§ This week

UK proposes new emissions target

‘ON COURSE’: The UK government has proposed reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions to 87% below 1990 levels by 2040, reported the Associated Press. The newswire cited scientists saying that the goal “puts the UK on course to meet its 2050 net-zero target”. To meet this target, the UK would “need to invest around £880bn over 25 years…but doing so would yield benefits worth £1,620bn”, according to an in-depth analysis of the plans by  Carbon Brief.

UPCOMING ‘FLASHPOINT’: The Financial Times noted that, for the target to become “legally binding”, it must be approved by parliament. While the UK’s previous carbon budget “received cross-party support”, this time the proposal is “expected to become a flashpoint among lawmakers”, it added, with both the Conservatives and Reform pledging to “scrap” net-zero policies.

DRIVING FORCE: Separately, a new report by consultancy Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Economics has valued the UK’s “net-zero economy” at more than £100bn a year, reported the Guardian. It added that, by a broad measure, the UK energy transition supports 1.1m jobs and provides “nearly 4% of the UK’s economic output”.

US ‘dismantling’ oceans data

SYSTEMS OFFLINE: The Trump administration is “dismantling” a “$368m deep-ocean observation system” that, among other things, allows scientists to monitor the ocean currents that affect the global climate and understand how the “ocean is absorbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere”, said the New York Times. Bloomberg reported that Trump’s efforts to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), a key climate science research institution, has been “temporarily blocked” by a judge. 

RULE ROLLBACK: The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an independent body that regulates US securities markets, has proposed repealing the climate-disclosure rule, which “requires some public companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions and the risks they face from global warming”, said the Associated Press. The Trump administration also announced plans to allocate $700m to support “clean, beautiful coal” power and export infrastructure, said BBC News.

§ Around the world

• EU EXEMPTIONS: The EU will allow member states to breach the bloc’s fiscal rules to “cope with high energy prices stoked by the Iran war”, as long as the measures they use help “accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels”, reported Bloomberg.
• SLOW SPENDING: The German government has only paid out €24bn of the €37bn it was “supposed to disburse” in 2025 from a special fund for infrastructure and “climate neutrality”, reported Clean Energy Wire. 
• URGENT WARNING: UN secretary-general António Guterres said a likely upcoming El Niño weather event must be treated as the “urgent climate warning it is”, said Al Jazeera.
• HOEKSTRA ON COP: The outcomes of many of the most recent COPs have been “underwhelming”, EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra has said, according to Reuters. COPs should be supplemented by “smaller groups…who are willing ​to move faster”, he added.

§ 3,400

The number of excess deaths across India caused by a single day of extreme heat, according to coverage in the Hindustan Times of a new study.

§ 30,000

Excess deaths caused if the extreme heat lasts five days.

§ Latest climate research

• In a 1.5C warmer world, the timing of floods will shift by more than seven days across half of the world’s landmass | Nature Communications
• Temperature and rainfall together account for more than 13% of methane generated from landfills in Incheon, South Korea | Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• The postponed International Maritime Organisation “net-zero framework” could increase biofuel use in shipping to 40% by 2050 | Nature Energy

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

§ Captured

China’s carbon dioxide emissions grew by 2% in the first quarter of 2026 due to a rise in “wasted” wind and solar generation, according to new analysis for Carbon Brief. However, emissions remain below their March 2024 peak, it added.

§ Spotlight

Why China’s solar boom is slowing down

China made headlines in 2025 for installing record levels of solar. But in 2026, new capacity is expected to be lower than last year’s figures. 

This week, Carbon Brief examines what is behind China’s lower 2026 solar additions. 

Solar power has been a major element of China’s renewables buildout since the mid-2010s. 

The country installed 315 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in 2025, adding more than half of all new solar globally. The year before, it added 277GW.

But the picture in 2026 to date is very different. Installations in March fell 56% year-on-year to 9GW, while new capacity in April totalled 10GW, a 79% drop compared to a year earlier, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis of official data.

Domestic uncertainty

The lower pace in 2026 had been anticipated by analysts.

In previous years, massive solar installations were driven by strong policy support for renewables, including a fixed-price tariff for generators.

In February 2025, the government announced that new solar and wind projects would instead be financed through a new “contract for difference” (CfD)-style system. 

Under the new system, power from a certain amount of renewable capacity will be purchased for a fixed “strike price”, which to date has been far lower than previous guaranteed tariffs. Further projects will need to secure their own contracts on the open market.

While the new system is posing challenges for developers in the short term, it is part of a longer-term shift towards market-driven pricing for renewables, which has already made them cheaper than coal.  

The change led to a rush of new project installations ahead of the June 2025 cut-off date, so that they could fall under the old fixed-price regime.

New solar additions totalled 45GW in April 2025 and 93GW in May 2025, before falling to 14GW in June 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis of government data.

Additions also spiked in December, in both 2024 and 2025, as developers raced to meet completion deadlines including those under the 14th five-year plan.   

Some reports have attributed the precipitous drop this year to falling demand for solar in China.

But this is a “major oversimplification”, David Fishman, principal at energy consultancy the Lantau Group, wrote on LinkedIn.

The real challenge, he said, is that “developers and banks [are] still figuring out how to finance and build projects without policy-backed revenue guarantees”.

Yang Biqing, energy analyst for Asia at thinktank Ember, agrees, telling Carbon Brief that the new CfD-style system has created “greater uncertainty” for developers, compounded by fierce competition and a growing push for “consolidation” in the industry.

The government set a target for 200GW of new solar and wind capacity in 2026. 

Fishman told Carbon Brief that this will be “difficult” for the government to achieve, though not impossible. Current levels of solar additions – reaching perhaps 120GW for the year – plus an “ambitious” 80GW of new wind power, could help China to hit the target, he said.

Others are more bullish. The China Photovoltaic Industry Association forecasts 180-240GW of new solar in 2026.

But few believe additions will match the breakneck pace of 2025. 

“China’s solar industry is no longer a story of capacity expansion”, said Yang, with officials now “increasingly” focused on integrating current generation into the grid. 

Soaring exports

Meanwhile, China’s solar exports are still going strong.

China exported almost 1.2m tonnes of solar cells in April 2026, according to Reuters. Although down from a record high in March, it represented a 60% rise year-on-year, added the newswire.

This signals solar’s attractiveness globally in the face of rising energy prices caused by the Iran-US conflict, analysts have said. 

High demand for panels has been reported across several continents, including Europe, Asia and Africa. 

For example, in the Philippines, the conflict is “driving” solar uptake, one analyst told the Associated Press, adding:

“People want solar and people want solar now.”

A version of this article is also available on the Carbon Brief website.

§ Watch, read, listen

EL NIÑO IMPACTS: An interactive piece from BBC News described how the forecasted “super” El Niño could impact global climate and weather in the coming months.

‘CAUTIONARY TALE’: Two researchers wrote in Climate Home News that “Indonesia’s failing Just Energy Transition Partnership is a cautionary tale”.

‘CULTURE WAR’: Time magazine spoke to London mayor Sadiq Khan about how he “survived the climate culture war”.

§ Coming up

• 8 June: World Ocean Day
• 8-18 June: Bonn climate talks, Bonn, Germany 
• 11 June: Climate Adaptation Innovation in Latin America and the Caribbean webinar, online

Pick of the jobs

• The New York Times, climate policy correspondent | Salary: $124,980-$160,000. Location: Washington DC
• Regulatory Assistance Project, associate, electricity systems and electrification | Salary: €50,000-€60,000. Location: Madrid and remote
• Future Energy Networks, head of policy | Salary: £75,000-£100,000. Location: London and remote

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

§ Domestic uncertainty

The lower pace in 2026 had been anticipated by analysts.

In previous years, massive solar installations were driven by strong policy support for renewables, including a fixed-price tariff for generators.

In February 2025, the government announced that new solar and wind projects would instead be financed through a new “contract for difference” (CfD)-style system. 

Under the new system, power from a certain amount of renewable capacity will be purchased for a fixed “strike price”, which to date has been far lower than previous guaranteed tariffs. Further projects will need to secure their own contracts on the open market.

While the new system is posing challenges for developers in the short term, it is part of a longer-term shift towards market-driven pricing for renewables, which has already made them cheaper than coal.  

The change led to a rush of new project installations ahead of the June 2025 cut-off date, so that they could fall under the old fixed-price regime.

New solar additions totalled 45GW in April 2025 and 93GW in May 2025, before falling to 14GW in June 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis of government data.

Additions also spiked in December, in both 2024 and 2025, as developers raced to meet completion deadlines including those under the 14th five-year plan.   

Some reports have attributed the precipitous drop this year to falling demand for solar in China.

But this is a “major oversimplification”, David Fishman, principal at energy consultancy the Lantau Group, wrote on LinkedIn.

The real challenge, he said, is that “developers and banks [are] still figuring out how to finance and build projects without policy-backed revenue guarantees”.

Yang Biqing, energy analyst for Asia at thinktank Ember, agrees, telling Carbon Brief that the new CfD-style system has created “greater uncertainty” for developers, compounded by fierce competition and a growing push for “consolidation” in the industry.

The government set a target for 200GW of new solar and wind capacity in 2026. 

Fishman tells Carbon Brief that this will be “difficult” for the government to achieve, though not impossible. Current levels of solar additions – reaching perhaps 120GW for the year – plus an “ambitious” 80GW of new wind power, could help China to hit the target, he says.

Others are more bullish. The China Photovoltaic Industry Association forecasts 180-240GW of new solar in 2026.

But few believe additions will match the breakneck pace of 2025. 

“China’s solar industry is no longer a story of capacity expansion”, says Yang, with officials now “increasingly” focused on integrating current generation into the grid. 

§ Soaring exports

Meanwhile, China’s solar exports are still going strong.

China exported almost 1.2m tonnes of solar cells in April 2026, according to Reuters. Although down from a record high in March, it represented a 60% rise year-on-year, added the newswire.

This signals solar’s attractiveness globally in the face of rising energy prices caused by the Iran-US conflict, analysts have said. 

High demand for panels has been reported across several continents, including Europe, Asia and Africa. 

For example, in the Philippines, the conflict is “driving” solar uptake, one analyst told the Associated Press, adding:

“People want solar and people want solar now.”

§ Emissions plateau continues

Recent analysis for Carbon Brief showed that China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry had been “flat or falling” for nearly two years.

