vehicles – would “lead to a reduction in the use of fossil fuels and contribute to the clean transition”.

“What we want is to decrease the emissions, and for that we need to use clean energy, and for that we need to make electrification more widespread. And if you do that, automatically [you will] reduce the use of fossil fuels,” he said on the sidelines of the Trabzon oceans conference. He added that COP31 would “build on” the COP28 agreement to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.

COP31 leaders unveil global targets, with spotlight on electrification

Asked by Climate Home News about a request by the government of Nepal for an emergency grant from the UN’s new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage to help recovery from its recent devastating glacial flood, Kurum said he would be “pleased” if the fund supported the South Asian nation.

On August 31, Nepal’s finance and environment ministers asked the fund’s board to take a special decision to disburse post-disaster support for the first time, a call backed by developing-country board members. On September 9, the board’s co-chairs responded in a letter saying they were “engaging with the FRLD board to address your urgent request as rapidly as possible”.

Foreign minister: Nepal needs “meaningful” international support to face climate threats

Asked how he would respond to a UN scientific assessment this month that the world will exceed its goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels and must then work to bring it back down, Kurum said he accepted that the data shows that keeping to 1.5C is no longer possible. He added that limiting warming to “around 1.5C” would be a success.

Questioned by media as to how he would guarantee the right to protest at COP31, Kurum said his team will “try to meet” any request they receive from civil society.

With demonstrations temporarily banned, over 200 human rights and environmental activists were arrested before and during the NATO military alliance summit in Türkiye’s capital Ankara in January.

Kurum sought to reassure climate campaigners, however. “Don’t worry, thinking you will not be able to voice your opinions or really share your thoughts,” he said.

The post Türkiye says it has “final decision” at COP31 despite Australia running negotiations appeared first on Climate Home News.

In the wake of the recent flash flood that swept down from the Himalayas, Nepal is seeking immediate aid from a UN fund for climate loss and damage to help vulnerable families displaced by the disaster and rebuild destroyed schools and hospitals, the country’s foreign minister told Climate Home News.

“This is exactly the kind of climate-driven catastrophe the Fund was created to address,” Shisir Khanal said in an interview. He added that “stronger global solidarity and meaningful international support” are needed for countries like Nepal, which are facing increasingly severe climate-related disasters.

The floods were caused by a glacier collapsing and triggering a landslide that forced a torrent of water and debris to rush down the Bhote Koshi River valley, causing catastrophic impacts downstream. More than 1,300 people died and over 5,300 are still missing in the area.

Loss and damage fund urged to hold crisis meeting on Nepal

Khanal described the disaster as a “Himalayan tsunami”, telling Climate Home News that early assessments suggest the roads, bridges, hydropower stations, highways and settlements it wiped out could require billions of dollars to rebuild. Reconstruction estimates by the government range between $2.5 billion and $5 billion.

The minister of foreign affairs said Nepal would not be asking the UN’s new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) “to write a single check for this total amount”, explaining that the government is finalising a post-disaster assessment “to guide our broader international donor appeals”.

Nepal disaster seen as test case for fledgling fund

In reality, if Nepal does receive rapid support from the FRLD, it is likely to be a fraction of the total bill because the fund has a cap of $20 million per project and has little more than $350 million available to hand out in its initial phase.

So far its board has not approved any projects as it is still working out how to allocate its scarce resources, nor does it have a process in place to respond to sudden climate disasters such as glacial lake outburst floods or powerful storms.

On August 31, Nepal’s government sent a direct appeal for emergency grant funding to the FRLD, emphasising that “a prompt response would… demonstrate that the fund can translate international solidarity into timely support for vulnerable countries and communities when it is most urgently needed”.

A couple of days later, eight developing-country board members – later joined by those from small island states – signed a letter, seen by Climate Home News, asking the fund’s board to hold an extraordinary meeting to respond to Nepal’s request.

The FRLD said in a statement that the devastating impacts on the ground “underscore both the urgency and scale of need and reaffirm the fundamental purpose for which the FRLD was established”.

It added that it is “committed to approaching Nepal’s request with the urgency, compassion, and careful consideration that these difficult circumstances require, while respecting the Fund’s governing instrument and established decision-making processes”. As of Wednesday, Climate Home News understands that discussions were still ongoing.

Designing infrastructure for extreme shocks

Khanal pointed to “the unprecedented scale” of the huge flood which occurred within a matter of minutes and swept away river gauges meant to provide early warning in Rasuwa and Nuwakot, near the border with Tibet.

“You cannot easily ‘plan’ against a mountain collapsing,” he said. But the lesson, he added in written responses in English, is that “our historical baseline for infrastructure engineering is no longer sufficient”.

Building resilient infrastructure means that “hydropower projects, roads and early warning systems must be designed for extreme, unpredictable climate shocks”, he said. Another key element will be plans to better understand and protect ecosystems, he added.

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The minister noted that Nepal, India and China share a common, interconnected Himalayan ecosystem and all three countries are affected by the impacts of climate change in the Himalayan mountain chain.

“Therefore, our call is for the three countries to work together to strengthen preparedness, resilience and regional cooperation,” he said.

New research from consultancy Systemiq, released on Wednesday, finds that Himalayan glaciers are losing mass 65% faster than a decade ago, and that only around 20 of the Himalaya’s estimated 40,000 glaciers are currently monitored. India alone has 56 glacial lakes rated very high risk, it warns.

The Rasuwagadhi flood destroyed a friendship bridge, a road, a hydropower substation, and swept away vehicles in Rasuwa, Nepal in July 2025. (Photo: Ambir Tolang/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect) The Rasuwagadhi flood destroyed a friendship bridge, a road, a hydropower substation, and swept away vehicles in Rasuwa, Nepal in July 2025. (Photo: Ambir Tolang/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect) Early cross-border efforts on information-sharing

Since the same region of Nepal was hit by smaller-scale but still highly destructive flooding in 2024 and 2025, China and Nepal have stepped up efforts to cooperate in tackling glacier-related risks in the region.

In August 2025, Climate Home News reported that authorities in both countries had agreed to share cross-border information about the risks of glacial lake outburst floods across the Tibetan region, in a first step that could be expanded to the national level in an effort to reduce deaths and damage. 

This May, a delegation from China’s Ministry of Water Resources and the Water Resources Department of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region held talks with Nepalese officials in charge of water and disaster management about establishing a joint disaster information mechanism.

Then in August, a team from the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment under the Chinese Academy of Sciences also visited Nepal for scientific research and exchange, sharing China’s experience in monitoring glacial lakes.

Nepal and China agree to cooperate on glacial lake flooding, as warming hikes threat

However, experts told Climate Home News that progress on putting in place concrete measures has been slow. Narendra Khanal, a professor in the department of geography at Tribhuvan University, blamed that partly on Nepal’s traditional administrative system and bureaucratic delays.

“We have to share information with them, and they have to share information with us,” he said. “In my understanding, the Chinese side is also facing difficulties in making this cooperation work.”

Mohan Bahadur Chand, a Himalayan glaciologist and assistant professor at Kathmandu University, said China has the technology and human resources to provide significant information to its neighbour downstream.

But, to make that work, “we have to build trust between the two countries”, which is currently lacking but could be developed, he said. “As scientists, we are already working with them personally. If we create a trusted environment, cooperation should not be difficult.”

Nepal lacks monitoring and warning technology

Experts said Nepal – one of the world’s least-developed countries – does not have the technology or resources to install the sophisticated monitoring and warning systems needed to protect its population from growing threats linked to accelerating glacier melt in the Himalayas.

A senior meteorologist at the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, who did not want to be named, told Climate Home News that the government had not invested enough in rainfall and weather monitoring stations, especially above 3,500 metres, and therefore lacks reliable data about what is happening at high altitudes.

“The stations we have are operated by different organisations, but many of them are not functioning properly,” the official added.

Comment: The loss and damage fund needs far more finance to deliver climate justice

This year, the UN’s Green Climate Fund released initial funding for a $50-million project to address the risks from four glacial lakes in other parts of Nepal, but has come under criticism for taking seven years to approve the proposal. The fund said this was due to efforts needed to strengthen and consult on the project, as well as administrative, institutional and COVID-related delays.

Foreign minister Khanal said Nepal was calling on the international community for support to tackle global warming impacts into the future.

“This disaster should not be viewed simply as a one-time event requiring one-time assistance,” he emphasised. “We need to recognise the longer-term consequences of rising temperatures and climate change, particularly for vulnerable communities and developing countries.”

The post Foreign minister: Nepal needs “meaningful” international support to face climate threats appeared first on Climate Home News.

Amy Youngman is a legal and policy specialist at the campaigning group Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

The chair’s August Aid to Negotiations is being sold as a pragmatic way to rescue the global plastics treaty. However, the text is starting to resemble the architecture of a Paris Agreement-style framework: a patchwork of vague commitments, nationally determined action and reporting, with the hardest substantive decisions left to a future that, my experience following these negotiations tells me, would never arrive.

In March 2022, governments adopted UNEA Resolution 5/14 by consensus, launching negotiations for a legally binding international instrument to end plastic pollution. I joined the global plastics treaty process in Paris in 2023, where hopes of drafting a treaty capable of confronting one of the defining environmental and human health threats of our time were first derailed by procedural warfare.

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Five months later, in Nairobi, I watched the chair close a meeting while delegates still negotiated -allegedly to catch a flight. In 2024 and 2025, in Ottawa, Busan and Geneva, the same small group of blocking states grew bolder, cloaking opposition in language about defending the vulnerable while subsidising a system that fuels the pollution crisis. Offended by ambition, ashamed of nothing.

A year after the last formal attempt to negotiate a treaty, we are tasked with protecting a fragile process. And despite long-standing support, including legal, policy and technical expertise from my own Environmental Investigation Agency, the chair has excluded observers from the rooms where the treaty’s fate is being decided.

In that orchestrated quiet, the loudest proposal emerged: the suggestion that the instrument be a “framework convention.” The new Aid, intended to shape the late-September Heads of Delegation meeting, never uses the word “framework”. It does not need to. It strips back substantive obligations and presupposes future action.

A framework is no match for this crisis

Framework conventions outline broad principles and leave each country to develop its own plan, often delaying tough decisions to future negotiations that may never happen. This tactic is a political shell game: persuading states that want action now to give up meaningful, binding measures to reach agreement.

The Chair’s Aid arrives at a framework by subtraction rather than by proposal, which makes it harder to name and potentially easier to accept. Using the Aid, effectively the rejected text from Geneva, as a basis for the next informal meeting in Bangkok will be sold as a way to preserve a distressed UN system and reach consensus in a fractured geopolitical environment.

This is diplomacy drowning in wishful thinking that the countries fighting binding rules today will approve tougher ones tomorrow. Four years of negotiations and decades of climate diplomacy taught us that this is not a bridge to ambition – this is how ambition dies.

Modou Fall, 45, head of Senegal Propre (“Clean Senegal”) Association is covered with plastic cups and bags to raise awareness of the damage on the environment caused by waste as he cleans a beach during World Cleanup Day in Dakar, Senegal September 15, 2018. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra Modou Fall, 45, head of Senegal Propre (“Clean Senegal”) Association is covered with plastic cups and bags to raise awareness of the damage on the environment caused by waste as he cleans a beach during World Cleanup Day in Dakar, Senegal September 15, 2018. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Production is driven by global oil, gas and chemical markets, while products and waste travel across borders. No singular government can regulate its way out of a problem created and amplified by a globalised system.

Countries have tried, and production kept rising. Now there is plastic everywhere we look, and the cost falls hardest on the people least responsible.

That failure is why there was consensus to negotiate a treaty, because this crisis requires global action. The purpose was never to list national efforts and call that progress but to create common global rules to address pollution.

The most politically sensitive issues cannot simply be postponed. How much plastic is produced, which toxic chemicals are allowed in it, which throwaway products are banned, and how future decisions are made are precisely the issues that require global answers. An instrument that refuses to negotiate them will be easier to adopt but useless on arrival.

Learn from climate governance

Supporters of a framework approach may point to the ozone treaty as proof that it can work. But the Vienna Convention succeeded for one reason: governments quickly adopted binding upstream controls on ozone-depleting substances.

Climate offers the opposite warning: a framework followed by contested, delayed and insufficient measures, while emissions keep rising.

The new chair not only deleted a direct reference to “production and consumption” and bracketed similar preambular language copied from the original mandate. The article on reporting borrows language from the Paris Agreement. Another summer of record heat, fires and floods offers a glimpse of how well that model is working.

