The threat that mining critical raw materials poses to some of the planet’s most important ecosystems is beyond dispute. To prevent it, some places on Earth must be declared off-limits for mining under any circumstances. Work has already began to identify them.

A global power struggle to secure strategic resources powering the energy transition, AI and weapons systems is driving growing demand for minerals such as copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel and manganese, which are used to make electric vehicles (EVs), batteries, wind turbines and other clean energy technologies needed to transition away from fossil fuels.

This mining boom is compounding the threats that extraction poses to precious ecosystems – including tropical forests which are vital to address climate change – and the communities who depend on them.

Preventing this environmental destruction and ensuring that mining is carried out within planetary boundaries is urgent. One solution that is gaining traction has long been advocated by Indigenous groups: creating mining no-go zones.

Fern and a group of NGOs in consultations with Indigenous Peoples’ organisations have began to sketch out a methodology to map out where mining poses unacceptable social, environmental and human rights-related risks and should be prohibited.

Off-limits: Fragile ecosystems that store carbon

The methodology is based on six criteria to determine where mining should be off-limits.

This includes areas protected under international conventions; areas with high conservation value from intact forests to key biodiversity hotspots; forests, peatlands and wetlands that are critical for carbon storage; significant ecosystems such as small islands, mangroves and grasslands; critical water bodies and Indigenous Peoples’ territories.

Around half of the of the metals and minerals needed for the energy transition are located on or near Indigenous Peoples’ territories.

A case in point is Brazil, one of the most mineral-rich countries on earth. Recent research shows that the expansion of mining threatens the conservation of about 363,000 km2 of protected land in the Brazilian Amazon, which consist mainly of forests, and is home to 195,000 traditional and Indigenous people.

Deforestation is a major driver of climate change as it releases carbon stored in the trees into the atmosphere, weakening the forests’ role as a carbon sink. Most of the Brazilian Amazon should therefore be off-limits to mining, both to protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights and because of its crucial role for the climate and biodiversity.  

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, mining has had a devastating impact on the precious Miombo forest, one of the world’s largest dry forest ecosystems, and local peoples’ food security. This too is an area where mining should not be allowed to take place.

Protected areas must be default no-go zones

In Europe, efforts to secure access to minerals is also threatening fragile ecosystems. Recent reporting revealed that the European Commission disregarded expert advice when selecting “strategic” mining sites eligible for streamlined permitting procedures, with several environmentally and socially controversial projects added to the list after they initially failed to meet expert assessments. 

One project which met the expert assessment but is nevertheless attracting controversy is the Sakatti nickel mining project in Finnish Lapland. 

Part of its nickel deposit lies under a rich peat bog ecosystem, a major carbon store which developed when glacial rivers and a lake melted at the end of the late Ice Age. The site is protected under Finnish law and is as part of the Natura 2000 network intended to protect Europe’s most valuable species and habitats. These legal safeguards are on the verge of being overridden. Such protected areas should always remain off-limits to mining.

Kicking starting a discussion

To prevent mining from undermining human rights and global climate and biodiversity goals, we urgently need to adopt a global and precautionary approach. This should start with a shared definition of which areas on land and sea should be considered off-limits for extraction.

The methodology we propose is intended to kick-start a broader and transparent discussion, based on scientific, legal and social criteria, in which rights-holders and Indigenous Peoples’ organisations have a seat at the table. No mining should go ahead if it doesn’t have the Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of Indigenous Peoples’ or local communities.

Many of the restricted areas are bound to lie in forested tropical countries in the Global South, which understandably want to capitalise on their resources to spur industrial development and create jobs. But history has taught us that relying on a single resource for development runs the risk of being trapped in a resource curse. The more diversified an economy is, the more secure it is. 

Reducing mineral demand

Our modelling shows that for minerals such as nickel, cobalt, lithium, there are sufficient resources that could be mined outside of these restrictive areas to wean the global economy away from climate-wrecking fossil fuels and shift to clean energy systems.

However, that requires hard policy choices, such as reducing mineral demand by promoting more efficient vehicles and alternative battery technologies that are less reliant on critical minerals, as well as better public transport, active travel and car sharing opportunities.

In addition, recycling has a major role to play. A major study recently showed that Europe could meet half of its critical mineral needs through recycling by 2050.

Some mining to access the materials the world needs to address climate change is both inevitable and necessary. But agreeing on a framework to restrict mining in the world’s most sensitive areas will protect them from its ravages, and break the destructive patterns of the past.

The post We need no-go mining zones for the energy transition to be just: Here’s how it could work appeared first on Climate Home News.

For generations, African communities have lived on the frontlines of climate disruption, managing erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts and the slow erosion of their livelihoods, which depend on predictable seasons.

When the rains failed across Southern Africa in 2024, it was but the latest chapter of a crisis already long underway. During that season, maize crop failures of 40-80% devastated farming communities in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, where roughly 70% of people depend on rain-fed agriculture. Governments already stretched by debt were forced to raid development budgets, trading long-term growth for emergency relief.

Then came the floods. In early 2026, parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa received over a year’s worth of rain in days. More than 2 million people were affected. In East Africa, drought has displaced nearly 62,000 people in Somalia this year alone, with nearly one in four Somalis now facing acute food insecurity.

This is what climate change looks like on the ground – not parts per million or diplomatic jargon, but whether a school stays open after floods cut off the road, whether a clinic can function in extreme heat, whether a country can still invest in its future when every year brings another disaster bill.

As Nigeria rails at loss and damage “mirage”, fund boss assures money is coming

Africa as a continent contributes the least to global emissions yet bears a disproportionate share of the consequences. Nine of the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change are African. As livelihoods collapse and rural economies fail, migration pressures will intensify, driven by climate change intersecting with poverty, conflict and constrained opportunity.

Chronic under-funding

Europe is only now beginning to experience, in more limited form, what African communities have navigated for decades with far less fiscal space, thinner insurance coverage and fewer resources for recovery. With El Niño conditions confirmed and a “super” version of the naturally occurring weather pattern possible later this year, the pressure is set to intensify further.

In Africa, climate action is fundamentally a development challenge where adaptation and mitigation must go hand in hand. Building a solar grid and flood-proofing the road that serves it are not separate agendas. Yet for too long, the global climate conversation has prioritised mitigation while leaving adaptation – the work of protecting lives, livelihoods and economies in a changing climate – chronically under-funded.

The result is three compounding gaps. A visibility gap: much of Africa’s adaptation work remains under-documented and under-recognised in global climate narratives. A financing gap: capital does not flow at the scale or speed required to the people and institutions best placed to use it. And a decision-making gap: too many solutions are still designed elsewhere and imported into African contexts, rather than backing African-led platforms to scale what is already working.

Live from LCAW – Raw diplomacy: Can new mineral alliances deliver a just energy transition?

Solutions ready for finance

The solutions exist. Rwanda’s green investment fund has mobilised climate finance at national scale through its own systems. Egypt’s Nexus of Water, Food and Energy programme has shown how integrated planning can stretch limited resources across interdependent systems.

Zambia’s Presidential Irrigation Initiative is building climate-resilient food production from the ground up. In Pata, Senegal, a solar irrigation project has unlocked agricultural production and created jobs, demonstrating how integrated investments in water, energy and livelihoods can deliver resilience and development gains simultaneously.

In South Africa, the African Climate Foundation’s work with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) is supporting district municipalities to assess their climate risks and develop fit-for-purpose Climate Action Plans, building adaptation capacity where it is needed most – at the local level.

These are not pilot projects waiting to be validated. They are working systems waiting for investment.

Closing the gaps requires a decisive shift in posture from global finance, philanthropy and development institutions. It means backing country-led platforms that can prepare, aggregate and finance adaptation projects. It means investing in place-based initiatives grounded in local knowledge.

French court rules Total must revise climate plan to account for all emissions

It means fostering intra- and inter-continental collaboration, so that lessons from Kigali inform decisions in Nairobi and innovations in Lagos reach communities in Dakar. And it means treating adaptation as core economic infrastructure, not charitable relief.

Invest now for future gains

The economic case is clear. Every dollar invested in climate adaptation returns an estimated four dollars in benefits on average – and up to five in the poorest economies. Under-investment in African adaptation is as economically irrational as it is morally unjust.

The world depends on Africa’s food systems, its young workforce – the majority of the continent’s population is under 25 – and its minerals. Several African countries supply a substantial share of the copper, cobalt and other critical materials underpinning the global clean energy transition.

Drought in Zambia has already shown how climate stress can disrupt hydropower, electricity supply and mining output. A transition that depends on African minerals cannot afford to ignore African climate resilience.

The world can continue to under-fund adaptation and pay repeatedly for emergencies, instability and lost development. Or it can invest now in the people, institutions and systems already doing the work on the ground in Africa, not in solutions imported from elsewhere.

UN asks AI companies to reveal full environmental impacts

Africa has the agency, the knowledge and the platforms. What it needs is the finance to match. A super El Niño will not wait for consensus to form. Neither, frankly, should we.

The post Climate adaptation in Africa needs investment, not imported solutions appeared first on Climate Home News.

A group of non-profit organisations and local authorities filed the claim in 2020 under France’s then-new duty of vigilance law. This requires all large businesses headquartered in France and international corporations with a significant presence there to set out a clear plan to prevent human rights violations and environmental damage – even among their subsidiaries.  

“It’s a very big win for the whole climate movement,” said Justine Ripoll, head of campaigns for Notre Affaire à Tous, one of the NGOs that brought the claim.

She said the judges made clear that companies have climate obligations reflecting their impact on global emissions, and added that the ruling shows “lobbying to undermine legislation won’t have the impact corporations could expect.”

The ruling marks another legal victory for climate activists, after the International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion last year finding that countries can be held responsible under international law for breaching their climate obligations, including by expanding fossil fuel production. In May, the UN General Assembly backed the ruling and called on countries to comply with it.

Total’s climate lawsuit

As part of their claim, climate activists and local authorities wanted the court to force TotalEnergies to take stronger action aligning with the 1.5°C warming threshold in the Paris Agreement, including by stopping new fossil fuel projects and reducing production levels. 

The lawsuit claim was ruled inadmissible in 2023, but this was overturned the following year. However no public bodies except the city of Paris were allowed to join. A court in Paris finally heard the claim on its merits in March.

Two weeks before the hearing, the French public prosecutor’s office said it agreed with TotalEnergies that the scope of duty of vigilance law did not extend to climate change. But the court had a different view, saying climate risks and impacts do fall within the law’s scope. 

As Nigeria rails at loss and damage “mirage”, fund boss assures money is coming

Coming two days after France recorded its hottest-ever day, the court said the law is not intended to make the companies concerned responsible for all climate risks – resulting from all human activity since the industrial revolution – but they must “act according to their situation”.  

In TotalEnergies’ case, its oil and gas activities release greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere with resulting negative climate impacts, which must be properly identified in its vigilance plan.  

The court also explicitly said that the plan must include scope 3 emissions from the use of products and services by customers, “due in particular to the inherent link between oil and gas production and the combustion of products by users”. This is in line with domestic and international court rulings across the world in recent years.  

TotalEnergies was given six months to update the plan. After that, the court will scrutinise whether the measures are adequate, with a hearing already scheduled for 21 January 2027. 

Milestone for climate accountability

Théa Bonfour, senior advocacy and litigation officer at NGO Sherpa, which was also involved in the case, said it was a “first important milestone” but she warned that the tribunal will still have to exercise its power to analyse the plan’s details. 

However, the court did not agree to a request by the NGOs and the City of Paris for TotalEnergies to completely stop all of its new fossil fuel projects or to cut production by 37% for oil and 25% for gas by 2030.  

In a statement, TotalEnergies noted this “with satisfaction”. It said it would update its plan to include scope 3 emissions but argued that changes in its customers’ emissions “also depend on their own investment and consumption choices, such as purchasing an electric vehicle, a heat pump, or using biofuels”.

The company could still appeal the decision but, even if it does, it still has to comply with the ruling while the process is ongoing. 

COP31 presidency ‘open’ to reflecting Santa Marta in UN climate process, ministers say

Sébastien Duyck, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, said the ruling is a “key step towards stronger corporate climate accountability”.  

“The inclusion of the whole range of emissions attributable to TotalEnergies’ activities in the sphere of responsibility of the company is a critical legal step validating other recent judicial decisions,” said Duyck. “This constitutes a stringent rebuttal of the argument that the responsibility lies solely with consumers.” 

Christina Eckes, professor of European law at the University of Amsterdam, said the ruling had increased pressure on polluting companies to justify their business decisions.

“It’s not just TotalEnergies. When you look at the sustainability plans of fossil fuel industries in Europe, they’re mostly scope 1 and 2; you can’t claim to have a sustainability plan if you’re only talking about 10% of your emissions.” 

Influential ruling

The Total decision has significant implications for other ongoing lawsuits. 

The most important is that brought by a Belgian farmer who is bringing a climate damages claim against TotalEnergies. A decision on the merits was postponed until 9 September so that judges could see the outcome of the French ruling. 

A separate duty of vigilance case against TotalEnergies in relation to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline in Uganda is still ongoing at the Paris Judicial Court, after a similar earlier claim was dismissed in 2023. The $4-billion project has been controversial due to its social and environmental impacts.

This article was updated on 26 June 2026 to include TotalEnergies comment

The post French court rules Total must revise climate plan to account for all emissions appeared first on Climate Home News.

At an event at London Climate Action Week on Tuesday, Nigerian environment minister Balarabe Abbas Lawal said that whenever he goes to UN climate summits “we talk about loss and damage funds, and all these years nothing has been translated into action”.

He added that the fund currently “looks like a mirage”, and said that “a number of our governments are beginning to believe that COPs are just talk shops”.

The idea of addressing the loss and damage caused by climate change was first discussed at COP13 in 2007. A fund was agreed to at COP27 in 2022 to help vulnerable countries respond to climate emergencies, and it was officially set up the next year. Since then, the fund’s board and management have been working out the details of how it will work.

Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, a banker from Senegal, was appointed CEO in 2024. Referring to Lawal’s frustration, Diong told Climate Home News on Thursday that the fund is “moving according to plan”.

A call for funding requests, launched at COP30, closed on June 15. Projects – including those to strengthen responses to floods in Bangladesh and Lagos and improve water infrastructure in Jamaica – bid for a combined $250 million. Diong said that the fund’s board would decide which projects to fund at its next board meeting in the Philippines, starting on July 8.

“We hope that by the end of the year we can begin then to make the decision and see the funds going, so hopefully the frustration for Nigeria will be reduced”, he said, adding that “every time wasted, when it comes to loss and damage, is lives not saved”.

Funding concerns

While climate campaigners have called for tens of billion of dollars of funding a year, wealthy nations have promised the fund $822 million and delivered just $449 million – with countries like Italy, France and Luxembourg failing to pay in full.

A briefing paper prepared by the fund’s secretariat earlier this year warned that, unless fresh contributions are secured, the fund could run out of resources by the end of 2027.

Diong said that the fund intends to hold a replenishment round, where governments promise money, next year. In the meantime, as public finance “is being very difficult to mobilise”, the fund is looking at other sources of funding.

“What exactly that source of funding will be, we have to look at the potential, look at the feasibility and so on”, he said, so the fund can keep up with demand.

In an open letter in April, a group of climate campaigners called for developed countries to increase contributions to the Loss and Damage fund and introduce taxes on fossil fuel companies, financial transactions, luxury air travel and wealth to help finance it.

“Rich countries must be held strictly accountable for the devastation they have caused,” said Climate Action Network International head Tasneem Essop. “Their failure to fulfill their responsibility to the loss and damage fund is not just an oversight; it is a shameful betrayal of humanity.”

The post As Nigeria rails at loss and damage “mirage”, fund boss assures money is coming appeared first on Climate Home News.

In autumn, the European Commission is due to adopt the Circular Economy Act (CEA), aimed at supporting the EU in its stated aim to become a world leader in circularity by 2030.

There is a clear environmental imperative behind the legislation, but also a geopolitical one. Europe imports the vast majority of all its critical raw materials; for example, 100% of its heavy rare earth metals come from China and 71% of its platinum from South Africa.

The bloc is seeking to reduce its dependency on imports of key commodities, energy and materials, and as a result achieve greater self-sufficiency. Circular products are one route to achieving that.

Circular ambitions

Whether the EU’s aim is achievable, or not, brings into sharp relief the current state of the circular economy. According to the European Environment Agency, in 2024, secondary recovered materials made up 12% of total material use across Europe. This was only 1.5% higher than in 2010.

But, by some estimates, the global circular economy is already worth around $700 billion and could reach several trillion within the next decade. This rate of growth would take considerable support from national governments, starting with something akin to the CEA, which aims to double the EU’s circularity rate to 24% and create a single market for secondary raw materials. The hope is that this will stoke demand from businesses to adopt more circular practices. 

Carsten Wachholz, business-policy engagement lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, described the forthcoming act as “a critical opportunity to turn circular solutions from a niche proposition into a mainstream market choice,” adding that by harmonising rules across the single market the EU can allow the circular economy to “scale across borders”.

From there the argument runs that rules created in Europe will be copied in other markets, shaping global supply chains and standards elsewhere. “The EU can work towards shared international ambition, reducing protectionism risks, and unlocking large-scale investment globally,” he added.

Making two ends meet

Raising awareness of what is meant by circularity, and being able to identify and treat circular products correctly, is one of the challenges the sector faces.

The global economy has been built on a simple linear structure where we source a material, create something out of it, sell it on and then throw it away. This process, sometimes called ‘take, make, use, dispose’ is the opposite of the principles of circularity. 

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation defines the circular economy as a system where “materials never become waste”. In such a system, products and materials are “kept in circulation through processes like maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling and composting”.

Circularity is about the whole life cycle of a product, seeing how it can be used for longer, upgrading when possible, and then potentially using that product to create something else afterwards. The intention with circularity is to increase the use of non-virgin materials, reducing the need to extract more from the ground.

Signify: “We believe resilience is becoming more important to businesses right now”

Thomas Marinelli, head of sustainable innovation and design at Signify, a global lighting company, said: “I once explained it to a child with Lego. You put Lego blocks together and you can pull them apart again and make something new.” 

Circular practices also lead to more products – phones, washing machines, lighting – being leased instead of created from scratch. These services cut the need for large upfront investments and reduce environmental impacts.

How business is responding

The next step is to convince businesses it is the right thing to do, from a financial, environmental and product perspective.

“Using products for longer and using less material and energy is a topic of interest in our markets,” added Marinelli, while at the same time acknowledging that part of the challenge is “awareness creation”.

“We need to prove that products made from non-virgin, or bio-circular materials are at least as good. And that a business’s environmental footprint is much lower when you use non-virgin materials,” he said.

Part of the awareness-raising piece is showing that older products can be repaired, refurbished and remanufactured, depending on their condition. Signify takes lighting systems that are up to 10 years old, and makes them new again, saving on material waste and cutting emissions, often at a lower cost than buying a new product.

A growing number of companies are already sold on the benefits of going circular. A recent survey from the World Economic Forum found that out of 491 manufacturing executives, 79% said circularity is crucial to their business, and 95% said it will be important within three years.

Carrefour, the French retail giant, has adopted circular practices in some of its stores as a way of driving down energy costs and cutting carbon emissions. In one of its Belgian stores, the company installed 3D-printed light fixtures made from recycled water bottles. Lighting systems were made from recycled materials that can be fully dismantled and used to make new ones after they reach the end of their natural life.

Does the future of green manufacturing lie in 3D printing?

A separate example comes from Denmark where the area of Tuborg Havn in Copenhagen chose to upgrade its historic street lamps with efficient LEDs instead of replacing them. More than 80 light fixtures were cleaned, upgraded and reinstalled as part of the new initiative, and the new lights will be 3.5 times more efficient than the old ones. The initiative has allowed the harbour to retain its historic character while reducing energy consumption and modernising the area.

Overcoming barriers

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation recently coordinated an open letter to the European Commission – signed by 12 global brands including The LEGO Group, H&M and Philips – calling for lawmakers to support new reforms that address common barriers facing circular products. 

These include simplifying EU-wide rules, creating tax incentives and stronger financial support for the burgeoning sector. Current VAT rules, for example, can mean secondhand goods are repeatedly taxed across their lifetime, something the charity is seeking to change.

“Capital is not lacking,” said Wachholz, “but the risk profile of circular economy projects keeps too many ventures stuck at pilot scale rather than reaching industrial deployment.”

The letter calls for the creation of a secondary materials platform to improve price transparency, digital product passports to track material flows, and the creation of new industrial hubs to provide the infrastructure and technology the sector needs in order to scale up.

Is electrification a no-brainer in the race to net-zero?

Those measures, coupled with fossil energy price spikes, will help circular products compete on cost with the extractive economy, experts say. “Using recycled materials or non-virgin alternatives can become competitive in the long run,” said Marinelli, pointing to the volatility in the price of raw materials. “If you look at plastics, when oil is a problem, the price of plastics goes up. But recycled plastic stays at the same level.”

“And it’s not only about materials but production as well. When volumes of recycled materials go up, then the price remains stable or goes down,” he added.

Opportune moment

The current geopolitical environment could serve to support growth in the circular economy. Supply chain constraints caused by the war in Iran have caused commodity prices to skyrocket. This has led many companies – and countries – to seek ways to protect themselves against future shocks.

In that context, new circular policies and products could receive a favourable hearing from businesses looking to build resilience, cut costs and protect nature. A future where circularity is fully embedded across society will need time and support to grow, but may well be on its way.

Adam Wentworth is a freelance journalist based in Brighton, UK

The post Can the circular economy win over big business? appeared first on Climate Home News.

At a high-level summit in London’s Mansion House on Tuesday, energy ministers and business leaders were joined by UN secretary-general António Guterres in calling for faster action to curb demand for oil, coal and gas by powering homes, industry and transport with clean electricity.

Electrification – which spans measures such as switching from petrol cars to electric vehicles – has emerged as a key priority in climate and energy policy circles this year. 

COP31 co-hosts Türkiye and Australia have made a global target for electricity to meet 35% of final energy demand by 2035, up from around 20% today, the main plank of this year’s action agenda for the UN summit. Reaching that level is necessary to keep the 1.5C warming limit within reach, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

Turkish COP31 President-Designate Murat Kurum said earlier this month that the host nation would work to forge “a strong global coalition that is ready and determined to act” and promised to facilitate access to technical assistance.

Rallying support for electrification

Five months before countries are due to sign on to the pledge, efforts to rally support gathered momentum at London Climate Action Week, as a record-breaking heatwave baking the capital underscored the urgency of weaning the world off fossil fuels.

Guterres said the world faces an “historic opportunity” to turn the page on its dependence on fossil fuels and fully embrace clean electrification powered by renewables.

“The age of clean electrification is here,” he added. “The question is whether we can build the grids and storage, mobilize the investment, and deliver the infrastructure at the speed and scale required”.

Without investment and government policies supporting upgrades in infrastructure, ageing power grids are often unable to handle the growing influx of renewable energy, creating bottlenecks and slowing the energy transition, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Meanwhile, the high upfront costs of buying electric vehicles, heat pumps and industrial equipment remains a challenge to switch households and businesses away from using fossil fuels across the world, according IEA analysts, despite these technologies being cheaper over their whole lifecycle.

Global coordination platform

In a bid to overcome these hurdles, the European Commission and the UK government on Tuesday launched a new platform to coordinate global progress on electrification.

EU energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen said the goal was to build coalitions, draw up policy recommendations, share best practice and secure new funding to speed up the electrification of homes, industry and transport.

Brazil’s COP30 presidency, the joint Australia-Türkiye COP31 presidency, Ethiopia’s incoming COP32 presidency, Canada, the Philippines and South Korea joined the initiative at launch.

Jorgensen urged governments worldwide to “choose transformation over turbulence” and switch to clean electricity to make economies and societies more resilient and shield them from future shocks driven by volatile fossil fuels.

COP31 leaders unveil global targets, with spotlight on electrification

For many countries, especially those heavily reliant on imported fossil fuels, the oil and gas crisis triggered by the US and Israeli attacks on Iran and the ensuing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has driven home the urgency of the clean energy transition.

The UK’s energy secretary Ed Miliband said on Tuesday that, unlike previous fossil fuel shocks, clean electrification now offers the world a clear alternative.