The latest analysis points to a rise of 2% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, as shown in the figure below. For now, however, emissions remain below the peak in March 2024.

In previous quarters, emissions had fallen in almost every sector of the economy, with the exception of the coal-based chemicals industry.

The latest quarter saw more widespread increases, with the power sector by far the largest source of emissions growth, as shown in the figure below.

Emissions from other sectors were relatively stable in aggregate, with some rising and others continuing to decline.

Coal consumption in the chemical industry continued strong growth, increasing by 20%, but showed no change in trend after the closure of the strait of Hormuz and surge in oil prices.

(This is contrary to some commentary arguing that the closure of the strait of Hormuz has resulted in a marked increase in the output of China’s coal-chemicals industry.)

The apparent consumption of oil products rebounded in January-February, driven by transportation, but declined slightly in March as oil prices surged.

Emissions from the cement and steel industries continued to fall, as real estate investment contracted another 11% in the first quarter of 2026, following a 17% reduction in 2025. Cement production fell 7% and crude steel output by 5%.

§ ‘Wasted’ wind and solar power

After falling in 2025, power generation from coal and gas increased by 4% in the first quarter of the year.

Power demand grew at 5.2% and hydropower generation increased 9%. Under these circumstances, the record growth in solar and wind power capacity in 2025 should have covered demand growth and pushed fossil-power generation down.

The trend was accentuated in March, as power demand grew just 3.5%, hydropower output increased 9% and yet fossil-power generation increased 4.2%.

The reason for fossil-power generation growth was a sharp drop in the electricity output per unit of installed capacity for both solar and wind power, known as the “capacity factor”.

If capacity factors were stable, the increased solar and wind capacity would have been expected to result in 160 terawatt hours (TWh) of additional clean-power generation during the first quarter, compared with the same time last year, with nuclear and hydro bringing the total to 170TWh. This would have comfortably exceeded the 120TWh increase in power demand.

However, the actual increase in clean-power generation was just 60TWh, with wind showing almost no growth.

While wind power capacity grew by 23% from the first quarter of 2025 to the same period in 2026, an increase of 120GW, the average capacity factor fell from 27% to 22%, a reduction of 18%. This implies that power generation from wind only grew 1% year-on-year. In the case of solar, capacity grew by 33%, but the average capacity factor fell by 11%, resulting in 18% growth in solar-power generation.

It is normal for solar and especially wind capacity factors to vary year-to-year due to weather conditions, but the fall this year was an extension of a longer trend. The average capacity factors of solar and wind have fallen by 19% and 10%, respectively, from 2022 to 2025.

A quarter of the fall in capacity factors over the three-year period is explained by the increase in reported curtailment. This refers to the amount of electricity that is effectively “wasted”, or curtailed, because it cannot be accommodated by the power network.

Nor can the remainder of the fall in capacity factors be explained by the change in weather conditions, as both wind and solar conditions improved on a national-average basis from 2022 to 2025.

In the first quarter of 2026, approximately half of the drop in wind capacity factor and a quarter of the drop in solar capacity factor was explained by weather conditions, implying that the rest is due to increased curtailment resulting from inadequate grid management and integration. 

One clear symptom of increased curtailment is that in January-February, both solar and wind conditions were actually better than last year, but capacity factors still fell.

The fact that capacity factors have fallen significantly more than would be expected based on reported curtailment and weather conditions indicates that a lot of curtailment goes unreported, either because it is excluded from the statistical definition, or because there are gaps in reporting.

Market participants have long noted that actual curtailment is much higher than reported in official statistics.

Official data on curtailment only includes “system reasons”, while excluding some lost generation linked to market trading, grid-connection conditions and other “special” causes.

The figure below shows actual electricity generation from wind and solar plants (dark blue), the amount that would have been generated if reported curtailment had not taken place (light blue) and the level expected if the rate of curtailment had stayed the same (mid-blue).

In total, wind and solar could have generated an extra 170TWh of electricity in the first quarter of 2026, if the rate of curtailment had not gone up in the preceding years. This is more than the total power generation of France over the same period.

The largest reductions in capacity factors, after controlling for variations in weather conditions, came from Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Liaoning. In these northern provinces, the heating season is a challenging time for grid managers due to inflexible operation of plants that provide both heat and power.

More broadly, the key reason for curtailment is inflexible grid management. Flexible operation of coal and gas-fired power plants could very substantially increase the amount of solar and wind power the grid can accommodate.

Yet currently, coal-fired power generation is largely operated via medium- and long-term contracts to supply fixed amounts of electricity at fixed prices, meaning there is no incentive for adjustments in output to make space for solar and wind.

Similarly, electricity trading between provinces is predominantly contracted annually, preventing the variable output of solar and wind from being transmitted between jurisdictions in real time.

These issues have a clear impact on the amount of wind and solar that is curtailed. For example, power-system modeling carried out for the year 2023 indicates that flexible power-grid operation would have essentially eliminated the need for curtailment.

The government has also recognised solar and wind curtailment as one of the central challenges of the energy transition.

Recent policies have called for increased inter-province trading and improved flexibility of coal-power plants as the solutions, implicitly recognising these as key issues to address.

Recent large increases in storage capacity, including pumped hydro and batteries, should have improved the integration of wind and solar into the grid. But there is a lack of incentives for storage operators that limits the benefits the system can derive from the technology.

The government has implicitly recognised this and called for establishing electricity pricing that enables energy storage to “participate fairly”.

Meanwhile, China’s new renewable-pricing rules, which shifted existing solar and wind plants to selling electricity on the market, rather than being compensated directly by the grid operator, does not seem to have reduced curtailment so far.

Most provinces only finalised their plans for implementing the policy in late 2025, which left little time for the market and operators to adapt.

China is aiming to build a “new type power system”, capable of integrating large amounts of wind and solar into the grid by 2027. In the meantime, the government has also called for “reasonably pacing” utility-scale “new energy” capacity additions to match the pace at which provinces think they are able to improve the “regulation capacity” of their grids.

§ How the Hormuz crisis is affecting China’s energy sector

China’s energy system has started, since March, to adjust to the surge in oil and gas prices triggered by the closure of the strait of Hormuz. There have been sharp reductions in oil imports, the share of gas in thermal power generation and in oil-based chemical production.

The consumption of gas fell overall in March, even as consumption in the power sector increased. The power sector fuel mix shifted from gas to coal, but the increase in overall thermal power generation still pushed gas use up in the sector.

High gas prices had already been straining household finances before the current crisis. Millions of households were shifted from coal stoves to gas-based heating as a part of efforts to tackle air pollution during the past decade. However, the gas-price subsidies created to enable this shift have expired in recent years, leading to a rise in heating bills.

China’s oil imports started falling sharply immediately after oil prices surged, with net imports falling even further as exports were restricted. The fall has continued into May, with shipments falling by over 40% year-on-year in the first three weeks of the month.

In the first quarter of the year, state-owned oil major Sinopec reported oil product sales up 4.8%. Apparent consumption of oil products had increased 5.5% in January-February, but fell -0.3% in March, indicating an early impact of the price surge, although the late timing of the Chinese New Year also had an effect.

Electric vehicles have continued to gain market share in 2026, reaching 53% of vehicle sales in April, up from 47% a year ago.

Electricity demand for EV charging grew over 50% year-on-year in March. The large number of plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road means that drivers can switch from petrol to power quickly when there is more of an incentive to do so.

Moreover, 24% of highway trips during the 1 May holiday were made by EVs, even though they only make up 15% of all registered cars. This shows that EVs tend to be driven more than average, making a bigger dent in oil use than their share in the fleet would suggest.

Crude oil processing volumes fell by 2% in March and 6% in April, after growth in January-February. Plastics output growth moderated in March and turned into a decline in April.

The increase in oil prices has boosted the profitability of the highly carbon-intensive coal-to-chemicals industry. There has also been speculation that the industry would have forcefully increased output in response to the Hormuz crisis, enabling China to cut back on oil use. The industry was, however, already operating at high capacity utilisation before the current crisis, reported at an average of 87% in the first half of 2025. This means there was little headroom in the sector to raise output in the short term.

Coal use in the chemical industry increased 19% in January-February and 22% in March, showing a rapidly rising trend, but no step change after the start of the crisis.

The global fossil-fuel crisis is also affecting China’s clean-energy industry through overseas demand. Exports of solar, batteries and EVs recorded 56% growth year-on-year in the first quarter, reaching $55bn. This increase was partially driven by front-loading of shipments ahead of changes to tax rebates to solar and battery exports at the end of March, but the value of exports also grew 38% in April, an indication of strong underlying demand.

§ Implications of the crisis for China’s transition

The oil-and-gas crisis represents an opportunity for both clean energy and coal. The economics of electrification and clean-energy production, as well as of domestic coal production, have improved dramatically as imported fossil fuels have become more expensive.

At least as importantly, the closure of the strait of Hormuz and the resulting global fossil-fuel crisis closely mirror Chinese policymakers’ long-standing concern about reliance on seaborne fossil fuels. This is likely to reinforce their focus on energy security.

The previous fossil-fuel crisis, in 2021-2022, led to a new wave of coal-power plants, coal mines and coal-to-chemicals plants being built in China.

This time around, any expansion in coal mining is expected to be limited, both by the government’s “anti-involution” drive, which aims to stem harmful price competition, as well as by the carbon constraints in China’s climate goals.

Domestic coal production fell in the first four months of the year, despite a rise in oil and gas as well as coal prices. Rising coal prices will reduce the profitability of coal-fired power generation, at least for the next few months.

The perceived need for further new coal-power projects is also limited by the fact that, after record additions in 2025, there was still another 206GW of coal-fired capacity under construction in January, due to large volumes of permitting during the previous five years.

The energy regulator recently called on provinces to “strictly limit” the addition of new coal-power plants and other “regulating” power capacity in areas with sufficient firm capacity.

There is also a ceiling on the upside for coal in the current crisis, because gas plays a limited role in China’s energy system. This leaves little space for replacing gas with coal.

The exception is the coal-to-chemicals industry, which can replace oil and gas, albeit at the cost of very high carbon emissions. As a result, investment in the industry will likely get a further boost, even though the economic incentive is lower than it may seem.

While crude oil prices for delivery this summer have increased by more than $40 per barrel since the start of the year, 2030 prices are only up $5. This is a more relevant benchmark, given that a new coal-to-chemicals plant will take several years to build and commission.