Nothing suggests that the states blocking binding rules today will suddenly accept them tomorrow, and the exponential rise in unchecked plastic production will not pause while governments wait for courage. Blockage is not being resolved, but just pushed forward.

A framework would lock in the wrong response: unlimited upstream growth with waste management attempting to handle it downstream. No waste system can keep pace with a material engineered for endless growth. 

Keeping to 1.5C of warming is no longer possible – but we must still limit the overshoot

After four years of INC negotiations, governments know this. States must reject the false choice that the only path to agreement is an instrument too weak to solve the problem it was created to address. Compromise is part of diplomacy. Surrender is not.

And if the UN keeps pushing that choice, the countries prepared to act must be willing to pursue alternative pathways. Groups of willing governments have built effective agreements before, and existing environmental regimes can deliver new rules without inventing a new empty instrument. 

This process was never meant to find a lowest common denominator. It was to create the rules necessary to change our direction. Bangkok in September will be where the second iteration of this text is shaped. If ambitious countries do not push back, the argument about a framework convention will already be lost by default.

Negotiations cannot end with governments accepting the crisis rather than solving it. The science is clear and the damage is accelerating. The world does not need another promise to act later. It needs the treaty governments promised to deliver in 2022. 

The post The world doesn’t need a Paris Agreement for plastics appeared first on Climate Home News.

With June’s UN climate talks inching towards gridlock, a group of diplomats calling themselves “Friends of Science” issued a stark warning: climate science was under attack in Bonn.

The coalition, spanning the world’s richest to its most vulnerable nations, pointed the finger primarily at those who think “science threatens their economic prospects” – a thinly-veiled reference to fossil fuel-dependent states accused of casting doubt on long-held scientific tenets in the UN climate process.

Fiji’s lead negotiator, Sivendra Michael, went still further. He denounced what he called “a very polluted narrative” taking hold outside the negotiating rooms and singled out ECO, a daily newsletter on the talks produced by Climate Action Network (CAN) International, for overlooking the issue. 

“They are representing developing countries, but they are not representing us,” Michael said. His words hinted at how a rift between governments over the science of global warming has created tensions inside the climate movement.

Watchers of the UN climate talks have told Climate Home News there is growing unease over where the world’s most influential coalition of climate NGOs stands in an increasingly heated debate about how scientific messages produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are crafted and turned into global climate policy. 

UN sets out narrow path back to 1.5C warming after inevitable overshoot

CAN’s international leadership has publicly backed a line of argument, championed by some big emerging economies including India, that questions how fair and equitable the models underpinning the work of the IPCC – the UN’s climate science body – are because they are dominated by research from the Global North. 

But some climate activists, including from nations on the frontline of the climate crisis in the Pacific, are increasingly disappointed by CAN’s silence in a connected row over whether the IPCC’s forthcoming assessment report should be finished in time to inform the next UN scorecard of global climate action.  

Over the last two years, India, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and Kenya have pushed back against attempts by a large coalition of nations to align the IPCC’s AR7 report timeline with the second stocktake of national climate plans under the UN climate process. They claim this would put a burden on developing countries with limited resources and restrict their ability to provide scientific input into the process.

India flags bias in IPCC assumptions

CAN International Executive Director Tasneem Essop spoke at an online event last month in which panelists challenged the “Friends of Science” campaign launched at the Bonn talks. 

During the webinar, an Indian scientist and government negotiator set out her view that the IPCC’s way of working and scientific assumptions perpetuate inequity between developed and developing countries – and yet its reports have come to be treated as “scripture” that cannot be questioned. 

In her intervention, Essop did not comment directly on the Bonn science campaign nor on the IPCC timeline issue. But the participation of CAN’s leadership in an event where such criticism of the IPCC was aired has sparked concern in some parts of the NGO community.

“The way in which CAN International is playing into what could be the destruction of the IPCC inputs into the climate process is very concerning,” said Bill Hare, who was involved in CAN’s establishment nearly four decades ago and now runs think-tank Climate Analytics. 

Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks

He added that it was a mistake for CAN International to align itself with arguments made by India and Saudi Arabia, when those countries are blocking the conclusion of the IPCC’s next key report on cutting emissions in time for it to feed into the next global stocktake, which is due to conclude in 2028.

Like other insiders Climate Home News spoke to, the veteran Australian climate scientist fears these tensions could hamper CAN’s widely recognised power to influence the talks.

“The CAN International voice has been very, very important in the process. That voice doesn’t need to be diluted at this moment in history – that would be a really bad move,” Hare said.

Dialogue to reconcile differing views

Over the last decade, CAN has been working to transform itself into an organisation that is more representative of, and responsive to, voices and needs in the Global South. In 2019, it appointed Essop – a South African expert on climate, energy, poverty and social justice – as executive director, shifting further away from its European and North American roots.

CAN International, which functions as the broader network’s secretariat, says it is discussing how to reconcile varying views on the IPCC and the science and equity question among its hundreds of member groups spread across 130 countries.

“We acknowledge that there are different perspectives within a global network of over 2,000 members on these issues,” CAN International’s Essop said in response to questions from Climate Home News. “Given this diversity, we have democratic processes to build internal agreements.” 

“Science and equity are both fundamental principles for effective climate action and are firmly embedded in CAN’s work,” she added in a written statement. “Putting these principles into practice in a painfully unjust world is not always straightforward, which is why we need continued dialogue across the network.”

Calls for “fair share” approach

The webinar in late August – which aimed to untangle what organisers described as “a growing narrative” that “treats science and equity as opposing priorities” – opened with a presentation by Tejal Kanitkar, a prominent Indian climate scientist who also serves on her government’s delegations at the IPCC and UN climate talks. 

Outlining the findings of a paper she co-authored, Kanitkar argued that the IPCC had used scenarios for future emission reduction trajectories based primarily on assumptions put forward by Global North researchers that are skewed against the world’s poorest nations. These, she noted, were then incorporated into the first UN review of global climate action in 2023 and turned into widely cited emissions-cutting targets for limiting warming to 1.5C – a goal the UN has now conceded will be breached, at least temporarily.

Tejal Kanitkar speaking at a meeting of the IPCC in March 2026. Photo: IPCC Secretariat | Melissa Walsh Tejal Kanitkar speaking at a meeting of the IPCC in March 2026. Photo: IPCC Secretariat | Melissa Walsh

Kanitkar said the “Friends of Science” group included “some of the people who have over-consumed the carbon budget and now use science as a slogan”. When Climate Home News raised the participation of diplomats from vulnerable countries, she said they should be asked why they “accept outcomes that burden the poorest the most”.

Commenting on Kanitkar’s presentation, CAN’s Essop said everyone knows that “imbalances of power dictate who sits at the table, who designs the models and who determines the assumptions underlying them”.

Her wider intervention focused more generally on the need to ensure that emissions-reduction pathways follow an equitable approach and account for the “fair share” of action countries need to take based on their historical responsibilities for climate change. 

IPCC working to update models

Hare later acknowledged that most of the IPCC models used for 1.5C scenarios fail to account for the higher cost of capital and transition financing faced by developing countries. But as this is a “well-known” limitation, the IPCC gives a nuanced reading of the scenarios, and the next generation of models it uses is expected to include more consideration of equity, he added.

Echoing this, a climate scientist from a developing country currently involved in the IPCC process, who did not want to be identified, told Climate Home News that economic models inevitably contain biases and IPCC authors are already working to identify and correct them. 

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Despite criticisms of how IPCC scientific reports have been produced, all governments must sign off on every line of a key “summary for policy-makers” at a dedicated meeting. In 2023, the approved summary included the emissions reduction figures in question that informed the UN’s first global stocktake. 

Irrespective of this wider debate, Hare said the “Friends of Science” campaign, which he supports, is focused on the timing of the IPCC’s next assessment cycle rather than the equity of its models.

Unresolved row over IPCC report timeline

A political battle over that time-frame has dragged on for more than two years at successive meetings of the science panel, with governments repeatedly failing to find a solution. 

A large majority of nations have been pushing for a timeline that would ensure the next round of AR7 reports can feed into the UN’s global stocktake. But a group of countries, including Saudi Arabia, India, China, Russia and Kenya, have said at previous IPCC meetings that this would put a burden on developing countries with limited resources and have lobbied for a longer process.

Member of the “Friends of Science” campaign wears a pin in Bonn. Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth Member of the “Friends of Science” campaign wears a pin in Bonn. Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth

In Bonn this summer, the coalition that wants to align AR7 with the 2028 stocktake – which includes diplomats from Fiji, Nepal, the European Union, Switzerland, Sierra Leone and Panama – vowed to ensure that decision-making in the UN climate process remains based on the “best available science”, including the IPCC assessment reports. 

They pointed the finger at “the usual suspects” but stopped short of singling out any countries at the public press conference. Discussions in the previous week had seen Saudi Arabia and India play down the centrality of IPCC reports in the UN stocktake and oppose calls in draft texts to encourage scientific work on scenarios to limit an overshoot of the 1.5C warming goal.

Bonn upset fuels further tension

A campaigner with knowledge of internal discussions told Climate Home News that many civil society groups from some of the world’s most vulnerable nations, including the Pacific islands, had expected CAN International to back calls in Bonn defending the centrality of the IPCC in UN climate policy-making. 

Despite this, a day before the “Friends of Science” press conference, CAN published an ECO newsletter that did not mention the issue. Instead, it voiced surprise over the claims of an attack on science happening in the negotiations and accused some of the IPCC’s loudest-defending governments of hypocrisy for continuing to expand fossil fuels and not delivering “fair shares” of emissions cuts and finance to the developing world.

“We were really shocked we could not find a common position and then this jarring narrative was being pushed,” the campaigner added. 

After divisions hardened in Bonn, Hare said his organisation was approached by “very upset” CAN members from various regions about the stance taken by the network’s international leadership on the issue.

Industry and NGOs lobby to weaken UN carbon credit rules in “coordinated” push

While Climate Home News understands that internal discussions have continued during the summer, including at a CAN leadership meeting in Nairobi in recent days, the campaigner said that CAN International’s endorsement of the recent webinar that directly challenged the “Friends of Science” coalition did not send a reassuring signal. 

Some observers said they feared it would inflame tensions over how climate science is defined and utilised for policy purposes, with consequences reaching well beyond Bonn.

In a statement to Climate Home News, Essop said that “at a time when communities are experiencing the most horrific impacts of climate chaos, our collective energy must turn to solutions such as filling the Loss and Damage Fund, the phasing out of fossil fuels led by the Global North, and justice for people who are least responsible for this climate emergency”. 

The post As science comes under attack at UN talks, climate movement splits over how to respond appeared first on Climate Home News.

Chinese industry is beginning to shift from fossil fuels to clean electricity, with wind, solar and batteries progressively displacing coal, oil and gas across the industrial sectors that made the country the world’s factory and largest carbon emitter, a new analysis shows.

Clean electricity met all of China’s demand growth in 2025 and coal generation fell for the first time in a decade, even as electricity demand rose by 5%, the report found.

Despite a rebound in coal power generation in the first half of 2026, the analysis by global energy think-tank Ember found the growth in clean electricity illustrates a longer-term shift: a massive build-out of wind, solar energy and battery storage and deepening electrification of the economy are starting to make a dent in the fossil-fuel energy system supporting China’s industrial base.

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The research identifies early signs that a structural transformation of China’s industrial economy from coal, oil and gas to clean electricity is underway, even if changes on the ground are not yet reflected in national data.  

“The energy foundation of the Chinese industrial economy is shifting,” Muyi Yang, a senior energy analyst at Ember and the report’s lead author, told Climate Home News.

“Fossil fuels are progressively being replaced in the many functions they have historically assumed. Because of that, fossil fuel peaking is increasingly coming into view,” he said.

Electrifying industry

Coal generation has stopped growing in 17 of the 26 provinces and regions analysed by Ember between 2021 and 2025. This includes industrial centres such as Hunan in southern China and Shandong – home to energy-intensive industries like cement production. Together, these regions are home to more than half of China’s thermal power capacity.

A greater share of the Chinese economy is now running on electricity than in other major economies, accounting for 29% of final energy consumption in 2024, compared with about 23% in Europe and 21% in the US. Less than half of China’s electricity was generated from coal in the first half of the year.

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Meanwhile, fossil fuel use has fallen in eight of 11 tracked industrial sectors, declining between 26% and 71% from peak consumption levels across fossil fuel extraction, manufacturing industries such as textiles, machinery and food and beverages, transport equipment and chemical materials.