“An alternative that cannot be disrupted by foreign wars, that isn’t subject to global shocks because it is locked in stable prices at home, and that can create good jobs and drive growth,” he added, “an alternative that can deliver national security, energy security and indeed climate security.”

At the recent conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Santa Marta, a group of 60 governments led by the Netherlands and Colombia said electrification is one of the areas where they can align work with the UN climate talks.

Financial reforms needed

Achieving the electrification target – dubbed the “35 by 35” goal – will require significant financial resources. Investments in power grids alone need to double from their current rate to around $1 trillion each year in the next decade, according to IRENA. 

But Guterres said that developing countries are still “starved from investment” in their clean energy sector. He urged deeper reforms of the global financial architecture by reducing lending risk, lowering the cost of capital and attracting more private investment. 

Surangel Whipps Jr., president of the low-lying Pacific island state of Palau, said faster progress in electrification is a “powerful weapon in our arsenal”. But he warned that the energy transition would stall without “fit for purpose investment that is fast, predictable and accessible”.

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Less than two months ago, Colombia hosted the world’s first international conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. This weekend, however, it appears that Colombia’s first ever leftist presidency has ended. Far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, who was last week strongly endorsed by Donald Trump, will not only take the reins of government but also steer the future of Colombia’s energy transition.

As the world’s sixth-largest coal exporter, and fourth largest oil exporter in Latin America, Colombia plays a critical role in the world’s energy markets. However, this role had shrunk under President Gustavo Petro’s administration, as it sought to proactively shift the country away from its fossil-fuel based economy, ahead of a potential oil and gas production shortage over the next decade. 

That could all change as De la Espriella’s takes power. Calling himself the Tiger (“El Tigre”), he has promised to focus on deregulation, exploit oil extraction “to the maximum” and leverage the energy sector as a key “engine of growth”.

Colombia’s world-leading energy transition

Over the last four years, Colombia has embarked on one of the most rapid and holistic energy transitions anywhere in the world. Shortly after coming to power in 2022, the government of Gustavo Petro halted new oil and gas exploration contracts, suspended all hydraulic fracking pilots, and pledged to end the development of new unabated coal power plants. 

While many of these moves faced domestic and legislative challenges, they were widely praised in climate circles around the world.

Colombia soon became a pivotal member of the Powering Past Coal Alliance, the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance and the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Alliance. It then went on to host the biodiversity COP in 2024, launch a $40-billion climate transition investment portfolio, and famously, host the Santa Marta conference earlier this year.

While fossil fuels still comprise around 7% of Colombia’s GDP and 56% of its total exports, there were already signs that the transition policies had begun to have an effect.

Coal production last year fell to its lowest level in the last 22 years. According to the Colombian national association of coal producers, coal export volumes declined by 23% in 2025. While the oil sector has not seen an equivalent precipitous drop, production levels have remained historically low since COVID. 

What about its domestic electricity sector?

Since the 1970s Colombia’s electricity sector has been dominated by large hydro-electric dams, endowing it with some of the lowest carbon electrons anywhere in the world. Today, close to 70% of its electricity supply comes from these large dams.

However, electricity demand rose by close to 10% under the Petro government. To meet this demand, total installed electricity capacity has expanded by a similar figure, and solar power has made up over 70% of new electricity capacity since.

As a result, by the end of 2025, gas power generation in the electricity sector had hit its lowest point since 2018. Wind power had doubled, and solar power generation had risen by over 630%. Colombia’s renewable energy association predicts that, by the end of 2026, the country may be home to more than 4.2 GW of installed variable renewable energy capacity.

Far-right jumps on energy challenges

Despite the progress, the last three years have been an incredibly challenging period for Colombia’s energy sector. 

During Petro’s first two years in office, inflation remained above 10%, and interest rates stayed above 13% for most of 2023. This put a pause on new energy investments, as foreign direct investment fell by a third since 2022. 

On top of this, Colombia suffered through an El Niño-fuelled drought in 2023-24, crippling its hydro-electric power supply. This forced the country to turn to expensive gas and coal power, just as both sectors had effectively begun to pull back. This sent electricity prices through the roof, increasing nearly 40% in a single year, and led the Petro government to intervene with price controls, aiming to protect everyday Colombians.

Unsurprisingly, this made energy investors even more cautious. By the end of 2023, GDP growth had plummeted and renewable energy investments fell by 70%. Since then, all the major credit agencies have downgraded the country’s credit rating, making it even shakier to invest.

As a result, even with the new solar coming online, and 1.2 GW of additional hydro-power from the Ituango dam expected by 2028, the country could still face a major energy deficit by 2027, with permitting delays halting project developments, and 5.1 GW of approved projects unable to reach financial close.

Challenging domestic debate

This has led to a challenging domestic debate on energy policy. While 96% of Colombians want to see solar expand further, they have been understandably frustrated by high electricity bills and limited economic growth.

As a result, De la Espriella’s campaign, which has largely focused on taking a hardline stance to combat growing concerns around security and crime, was relatively open to solar power, but sought to blame Colombia’s current energy crisis on the speed of its current energy transition.

Branding himself as neither a climate denialist nor “dogmatic environmentalist” the incoming president who will take office in August, will likely seek to revoke the ban on new hydrocarbon exploration contracts, legalise fracking and restructure the national oil company, Ecopetrol.

While he is unlikely to cancel market-driven projects and may reduce regulatory hold-ups, it is also likely that he will shift away from the government’s recent overwhelming support for long-renewable energy and battery storage projects, which have driven much of the recent uptake in solar power. 

Future of energy transition in doubt

In a country of close to 54 million people, the final election count was only decided by about 250,000 votes. However, this weekend’s margin belies the magnitude of the shift that will likely now take place.

With the country facing a potential domestic energy shortage 2027, President-elect De la Espriella has promised to revitalise the hydrocarbon economy, shifting Colombia’s recent energy transition on an entirely new course.

While this may unlock some regulatory challenges hindering renewables roll-out, broader support mechanisms for solar projects will likely be dismantled, and the broader economic transition abandoned, along with its recent flurry of international climate alliances.

He will also take his place among a wave of right-leaning Presidents that have swept to power across the continent in the last 18 months. This has seen right-wing electoral victories across Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Argentina and now Colombia, with Peru’s Keiko Fujimori potentially joining the club soon – pending a final vote count.

With the Brazilian elections scheduled for October, and run-off scenarios between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro still far too close to call, 2026 will undoubtedly be a pivotal year for Latin America’s energy future.

The post Did Colombia’s energy transition just come to a halt? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Join us for an afternoon of high-level discussions at London Climate Action Week on what resource-rich developing countries need to make new critical mineral partnerships genuinely beneficial.

We are bringing together high-level speakers from mineral producing countries, the finance sector, the UN and civil society to reflect on the latest developments in resource diplomacy and ask what’s next for mineral governance.

Agenda

02:00 PM
Welcome
MC, Gabriela Flores, NRGI

02:00 PM – 02:30 PM
In conversation: Minerals governance – what’s next?
Celine Kauffman, IDDRI, Patrick Schröder, Chatham House, Sascha Raabe, UNIDO (online), Moderated by Chloé Farand, Climate Home News

We will explore G7 outcomes and the practical steps the G7 and G20 can take to advance mineral governance and responsible mining, with a spotlight on how the UK can seize its 2027 G20 presidency to drive this critical agenda forward.

02:30 PM – 03:00 PM
Tracking allegations of abuse in mining for transition minerals
Phil Bloomer, BHRC, Ketakandriana Rafitoson, Resource Justice Network

The Business and Human Rights Centre presents its 2026 Transition Minerals Tracker update and unveils new data on allegations of human rights abuse linked to the extraction of bauxite, cobalt, copper, iron ore, lithium, manganese, nickel, rare earth elements and zinc – and the companies behind them.

03:00 PM – 03:30 PM
Break

03:30 PM – 04:30 PM
Can finance clean up mining? The role of investors and lenders
Stephen Barrie, Church of England Pensions Board/ Global, Pavel Laberko, Emerging Markets Investors Alliance, Margaux Day, Accountability Counsel

Finance can be a powerful force for raising environmental and social standards in mining — but only if financial actors remain in the sector rather than walking away. This session examines how investors and lenders can drive accountability and responsible practices in transition minerals, and whether the answer lies in divestment, engagement, or stronger oversight from civil society. Moderated by Caroline Avan, BHRC.

04:30 PM – 05:50 PM
What should equitable mineral partnerships look like?
Eric Ngang, African Resources Watch (Afrewatch), Thomas Scurfield, NRGI , Tobias Musonda, Director of Policy and Planning, Zambia , Wen-Yu Weng, Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

As demand for critical minerals surges, the race to secure supply chains risks repeating the extractive models of the past. This session cuts to the heart of what truly equitable mineral partnerships look like — and what it will take to to move from principle to practice. Moderated by Chloé Farand, Climate Home News

06:00 PM
Closing
Amir Shafaie, NRGI

The post Live from LCAW – Raw diplomacy: Can new mineral alliances deliver a just energy transition? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Speaking on the sidelines of London Climate Action Week, the outgoing Colombian environment minister and Dutch climate policy minister, said COP31 presidencies Australia and Türkiye were “open” to suggestions on how to reflect the discussions in Santa Marta on transitioning away from coal, oil and gas at the end-of-year summit.

What format this might take, “we don’t know yet,” said Colombian minister Irene Vélez Torres.

“We had this very interesting conversation with COP31 and they were clearly open for suggestions about what is needed in the discussion in Türkiye, and we were explicit about the need to engage with the phasing out of fossil fuels,” she said.

Australia and Türkiye will jointly preside over the COP31 climate conference, which is taking place in the Turkish resort city of Antalya in November. Türkiye will lead on the action agenda, referring to initiatives that lie outside of the formal negotiations, while Australia will chair the negotiations.

Dutch minister Stientje van Veldhoven said the outcomes of the Santa Marta conference could be part of COP31’s action agenda,

“We are here to facilitate action on one particular part of what COP has agreed to do, namely transitioning away fossil fuels so there is a very logical connection to the COP process, and we will make sure that we continue to bring this coalition of the willing, this coalition of the doers back into the COP process,” she said.

At the event in London, UN secretary-general António Guterres urged countries to reduce their fossil fuel dependencies, arguing that “economies based on renewables are much more secure than economies based on the imports of fossil fuels”. He added that the transition to renewables is “unstoppable”.

European, island states seek clear future for global roadmap to cut fossil fuels

Including the fossil fuel transition in UN climate negotiations, rather than the action agenda, is likely to be controversial among governments. While nations agreed to transition away from fossil fuels at COP28, at COP30 last year Saudi Arabia, Russia and others successfully opposed a push to agree for a roadmap to be drawn up on how to meet this goal.

Despite the lack of agreement, the Brazilian government which presided over COP30, is drawing up a global roadmap. But the Russian government has said it opposes this roadmap being referenced in UN climate talks.

Finding agreement on referencing the Santa Marta process in UN climate talks is also likely to be difficult. Last week in Bonn, the chair of the African Group of Negotiators, Antwi-Boasiako Amoah from Ghana, criticised “minilateral initiatives and coalitions of the willing” as distracting political attention and lacking the legitimacy that comes from multilateral climate negotiations, where any country can veto anything.

Strengthening the COP process

The Santa Marta conference kick-started a diplomatic process outside of the formal UN climate negotiations to offer a space for governments to make progress and find solutions to wean their economies away from fossil fuels.

Around 60 countries, including many large fossil-fuel producers attended the meeting after being frustrated by failed attempts to get UN climate talks to sign off on the global roadmap away from fossil fuels. They agreed to work towards voluntary national roadmaps away from fossil fuels.

A 170-page report summarising the outcome of the conference published on Tuesday says that the Santa Marta coalition of countries will seek to influence the formal UN negotiations.

The report says Colombia proposed to build “a strong coalition to bring these discussions to the second Global Stocktake”, a process in which countries will review climate progress and agree on measures forward at COP33 in 2028.

Colombia also suggested organizing “a high-level event during the next COP presidency” to discuss Santa Marta outcomes, while Italy proposed an event during the UN General Assembly.

“We will make sure that Santa Marta conference is not a separate, parallel process to the COP” but “strengthens” the negotiations without becoming a formal part of them, said van Veldhoven, adding that the process will remain “a conversation” to demonstrate that transforming economies away from fossil fuels is possible.

COP30 CEO Ana Toni from Brazil told a separate event in London that the response to the second Global Stocktake “will probably need several pages” to deliver an agreed commitment to transition away from fossil fuels. The Santa Marta report says that Brazil’s global roadmap should also be included in the response.

Colombian election signals u-turn

Colombia, which has been one of the most proactive countries promoting a global transition away from fossil fuels, is likely to reverse course after the election of right-wing candidate Abelardo de la Espriella as the country’s new president at a general election on Sunday.

The newly elected president has branded himself as an ally of US president Donald Trump, and has promised to reverse a current halt on new coal, oil and gas licenses, as well as venture into “responsible fracking” without overlapping with protected areas or high-mountain páramo ecosystems.

Vélez Torres said the current Colombian government has already “delivered to the international community and to our sub-national forces, social forces, movements, academia” a process to keep the energy transition moving forward.

She told Climate Home News she hoped the work the government had done could be picked up by social movements in Colombia to demand change from the incoming government. “What we did cannot be erased, and we have had our voices heard, and we have been as radical as any other government could have been.”

The minister said the elections have left the country facing a “dark night” that “can really shift the politics in terms of energy transition and environmental protection”, but said she is certain that their “legacy will continue being there”.

The post COP31 presidency ‘open’ to reflecting Santa Marta in UN climate process, ministers say appeared first on Climate Home News.

During a speech at London Climate Action Week on Tuesday, António Guterres noted that AI can accelerate climate solutions, among other key challenges, and said its potential must be harnessed.

“But AI is also hungry for land, water and power,” he emphasised, adding that the data centres needed to run AI models already consume more electricity than most countries. 

The UN Secretary-General repeated a call he first made in July 2025 for all big AI companies to commit to power every data centre with renewable energy by 2030. 

Some tech firms have announced they are sourcing or building out clean energy to run their hubs, but growing power demand is also contributing to gas-fired generation in the US, according to data from Global Energy Monitor.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that data centres are set to more than double the emissions from the electricity they use between 2024 and 2030 in a high-growth scenario. But AI’s use could lead to far larger reductions in the energy sector through efficiency gains if adopted widely.

‘No more hidden costs’

Proposing the new “AI Environmental Transparency Initiative” on Tuesday, Guterres also urged big AI firms companies to measure and publicly disclose the full environmental impact of their systems, including their carbon, water, and land footprints.

“No more hidden costs. No more shifting the burden onto those least able to bear it. It is time to come clean,” he said in a major speech on responding to the world’s twin climate and energy crises. “If AI is to help build a better future, it must be honest about what it costs us now.”

A report issued earlier this month by the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health noted that most current assessments of AI’s environmental cost focus on carbon emissions from training models. But, it added, this misses a substantial part of the picture. 

Every kilowatt-hour of electricity for AI also carries a water footprint, from cooling and generation, and a land footprint, from infrastructure and supply chains, it said. 

Explainer: Will AI data centres make or break the energy transition?

The report estimated that AI data centres globally could consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 –  more power than all but five countries and roughly twice France’s 2025 consumption.

Offsetting this carbon footprint by 2030 would require growing some 6.7 billion trees over 10 years, it calculated. Producing power for the data centres would consume water equal to the basic needs of 1.3 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa for a year and take up land of more than 14,500 square kilometers, roughly twice the Jakarta metropolitan area.

The European Union said earlier this month it will develop minimum energy-efficiency standards for both new and existing data centres, with a “needs assessment” ​due by 2027, Reuters reported. It’s also planning ⁠a sustainability label for data centres, covering criteria including water use and clean energy supply – but that has been delayed.    

US community push-back 

Asked after his speech what the response had been, the UN chief said “we’ll see”, without giving more details.

But, he argued that, in his view, the push for transparency “is perfectly reasonable and even positive for the AI industry, because eventually some people will say that they consume much more than they really do”. “I think the truth is essential,” he added. 

Concerns about the environmental impacts of AI and the infrastructure needed to run the technology have led to growing opposition in some communities, especially in the US.

This month, Monterey Park in Los Angeles County was the first city in the United States to enact a citywide prohibition on data centres through a voter-approved ballot measure. The developers behind a proposed centre in the area had already pulled the project in April amid an increasingly hostile local environment and regulatory uncertainty.

The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI

According to nonprofit Data Center Watch, around $64 billion-worth of data centre projects nationwide were delayed or blocked between May 2024 and March 2025 as communities pushed back against them. 

Industry lobby groups argue that data centres can provide economic benefits in their host communities. According to the US-based Data Center Coalition, which represents big operators and developers, data centres generate tax revenue, support construction and technical jobs, and provide infrastructure needed for cloud computing, scientific research and AI development.

The industry has also challenged claims that data centers necessarily raise electricity costs for households.

Force for good?

The UN chief said benefits can be few in the places that are home to the data centre, while “communities are often left in the dark about the environmental impact of the infrastructure rising around them”.

Guterres said companies have an “obligation” to be clear and open about the services they are offering but also the level of resources they require. 

“Transparency is essential for the decisions that communities must make – and transparency is essential even for the future of artificial intelligence, and to make sure that artificial intelligence is essentially a force for good,” he told an audience of climate professionals in London

A senior UN official told journalists ahead of Tuesday’s announcement that the AI industry has started to talk about and disclose some of their impacts, but those efforts are not yet comprehensive enough. 

The hope is that the new initiative will “encourage the industry to come together and take further action on it”, the official said.

The post UN asks AI companies to reveal full environmental impacts appeared first on Climate Home News.

In an image, his left hand is shown draped over a block of wood, reflecting years of hard work and determination as he pushes a cart filled with pails of water through the streets.

The picture was taken by Danelle Fraser, a woman in her thirties who lives in Rose Town, Jamaica. She puts herself, and her family, into the photo essay, revealing how they must wake up early every day and travel to neighbouring communities to fetch water.

The residents of Rose Town, in West Kingston, have been forced to do this for decades after their own water pipes stopped working.

The photos are personal history, depicting the efforts of local people making do without access to a reliable water supply, leaving their community less resilient and more exposed to climate-related shocks.

“It has been over 23 years now since I saw water running through the pipes of my house in Gordon Lane,” writes Danelle in the essay.

Women’s lived experience

She is one of six women in Jamaica chosen to take part in the first phase of the Envisioning Resilience initiative in 2023. Led by the NAP Global Network and Lensational, a non-profit social enterprise, the project is designed to enable women to tell their own climate stories through photography. 

So far, these stories have ranged from how street vendors are surviving extreme heat to the Rastafari community’s attempts to adapt to drought.

The project, extended to another seven women in 2025, was born out of an understanding that women and girls are more severely impacted by climate change. The UN estimates the crisis is pushing tens of millions more women than men into poverty and food insecurity around the world. Global warming is worsening gender inequalities and making it harder for women to survive and become more resilient to extreme weather events.

“Women are one of many vulnerable groups and one that often lacks agency when it comes to decisions of critical importance such as climate change,” explained Orville Grey, head of secretariat for the NAP Global Network.

“Empowering women to speak to their lived experience [and] capture that through creative communication tools such as photography is a unique way to get them involved in the process of developing adaptation plans that are fit for purpose and inclusive,” he added.

The power of individual action

Starting in 2021, Envisioning Resilience initially ran pilots in Ghana and Kenya before expanding to Jamaica in 2023. The initiative formed a new partnership with GirlsCARE, a feminist climate justice organisation, based in the Caribbean country. Ayesha Constable, founder of GirlsCARE, told Climate Home News that participants on the programme are selected through a targeted call shared across their national network.

“We intentionally focus on reaching young women and girls from vulnerable communities, including rural and inner city areas,” she said. “The selection process… ensures a cohort that is both engaged and reflective of the communities most impacted by climate change,” she added.

The group goes through a training programme of between four to six months, learning professional photography skills through workshops and individual assignments. Participants are also provided with policy training and a grounding in how their stories are connected to wider climate concerns.

Jamaica set for post-Melissa payout but experts warn of limits to hurricane insurance

“We sometimes say if you only had one day to tell this story, what words would you use, what actions would you take to do so?” explained Lydia Wanjiku, CEO of Lensational.

Envisioning Resilience offers a rare opportunity for women from different backgrounds to tell these stories, reach a wider audience, and gain valuable skills along the way. The photo essays are collected online and the stories have received widespread media attention.

“Ultimately, we want participants to embrace their own agency, and recognise the power of individual and collective action in driving change, and to carry forward the principles of justice, care and equity in whatever paths they choose,” added Constable of GirlsCARE.

From pilots to policy

The wider intention in Jamaica is that the photo essays influence the development and implementation of new climate policies. When the stories are complete, they are shared in a dialogue that brings the newly trained photographers together with adaptation policymakers. 

According to Angie Dazé, director of gender equality and social inclusion at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the policy dialogues “flip the script, allowing the conversation to be led by the women and their stories, placing the government representatives in listening mode”.

Lensational is seeing interest from some countries in using the programme as a core part of national policy processes. The essays have validated some issues that government departments have known about, while others have shone a light on new areas of concern.

Women must be a starting point, not an afterthought, for adaptation

“We have really tried to embed policy and storytelling elements into the training, ensuring the projects are more targeted and aligned with what policymakers are working on,” added Wanjiku. The intention is to support women to articulate their stories with policy concepts in mind, broadening their reach and impact.

The approach seems to be paying off in Jamaica. Wayne Robertson, permanent secretary at Jamaica’s Ministry of Water, Environment and Climate Change, said the initiative had “meaningfully supported the Jamaican government in strengthening climate adaptation policy development by bridging the gap between technical planning and lived community experience”.

He added that the photo essays are supporting Jamaica’s National Adaptation Plan process and contributing to existing efforts by reinforcing the need for “inclusive, locally informed and participatory adaptation planning” and allowing for “a more people-centred understanding of climate risk.”

Jamaica’s growing climate impacts

Jamaica is a natural choice to run an initiative of this kind. As a small island developing state in the Caribbean, it is vulnerable to rising sea levels, coastal erosion and intense cyclones and hurricanes. A 2024 USAID assessment found that these stressors are likely to increase due to climate change.

Grey, of the NAP Global Network, commented that Jamaica is “dealing with rising temperatures impacting ambient heat both in day and night-time, increased severity of hurricanes, longer duration droughts, increased variability in rainfall, increased impacts of coastal erosion due to storms… and warmer oceans”. These climate stresses all have economic impacts on agriculture, tourism, fisheries and productivity.

A tale of two women: What climate vulnerability actually looks like

Many Jamaicans now have direct experience of what it means to live in a hotter world. In October 2025, Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm, battered the island, causing multiple fatalities and almost $9 billion in economic damages. Researchers rank Melissa as one of the strongest storms ever recorded – with winds of up to 185mph (295km/h) – and the costliest hurricane in Jamaica’s history.

Climate change played a direct role in making the storm worse, according to a study from Imperial College London. Its storm model, called IRIS, found that climate change increased Melissa’s extreme rainfall by 16%, with a hurricane of its kind made four times more likely due to rising temperatures.

Collective action for resilience

Surrounded by the devastation of Hurricane Melissa, the new recruits to the Envisioning Resilience initiative picked up their cameras to record the event. 

Ashlee Gooden travelled to Treasure Beach on Jamaica’s south coast a few days after the hurricane made landfall. She spent time documenting how one family, the Ritchies, had prepared for what was to come. Fishermen tied down the zinc roof, with sandbags placed on top for extra support. Plywood was nailed to windows, and essential food items stockpiled in the days leading up to the storm.

Gooden’s essay demonstrates not only the physical impacts of Hurricane Melissa – destroyed businesses and beach debris – but how the close community has bounced back,  although a full recovery could take years. “One member of the community even opened their backyard to be used as a makeshift trail, allowing residents to bypass the blocked main road,” she writes.

No one left behind

The UN reports that in recent years the development of National Adaptation Plans under the UN climate process has moved from formulation to “implementation readiness”.

As adaptation policy matures, the photo essays produced by women on the Envisioning Resilience initiative are supporting governments to create plans that are more sensitive to the climate-related issues communities are now facing. 

Jamaican official Robertson said the initiative “strengthens gender-responsive adaptation by creating space for women, youth, and community members to share their experiences and priorities”.

While much work has been done to centre women’s issues and decision-making within the climate debate, researchers acknowledge it is still not a high priority for some countries. The photo essays can help change that, by providing an insight into stories that “don’t typically get heard in adaptation policy conversations”, according to IISD’s Dazé.