The coal-to-chemicals expansion will also be limited by the new system to control carbon emissions. In particular, the requirement for local governments to compensate for carbon emissions from new industrial projects by closing down existing capacity, if these controls are implemented effectively.

Since the previous fossil-fuel crisis, the concept of energy security has become broader, encompassing clean energy and electrification, rather than being limited to coal and fossil fuels. This shift is also clear from how state media has been covering energy security in the wake of the war on Iran.

As such, the oil-and-gas crunch is likely to speed up the electrification of transportation and buildings. It also strengthens the case for “green fuels”, referring to green hydrogen and synthetic gaseous and liquid fuels produced from it, which are an important priority in the new five-year plan.

Solar and wind also become more attractive, economically and politically, as a result of the crisis. The upside may be limited by the dominant narrative that they have grown faster than the grid can manage, rather than being limited by institutional constraints. Nevertheless, they will benefit from fossil fuels – including coal – becoming more expensive and volatile.

Still, curtailment has become a key issue affecting the pace of China’s energy transition. It both reduces the immediate benefits of clean energy and undermines further investment in clean capacity, by increasing investment risks and cutting into returns.

The flipside of the current rise in curtailment is that when the installed wind, solar and energy storage capacity is put to full use, the supply of clean energy will increase substantially.

As noted, a key priority for the government in the next few years is to build a “new type of power system”, capable of integrating large amounts of variable renewable capacity.

The balance between how much the current crisis benefits coal or clean energy will depend on implementation of key climate and energy provisions in the 15th five-year plan.

If power-system reforms that benefit solar, wind and storage are implemented, while carbon-emission controls limit the expansion of coal-to-chemicals, then China is likely to follow a lower-CO2 emission trajectory than expected before the crisis.

§ About the data

Data for the analysis was compiled from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Energy Administration of China, China Electricity Council and China Customs official data releases, as well as from industry data provider WIND Information and from Sinopec, China’s largest oil refiner.

Electricity generation from wind and solar, along with thermal power breakdown by fuel, was calculated by multiplying power generating capacity at the end of each month by monthly utilisation, using data reported by China Electricity Council through Wind Financial Terminal.

Total generation from thermal power and generation from hydropower and nuclear power were taken from National Bureau of Statistics monthly releases.

Monthly utilisation data was not available for biomass, so the annual average of 52% for 2023 was applied. Power-sector coal consumption was estimated based on power generation from coal and the average heat rate of coal-fired power plants during each month, to avoid the issue with official coal consumption numbers affecting recent data. 

CO2 emissions estimates are based on National Bureau of Statistics default calorific values of fuels and emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory, for the year 2021. The CO2 emissions factor for cement is based on annual estimates up to 2024.

For oil, apparent consumption of transport fuels – diesel, petrol and jet fuel – is taken from Sinopec quarterly results, with monthly disaggregation based on production minus net exports. The consumption of these three fuels is labeled as oil product consumption in transportation, as it is the dominant sector for their use.

Apparent consumption of other oil products is calculated from refinery throughput, with the production of the transport fuels and the net exports of other oil products subtracted.

Estimated non-energy use of fossil fuels is subtracted from total chemical industry fossil fuel consumption, and process emissions are calculated based on fossil fuel consumption with carbon retained in products subtracted. Emissions from the incineration of plastics are based on a peer-reviewed estimate of plastics incineration in 2022, combined with growth rates in the overall power generation from waste-to-energy plants. Metals industry process emissions are calculated using industrial output data and IPCC default emission factors.

Reported curtailment, and capacity utilisation in the absence of reported curtailment, is calculated as the complement of the “offtake rates” (利用率) reported by National New Energy Consumption Monitoring and Early Warning Center monthly by province for solar and wind.

Total curtailment is estimated by comparing solar and wind capacity utilisation predicted based on weather conditions, and in the absence of curtailment, to reported utilisation. Utilisation is predicted by fitting regression models to reported monthly utilisation and weather conditions in 2020-2023.

Weather data used for predicting utilisation are hourly wind speed, temperature, solar irradiation and humidity at solar and wind power plant locations in each province from NASA Power and CFSv2. Locations are taken from Global Energy Monitor data.

§ Key developments

Amazon updates

RECORD-LOW LOSS: Amazon deforestation rates have fallen to their lowest level since 2019, according to a report covered by Agence France-Presse. The newswire called the figures “good news” for president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, but said the rate of deforestation is still “breathtaking”, with five trees felled every second, on average. Separately, a report from Rainforest Foundation Norway found that the “currently anticipated growth in Brazilian beef production may lead to deforestation of ~57,000km2 in the Amazon by 2034”.

ROAD AND RAIL: The Brazilian government will invest $75m into a new highway “cutting through the Amazon rainforest”, reported Deutsche-Welle. The Associated Press said the administration also announced an environmental protection plan to “safeguard the forest from potential impacts from the highway”, but added that environmentalists still fear the move “could speed up Amazon deforestation”. Separately, Inside Climate News reported on a Brazilian supreme court ruling that has brought a 965km railway through the Amazon “one step closer to reality”.

BANNED IMAGES: Mongabay reported that “Brazil’s Congress has passed a bill prohibiting environmental agencies from using satellite images to restrict the commercial use of illegally deforested lands”. According to the outlet, supporters say that “satellite-only enforcement infringes upon farmers’ right to a fair defense”, while critics argue that the bill will “weaken environmental protection” and “create unsafe conditions” for Brazil’s federal environmental police. Separately, the Brazilian government has committed more than $600m (£446m) to “foster ecological investment in the Amazon region”, according to the Associated Press. 

El Niño forecast and extreme heat

‘SUPER’ STRESSED: The predicted “super” El Niño event would add stress to an “already dysfunctional and fragile global food system”, wrote the University of Sussex’s Prof Benjamin Selwyn in a commentary in the Conversation. He added that “El Niño alters rainfall, shifts jet streams and raises global temperatures”, all of which could damage harvests this summer. Reuters noted that the forecast for the phenomenon is “particularly worrying”, due to the predicted strength of the event and the contribution of climate change. 

HEAT BURDEN: “Scorching temperatures” in India have “disrupted daily life across several northern states”, said the Washington Post. The outlet added: “Some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heatwave grips large parts of India.” The heatwave is also affecting Nepal, as high temperatures have “added burdens to public health, education, agriculture, livestock, environment, employment and public infrastructure”, reported Nepal News.

‘MIND-BOGGLING’ HEAT: Meanwhile, a “heat dome” over western Europe broke UK temperature records for the month of May. Carbon Brief summarised how the “mind-boggling” heatwave was covered in both national and international press. Agence France-Presse wrote that parts of Italy approved rules limiting work in conditions “with prolonged exposure in the sun” during the hottest part of the day. The newswire added: “Farmers reported accelerated harvests as temperatures went beyond 30C across the region.”

§ News and views

• SNAKEBITE DANGER: “The risk of snakebites is increasing across the world as reptiles shift their habitats to cope with rising temperatures and growing human pressures,” according to new research covered in the Guardian. It added that human-snake interactions are “forecast to become more pronounced”.
• RICE RISK: “Several parts” of China are experiencing heavy rains early this year, “raising risks for agriculture and disaster management”, wrote Bloomberg. This includes “key grain-producing provinces”, as well as areas that grow rice, vegetables and fruit, added the outlet.
• DATA DROUGHT: Chile’s Quilicura wetland, just north of Santiago, is drying up as “datacentres have drained water from drought-stricken wetlands, consuming billions of litres annually”, said the Guardian. It noted that the area is home to Latin America’s “largest concentration of datacentres”. 
• ACCOUNTING TRICK: A group of scientists have called on the Irish government to reject a proposal that would allow the livestock to use a metric called GWP* to measure methane emissions, reported Inside Climate News. According to the outlet, they warned that this “accounting trick” would “downplay” the industry’s emissions. (See Carbon Brief’s explainer on GWP* for more information.)

§ Spotlight

Three key findings on the state of carbon dioxide removal

This week, Carbon Brief unpacks three key findings from the third edition of the “state of carbon dioxide removal” report. 

Global carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will need to increase fourfold by 2050 if the world is to have a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C by 2100, said a new report.

Nearly all pathways to meeting the Paris Agreement’s highest ambition of keeping global temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in 2100 involve CDR techniques – ranging from tree-planting to sucking CO2 from air with machines.

This is in addition to steep and immediate emissions cuts.

Scientists expect carbon emissions to push warming beyond 1.5C in the decade ahead, meaning that the target can only be achieved via large-scale CDR.

Here, Carbon Brief pulled out three key findings from the third state of CDR report.

‘Novel’ CDR is small, but growing

The report said that, at present, “99.9%” of existing CDR is conventional, land-based techniques, such as tree-planting and ecosystem restoration.

The world currently removes 2.2bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) per year, equivalent to around 5% of gross global CO2 emissions.

The largest contributors to removing CO2 from the atmosphere are China, the US, the EU, Brazil and Russia, largely through tree-planting (afforestation) and forest restoration (reforestation).

“Novel” CDR, such as biochar and direct air capture, currently removes just 2m tonnes of CO2 annually at present, according to the report.

These methods have been growing at a rate of 40% per year – which is “insufficient for the scale-up required to meet the Paris temperature goal”, said the report.

Current ambition will not lead to net-zero

The report examined several scenarios where global temperature rise is limited to “well below” 2C by 2100, including a current ambition scenario and a highest-possible ambition scenario.

The current ambition scenario was based on “nationally determined contributions”, or NDCs, which countries submit periodically to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Under this scenario, the report projected a total of 5.9GtCO2 of CDR by 2050 and 12GtCO2 by 2100. This scenario would result in end-of-century warming of 1.7-2.7C. 

Importantly, the report said, current ambition does not result in the world reaching net-zero CO2 levels, “meaning that global temperatures would continue to rise” – albeit more slowly – beyond 2100.

Under the highest-possible ambition scenario, CDR scales up to 8.8GtCO2 by mid-century and 15.3GtCO2 by the end of the century. This results in global temperatures peaking at 1.7-1.8C around 2050 and the world achieving net-zero emissions around that time. 

Reducing emissions now lowers the need for future CDR

While many countries include some amount of CDR in their NDCs, there is currently a large gap between the amount of CDR pledged and the amount that will be needed to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C by the end of the century, said the report.