Earlier this year, German company BASF, the world’s largest chemical producer, opened a new facility in southern China, which is fully supplied by renewable energy. The company said emissions from the site could be 50% lower than conventional petrochemical facilities.

An employee walks near fields of heliostat mirrors at the site of Dunhuang Shouhang 100MW Tower Solar Thermal Power Generation Project, during an organised media tour to Dunhuang Photovoltaic Industrial Park, in Gansu province, China (Photo: REUTERS/Tingshu Wang) An employee walks near fields of heliostat mirrors at the site of Dunhuang Shouhang 100MW Tower Solar Thermal Power Generation Project, during an organised media tour to Dunhuang Photovoltaic Industrial Park, in Gansu province, China (Photo: REUTERS/Tingshu Wang)

In easier-to-electrify sectors such as machinery, electronics and textiles, electricity now supplies about three-quarters of final energy consumption, Ember found.

Fossil fuel use is also showing signs of flattening in the metals smelting and processing sector – one of the most fossil-intensive parts of the economy – offering “encouraging signs” that the transformation is starting to take hold in harder-to-abate sectors, said Yang.

“If that is happening in more and more provinces, and more and more economic sectors that means that fossil fuels are progressively being squeezed out of the energy system,” he said.

“Growing by greening”

China’s vast cleantech manufacturing power has become an engine for growth in its own right, spurring investment, creating jobs and generating export revenues.

Yang described this “growing-by-greening” dynamic as “turning each step of the transition into a source of strength for the next”.

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For Li Shuo, director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, this is part of what makes China’s lead in manufacturing clean energy equipment “irreversible”, comparing its growth with that of a rainforest, where different parts of the ecosystem thrive by reinforcing one another.   

The early success of deploying wind and solar helped drive down electricity costs, which created favourable conditions for the rapid adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and in turn boosted demand for batteries that are now critical to balance the grid.

A livestreamer promotes coal during a livestreaming session for Huaze Coal Industry on the Douyin app (Photo:REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration) A livestreamer promotes coal during a livestreaming session for Huaze Coal Industry on the Douyin app (Photo:REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration)

An oversupply of renewable energy incentivised industrial players to benefit from cheap and readily available clean power generation, encouraging innovative solutions to electrify other parts of the economy. In the transport sector, for example, electrification is moving from passenger vehicles to harder-to-electrify trucks.

This abundance of cheap green energy is also making China competitive in what has long been seen as the anchor of Western competitiveness, Li said.

Stalling fossil fuel use

At the same time, China’s huge legacy fossil fuel generation capacity is still expanding, even as coal power plants are being used less intensively.

China brought 30 GW of new coal power capacity into operation in the first six months of the year and coal-fired generation rose 3% over the same period after local governments fast-tracked coal projects to prevent a repeat of severe power shortages in 2021.

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A further 274 GW of coal capacity is either under construction or has permits to be built while vast amounts of solar and wind power that could not be absorbed by the grid have gone to waste in the first half of the year.

“This doesn’t mean that the transition is losing steam,” said Yang, arguing that China is now grappling with some of the more complex aspects of the transition.

A recent analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for Carbon Brief found that China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement have plateaued for more than two years following a peak in March 2024. Ember found that on a 12-month moving average, coal generation has been stalling since then, following years of continuous expansion.

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In the second quarter of the year, CO2 emissions fell by 1% after China’s oil consumption plummeted 9% as the US-Iran war prevented the transport of oil cargoes from the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz.

The electrification of the transport sector, particularly electric trucks, was the biggest driver in displacing oil demand as the conflict in the Middle East accelerated the transition.

A lesson in sequencing

China’s bumpy transition offers a useful lesson for other countries at an earlier stage of their transition, said Xunpeng Shi, president of the Sydney-based International Society of Energy Transition Studies (ISETS), a global network of professionals that shares research and fosters collaborations.  

“Build quickly enough so that clean electricity can start taking over and prepare for the pressure on the fossil system before it arrives, because that is the part nobody has done easily,” he said.

For countries that are heavily reliant on revenue from fossil fuel exports, a peak in Chinese fossil fuel use weakens the assumption of rising demand on which investments have long been made.

“For them, the time to plan for that is now, while the revenues are still there,” he said.

The post China’s industrial engine starts to break its fossil fuel habit appeared first on Climate Home News.

Carbon credit developers, corporate buyers and some leading conservation NGOs are challenging new proposed rules to stop UN carbon credits being wiped out by fire, drought or logging, in what critics have called a “coordinated lobbying campaign” to weaken the nascent market’s push for greater integrity.

According to documents seen by Climate Home News – including a briefing given to government officials – companies, NGOs and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) have contested the scientific basis for the move, arguing that stronger protection for carbon reductions could hike project costs and restrict the supply of credits to the market.

The climate benefit of credits that claim to reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions by storing carbon is undone if that carbon is released back into the atmosphere – something known as reversal risk. To protect against such losses and preserve the credibility of the credits’ carbon-offsetting claims, projects are generally required to set aside a reserve of credits that cannot be sold, as a form of insurance.

How these “buffer pools” are calculated has long been a source of contention, especially in forest conservation projects, which many experts say have historically underestimated the risk of carbon losses. 

In July, the technical UN panel tasked with drafting rules for the Article 6.4 mechanism, which underpins the credits that countries and companies can use to meet their climate goals, proposed a new system. It would require project developers to size these insurance pools of credits based on local risk values derived from new research published by a group of independent scientists.

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Its supporters have hailed it as a more rigorous approach than current practice in the voluntary carbon market, which largely relies on expert guesswork and, in some cases, gives significant leeway for project developers to come up with their own data.

“The decision on the reversal risk assessment tool will be crucial,” said Federica Dossi, an expert at Brussels-based advocacy group Carbon Market Watch. “It would bring a new paradigm for calculating the number of units forwarded to the buffer pool based on empirical data.”

The technical panel is due to discuss the reversal risk tool and its application to a specific set of projects at a five-day meeting in Bonn this week. It is then expected to forward new recommendations to the mechanism’s regulator, the Supervisory Body, for a decision on whether to approve them at a meeting in early October.

The rules are set to be applied initially only to clean cookstove projects, one of the market’s most popular and heavily criticised credit types. They could then be extended to other activities, including programmes to protect forests. 

Copy and paste?

More than 30 organisations aired their views in lengthy public submissions to the Article 6.4 mechanism, responding to a call from the UN secretariat for external feedback.

A Climate Home News review of those submissions found that there was significant overlap in their messages and, in several cases, sections of the text, or even entire submissions, were copied and pasted by different organisations. This points to a coordinated effort to flag concerns regarding the new rules.

In one instance, tech giant Apple, a large buyer of nature-based carbon credits, warned against relying on one scientific model and called for rules that let project developers use a variety of risk mitigation tools, rather than surrendering buffer credits, to cover the risk of carbon losses. 

Apple’s submission is a lightly-edited version of a separate input presented by the Beyond Alliance, a coalition of corporate buyers and NGOs that promote market-based climate investments. In an apparent oversight in one paragraph, the Beyond Alliance’s name appears in Apple’s submission instead of the tech giant’s. 

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The Beyond Alliance told Climate Home News that, after receiving input from its members, it shared its final submission, leaving them to decide if and how they wanted to use it. The coalition rejected any characterisation that its submission advocates for a weaker tool and only reflects business concerns.

The Beyond Alliance added that its members received briefings by UNEP, which Climate Home News understands has played an important role in wider efforts to influence the development of the rules underpinning the UN carbon market. 

Three experts and a European Union diplomat told Climate Home News that the interventions of the UN agency overwhelmingly supported the views of those with a financial interest in carbon markets. 

UNEP’s head of mitigation Gabriel Labbate rejected this accusation. He told Climate Home News that the UN agency contributes technical inputs from a “politically-neutral, science-based perspective” and its positions are grounded in an assessment of environmental integrity and are not shaped by, or aligned with, the financial interests of any market participant. 

UNEP, NGOs criticise scientific basis

In mid-July, representatives from UNEP, Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) briefed government officials from Canada, the UK, Germany, Costa Rica, Belgium, Nigeria and Peru, according to a webinar readout seen by Climate Home News.

The online event was organised by the Forest & Climate Leaders Partnership (FCLP), an initiative that brings together 41 countries plus the EU.

The speakers voiced strong criticism of the new proposed rules. A technical advisor to Conservation International, a US-based NGO that runs several large-scale carbon offsetting programmes, told participants the Article 6 panel’s approach was “based on bad science”. This, he said, is because it relies on a single model that he claimed is not appropriate to determine buffer pool contributions, according to a presentation seen by Climate Home News. 

During a high-level discussion led by UNEP’s Labbate, speakers said the application of measures to manage reversal risk on cookstove projects could “impose disproportionate costs and undermine the financial viability of these activities”, according to the readout.

Burn company enumerator Teresia Wanjiru checks moisture on firewood at a client’s house using clean cookstoves in Kachoroba village of Kiambu county, Kenya, August 16, 2023. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi Burn company enumerator Teresia Wanjiru checks moisture on firewood at a client’s house using clean cookstoves in Kachoroba village of Kiambu county, Kenya, August 16, 2023. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi

Cookstove programmes issue credits by calculating the greenhouse gas emissions prevented by burning less fuel – usually wood or charcoal – through the use of more efficient stoves. With the new reversal risk tool, these activities would be expected to guard against future carbon losses for the first time under the UN carbon market.

But UNEP, as well as leading NGOs and carbon credit firms, have pushed back against the requirement, arguing this type of credit represents a “flow” of avoided emissions rather than a “stock” of stored carbon that can be released. Scientists reject that distinction, noting that the wood left unburned is still standing in a forest exposed to the same risks as any other.

At the online briefing, speakers also raised concerns that the tighter approach would be replicated for nature-based carbon projects with a direct impact on the future of large-scale forest conservation credits. The Conservation International advisor called it a “bad precedent”.

Both Conservation International and TNC run carbon credit programmes that aim to protect trees from being cut down. Labbate leads the UN-REDD programme, which supports countries developing forest protection initiatives including through carbon credits, and is co-chair of the expert panel advising the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM).

After the webinar, the organisers shared by email a series of “key messages” and draft submissions produced by the three organisations as optional aids for participants if they decided to prepare their own inputs to the Article 6.4 consultation process

Getting the rules ‘right’

In a statement to Climate Home News, the FCLP Secretariat said members of the coalition welcomed expert views from a range of partners to help them understand the potential impact of Article 6.4 rules on the eligibility of forest carbon credits in international markets.

They added that the FCLP does not have a common position on the rules and its members are free to choose whether to attend webinars and use any of the materials circulated.

In a statement to Climate Home News, Conservation International said “getting these rules right is important to the environmental integrity of the carbon market, while ensuring all sectors have a place in it”. It added that the NGO does not dispute the validity of the scientific research underlying the proposed buffer pool, but recommends a broader approach including multiple models and datasets.

A spokesperson for TNC said the organisation had helped clarify complex materials and their potential implications, while decisions on how to respond remained entirely with participating countries.

‘Inconvenient science’

The scientific basis for the disputed reversal risk tool rests on two pieces of research. A peer-reviewed study, published in Nature in May and led by scientists at several US universities, modelled forest carbon-loss risk across the United States and found existing buffer pools there are undersized by an average factor of six. 

To extend that approach worldwide, the Article 6.4 panel also drew on a second, global analysis by the same research team, which has not yet completed peer review. That study used satellite images, weather records and computer modelling to estimate a 31-42% chance of forests worldwide losing stored carbon within 100 years, depending on the scenario. 

The panel picked one of these scenarios and turned its estimates into fixed risk percentages for individual countries, and in some cases provinces, which projects in those locations would need to apply.

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Critics say the peer-reviewed portion of the research was calibrated on North American forests, and that applying the same approach to other regions relies on a global study that is still going through academic checks.

But, for William Anderegg, professor of biological sciences at the University of Utah and one of the authors of that research, it is the best science currently available. He described it as “light-years better” than assumptions underlying the voluntary carbon market, where risk numbers are not generally based on independent evidence and tend to be incredibly low. 

Scientific research, including by Anderegg, has found that buffer pools in forestry projects in the voluntary carbon market are substantially smaller than they should be to adequately protect against future releases of carbon. 

“There really seems to be a fairly coordinated campaign to try to weaken the strength of these [Article 6.4] tools and their scientific underpinning,” he told Climate Home News. “It’s a little dispiriting to see folks attack science that’s inconvenient.”