“The project is about a shift in mindset on the role that women are playing and their adaptive capacity. Women are resilient in their own right,” she added. “Women are already adapting to climate change, and policymakers are getting to see them as agents of change.”

Adam Wentworth is a freelance journalist based in Brighton, UK

The post Women in Jamaica are opening eyes with climate photography appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a major speech at London Climate Action Week, with the British capital under a heatwave warning, the UN Secretary-General said countries had not done enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with what is needed to keep warming below the globally agreed goal of 1.5C. 

“The task before us is to strictly limit the overshoot, shorten its duration, and bring temperatures down below 1.5 degrees Celsius as fast as possible,” Guterres said. One way of doing that, he added, is by cutting methane emissions first.

He noted that methane – a potent greenhouse gas that traps around 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide – is responsible for around one-third of global warming but breaks down in the atmosphere within a decade or two.

“That means that aggressive cuts could produce visible temperature relief within a generation,” the UN chief emphasised, launching a global call to action on methane covering fossil fuel production, agriculture and organic waste disposal.

Of the three main sources of methane, he singled out the fossil fuel industry, where he said “the most immediate gains can be made”.

He cited the International Energy Agency (IEA) finding that around 70% of oil and gas methane emissions can be eliminated using existing technology, mostly at low or no net cost. This is because the gas leaking from coal mines and oil and gas production facilities can be captured and then used or sold.

Despite this, in 2025 alone, Guterres said some 167 billion cubic metres of gas were flared – as much as Africa consumes in a year.

“I am urging the fossil fuel industry to step up and do what is long overdue,” added the UN chief, whose term ends this year.

Guterres said voluntary action “is no longer enough” and there were similar global precedents for getting rid of harmful substances, including leaded petrol and ozone-depleting chemicals. “Methane pollution must be next,” he emphasised.

Methane emissions stuck at highs

The latest Global Methane Tracker report from the IEA shows that methane emissions from fossil fuels remained at very high levels in 2025, with no sign of a decline globally despite progress in some countries. In 2025, energy generated 41% of global methane emissions, followed by agriculture (40%) and waste (17%).

On Tuesday, a World Bank tracker showed that global gas flaring rose for the third year in a row in 2025, wasting an estimated $54 billion worth of gas by burning it off.

Demetrios Papathanasiou, the World Bank Group’s global director for energy, said that at a time when many countries are struggling to expand their access to affordable and reliable energy, “the economic development costs of continued flaring are simply too high”. “The gas currently flared could be captured to power industries and businesses, create jobs and strengthen energy security,” he said in a statement.

As well as easing climate change, the IEA says capturing waste methane could help improve gas market security after Iran’s near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz removed close to 20% of global liquefied natural gas supply from the market. 

The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, last year called on leaders at the UN General Assembly to draw up a “legally binding global agreement” to reduce methane emissions, an idea that is also supported by France. 

Mottley’s “legally binding” methane pact faces barriers, but smaller steps possible

However, Guterres stopped short of supporting such a solution on Tuesday, throwing his weight instead behind a proposal for governments to set a new global standard for net near-zero methane emissions across the value chain in the oil and gas sector.

This initiative, outlined in a report on the new call to action, would establish a common, internationally recognised methane intensity benchmark, for use by both producers and consumers. Compliance with the standard would then become a condition for financing, procurement and long‑term market access.

Voluntary action ‘not enough’

In recent years, countries and companies willing to act on the methane problem have teamed up on the Global Methane Pledge, which aims to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels, and the UAE-led Oil and Gas Decarbonisation Charter, signed by over 50 oil and gas companies. But their success has been limited in real terms.  

Speaking at a separate event on Monday, Jonathan Banks, vice president of methane pollution prevention at the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), said the global pledge had been successful in creating “high-level political buy-in”, raising more money to detect methane emissions and helping countries plug their sources.

But it “is not there to be this all-encompassing binding treaty that drives emissions down”, he added.

At last year’s COP30, 11 countries representing around 10% of global oil production and 18% of gas exports signed a pledge to “drastically reduce” methane emissions in the fossil fuel sector, including by eliminating routine gas flaring and venting.

Comment: Curbing methane is the fastest way to slow warming – but we’re off the pace

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) also runs a system that detects methane leaks around the world. It has issued more than 5,000 alerts across 33 countries, but received responses in only 12% of cases.

Meghan Demeter, a programme manager at the UNEP service, said on Monday that countries face several barriers to responding to the alerts, including limited capacity to interpret the data and act on it, as well as funding shortages, particularly among national oil companies.

A senior UN official told journalists that existing initiatives on methane had raised awareness of the issue but had failed to deliver the emissions cuts needed. “’It’s absolutely critical that governments step in and strongly regulate the oil and gas sector,” he added.

Norway leads the way

As an example of how this could work, the call to action report singled out Norway, which banned routine flaring in 1971, imposed a tax on emissions from petroleum production and transport in 1991, and increased its tax on flaring and methane emissions in 2017. It now has one of the lowest methane emissions intensities of upstream oil and gas production in the world. 

The report said that if all countries matched Norway’s standards, global methane emissions from oil and gas operations could fall by roughly 90%.

Recent COP hosts Brazil and Azerbaijan linked to “super-emitting” methane plumes

It added that China, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar reduced or maintained their methane emissions from oil and gas production between 2023 and 2024, even as output increased, indicating a decline in the emissions intensity of their operations.

On Monday, the Fossil Fuel Regulatory Programme (FFRP), a UNEP-backed initiative that works with governments to strengthen regulatory frameworks for cutting methane emissions from their energy sectors, added Egypt, Brazil, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to its existing partners, Ghana, Kazakhstan and Iraq.

Windfall tax on fossil fuel profits

Guterres also made a strong push for states to hit the very deep pockets of fossil fuel companies with windfall taxes, as countries like the UK, Italy or Spain have done in recent years.

He said fossil energy giants had reaped ”extraordinary profits”, with the eight biggest making an extra $6.5 billion in the first quarter of this year alone, which included only one month of the Middle East crisis which has pushed up oil prices.

“These are windfall gains born of pain – of instability, hardship and dependence. I urge governments to tax them,” said the UN chief. 

He added that the proceeds should be used “where they belong: helping vulnerable families and communities, and accelerating the shift to clean, affordable energy”.

The post UN chief says fossil fuel industry must cut methane for warming “relief” appeared first on Climate Home News.

With global oil and gas prices soaring at the start of the Iran war, China quietly broke ground on three major coal-to-gas and coal-to-chemical projects worth roughly $10 billion in two regions with abundant coal resources.

But as a Chinese saying goes, “three feet of ice does not form in a single day”. China’s push to use coal as a substitute for imported oil and gas has been gathering momentum since the Russia-Ukraine war began in 2022, prompting a recalibration of energy security priorities in Beijing and beyond.

The policy raises new concerns, threatening China’s climate goals and growing reputation as a global clean energy leader by creating renewed demand for coal.

A new expansion wave

Over the past three years, China has entered a new cycle of investment in so-called “modern coal chemicals”, differentiated from conventional coal chemicals. Four pathways – coal-to-gas, coal-to-liquids, coal-to-olefins, and coal-to-ethylene glycol – account for the bulk of new modern coal-chemical capacity under development.

According to Global Energy Monitor data, proposed and under-construction coal-to-gas capacity is approaching three times current operating capacity. Together, 34 projects under active consideration represent more than 1 trillion yuan ($150 billion) in planned investment and could add roughly 300 million tonnes of annual coal demand if completed, equivalent to South Africa’s entire coal mining capacity.

Most projects are in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Ningxia, regions with plentiful coal resources and relatively low mining costs. Xinjiang has emerged as the epicentre of the new boom, accounting for more than half of all proposed modern coal chemical projects.

Why the world abandoned coal chemicals

Coal chemicals are often presented as an emerging industry, but the technologies themselves are more than a century old.

Earlier “conventional” coal chemistry was a byproduct of coking, a process run primarily for iron and steel making. “Modern” coal chemistry instead uses gasification to convert coal into synthesis gas, a versatile building block for fuels, plastics, fertilisers and other chemicals that would traditionally be made from oil or gas.

These modern processes were developed in the early 20^th century and expanded during periods of wartime fuel shortages. For example, Germany relied heavily on synthetic fuels during the Second World War while South Africa developed similar technologies in the apartheid era to reduce vulnerability to international sanctions.

Once cheap oil and gas became widely available, however, most countries moved away from coal chemicals, which required large amounts of energy, water and capital investment, and generally produced more pollution and carbon emissions than the conventional alternatives.

Today, only a handful of commercial coal gasification facilities operate outside China.

China has already tested this theory once

The current expansion is not China’s first attempt to build a major coal chemical industry.

A previous boom emerged during the 2010s, driven by many of the same arguments: high oil prices, concerns over energy security and expectations that technological improvements would unlock a new era of coal-based industrial growth.

Brazil jostles for rare earths share as US-China rivalry heats up

The outcome was far from successful. Dozens of projects were proposed, but many were delayed, suspended or scrapped before completion, and there were difficulties among those that did get off the ground.

Three of China’s four operating coal-to-gas projects reportedly spent much of the past decade operating at a loss, and several large coal chemical facilities generated only marginal returns despite government support.

Policy support is driving the revival

Backers say technological improvements have made the industry more competitive than it was a decade ago.

Yet coal chemical projects remain highly dependent on oil and gas prices. When international prices rise, coal-derived products can appear competitive. When prices fall, the economics often deteriorate rapidly.

More than changes in technology, government policy has played a pivotal role in the sector’s revival.

Following power shortages in 2021 and the energy market disruptions that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy security became a national priority. Coal production expanded, particularly in western China, boosted by government support.

China’s solar exports reach “gigantic” record in March as energy crisis bites

A key policy change in 2022 exempted coal used as industrial feedstock from certain energy consumption controls, easing regulatory pressure on coal chemical projects.

The impact of such measures highlights the degree to which coal chemicals depend on expansive and favourable policy treatment to remain viable.

At the same time, the current expansion is creating new demand for an industry confronting structural decline as China races to renewables in electricity generation.

The cost to China’s climate leadership

Converting coal into fuels and petrochemical products also releases substantially more carbon dioxide than conventional oil- and gas-based alternatives, which themselves are a major source of emissions. 

Proponents argue that coupling production with green hydrogen and carbon capture could resolve the emissions problem, but the arithmetic doesn’t support this. 

Sinopec’s flagship Dalu coal-to-olefins plant, paired with a 10,000 tonne-per-year green hydrogen demonstration, displaces less than 2% of the plant’s annual coal use. Replicating this across the proposed buildout would consume enormous quantities of clean energy just to partially decarbonise an inherently dirty process.

China could instead leverage that same industrial capacity and policy support to lead the development of cleaner chemical pathways, such as green ammonia for fertiliser, bio-based and CO2-derived feedstocks for plastics, and e-fuels or biofuels where liquid fuels are still needed. 

Rather than locking in another generation of coal-dependent infrastructure, China should learn from the lessons of the past and seek a cleaner and more viable industrial future.

The post China’s coal-chemicals boom risks repeating the mistakes of the past appeared first on Climate Home News.

With governments facing fiscal and political pressures, attracting private capital will be crucial for accelerating climate action in the coming years.

Yet many Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) still do not have the sector-specific plans, economic incentives, policy certainty, infrastructure investment and ongoing dialogue needed to break silos between the public and private sectors and bring more businesses on board.

“If you just have the high-level (NDC) target from the government in a vacuum, it’s not going to spur much business action,” said Greg Briner, senior manager for policy at the We Mean Business Coalition, which works with companies pushing for stronger climate action.

“But that target combined with … more specific policies and measures that get put in place as a result of that target-implementing process, or as a result of the NDCs, is where the magic starts happening,” he explained.

NDCs: late and inadequate

NDCs are voluntary climate action plans created by countries under the Paris Agreement. They include commitments such as expanding renewable energy, reducing fossil fuels, halting deforestation and other measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming.

First submitted in 2015 for the Paris Agreement, NDCs should be updated with more ambitious targets every five years, although some governments have not stuck to this timetable.  

Last year, most countries missed an initial February deadline to finalise the latest round of plans, known as “NDCs 3.0” – and at least 50 countries, mainly developing nations, have still not done so.

Paris Agreement committee snubbed over missing NDC climate plans

Although these national plans have helped drive emissions reductions in some sectors – including falling deforestation rates and greater investments in renewables – climate experts say progress remains far too slow to meet the Paris goals and urgent action is now needed.

Last November, the UN climate body projected that global emissions would fall by around 12% from 2019 levels by 2035, based on a preliminary assessment of new NDCs announced by countries that produce nearly 70% of the world’s greenhouse gases.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said countries should cut emissions far more rapidly, with a 60% drop by 2035 needed to limit global warming to 1.5C.

But for developing economies especially, the multi-billion-dollar costs associated with transitioning to greener energy systems and curbing their emissions are still a major barrier. Climate experts say governments and businesses need to move in step if NDC targets are to be achieved.

“There are positive actions going on but we need a significant ramping up. It’s not happening quickly enough,” said Briner. “It’s (about) building on these foundations that are being put in place.”

Nurturing the conditions for private investment

Last September, consumer goods giant Unilever published a report, entitled Bold Plans, Real Impact, examining how corporate climate transition plans and NDCs can support each other.

Among its recommendations, the report called for governments to provide clearer roadmaps for private-sector engagement. It also highlighted the need for stronger regulatory frameworks, market incentives, sector-specific transition pathways and integrated, economy-wide planning.

For businesses, the report recommended aligning their transition plans with national climate priorities, collaborating more closely with industry peers, strengthening monitoring and verification systems, and unlocking finance through public-private partnerships.

Comment: The missing piece in COP climate talks – market signals for adaptation 

A year earlier, the We Mean Business Coalition published a similar report, Time to Deliver: Business Call to Action for Ambitious and Investible NDCs.

This report urged governments – particularly in the G20 economies – to unlock private investment through sectoral targets, clean energy expansion, energy efficiency measures, fossil fuel phase-outs and commitments to halt deforestation.

It also stressed the importance of translating climate targets into concrete policies, backed by national implementation strategies and coordination across ministries.

Another key recommendation was the need for more transparent and inclusive dialogue with businesses throughout the NDC process. Early consultation with companies, the report said, should be embedded into the development and implementation of NDCs to ensure that climate plans reflect commercial realities.

Briner of We Mean Business said the economics of decarbonisation have changed dramatically over the past two decades.

“Ten to 20 years ago, decarbonising and investing in clean energy and electrification was seen as nice-to-have and a more expensive option, but these days, it simply makes business sense,” he said, referring to recent geopolitical events in the Middle East that have roiled oil and gas markets, pushing up fossil fuel prices.

However, upfront costs for clean energy infrastructure remain a major hurdle. Governments therefore need to complement climate policies with investments, concessional loans, grants, subsidies and tax incentives to help reduce risks, Briner added.

“Globally, there are still significant subsidies going to fossil fuels in different forms,” he said. “If we could redirect some of those current incentives away from fossil fuels and into clean electrification and clean energy, then that would certainly help.”

Brazil’s sector-specific climate planning

Brazil’s NDC targets include expanding renewable energy – which already accounts for nearly 45% of its energy mix – ending illegal deforestation and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

According to Briner, Brazil’s climate strategy – known as Plano Clima – offers an example of how governments can provide businesses with clearer implementation guidance.

Years in development, the initiative sets out how Brazil intends to meet its climate goals through a series of sectoral plans covering areas such as energy, transport and land use.

“They’ve put together some pretty detailed, impressive plans,” Briner said. “Those are the types of things that will influence business models and business decisions. It’s this more detailed second layer of setting out national plans which is of interest to business.”

Last year, a transport coalition of more than 50 associations, companies and academia put forward a plan to help reduce the sector’s emissions and attract more than $600 billion in green investments in Brazil.  

The previous year, 55 companies operating in Brazil, including Natura, Nestle, Itau and Unilever, called for more ambitious NDCs and clearer implementation policies, as well as encouraging climate-friendly investment and private-sector involvement.    

Unilever, for example, has a global goal to create a deforestation-free supply chain and is partnering with a leading supplier in Brazil to ensure that soybean oil used at its factory there is not linked to forest loss.

Cheaper capital, high-quality projects

Although Brazil has relatively sophisticated capital markets, high interest rates still make long-term, low-carbon investments difficult, said Natalie Unterstell, president of the Talanoa Institute, a Brazilian environmental think-tank.

To address this challenge, Brazil is scaling up Fundo Clima – its National Climate Change Fund – as a central part of its implementation strategy by offering cheaper financing at scale.

But Unterstell said the private sector also needs to demonstrate that it can develop and deliver high-quality, low-carbon projects.

“Making Brazil’s policies investable is about making sure cheaper capital meets a pipeline of real, high-quality projects,” she said by email.

Brazilian firm behind SAF plan found growing oil palm on deforested Amazon land

While many companies have announced climate commitments, investment decisions have not always followed, she added.

“What companies can do better is move from targets to investment: adopt robust transition plans, and integrate carbon risk into core financial decisions,” Unterstell said.

On the government side, the priority is to “fix the signals”, she added. That means ensuring Brazil’s regulated carbon market – which is due to start in 2027 for sectors including iron and steel, cement, and oil and gas – operates with clear rules, credible enforcement and no delays, while aligning public finance with climate goals and providing long-term policy certainty.

“At the moment, both sides are waiting for stronger signals from the other, hence breaking that co-ordination problem is key,” she said.

Indonesia’s challenge: bridging the finance gap

Like Brazil, Indonesia is home to large areas of rainforest, but its energy mix relies far more heavily on fossil fuels, with coal providing about a third of supply. In its NDCs, Indonesia has pledged to reduce emissions by 31.9% by 2030 compared with business-as-usual levels, or by 43.2% with international support, on the way to reaching net zero by 2060.

Yet despite being promised more than $20 billion in international financial support from donor governments and investors under its Just Energy Transition Partnership, Jakarta has decided to row back on a plan to close a key coal power station early, saying it will focus on shuttering older and dirtier plants first.

To attract private investment to help achieve its emissions goals, Indonesia must provide policy clarity and long-term certainty, said Fabby Tumiwa, executive director of the Institute for Essential Services Reform, an Indonesian think-tank.

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

“Any investor wants to understand the long-term risks of the country so that they can assess the risks properly and come up with a risk mitigation strategy. Uncertain policies basically make investors unable to mitigate the risks,” Tumiwa told Climate Home News.

“To make Indonesia’s climate policies investable for the private sector, the core task is to convert climate ambition into bankable, enforceable, risk-adjusted projects,” he said. “Investors do not only need targets; they need predictable revenue, credible off-takers, permits, grid access, currency-risk management and policy durability.”

Indonesia has estimated the investment needed to meet its NDC goals at more than $400 billion but has yet to clearly outline how businesses can directly contribute, said Egi Suarga, senior manager for climate at World Resources Institute Indonesia, a research organisation.

He said climate action should be framed as an investment opportunity rather than an economic burden.

Evolving policies and regulations

Over 100 Indonesian companies have adopted net-zero and are ready to ramp up decarbonisation given clear national guidance, according to the We Mean Business Coalition.

Indonesia’s Indika Energy is making heavy investments in renewable energy such as solar, while cement company Solusi Bangun Indonesia is also investing in cleaner energy, fuel efficiency and pushing better biodiversity management.             

Meanwhile, Unilever’s climate transition plan states that the company is working with local government and environmental NGOs in Indonesia to protect and restore forests in Aceh and North Sumatra. It is also switching from natural gas to biomethane at its Indonesian sites.

One positive development, Suarga noted, is the creation of carbon pricing regulations aimed at attracting private finance, with an initial focus on the forestry sector.

“It can create a good climate for investors,” he said. “It doesn’t directly mention that this is for achieving the NDCs but there is no trade-off between development financing with environmental protections – so that’s a good start.”

Indonesia also needs stronger incentives and regulations for renewable energy, he added.

“We also have to think about other sectors now – like the energy sector and renewables,” Suarga said. “How can the government provide more incentives or facilitating regulations that can be more profitable to create a level playing field for renewables and fossil fuels?”

Ambition loop to drive action

Like Tumiwa, Suarga stressed the need for greater dialogue between the government and businesses so companies can understand better how they can contribute to Indonesia’s emissions targets.

“They know about sustainability because of the market and demands of the market… [but] I’m not sure whether [they] really understand about Indonesia’s target to achieve a certain amount of emissions reductions in the NDCs,” he said.

Currently, the government and private sector are largely working separately, Suarga added. The challenge lies in bringing them together to set targets, plan implementation and monitor emissions reductions. “It will need two to tango. The government should engage more with the private sector,” he emphasised.

Big banks’ lending to coal backers undermines Indonesia’s green plans 

For the We Mean Business Coalition’s Briner, what is ultimately needed is an “ambition loop” in which businesses lead on emissions reductions while governments create policies that accelerate private-sector action.

“It really helps governments when they have a strong voice from business calling for policy action. It helps move things forward,” he said.

Without stronger policies and incentives, achieving NDC goals will become increasingly difficult to achieve and costly, experts say.

“It’s really a case of all hands-on deck right now,” Briner said. “We need all sides of this equation working together and trying to get this done because there isn’t an alternative.”

The post Two to tango: How governments can unlock private investment for national climate goals appeared first on Climate Home News.

At the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa this week, some 3,000 delegates – including government officials, scientists, business representatives and activists – gathered to discuss ocean protection and push for marine issues to move from the margins to the centre of global climate diplomacy. 

Campaigners said the overall picture was positive. Oceans are gaining more visibility in international climate discussions: from blue carbon ecosystems such as mangroves, to coastal adaptation, marine biodiversity, ocean finance and the High Seas Treaty. 

In this year’s preliminary conference report, the secretariat listed 320 existing ocean commitments worth $6.4 billion, with about $1.1 billion destined to address the climate crisis. Many of these pledges were already announced before the conference.

But as momentum builds ahead of the COP31 climate summit in Türkiye, John Kerry, former US climate envoy and founder of the Our Ocean Conference, warned that the conversations and commitments on ocean protection will mean little if implementation continues to lag behind action. 

“The ocean can no longer be an afterthought in climate policy,” Kerry told delegates at the opening ceremony of the conference. “Now it must become central to our climate solutions.” 

“The challenge before us is not a lack of knowledge. We know exactly what has happened,” he said. “The challenge is whether political will can finally catch up with the science.” 

He added that the meeting taking place on the shores of the Indian Ocean should be remembered as the moment the process moved “from commitments to implementation”. 

The ocean has quietly shielded humanity from the worst impacts of climate change for decades, absorbing around 90% of the excess heat generated by global warming while sustaining the livelihoods of billions of people. 

From pledges to progress

Oceans have been largely absent from international climate negotiations, often treated as a conservation issue rather than a core component of climate action. 

Yet scientists say the ocean absorbs around a quarter of humanity’s annual carbon emissions and plays a critical role in regulating global temperatures.  

Research suggests that ocean-based solutions – from restoring mangroves and seagrass meadows to decarbonising shipping and expanding marine protected areas – could deliver up to 35% of the emissions reductions needed to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius by mid-century. 

That growing recognition has fuelled calls for oceans to play a larger role in climate policy and negotiations. Against that backdrop, the Our Ocean Conference – launched in 2014 to mobilise governments, business, philanthropies and activists – has emerged as a platform for advancing action to keep the planet’s seas healthy. 

According to the conference secretariat, the process has generated more than 2,900 commitments worth nearly $170 billion in the 10 years since its launch. The gathering in Mombasa was the 11th conference and the first to take place in Africa. 

This week, Canada and Jamaica were confirmed as the hosts of the next two Our Ocean conferences in 2027 and 2029. There is none planned for 2028, as the UN Ocean Conference will be co-hosted by South Korea and Chile that year, the secretariat said.  

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

In Mombasa, governments reaffirmed more than 300 commitments linked to the creation of new marine protected areas, reducing marine pollution, and developing sustainable fisheries, among others.

Most of the finance mobilised went to “blue economy” initiatives, including the European Union’s Ocean Eye initiative, which will mobilise €50 million ($57 million) to offset a Trump administration decision to scale back the US Ocean Observatories Initiative and weaken scientific marine data.

“More important than the new pledges is the actual delivery of commitments,” Cynthia Barzuna, who heads the conference secretariat at the World Resources Institute, told Climate Home News. “That is what makes a difference for marine ecosystems and coastal communities.” 