This quantity is referred to as the “CDR gap” – the difference between what is pledged and what is needed. 

The size of the CDR gap is dependent on both the pledges made by countries and the choice of the “benchmark” scenario against which they are measured.

Current NDCs and other country submissions to the UNFCCC total 2.5GtCO2 per year of removals in 2030 and 3.6GtCO2 per year in 2050. Using the highest-ambition scenario as a benchmark, this gives a CDR gap of 0.3GtCO2 in 2030 and 5.2GtCO2 in 2050, according to the report. 

By comparison, a 10-year delay in implementing ambitious emissions reductions will result in the need to remove at least an additional 150GtCO2 from the atmosphere, compared to the most ambitious scenario.

This Spotlight is adapted from Carbon Brief’s Q&A on the state of CDR report. You can read the article in full here.

§ Watch, read, listen

‘DEVASTATING’ DATA: Grist reported on a proposed Utah datacentre that could be “devastating” to the ecology of the Great Salt Lake – the largest saline lake in the world. 

ECO-OIL: The Times explained how a new synthetic oil, grown in a lab in north-west England, could be used as a substitute for palm oil. 

EL NIÑO IMPACTS: An interactive piece from BBC News described how the forecasted “super” El Niño could impact global climate and weather in the coming months.

‘BATTERY COWS’: The Guardian covered work from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that found a “huge rise” in factory-style dairy farming of “battery cows” in the UK.

§ New science

• Greenhouse gas emissions from rice paddies have doubled globally over the past six decades | Nature Food
• Climate change will shift the timing and location of hailstorms – increasing the risk of damage to winter crops, such as wheat, but decreasing the risk to summer crops, such as maize | Nature Climate Change 
• Wind turbines in western Europe put more than 100m migratory birds “at risk” of collision annually, but this number can be lowered through limiting energy production at strategic times | Nature Sustainability

§ In the diary

• 2-5 June: UN expert meeting on food and agriculture | Rome
• 5 June: World environment day
• 8-18 June: Subsidiary body meetings of the UNFCCC | Bonn, Germany
• 15-19 June: Meeting of the parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea | New York City
• 16-18 June: Our Ocean Conference | Mombasa, Kenya

Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne and Orla Dwyer.  Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org

§ What is the UK’s seventh ‘carbon budget’?

The UK’s efforts to tackle and respond to global warming are governed by the Climate Change Act, which was passed with near-unanimous cross-party support in 2008, by 463 votes to five.

In 2019, the then-Conservative government amended the Act to set a long-term goal for cutting emissions to 100% below 1990 levels by 2050, known as the net-zero target.

(The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has affirmed that reaching net-zero is the only way to stop global warming from getting worse – and that emissions would need to reach net-zero by 2050 globally to have a chance of limiting the rise in temperatures to 1.5C.)

To stay on track for the 2050 target, the act requires the government to set a series of “carbon budgets”. These are binding limits on the UK’s emissions covering successive five-year periods.

The UK met its first three carbon budgets, covering 2008-2022. It is currently just over half way through the fourth “carbon budget”, covering 2023-2027.

Under the act, the government is required to set the level of the seventh carbon budget, covering 2038-2042, by the end of June this year.

Before setting the budget, the government must take advice from the Climate Change Committee (CCC). In turn, this advice must take into account a range of factors, including the latest scientific evidence, technological trends, the state of the economy and public finances.

No government has ever gone against the advice of the CCC when setting carbon budgets. However, the government could have chosen not to do so, if it had explained why.

§ What target is the government aiming for?

The CCC recommended last year that the UK should aim to cut its emissions to 87% below 1990 levels under the seventh carbon budget for 2038-2042 – equivalent to a three-quarters reduction on current levels.

The government has followed this advice, setting a draft seventh carbon budget of 535m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e), some 107MtCO2e per year.

The proposed 2040 target is shown in the figure below, alongside previously legislated budgets and the UK’s international climate pledges for 2030 and 2035 under the Paris Agreement.

In a written statement to parliament, energy secretary Ed Miliband said the target would reduce the UK’s exposure to “volatile international fossil-fuel markets and protect bill-payers”, as well as delivering benefits for jobs, growth, health and the natural environment. Miliband wrote:

“Against the backdrop of heightened geopolitical instability, including the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and its implications for global energy markets, the case for setting a clear and credible long-term pathway for the UK on clean energy and climate action is stronger than ever.”

Echoing a 2023 review commissioned by the then-Conservative government, Miliband also wrote that “clean energy and climate action is the economic opportunity of the 21st century”.

(On the day of the draft budget, the Guardian reported findings that the UK’s “net-zero economy” was worth “more than £100bn a year”, according to consultancy CBI Economics.)

The impact assessment sets out the climate-change “case for action”. It says the “science is clear” that the UK is becoming wetter and warmer, with increasing floods, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires. This is “unequivocally” due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. It continues:

“Without action, climate change will continue to endanger the UK’s food and water security, exacerbate global population displacement and pose national security risks.”

The document adds that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) found the “costs of climate damage are getting higher, while the cost of the net-zero transition is getting lower”.

In its impact assessment, the government also outlines a less ambitious goal to cut emissions to 83% below 1990 levels by 2040 and a tighter target for 89%.

In what may be an attempt to pre-empt future legal challenges (see: What happens next?), the government outlines why it is not choosing to pursue either greater or lesser ambition for 2040.

It says the low end of ambition “increases the risk of underinvestment”, while the highest target could face “deliverability risks [that] may undermine [the UK’s] credibility”.

Note that the sixth and seventh budgets were set in line with the net-zero target, whereas previous budgets were set on a pathway to 80% by 2050 – hence, the step change in the figure above.

The sixth and later carbon budgets include the UK’s share of emissions from international aviation and shipping. These emissions relate to journeys that start or finish at UK ports and airports. Draft legislation to make this change was laid in parliament earlier this year.

The UK’s legally binding climate goals do not include the “imported” emissions associated with the production of goods and services in other countries. Among other reasons, this is because the UK does not have legal jurisdiction over activities taking place outside its borders.

The UK’s imported emissions were growing until around 2008, but have remained relatively flat since then. This means that the UK’s overall “carbon footprint”, including imported emissions, has been falling by a similar amount as the territorial emissions within its own borders.

§ How could the UK meet the seventh carbon budget?

To date, UK emissions cuts have largely come from the power sector, as the country has stopped burning coal to generate electricity and shifted from gas towards clean power.

In order to meet the seventh carbon budget, the UK will need to cut emissions across the economy. According to the CCC’s advice, the biggest contributions would come from electrifying transport, heat and industry, driven by a massively expanded supply of clean electricity.

It said at the time of its advice:

“In many key areas, the best way forward is now clear. Electrification and low-carbon electricity supply make up the largest share of emissions reductions in our pathway.”

This would mean shifting to electric vehicles (EVs), electric heat pumps and electrified industrial processes on a massive scale, reducing the need for fossil fuels.

Since electrified technologies are far more efficient than those based on fossil-fuel combustion, this shift would also dramatically cut the need for oil and gas imports, the CCC said.

In broad terms, the government backs a similar path to cutting UK emissions through mass electrification. In its release on the seventh carbon budget, it says:

“Half of the UK’s recessions since 1970 have been caused by fossil-fuel shocks. The government is investing in renewable and nuclear energy to get the UK off the rollercoaster of fossil-fuel prices…By 2050, the UK could cut its reliance on fossil fuels from around three quarters of our energy today to around 15%, while avoiding around £445bn in fossil-fuel spending over the next 25 years.”

In its “delivery plan” for the sixth carbon budget, covering 2033-2037, it said roughly a third of UK homes should have heat pumps by 2035 and around half of cars on the road should be EVs.

There is one key difference between the CCC’s suggested approach to meeting the UK’s carbon budgets and that of the government. Specifically, the CCC suggested there would be an important role for behaviour change in relation to diets and efforts to limit the rise in the number of flights.

In contrast, the government has placed much less emphasis on these areas. This means that it relies to a greater extent on expensive technologies that can remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Despite this context, some right-leaning newspapers have misleadingly focused their coverage on the perceived need to alter diets to meet the seventh carbon budget.

§ What are the benefits and costs of reaching this target?

The government says that the proposed seventh carbon budget would “deliver the benefits of clean energy and climate action for jobs and growth, health and our natural environment”, as well as aligning with the 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement to “avoid climate disaster”.

Overall, it says that the net-zero target for 2050 “continues to represent value for money, with strong net benefits relative to alternative pathways”.

The detailed impact assessment sets out the benefits and costs of meeting the proposed seventh carbon budget in monetary terms, in line with Treasury guidance under the “green book”.

The results are presented in terms of “net present value” (NPV). This takes into account the human preference for enjoying benefits today, rather than in the future. When measuring NPV, future costs and benefits are “discounted”, to reflect their lower value in the present moment.

Specifically, meeting the proposed seventh carbon budget would have net benefits worth £865bn to the UK, relative to a world where the net-zero target is abandoned and existing technology continues to be used. For example, in this “no net-zero” alternative, gas boilers and petrol cars would be replaced like-for-like when they reach the end of their life.

It says that a lower bill for fossil fuels is a “major component” of the net benefits, with savings reaching £445bn over 25 years if the seventh carbon budget is met, relative to “no net-zero”.

The “vast majority” of these savings result from electrification – in other words, swapping those boilers and petrol cars for heat pumps and EVs.

However, the largest benefit of the proposed budget comes from avoided climate-change damages, which amount to £1,495bn over 25 years, according to the document. This benefit relates to lower UK emissions limiting climate impacts, such as extreme heat and flooding.

The government also acknowledges that significant investments would be required to meet the seventh carbon budget. It puts the cost of these investments at £880bn over 25 years, including financing, relative to the alternative of “no net-zero”.

These benefits and costs of the proposed budget are shown in the figure below. In aggregate, these add up to the headline net benefits of £865bn over 25 years.

In addition to the “no net-zero” baseline, the impact assessment compares the proposed budget with a continuation of current policies. The results are directionally similar to, but slightly lower than, the net benefits relative to “no net-zero”.

The document also considers a range of “sensitivities” to explore the impact of higher or lower technology costs and fossil-fuel prices, as well as to consider alternative pathways that use less carbon capture and storage (CCS), fewer EVs or a reduced number of heat pumps.