Regulators under pressure?

An EU diplomat told Climate Home News that experts and negotiators working on the Article 6.4 mechanism have faced intense pressure from big carbon credit developers and large parts of the nature-based solutions community. 

“It is very clear that they are lobbying against strong rules, and they want to align the Paris Agreement mechanism with the standards of the voluntary carbon market,” the diplomat said. “They have influence, time and money, even more than some governments, so they can be very effective in their efforts.”  

Last year, the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body, the new market’s regulator, approved rules on the permanence of credits aiming to remove carbon from the atmosphere which critics said were watered down compared to the technical panel’s recommendations. This followed feedback from carbon market firms and conservation NGOs, which submitted dozens of critical views.

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Carbon Market Watch’s Dossi said decisions that strengthen environmental integrity are targeted in particular as they tend to reduce the number of credits that can be issued.

Then, as now, those who opposed tighter rules argued that overly strict safeguards would make some projects too expensive to carry out, with a negative impact on local communities and the climate.

But proponents argue that higher-integrity programmes will drive up market prices, ultimately benefiting everyone.

“If rules ensuring better-quality credits make them somewhat more expensive than they are today, that’s an acceptable consequence, not a reason to weaken the rules, especially since these credits will be used to offset continued emissions,” said Dossi. 

Efforts to pull the rule-makers in different directions are expected to intensify in the coming weeks as a decision on the new credit protection system nears. 

“I really don’t know how this will turn out in the end,” one veteran carbon market expert said. “What I am sure about is that it will be quite a battle.”

The story was updated to clarify FCLP’s position and the attribution of its comments.

The post Industry and NGOs lobby to weaken UN carbon credit rules in “coordinated” push appeared first on Climate Home News.

A relatively ambitious deal to reduce the shipping industry’s 3% of global emissions now looks more likely after four days of closed-door talks in London, observers say.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO), which oversees the negotiations, said there had been “constructive discussions” and “genuine willingness within the group to make concrete further progress”.

Em Fenton, senior director at the NGO Opportunity Green who attended the talks last week, said they “demonstrated a strong spirit of solidarity in the face of blatant attempts to undermine the credibility, ambition and equity of a hard-fought multilateral agreement”.

After several years of debate, governments provisionally agreed in April 2025 on a “Net-Zero Framework” (NZF) – a series of emissions reduction targets for shipowners aimed at incentivising them to use cleaner fuels, backed up with financial rewards for meeting the targets and fees for missing them.

But in October 2025, after a high-profile intervention by US President Donald Trump and threats of US sanctions and visa restrictions, the US convinced a majority of voting nations to postpone the adoption of the NZF for a year.

UCL analysis found that, of those who expressed a view at last week’s talks, 38 were in favour of an NZF-style solution while only 17 were against. Those opposed are “consistently composed of strongly fossil fuel-aligned governments”.

An observer of the talks, who did not want to be named, said the countries opposed include the US, Russia, India, Thailand, Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay, as well as eight oil-rich Gulf nations and shipowner-reliant Liberia and Panama. Governments that support an NZF-style deal include China, Brazil, Mexico, Türkiye, Canada, Australia, Chile, nine African nations, most European countries and small islands.

A new framework to tackle shipping emissions could be adopted if two-thirds of countries that are present and signed up to a regulation called Marpol Annex VI – endorsed by just over 100 states – vote in favour of it, as they did in April 2025.

UCL’s analysis said it was “reassuring” that governments which had taken strong positions in the media against the NZF were being more compromising in the negotiations.

Tweaks are probable

While there is majority support for the NZF, UCL said adopting it would be difficult politically. “The process from here could therefore be as much about producing what appears to be a new package, but one that broadly ends up with similar outcomes in relation to objectives,” UCL argued.

But tweaking the NZF, which resulted from years of negotiations, comes with risks, it warned. For example, changes could reduce the new system’s planned support for low-income countries, turning them against it. Fenton said compromising should not mean “abandoning the principle of justice in the maritime transition”.

UCL said the speed at which shipowners must reduce their ships’ emissions or face fees is likely to be reduced in the short-term but raised in the long-term to meet a goal of net zero emissions by mid-century.

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This was a compromise put forward by NZF-supporter Brazil. However, an analysis by the the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST) has found that this change would lead to more overall emissions than the original NZF trajectory.

UCL has warned it could incentivise liquefied natural gas as a shipping fuel over greener options, which include hydrogen-based methanol and ammonia.

Analysis by UCL and the Rocky Mountain Institute suggests that, while a slower start to the NZF would reduce transport costs in the short term, it would increase them later due to the costs involved in switching the industry over from more polluting fuel to cleaner fuel.

NZF won’t meet emissions goals

IMarEst’s analysis finds that even in its current form – the most ambitious deal on the table – the NZF will not be sufficient for shipping to meet its emissions reduction goals.

It says that only a Pacific proposal to place a levy on ships’ total emissions – rather than just those above a certain level – would meet the industry’s targets to reduce emissions 20% between 2008 and 2030, 70% by 2040 and then reach net zero “by or around, i.e. close to 2050”. This is highly unlikely to be adopted.

Additional talks will be held from November 23-27 and from November 30-December 3 before a potentially final round of official negotiations begins on December 4.

The post London talks raise hopes for green shipping deal appeared first on Climate Home News.

At a key leaders’ summit in Palau, Pacific island nations burdened by worsening climate change impacts and costly fossil fuel imports called for November’s COP31 climate summit to deliver finance to help the region transition to renewable energy and build more resilient communities.

Heads of government from the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) – which includes COP31 co-president Australia – met in Palau’s capital Koror for a week-long summit, where they demanded access to climate finance, ocean action and a regional boost for renewables at COP31.

Palau’s president Surangel Whipps Jr. said during a plenary session that the Pacific must focus on delivering climate and ocean commitments. “It will require greater regional leadership, stronger regional coordination and, above all, unity of purpose,” he said.

The meeting, which ended last Friday, was marked by the absence of some leaders – among them the heads of state of the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji, which will host a preparatory session for COP31 in October (referred to as the pre-COP31). There were also tensions over Taiwan’s participation, with China objecting to its presence as an observer.

The forum’s final declaration, published after it ended and signed by all its members, reaffirms that climate change is the “single greatest threat to the security, livelihoods and wellbeing of Pacific peoples”, and notes “the importance of a focused, high-level declaration” at the pre-COP31 to build “political momentum towards COP31”.

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Australia and Pacific islands have invited world leaders to attend the pre-COP31 gathering, which will be held in Fiji and Tuvalu from October 5 to 8. While usually a technical meeting for negotiators, the island nations aim to issue a political declaration at the gathering calling for strong outcomes in Türkiye.

Chris Bowen, Australia’s climate minister and COP31 president of negotiations, said in a speech during the Pacific forum that his country is “determined to use COP31 to progress the agenda to make it easier for countries to access the climate finance they need”.

“We won’t miss the opportunity to ensure COP31 is a Pacific COP. Not just because of the location of pre-COP but because of the agenda we are shaping through the Action Agenda at COP31,” he said.

The Action Agenda is a large portfolio of climate initiatives and coalitions uniting governments, businesses and civil society outside of the formal negotiations on everything from health to methane emissions.

Renewable energy investment plan

Announced a year ago, the island nations launched a $14-billion investment plan for a “100% Renewable Blue Pacific” at the forum in Palau. The plan lists strategic projects that would reduce the region’s high dependence on fossil fuel imports, whose soaring costs have become a major burden since the Iran war.

The projects include a $52-million programme managed by Australia to develop off-grid renewables in remote communities across the Pacific, as well as a $100-million blended finance fund aimed at supporting private-sector investments in wind and solar, among others.

Currently, some countries in the Pacific are spending up to a quarter of their GDP importing diesel to power electricity generation, according to a new report by the University of New South Wales in Australia. The investment plan launched at the forum aims to reduce these costs by adding 2.2 gigawatts of renewable generation and around 9 gigawatt hours of electricity storage.

To channel funds into the region, the plan also highlights the role of the recently established Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), a regional fund that seeks to swiftly disburse funds to climate-vulnerable communities at the local level. Bowen said he would promote the facility to world leaders attending COP31 and “ask for their support”.

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese at the Pacific Islands Forum plenary in Palau. (Photo: PIF Secretariat) Call to transition away from fossil fuels

Separately, the forum endorsed the Belau Declaration which emphasises the need to keep the 1.5C Paris Agreement temperature goal alive. A UN report last week showed that overshooting this limit is now inevitable, but deep emissions cuts could still bring global temperatures back down by the end of the century.

Pacific nations expect to rally support for this declaration at the pre-COP, with Fiji’s climate minister Lynda Tabuya saying in a statement: “Palau is where we build the political mandate. Pre-COP is where we take it to the world.”

The political declaration also says that countries must accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels “towards a renewable energy future”, and calls for greater recognition of the importance of ocean health in addressing climate change.

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As part of the forum’s outcomes in Palau, countries also noted Tuvalu’s efforts to host the second global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, which will gather government representatives in April next year to follow up on this year’s inaugural conference in Santa Marta, Colombia.

Speaking to journalists at the forum, Vanuatu’s climate minister Ralph Regenvanu questioned Australia’s role in talks about phasing out fossil fuels at COP31, adding that “the very least a country like Australia should be doing is stopping future expansion, and it’s not doing that”. During the PIF, the country approved the extension of a major mine that digs and exports coal for steel-making, giving it permission to keep producing until 2055.

Rising seas trigger “development emergency”

As leaders met in one of the world’s regions most threatened by sea-level rise, UN Secretary-General António Guterres released a new report warning that rising seas are now “one of the most profound threats to populations around the world in developed and developing states alike”.

Presenting the report at UN headquarters in New York, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development Navid Hanif said rising sea levels are not a “future risk any more” but an accelerating “development emergency” that could hinder progress in vulnerable regions like the Pacific and least developed countries.

The report warns that seas are rising “faster than at any point in recorded history”, with 2024 setting a new record of 5.9 millimetres. This has been driven by human-induced climate change mainly through a process known as thermal expansion – where rising heat causes the ocean to expand – as well as the melting of ice sheets.

Pacific islands seek backing for new regional fund ahead of COP31

The report notes that about 1.2 billion people around the world are exposed to coastal flooding, and says some low-lying islands in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Fiji are already facing forced relocations. Globally, rising seas could cost more than $1 trillion every year by 2050, it adds.

“We cannot stop sea level rise this century but we can determine how much worse it becomes. About half a metre of sea level rise is already locked in in this century because of warming that has already occurred, but beyond that our choices matter enormously,” Hanif told journalists.

Bill Hare, CEO of think-tank Climate Analytics, said the report was a “wake-up call” to the leaders of high-emitting countries that their failure to cut carbon emissions is “creating major risks for the future alongside the impacts we can already observe around us”.

Guterres is set to host a high-level meeting on addressing the threat of sea level rise this month during the UN General Assembly, where countries are expected to adopt a declaration that calls for stronger action, expanded access to finance and “ongoing dialogue” to tackle the issue.

The post At regional summit, Pacific islands ask for COP31 support for clean energy and finance appeared first on Climate Home News.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during the conflict that broke out in October 2023 has wrecked progress towards adapting the enclave to climate change and left two million Gazans vulnerable to heatwaves, drought and disease, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said in a new climate plan submitted to the United Nations.

Palestine’s third nationally determined contribution (NDC), uploaded to the UN climate body’s website this week, says that while “the aggression on the Gaza Strip did not make the climate worse”, “it removed the housing, water and sanitation systems, health facilities, energy networks, roads and livelihoods through which people absorb a climate they were already struggling with.”

The 91-page document lists the types of infrastructure it says Israel has destroyed and notes how the destruction will worsen the impacts of climate change. It says the bombing of hospitals and rising hunger have make it harder for Gazans to cope with the health impacts of climate-driven heatwaves and waterborne diseases.

On beaches of Gaza and Tel Aviv, two tales of one heatwave

The destruction of water tanks, boreholes and desalination plants, meanwhile, have left Gazans struggling with the effects of water shortages and drought, while mass unemployment reduces people’s ability to afford climate-driven price rises. The erasure of most of the Strip’s homes makes it more difficult for people to avoid the sun’s increasing heat, the NDC said.

Many Gazans are now living in the ruins of collapsed buildings or in makeshift shelters and tents that offer little or no protection from high temperatures.