Last year, the secretariat published its first comprehensive assessment of implementation, finding that nearly 80% of commitments made through the conference were either completed or progressing towards completion. 

Barriers remain

Yet while oceans are climbing the political agenda, significant barriers remain to turning ambition into meaningful action. 

The secretariat’s assessment found that successful projects involved local communities, strengthened local expertise, and secured long-term financing. Many organisations, however, reported difficulties accessing sustained funding, particularly in developing countries. 

African initiatives, for example, tend to rely on short-term project grants, creating what Barzuna described as a “patchwork of impacts on the ground” rather than the systemic change needed to protect marine ecosystems and coastal livelihoods. 

Campaigners say a broader challenge lies in ensuring that growing recognition of the ocean’s importance is reflected in wider climate and economic policies. 

While countries have pledged to expand marine protected areas, restore coastal ecosystems and strengthen ocean governance, many continue to pursue activities that place additional pressure on marine environments, including offshore fossil fuel development.

“This year’s Our Ocean Conference comes at a critical moment where the incoming presidencies for COP31 – both Türkiye and Australia – have a strong interest increasing the prominence of the ocean in the COP,” Shamini Selvaratnam, director of International Climate and Clean Energy at the Ocean Conservancy, told Climate Home News. 

“But we cannot talk about ocean health and then continue to explore offshore oil and gas – those two things are incompatible. It’s like asking the dolphin to swim on the land.”  

For supporters of the ocean agenda, the question is no longer whether oceans matter to climate action. The challenge now is ensuring that governments match rising political ambition with funding, implementation and accountability. 

“The ocean has actually been acting as Earth’s life support system – and it has been protecting us,” Kerry told delegates. “The question before us is whether we are willing to protect the ocean in return.” 

The post Mombasa ocean summit drives progress on marine protection, but threats persist appeared first on Climate Home News.

In their final hours on Thursday evening, the talks tried – and failed – to reach a deal that would have balanced developing countries’ demands for reassurance on finance to help them adapt to climate impacts with richer nations’ desire to move forward with work on speeding up emissions reductions in line with science.  

Simon Stiell, the head of the UN climate body, released a statement as the Bonn talks wound up, saying that “in some negotiating rooms, we’ve heard a familiar tendency towards you-first-ism – groups refusing to deliver commitments or allow the process to move forward unless others go first”.  

“This is a recipe for gridlock when we need all negotiating tracks to be moving in the fast lane,” he added.

Gridlock is where the talks ended, with countries unable to agree conclusions on at least three major areas of climate action, including adaptation and mitigation, invoking “Rule 16”. That means they will be taken up again at COP31 in Türkiye in November.

Bonn Bulletin: Finance row threatens to scupper work on adaptation goal

On the emissions reduction (mitigation) work programme, pushback – primarily from fossil-fuel producing nations – has prevented any meaningful progress since its creation at COP27, as countries have been unable to come up with a united vision for its scope and purpose.

Despite many countries expressing disappointment at the end of Bonn, China argued that some common ground had been found that could serve as positive elements to build on at COP31, including that “no one is against mitigation implementation and ambition”.

Adaptation “salt in our wounds”

Small island states and developing nations spoke bitterly of the lack of progress on the global goal on adaptation, which had been expected to launch technical work on putting into practice indicators agreed at COP30 in Brazil, and said it had destroyed trust between countries. 

Negotiations on the goal ended in deadlock after developed countries, including European governments refused to include a target to triple adaptation finance by 2035 that was agreed at COP30 in Brazil, insisting the text should focus on technical work to measure progress on making people more resilient to climate pressures. This was a red line for many vulnerable countries, especially the African group.

“Developed countries are hiding behind procedural arguments by claiming adaptation finance belongs in some other room, on some other day,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Kenya-based think-tank Power Shift Africa. “But climate disasters don’t wait for the right agenda item. Africa is burning and flooding now.”

In the final session at Bonn, Fiji’s delegate described the need to adapt to evolving climate risk as a “daily burden”, which he said is a question of water and food security and, in some cases, forcing people to face relocation on the Pacific islands.

“Some of us will now travel more than 30 hours home to report that one of the most fundamental issues we sought progress on here for vulnerable countries has stalled at a time when we need guidance and outcomes the most. In light of overshoot [of 1.5C of warming] and attacks on the science, this is simply further salt in our wounds,” he told the closing plenary as the clock ticked towards midnight local time.

On Wednesday, a coalition of European and climate-vulnerable developing countries accused fossil fuel interests and the “usual suspects” of mounting ”coordinated attacks” on science, as arguments erupted over the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C warming limit and its overshoot and when the next UN climate science reports should be published.

German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider said “an informed, fact-based public debate on the consequences of climate change is vital”.

“This makes attacks on the scientific foundations of climate science – such as those that occurred in Bonn this time – all the more serious. It is encouraging to see a large number of countries from both the Global South and the Global North clearly standing together against this,” he added in a statement on the talks.

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

Stiell urged the Turkish and Australian COP31 co-presidencies to get ministers working “as soon as possible” on the “thorniest issues” in the UN climate process so that negotiations can move into the “fast lane”. The presidencies are under pressure to appoint pairs of ministers to resolve these issues earlier than usual, so that they are well-briefed and know their counterparts ahead of COP31.

Electrification bright spot

Alden Meyer, senior associate for climate diplomacy and geopolitics with E3G, lamented the “limited progress in most of the negotiating rooms” over the past fortnight. “As people across the world suffer the twin crises of mounting climate impacts as well as the sharply higher energy and food prices resulting from the war in the… Gulf, there was no sense of urgency at the Bonn climate talks.” 

He and others observers did, however, welcome a new goal on electrification proposed by COP31 host Turkiye outside of the formal talks under the Global Climate Action Agenda, which also brings in the private sector and cities. 

The electrification target would strive to ramp up the share of final energy consumption provided by electricity to 35% by 2035 from about 20% today by accelerating the switch to technologies such as heat pumps, electric vehicles (EVs) and electric cookers.

COP31 leaders unveil global targets, with spotlight on electrification

Nonetheless, some analysts said such goals lack significance without a global plan to transition away from fossil fuels. Brazil is now working on one, with inputs from countries and civil society, but it is unclear how this will be incorporated into the UN climate process, if at all.

Jasper Inventor, deputy programme director at Greenpeace International, said the stalled talks around climate finance for developing countries and a repeated deadlock on mitigation “took some of the shine off the emergence of a coalition of countries supporting a transition away from fossil fuels at a time where the climate and energy crisis is set to be supercharged” by an emerging El Niño pattern.

Bonn paves way for new just transition mechanism

One key topic that advanced more calmly at the Bonn talks and even achieved some promising consensus was just transition – how to achieve a green economic and social shift that is fair from the global to the local level. Countries approved the terms of reference under which the just transition work programme (JTWP), which began in 2023, will be reviewed. 

And following up on a COP30 decision to develop a mechanism to guide and enable support for just transition initiatives, which was hailed by civil society as a big win, countries in Bonn provided a first set of options on its structure and other elements of how it will operate, with a view to it being launched at COP31.

Comment: The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation

Anabella Rosemberg, senior advisor on just transition at Climate Action Network International, noted that “it will require a bit of work between now and COP31 to have an agreement” on what is being billed as the “Belém-to-Antalya Mechanism”. Informal discussions could take place, for example, during Regional Climate Week in Baku in October, or at the invitation of the COP31 presidency in Australia, she added.

“The next three months will determine whether governments build a mechanism that supports workers, communities and countries through the transition, or settle for another space for dialogue,” she said.

The post Bonn climate talks end in “gridlock” on adaptation and emissions-cutting appeared first on Climate Home News.

But the agreement adopted at this week’s G7 leaders’ summit in France is vague on what co-operation with resource-rich developing countries could look like, with critics warning against creating a consumer club of powerful nations that excludes others from shaping standards and building green supply chains.

“The G7 communiqué reaffirms our suspicion that, for the G7, it is all about resource security, not just energy transition,” Claude Kabemba, executive director of Southern Africa Resource Watch, told Climate Home News.

In a joint communique, the leaders of some of the world’s largest economies said they would step up coordination within the group and with partner countries to establish mineral processing and industrial capacity, support local value addition, promote innovation, develop standards, improve mineral traceability and share information on stockpiling systems.

They agreed to create a joint crisis-prevention mechanism with the support of the International Energy Agency to monitor mineral supply and demand disruptions, as well as establish harmonised platforms to provide information about the origin of minerals, starting with lithium and nickel.

The statement was endorsed by France, the UK, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, the US and the European Union at the end of the three-day summit in Evian, on the French shores of Lake Geneva. Australia, which isn’t a G7 member, also supported the declaration.

Breaking dependency on China

Western governments have been scrambling to secure the minerals they need to produce clean energy technologies such as batteries, electric vehicles and wind turbines, as well as hardware for artificial intelligence and military equipment while breaking their dependence on China.  

China controls most supply chains for the strategic minerals they need, dominating the processing of 19 out of 20 critical minerals. The only exception is nickel, where Indonesia leads on supply and processing. Last year, Beijing spooked governments in Europe and the US when it imposed restrictions on rare earths exports, signalling its willingness to use its industrial clout to achieve its geopolitical objectives.

“We are all faced with risks of over-dependence and therefore vulnerability in our value chains,” French President Emmanuel Macron told a press conference, citing the “risks of divisions” among the group on how to respond to China’s control over strategic resources. “We have decided to move forward together,” he said.

Leaders agreed to aggregate demand to support the development of minerals projects and set targets for reducing dependencies on any single country outside the G7 by the end of the year.

A US proposal to regulate mineral prices and a French push to establish a permanent secretariat to track G7 initiatives on minerals failed to reach consensus among the group, according to Reuters.

Who has a seat at the table?

The declaration recognises the need for “mutually beneficial partnerships” and “plurilateral trade agreements” between G7 countries and “like-minded” and “trusted” partners to build diversified supply chains. Other parts of the text refer to “developing countries” and “emerging economies”.

A separate G7 statement on “mutually beneficial international partnerships” mentions the need for international cooperation along the whole of mineral supply chains.

“Who is going to be part of this conversation is unclear,” said Sébastien Treyer, executive director of France think-tank IDDRI, citing the ambiguity of the language and calling for developing countries to be part of the conversation.

Trade agreements that support green industrialisation can be “an entry point” for investment into value-addition projects in developing countries, said Treyer, but “how this is going to be operationalised is the key question”.

Moving beyond a ‘consumer club’

Resource-rich developing countries, particularly in Africa, have called for investment to build their industrial capacity to turn raw materials into high-value components for clean energy technologies such as batteries, capturing more domestic value and creating jobs.  

But Kabemba, whose organisation is based in South Africa, said the declaration says “nothing about transferring industrial capacity to previously exploited regions such Africa”.

“Africa needs to react with its own coalition of the willing to put Africa’s interests first, otherwise, Africa risks being locked into a role as a raw material supplier in a new economic order it is not helping to build,” he said.

Patrick Schröder, a resource governance expert at Chatham House, agreed that the G7 remains overwhelmingly focused on securing minerals supplies and reducing its dependence on China. “The benefits for developing country producers are only marginal in the G7 discussions,” he said.

Brazil, which is rich in rare earths, graphite and copper, was invited to attend the G7 meeting but did not endorse the minerals declaration – highlighting the need for future minerals framework to be more inclusive and responsive to producer-country concerns, said Schröder.

For Luc Tezenas, head of policy and advocacy at the Resource Justice Network, “the answer to rising geopolitical fragmentation cannot be to shrink multilateralism into a smaller club of ‘like-minded’ consumer economies”.

Instead, a non-binding minerals framework put forward by South Africa during its presidency of the G20 last year “shows more promise as a pathway forward because it attempts to link supply resilience with regional value chains and economic justice,” he said. The UK, which is presiding over the G20 next year, has the opportunity to build a more inclusive way forward, he added.

Circularity: another way to capture value

G7 nations also described the circular economy and the substitution of minerals in designing technologies as “key” to meet growing demand and secure sufficient supplies.

This, they said, includes increasing recycling capacity by setting targets, combatting the illegal transfer of used products and components, and promoting the recovery of minerals from secondary sources such as mining waste.

“We also recognise the opportunity for emerging market and developing economies to benefit from capturing added value through the recycling and secondary processing of their mining waste, as well as from circular economy innovations,” they said.

Schröder, of Chatham House, said the challenge now lies in demonstrating that intentions can be turned into creating a circular economy for minerals through investments, business support and a favourable policy environment.

The post Warning against ‘consumer club’ as G7 forms critical minerals alliance appeared first on Climate Home News.

In the corridors of the World Conference Centre in Bonn, where the June Climate Meetings (SB64) will conclude on Thursday, the need for change is palpable.

Delegates are grappling once again with overcrowded agendas, growing demands on limited negotiating time, external geopolitical pressures that reverberate internally to test the limits of a consensus-based process, and concerns over its future financial sustainability.

Bonn Bulletin: Finance row threatens to scupper work on adaptation goal

There is growing frustration with a process that consumes vast amounts of time to produce outcomes that are often too incremental to match the accelerating reality of the climate crisis.

The climate regime has delivered. But it is in danger of not delivering enough.

More effective multilateralism

There is no denying the successes of the UN climate process. Over three decades, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement established a universal framework for climate action, created transparency and accountability mechanisms, and sent powerful signals to governments, businesses and investors.

Thanks in large part to this framework, the world is no longer on a trajectory of more than 4°C of warming, clean technology costs have fallen dramatically, and participation in the global climate effort remains nearly universal.

Yet, global temperatures continue to break records. Climate impacts are intensifying across every region. The world remains far off track to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. As warming approaches – and may exceed – 1.5°C, every additional fraction of a degree brings greater losses of lives, livelihoods and ecosystems, with the greatest burdens falling on the most vulnerable countries and communities.

We remain convinced that the answer to the climate crisis is not less multilateralism, but more effective multilateralism.

The hard truth is that the UNFCCC remains largely organised around the logic of treaty-making, while the central challenge of climate action has shifted to implementation. A process designed to negotiate agreements and deliver decision text as the outcome is now required to support implementation on the ground—and it is struggling.

There is a structural mismatch between what the climate process was designed to do, and what it needs to do now.

Consultations on reforms

Discussions on the urgency of reform are widespread and no longer confined to the margins. Formally, the Arrangements for Intergovernmental Meetings (AIM) process is exploring ways of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the process.

The UNFCCC Executive Secretary has also convened a High-Level Informal Consultative Roundtable for strategic reflection on how to strengthen the complementarity between the intergovernmental process and action in the real economy.

Defending multilateralism today requires adapting it.

The good news is that meaningful reform does not require reopening treaties, renegotiating the Paris Agreement, or indeed even resolving long-standing differences on the Rules of Procedure to change the consensus rule. Stefan Ruchti-Crowley and Paul Watkinson’s recent paper for ecbi (European Capacity Building Initiative), Quo Vadis COP? Reforming UNFCCC Sessions to Improve Negotiations and Support Implementation, outlines a practical toolbox of four reforms that can be pursued within the existing institutional framework.

First, the process must improve its agendas.

The formal process is burdened by crowded agendas and overlapping workstreams. Consolidating agenda items under broader thematic pillars (such as mitigation, adaptation, finance and transparency); developing good practices for agenda adoption; removing legacy “ghost” items; and concluding outstanding business on the Kyoto Protocol will create more space for substantive discussions and implementation.

Second, the process must organise its work more strategically.

The climate process currently attempts to address nearly every issue at every session. A more strategic approach would use thematic multi-year programmes of work; better align review cycles and timelines; improve coherence across the many bodies and processes that have accumulated over time, often to the extent that even insiders have lost oversight; and also make better use of inter-sessional and pre-sessional meetings.

Third, the process must focus more deliberately on implementation.

Critically, not every challenge requires a negotiated outcome. Negotiations should focus on issues that genuinely require collective decision-making. Other discussions should prioritise learning, cooperation and practical problem-solving.

Existing formats such as Talanoa Dialogues, roundtables and other facilitative approaches should be expanded. Likewise, the Enhanced Transparency Framework should become a stronger mechanism for mutual learning and accountability rather than a largely procedural reporting and “box-ticking” exercise.

Fourth, the process must make structural changes and broaden participation.

National delegations should include a broader range of practitioners and policymakers, including a Head of Implementation. The process should strengthen engagement with sectoral ministers, investors, technology providers, scientists, local authorities and non-Party stakeholders.

Stronger links are necessary between science policy and implementation, and with international institutions that shape the enabling conditions for climate action, particularly finance and development. Platforms to address systemic barriers along with AI-enabled learning by doing will equally support strengthened action.

Delivering commitments with limited resources

The case for reform is becoming even stronger as financial pressures intensify.

Improving efficiency is not simply desirable; it has become unavoidable. The UNFCCC faces growing budgetary constraints arising from delayed contributions, uncertainty surrounding major donors, and broader reductions across the UN system.

A process that is better organised, more implementation-focused and less encumbered by procedural overload will be far better equipped to navigate a future of tighter resources.

Leadership will be crucial.

Panama environment minister backs calls for reform of UN climate process

COP presidencies have an important role to play, as do the Chairs of the Subsidiary Bodies. The UNFCCC Executive Secretary and Secretariat must take a bold approach to work in coordination with the COP Bureau to implement urgent changes.

Careful diplomacy will, of course, be essential. Parties must be reassured that reform is intended to strengthen the effectiveness of the regime, not weaken its governance. The objective is not to replace mandates, but to ensure that mandates can be fulfilled more effectively. It is to ensure that negotiation is used where negotiation is needed, while other forms of cooperation are used where they can deliver better results.

The UNFCCC remains the cornerstone of international climate cooperation. No other forum combines its legitimacy, universality and legal authority. But the multilateral climate process must evolve from a system primarily designed to negotiate commitments into one that is equally capable of supporting their delivery.

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Making them usable involves drawing up contextual information (metadata) and methodologies for the indicators. They include metrics such as the number of people per 100,000 who are covered by early warning systems or the proportion of the population vulnerable to climate change that have access to mental health and psychosocial support.

There has been some arguing in Bonn over who should do this work. More government negotiators or more technical experts? Should there be an Indigenous Peoples representative on the taskforce?

But the main sticking point – and the one that could prevent any agreement before the talks end today – is, as usual, finance. Developing countries are united in demanding that the COP30 agreement to triple adaptation finance by 2035 be referenced in the GGA agreement here in Bonn. Most developed countries are opposed, having long wanted to keep the GGA and finance separate.

New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance

Although the tripling goal has already been agreed, Bethan Laughlin from the Zoological Society of London said that restating in the GGA text here “sends an important political signal on the need to address the widening adaptation finance gap, and helps maintain pressure on developed countries to scale up their support”. 

One of the concerns some developing countries had about the GGA indicators agreed at COP30 is that they will be blamed if they fail to meet them. Rich nations, on the other hand, likely fear that, if finance is linked to the GGA and they fail to triple it, it is they who will be held responsible for a lack of progress instead. 

At the time of publication, governments were holding informal consultations to see if they could find a way forward. But, given that on Wednesday night they could not even agree on whether a new draft text should form a basis for negotiations, the odds of overcoming their differences in the remaining hours look slim.

Nations agree to disagree on Adaptation Fund board seats

The risk that much-needed funds for adapting to climate change lie out of reach in inaccessible bank accounts while the world gets warmer has grown, after governments failed in Bonn to resolve an ongoing row over how to categorise richer and poorer nations.

The June talks aimed to agree on transitioning the UN’s Adaptation Fund to “exclusively” serve the Paris Agreement, rather than also serving the older Kyoto Protocol. That decision could then have been officially rubber-stamped early on at COP31.

But the seemingly straightforward decision has been complicated, as Global North and South countries could not agree on how to formally define each other.

Less wealthy nations want seats on the Adaptation Fund’s board to continue to be split between Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 countries as they are now. Annex 1 is a list of wealthier countries drawn up by governments in 1992. 

Those Annex 1 countries agree that board seats should be split but want the two categories to be called “developed” and “developing”, which are less rigid categories and can evolve in line with countries’ changing economic status.

Bonn Bulletin: Adaptation Fund stalemate puts people at risk, says head

The underlying issue is that the European Union and others want bigger and richer developing countries like China and Saudi Arabia to be given responsibility for paying climate finance alongside traditional donor governments. China, in particular, has fiercely resisted this, with backing from other non-Annex 1/developing countries.

According to draft conclusions for Bonn, although there is alignment on the less controversial issues of updating the fund’s terms and conditions to serve the Paris Agreement and the timing of a regular review of its work, governments will agree not to agree on the Adaptation Fund board’s composition and will pick up the matter again at COP31. Often, major compromises can only be made by the environment ministers who attend COPs, not the more junior officials who come to Bonn.

But this delay raises the risk that countries do not fully agree to transition the fund at COP31. That would mean the fund cannot access money raised from a 5% tax on all carbon credits – other than those based in the most-vulnerable nations – from the UN’s new Article 6.4 carbon trading mechanism.

This could amount to millions of dollars lying idle as adaptation needs rise. The fund’s head Mikko Ollikainen told Climate Home News on Tuesday in Bonn that this “will lead to loss and damage and that’s going to be even more costlier than adaptation – and the cost will be borne by people who have done least to cause this problem who typically don’t have social safety networks to support them”.

US exit from UNFCCC leaves hole in budget

Even though the United States didn’t participate in the Bonn talks, Washington’s decisions still loomed large over the discussions. Last January, the Trump administration decided to withdraw not only from the Paris Agreement – as in his first term – but also from the UN Climate Convention (UNFCCC). 

The move will have a significant impact on the financing of the Bonn-based body and the myriad of activities in its ever-growing agenda, according to a brief information event held by the secretariat at the Bonn climate talks. 

SBI Chair Julia Gardiner mentioned that the US withdrawal could limit the Secretariat’s ability to support countries, especially developing ones, in advancing climate action. 

The US withdrawal formally takes effect on February 27 2027, so the withdrawal will have a direct impact on the next budget for 2028-2029, the UNFCCC secretariat said in the briefing. Washington is currently the  single largest financial contributor to the convention. Its withdrawal will cut core contributions by 21% or EUR16.9 million over the two-year period.

Who will step in to fill the gap?

When Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement soon after his inauguration in January 2025, US billionaire Michael Bloomberg promised to cover the shortfall left by Washington, together with other unnamed funders. Since then, his namesake philanthropy has given the UN climate change body at least $17 million, according to UNFCCC documents. 

But Bloomberg or any other non-state donor could only contribute to the budget for supplementary activities, not to the core budget on which, for example, the holding of the Bonn meetings or any event mandated by governments depends, Tobias Holle, managing director of Shifting Advocacy, told Climate Home News. 

The money in the supplementary activities budget can not be used to cover core budget needs, he explained, adding that funding for that can only come from governments.

After Trump’s pullback, Bloomberg promises to fill US funding gap to UN climate body

According to the US-based think-tank Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, “one scenario will be that, with the budget gap equally redistributed among current contributors, other Parties [like China, Japan, Germany, UK, France] would have to increase their contributions by about 27% to maintain the current budget.” 

For Holle, even if the budget shortfall represents a challenge, “this situation could be an opportunity” to advance on the reform of the UN climate process and improve the joint work of the climate convention with other treaties like those on biodiversity and desertification. 

The UN will continue consultations with countries and present its proposed 2028-2029 budget in April 2027. At the time of publication, the UN climate body had not commented on the issue.

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The area known as the Convergence Zone of the Canary and Guinea Currents stretches from Cape Verde and Senegal in the north, to Nigeria and São Tomé and Príncipe in the south, forming a key migration corridor and nursery for hundreds of marine species.

At the 11th Our Ocean Conference in the Kenyan coastal resort of Mombasa this week, Senegalese Minister of the Environment and Ecological Transition Aliou Gori Diouf said this new marine protected area would contribute to a global goal to protect at least 30% of the planet’s ecosystems by 2030.

“West Africa is asserting its leadership by demonstrating that ocean protection and sustainable
development go hand in hand,” Diouf said in a statement.

To complement the push, the governments of The Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea Bissau and Senegal announced the creation of a joint regional marine protected area (MPA) “to preserve the resources essential to the livelihood” of their communities.

They added that the regional initiative will require global collaboration, as the countries face “massive challenges” from ocean heating as well as illegal fishing and marine pollution “leading to a reduction in biodiversity and lower economic opportunities for fishing-dependent communities”.