Finally, the impact assessment also considers the ongoing benefits and costs of meeting the seventh carbon budget when looking out to 2060.

This roughly doubles the net benefits of meeting the target from £865bn by 2050 to £1,520bn by 2060, because the upfront investments yield ongoing savings, such as lower fossil-fuel bills.

Notably, the impact assessment is based on fossil-fuel price projections published in 2024, when the average cost of wholesale gas was around 80p per therm.

These projections envisaged gas prices of 75p/therm in 2025, falling to 70p by 2030. A “high” case, explored in the impact assessment, had prices of up to around 110p/therm.

In reality, prices climbed to around 85p/therm in 2025 and gas is currently trading at 115p, having reached as high as 150p/therm in the immediate aftermath of the US-Israel attack on Iran in February. This was still well below the 640p peak seen during the global energy crisis in 2022.

In the “high” case for fossil-fuel prices – in which prices are below current levels – the net benefit of the seventh carbon budget climbs to £1,035bn over 25 years.

The impact assessment does not consider the potential for “feedback and system loops, which have potential to decrease costs faster than estimated”.

Setting aside the benefits of meeting the UK’s climate goals, the government analysis says that the net investment costs of the transition would be equivalent to around 1.2% of GDP per year, with a range of 0.8-1.6% reflecting uncertainty in fossil-fuel prices and technology costs.

It says that investing 1.2% of GDP in meeting the seventh carbon budget would not mean the UK’s GDP being 1.2% lower. On the contrary, it says the impact on GDP could be positive. It says:

“The investment in home-grown clean energy and electrification and the reduced reliance on fossil fuels has the potential to generate positive impacts on GDP over time.”

It goes on to compare this figure with the cost of the 2022 global energy crisis, which it says hit the economy by around 2-3% of GDP, including taxpayer-funded bill support of £42bn.

Citing recent analysis by the CCC and its own modelling, it says the seventh carbon budget would leave the economy around £90bn better off, if a fossil-fuel price shock were to hit again in 2040.

In addition, the assessment notes figures from the OBR, suggesting that climate damages resulting from global warming of 3C could wipe around 8% off UK GDP.

Notably, the government assessment of net abatement costs is significantly higher than the equivalent figure published by the CCC, of just 0.2% of GDP. It says this reflects two main factors.

First, the government’s reduced emphasis on behaviour change, which as noted above results in a greater need for expensive CO2 removal technologies. Second, it says the CCC “expects a more rapid decline in the costs of technology” than the government assumes.

For example, whereas recent government analysis has assumed that EVs will never be cheaper to buy than petrol cars, the CCC assumes that “price parity” will be reached within a few years. In fact, the latest data indicates that EVs are already cheaper to buy than petrol cars, on average.

§ What happens next?

Under the Climate Change Act, there is a deadline of 30 June 2026 to legislate for the seventh carbon budget, subject to parliamentary approval.

In setting out the draft target, the UK government has already taken into account the views of the devolved administrations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The impact assessment notes that none of them had made “representations” on the level of the seventh carbon budget.

The draft carbon budget legislation is subject to the “affirmative procedure”, which means it must be debated and voted through by both houses of parliament.

For the sixth carbon budget, which was legislated under the then-Conservative government in 2021, this vote took place during the “committee stage”.

The government statement says that its delivery plan for the sixth carbon budget, published in October 2025, will “drive substantial abatement into the carbon budget seven period”. It adds:

“These policies will continue to deliver the bulk of emissions savings needed for carbon budget seven. This provides a strong and credible starting point…reducing delivery risk and giving confidence that the transition can be delivered in an affordable and manageable way.”

Specifically, the impact assessment says that the existing CB6 delivery plan “would get the UK to 84% emissions reduction” by 2040, only just shy of the proposed 87% target.

The government commits to publishing a new delivery plan for the seventh carbon budget “as soon as reasonably practical”, in line with the wording with the Climate Change Act. It says:

“This statutory sequencing recognises the time needed to develop and agree an ambitious and robust package of policies to deliver the target.”

The impact assessment notes that the delivery plan will determine how the UK meets the seventh carbon budget, as well as the implications for different regions and sectors of the UK economy.

Two earlier delivery plans, published by previous Conservative governments, were subject to successful legal challenge in the High Court. These cases, brought by groups including Friends of the Earth and ClientEarth, resulted in the latest delivery plan, published last October.

A separate group, calling itself “Carbon Reckoning”, is attempting to crowdfund a fresh legal challenge to the government’s plans for the seventh carbon budget. In late May 2026, it wrote to Miliband arguing that the 87% by 2040 target “fails to comply with international obligations”.

§ What is CDR?

According to the report, the definition of CDR is:

“Human activities capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it durably in geological, terrestrial or ocean reservoirs, or in products. This includes human enhancement of natural removal processes but excludes natural uptake not directly caused by anthropogenic [human-caused] activities.”

In addition to this, the report includes “three key principles” for CDR, which are:

1. The captured CO2 must come from the atmosphere, not from “fossil sources”.
2. The subsequent storage “must be durable”, so that the CO2 is not soon reintroduced to the atmosphere.
3. The removal must result from human intervention that is in addition to Earth’s natural processes.

In this report, a CDR method is considered durable if it is able to lock up carbon for “decades or more”.

The report classifies CDR techniques as either “conventional” or “novel”.

“Convential” CDR techniques are “well established, already deployed at scale and widely reported by countries as part of [land-use] activities”.

The methods included in this group are tree-planting, ecosystem restoration, agroforestry (trees in agriculture), improving soil carbon in croplands and natural lands, and durable wood production.

“Novel” CDR techniques have “lower level of readiness for deployment and, as a consequence, are currently deployed at smaller scales”, says the report.

Some examples of different CDR methods are listed on the graphic below.

The graphic also shows whether carbon is captured through biological or chemical processes, as well as how “ready” the method is and for how long it can store carbon, among other features.

The report says that CDR is “needed alongside deep and rapid emissions reductions” to give Earth a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C. It continues:

“It should play a smaller role than emissions reductions given uncertainty around the feasible levels of scaling, sustainability limits, storage availability and the risk of reversal, among other constraints.

“In general, CDR should be seen as a limited resource that will need to be used prudently.”

It adds that CDR can “fulfil three major functions”. 

In the near term, CDR can help reduce “net emissions”, it says.

In the medium term, CDR can “counterbalance residual emissions” to achieve net-zero CO2 or net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, the report continues. 

(“Residual emissions” are those that cannot be eradicated through technologies or societal changes, such as methane emissions from rice production.)

Research suggests that global warming is likely to stop, more or less, once net-zero is achieved globally.

In the long term, CDR can “help achieve net-negative emissions”, a state where CO2 removal exceeds emissions, says the report.

In this state, humans could lower global temperatures. This may allow the world to limit global warming to 1.5C by 2100, even if the temperature target is surpassed earlier on in the century. 

Future trajectories where temperatures exceed the 1.5C limit before being brought back down again through CDR techniques are known as “overshoot” pathways.

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§ What are current levels of CDR?

The report says that, at present, “99.9%” of existing CDR is conventional, land-based techniques such as tree-planting and ecosystem restoration.

The world currently removes 2.2GtCO2 per year, equivalent to around 5% of gross global CO2 emissions, it continues.

The largest contributors to removing CO2 from the atmosphere are China, the US, the EU, Brazil and Russia.

The chart below shows the amount of CO2 removed each year over 2014-23 by the largest contributors, through tree-planting (afforestation) and forest restoration (reforestation).

“Novel” CDR, such as biochar and direct air capture, currently removes just 2m tonnes of CO2 annually at present, according to the report.

However, these methods have been growing at a rate of 40% per year – “similar to successful technologies like solar energy, but insufficient for the scale-up required to meet the Paris temperature goal”, says the report.

The graphic below illustrates how the contribution of conventional CDR currently dwarfs novel CDR, but how the latter techniques are quickly growing.

The report says that investment in CDR companies recovered in 2025 following a dip – and its “share of all climate-tech funding” grew to 2.6%.

The report also notes that, at present, most CDR efforts are unevenly distributed across the world.

For example, two-thirds of conventional CDR in voluntary carbon markets is in Latin America, according to the report. (Voluntary carbon markets are where companies can buy credits for carbon-reducing or removing projects, such as tree-planting, to claim that they have “offset” some of their own emissions.)

In addition, most pilot projects that aim to demonstrate novel CDR methods are located in only a few countries, such as Sweden, Denmark and the US, says the report.

The chart below shows the location and timeline of demonstration projects that have been announced, are under construction or in operation globally.

The report continues:

“While first-movers play important roles, if their actions do not diffuse more widely, vulnerability emerges, as evidenced by the impact of US climate policy dismantling.”

(For more, see: How is policy impacting CDR demand?)

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§ How much CDR is needed to reach net-zero goals?

The report examines three scenarios where global temperature rise is limited to “well below” 2C by 2100:

• A current ambition scenario, based on national climate pledges (but omitting the US);
• A highest-possible ambition scenario;
• A delayed ambition scenario, which is consistent with current targets until 2035 and then switches to the highest ambition scenario.

The pledges considered in the report are “nationally determined contributions”, or NDCs, which countries submit periodically to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). NDCs lay out a country’s climate ambition.

Under the current ambition scenario, the report projects a total of 5.9GtCO2 of CDR by 2050 and 12GtCO2 by 2100. 

This scenario would result in end-of-century warming of 1.7-2.7C. Importantly, the report says, this scenario does not result in the world reaching net-zero CO2 levels, “meaning that global temperatures would continue to rise, albeit at a much more gradual pace, beyond 2100”.

Under the highest-possible ambition scenario, CDR scales up to 8.8GtCO2 by mid-century and 15.3GtCO2 by the end of the century.

This scenario assumes “full buy-in by all nations”, with economics, scale-up and sustainability providing the main constraints on CDR deployment, the report says. 

The highest ambition scenario results in global temperatures peaking at 1.7-1.8C around 2050 and the world achieving net-zero emissions around that time. 

Under the delayed ambition scenario, CDR would scale up to 7GtCO2 by 2050 and 23.6GtCO2 by 2100. This scenario shows global temperatures peaking between 1.7C and 2.0C. 

This scenario requires larger CDR deployment in the long term than the highest-ambition scenario does, due to the larger cumulative emissions caused by delaying deep emissions reductions.