A displaced Palestinian child fills water containers on July 2, 2026 in Gaza City, Gaza. (Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)

Palestine’s previous goals to cut emissions and adapt to climate change in Gaza, expressed in its last NDC five years ago, were based on a pre-war baseline that “no longer describes anything that exists”, the NDC says. Progress made since 2021 has now been destroyed, it adds.

Green reconstruction of Gaza

Instead of continuing to aim for these adaptation and emissions-reduction goals, the PA is now calling for the green reconstruction of Gaza. It says buildings should be constructed again in an energy-efficient manner with solar panels and served with modern water, waste and transport systems.

While the PA, controlled by the Fatah political party, continues to claim legitimate control of Gaza, the strip was effectively governed by Fatah’s rival Hamas between 2007 and the recent war. Control is now split between Israel and the political wing of Islamist militant group Hamas, after a US-backed ceasefire took effect in October 2025, although a UN-backed committee plans to take over. 

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The United Nations, European Union and World Bank have jointly estimated that Gaza needs $71.4 billion of investment in the next two years to recover and build back. This process should be Palestinian-led, they said in April.

But US President Donald Trump has said the US should “take over” and “own” Gaza and redevelop it as the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Israel’s right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel should control the territory with civil administration managed by Palestinians favourable to Israel.

With occupation, targets conditional

In the other part of Palestine, the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority carries out some government functions, but ultimate control rests with Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967. 

Because Israel controls planning in most of the West Bank, the NDC argues that the PA cannot pursue all the climate projects it wants. In addition, Israel restricts the movement of PA officials, making data collection difficult, and controls the West Bank’s electricity supply meaning that the PA cannot control whether it comes from dirty or clean sources of energy.

Given this situation, the NDC says that all of Palestine’s new climate targets are conditional but it will aim to reduce emissions 12.8% below a business-as-usual baseline by 2035 and 17.1% by 2040. If the Israeli occupation ends and Palestine regains full sovereignty over its land and resources, it will aim for reductions of 15.1% and 19.1% by 2035 and 2040 respectively under an “independence pathway”.

That could allow, for example, for greater electrification and reducing emissions per unit of growth, the document said.

To achieve the 2035 emissions-reduction target and adapt to the impacts of climate change, the PA says it needs $8.6 billion in total. This funding would be spent on measures like encouraging solar farms and rooftop solar and scaling up solar water heating to cover four-fifths of households. To complement the planned increase in solar power, the authority wants to modernise the electricity grid and install battery storage.

In the transport sector, it aims to promote the uptake of electric vehicles, develop bus rapid transit corridors and scrap old polluting trucks and buses. In Gaza in particular, it wants to deploy 66 electric buses when the conflict ends.

A bus rapid transit system in Sao Paulo (Flickr/EMBARQ BRASIL)

To adapt to climate-driven drought, the NDC includes initiatives to reuse wastewater through treatment plants, build desalination plants in Gaza to remove salt from seawater, and promote irrigation for farmers.

The new climate plan was prepared by Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the governments of Britain and Spain.

The United Nations recognised Palestine’s statehood in 2012 and it joined the UN’s climate convention and signed the Paris climate agreement – which requires countries to submit more ambitious NDCs every five years – in 2016.

The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. But in late 2024, then Israeli climate envoy Gideon Behar told Climate Home News that the war and the resulting environmental destruction in Gaza was the fault of Hamas.

The post Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

As efforts to expand energy access across Africa grow, experts and policymakers have called this week for greater coordination and investment to power food production with renewables, arguing the sector has been treated separately from energy policy and therefore faces barriers in going green.

Hailemariam Desalegn, former prime minister of Ethiopia, said energy is critical across the food value chain – from irrigation and processing to cold storage and transport – and should therefore be considered a key pillar of strengthening food systems for the future.

“Energy is not separate from the nutrition challenge. Irrigation needs energy. Cold storage, transport, processing, as well as markets – all need reliable energy,” Desalegn told a panel at the 20th session of the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali. He said investments in sustainable energy systems could help reduce post-harvest losses and make nutritious food more accessible and affordable.

Africa loses up to 30% of its food before it reaches markets annually, largely due to poor roads, weak storage and inadequate cold chains, according to a 2025 report by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

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Akinyi Walender, Africa director at development charity Practical Action, said poor energy supply in rural communities – where much of Africa’s food is produced – is also limiting productivity. Across the continent, about 600 million people currently live without access to electricity.

“The lack of energy access goes well beyond the inconvenience of not having lighting at home,” Walender said, adding that renewable energy has the potential to power local economies. “When people can access this sort of energy, it can raise rural incomes, improve food security, improve resilience, empower women and stimulate enterprise while creating jobs,” she added. 

Breaking down silos

Unlocking the potential of energy across food systems requires greater coordination, Walender argued, pointing to institutional fragmentation and isolated pilot projects as major barriers. 

“Organisations working on agriculture and energy often operate according to different modalities and the interdependence between agricultural and energy markets is often overlooked,” Walender said, adding that finance institutions also tend to work in silos.

High level dialogue on climate resilience at the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali, September, 2026.(Photo: AFS Forum)

Dana Rysankova, global lead for energy access at the World Bank, told a separate event at the forum that the bank is working to break down those barriers through its newly established Productive Use of Energy (PUE) Centre of Excellence based in Nairobi, which has a mandate to foster collaboration and help develop and design programmes across different sectors.

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In June, the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank Group said that over 50 million people had been connected to electricity across 40 African countries under their Mission 300 initiative, which aims to provide electricity access to 300 million Africans by 2030.

Rysankova said the programme has shown that energy access is just the foundation for linking with other sectors to deliver real economic transformation by boosting productivity and local incomes. 

Mission 300 also aims to electrify schools and healthcare services, as well as bringing power to farmers so that they can use it for irrigation, cold storage and other agricultural activities, she added. 

Bridging the finance and infrastructure gap 

Experts said bigger investments are needed in infrastructure and finance to turn energy access into increased productivity and economic value. 

AGRA’s 2026 foresight report, launched at the forum, puts the annual agrifood financing gap at $180 billion, while estimating that closing Africa’s yearly $67 billion-$108 billion shortfall in infrastructure finance could halve post-harvest losses and increase farmer incomes by up to 40%.

However, the cost of transitioning to clean energy is still a major barrier for farmers and agribusinesses.

Delegates at the Africa Food Systems Forum, September, 2026 (Photo: AFS Forum) Delegates at the Africa Food Systems Forum, September, 2026 (Photo: AFS Forum)

Atinuke Lebile, CEO of Nigerian food processing company Cato Foods, told Climate Home News she would like to switch to using renewables but has been held back by the upfront cost of setting up the systems the firm needs.

Rwandan farmer Gezel also said she would like to invest in a solar irrigation pump, but “it is so expensive”.

Practical Action’s Walender said the challenge is no longer whether solutions exist, but how financial support can reach the communities and businesses where it could have the greatest impact.

“Customers are dispersed and have low incomes. Markets are fragmented, and there are high upfront costs for much energy equipment,” Walender said, adding that financial institutions also often perceive agriculture as a high-risk sector.

Egypt seeks to unlock renewable potential to power regional clean energy hub

For food processing, the business case for using cleaner energy more efficiently is particularly strong, said Vivian Maduekeh of Partners in Food Solutions, which has worked with more than 2,000 companies across Africa.

Maduekeh said food processing firms account for between 42 and 70% of energy use across food systems, while energy represents 15-22% of their total production costs. African food businesses also use roughly twice as much energy per kilogramme of product as their global competitors, putting them at a competitive disadvantage.

The problems they face in shifting to clean energy are “risk, perception of risk and the cost”, she explained, adding that financial mechanisms are needed to help businesses overcome those issues.

Maduekeh encouraged policymakers to consider measures like tax rebates on imported equipment and spending more on research and development to bring down the cost of productive-use technologies.

Making a range of affordable equipment available – such as smaller irrigation pumps – could also help make the transition more accessible, she said. The evidence in favour “is very clear”, she added. “We just need to package it and communicate it to the priorities of investors.”

The post More support needed to power Africa’s food systems with renewables, experts say appeared first on Climate Home News.

Euan Ritchie is a senior research associate in the Europe programme at the Center for Global Development.

Andy Burnham, the UK’s latest prime minister, has suggested reducing the amount the British government gives as climate finance grants and providing some of its climate finance through loans instead, in a move it anticipates will save £400 million. 

The government plans to use the savings to fund a cap on bus fares in the UK, triggering accusations from the development sector that Burnham’s proposal “throws Global South countries under the bus”. One likely destination for these new loans is the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF). 

Will new UK PM’s green measures at home cause climate finance pain overseas?

The TFFF is a new initiative designed to provide payments to countries that protect their rainforests by raising money from governments and private investors, channeling that money into riskier and therefore higher return assets, and using the returns it earns to fund forest protection. But there is a catch. 

The UK has committed to provide around £6 billion in climate finance funded through aid (or official development assistance, ODA) over the next three years. If switching from grants to a loan to the TFFF reduces government spending, it will likely reduce the amount that counts as ODA as well. 

In other words, the government can make the £400 million saving, or meet its £6 billion aid budget-funded climate finance commitment, but it probably cannot do both. The UK cannot have its cake and eat it.

How will it score as ODA?

Whether any loan to the TFFF scores as ODA depends on the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) which is currently deliberating on this topic. 

A plain reading of the DAC’s current reporting rules suggests that the TFFF would count as a multilateral organisation: the independent investment arm, the Tropical Forest Investment Fund, would ultimately be a global, official entity (with sovereign governments appointing the board and being sole equity holders), which pools capital from sponsor governments. This would mean that to count as ODA, any loan to it would have to charge less than 5% interest. 

Tropical forest protection fund at risk after UK stalls on pledge

The current concept note suggests a return for sponsor capital equivalent to US borrowing costs of a similar duration: currently around 5.2%, which would make any such loans ineligible. The UK could choose to charge less, but if the UK charges less than it borrows (also above 5%), the difference will add to the deficit in future years. And ODA accounting is not binary: if the UK charges just under 5%, only a small fraction of the loan would count.

At the same time, the risk profile of TFFF is not the same as your average multilateral, and there is speculation that the DAC could allow higher interest loans to TFFF to partially count (by changing the ‘discount rate’ used to measure how concessional the loan is). The TFFF’s own modelling suggests that the risk of the UK losing money on the loan would be fairly limited: roughly a 1% chance of some capital impairment in the riskiest scenario. But some analysts doubt the accuracy of this model and view the risk as much greater.

Launch event of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) fund in Belem during COP30. (Photo: Alex Ferro/COP 30) Launch event of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) fund in Belem during COP30. (Photo: Alex Ferro/COP 30) Would it really save money?

If the risk really is higher, then it might justify counting more ODA on a loan to the TFFF, but it also undermines the arguments that this would create savings for the government. Loans generally don’t count towards the deficit because they create an asset. But that only works if the loan is expected to be fully repaid. If there is a material risk of losing money, then at least some of the transaction will also count towards the deficit. 

One possibility is that the loan will be ‘partitioned’ into a financial asset (the part which is expected to be repaid and wouldn’t count towards the deficit) and a ‘capital transfer’ (the part not expected to be repaid). The greater the risk, the larger that second component, and the bigger the impact on the deficit.

This would be the ODA and public accounting rules working as intended. ODA is a measure of ‘donor effort’, usually taken to mean fiscal impact. If it counts as ODA, it should have an impact on the deficit. And the fiscal treatment itself is governed by numerous international accounting standards, a key purpose of which is preventing politically motivated obfuscation of how governments spend their money. If it costs money, there should be an impact on the deficit even if it is a loan. If it doesn’t, it shouldn’t count as ODA (even if there have been exceptions in the past).

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Base funding on need, not accounting

We still know too little about the details to be sure how a loan to the TFFF (or a more exotic transaction) would count towards either ODA or the UK’s headline measures of debt and deficit. The key parameter for each is risk: the lower risk, the more likely it is that the transaction will save money, but the greater the chance that the government would have to spend more ODA elsewhere to meet its climate finance target. 

If the UK believes in the TFFF business model and wants to preserve tropical forests, then it should invest. But this decision should not be driven by optimistic accounting tricks. The government cannot expect to reduce the real value of climate finance to partner countries by giving less in grant money, without this having an impact on commitments to spend that money.

The post UK’s budget juggling trick with rainforest loan for bus-fare cap needs transparency appeared first on Climate Home News.