The High Seas Treaty – known formally as the agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) – entered into force this January just two years after its signing. So far, 90 countries have ratified it, and it is set to host its first conference of the parties (COP) in January 2027 in New York.

Warming threat

The ocean has absorbed 90% of the excess heat trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere, and is a massive carbon sink, trapping 30% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Yet despite covering nearly half of the planet’s surface, only 1% of the high seas are fully protected.

Unless this is stepped up, scientists warn that rapid ocean heating could threaten key species and ecosystems, as well as the communities that depend on them. One 2025 study estimated that fish levels have fallen by 7.2% for every tenth of a degree of global warming.

Big fishing nations secure last-minute seat to write rules on deep sea conservation

Speaking at a plenary in Mombasa, Rebecca Hubbard, director of the advocacy group High Seas Alliance, said governments face the challenge of turning “this promise into real action in the water”.

“It is now urgent for governments to work together to propose the first set of high-seas marine protected areas. This is the only way we can achieve 30% protection of our ocean by 2030. We need the high seas,” said the conservation scientist.

Scientific body to review proposals

Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, France’s special envoy for last year’s UN ocean conference, told the Mombasa gathering that the oceans COP1 will be a “powerful symbol”, as it will be the first major conference opened by the yet-to-be-elected new UN secretary-general.

Other areas under consideration for the first generation of high-seas MPAs include the Salas y Gómez and Nazca ridges – an underwater mountain range rich stretching 3,000 km off the coast of Chile in the South Pacific, the “thermal dome” off the coast of Costa Rica in the Central Pacific, and the Walvis ridge near Namibia in the Southern Atlantic.

Chile and Costa Rica have also announced plans to propose these protected areas in the lead-up to the first High Seas Treaty summit. Before selecting the first conservation areas, governments at the BBNJ meeting must establish a scientific body to review the proposals.

Currently, the only MPA in the high seas is the South Orkney Islands in Antarctica, created in 2009 and managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.

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Under the banner of ‘Friends of Science’, in an overflowing press conference room lined with negotiators and civil society supporters, diplomats from Fiji, Nepal, the European Union, Switzerland, Sierra Leone and Panama vowed to ensure that decision-making in the UN climate process remains based on the “best available science”. That includes reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s climate science body, they said.

While steering clear of singling out any specific country, they said efforts to cast doubt on established scientific concepts, such as the 1.5 global warming limit, are led by “the usual suspects” and those who think “science threatens their economic prospects”. 

Saudi Arabia and India have opposed calls in draft texts to encourage scientific work on scenarios that would minimise the magnitude and duration of any overshoot of 1.5C, according to one negotiator in the room and summaries of closed-door discussions published by a reporting service. 

UN chief António Guterres conceded last year that a temporary breach of the key warming limit is inevitable, while urging countries to redouble efforts to bring temperatures back down.

‘Polluted narrative’

Scientists have long established that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of man-made climate change and a rapid shift away from oil, coal and gas is essential to curb global warming.

Saudi Arabia is dependent on oil and gas exports, while India largely relies on coal to power its economic development.

One negotiator said that research on how climate action can be equitable for developing countries, produced by Indian universities, had been published too late to be incorporated into the last IPCC assessment report in 2023. This incident led the Indian government to try and discredit the IPCC, they said. Some Indian scientists have argued that the IPCC’s scenarios are unfair on developing countries.

Saudi Arabia and India have played down the importance of making sure that the latest IPCC assessments – regarded as the gold standard of climate science – are available for the next global stocktake, the UN scorecard of climate action around the world. 

“Anyone that is blocking references to science – they are not our friends,” Sivendra Michael, lead negotiator for Fiji, told a press conference, highlighting the rise of a “polluted narrative” both inside and outside the negotiating rooms.

1.5C is a ‘hard limit’

Speaking for the AILAC coalition of Latin American countries, Panama’s Ana Aguilar said they went to Bonn to negotiate positions, not to negotiate the facts laid out by science.

“We see coordinated efforts to cast doubt on the best available science driven by a narrow set of interests, not by the needs of our people,” she added. “We have seen this playbook before… manufacture doubt, delay the response and let the vulnerable people pay this bill.”

The ‘Friends of Science’ coalition stressed that the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement cannot be negotiated, as the survival of the most climate vulnerable communities is at stake if it is permanently breached.

“Science tells us that 1.5C is a hard limit for many countries, including the small island developing states and least developed countries,” said Manjeet Dhakal, a negotiator for Nepal. “We still have a chance to keep 1.5 degrees in reach and minimise the overshoot if we act fast and drastically.”

Long-running IPCC standoff

While diplomats claimed attacks on science are broadening, one long-standing issue of contention is whether the latest assessment reports of the IPCC will be ready in time for the next UN global stocktake due to start this November and end in 2028. 

This matters because, as some experts have pointed out, previous IPCC findings played a key role in the first such exercise, which culminated at COP28 in Dubai in the landmark agreement on transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems.

The UN climate process needs ambition – the law demands it

The IPCC, which works with academics worldwide, publishes its comprehensive scientific assessment reports every five to seven years. The process for the last one, AR6, lasted around seven and a half years. The seventh assessment cycle, AR7, began in July 2023, but a political battle over the timing has dragged on for over two years at successive IPCC meetings, with governments repeatedly failing to find a solution. 

A large majority of nations have been pushing for an accelerated timeline that would ensure the AR7 reports can be fed into the UN’s global stocktake. But a group of countries, including Saudi Arabia, India, China, Russia and Kenya, have said at previous IPCC meetings they want a longer process, arguing a fast-tracked assessment would put a burden on developing countries with limited resources.

Science and the stocktake

That fight has now bled into the Bonn talks where governments began discussing the arrangements for the next stocktake. At a session earlier this week, most developed countries, Latin American and small island states, and the world’s poorest nations emphasised the assessment of collective climate action must be guided by the “best available science” – code for the findings of the IPCC reports.

The Maldives, speaking for small island states, said IPCC science remains “essential to the integrity, credibility and usefulness” of the stocktake. AILAC said that starting the process “on the right footing” requires a political decision on the timeline to deliver the AR7 reports in time. Switzerland said IPCC reports “ask more than is politically comfortable, but that is precisely why they must guide every decision we make”.

Saudi Arabia, however, said no particular scientific input – and in particular what comes out of the IPCC – should be prioritised. Similarly, India warned against creating “some kind of preferred hierarchy” in the role that any specific source of information should play in the process.

Ghana’s Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, who chairs the African Group, told a press conference on Tuesday that some countries think rushing to get IPCC inputs into the global stocktake could “undermine or compromise the IPCC process”. “Africa is for science,” he said, without saying where the continent stands on the IPCC timeline.

Crunch talks in October

At the “Friends of Science” press conference, Dhakal pushed back on the idea that science would have to be rushed to be incorporated. He said the IPCC leadership has “perfectly made it clear” that they can deliver the report before the global stocktake. “It is the scientists who are saying they can deliver it on time,” he said. 

The discussion will be picked up again at the next IPCC session in October, where its boss Jim Skea is hoping to reach an agreement. “As a scientist myself, I cannot overstate the importance of this decision,” he told governments in Bonn last week.

Andreas Sieber, head of political strategy at campaigning group 350.org, told Climate Home News that the debate may sound procedural, “but it is anything but”. “Science is the backbone of the Paris Agreement ambition cycle, and the evidence assessed through AR7 will help determine not only the emissions pathways countries pursue, but also how the world responds to mounting climate losses and who receives support,” he said in Bonn.

This story was updated after publication to add information on the IPCC assessment cycles and timing of its reports.

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They clarified the ballot wording in English, Spanish and Chinese, while distributing multilingual flyers warning about the rise in electricity demand, industrial infrastructure and environmental impacts associated with AI-related data center development.

Less than a month later, on June 2, Monterey Park voters overwhelmingly approved the ban in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles, with 86.4% voting in favor and 13.6% opposed, according to county election results.

Social opposition to data centers is on the rise, especially in the US, as artificial intelligence (AI) and the technology hubs needed to support it stoke competition for electricity, water and land in communities where they are based. Industry advocates say data centers bring economic benefits and do not always result in higher power prices for households.

The result in Monterey Park made it the first city in the United States to enact a citywide prohibition on data centers through a voter-approved ballot measure.

“This week our city has been celebrating the landslide results from Measure NDC,” Monterey Park Mayor Elizabeth Yang said in a phone interview.

On social media, Yang described the city’s response as the result of sustained resident organizing and civic engagement. “We want to fulfill our duty of listening to residents,” Yang told Climate Home News.

A community campaign takes shape

The vote came after months of public testimony, neighborhood outreach and organizing surrounding a proposed data center project on Saturn Street in Monterey Park. Here, developers planned to replace an existing commercial office building with a nearly 50-megawatt data center intended to serve growing demand for AI computing.

Supporters of Measure NDC (Measure No Data Centers) argued that keeping this, and other such centers, out of their community would help protect air quality, drinking water resources, public health and local infrastructure.

According to CoStar News, a real estate information platform, the backers of the Saturn Street project – Digico Infrastructure REIT and HMC Capital’s StratCap – had already withdrawn their planning application on April 3 amid growing local opposition and regulatory uncertainty, including the city’s decision to place a data center ban before voters.

Subsequently, on April 20, the Monterey Park City Council adopted an ordinance prohibiting all data centers within the city limits.

Explainer: Will AI data centres make or break the energy transition?

Company representatives later said they would explore future “productive land uses … supported by the broader community”. Potential alternatives discussed publicly have included housing, although no formal proposal has been submitted.

Reuters reported in May that DigiCo Infrastructure, an Australian company, was exploring “monetisation options” for its two Los Angeles sites after rowing back on the Monterey Park proposal. DigiCo is also selling its Chicago data center for $750 million to pay down debt and fund the development of another site in Sydney.

DigiCo and HMC Capital did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Potential local benefits of data centers

Industry lobby groups argue that data centers can provide economic benefits to host communities. According to the US-based Data Center Coalition, which represents major operators and developers, data centers generate tax revenue, support construction and technical jobs, and provide infrastructure needed for cloud computing, scientific research and AI development.

The industry has also challenged claims that data centers necessarily raise electricity costs for households. A recent report by energy consulting firm Energy + Environmental Economics (E3), commissioned by the coalition, found no historical evidence that data centers had driven up residential electricity rates under existing utility pricing structures. It argued that factors including inflation, grid modernization costs, natural gas price volatility and investments in wildfire resilience have played a bigger role in rising electricity bills.

According to E3, large users can, under certain regulatory frameworks, reduce prices for other customers by contributing more revenue to utilities than they cost to serve. In a previous analysis of Amazon data centers, the consultancy found that payments from the facilities exceeded the incremental costs incurred by utilities. The report also noted that regulators across the US have increasingly adopted specialized pricing structures as data center demand has expanded.

Hefty carbon, water and land footprints

The concerns raised in Monterey Park mirror debates over the environmental and infrastructure demands of AI being heard in many countries around the world, from Europe to North America and Asia.

This month, a UN report estimated that the data centers required for AI globally could consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 – roughly twice France’s 2025 power consumption.

This, it calculated, would have a carbon footprint needing some 6.7 billion trees grown over 10 years to offset, a water footprint equal to the annual domestic needs of 1.3 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a land footprint of more than 14,500 square kilometers, roughly twice the Jakarta metropolitan area. 

In a 2026 report, Key Questions on Energy and AI, the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that electricity consumption from AI-focused data centers grew by approximately 50% in 2025 alone.

It warned that “social acceptability is also a growing issue, as communities push back against data center projects”, citing concerns about environmental sustainability, electricity affordability, infrastructure strain and democratic participation in land-use decisions.

Global data center electricity consumption by sensitivity case, 2020-2035

AI-focused facilities consume substantially more electricity than traditional data centers and often require extensive supporting infrastructure, including cooling systems, industrial electrical equipment, backup generators running on diesel and large-scale energy storage systems.

The IEA also noted that operators are increasingly exploring onsite natural gas generation and battery infrastructure to maintain electrical reliability as AI workloads intensify.

Local concern over industrial infrastructure

Samuel Brown Vazquez, an East San Gabriel Valley community organizer, said doubts about the proposed data center in Monterey Park were informed by broader debates over industrial development in the area.

Brown cited community opposition to proposals that could bring battery energy storage facilities – and potentially data centers – to the former Puente Hills Mall site  in the City of Industry, where residents have raised concerns about pollution, fire risks, and the impacts of new industrial infrastructure on nearby residential neighborhoods and schools.

Many viewed the campaign as part of a larger conversation about how communities should respond to the rapid expansion of AI-related infrastructure across Southern California.

Power-hungry AI data centres seen driving demand for fossil fuels

According to nonprofit Data Center Watch, around $64 billion-worth of data center projects nationwide were delayed or blocked between May 2024 and March 2025 amid increasing local opposition.

Mayor Yang wants Monterey Park’s experience to encourage other communities to take a more active role in decisions about AI-related infrastructure. “We’re hoping other cities can follow similarly in banning data centers with proposed ballot measures,” she said, adding that whether such efforts succeed elsewhere will depend in part on how local officials respond to residents’ concerns.

The new UN report this month called on governments and companies to address AI’s environmental impacts proactively to ensure that the technology develops sustainably and its benefits are shared fairly.

Kaveh Madani, director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, who led the investigation team for the report, said AI “is a technological transformation that is improving the lives of billions of people around the world”. But, he added, it must be used “responsibly”.   

“We have a narrow window to ensure that the backbone of the technological revolution of our era develops within planetary limits, and that the communities who provide the critical minerals for advancing AI and the ones that host its infrastructure and e-waste are also among those who benefit from it,” he said.

This story was developed, reported and produced under the Covering Climate Now (CCNow) Climate Journalism Student Mentorship, which connects USC student journalists with professional newsrooms in CCNow’s global network. Participants receive training, editorial mentorship, and the opportunity to report and publish original climate stories with partner outlets while being paid professional freelance rates.

The post The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI appeared first on Climate Home News.

Over the years, one bright spark has been the Adaptation Fund and its grants to developing countries for pioneering work in communities. It has allocated $1.6 billion to 226 projects, benefiting 90 million people, its website says. And, while rich nations are failing to give the fund all the money it needs to finance its growing pipeline, new revenues are supposed to come in from the Paris Agreement’s new carbon market, known as Article 6.4.

Back at COP26 in Glasgow, governments agreed that the Adaptation Fund should get 5% of the proceeds from all Article 6.4 carbon credits – other than those based in small islands and least developed countries.

How much money that will amount to is uncertain. It depends on how many projects there are and the price of their credits. 

The fund got over $200 million from a similar share of proceeds under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), although the price of those credits collapsed. 

While $200 million was a disappointment as ten times that was expected, the Adaptation Fund head Mikko Ollikainen told Climate Home News in Bonn that the sum was “not insignificant”. By comparison, the fund has been seeking $300 million per year from donor governments in recent years.

Hopes are that the CDM’s successor will yield bigger sums for adaptation. But for the fund to get its hands on the share of cash it is expecting from Article 6.4 projects , governments need to agree to transition the fund to “exclusively” serve the Paris Agreement. They are hoping to wrap up those talks in Bonn this week, so that they can rubber-stamp the decision early at COP31.

It has not been plain-sailing. As small islands’ lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen told a press conference on Tuesday, this transition “is being blocked, frustrating efforts to replenish the fund and ensure that the crucial adaptation finance can flow to those that need it the most”. The African Group’s chair Antwi-Boasiako Amoah later said he was “alarmed” that adaptation finance was being “held hostage”.

The problem is related to who is considered a developed country at UN climate talks, with the responsibilities for providing climate finance that designation implies.

Traditional donor countries, which have been pushing for years for some wealthier developing countries like Saudi Arabia and China to contribute to climate finance as well, want the Adaptation Fund’s board seats to be split between “developed” and “developing” countries. 

They argue that these are the categories referred to in the Paris Agreement and so are appropriate for a fund that exclusively serves that accord.

Developing countries – which have long opposed any of their members being considered developed – argue that the board seats should continue to be split between “Annex 1” and “non-Annex 1” countries. 

These categories, based on lists of nations drawn up in 1992, are more rigid than “developed” and “developing”. While development status can change over time, you’re either on the Annex 1 list or you’re not.

Ollikainen said a delay in agreement beyond COP31 – a risk if the issue is not resolved here in Bonn – would harm people in the real world where adaptation needs are rising sharply while the money to protect them from worsening climate impacts is not.

“If we don’t address adaptation,” the fund’s head told Climate Home News, “that will lead to loss and damage and that’s going to be even more costlier than adaptation – and the cost will be borne by people who have done least to cause this problem who typically don’t have social safety networks to support them.”

This, together with other doubts over finance, have led small island nations “to question whether the implementation of the NCQG [the 2035 finance goal agreed at COP29] is dead on arrival”, their chief negotiator Rasmussen said.

African chair defends veto power of climate talks

The consensus-based system of UN climate talks, where any country can in theory veto agreement on a decision, has caused much frustration among climate campaigners and many negotiators who see it as leading to lowest-common-denominator outcomes.

This frustration led to the Santa Marta conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels in April which was attended by around 60 nations – including nine African states. That came after progress on the issue was blocked by big fossil fuel-producing countries at COP29 and COP30.

But on Tuesday in Bonn, the chair of the African Group of Negotiators, Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, whose own nation Ghana was among the nine African states in Santa Marta, said “minilateral processes” – none of which he named – lack legitimacy.

He said “Africa stands unequivocally for multilateralism” and will not accept “processes that undermine consensus”. He added that “diversion of resources and political attention toward minilateral initiatives and coalitions of the willing that lack global endorsement is a direct threat to the multilateral system”. The group of countries in Santa Marta has often been described as a “coalition of the willing”.

Amoah said that if such processes had any legitimacy, they would be agreed at COPs. And he defended the system of one government being able to veto anything, saying that “countries are sovereign, national interests are different, and you cannot sacrifice one party’s interest for another’s”.

Asked about the COP Presidency’s electrification goal, he said: “If the objective is to enhance implementation and knowledge and create awareness of those initiatives, there is nothing wrong with that.” 

“But”, he added, “if the objective is to have space later on to bring those outcomes into the negotiation process then the starting point is wrong because its selective, its not inclusive and its not based on the agreement of all parties.”

Carbon trading risks undermining climate progress, analysis finds

With the long-awaited rulebook for carbon trading under the Paris Agreement finally completed, governments are now showing growing interest in tapping into Article 6. 

Many rich countries plan on using carbon credits generated in the Global South to meet part of their emission-cutting promises, while many developing nations see the mechanism as an appealing avenue for climate cash.

But a first analysis by independent research group Climate Action Tracker (CAT) found that the government’s use of international carbon credits threatens to undermine progress in climate action. 

CAT assessed the carbon trading arrangements of two leading buyers, Japan and Switzerland, and two sellers of credits, Brazil and Kenya. It called the results of this exercise “sobering”. 

Janna Hoppe, CAT’s Article 6 lead, said buyer countries should only count carbon credits under Article 6 towards their targets if their domestic emissions reduction target is in line with the 1.5˚C limit and they have delivered sufficient climate finance to developing countries. 

“This is certainly not the case for Switzerland or Japan,” she added.

CAT says Switzerland plans to meet a third of its 2030 emissions reduction target through Article 6 projects, while Japan plans to buy a total of 100 million credits up to 2030 and 200 million by 2040. As their climate plans are not aligned with the most ambitious Paris global warming limit, their use of the carbon trading mechanism is not responsible, the research group concluded.

Both countries are sourcing their credits through Article 6.2, which allows bilateral exchange of credits with little oversight, no universally agreed standards and, CAT says, lacks clear environmental or social safeguards. 

Japan has signed 31 bilateral agreements with countries including Thailand, Indonesia and India under its own scheme, the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM), but only a limited number of credits have been generated so far. 

Last year, a Climate Home News analysis of Japan’s projects – from forest protection to energy-efficient lighting in Southeast Asia – raised questions over the climate benefits and environmental integrity of some of the offsets.

As governments bet on carbon trading, Japan’s early scheme spotlights pitfalls

The Japanese government did not directly comment on our findings but its latest NDC climate plan says the country’s JCM scheme “secures environmental integrity and the avoidance of double counting in line with the international rules, including the Paris Agreement”.

Switzerland, meanwhile, has struck 17 agreements with countries including Ghana and Thailand. CAT credited the Swiss government with developing its own safeguards and excluding activities that pose risks to the integrity and durability of the climate benefits of the credits. A programme rolling out electric buses in Bangkok faced criticism over whether the offsets deliver the emission reductions claimed, which the Swiss government rejected. 

For developing countries selling credits to their richer counterparts, CAT warned about the risk of handing over “easy-to-abate emissions” leaving the project hosts to pursue more difficult and costly emission reductions at home to meet their climate targets.

To prevent the same emission reduction units from being counted twice, governments are required to apply a corresponding adjustment to their carbon accounting when trading credits. For seller countries this means that they need to add to their inventories the amount of CO2 savings they transferred abroad. 

The research group found that neither Brazil nor Kenya has fully assessed how selling carbon credits abroad will impact on their efforts to reach their emissions-cutting targets. 

COP30 Presidency requests agenda item on finance, raising questions about procedure

Delegates in Bonn were caught off guard on Monday when the COP30 presidency proposed adding a new agenda item on the climate finance work programme, one of the more contentious negotiations that has seen little progress so far.

COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago told a press conference on Tuesday that the finance work programme was part of the Mutirão Decision from last year’s climate talks in Belém and that he wants “the legacy of Belém to be preserved”.

“The work programme was established [in Belém], so we believed that we needed an agenda item to see how we are going to continue with it,” he said.

Some observers raised procedural concerns, as they questioned whether a COP presidency can request an agenda item. The UN’s rules of procedure note that items can be requested by countries as parties. 

In response to Climate Home News, do Lago confirmed that the sub-item agenda request is from the COP30 Presidency, not from Brazil as a country/party. “It’s something that we talked about with the [UNFCCC] secretariat and the agenda is built by the secretariat and the [COP] presidency.”

Joanna Depledge, a historian of the UN climate process and research fellow at the University of Cambridge, was also surprised by the request. “I’m not aware of any precedent for a presidency (outgoing or incoming) proposing an agenda item in this way,” she said.

She explained that number 10 of the rules of procedure clearly lists five types of items that can be put on the provisional agenda by a party – a country – “but there is nothing about presidency proposals”. 

“I would say the presidency cannot present its own proposed item for inclusion on behalf of the presidency in the hope that this carries more weight and authority than if it came from any other party,” Depledge said.

At the time of publication, UN Climate Change had not responded to a request for comment.

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For years, the dominant story on coral reefs has been one of inevitable loss, with news headlines focusing on mass bleaching, ecosystem collapse, and catastrophic tipping points. As ocean temperatures continue to rise, many people have come to see the decline of the world’s reefs as unavoidable. 

The threats are real and urgent, but new evidence points to a more complicated and useful conclusion: some reefs still have a meaningful chance to survive and recover, provided they are protected. 

A major new analysis, published today with the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, identifies more than 165,000 square kilometers of coral reefs, across 71 countries and 100 territories and jurisdictions, with the strongest potential to withstand and recover from climate impacts. 

Drawing on more than 45,000 coral surveys, along with decades of climate and ocean data, the research finds that three times more reefs may be capable of surviving the climate crisis than previously understood. That has major implications for reef-dependent communities, food security, coastal protection, fisheries, tourism, and national economies. 

Essential natural infrastructure for communities

The findings make clear that reefs will not all respond to climate impacts in the same way. Some are located in rare underwater cool spots that can help shield them from extreme heat. Some show greater resistance to bleaching and other climate-related stress. Others recover more quickly after severe disturbances. These differences matter because they show where protection can have the greatest long-term impact. 

More than 500 million people depend on reefs for food, livelihoods, and coastal protection. For those communities, climate-resilient reefs are not an abstract conservation priority. They are essential natural infrastructure. They help protect coastlines, sustain fisheries, support local economies, and reduce climate risk. Because ocean currents move coral larvae and marine life between reef systems, some of these reefs may also help regenerate wider reef ecosystems after climate shocks. 

This should change how governments, funders, and conservation partners prioritize action. 