In both the high ambition and delayed ambition scenarios, the world reaches “deeply net-negative CO2 emissions” by 2100, the report says. This continued deployment of CDR will further draw CO2 from the atmosphere, lowering global temperatures back down to 1.5C.

The chart below shows annual global greenhouse gas emissions through the end of the century under current ambition (red), highest ambition (green) and delayed ambition (blue) scenarios.

While global CDR capacity scales up more slowly in the first and third scenarios, the report notes that, in all three cases, “novel CDR reaches gigatonne-scale deployment by 2050”.

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§ What does the science say about the potential and costs of CDR?

There is a wide range of both carbon-removal potential and associated costs between different methods of CDR, according to the report.

However, it also notes that these numbers “range widely” in the scientific literature. 

The discrepancies in estimates of carbon-removal potential are due to a number of factors, the report says, including a lack of available scientific data, inconsistencies in the assumptions made in assessing technical feasibility and a lack of agreement on what, exactly, “potential” means.

These elements also influence the cost of different CDR methods, but additional factors – such as deployment costs in different areas, technological approaches and scope – also play a role in establishing price differences. Because of this, the report says, “cost estimates are often difficult to compare across methods, complicating design and policy decisions”.

The chart below shows the reported range of mitigation potential (left) and reported range of costs (right) for different CDR methods. The top four rows indicate conventional CDR methods, while bottom 11 rows show novel CDR methods. The chart refers to “mitigation potential”, rather than removal potential, because some estimates do not distinguish between removals and avoided emissions.

(Avoided emissions refers to the difference in emissions from carrying out a project, compared to a hypothetical alternative – such as the reduced emissions from halting deforestation.)

The darker colours indicate estimates that are more constrained, meaning that they are either based on stricter assumptions or there is more agreement between different estimates.

The report notes that for most removal methods, the low end of the potential is around 1GtCO2 per year, while the upper limit of costs is more than $200/tCO2.

The least expensive CDR approaches are forestry-based methods, soil-carbon sequestration and biomass burial. For forestry-based methods, the report puts the cost of CDR at $5-$53 per tonne of CO2 removed. Soil-carbon sequestration costs reach as high as $150 per tonne of CO2 removed, but could have negative overall costs “when accounting for crop yield increases potentially resulting” from changed farm-management practices, the report says.

However, it adds that “these CDR methods are typically associated with lower levels of permanence” than other methods.

Other relatively low-cost methods include coastal wetland restoration, biochar, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and enhanced rock weathering, while ocean alkalinity enhancement is a medium-cost option. 

The most expensive methods include direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) and direct ocean carbon capture and storage (DOCCS).

The report also notes that a total estimate of CDR removals cannot be obtained by adding up the removal potential of all of the separate methods, since different methods can compete for scarce resources. For example, BECCS, biochar, biomass burial and biomass sinking all rely on the same base input – biomass – and therefore cannot all be maximised at the same time.

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§ What have governments pledged on CDR?

While many countries include some amount of CDR in their national climate plans, there is currently a large gap between the amount of CDR pledged in these plans and the amount that will be needed to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C by the end of the century, says the report.

This quantity is referred to as the “CDR gap” – the difference between what is pledged and what is needed. 

The size of the CDR gap is dependent not just on the pledges made by countries, but also the choice of the “benchmark” scenario against which the pledges are measured. Lower – or delayed – emissions reductions lead to larger shortfalls in the long term, meaning “CDR must subsequently be scaled to very high levels”, says the report.

Current NDCs and other country submissions to the UNFCCC total 2.5GtCO2 per year of removals in 2030, 2.7GtCO2 per year in 2035 and 3.6GtCO2 per year in 2050. 

This gives a CDR gap of 0.3GtCO2 in 2030, 1.2GtCO2 in 2035 and 5.2GtCO2 in 2050, according to the report. These figures are obtained using assumed “immediate, ambitious action at all levels to reduce emissions” and the most-ambitious estimates of CDR set out in national pledges. Together, this provides a “lower bound” for the CDR gap, says the report.

By comparison, a 10-year delay in implementing ambitious emissions reductions will result in the need to remove at least an additional 150GtCO2 from the atmosphere, compared to the most ambitious scenario. (See: How much CDR is needed to reach net-zero goals?)

The report says that the CDR gap has widened since the second state of CDR report was released in 2024, due to the US leaving the Paris Agreement. It adds that other countries have “not delivered a step change in ambition” in their latest round of climate pledges.

It also cautions that “credibility issues with national pledges may mean that the CDR gap is actually larger than what we assess here”.

The report notes that current CDR pledges by companies are “substantially higher than country pledges”, at 5GtCO2 per year in 2050. However, it adds, “credibility in these announcements is low”.

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§ What is the current funding and research landscape for CDR?

Funding of CDR research and development – as well as investment in CDR companies – has continued to increase in recent years.

In total, there has been around $5.6bn in grant funding distributed to CDR research since 2005, according to the report’s analysis. Roughly one-third of this has come in the past three years.

Funding for CDR research grants grew 13% each year between 2022 and 2025, the report says, and the corresponding number of research publications grew at a similar rate.

Funding was largely targeted at a handful of key areas, notably soil carbon sequestration, biochar and forest-based CDR. 

DACCS and BECCS only make up a small number of active grants, but together account for around two-fifths of all funding due to “substantially larger” project sizes.

Despite the growth of research grants and scientific publications, the report concludes that early-stage innovation in CDR is “uneven” and says there is “no strong evidence of a step-change”. 

It notes that much of the support for CDR has come from projects with a broader focus, rather than those that focus specifically on CDR.

The authors also point to a decline in “inventive activity”, as measured by patenting of CDR-related innovations. While patenting for emissions-cutting technologies in general has been on an upward trajectory, CDR patenting peaked in 2011.

Meanwhile, the report highlights the “remarkable” sustained investment in CDR companies, against a backdrop of falling investment in climate-related technologies. It notes that CDR now accounts for around 3% of overall “climate-tech funding”.

Yet, again, it says future developments remain “uncertain”. Since the previous 2024 “state of CDR” report, companies have scaled back their ambitions and policy reversals – notably in the US – “underscore that funding uncertainty remains a key barrier”. (See: How is policy impacting CDR demand?)

An upward tick in funding in 2025 was driven primarily by a “surge” in grants from predominantly public institutions, as well as $0.5bn in debt financing for a single BECCS project in Sweden. 

Reliance on such funding sources “highlight[s] the volatility of the CDR innovation ecosystem”, according to the report.

The report also has a chapter focusing on the voluntary carbon market, which it describes as “propelling most of the current demand for novel CDR”.

The scale of this market remains fairly small, with contracts for 0.04GtCO2 of removals signed last year. 

Moreover, the concentration of sales within a small number of buyers – particularly Microsoft – remains a “critical vulnerability”, the authors note. 

Back to top

§ How is policy impacting CDR demand?

The report analyses CDR policies in G20 nations – which together account for three-quarters of global emissions – to assess how they are acting to support CDR across their economies.

In total, 140 countries have announced net-zero targets, including virtually all of the world’s major emitters. In doing so, the report points out that the governments of these nations have “implicitly included a role for CDR in their climate plans”.

However, this does not always translate into measures specifically designed to scale up CDR. 

Only the EU has adopted a binding, quantified removals target into law – namely, the goal to reach 310m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) of annual net removals in the land sector by 2030.

Overall, conventional CDR is the main focus of policy, with various governments focusing on tree planting to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.

Among G20 nations, only the UK and Australia have set specific goals to scale up novel CDR, such as BECCS and DACCS, over the coming decade.

The report highlights some nations, including Canada, Germany, Switzerland and the UK, as taking proactive steps to incentivise CDR. 

The authors point to national strategies, financial support for CDR and efforts to integrate it into emissions trading systems (ETS) as examples of effective policy making.

(The report also stresses that the US, which was previously a “leader” on CDR, has now “frozen or dismantled funding and support” for CDR under the Trump administration.)

Most of the successful policies highlighted in the report focus on supporting the supply of CDR, with “less attention so far on creating demand”. 

This is significant because CDR “generally lacks a natural market”, meaning there are not automatically buyers willing to spend money on emissions removals. Therefore, the authors say, policy interventions are important to create markets and boost demand.

“Compliance” carbon credits – referring to credits that can be used to meet legally mandated emissions targets – provide a way to support demand, according to the report authors. 

Only some ETSs, such as those used in New Zealand and Australia, allow the use of credits based on forest-related removals for compliance. (It is worth noting that such credits are controversial, as removals by forests are not always permanent.)

The report also highlights the need for “foundational policies to create a governance framework for CDR, including rules for quantification of removal, guidelines for community engagement and the minimisation of negative environmental impacts”.

Back to top

§ This week

§ UK, Europe and India battle heatwaves

‘MIND-BOGGLING’ MAY: The UK and continental Europe have set “mind-boggingly crazy”  temperature records for May amid a deadly heatwave, reported the Financial Times. According to the Associated Press, the UK “smashed a century-old temperature record for the second time in 24 hours on Tuesday”. The newswire added that records “also fell in France, where temperatures reached 36C on Monday in the country’s south-west”. On Wednesday, Portugal hit a record May temperature of 40.3C, said BBC News.

‘BRUTAL REMINDER’:  In parts of Italy, the heatwave triggered blackouts, reported Reuters. The heatwave has also been linked to more than a dozen deaths in the UK and France, including from people drowning and suffering heat-related deaths while competing in sporting events, said ABC News. Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said the intense heatwaves were a “brutal reminder” of the cost of global warming, reported Politico. Carbon Brief has in-depth coverage of the record-shattering heatwave.
INDIA’S DEADLY HEAT: In the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, more than 100 people died within three days following an intense heatwave, reported the Khaleej Times. The publication noted that authorities urged people to stay indoors and avoid direct exposure to the heat. Meanwhile, some parts of India are “grappling with power cuts as record-breaking heat has pushed electricity demand ​to an all-time high”, reported Reuters.