After last week’s catastrophic flash flooding caused hundreds of deaths and an estimated $5 billion of destruction in Nepal, some board members of the UN’s new loss and damage fund board have called for an extraordinary meeting to allocate money to help the Himalayan country.

Following a direct appeal for funding from Nepal’s government on Monday, developing-country board members gathered online and eight signed a letter, seen by Climate Home News, asking the fund’s board to hold a meeting to respond to the request.

The letter, signed by eight African, Asian and Least Developed Country board members, said the debris-laden torrent – which scientists believe was unleashed by a glacial slope collapsing after unusually hot weather – constitutes “precisely the kind of climate-related extreme weather events the fund was established to address”.

“The scale of loss of life, displacement, and destruction of energy, transport, and economic infrastructure warrants the board’s urgent consideration of how the fund’s existing instruments should be mobilised to support Nepal’s government and affected communities,” the letter said.

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The rules of the fund’s initial phase, which it is now in, allow for it to support “rapid response”, the letter noted. The fund’s governing instrument says it can provide funds “complementary to humanitarian actions taken immediately after an extreme weather event” as well as funds for “immediate or long-term, reconstruction or rehabilitation”, the letter added.

Governments agreed at UN climate talks to set up the fund in 2022 and it launched its first call for proposals at the end of last year. It received 180 submissions, mainly for long-term projects to help countries reduce the risks from climate threats, like improving water infrastructure in Jamaica or flood response in Bangladesh.

After delaying decisions at its last board meeting as it continued to work out processes, it has yet to approve any funding requests. Despite being set up on the back of the 2022 floods in Pakistan, the board has not yet given out any money in response to climate disasters nor expressed a clear willingness to do so.

The secretariat of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication. A few days ago, it expressed solidarity for those affected by the disaster in a social media post.

Rapid response precedent

The board members signing the letter on Nepal want to set a precedent, with the letter saying the board should consider “any procedural lessons” the response to the flooding “offer for strengthening the Fund’s rapid-response modalities and operational protocols for sudden-onset extreme weather events”.

Harjeet Singh, global convenor of the Fill the Fund campaign, told Climate Home News civil society has pushed “really hard” for the FRLD to be a rapid response fund rather than just inviting requests for project funding and reviewing them at regular board meetings as other UN climate funds do.

“Climate disasters like the one unfolding in Nepal cannot wait for scheduled committee cycles,” he said. “The Loss and Damage Fund was built for moments exactly like this.”

Harjeet Singh speaks at a press conference at climate talks on June 6, 2024 in Bonn, Germany (Credit Image: © Bianca Otero/ZUMA Press Wire)

Nepal has received multi-million dollar humanitarian pledges from several governments already and the United Nations’ Central Emergency Response Fund is designed to rapidly disburse aid cash for disasters.

But Singh – also founding director of India’s Satat Sampada Climate Foundation – said that, with disasters becoming more frequent and severe, the humanitarian system cannot support all countries in their recovery efforts and the fund should bridge the gap.

“The Board Co-Chairs must heed the call of developing nations, convene an emergency session immediately, and prove that this Fund is ready to deliver real support when frontline communities need it most,” he told Climate Home News.

While the FRLD’s response to Nepal’s recent disaster could set an important precedent, it is only likely to be of limited practical help. The fund’s rules mean it can only give out a maximum of $20 million to each project in its current initial phase. With only $820 million pledged by rich countries and not all of that yet delivered, it has allocated a total of $350 million to spend so far and without further contributions could run of money next year.

Nepalese climate negotiator Manjeet Dhakal, who visited the affected area just days before the flood, told The Nation magazine that while $20 million “may only be a symbolic gesture”, it “could set an important precedent for how the fund responds when such disasters strike vulnerable countries in the future”.

The government’s preliminary estimate of the damage is $5 billion, with many homes and critical infrastructure destroyed, as well as over 1,000 people dead.

A letter to the FRLD board from Nepal’s finance and environment ministers said that Nepal had only contributed “negligibly to global greenhouse gas emissions yet continues to bear disproportionate and escalating climate impacts”.

Requesting the fund’s board take a special decision to allocate funding to Nepal, the ministers emphasised that “time is of the essence”. “A prompt response would help protect affected populations, restore essential services, prevent further suffering and demonstrate that the fund can translate international solidarity into timely support for vulnerable countries and communities when it is most urgently needed,” they wrote.

Glaciers ‘melt like butter’

Despite initial reports of an earthquake, the US Geological Survey has said the floods were caused by a glacier collapsing and the resulting landslide hitting the bottom of the valley causing “subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream”.

Alton Byers, a scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, told journalists this week that global warming has seen glaciers recede, glacial lakes forming and glacial lake outburst floods increasing.

Scientists ride their snowmobiles near Kronebreen glacier through the arctic landscape near Ny-Alesund, Svalbard, Norway, April 10, 2023. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner

He said that a heating glacier is like butter taken out of the refrigerator. “It becomes mushy. It no longer has the ability to hold together. What that means is that masses of rock and glaciers no longer are as resistant to gravity as they once were,” he explained. “Add to that melting water at altitude, which lubricates the interface between the rock and the glacier and you get an increased likelihood of slippage.”

He added that a trigger – like gravity or an earth tremor – can then set off the sudden release of masses of bedrock and glacial ice, “which is what happened last week”.

As well as reducing emissions to rein in climate change, Byers said that authorities can adapt to climate change by not building in flood plains. Many of the destroyed buildings in Nepal were located in places that have flooded before, he noted.

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The disaster took place on the Himalayan border of Nepal and Tibet, which is governed by China. Chinese state media are reporting at least 16 people dead and hundreds missing. China’s government has made no appeal to the loss and damage fund and the board’s letter does not mention China or Tibet.

The FRLD board’s co-chairs are now expected to respond to the letter, with any extraordinary board meeting likely to be held online, so that members from around the world can attend at short notice.

The post Loss and damage fund urged to hold crisis meeting on Nepal appeared first on Climate Home News.

Could a new mechanism to help countries transition to a cleaner, safer and fairer world be one of the main deliverables from the COP31 climate summit in Türkiye this November? Civil society groups – which played a key role in winning last year’s agreement in Brazil to set up a mechanism – want to see it come to life in Antalya and take shape in 2027.

The concept of a “just transition” has gained momentum and widespread support in recent years. It recognises that countries have varying levels of responsibility for planet-heating emissions and unequal resources to adapt to the impacts of global warming and move away from fossil fuels.

In July, UN Secretary General António Guterres told the High-Level Political Forum in New York: “We need to support the countries, communities and workers that depend on fossil fuels throughout the transition.” While few would dispute that need, governments at the UN climate talks are still working out how to respond to it with concrete action.

With discussions set to produce a decision making the mechanism a reality at COP31, observers want to ensure the new mechanism is more than just a talking shop. 

Here’s what’s at stake in the just transition negotiations before and at COP31:

What has been agreed on the mechanism so far?

At the mid-year climate negotiations in Bonn, just transition was one of the few key issues on which governments reached a consensus, including on how to review the progress of the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP) – a process that led to agreement on a mechanism last year at COP30 in Belém, Brazil.

Set up in 2022 and launched a year later, the aim of the JTWP is to discuss how to achieve a green economic and social shift that is fair, from the global down to the local level. Its accompanying mechanism will be tasked with strengthening international cooperation, technical support, capacity-building and knowledge-sharing to enable societies to become low-carbon and climate-resilient in a way that does not harm people and shares the benefits.

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Anabella Rosemberg, senior advisor on just transition with Climate Action Network (CAN) International, told Climate Home News that the most important outcome in Bonn was an informal document laying out various options for establishing the new mechanism. 

However, this leaves a lot still to be worked out and the preliminary discussions at Bonn were not enough on their own to ensure the operationalisation of the mechanism at COP31, as planned. 

“In the months ahead of COP31, this issue should be a priority for the COP31 presidencies – both Türkiye and Australia,” said Camila Mercure, climate policy coordinator at the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), an Argentinian NGO, adding this would help secure more space for debate in the lead-up to and during the annual summit.

So far, an informal workshop for governments and NGOs to exchange views on the JTWP and the mechanism, and to push things forward has been organised from September 30 to October 2 in Sydney. 

How will the review of the Just Transition Work Programme affect the mechanism?  

One task for COP31 is to review the efficiency and effectiveness of the JTWP so far and to decide whether and how it will continue. 

For Laura Restrepo Alameda, advocacy officer at Climate Action Network Latin America (CANLA), the main positive aspect is that it will include a mapping of instruments, initiatives and processes relevant to just transitions under the UN climate convention, the Paris Agreement and among other UN entities. “It’s a resource that will enable us to assess the complementarity and coherence of the various tools available to support the implementation of a [just transition] mechanism,” she told Climate Home News. 

Not everyone wants the JTWP review and the work to launch a mechanism to feed into one another. Russia, Arab nations and a group of large emerging nations pushed for them to be separate – which they believe would make it easier to limit the scope of the mechanism – while the African Group defended joint work between the two processes.

According to Anthony Dane of Southern Transitions, a South Africa-based “think and do-tank”, governments also have varying concerns around the mapping exercise, which is being carried out by the UN climate change secretariat.

He noted in a recent webinar that some want to use it as a basis to argue that a lot is already being done on just transition and so the new mechanism does not need to offer much more, while others are preparing to argue the opposite, highlighting a lack of international cooperation and support. 

How Belém launched the Just Transition mechanism

For Dane, the mapping exercise also raises the bigger question of how to define the scope of “just transition” within the UN climate talks. 

So far, richer countries have favoured a narrower view that focuses on phasing out fossil fuels, while developing countries have pushed for a broader “whole of economy, whole of society” approach that encompasses issues like green industrialisation and sustainable development.

Russia and some other high-emitting nations do not want the JTWP or its mechanism to become a tool for imposing new green trade restrictions, while the European Union has rejected attempts to use it as a forum to dispute its new carbon levy on imports. These debates are set to rumble on.

What will the mechanism do and when will it start?

In Bonn, countries discussed the design features of the mechanism – that is, the elements, governance arrangements, structures and functions it should have. The outcome was an informal preliminary note compiling a range of views and possible options. 

While most country negotiating groups welcomed the document as a basis for further talks, Arab countries said it did not reflect their priorities, with Saudi Arabia insisting it had no formal status. 

“The mechanism must contribute to international cooperation between countries, serve as a guide, support countries so that they can develop just transition strategies, and act as a channel for accessing funding to implement projects within their territories,” said Mercure of FARN. 

But exactly what the mechanism should cover, and what it should not, remain a contentious subject for governments.

A just agricultural transition takes root in Brazil

For example, the Like-Minded Developing Countries – a bloc of more than 20 low- and middle-income nations including China and India – and the Arab Group appear keen to avoid any targets, requirements or conditionalities being imposed on them with regard to transitioning away from fossil fuels (TAFF). 

That contrasts with some Latin American and small island states that would like to see the mechanism used as a way of furthering global commitments already made in 2023 on TAFF and tripling renewable energy by 2030.   

Developed countries, for their part, do not want the mechanism to put too much responsibility on them to provide finance and other forms of cooperation. 

Some experts Climate Home News spoke to, meanwhile, called for the mechanism to lay out actions for different sectors – not just energy but also others like agriculture and heavy industries.

Sandeep Pai, senior lead for international energy transitions at Duke University, said the mechanism should focus on at least eight to ten high-emitting sectors, addressing how to support workers through the transition to cleaner ways of operating. But, he noted “talking about sectors was always an issue at the negotiations”.

Another issue important to civil society groups is that justice should be embedded in the process to operationalise what they have informally dubbed the BAM (short for the Belém Action Mechanism or, more recently, the Belém Antalya Mechanism). 

A banner calling for the establishment of a Belem-Antalya Just Transition Mechanism at the Bonn climate talks, on June 15, 2026 (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth) A banner calling for the establishment of a Belem-Antalya Just Transition Mechanism at the Bonn climate talks, on June 15, 2026 (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth)

“The key milestone between now and COP31 must be to define a structure for the BAM with clear governance, coordination and the inclusion of civil society,” said CANLA’s Restrepo Alameda. The network, which represents hundreds of NGOs, is calling for groups that are likely to be hit hard by the transition, such as workers and Indigenous peoples, to have a seat at the table.

Given the short time-frame until a decision to operationalise the mechanism is due to be agreed and adopted at COP31, experts say all these thorny issues are unlikely to be ironed out by then and further discussions may be needed to refine the form and functions of the new body.