Comment: The ocean, our planet’s forgotten hero, deserves a formal place in UN climate talks

Climate change remains the greatest long-term threat to coral reefs. At the same time, many of the pressures pushing reefs closer to collapse are immediate and local. Sewage pollution, deforestation, agricultural runoff, destructive fishing practices, and poorly managed coastal development continue to damage reefs that are already under stress. Recent research shows that water pollution and fishing pressure are now among the leading local threats affecting nearly two-thirds of the world’s coral reefs. 

These pressures can be reduced. Governments and local partners are already working to improve reef management, cut pollution, strengthen enforcement, and protect critical ecosystems. Those efforts need to move faster, alongside much stronger action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Prioritising climate-resilient reefs

The new maps of climate-resilient reefs give governments, communities, and reef managers a clearer basis for action. They show where reefs have the strongest potential to persist over time, and where protection can deliver the greatest benefits for people, coastlines, and economies. 

Right now, only around 28 percent of the identified climate-resilient reefs fall within protected or conserved areas. If these reefs are among the most capable of surviving climate impacts and helping regenerate broader reef systems, they should be prioritized for protection, management, and investment. 

The case for action is practical as well as ecological. Healthy reefs can reduce wave energy by up to 97 percent, helping protect coastlines from storms, flooding, and erosion. They support fisheries that feed millions of people, sustain tourism jobs and local economies, and help reduce climate risk for vulnerable coastal communities. 

For many families, a healthy reef means food, income, and protection when storms hit. For Indigenous Peoples and coastal communities, reefs are also tied to culture, heritage, identity, and traditional knowledge systems. 

Ocean conservation must catch up

Governments are beginning to recognize the urgency of protecting climate-resilient reefs. At last year’s UN Ocean Conference in Nice, 11 countries signed a declaration committing to stronger protection of these reefs, including action to address destructive fishing, pollution, and unsustainable coastal development.

As leaders meet in Kenya this week to discuss the challenges facing the world’s ocean, more governments should join the declaration and help build a broader coalition committed to safeguarding these critical ecosystems. 

As coral reefs pass tipping point, ocean protection rises up political agenda

Some countries are already showing what this leadership can look like. Brazil has included corals in its national climate plans. The Bahamas is embedding reef protection into national policy and local stewardship systems. The declaration offers a way to build on these efforts and scale them globally. 

But commitments will not be enough. Success will depend on implementation. That means stronger protection and management, reduced local pressures, increased investment, and meaningful support for the Indigenous Peoples and local communities stewarding these ecosystems. 

The science is clear. Many reefs still have the capacity to persist and recover. The question is whether policy and investment will move quickly enough to protect them, so they can continue sustaining communities, economies, and coastlines for generations to come. 

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The programme, which aims to cut emissions by distributing efficient cookstoves across Myanmar, received approval to issue around 650,000 carbon credits from the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body in February, in a landmark moment for the Paris Agreement’s carbon market. Only two projects have been given the green light by the mechanism’s regulator so far.

But two reports published last week, led by the Global Forest Coalition and Brussels-based NGO Carbon Market Watch, raised serious concerns about the project’s implementation in conflict zones where civilians have faced airstrikes and mass displacement as well as its emission-reduction calculations.

Project continued after military coup

Myanmar has been ravaged by a brutal civil war since the country’s military overthrew the democratically elected government in a coup d’état in February 2021. The military regime has attacked civilian populations, persecuted ethnic minorities and committed widespread sexual violence, among other serious human rights violations, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar said in April.

The cookstove programme started in 2018 under the previous UN-run carbon offsetting scheme – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – as a partnership between Myanmar’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC) and the Climate Change Center (CCC), a South Korean NGO, with investment from private South Korean firms.

The project continued operating after the coup. For most of the period between 2021 and 2022 in which the issued credits were generated, MONREC was led by Colonel Khin Maung Yi, who was sanctioned by the European Union in 2021 for supporting the military regime, the Global Forest Coalition report said.

CCC acknowledged engaging with government authorities after the coup but said this “should not be interpreted as political endorsement” of the junta. The South Korean NGO added that abandoning the programme when political circumstances changed “would not necessarily have been the most responsible outcome for the households involved”.

Conflict prevents on the ground verification

The Global Forest Coalition report raised particular concerns about the project’s implementation in Myanmar’s central Dry Zone, including Sagaing Region, an anti-junta resistance stronghold that has been most heavily affected by the conflict and routinely targeted by airstrikes and violent attacks. The region accounts for more than a third of Myanmar’s 3.8 million internally displaced people.

The NGOs said that, in addition to ethical concerns about carbon credits being produced by the military government in an area actively affected by its attacks, this raises questions over the ability to effectively verify the climate integrity of the projects.

Before carbon credits are issued, external auditors need to validate the claims made by project developers and confirm that the emission reductions claimed are correct. This process usually includes site visits to a representative sample of households to check how the improved cookstoves are being used. 

But, because of the “volatile political situation” in Myanmar, the auditing team was not able to leave the capital Yangon and could only speak to project participants remotely via Zoom, project documents show. 

“Due to ongoing armed conflict on the ground, the data currently used to justify carbon credit issuance in Sagaing by the Burmese military junta is unverifiable and highly likely fraudulent,” said Zaw Tuseng, founder and president of the Myanmar Policy Institute, which contributed to the report, in a written statement. “This demands an immediate suspension of credit transfers until a neutral, conflict-sensitive audit can be conducted.”

“Exceptional circumstances”

CCC told Climate Home News that, although it recognises that on-site verification is “generally preferable, particularly in complex operating environments”, the decision to opt for remote controls was not taken “as a discretionary shortcut, but as an approved alternative under exceptional circumstances”.

The South Korean NGO added that it reviewed the feasibility of the project at community level “on an ongoing basis” and it “did not identify conflict-related incidents that directly affected project implementation activities in participating communities during the monitoring period”.

A spokesperson for the UN climate change body told Climate Home News that, when site access is not possible, the UN carbon credit mechanism allows for “alternative verification approaches while still maintaining conservative assumptions and environmental integrity safeguards”. “These provisions ensure that crediting can only proceed where evidence is reliable,” they added. 

Contested methodology

Carbon markets are seen as an important channel to raise money to help low-income communities in developing countries switch to less polluting cooking methods, both reducing CO2 emissions and improving air quality. But several cookstove offsetting projects have faced criticism from researchers and campaigners who argue that climate benefits are often exaggerated and weak monitoring can undermine claims of real emission reductions.

The project in Myanmar uses a contested methodology developed under the earlier Kyoto Protocol that was rejected last year by The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), a watchdog that issues quality labels to carbon credit types, because it found it “insufficiently rigorous”.

EU carbon credits could supercharge world’s clean cooking push, France says

After transitioning from the CDM to the new mechanism, the project was required to apply “more conservative” assumptions to calculate emission reductions, which resulted in 40% fewer credits being issued, according to the UN climate change body.

“The result is consistent with environmental integrity requirements and ensures that each credited tonne genuinely represents a tonne reduced and contributes to the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body, which oversees the mechanism, said in February. 

Too many credits issued

But Carbon Market Watch claimed in a second report last week that, despite the adjustment, the project is still likely to issue seven times more credits than its real climate impact justifies, comparing its calculations with values from peer-reviewed scientific literature.

The biggest driver of the credit inflation, the group said, is the failure to account for “stacking” – the widespread practice of households using multiple stoves at the same time, including more polluting ones the project does not monitor. 

Carbon Market Watch said that peer-reviewed science considers a stacking rate of 68% a conservative assumption, while the UN told Climate Home News that Myanmar project had applied lower stacking rates of 8% and 10% based on the results of surveys with a sample of households.

CCC disputed the Carbon Market Watch findings. In a written response to Climate Home News, it said the project was developed under methodologies approved within the UN climate framework and that external recalculations by researchers are not “determinative of the level of crediting achieved”.

The credits are expected to be used primarily by major South Korean polluters to meet obligations under the country’s emissions trading system – a move that will also enable the government to count those units toward emissions reduction targets in its nationally determined contribution (NDC), the UN climate body told Climate Home News.

Myanmar will use the remaining credits to achieve in part the goals of its own national climate plan under the Paris Agreement.

“Over-crediting, at any magnitude, cannot be compatible with the climate ambition of a world striving to limit global warming to 1.5ºC,” said Isa Mulder, an expert at Carbon Market Watch.

An earlier version of this article included a claim from the Carbon Market Watch report that the project’s methodology does not account for stacking rates. We have corrected the article to reflect that the UNFCCC told us the project had applied stacking rates when calculating climate benefits.

In response, Carbon Market Watch said it was not aware of the inclusion of stacking rates at the time of the report’s publication, as these were not disclosed publicly by the project developers. CMW added that, having now accounted for stacking rates in its calculations, the project remains likely to issue seven times more credits than its real climate impact justifies.

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“There is no progress happening in the finance rooms, and this is sending really worrying signals for COP31,” Rebecca Thissen, global advocacy lead at Climate Action Network International, told a press conference on Monday. “This is toxifying every single discussion in other negotiating tracks,” she added.

Discussions on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) ended the first week in Bonn with a request from the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) to include in the future text the COP30 commitment to triple adaptation finance, a demand that was supported by all the developing-country negotiating groups. 

The 2035 goal was agreed in Belem last November but lacked details for its implementation – for example, it doesn’t have a baseline against which to calculate the increase in annual funding. That baseline is one key issue that has risen up the agenda at the talks in Bonn.

Developing countries and civil society representatives already have a clear figure for the goal in mind – $120 billion a year. This is derived from a tripling of the earlier goal of $40 billion a year by 2025. And they want to see a firm target in any decision adopted on the Global Goal on Adaptation.

This would prevent anyone from being able to argue that the 2035 goal is to triple adaptation finance from 2025’s actual – rather than targeted – levels. 

Comment: Tripling adaptation finance is just the start – delivery is what matters

Adaptation finance provided by donor governments and multilateral development banks was $31.7 billion in 2024 and is likely to have fallen in 2025, the year Donald Trump took over the White House and European countries cut back development to fund their militaries. So the difference in baseline could equate to at least $30 billion a year in 2035.  

But Marlene Achoki, global policy lead at CARE International, said at the briefing that even $120 billion a year “is actually the floor – it’s the starting point to keep things going, it’s not enough for the 300 billion gap”, referring to the gap between annual adaptation finance and needs of developing countries as estimated by the UN.  

A new text presented to governments on Monday didn’t explicitly include the tripling goal but only indirectly mentions the COP30 decision in one of two options. Consultations were still ongoing on Monday afternoon and expected to continue on Tuesday morning. 

On the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP), finance again was a tense topic among countries. Developing nations want a new mechanism, due to be set up at COP31, to mobilise the money needed for a just transition to a low-carbon world, while many developed countries argue finance shouldn’t be dealt with by the body. Some observers told Climate Home News the idea is not to create a new fund or anything additional, but rather to connect existing initiatives and processes to the projects that need financing. 

Saturday’s first-ever dialogue on trade under the UN climate regime, meanwhile, also had finance as a  transversal topic, especially among statements from developing countries. The African Group called for changes to the global system and expressed concern about market mechanisms, including carbon markets, under which “developing countries export carbon-sink capacity and developed ones import emissions rights”. They also argued that the trade system must leave room for poorer countries to develop. 

To that end, the Least Developed Countries Group highlighted the relevance of building in-country capacity for their development, not only bringing it in from outside. A report by UN Trade & Development (UNCTAD), for example, has highlighted that constructing renewable energy projects with international investments that do not pass on technical know-how to developing countries does not guarantee broader economic gains. It could even create a new form of dependency in the name of the green transition, UNCTAD warned. 

Nicole Makowski, senior associate with the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC), told Climate Home News the trade dialogue had taken only baby steps. “We still need to clarify the added value of the dialogue; what outcomes it is expected to deliver, and how those outcomes can translate into concrete change,” she said.

The G7’s Voldemort: climate action

As the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) powerful nations headed to the French spa town of Évian in France for their annual summit from June 15-17, one thing was clear – climate change won’t be on the agenda. In order to enlist the unpredictable US President Donald Trump – who has called global warming a “hoax” and a “con job” – France decided to leave out any overt mention of climate action.

Rebecca Thissen, global advocacy lead at Climate Action Network International, told journalists at the Bonn talks on Monday that this shows some heads of state are “moving away from their climate commitments, or at least they don’t want to be so outspoken about it” as they try to appease the Trump administration. They must be reminded that climate action “is a central element of the global order”, she added, because it’s fundamentally about justice and making society and people’s lives better.

After a meeting of the G7 environment ministers in April, declarations were adopted on issues ranging from water, security, resilience, oceans and biodiversity but the word “climate” was studiously avoided. The statement put out by France also mentioned an initiative to reduce emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, but did not link it to global warming.

With climate now resembling Voldemort (He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named) in international diplomatic circles that include the US, all may not yet be lost. Think-tank E3G said in a pre-G7 briefing that France has nonetheless worked to advance climate-related issues through discussions on energy security in the context of Middle East supply disruptions, de-risking supply chains for critical minerals, and helping debt-laden countries get easier access to affordable capital.

Those leaders who remain committed can use the summit to signal support for climate action on the sidelines, E3G added. Let’s see if any of them dare to play Harry Potter.

Ministry divisions complicate Brazil’s roadmap away from fossil fuels

In a packed room last Friday, the COP30 Presidency presented preliminary elements of the work on the global roadmap for the transition away from fossil fuels and some European and small island governments argued the roadmap should be integrated into the formal negotiation process. But besides the global work, how is Brazil’s national roadmap coming along?

“The presidential order [by President Lula at COP30] was that the ministries of environment, finance and energy should work together,” Flávia Bellaguarda, special advisor to Brazil’s environment ministry, told Climate Home News in Bonn. 

“We do have different points of view about what the roadmap means. We have to face our contradictions and bring them to the table because the roadmap is about energy security, economic security, social security,” she said, adding that “we have reached a common place of the guidelines of what must be addressed on the roadmap”.

Those guidelines – which Bellaguarda couldn’t share yet – are now under revision by the Brazilian presidency and then will be analysed by the National Energy Policy Council (CNPE). After those revisions, the three ministries will begin working on the roadmap itself and its governance. That work will include consultations with different stakeholders, including representatives of the energy sector and civil society organisations. 

The Brazilian government still prefers not to give dates for these next steps because “they do not expect it to be something quick,” but rather to respect the steps and time that the process requires.

Roadmaps to transition away from fossil fuels are, at least for now, voluntary for each country. “There is no right and wrong on how to do the roadmap. Countries know what is best for each reality,” said Bellaguarda, encouraging countries to advance on their national roadmaps alongside the global one. “It’s not easy to address the issue nationally, but it’s totally necessary.”

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During a 90-minute exchange of views at the annual mid-year climate talks in Germany, several European governments and the Marshall Islands said the roadmap that Brazil is due to finish by November should be incorporated into the official negotiations.

Any such push is likely to be resisted by nations whose economies are reliant on fossil fuel production. While Russia did not speak on Friday, it has said in earlier written submissions that the roadmap should not be referenced in any document approved by governments at UN climate talks. 

At COP30 last year, Brazil tried to get governments to agree to produce a roadmap on how to transition away from fossil fuels but the proposal did not win consensus, with major nations like Saudi Arabia and Russia opposed. 

Feedback in Bonn

To save the day, Brazil’s COP30 president André Aranha Corrêa do Lago promised at the closing plenary in Belem to draw up a voluntary roadmap in consultation with interested governments.

Nearly 20 countries have officially submitted their opinions on this roadmap, as well as negotiating groups representing small island states and the poorest countries, and the European Union. In Bonn on Friday, Corrêa do Lago sought their views – and those of civil society – in person after the presidency presented its findings so far.

These focused on international and domestic barriers to the transition, such as fossil fuel subsidies and dependence on revenues from the sector, as well as uneven distribution of clean energy technologies and social justice concerns. They also explored ways to speed up the shift.

In addition, the roadmap – which will take into account countries’ differing levels of development and energy access and avoid a one-size-fits-all approach – will incorporate outcomes from the first global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels held in Santa Marta, Colombia, in April, which was attended by around 60 countries. 

A negotiator for the Marshall Islands told Friday’s meeting that at COP31 this year all governments should “welcome the collaborative effort behind the roadmap and the Santa Marta conference and for this work to be taken on to COP32 and beyond”.

A spokesperson for Switzerland said on behalf of a group of nations which includes South Korea and Mexico that the roadmap must be a “sustained process, not a one-off report” and “we would welcome an ongoing platform for dialogue, for learning and cooperation including among fossil-fuel production countries”.

“We expect more than a document, rather a process whereby we come together to develop concrete steps, recommendations and tools to prepare for the transitions,” she said, calling on the COP31 co-presidents Australia and Turkiye and COP32 host Ethiopia to “take up the leadership” for implementing the roadmap”.

Global stocktake response

France’s negotiator said the roadmap “is a process and we will need continuing discussions” as “implementation needs time”, while the UK called for a “continuing conversation, including as we head towards the second [global stocktake]”. 

The global stocktake (GST) is an official five-yearly report into how the world’s governments are doing on their Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.

The second stocktake will be published in 2028 and governments are likely to negotiate a response to it, which could include new commitments to reduce emissions, at COP33 that year. The response to the first global stocktake included the landmark COP28 commitment to transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems.

“Even though it’s not a formal part of the negotiation agenda, the roadmap can be a key input for the entire information-gathering phase of the second GST,” Enrique Maurtua Konstantinidis, an independent climate policy consultant, explained to Climate Home News. 

“The key is for countries not to focus the discussion on defending the roadmap itself, but rather on its content, which is what truly matters,” he added.

At the Bonn event, civil society organisations also supported continuing the roadmap inside the formal climate process.

Natalie Jones, policy adviser for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, told Climate Home News the roadmap should be “an ongoing dialogue where countries can exchange their experiences, best practices and continue implementing the [transitioning away from fossil fuels] consensus”.

Russian resistance

But economies reliant on fossil fuel production are likely to oppose incorporating the roadmap into negotiations in Bonn and at COP summits. Russia’s written submission to Brazil’s consultation says the roadmap was not agreed by governments at COP30.

It says such work should therefore take place on the margins of the UNFCCC process, adding that “ the inclusion of any references to the “Roadmap” in the agenda or in official or informal documents” at Bonn or COP “would constitute a deviation from previously agreed consensus outcomes”.

Other major oil and gas producers like Saudi Arabia have not made written or spoken submissions and the US, as it has left the Paris Agreement, is not involved in discussions. But countries other than Russia are likely to resist incorporating the roadmap into official talks.

The UN climate process needs ambition – the law demands it

The submission by Japan, which is not a major producer of fossil fuels but consumes them from overseas, suggests nervousness about the roadmap. It asks Brazil for clarity on how the roadmap is “envisaged to be utilised” and argues that as many countries continue to rely on fossil fuels for electricity, a full and fast shift to “full decarbonisation” is “challenging.

After Friday’s event, Corrêa do Lago told Climate Home News that “the suggestions and the key milestones of the roadmap are not clear yet”. He added that the next step for the COP30 presidency will be to “sit down in July and August to really prepare” the content.

The veteran Brazilian diplomat added that the roadmap will have a section on the challenges of the transition and another section on solutions.

National fossil fuel roadmaps

Brazil, as COP30 president, is drawing up the global roadmap but its leader Lula da Silva has also ordered his officials to draw up a national roadmap. 

In April, France became the first and so far only nation to produce a roadmap, which amalgamated different existing energy and decarbonisation plans and targets. Colombia is reportedly drawing up a roadmap too, based on a draft document by academics.

On Friday, a coalition of nearly 100 civil society organisations called on the COP31 co-presidents Australia and Türkiye to both come up with national roadmaps in order to “lead by example”. Türkiye produces about a third of its electricity from coal, while Australia is the world’s third-largest fossil fuel exporter, the NGOs said.

But in the Brazil-led consultation meeting, a Norwegian negotiator downplayed the importance of separate national roadmaps for transitioning away from fossil fuels. 

While they can “have a supporting role”, the official said countries’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs) “must remain the primary vehicle for driving global climate transition.” 

NDCs are climate plans, usually containing emissions reduction targets, which the Paris Agreement states governments must update with higher ambition every five years. 

This article was updated after publication with additional details on the roadmap work so far.

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Some of this support is being provided under Ugbaad, the Somali name for a new project meaning “fresh sprouting pasture”. Backed by an $80-million grant from the UN’s Green Climate Fund, it is enabling farmers to earn a more reliable living as climate shocks intensify. The project is also reducing conflict tensions among communities, according to a government representative. 

Abdiaziz Ibrahim Aden, adaptation and resilience lead at Somalia’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, said farmers who lost their land to floods and erosion have been able to rehabilitate it and plant crops like banana and sesame for export. “Their productivity is increasing now,” he told Climate Home News. 

He said the project, which aims to benefit over 2 million people in total, has made young people less vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups. Beyond improved water access for pastoralists, the initiative also includes ways to disseminate timely climate information to communities and build government capacity to keep land and ecosystems in better shape.

Nonetheless, Somalia remains one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, with millions of its people facing food insecurity, displacement and recurring climate disasters. 

Poor rains and major aid shortfalls have forced critical food and nutrition programmes to close, worsening hunger. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global system used to measure hunger crises, has warned that nearly 2 million Somali children could face acute malnutrition this year. 

Climate change – a threat multiplier 

Somalia’s economy hinges on agriculture and repeated climate shocks continue to inflame tensions related to farming and food production. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), every two in three conflicts in the country stems from competition over natural resources.

During drought periods, disputes often flare up among neighbouring communities over scarce water sources as herders move with their livestock in search of boreholes, Haji said. 

Clashes can quickly escalate in Somalia where many herders carry guns for protection, he added. “If two people meet at the water borehole and they fight over that area, then the war prolongs and extends from that zone to other zones,” he explained.

Aid agencies grapple with climate adaptation in fragile states  

Somalia is not alone. Across conflict-affected parts of Africa, climate change is fast becoming more than just an environmental challenge. From the shrinking of Lake Chad in the Sahel region to devastating floods in South Sudan and prolonged droughts across the Horn of Africa, stronger climate impacts are intensifying competition to maintain livelihoods in regions already struggling with weak governance, displacement and insecurity.

Alec Crawford, director of nature for resilience at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), described climate change as a “threat multiplier” that worsens already existing social and economic tensions. “It is a contributing factor to violence and instability and conflict, but it’s not the sole driver,” he emphasised. 

Fragile states coordinate peacebuilding and adaptation 

The growing overlap between climate vulnerability and insecurity is forcing governments and development agencies to rethink adaptation efforts. This was evident at a recent conference in Nigeria that brought together conflict-affected African countries including Burkina Faso, Somalia, Mali, South Sudan, Cameroon, Central African Republic and Chad. 

At the event, governments explored how peacebuilding can be integrated with their national climate adaptation plans, helping prevent conflict in communities facing mounting pressure over fertile land, water and other natural resources.

For many of these countries, none of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals will be achieved until peace and security are in place, Crawford said. They are currently trapped in a vicious cycle. “Some of these climate impacts are potentially worsening the conflict dynamics, while at the same time conflict is really getting in the way of reducing vulnerabilities and adapting to climate change,” he explained.

Politically fragile countries are increasingly looking for solutions to reduce the tensions within their borders that are preventing them from tackling climate change impacts. At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai in 2023, governments and aid agencies issued a joint call for “bolder collective action to build climate resilience at the scale and speed required in highly vulnerable countries and communities”. 

Crawford said many fragile states are overstretched and under-resourced because of conflict. He pointed to South Sudan as an example of a country simultaneously trying to house displaced people, rebuild schools and clinics, and restore basic infrastructure after war, making climate adaptation difficult to prioritise. However, ignoring climate risks could undermine any progress such countries manage to make, he warned. 

UN adaptation metrics exclude conflict

Another thorny problem is finding ways to track progress on climate adaptation in conflict-affected states. A set of indicators to measure how countries are doing in their efforts to implement the Paris Agreement’s Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), finally agreed 10 years later at COP30 in Brazil, deliberately left out metrics relating to peace and conflict.

Katharina Schmidt, policy advisor at the NAP Global Network, a global initiative coordinated by IISD to help developing countries advance their climate adaptation planning, pointed to longstanding reluctance to formally integrate peace and conflict issues into core UN climate frameworks. This, she said, is partly because some countries want climate finance to stay separate from funding for peacebuilding and development. 