§ Around the world

• CRUDE DIPS: The International Energy Agency (IEA) said global investments in oil projects will fall below $500bn in 2026, continuing a three-year decline, reported Bloomberg. Carbon Brief’s analysis of the data shows the US’s “data-centre boom” means it is now investing more in fossil-fuel power than China.
• DODGING NET-ZERO: The world’s biggest miner, Australian giant BHP, has backtracked on climate action by halting or delaying projects to cut “vast” amounts of emissions, according to a Guardian investigation.
• SOLAR SLIP: China’s new solar installations dropped for a fourth straight month, reflecting weakening domestic demand, said Bloomberg. 
• NO LOGGING: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell last year to its lowest level since 2019, according to a new report, said Agence France-Presse.
• EXECUTIVE ACTION: Puerto Rico’s governor announced a state of emergency to fight a surge in coastal erosion, citing the need to protect natural resources and vulnerable communities, reported the Associated Press.

§ Four million

The number of homes in the UK with air conditioning, double the figure from three years ago, reported the Guardian. There are 29m households in the UK.

§ Latest climate research

• Carbon Brief will soon be launching a new fortnightly newsletter focused on climate research. Sign up for free today.
• LGBTQ+ households in the US are “significantly more likely” to face energy poverty and insecurity than the general population | Energy Research & Social Science
• Global rice-paddy greenhouse gas emissions have doubled over the past six decades | Nature Food
• Vegetation greening and human-caused warming are the “main drivers” of a surge in flash floods over the last decade | Science Advances

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

§ Captured

A Carbon Brief investigation has shed light on the impact of weather-related flooding on National Health Service (NHS) facilities across the UK. At least 67 NHS hospital wards, departments and other sites have been forced to temporarily close or relocate due to weather-related flooding. The chart above shows sites of weather-related flooding incidents at NHS facilities. The size of the circles indicates the number of incidents reported at each site.

§ Spotlight

How solar mini-grids can ‘help boost’ Nigeria’s economy

This week, Carbon Brief covers a new report on Nigeria’s solar mini-grid industry.

Amid the impact of the US-Iran war on the Nigerian economy, a new report has argued that solar-mini grids can help to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and create more than 200,000 jobs.

In Nigeria, Africa’s third-largest economy, the war has led to an increase in energy prices and a decrease in petrol consumption. Petrol is one of the country’s main sources of transport and household fuel. According to one estimate, prices have surged by up to 40% since the conflict commenced in February.

Although the Nigerian treasury has benefited from rising crude oil prices – the country is a major exporter of oil and gas – the impact has been most visible on the wider population.

Rising energy prices “have affected the purchasing power of workers”, Agnes Funmi Sessi, a labour union leader in Lagos, told Carbon Brief. 

However, scaling the deployment of solar “mini-grids” could help the country move away from fossil fuels, stimulate rural economies and improve livelihoods, according to the new report authored by the thinktank, the Africa Policy Research Institute.

“We estimate that, by deploying over 10,000 mini-grids, the sector could create 212,688 direct full-time informal and productive-use jobs across the off-grid and under-grid market segments,” the report said.

A nascent industry

Solar “mini-grids” are small-scale, localised electricity generation and distribution systems powered by solar panels.

The report positioned Nigeria’s mini-grid sector as one of the fastest-growing in Africa, with the country having just 11 mini-grids in 2015 and 155 by 2024, along with at least 42 active developers.

Many of the companies within the sector are young and apply novel local techniques in their deployment of solar technology, the report said.

However, access to finance remains a huge barrier. According to the report, the sector may require up to $8bn to connect 35.4 million people to mini-grids.

“Most Nigerians want solar power in their homes, but it is a capital intensive business for vendors and customers,” Dr Ben Iheagwara, a renewable energy entrepreneur and policy analyst, told Carbon Brief.

The report urged the Nigerian government and its international partners to “attract private capital by de-risking investments and ensuring regulatory clarity and long-term planning”.

Other key recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders include investment in skills development and paying attention to the gender gap.

Powering rural communities

Many rural communities, which make up about 37% of the country, are disconnected from the national grid system, so often have to generate their own electricity through mini-grid systems.

According to Nigeria’s electricity regulator, NERC, a mini-grid is defined as a power generating system with an installed capacity of up to 10 megawatts.

A mini-grid can be powered by fossil fuels such as diesel or petrol, but solar power is now considered a cheaper and cleaner source.

With more than 80 million people lacking access to electricity in Nigeria, solar mini-grids are increasingly viewed as the lowest-cost electrification solution, the report said.

§ Watch, read, listen

MOVING FORWARD: The Energy Transition Show dug into electricity reform in South Africa, discussing the country’s coal legacy and the role of renewables.

ENERGY POVERTY: In an opinion article for Project Syndicate, executive director of the African Climate Foundation, Saliem Fakir, argued that the energy transition in emerging and developing economies is driven by economics and security rather than emissions targets.
VANISHING CITY: BBC News reported on a coastal community in Nigeria where the ocean has “already swallowed more than half of the town”.

§ Coming up

• 31 May: Colombia presidential elections
• 31 May-5 June: Global Environment Facility council meeting, Samarkand, Uzbekistan
• 2-5 June: The Venice Agreement for Peatlands workshop, Kisumu, Kenya

§ Pick of the jobs

• National Oceanography Centre, engagement assistant (external communications) | Salary: £28,254. Location: Southampton, UK
• Dangote Industries, decarbonisation specialist | Salary: Unknown. Location: Lagos, Nigeria
• City of New York, chief decarbonization officer | Salary: $261,469. Location: New York City
• Climate Central, writer and associate editor | Salary: $72,000-$75,000. Location: US (Remote)

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

§ ‘World’s memory of disasters’

For the past three decades, a small team of researchers at the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) at the University of Louvain in Belgium have maintained EM-DAT.

It is the world’s most comprehensive database of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, floods and tropical storms, along with other disasters. It offers information such as the timing and length of an event, how many people were killed or displaced and the economic cost.

Since 1988, this continuous record has been free to use and independently verified by the researchers at CRED.

When considered in its entirety, the database provides more than just a list of disasters – it acts as a “memory” of how extreme weather events and their impacts on people are changing, says Prof Niko Speybroeck, an epidemiologist and director of EM-DAT. He tells Carbon Brief:

“EM-DAT can be considered the world’s memory of disasters. It contains more than 27,000 natural and technological disasters. It’s not just a database. It makes it possible to know who was affected, when, where and with what consequences.”

The database is frequently used by climate scientists. It is often cited in research papers and underpinned analysis in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the impacts of climate change.

It is also used by government officials and environmental organisations.

The database is particularly important for global-south nations, which are less likely to have comprehensive national or regional records of disasters than those in the global north.

For example, the Indonesian government used EM-DAT to develop a national strategy against disasters, says Speybroeck.

The database has also been used to document the “disproportionate climate burden” borne by small-island nations, he adds, which “prompted the UN to release more funding” for these states.

EM-DAT is of critical importance to national and multinational initiatives tracking extreme weather in Africa, says Prof Dewald van Niekerk, head of the African Centre for Disaster Studies at North-West University in South Africa. Van Niekerk was one of the climate scientists who authored the open letter calling for EM-DAT to be protected from closure. He tells Carbon Brief:

“We use it on various levels, from sub-national straight up to continental level.”

Since 2018, van Niekerk has utilised EM-DAT to prepare reports on extreme weather events in Africa for the African Union. These efforts are to meet goals agreed under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, a voluntary international agreement to prevent disasters from upending development.

Without EM-DAT, it would not be possible to conduct such analyses, he says:

“Not all [African] governments can compile these databases. Where they do, they are extremely fragmented. You can’t compare apples with apples.”

(Carbon Brief has also used EM-DAT data to investigate the impact of extreme weather on Africa, finding that such events killed at least 15,000 people on the continent in 2023.)

§ Uncertain future

Despite having a global impact, EM-DAT’s small team of researchers require just €300,000 ($350,000) a year to maintain operations.

For decades, EM-DAT obtained 90% of this funding from USAid, the US’s federal agency for foreign aid, says Speybroeck:

“[USAid] allowed us to work in an independent and neutral way, so we were not influenced by any politics. That was one of the strengths of the database. They only asked for us to leave it open access, meaning that anyone can use it.”

USAid was dismantled by Donald Trump after he became US president for the second time in January 2025. By July, the agency officially closed its doors.

Speybroeck received a letter in February 2025 informing him that his team were to lose their funding.

“I decided for a long time to keep silent,” he tells Carbon Brief. However, by the end of 2025, he chose to start speaking out about the impact of USAid cuts on EM-DAT.

Learning of the threats to the database, four leading climate scientists published an open letter in March calling for other governments, multilateral development banks and philanthropy to step in to stop the database from closing. It has attracted more than 4,000 signatures.

One of the letter authors, Prof Gabriele Messori, director of the Swedish Centre for Impacts of Climate Extremes at Uppsala University in Sweden, tells Carbon Brief:

“It’s very worrying that a long-term dataset that has become a reference for many different sectors, when looking at the impacts of a wide range of natural and technological events on society and the economy, could be suddenly interrupted.” 

(The cuts to EM-DAT’s funding come as the Trump administration has laid off thousands of scientists and frozen research grants worth billions of dollars in the US. For more on how these actions are impacting climate science, see Carbon Brief’s explainer on how Trump is threatening polar research.)

Since going public about EM-DAT’s funding crisis, Speybroeck says he has had some “positive signals” from potential new funders, but “there is nothing on paper yet”.

Another letter author, Prof Dewald van Niekerk, says he hopes to see EM-DAT move towards a model of using multiple funding sources, to create a “more robust structure” where “no one can just pull the plug” on its work.

§ Key developments

Several dead as record rainfall hit several provinces

DEADLY DOWNPOUR: Multiple rounds of heavy rainfall have hit central and eastern China, with Agence France-Presse reporting that at least 25 people were killed in the first round, which affected provinces including Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan and Hubei. Shortly afterwards, nine people died in south-western Chongqing province, reported finance news outlet Caixin, after receiving “nearly 300mm of rain in just two hours, a deluge local residents described as the worst in more than 60 years”. The government has dedicated 280m yuan ($41m) to support affected provinces, reported state news agency Xinhua. The Communist party-backed newspaper China Youth Daily reported that more than 20 provinces have been affected so far, with rains expected to continue throughout June. 

CLIMATE CONTRIBUTION: National rainfall over 11-23 May was 46% higher than the seasonal norm, said Xinhua. Nearly 500 weather stations nationwide have logged record rainfall levels, according to state-sponsored newspaper Guangming Daily. The rains were described as “quite unusual”, according to Xinhua, with the National Climate Centre’s chief forecaster Gao Hui telling the agency that the heavy rains were caused by a combination of factors. These included a convergence of several climate systems carrying in strong flows of moisture from nearby marine regions, as well as “rapid global warming, compounded by a fast-developing El Niño” increasing the atmosphere’s moisture content. 