CAN’s Rosemberg told Climate Home News that “an ambitious outcome” at COP31 would be to establish the mechanism with its key functions and modalities in Antalya, while setting up a transitional committee to speed up technical work and ensure the BAM is fully operational by COP32 in Ethiopia in 2027.

What is needed on the ground for a just transition?

The top-down nature of decisions taken at COPs generally do not reflect the specific situations of individual countries and communities on the ground – and this is particularly so when it comes to just transition.

Pai of Duke University contrasted India – where much of the transition will be about moving away from coal mining and coal-fired power stations – with countries that use relatively few fossil fuels like Costa Rica and will need to implement a very different set of changes.

He added that each country must define what a “just transition” means to them, according to their contexts and needs: is it about using less oil and gas, promoting green steel-making and lower-emitting buildings, or transforming some other high-carbon activity? The next step is to establish government bodies and policies to plan and drive the transition. 

COP30: Spain’s unions say just transition means renewing communities beyond jobs

“Global and broad declarations on a [just transition] mechanism are a good signal,” said Pai. “But we would be fooling ourselves if we think that just because something is getting declared, it will be implemented.”

When it comes to tackling dependence on coal, for example, Pai noted the difficulty of shutting down coal mines and replacing their role in local economies that tend to be heavily reliant on the industry for both jobs and revenues. According to the International Energy Agency, 3.1 million of the 7.8 million people working in coal-related activities in 2022 were employed in coal mining.

Workers load coal on a truck near an open-cast mine, on the outskirts of Dhanbad. (Amarjeet Kumar Singh / SOPA Image via Reuters Connect) Workers load coal on a truck near an open-cast mine, on the outskirts of Dhanbad. (Amarjeet Kumar Singh / SOPA Image via Reuters Connect) Why is finance the elephant in the room?

Finance – and finding more of it for climate action – has always been a bone of contention between developed and developing countries in the UN climate process, cropping up time and time again across negotiating streams, whether it’s the new goal for tripling resources for adaptation or filling the loss and damage fund.

In the corridors at Bonn, observers told Climate Home News that, for just transition, the discussions on the topic did not centre on setting up a new dedicated fund, but rather touched on how the mechanism could better connect available financial resources with just transition initiatives in countries.

The informal note on the new mechanism includes mobilising and facilitating “grant-based and non-debt-inducing finance” and channelling finance through North-South and other multilateral partnerships. It is unclear whether finance will be included in the final COP31 decision on the BAM. CAN’s Rosemberg has suggested a resource mobilisation taskforce could be set up to start identifying sources of funding.

An analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that, during the first year after mass layoffs, workers losing their jobs in energy-intensive industries – such as power supply, heavy manufacturing and transport – lose an average of 58% of their income, compared with 52% experienced in other sectors.

Pai flagged two challenges when it comes to funding just transitions: many large financial institutions don’t want to invest in low and middle-income countries because of their high-risk profile; and developing countries often lack a well-prepared pipeline of investable projects.

The Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) launched earlier this decade were an effort to overcome these barriers. The donor-backed initiatives, outside the UN climate process, mobilised billions of dollars from the public and private sectors to help several emerging economies, including South Africa and Indonesia, finance the transition to clean energy in an economically and socially fair manner. 

But the JETPs have run up against some difficulties, such as Jakarta abandoning its plan to shut down a major coal plant early, which was a key part of the original deal. 

Indonesia’s failing Just Energy Transition Partnership is a cautionary tale

With UN climate negotiations on finance seeing positions harden between developed and developing nations as donor governments struggle to meet existing targets, some observers believe talks on funding for just transition are unlikely to produce quick results in the form of hard dollars any time soon.

“Many of those who are asking for money don’t know what they’re asking for, and those who have the money don’t want to give. You can write a paragraph about finance [in the negotiations] but this fundamental reality will not change,” said Pai.

The post From Belém to Antalya – gains, gaps and challenges for a new Just Transition Mechanism  appeared first on Climate Home News.

Laurence Tubiana is CEO of the European Climate Foundation and was formerly France’s Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for COP21 in Paris.

The UN has released a report this week confirming what many people have feared: the world is going to pass 1.5C of warming.

At current emissions, the remaining carbon budget will be exhausted within roughly three years. We are heading into “exceedance” of the 1.5C threshold: a sustained breach of the Paris Agreement’s primary temperature goal before any possible return below it.

1.5C is the line we should not have crossed – and, once we cross it, the line we must quickly get back below, on what the UN Environment Programme calls an “overshoot, peak and decline pathway”.

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Of course, climate risk is a spectrum: 1.4C is not safe, and 1.5C is not a sudden cliff edge. But the further the world moves beyond that level, the harder it becomes for communities and economies to adapt, and the greater the risk of more abrupt or systemic changes.

The importance of 1.5C

Some will argue that exceeding 1.5C means the Paris Agreement has failed, and that it is no longer a useful threshold. I disagree.

Before Paris, the world was heading for roughly 3.5C to 4C of warming. The UN now estimates that warming will reach a lower level of around 2.6C by 2100, due to policies implemented since Paris. That is still far too dangerous, but it is not the same world we were facing in 2015.

When we negotiated the Paris Agreement, 1.5C was not an arbitrary number. It was fought for by small island states and other climate-vulnerable countries because it represented a red line for their survival. Since then, we have witnessed the stark impacts of global temperature rises even in countries that did not consider themselves vulnerable, as seen with the devastating heatwaves in Europe this summer.

WHO issues new guidance on heat-health action plans, as El Niño sets in

The International Court of Justice underlined this in an advisory opinion, endorsed overwhelmingly by the UN General Assembly earlier this year, recognising 1.5C as the primary temperature threshold under the Paris Agreement and affirming that states must align their commitments with it. Overshoot does not move the goalposts. 1.5C remains the benchmark we must work to return to.

Lasting consequences of overshoot

But even as we fight to get back below 1.5C as quickly as possible, we now have to reckon honestly with what overshoot means. We are entering a period for which our societies, economies and institutions are not prepared. Even if overshoot itself is temporary, many of its consequences will not be. The longer it lasts, and the higher temperatures rise, the greater the lasting damage. We therefore need to limit its duration and magnitude.

The longer warming remains above 1.5C, the greater the risk of crossing tipping points in major Earth systems such as ice sheets, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, permafrost and tropical forests. Crossing them can trigger self-reinforcing changes that may prove irreversible even if temperatures later fall. We need to understand and monitor these systems more than ever. That requires sustained investment in climate science – just as funding is being cut in many places.

An overshoot pathway will also strain human systems. When a flood destroys a home, the damage is not undone because global temperatures later fall. Crop failures, missed schooling, debt and displacement can have lasting effects. Farms, cities, healthcare systems and insurance markets will all have to cope with risks they were not designed for, and risk facing “tipping points” of their own, such as financial panic when markets suddenly reprice risks they had underestimated. Infrastructure built today will stand for decades, so we need to design and plan for the climate risks it will actually face.  

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Our priority must be to transition away from fossil fuels and rapidly cut emissions, including short-lived climate pollutants like methane. It traps around 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, and cutting it sharply can act as an emergency brake on near-term warming. Much of the methane from fossil fuel operations can be cut with existing technologies.

We will also need sustainable carbon dioxide removal, although its role will be limited: trying to use it as a substitute for emissions cuts would be prohibitively expensive at scale.

The radical options

The major risks of overshoot have led to proposals to explore active intervention in the climate system itself. Solar radiation modification (SRM) is the best-known example: reflecting a small share of sunlight back into space to reduce warming. Other proposals would target different parts of the climate and Earth systems, such as trying to stabilise glaciers.

These responses would bring us into further uncharted territory across Earth systems and nature, diplomacy and governance, technology and societies.

Such ideas are born of genuine concern about the major risks facing vulnerable countries and communities as temperatures rise. But even under the most favourable assumptions, these are tactics for managing some of the symptoms of overshoot, not a strategy for addressing its causes. Greenhouse gases would keep accumulating, oceans would keep acidifying, and many of the social and economic impacts of overshoot would remain.

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The more we learn about the complexity of the climate and Earth systems we are disrupting and how much uncertainty there already is, the clearer it becomes that full control is likely an illusion, and new interventions bring new complex risks. SRM, for example, could change regional climates, such as rainfall patterns or agricultural production, in ways that benefit some regions and harm others, with knock-on geopolitical risks.

Governance and research needed

None of this is an argument against research into these technologies. On the contrary, the risks they’re responding to are so extreme that we must explore all the options we might have. But we need to understand the potential effects and capabilities much better and from many more angles, including the political and social implications. Serious global governance is particularly urgent, alongside transparent research that is open to scrutiny.

But the fundamental elements of a strategy to navigate overshoot are already understood. The priority is still to rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit peak warming, protect people against the warming already locked in, and ensure technological innovation aligns with the public interest.

Overshoot is not just an engineering challenge. We need a full-scale response across societies, economies and political systems to prepare to navigate a more uncertain climate.

The post Keeping to 1.5C of warming is no longer possible – but we must still limit the overshoot appeared first on Climate Home News.

Governments must slash emissions further and faster, and keep every climate promise they have made for the planet to be able to return to 1.5C of warming by the end of the century after an inevitable overshoot, a group of prominent climate scientists has said.

In a flagship new report sketching out a way not to lose the most ambitious Paris Agreement goal, the scientists said that global temperatures need to peak at no higher than 1.8C above pre-industrial levels to give the world “a fighting chance” to reverse course. They added that plans to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere can only play a limited role in this effort and cannot substitute for emissions cuts. 

A return to the 1.5C warming limit will only be reached in an optimistic scenario that sees governments turn their full national climate plans – known as NDCs – into reality and meet their additional, more ambitious targets to reach net zero emissions, said the report published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). 

Actual government policy is far off that track. Current measures to cut emissions that are funded and in force put the world on course for around 2.8C of warming by 2100, UNEP has previously found. 

Comment: Keeping to 1.5C of warming is no longer possible – but we must still limit the overshoot

Joeri Rogelj, professor of climate science and policy at Imperial College London and one of the report’s authors, said it is necessary to keep the temperature peak as low as possible as there are limits to how fast the world can reverse global warming.

That is because the scale of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) interventions that can be implemented sustainably and in a just way will otherwise not be sufficient and some measures, such as tree-planting or forest management, will be less effective at higher temperatures, he added. 

Commenting on the report, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for the 1.5C overshoot to be “as small and short as possible”. This, he added, “demands an overshoot of ambition”, involving accelerating the phaseout of fossil fuels and pursuing the renewables revolution, slashing methane pollution, and protecting land, forest and oceans.

“Governments must over-deliver on national climate plans, net-zero commitments, and beyond,” he urged in a video message. “The fight for 1.5 degrees is the fight for humanity.”

Overshoot, peak and decline

The report comes out nearly a year after the UN conceded for the first time that it is inevitable that global warming will exceed 1.5C temporarily and the world should focus on making that overshoot as small and short as possible.

UNEP’s Executive Director Inger Andersen told journalists that 1.5C remains the key goal, but “we now need a different approach from above”, while stepping up efforts to adapt to a warming world. 

“A return to 1.5C is not assured,” she added. “But limiting the magnitude, duration and consequences of overshoot, while preserving the possibility of bringing temperatures back down, is the best remaining option to protect vulnerable people, reduce losses and secure a livable future for all.”

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Scientists warn in the report that warming above 1.5C should not be seen as safe or acceptable. Climate risks above that threshold intensify with every additional fraction of a degree of warming, they said. The report paints a grim picture of expected climate impacts: glaciers could lose more than a quarter of their remaining mass by 2100 and global food production could fall by as much as 14% by 2050 without effective adaptation.

Some small island developing states and low-lying coastal cities could be partially or completely submerged, while damaged ecosystems could further accelerate climate change.

To tackle these impacts, the report emphasises that adaptation and emissions-cutting measures are mutually reinforcing approaches and must advance together, while being responsive to emerging risks, which could be non-linear and arise abruptly.

“This report is a ‘fork in the road’ moment for the planet,” said Surangel Whipps, Jr., president of the Pacific island nation of Palau. “It is a further glimpse into a perilous future that has already arrived. To continue to have a fighting chance, calls for greater ambition are no longer enough – we need to see an urgent and unprecedented increase in political will and investment in a climate-safe future.” 

Cut emissions first, remove carbon after

The authors call for a three-phase approach to bringing temperatures back down: an “immediate response” of deep and rapid emissions cuts and urgent protection for the most vulnerable as warming approaches and passes 1.5C; a “coping and containment” phase focused on reaching net-zero emissions and building resilience as temperatures peak; and a “long-term resilience” phase of net-negative emissions through carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and lasting adaptation as temperatures eventually decline.