However, Schmidt said the absence of specific indicators in the GGA framework does not mean adaptation in fragile and conflict-affected states is being ignored. “Everybody agrees that there needs to be adaptation in [these] states,” she said, even if it is “often not reflected prominently in these negotiation documents”.

New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance

This is why the NAP Global Network, which organised the recent conference in Abuja, is trying to strengthen coordination and peer learning among conflict-affected countries, helping them overcome some of the barriers that make adaptation planning difficult. 

Many lack the climate data and infrastructure needed to understand and respond to climate risks, in some cases because conflicts destroy weather stations and disrupt climate monitoring systems, Crawford said. To fill these gaps, the network is helping countries tap into existing global systems and open-source data platforms. 

Bridging the gap through the NAP process

For over a decade, the process for putting together National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), established under the UN climate framework in 2010, has helped countries identify climate vulnerabilities, integrate adaptation into long-term development planning and strengthen resilience to climate impacts. 

Crawford, who also works with the NAP Global Network, said one core pillar is to strengthen governments’ capacity to plan and implement adaptation measures across ministries. 

As part of its NAP process, Somalia conducted vulnerability assessments in several states and regions, helping the government understand how climate impacts, risks and adaptation needs vary across the country, according to government official Aden. This also revealed previously undocumented challenges facing different communities, from drought and water scarcity to coastal threats and land degradation.

“The NAP project helped Somalia identify some cases that were not known before,” he said, adding that it allowed the government to plan its budget to meet differing regional needs. 

More than 6,000 kilometres away, the Liberian government, through its NAP process, is also identifying potential sources of tension around land rights, tenure and resource distribution, particularly as people fleeing conflict in Burkina Faso cross into Liberia through Ivory Coast. 

Arthur Becker, Liberia’s NAP coordinator, said Liberia’s ongoing NAP review process will incorporate peacebuilding considerations that were largely absent from its current 2020-2030 adaptation plan. 

The NAP process aims to help countries move beyond short-term responses to climate disasters, Crawford said.

“It’s really about looking to the medium and long term and saying, this is how the climate is changing within our country, this is going to have fundamental impacts on our development trajectory – how do we put adaptation to climate change at the heart of that development trajectory?”

Nigeria addresses conflict and climate risks together

Nigeria, which is already grappling with multiple security challenges linked to resource competition and environmental pressures, is also integrating peacebuilding into its NAP.

A climate risk and vulnerability assessment found that factors such as drought and desertification across northern Nigeria have made food less available and encouraged criminality and banditry. Down south, sea level rise, coastal erosion and flooding are destroying livelihoods and property and displacing people. Those impacts are increasingly fuelling tensions between communities and driving protests over environmental injustice.

Nigeria’s deadly flood exposes urgent need for climate adaptation plan

Kayode Aboyeji, Nigeria’s NAP coordinator, said it was in the course of the NAP process that “we realised that some of the conflicts in Nigeria are not just politically driven but that environmental issues, demand for natural resources, [and the] threat of climate change are some of the triggers.”

He said Nigeria has now integrated conflict sensitivity and peacebuilding into its NAP – which has yet to be formally approved and published – recognising the need for climate responses that do not worsen existing tensions. It is also raising awareness among key actors, including the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, around the importance of adopting conflict-sensitive approaches to climate adaptation. 

In addition, Nigeria has developed adaptation strategies tailored to each of its geopolitical zones, which local authorities can use to better address climate-related challenges in their regions. 

Finance a major barrier to implementation

While countries are increasingly integrating peacebuilding into their climate adaptation planning, financing such work on the ground remains a major challenge, especially for fragile African states already grappling with insecurity, debt and weak public finances.

Nigeria’s Aboyeji said the country’s NAP requires resources to roll it out across the country. While the government is looking to development bodies, philanthropies and the private sector for support, it is also exploring domestic financing mechanisms such as green bonds and budget appropriations to help fund implementation. 

For countries like South Sudan – where ongoing instability continues to undermine the government’s ability to finance adaptation measures – the struggle is even more pronounced. Peter Jonglei Kureng, acting deputy director for its Budget Policy Directorate, said the government tries to include adaptation in national budgets, but implementation often stalls because the promised funds are never released.

“We can budget for it, but when it’s time for execution, there is no money,” he said.

Can climate funders overcome fear to tread in conflict zones? 

Liberia faces similar constraints. Becker said adaptation interventions are expensive, and the country is committing domestic resources to climate action even while expecting the bulk of financing to come from international partners. 

The financing gap remains one of the biggest hurdles to adaptation efforts. New OECD data shows that wealthy nations are likely to have missed their 2025 goal of doubling adaptation finance for developing countries, with funding reaching just under $35 billion in 2024 – far below estimated needs.

While international support remains non-negotiable and should be increased, especially for fragile countries, Crawford said they cannot rely solely on external funding, especially as many donors are cutting their overseas development assistance. 

Governments will also need to explore how to harness more domestic resources, while recognising the role private-sector actors can play, he added.

“Advocating for more of that financing flowing into adaptation is going to be crucial, because after all the work that goes into NAPs, it’s essential that they turn into concrete measures and don’t just gather dust on a shelf,” he said.

The post Climate adaptation helps African nations tackle rising conflict over resources appeared first on Climate Home News.

Data from UN Climate Change, which runs the two weeks of talks, shows that just 135 media representatives have signed up to attend. Climate Home News analysis of previous data shows this is the lowest figure since 2021, when COVID-19 restrictions limited travel and the Bonn talks were held in a hybrid format to enable online participation.

The number of journalists that actually attend the talks will not be known until later this month but is typically significantly less than are registered. Press conferences, held back-to-back each day by campaign groups, have been sparsely attended in the first few days and often filled mainly with climate campaigners and researchers rather than journalists.

Alexandra Endres, a reporter for German-language website Table Briefings, told Climate Home News in Bonn there are fewer German journalists covering the conference in-person. “I think it is important to have more journalists covering the negotiations because when the climate coverage increases, the interest of the public grows,” she said.

Media outlets that have registered fewer journalists than previous years, or no journalists, include global heavyweights like Reuters, Bloomberg and the BBC, as well as German outlets like Deutsche Welle and ZDF television, and specialist publications like business information service Argus and climate broadcaster We Don’t Have Time.

Activist Harjeet Singh, who is in Bonn advising the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, said that “the empty press seats here in Bonn are a warning signal. While the world’s gaze is often fixed on the annual COP summits, the real-world consequences of the climate crisis—from financing the fossil fuel transition to protecting vulnerable populations—are being shaped, or ignored, in these mid-year negotiations right now.”

“Journalists are the essential eyes and ears of the public,” he said. “We need them to shine a light on these rooms: hold negotiators accountable, defend the principles of equity and historical responsibility, and ensure that ‘technical’ negotiations do not become an excuse for delay.”

UN Climate Change said they could not comment on the situation at this point in the Bonn talks.

Climate coverage is falling

Outside of Bonn and the official UN climate negotiations, coverage of climate change is falling to lows not seen since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to analysis of newspapers and television reporting conducted by the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MECCO).

MECCO’s head Max Boykoff told Climate Home News that climate coverage in the first five months of 2025 was 35% down on the same period of 2025 and 41% less than in 2021. New analysis by the Yale Programme on Climate Change Communication found a similar fall in climate coverage in 2026.

Boykoff said  media attention has been drawn away from climate change to issues like the Iran war and now the World Cup getting underway in North America.

While both stories have climate implications, he said, the media have “failed to connect the dots” on the conflict in the Middle East, with coverage focusing on the politics, air strikes and violence of the war. “Reporters have been pulling up short,” he said.

He added that since 2025 there have been cuts to climate teams at US outlets like the Washington Post, CBS, National Public Radio and the Los Angeles Times. On top of this, the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Context website has been shut down and Politico recently folded specialist environmental outlet E&E News into its broader energy coverage. 

Mark Hertsgaard, head of global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now, also said that fewer reporters at Bonn is “part of a larger pattern”. He said no US television network sent reporters to the recent Santa Marta conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels “and as a result they missed covering what turned out to be a landmark development in the climate story”.

“No one can know if the Bonn talks will yield something similar until the [they] actually take place and conclude. But the fewer journalists that are on the scene, the less the world’s people and policymakers will know about that. And that’s a problem,” he said.

Media may also have been put off from attending by a new registration system which is more complicated, especially for freelance journalists. In addition, the rise in jet fuel prices has made travelling by plane to Bonn much more expensive than last year and reporters from many developing countries continue to face hurdles getting visas to enter the Schengen area, of which Germany is part.

Diego Arguedas Ortiz, who led the Oxford Climate Journalism Network from 2022 until it was shut down by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in 2025, said journalists can’t cover the talks so well remotely.

While press conferences, plenaries and open negotiating sessions are broadcast for the public to watch on the UNFCCC’s website, Ortiz said relying solely on this means “you miss the interviews in the hall”. 

“You can´t catch scientists and ministers as they leave the rooms. And the audience is back home suffering. Because audiences are relying on reporters and editors to explain how these seemingly abstract negotiations have daily implications for them,” he explained.

The post Fewer journalists register for Bonn talks, as cuts to climate reporting bite appeared first on Climate Home News.

The launch came as the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday that El Niño has developed in the tropical Pacific. The climate phenomenon – which occurs naturally every few years – is predicted to intensify to a moderate or strong level this autumn, the service said.

Scientists have warned that a strong El Niño weather pattern could fuel “unprecedented” weather extremes in the coming months, including severe fires and droughts, and may make 2027 the next record-breaking hot year as it supercharges human-driven warming.  

Scientists warn El Niño could intensify climate extremes in 2026

Unveiling updated recommendations for “Heat-Health Action Plans”, which are tailored for Europe but can be adapted globally, Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, said that over the past four years, heat has claimed more than 200,000 lives across 32 European countries.

He added that most of those deaths were “entirely preventable” and are “just the tip of the iceberg”, with millions more people being affected physically and mentally by the effects of extreme heat. Scientists have said Europe is the fastest-warming continent.

“Individual action, such as keeping out of the heat, keeping our homes cool and keeping our bodies hydrated, can make a big difference in protecting us, but it is not enough to fight a systemic crisis,” Kluge said in a statement. “We need a coordinated, powerful and institutional response.”

The new guidance focuses on the importance of providing early warning and alerts, targeting help for vulnerable groups and putting in place longer-term prevention measures across households and buildings, especially in cities, which are often hotter than rural areas. It also offers practical advice on how to do those things.

Who’s most vulnerable to heat?

Heat can trigger exhaustion and heat stroke, and exacerbate existing medical conditions, including diabetes and cardiovascular, respiratory and cerebrovascular diseases, as well as disrupting sleep and aggravating mental health conditions.

In a fact-sheet, the WHO warned that rising global temperatures, more people living in cities and demographic aging are increasing exposure to heat and vulnerability to its impacts. Some of the most at-risk groups include older people, children, outdoor workers, athletes and sports players, those attending mass public gatherings and poorer social groups, it said.

Employers need plans to protect workers from rising heat stress, UN says

The WHO emphasised, however, that it does not just propose wider use of air-conditioning (AC) as the solution because it is not sustainable, is often unaffordable for those with low incomes and increases energy demand.

“It contributes to both the urban heat island effect and climate change, thus worsening heat exposures in the medium and long term,” the fact-sheet said.

Europe’s intense May heatwave

On Wednesday, Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced that May 2026 was the second warmest May on record globally across land and sea.

Across Europe, the month saw a rapid transition from much cooler-than-average conditions to one of the most intense heatwaves ever observed this early in the year in western Europe, C3S said. Numerous temperature records were broken for May with France, the UK, Ireland and Portugal enduring particularly severe conditions, it added.

C3S noted that the quick flip to a period of extreme heat “likely increased impacts on populations, leaving little time for people – or crops and ecosystems during growing season – to acclimatise to much higher temperatures”.

“Prepare for rougher times”

In a foreword to the new WHO heat plan guidance, Wopke Hoekstra, European Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth, wrote that extreme heat is responsible for some 95% of all climate-related deaths in Europe, undermines labour productivity and risks overwhelming hospitals.

He noted that investing in emission reductions is far cheaper than paying for climate damage.

“Yet, while we push for emission reductions, we must also prepare for rougher times. Strengthening Europe’s climate resilience, protecting both well-being and economies, is non-negotiable,” he added.

By the end of this year, the European Union plans to adopt a new framework for climate resilience across all sectors, including health.

In the UK, the independent Climate Change Committee warned last month that, in a projected scenario of 2C of global warming by 2050, recent record hot summers will become the “new normal” in the usually temperate country, putting regular stress on domestic agricultural production.

Heatwaves lasting at least a week will be common and could regularly exceed 40C in the south, the committee’s report on adaptation said, posing challenges for keeping vulnerable people sufficiently cool.

It recommended that cooling will be needed in hospitals, prisons, schools and care homes, while regulation should set maximum temperature limits for workplaces.

Berlin’s Heat-Health Action Plan

On Thursday, the WHO said that since the publication of the first edition of its heat and health guidance in 2008, far more scientific evidence and practical experience have been gained. Many countries have since established Heat-Health Action Plans, but their adoption and implementation have been uneven, it said.

Comment: Early warnings for heatwaves can save lives – and we need them now

In Germany, where local authorities are primarily responsible for heat protection, the Berlin Senate adopted a state-wide heat–health action plan in 2025. It contains 72 measures to improve heat protection for residents, including informing them every summer of the risks via traditional and digital media.

A heat protection portal offers access to Berlin’s heat–health action plan, and a map of cool places in the city, as well as behavioural advice.

Berlin Senator Ina Czyborra said the city is also working on the long-term maintenance and expansion of parks, green spaces and water bodies, which can all help alleviate the effects of heat.

“One thing is clear: protection from heat is a cross-cutting task that can only be tackled through a joint effort by all administrative departments and levels, and with the involvement of civil society actors,” she added in a statement. 

The post WHO issues new guidance on heat-health action plans, as El Niño sets in appeared first on Climate Home News.

When the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its advisory opinion on climate change last year, it marked a turning point not just for the Pacific, but for international climate law.

The court was unambiguous: states have legal obligations to protect the environment from greenhouse gas emissions, and they face accountability when they fail. For those of us who carried this campaign from a classroom in Vanuatu to Europe and New York, it was a moment of profound validation.

World’s top court opens door to compensation from countries responsible for climate crisis

But we have always said that the advisory opinion was a tool, not an endpoint. The ICJ affirmed what many in the Pacific have been saying for some time. Now we have a legal blueprint, we must carry this momentum from the courtrooms to the negotiating rooms.

Potential to shape climate politics

The advisory opinion has already begun to reshape the climate landscape. At COP30 in Belém, we saw countries that had supported the campaign citing the opinion in their interventions, while those blocking progress were clearly concerned of its implications. Its potential to shape climate politics and policy is significant.

This year we have arrived at the mid-year climate negotiations in Bonn not only with the advisory opinion, but with a UN General Assembly resolution endorsing it. Despite a fierce campaign from the usual suspects, just eight countries, including the USA, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran voted against. That is a victory for multilateralism at a moment when multilateralism is under strain.

UN General Assembly backs “climate obligations” set by world’s top court

But we know that advisory opinions alone are not enough. Legal clarity will not automatically translate into reduced emissions, increased finance flows or stronger national climate plans. That translation requires political will in the negotiating rooms, both here in Bonn and all the way through Fiji and finally in Antalya this November. 

What the Pacific needs from this negotiating year

The Pacific put significant political capital into the joint Australia-Pacific bid for COP31. It is fair to say that the compromise of Australia holding the role of president of negotiations while the COP is held and presided over by Türkiye is not what we imagined.

But we in the Pacific are used to looking for silver linings. Both Australia and Türkiye have acknowledged the important role the Pacific will have at COP31, through the appointment of Pacific champions and the hosting of a Pacific Pre-COP in Fiji with a leaders event in Tuvalu. These are genuine opportunities to bring the world to our shores and ensure that Pacific issues are front and centre going into the final negotiations.

But we are not naive. Envoy positions and meeting locations are just the architecture of goodwill. We need to see that goodwill converted into concrete negotiating outcomes and finance.

COP31 leaders unveil global targets, with spotlight on electrification

The Pacific helped put Australia’s climate minister Chris Bowen in this important position, so we expect to see Australia advocate not only for us, but to turn a mirror towards itself as one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel exporters. 

At Bonn, and then in Antalya, we need ambition on mitigation that reflects the ICJ’s clarity on state obligations and the science. That means action on fossil fuels. 

We need climate finance that is new, additional and accessible to the countries that need it most. In the Pacific we have already demonstrated what that looks like.

The Pacific Resilience Facility is the first climate finance facility designed, governed and managed by Pacific people, built specifically to reach the grassroots and community initiatives that larger funds routinely bypass. We need the international community to meet that ambition with contributions that reflect climate justice, starting with pledges to meet the $500-million capitalisation goal.

And we need the oceans – which are the lifeblood of the Pacific and a critical part of the global climate system – treated as a central element of the negotiations rather than a thematic aside.

Energy crisis driven by imported fossil fuels

The days of speaking about climate and fossil fuels purely as a moral issue are long gone. Pacific ministers recently adopted the Tassiriki Call for a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific, in the context of a deepening energy crisis that has triggered states of emergency in several Pacific nations. Our dependence on imported fossil fuels is both a climate and an economic vulnerability. 

Conflict in the Middle East is pushing our region into an energy crisis. We are dependent on imported fossil fuels for 80% of our energy needs. My home country of Fiji could see an increased fuel bill of nearly three times our annual healthcare budget. 

Comment: COP31 must persuade countries to make fossil fuel transition plans 

We need the technical and financial support to transition to 100% renewable energy. Not only because it is what the world owes us for decades of carbon pollution that continue to render parts of our home uninhabitable, damaging ecosystems and culture. But because we must be part of that transition. Fossil fuels have proven to be the greatest source of damage to our climate, and with their volatility, to our sovereignty as well.

What next?

The demands have not changed. Greater action on mitigation, adaptation, finance, loss and damage: these remain the substance of what the Pacific requires from the international community. What has changed is the legal foundation beneath them.

The ICJ has affirmed that these are not requests. They are obligations. The task this year is to make the negotiations reflect that.

The post The Pacific made history in the courts – now we must do it in the negotiations appeared first on Climate Home News.

Despite opposition from some environmental and Indigenous rights groups, lawmakers in Brazil’s lower house of Congress passed the government’s critical minerals policy bill last month, and backers now hope to secure final Senate approval before October’s presidential election.

Already a major mining nation with large reserves of graphite and copper, Brazil has the world’s second-largest reserves of rare earth elements after China, with the difference that Brazilian reserves are largely untapped. This group of 17 minerals is used in permanent magnets for electric motors vital for clean technologies such as electric vehicles (EVs) and wind turbines.

As Chinese and US companies compete to secure supplies, Brazil hopes to serve them both.

“We don’t have any preferences. Whoever wishes to participate with us to help with the mining, processing, and production of the wealth that these rare earths can bring is welcome to invest in Brazil,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told journalists after meeting President Donald Trump in Washington in May.

Value-added mining

The draft legislation, which is backed by industry groups, creates a $380-million Guarantee Fund for Mineral Activity meant to provide financial support for mining projects, grants priority status for permitting strategic mining projects, and requires companies to dedicate a share of their revenue for domestic research and development on mineral extraction and processing – part of the policy’s effort to maximise the benefits of mining.

To select strategic projects and support their environmental licensing, the bill envisions establishing a Committee for Strategic and Critical Minerals, which includes representatives from different government agencies, state and local governments, industry and civil society.

Mining Minister Alexandre Silveira said the government’s bill “aligns mineral exploration with national interests”, and he has pledged to work closely with the Senate to pass it in the coming months.

“Brazil … doesn’t intend to be a mere exporter of unprocessed raw materials, but to expand its industrial and technological capacity, too,” Silveira said last month.

The Brazilian government says the country presents an “unparalleled” opportunity for refining “green minerals”, given that around half of its electricity comes from hydropower.

At the other end of the supply chain, several Chinese companies have vast plans to assemble EVs in Brazil. EV manufacturing giant BYD opened a massive production facility in the state of Bahia last October – the company’s largest EV factory outside China. BYD’s top executive in Brazil told Reuters it is aiming to produce and source 50% of its vehicle components in the country by the end of the year. BYD’s subsidiaries in Brazil directly own mineral rights in the country’s “lithium valley”.

Brazil’s Congress defies Lula to push through “devastation bill” on COP30’s heels

Some pro-government lawmakers had proposed the creation of a state-owned agency that would hold a monopoly over mining projects, but that was eventually rejected after the federal government decided that no additional state intervention was needed in the sector.

Mônica Sodré, CEO of the think tank Meridiana and senior fellow at the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI), said the country’s mining rules were created when minerals were mainly seen as “commodities for export”. Today, they are “central to economic security, industrial policy and geopolitics,” she said.

The proposed legislation, she added, is “an important first step, not a final solution” to position the country as a major mineral producer, and developing projects will require continued efforts through the newly-created committee.

Soft on safeguards?

But despite the government’s pledges to develop a critical minerals sector that benefits the national interest, some environmental groups have opposed the critical minerals policy bill, saying it does not create enough safeguards for the protection of affected communities.

Adriana Pinheiro, public policy advisor with Observatório do Clima, a network representing 130 environmental nonprofits, told Climate Home News that the bill “lacks explicit provisions on free, prior and informed consultation”.

The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib) said in a note to Congress that the bill has the “potential to significantly impact indigenous territories without adequately incorporating mechanisms for protection and participation”.

Sodré said the concerns are valid, but that the draft bill is not the place to address them. Instead, she said, indigenous rights and participation should be considered on a project-by-project basis and that safeguards exist under Brazil’s “extensive” environmental permitting legislation.

“Precaution is essential in mining policy, but it should not lead to inaction. Blocking investments or delaying projects without clear evidence of unacceptable risks can result in significant social and economic costs,” she said.

Pinheiro, of the Observatório do Clima, added that while the bill encourages domestic processing of critical minerals, it does not create mandatory quotas. Countries such as Indonesia and Zimbabwe have banned raw exports, forcing investors to set up processing plants in the country.

“This regulation is only positive if it combines industrial strategy with strong safeguards,” Pinheiro said.

Geological advantage

China extracts about 70% of the world’s rare earths and controls around 90% of the processing – creating a potential chokepoint that has alarmed Western countries at a time of heightened geopolitical tension. The US and China have opted to stockpile key minerals in case trade restrictions are enacted against them. 

Brazil, which has strong trade and diplomatic ties with both Beijing and Washington, views the intensifying competition for rare earth supplies as an opportunity for it to develop a new mining sector. Brazil’s National Mining Agency has reported about 2,700 rare earths projects under consideration, according to local news outlet Folha de Sao Paulo.

The country’s rare earths reserves also have a geological advantage, as they are predominantly contained in ionic clay rather than hard rock. These deposits contain sought-after “heavy rare earths” and require less processing to extract.

Backed by $2.7 billion in financial support from US government agencies, American mining firm USA Rare Earths acquired Brazil’s Serra Verde group, which owns the high-grade Pela Ema mine. The ionic clay mine is the only one outside Asia capable of supplying all the four major rare earths at scale, according to the company’s CEO Barbara Humpton.

Other major firms have followed, with Canada’s Aclara conducting studies in the $680-million Carina mine and Australian companies Meteoric and Viridis also seeking to develop ionic clay mines for European and American buyers.

Despite growing Western investments, China remains Brazil’s largest trade partner and the country’s imports from Brazil have already tripled between 2024 and 2025, according to data by the Brazil-China Business Council.

The draft bill does not guarantee that Brazil will be able to compete with Chinese rare earths on the international market, Sodré noted. A “more realistic benchmark” is how effectively the country can position itself as major supplier of critical minerals for the energy transition, she added.

Pinheiro said clearer regulation may help shape investments into the country, but foreign companies will not necessarily wait for Brazil’s critical minerals policy.

“The central question is whether Brazil will use this moment to build domestic value chains, ensure socio-environmental safeguards and protect affected communities,” she said.

This article was edited to correct Mônica Sodré’s job title

The post Brazil jostles for rare earths share as US-China rivalry heats up appeared first on Climate Home News.

At mid-year climate talks in Bonn, Turkish COP31 President-Designate Murat Kurum and the talks’ chief negotiator, Australia’s Chris Bowen, billed the targets as a blueprint for climate action, with electrification emerging as the top priority.