The EU ‘overcapacity’ debate

‘CONCERNS’ REGISTERED: The EU will debate proposals in June to “step up efforts” to reduce economic reliance on China and protect its industries, including “safeguard investigations” for at-risk sectors and an “overcapacity instrument”, reported Politico. Finance news outlet Yicai said China in turn has registered its “concerns” with the World Trade Organization over the EU’s Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), which includes local content requirements for industries including clean-energy technologies.

PATIENCE ‘WEARING THIN’: A report by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post cited “some observers” as saying a trade war characterised by the EU “clos[ing] its market down to Chinese imports” may be the “only” way in which the EU can get China to fully engage with its concerns. A China Daily editorial states that China’s “patience” over the EU’s “politicisation and over-securitisation of trade and economic issues” is “wearing thin”. An editorial in the state-supporting Global Times says “erecting higher trade barriers” against Chinese cleantech is “clearly unwise”, given the Iran conflict, adding: “China will never sit idly by while the EU unreasonably suppresses Chinese companies.”

MISSING AGREEMENTS: Meanwhile, Bloomberg covered US president Donald Trump’s claims that his counterpart Xi Jinping “likes the idea of buying more US oil”, following Trump’s state visit to China. [None of the Chinese government readouts or press briefings covering trade outcomes have mentioned any energy agreements so far.] Similarly, the “Kremlin said…a general understanding” had been reached on the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline following Russian president Vladimir Putin’s visit to China, according to Reuters, but that there was “no mention of any oil and gas deals among documents signed” during his meeting with Xi. A joint statement published by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said China and Russia will “deepen” cooperation around oil and gas, coal, nuclear and renewable energy, adding that they will “strengthen cooperation in addressing climate change”.

Coal-power generation rose in April

‘INFLEXIBLE’ COAL: Thermal power generation in China “grew for a fourth straight month in April”, rising 3.1% year-on-year in the face of reduced wind and nuclear generation, reported Bloomberg. “Unfavorable weather” was not the only reason for weaker clean-energy generation, wrote Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air lead analyst Lauri Myllyvirta on Bluesky, with “grid congestion due to inflexible operation of coal plants and transmission lines” also a factor. Separately, research by Global Energy Monitor found that Chinese coal-plant developers “requested approval for 51 gigawatts (GW)” of new capacity in January-March 2026, reported Bloomberg.

SOLAR SLOWDOWN: Total power demand grew 6% year-on-year in April, according to Xinhua. Total capacity rose 14% by the end of April, reported energy news outlet International Energy Net, with China’s total solar-power capacity now exceeding 1,250 gigawatts (GW) and wind reaching 661GW, while thermal capacity rose 7% to 1,556GW. However, the growth rate of new solar installations continued to fall for a “fourth straight month”, said Bloomberg, with 9.5GW added in April 2026 compared to 45.2GW the year before.

POLICY EXPANDS: Meanwhile, the government has expanded its renewable power “direct connection” policy to allow clean-energy generators to supply multiple users directly “through dedicated [power] lines”, rather than just one consumer, reported finance news outlet Caixin. It cited a government official saying the policy is “intended to support cleaner energy use in industrial parks…and other large energy-consuming facilities”, which comprise more than two-thirds of total energy demand. Economic news outlet Jiemian quotes an expert saying the policy enables both “lower electricity prices” and “higher utilisation rates” for renewables, “reducing curtailment rates”. 

More China news

• ‘SOLIDARITY AND RESOLVE’: China voted in favour of a UN general assembly resolution to back the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) landmark 2025 opinion on states’ legal obligations to tackle climate change. The Chinese embassy to Vanuatu said on Facebook this displayed its “solidarity and collective resolve”.
• BOND DISCLOSURE: According to a disclosure report by China’s finance ministry, the country raised 6bn yuan in “green sovereign bonds” in 2025, said finance news outlet EastMoney ($884m), of which 700m ($103m) was spent on clean-energy retrofitting.
• WAR ON SAND: The central government has pledged to “improve” and expand its ecological compensation mechanism, including to now provide compensation for building solar farms in desertified areas, said power news outlet BJX News.
• SPACE-BASED SOLAR: Chinese scientists have begun “initial experiments” in a project to “collect [solar] energy in orbit and beam it wirelessly to Earth”, said PV Magazine.
• MINERAL STRATEGY: China has pledged to “accelerate the construction of strategic mineral-reserve ​sites”, reported Reuters. It will also work with the US on “reasonable” concerns around its rare-earth export controls, Reuters also reported.

§ Captured

Hydrogen in China continues to be mostly produced from coal, according to a National Energy Administration report. A new Carbon Brief article explored how a series of new policies in China could help scale hydrogen, particularly “green” hydrogen made with renewable power.

§ Spotlight 

China’s new carbon metric leaves Germany-sized gap in its emissions

A major change in the way that China measures its core climate goal has effectively halved the growth in the country’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions over the past five years.

The revised measure of “carbon intensity” implies that China’s emissions have only gone up by 7% from 2020-2025, just half of the 14% rise indicated by previous official statistics.

This spotlight is an excerpt of an analysis explaining how the metric appears to have shifted and its implications for China’s climate goals. The full article can be found on the Carbon Brief website.

Germany-sized gap

Reducing carbon intensity – CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – has been China’s key climate commitment since the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009.

Neither China’s international climate pledges nor other official documents have ever set out a definition of carbon intensity. 

However, until this year, it was possible to closely reproduce the reported numbers, based on a straightforward interpretation of what carbon intensity means – combining official GDP data with estimates of emissions from the use of fossil fuels.

Now, the types of emissions that are included in the carbon-intensity metric have changed.

The previous carbon-intensity measure apparently included emissions from the use of fossil fuels to generate energy and as chemical feedstocks, so-called “non-energy uses”. It did not include non-fossil fuel CO2 emissions from industrial processes, such as the production of cement.

Based on reported progress against this old scope, China’s carbon intensity had fallen by 12.4% from 2020-2025, well short of its 18% target under the 14th five-year plan.

Yet the 15th five-year plan reported that China had cut its carbon intensity by 17.7% over the same period, indicating a major shift in which types of emissions are included.

A footnote in China’s latest statistical communique indicates that carbon intensity now includes industrial process emissions and excludes non-energy uses of fossil fuels.

The shift has implications for estimates of the country’s emissions. 

China’s total emissions were 11.2bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) in 2020. Based on the original methodology, its fossil-fuel CO2 emissions had grown 14% by 2024, an increase of 1,430m tonnes (MtCO2).

In contrast, the newly reported carbon-intensity figures imply that China’s CO2 emissions only grew by 7% between 2020 and 2025, up just 690MtCO2.

The gap between these figures amounts to 730MtCO2, equivalent to the annual emissions of Germany or South Korea.

Decoding the new methodology

The methodology change could have significant implications, making it important to understand how it is being calculated.

The new scope includes industrial-process emissions. One of the largest sources of these emissions, the cement industry, has been contracting, helping explain the improvement to carbon intensity under the new scope.

In addition, the new scope excludes non-energy use of fossil fuels – largely relating to the chemicals industry – which have seen rapid growth in the past five years. 

One way to make the numbers add up would be to assume that the amount of carbon embedded in chemical-industry products has increased by the equivalent of 500MtCO2.

However, the reported output of major chemical-industry products cannot account for this level of embedded carbon.

Neither the change in scope of the carbon-intensity calculation, nor the change in the amount of carbon retained in products, can explain the size of the revision in the newly reported numbers. There must be another explanation.

Either the new scope broadly aligns with the explanation outlined above, but also excludes a subset of the CO2 emissions. Or the scope does not exclude any of the CO2, but there are gaps in the monitoring of some energy or industrial-process emissions.

Either explanation would mean China is not accounting for some of its CO2 emissions. 

Implications for China’s targets

This change has the effect of weakening China’s climate targets and introducing more uncertainty into tracking progress.

The new numbers means it will require less effort to hit the 2030 carbon-intensity target in its Paris pledge. This target can now be met even if emissions rise, whereas the previous metric would have required a reduction.

It will also require less effort to hit the carbon-intensity target in China’s 15th five-year plan. 

In addition, China would be able to officially meet its target to peak emissions by 2030, even if its overall CO2 emissions do not actually peak. The change could also affect delivery of China’s targets to cut emissions by 2035.

While China may use any definition it wants for carbon intensity under the UN climate framework, retrospective changes or inconsistent accounting could erode the value of its commitments.

Moreover, it will ultimately have to close any gaps in its emissions data and reporting, under the transparency rules of the Paris Agreement.

This spotlight is adapted from an article by Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air lead analyst Lauri Myllyvirta for Carbon Brief.

§ Watch, read, listen

MINING ACCIDENT: A column in Bloomberg argued that “continuing to veer…toward cleaner [energy] development” could avoid coal-mine accidents such as the one that claimed 82 lives in Shanxi province.

INDONESIAN NICKEL: The European Guanxi Podcast recorded a discussion with Ember’s Dr Muyi Yang about the role China plays in Indonesia’s coal-reliant nickel industry.

INDUSTRIAL HURDLES: A new article in Yicai investigated the reasons why companies are holding back on relocating to zero-carbon industrial parks.
NEGATIVE PRICES: The Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily published a widely-read article on how the emergence of “negative electricity prices” signals a need for a more “coordinated” buildout of clean energy.

§ 163

In billion tonnes, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that China could avoid between 2025-2060 by transitioning to clean energy, according to a new study published by several leading academic institutions in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. Scientists estimate that the remaining global budget for keeping temperatures below 1.5C is 130bn tonnes of CO2.

§ New science 

• Population exposure to heatwave-drought events “increased markedly” across China during between 1961-90 and 1991-2020, driven by a combination of population growth and more frequent heatwave-drought events | Atmospheric Research
• Fossil-fired power generation accounts for three-quarters of China’s total water consumption for energy production | Mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change

§ Recently published on WeChat

• 大西洋经向翻转环流：全球变暖是否正将关键洋流推向“崩溃”？
• 在极端天气预报方面，传统模型仍“优于AI”

China Briefing is written by Anika Patel, with contributions from Lekai Liu, and edited by Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org