Richard Betts, who leads climate impact research at the UK Met Office, said CDR is not a “get-out-of-jail-free card” and should only be additional to emission reductions that need to be achieved with “even more urgency than before”.

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Critics of CDR have long pointed to the technology’s record of overpromising and underdelivering, and warn it has been exploited by the fossil fuel industry and some oil-producing states to try to delay the clean energy transition.

Not everyone was fully convinced by the UNEP overshoot report. Veteran climate scientist Bill Hare from Climate Analytics said it “does a good job of describing the hole we’ve dug ourselves into” but “a poor job of showing us that there is a way out”. He argued that its thin treatment of the need for a fossil fuel phase-out and ambitious mitigation pathways to cut emissions risk “turning it into a call to apathy rather than a call to arms”.

“Host of challenges” with CDR

Debra Roberts, honorary professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, told journalists that limiting global warming to around 1.8C is needed to give the world “a realistic and fighting chance” of returning to the 1.5C limit because of the “questionable” feasibility of interventions above that threshold. 

CDR comes with “a whole host of challenges”, she added, including the impacts on food and water security of rolling out large-scale programmes and the unanswered questions of whether newer technologies will work at scale and who will foot the bill. 

“It’s going to happen in a very, very complex decision-making space where the risks and impacts are dramatically becoming more complex and interrelated,” she said. “That’s why the pressure there is keep those emissions as low as possible because they give us the greatest fighting chance of the return to 1.5C in a more equitable and just way.”

The post UN sets out narrow path back to 1.5C warming after inevitable overshoot appeared first on Climate Home News.

Gill Einhorn is head of the Forest Future Alliance and Natalie Çilem is community lead of the Global Wildfire Leadership Network.

Wildfires have devastated communities across the world this summer, claiming lives, displacing thousands of people and leaving billions in economic damage in their wake. In Europe alone, wildfires have already caused an estimated €19 billion in losses this year.

They are an economic, financial and public health challenge that is growing faster than many governments and markets are prepared for – and exposing the real costs of poor land management.

A system built for recovery, not resilience

Far more money is currently spent responding to the disastrous effects of wildfires than preventing them in the first place. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that more than half of wildfire-related spending goes towards response, while planning receives only around 0.2 percent. This problem is not limited to wildfires; over 95 percent of disaster aid between 2005 and 2017 was allocated to response, and less than 4 percent was directed towards prevention or preparedness.

Forests are critical, but without investment in how land is managed and protected, their value is neither stable nor guaranteed. Protecting forests requires investing not only in conservation, but in the conditions that keep forests standing.

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Each dollar invested in wildfire-resistant construction could save around $210 in avoided future economic losses, according to a report by the World Economic Forum and Forest Future Alliance. Despite this evidence that prevention can significantly reduce future costs, wildfire resilience remains chronically underfunded.

This spending discrepancy is creating significant challenges for insurers, asset owners and financial institutions. Global insured losses from natural catastrophes reached $107 billion in 2025, with wildfires, floods and storms accounting for 92 percent of claims.

In this context, insurers are reassessing where and how they are willing to underwrite risk. Around 56 percent of global wildfire losses between 2000 and 2023 were uninsured. In some high-risk areas, insurers are scaling back coverage altogether, leaving homeowners, businesses and governments to shoulder a growing share of the costs – making it increasingly difficult to break even.

Proven solutions are already paying off

In many regions, wildfires are driven not by natural causes but by the deliberate clearing of land for agriculture. Degraded landscapes are becoming drier, more flammable and increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic loss, creating a vicious cycle of deforestation, economic damage and rising emissions.

The answer is not simply stronger firefighting capacity. Governments, investors and businesses must work together to shift capital upstream into prevention, resilience and long-term landscape stewardship of healthy forests. That means planting appropriately, investing in heat-resistant species, exploring approaches that minimise fire footprints through active management, and exploring the AI and technology solutions that are burgeoning.

A burnt olive tree in an area affected by a wildfire in Ano Sichaina near Patras, Greece, August 14, 2025. REUTERS/Louiza Vradi A burnt olive tree in an area affected by a wildfire in Ano Sichaina near Patras, Greece, August 14, 2025. REUTERS/Louiza Vradi

Solutions to this already exist and are proven to have an impact. Following devastating wildfires year-on-year, Portugal shifted its approach to wildfire management, increasing prevention spending within its national rural fire management system from around 20 percent in 2017 to approximately 60 percent in 2022. While many countries remain locked in a reactive cycle of disaster response, public policy can shift investment upstream and make resilience a priority before fires occur.

Indigenous communities have long used proactive land stewardship to reduce wildfire risk while supporting healthy and productive landscapes. For example, the Cheslatta Carrier Nation in British Columbia traditionally managed fuels through cultural fire practices but now implements mechanised fuel removal methods under commercial agreements. By combining Indigenous stewardship with sustainable forest management, Cheslatta is generating community benefits while also boosting wildfire prevention.

Resilience can also be strengthened through finance and technology. FireSat, a partnership led by Earth Fire Alliance with Google.org, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Muon, is a satellite constellation designed for rapid wildfire detection. Scanning every 20 minutes, it can detect fires 400 times smaller than current systems and track them through smoke and darkness in almost real time. In California alone, FireSat could prevent up to 350,000 acres from burning each year. It has recently received significant new investments allowing it to expand towards a constellation of more than 50 satellites that will monitor every point on Earth every 20 minutes or less.

In Brazil’s Pantanal, the Embrace the Forest initiative uses AI-powered detection towers across 2.5 million hectares to support earlier intervention and faster response. During the severe 2024 fire season, the initiative contributed to a 40 percent reduction in burned area compared to 2020.

A drone view shows burnt cars following a wildfire in Dymi, near Patras, Greece August 14, 2025. REUTERS/Louiza Vradi A drone view shows burnt cars following a wildfire in Dymi, near Patras, Greece August 14, 2025. REUTERS/Louiza Vradi

These examples illustrate what is possible when resilience is treated as an investment priority rather than a recovery cost. But we must ensure funding for these measures is scaled before disaster strikes. Initiatives like the Global Wildfire Leadership Network (GWLN) are key, bringing together corporate decision-makers, investors, insurers, governments and Indigenous leaders to direct investment towards prevention and align finance, technology and stewardship to protect nature, safeguard communities and strengthen future economic stability. With a goal of doing more together than the sum of our parts, the network focuses on Forest Future Alliance GWLN Solutions Labs – where partners sign up with the intent to collaborate.

Rewarding prevention

Financial incentives must be created that reward prevention. This can be done by scaling public-private partnerships, supporting long-term landscape stewardship, investing in community capacity including Indigenous wisdom and technology. Ultimately, our terrestrial natural reserves are critical infrastructure that support resilient economies and thriving communities.

One in three people are dependent on forest services, goods and economic opportunities for survival, so it’s in all our interests to protect what we have. Forests support cooling, water and food security – and are a very cost-effective way of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, where done appropriately.

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No sector can solve this challenge alone. The benefits of wildfire resilience are shared across communities, governments, insurers, investors, utilities and businesses. A single intervention can protect homes and livelihoods, reduce insurance claims, secure water supplies and lower future public costs. Because the benefits are shared, the solutions must be too. Coalitions of actors can take proven approaches further than any one individual or organisation could alone.

As wildfires continue to burn at an unprecedented scale, the opportunity now is to roll out solutions, shift investment upstream and build a future where resilience, rather than recovery, becomes the foundation of thriving economies.

The post From firefighting to future-proofing: Preventing wildfires must be the priority appeared first on Climate Home News.

Anuradha Barua, Aakriti Wanchoo and Swapan Mehra are from Iora Ecological Solutions, a New Delhi-based company focused on nature-based solutions, climate action, conservation and environmental policy.

When Rojo Neog’s village in northeast India was hit by a power cut in July, he headed out to buy candles. Three days later, his body was recovered – swept away by surging floodwaters. His niece said the water had risen from knee- to neck-level in about half an hour.

The devastating floods highlight how climate risk across India is becoming harder to confine to a season or a disaster bulletin. Just weeks before the disaster in Assam, authorities in Mumbai rationed water as reservoir storage fell to just over 10%.

India does not lack warnings about climate risk. The more difficult task is making sure money, institutions and communities are ready to act before those warnings become disasters. Adaptation should not be just an obligation once a crisis has arrived, but an investment made while there is still something to protect.

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As governments head towards COP31 in Antalya this November, India should push not only for more adaptation finance, but for finance that arrives earlier and can be traced to outcomes on the ground.

That is the gap India needs to close if we wish to become truly resilient in the face of the changing climate. Money must move with risk, institutions must know what to do before an emergency is declared, and long-term spending must reduce vulnerability before it becomes loss.

India’s adaptation disconnect

This year the disconnect has become painfully clear in Assam, where more than 100 people have died due to the flooding, with nearly 140,000 people across seven districts affected. More than 450 villages remain inundated, while some 49,000 people are taking shelter in relief camps after losing everything.

No financing mechanism can stop a river from rising. But timely measures can change what happens before it does. If forecasts and river levels triggered financing before the water arrived, authorities could position boats and stock shelters, and evacuate people where needed, while families could move cattle, seed, medicines and documents before roads disappeared.

For Indian women workers, a just transition means surviving climate impacts with dignity

India already has much of the information needed to address climate change. High-risk states and districts should agree in advance which local thresholds trigger action, who is responsible and how funds will be released, so officials do not have to negotiate responsibility and budgets from scratch once risk becomes an emergency.

Linking community know-how to financing

Our work in Majuli, a river island district in Assam, shows why this matters.

Across 64 villages, communities helped identify flood and erosion risks, assess their capacity to respond, and to develop resilience measures with indicative budgets and possible funding sources.

Communities often know what would help; the harder task is connecting that knowledge to institutions and finance that can act on it.

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Public health offers an example of how systems can adapt as risks change. In New Delhi, vector-control workers who once prepared for a defined “dengue season” now remain on alert throughout the year, using surveillance and hotspot mapping to identify risks earlier.

The next step is to make these systems more predictive by integrating climate forecasts into public health planning.

India needs sustained investment in drainage, health systems, wetlands, water security and climate-resilient agriculture. Some will remain public responsibilities; others, including water reuse, efficient irrigation, resilient cold chains and risk-proofed infrastructure, can generate savings or revenue and attract private capital if projects are prepared well.

The economic case for adaptation is not always about generating new revenue. Often, it is about avoiding future costs. Flood shelters, public-health preparedness, early-warning systems and support for the poorest households will still need public or grant finance. The point is to match the finance to the risk rather than treat adaptation as a single financing problem.

A sugarcane farmer removes weeds which have grown in floodwater in Kolhapur district, Maharashtra, India. Credit: Meenal Upreti A sugarcane farmer removes weeds which have grown in floodwater in Kolhapur district, Maharashtra, India. Credit: Meenal Upreti Rising disaster bill shows cost of inaction

India is already spending heavily on adaptation, with related expenditure reaching 5.6% of GDP in 2021-22. Yet tracked adaptation finance was only about $15 billion annually, almost entirely from domestic public sources, against estimated needs of about $100 billion a year through 2030.

Internationally, the shortfall is wider: developing countries may need $310 billion-$365 billion annually by 2035, compared with just $26 billion in international public adaptation finance in 2023.

For governments repeatedly paying for flood, droughts and heat relief, the cost of inaction can quickly exceed the cost of building resilience, though not all the costs of inaction appear neatly on a balance sheet.

In floodplain landscapes such as Assam’s Kaziranga National Park, animals move towards higher ground every monsoon as the floodplain fills, crossing roads and leaving the park in search of safety. During the 2024 floods, 215 animals died, including 13 one-horned rhinos.

Development plans in such sensitive landscapes must leave room for water, wildlife and communities to move safely. A wetland may not generate monetary revenue, but the floodwater it stores has real value. The cost of losing that capacity may only become visible when the next flood arrives.

Comment: Climate adaptation in Africa needs investment, not imported solutions

Success should not be measured only by how quickly relief follows a disaster. It should also be measured by what never had to be replaced: people and animals moved before the water rose, seeds kept dry, medicines waiting at the shelter, a wetland that still had room to hold water, and a family that could leave while the road was still open.

Adaptation becomes an investment when it preserves those choices before they disappear.

The post India needs climate adaptation cash to be an investment, not a quick fix appeared first on Climate Home News.