Bowen said he wanted this year’s COP negotiations in the Turkish city of Antalya to “take inspiration” from the targets, adding that he would push in particular for a “strong outcome” on switching from fossil fuels to electricity to run vehicles, industry and buildings.

“35 by 35” goal

The electrification target – dubbed the “35 by 35” goal and based on analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) – would strive to ramp up the share of final energy consumption provided by electricity to 35% by 2035 from about 20% today. 

That would be achieved by accelerating the switch to technologies such as heat pumps, electric vehicles (EVs) and electric cookers.

Bowen said he wants to lead a push focused on “electrifying everything that can be electrified and making sure as much of that electricity as possible is renewable”. 

He said electrification is “the key to transitioning away from fossil fuels”, urging negotiators to keep in mind that 2035 is just nine years away.

Bonn Bulletin: Tackling climate crisis is “hardest” challenge ever, Stiell says

Kurum said the COP presidency would work to forge “a strong global coalition that is ready and determined to act”, promising to facilitate access to technical assistance, particularly to developing countries.

Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which will produce a special report to map out pathways to achieving the target, said the world was already electrifying because of the current global oil shock and the growth of electricity-using sectors such as air conditioning, EVs and AI data centres.

Previous COPs have seen similar goals on boosting renewables, energy efficiency, nuclear, biofuels, grids and other technologies. Some of these have been agreed by all governments as part of a negotiated COP decision, while others have remained as goals that only some countries have put their names to.

Bowen told reporters in Bonn there was strong interest around the world in electrification as he continues his talks with governments, saying the COP presidency wanted “to seize that for the negotiations”.

Climate campaigners generally welcomed the announcement. Duygu Kutluay, a campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels, said elevating electrification to a flagship priority was a “positive step”.

But she cautioned that “electrification can only deliver meaningful climate benefits if the power comes from renewables, not fossil fuels”.

Berkan Ozyer, director of Greenpeace Türkiye, said the electrification goal was “vital”, noting however that Türkiye has 37 active coal power plants and was “leaving the door open” for more.

Last-minute change on buildings

At the same time, the COP presidency quietly overhauled its goal for reducing energy use in buildings.

An initial press statement on Monday set out a target “to achieve at least a 25% increase in energy efficiency in buildings by 2035”. But in “a small update” issued on Tuesday, that was replaced with a different goal to “reduce energy consumption intensity in the building sector by at least 25% by 2035”. 

No reason was given for the change and Kurum did not directly address a question from Climate Home News about the decision to remove the energy efficiency target, a step that experts said raised potential questions about ambition and implementation.

“Energy efficiency improvement and energy intensity reduction are complementary metrics: efficiency targets drive the deep physical upgrades that lock in long-term performance and, crucially, higher resilience, while intensity targets keep operators accountable for real-world outcomes. What matters is that both remain in the frame,” Roxana Dela Fiamor, global policy lead at the U.S. Green Building Council, told Climate Home News.

“Only looking at energy intensity is really delaying the crucial role that buildings can play in the energy transition,” she added.

Focusing only on energy intensity risks delaying deeper structural changes, she warned, as it can be achieved through short-term measures like switching off lights or optimising usage, rather than investing in retrofits.

“Energy efficiency requires a lot of investments and structural measures, energy intensity is easier to achieve. But energy intensity is not sufficient,” she said. “It doesn’t tackle the systemic changes needed, it doesn’t look at all the different components that drive energy consumption in buildings.”

Missing details on waste target

The COP31 presidency has set a goal to halve the growth in global waste by 2035, but key details about the goal are still missing.

Announcing the target, Kurum said waste was “one of the areas where the fastest results can be achieved” in climate action, but he did not specify the baseline for the target, or what types of waste it covered. A COP31 spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for clarification.

Türkiye prioritises cleaning up garbage emissions in COP31 ‘action agenda’

Mariel Vilella, climate director at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, said it was “encouraging” to see waste getting more attention, but warned that the target “remains difficult to assess without clarity on the baseline, scope and implementation pathway”.

She said success should be judged not by a headline figure alone, but by whether it drives real change – including waste prevention, methane cuts, lower plastic production and protections for waste workers.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that municipal waste could rise from 2.1 billion tonnes today to 3.8 billion tonnes by 2050 without significant action.

Cutting waste generation would curb planet-heating emissions, protect ecosystems and improve human health, the UN says.

New initiative on climate finance?

The COP31 joint presidency has also floated a new climate finance initiative – the so-called Climate Implementation Bridge (CIB) – to help countries make progress on the three proposed targets.

Kurum said the initiative would not involve creating a new fund or financial mechanism, describing it as “a complementary initiative that supports climate finance and strengthens partnerships among countries”.

While few further details were immediately available on how it would work or fit into the existing climate finance landscape, Rebecca Thissen of CAN International said adding new processes without simplifying existing systems risked causing confusion and proving counterproductive.

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The word ‘implementation’ has featured long and loud recently in discussions about the UN climate process.

The host government of last year’s COP30 summit, Brazil, argued that it should be an “implementation COP”. And if you talk regularly to influential participants in the UN process, you’d be surprised how many will tell you that in the current political climate, it’s all about implementing the pledges and targets governments have already made, rather than aiming to raise them.

This interpretation of ‘implementation’ is dangerously wrong. You can see that it is wrong by simply going back to the Paris Agreement. Article 4 states that Parties (countries) “shall prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions” (NDCs), and that each new NDC “will represent a progression” beyond the Party’s previous one and “reflect its highest possible ambition”.

In other words, regularly increasing ambition is a central element of implementing the Paris Agreement. Governments pledged to increase ambition regularly, and the community of people who care about climate change needs to hold them to that pledge.

Raised expectations

Even a cursory look at the current state of emissions shows that without increased ambition, the other central pillars of the Paris Agreement will not be realised. The global emissions peak will not come “as soon as possible”, net zero will not be reached in the second half of this century, and global warming will race beyond the 1.5°C limit, with catastrophic impacts beginning in the most vulnerable countries and risks increasing for everyone.

Since the Paris summit in 2015, expectations and obligations on governments to step up on decarbonising their economies have increased. In 2021 and 2022, governments declared via the UN Human Rights Council and UN General Assembly that the right to a healthy environment is a universal human right. An environment of dangerous climate change is not a healthy one, so the obligation to cut emissions further and faster is clear.

Last year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that 1.5°C is the primary limit of the Paris Agreement and constitutes a legally binding target. It clarified that states have obligations, not only under the UN climate convention, but under customary international law, human rights law and the Law of the Sea.

It also reaffirmed that governments’ NDCs must reflect their highest possible ambition. Last month, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution endorsing the ICJ ruling, with governments voting 141 for, and only eight against.

Failing on ambition

Nonetheless, most governments are not showing the ambition required by their international obligations. Fifty-two countries have not submitted their third NDC with emission-cutting targets for 2035, which they were supposed to do more than a year ago.

Many submitted NDCs fall well short of what is required, with Indonesia, Russia and Saudi Arabia among countries whose level of ambition, if reflected globally, would usher in at least 4°C of global warming.

We know from our own analysis that if countries just implemented their present level of ambition through 2035, the world would warm by 2.6°C above preindustrial levels by 2100, a catastrophic scenario.

But we also know that if countries implemented policies consistent with their highest possible ambition, we can limit overshoot of 1.5°C to about 0.2°C, halt global warming within 25 years, and bring it down to about 1.2°C by the end of the century. Other analyses paint a similar picture.

Make no mistake: this level of overshoot will have serious adverse consequences. But two things are very clear: we can get warming back below 1.5°C before 2100, and countries can be far more ambitious than they are now.

Meanwhile real-world events are demonstrating more clearly than ever that moving quickly and decisively to an economy powered by clean electricity bolsters energy security, reduces energy costs and avoids the geopolitical blackmail and bullying associated with dependence on a continuous supply of fossil fuel imports.

Back the collective process

Because the various UN declarations and decisions outlined above are taken collectively by governments, we can make an interesting deduction: most governments themselves recognise that they need to show more ambition. There are many reasons why each of them doesn’t do so on its own; and one of the key aspects of the UN climate process is that it allows and encourages them to do so with some degree of collectivity.

What all of this speaks to is the need to increase the focus on raising ambition, to continue to use the UN climate process as the key convening forum, and to use COPs as the place where governments are held accountable at a high political level every year. There is no other forum that does that and no other place in which vulnerable countries are at the table on equal terms with the biggest emitters.

What to expect from the Bonn climate talks

Right now, the geopolitical going is tough; and the tough need to get going towards the trouble, not run away from it.

Yes, delivery of existing pledges is absolutely necessary. If governments use this decade to honour the Global Stocktake outcomes from 2024 – if they triple renewable energy capacity, double the rate of energy efficiency improvements and make deep cuts in methane emissions – that will go a long way to keeping global warming below 2°C. Most are not on track – so yes, full implementation of what countries have already agreed is sorely needed.

But ambition must also be strengthened, urgently. It’s not an either-or: ‘implementation’ has to include ‘increasing ambition’. Climate science, international law, climate justice and the needs of the world’s most climate-impacted societies demand nothing less.

The post The UN climate process needs ambition – the law demands it appeared first on Climate Home News.

Perhaps hoping to forestall the usual diplomatic wrangling that routinely bogs down the talks, he warned governments that there is no time to “re-open past debates or renegotiate commitments already made”.

Instead, he added, there is an imperative to accelerate real-world action as deadly heat intensifies and the fossil-fuel cost crisis sparked by the Iran war strangles economies, “taking a wrecking ball to lives and prosperity”. 

That message seemed to sink in with the negotiators in Bonn, where the opening session kicked off only an hour late and was not marred by agenda rows, which delayed the start of the talks by a day last year.  

On bridging the gap between the negotiations and the real economy, Stiell called for elevating the Global Climate Action Agenda, a goal long promised but never fully delivered.

But, he added, Türkiye – working with Australia – is now building on the efforts by last year’s COP30 presidency to streamline this process into six thematic areas, including boosting energy and food security, curbing methane and strengthening the resilience of cities. 

What to expect from the Bonn climate talks

Stiell was also keen to stress that the formal negotiations remain central to driving implementation of the Paris Agreement. He urged governments in Bonn to advance key issues including the Global Goal on Adaptation, the delivery of the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake and the development of a new just transition mechanism.

The first Global Stocktake was an assessment of countries’ collective progress in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, which led to a 2023 agreement to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems and a 2030 goal to triple renewable energy, among other things.

Hinting at upcoming reforms to the UN climate regime – which has often been accused of failing to keep pace with advancements in the real world – Stiell said all institutions must continuously evolve and improve. The UN climate secretariat has heard countries’ calls to work more efficiently, support access to climate finance and reduce the reporting burden on governments, he added. 

Türkiye to outline targets for Action Agenda

While Australia will run the negotiations at COP31, for co-host Türkiye – which is organising the talks in Antalya – the focus is on the so-called Global Climate Action Agenda. This is a sprawling smorgasbord of around 500 voluntary initiatives bringing together governments, businesses, investors, cities and civil society. It covers everything from strengthening power grids for clean energy, to restoring degraded forests and land, and reducing emissions from buildings. 

COP31 President-Designate Murat Kurum told the opening session of the Bonn talks his team will present the “main framework” of the Action Agenda on Tuesday, adding it will be “based on concrete and tangible targets”. He also said Türkiye will announce a roadmap for translating what happens in the negotiations into the real world, which will ”point to a science-based process with highly clear and defined outcomes” and steps for getting there.

“In the second decade of the Paris Agreement, the COP31 Action Agenda will bring the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake to life, and we will make a strong start to the second decade,” Kurum said, speaking in Turkish with English interpretation. 

In a joint letter issued in May, the two host nations said COP31 will be shaped as an “Implementation COP” and a “COP of the Future,” aimed at translating commitments into tangible and trackable progress. They outlined priority areas – to be achieved through the six axes of the Action Agenda defined ahead of COP30 – including electrification, zero waste, resilient cities, sustainable agriculture, green industrial transformation and climate finance.

Electrification emerges as COP31 priority

Chiming with this, Australia’s Chris Bowen, the COP31 president of negotiations, made the global energy transition the centerpiece of his opening intervention in Bonn. 

This year’s climate summit, he said, must send investors and corporations the message that countries are “collectively committed” to building up renewable energy and reducing fossil fuel reliance. Fossil fuels were not directly mentioned in the main outcome at COP30 last year after countries failed to agree on developing a global transition roadmap, which Brazil is now putting together outside of formal negotiations. 

Bowen, Australia’s minister of climate change and energy, said that, while energy crises like the one the world is going through now will become more frequent and more unpredictable, accelerating the shift to cleaner sources will “ease shocks to our energy systems”. 

He identified progress on electrification as a priority for COP31, pointing to an assessment by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that electricity’s share of final energy consumption needs to reach 35% by 2035 to keep the 1.5C temperature goal in sight. 

“In a world of geopolitical uncertainty and energy disruption, the transition is not a risk,” Bowen added, “it is the solution and an immense opportunity”. 

Tensions around trade and climate surface again 

Over the weekend, it became clear that discussions on trade and climate would once again become a source of contention between countries – if not as explosively as they did at the start of the talks a year ago.

As agreed in the COP30 Global Mutirão decision, a series of dialogues on trade and climate will be held in Bonn yearly from 2026 to 2028. Climate Home News understands that the G77 + China has expressed discontent about the organisation of the first dialogue that will take place on June 13, because it plans to incorporate contributions from a range of organisations rather than just governments.

In a statement at the opening plenary, Uruguay, on behalf of the G77 group of developing nations, “encouraged Parties [countries] to engage constructively in the dialogue in a robust and structured manner”. Many in the Global South are concerned that international trade measures to make products greener, such as the European Union’s carbon levy on imports, could end up discriminating against them.

Russia warned during its opening statement that the new dialogue should not be used to create trade barriers.

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

Avantika Goswami, climate change and green economy programme manager at the India-based Centre for Science and Environment, told Climate Home News that the UN climate secretariat has been unclear and untransparent about what will be discussed at the dialogue. “We don’t know if observers and civil society are going to be able to contribute,” she added.

After the three mid-year dialogues, in 2028 there will be a high-level event for countries to exchange their views and experiences, and the officials in charge will have to present a report summarising these discussions.

At Monday’s opening session, Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, the Ghanian chair of the African Group of Negotiators, said it would be “important to provide clarity on how they intend to present the report” and suggested that the co-chairs of the Bonn talks should consult with countries on how best to do that. 

Differences persist on finance between richer and poorer countries

On Monday afternoon, discussions  focused on finance and specifically on the details of the climate finance work programme that countries agreed to set up at COP30. 

While it has yet to be decided when the two-year work programme will start, Monday’s workshop was tasked with hammering out its scope and format.

“We are not in the position to accept these discussions,” Vositha Wijenayake, G77 + China finance coordinator, said at the beginning of the event. Climate Home News can confirm that the group of developing countries sent a letter to the organisers over the weekend insisting that the work programme must be driven by governments, produce concrete outcomes, and be included as an agenda item at COP31. 

Both during the opening plenary and the workshop in Bonn, they reaffirmed the need for implementation of Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, which enshrines the obligation of wealthy nations to mobilise public finance for climate action in developing countries. On Monday, many Global South countries flagged concerns about declining levels of international funding at a time when needs are rising.

Outi Honkatukia, the European Union’s lead climate finance negotiator, said Article 9.1 “is an important part of finance”, but called for a “broader discussion on climate finance” that encompasses the whole of Article 9. 

As happened with the discussions before the new climate finance goal (NCQG) was agreed at COP29, developed countries want the work programme to focus not only on their responsibility for mobilising financial resources, but also on the role of other potential contributors, like China and the private sector. Switzerland told the event it would like to see a discussion on widening the donor base. 

This was the first of three sessions on the topic that will take place in Bonn in the coming fortnight, with some observers saying a new proposal may be needed to move the work plan forward.

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The report by 12 environmental groups analysed planned new offshore oil and gas blocks covering 430,000 square kilometres – an area the size of Sweden – in 11 countries.

Blocks in countries such as Kenya, Indonesia and Australia overlap with some of the planet’s hotspots for marine biodiversity, home to mangroves, coral reefs, sea turtles, sharks and whales.

Oil and gas expansion is advancing in spite of the legal protections already in place, the report says, with a third of the area being licensed overlapping with marine and coastal protected areas.

“It is alarming to see the research findings and the sheer scale of fossil fuel expansion trajectories threatening the health and future of our shared ocean,” said Tyson Miller, executive director of Earth Insight, one of the environmental NGOs involved in the report.

At the first conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, around 60 countries floated the idea of creating “fossil fuel-free zones”, which would seek to place limits on coal, oil and gas in areas where development would lead to severe social and environmental harm.

As part of the landmark Kunming-Montreal biodiversity deal, governments have also pledged to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and marine ecosystems by 2030. This could be used as an opportunity to limit oil and gas expansion in sensitive areas, Miller said.

The report says the findings “reinforce the need for governments, financial institutions and companies to stop funding and supporting offshore oil and gas expansion”, and calls for the creation of fossil fuel-free zones in “high-value marine and coastal areas”.

Oil bidding in biodiversity hotspots

As one of the case studies, Kenya — which is set to host the Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa later this month — has opened 50 offshore oil and gas blocks for bidding in the Lamu Basin, one of East Africa’s marine biodiversity hotspots.

These blocks overlap with all the region’s mangroves and coral reefs, the report says, which provide nursery habitats for fish, sea turtles and the vulnerable dugong.

These ecosystems are already under severe stress from climate change-related ocean heating and increased water acidity and could now face seismic surveys, offshore drilling, dredging, increased shipping traffic, oil spills, chemical discharge and underwater noise pollution.

The government estimates that oil production will start by 2026, aligning with “global best practices”, and has said the Lamu basin has vast “untapped potential”. The country is expected to open bidding for the first 10 blocks by September.

Muturi wa Kamau, network coordinator for the Kenya Oil and Gas Working Group, said in a statement that the country “is preparing to open ecologically sensitive areas for fossil fuel exploration” while positioning itself as a leader in ocean diplomacy.

“The question is: at what cost are we willing to risk these fragile ecosystems and the livelihoods of coastal communities who have depended on them for generations?” Kamau said.

Australia’s Otway Basin

After a four-year pause, Australia — which will act as co-president of the COP31 climate summit — resumed offshore exploration in the Otway Basin last year, with American energy firm ConocoPhillips among the operators approved for exploratory drilling off the country’s southern coast.

The sites under exploration are as close as one kilometre to a series of marine reserves known as sanctuaries for pygmy blue whales, who travel thousands of kilometres to reproduce in those waters. Orange roughy, a deep-sea fish that can live for over 140 years, may also be harmed.

In total, the report analysed new LNG export projects in Argentina, Alaska, Mexico and Tanzania, as well as expanded offshore oil and gas licensing in Australia, Cameroon, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Norway and Trinidad and Tobago.

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The world’s biggest economies are racing to shore up reserves of cobalt, lithium, graphite and rare earths, which are needed to produce batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines and electric systems to wean the global economy off fossil fuels. The same minerals are also increasingly sought after to manufacture military hardware and chips for AI, adding further pressure on supplies.

But the cutthroat scramble to build up reserves threatens to drive up the costs of the energy transition by intensifying competition and pushing up prices of key materials needed to produce clean energy technologies, research published today has found.

“If you undermine the financial viability of [clean energy] projects through higher raw material costs, you’re going to delay their roll-out,” co-author Hugh Miller, the critical minerals lead at the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told Climate Home News.

Stockpiling “is happening, whether we like it or not”, said Miller. “But if we’re going to do it, we need to have it in a coordinated manner that means we don’t have massive market volatility and adverse implications from every country trying to go at it alone,” he added.

The rise of stockpiles

A growing number of governments have adopted national stockpiling programmes in response to heightened geopolitical tensions around mineral supply chains.

Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump announced the establishment of a critical mineral reserve known as “Project Vault” to protect American businesses from shortages after China imposed export restrictions on rare earth supplies.

Beijing suspended the measures until November as part of a trade truce with Washington but the episode spooked Western governments and exposed how strategic materials can be weaponised to achieve geopolitical objectives.

Australia, China, the EU and India have also announced measures to create strategic mineral reserves. Japan and South Korea already have long-standing mineral stockpiling programmes.

“Legitimate concerns”

“There are legitimate concerns with regards to potential global shortages of these minerals,” said Miller, citing rapidly rising and concurrent mineral demand for the energy transition, AI, data centres, and military technologies, combined with underinvestment in new supplies for some minerals, such as copper.

While stockpiling can serve as an emergency response mechanism during acute shortages, it does nothing to address the underlying concentration risks in mineral supply chains. The Democratic Republic of Congo holds around 70% of the world’s cobalt reserves, for example, while China dominates the processing of 19 out of 20 minerals deemed critical by a large number of nations.

Uncoordinated stockpiling programmes risk heightening the price volatility they are designed to hedge against, according to the report.

Researchers found that if Australia, China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea and the US simultaneously built reserves of minerals to cover six months of imports, the aggregate stockpile demand could represent up to 34% of global annual cobalt supply and over 10% of global lithium, graphite and copper supply. That could cause a shock to the market, triggering the shortages and price spikes they are trying to avoid.

Miller said it was unlikely that every country would stockpile at that rate, but aggregate stockpiling demand of just 5% of global mineral supply would have an impact on prices.

Coordinating stockpiles: a role for the IEA?

Researchers found that avoiding the negative impacts of stockpiling requires global coordination over how mineral stocks are accumulated and released – a mechanism which already exists for other commodities, including oil.

Coordination should include agreed rules for countries to build up their stocks over a slow and staggered timeline and pre-agreed conditions for releasing reserves to provide market predictability and reduce the risk of price spikes.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), which was established after the 1970s oil crisis to coordinate emergency oil stock releases among member countries, is best placed to oversee such a mechanism, they say.

Earlier this year, IEA member countries called on the agency to strengthen its work on critical minerals, including by providing support to countries “that choose to establish and expand critical minerals stockpiling systems”.

But Miller and his co-author Pau Morandi, a policy fellow at the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise, argue that members should go one step further and mandate the IEA to coordinate the security of supplies, rather than only helping individual governments.

The IEA has been contacted for comment.

A call to action for the G7

Miller said he hoped the research could be picked up by the G7 group of wealthy countries, which could lead on mandating the IEA to take on this coordination role.

France, which is presiding over the group this year and is hosting leaders in Evian on the shores of Lake Geneva in mid-June, has made strengthening the resilience of critical minerals value chains a priority.

In a communique last month, finance ministers agreed to “deepen and expand our cooperation among G7 members and with like-minded partners” to strengthen and diversify critical mineral supply chains and to continue discussions “on how to best organise analytical cooperation”.

Sebastien Treyer, executive director of the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), said he hoped the G7 leaders’ summit can help move the discussion on critical minerals towards greater international cooperation to secure the resources the world needs to build a clean economy.

From inclusive and mutually beneficial partnerships to mine resources to stockpiling minerals, “we need to coordinate more like a trade organisation than something that is about securing supply,” he said.

The post The scramble to stockpile critical minerals could drive up energy transition costs appeared first on Climate Home News.

The annual June climate talks in Bonn are taking place this year against the backdrop of an oil and gas supply crisis tied to the Iran war and deadly heatwaves in Europe, India and the Middle East. Can they produce anything substantial to ease the squeeze on economies and communities around the world?

Watchers of the negotiations say the UN climate process is under pressure to prove its worth at a time when climate action and clean energy offer an increasingly attractive alternative to the global economic and political instability brought by fossil fuel dependency.

Kaysie Brown, associate director of climate diplomacy and geopolitics at think-tank E3G, said the June 8-18 meetings “must show that the multilateral system can make a durable and politically resilient shift to support delivery [of climate action] at scale”. She added that it “will act as a key health check for the climate regime at a time of a rapidly shifting global order”.  

There are hopes for significant progress on issues ranging from a new mechanism to support a just transition away from fossil fuels, to funding and measuring adaptation to worsening climate impacts. 

Bonn will also see the launch of dialogues on trade and climate change, on how to implement what was promised in the first stocktake of national climate plans in 2023, and on ways to shift global finance flows to support a low-carbon and climate-resilient world. 

Climate Home News doesn’t have a crystal ball, but we have done our homework. Here’s what experts expect to top the agenda at the World Conference Center by the River Rhine:

COP31 priorities

Bonn is where we will get a sense of what the joint COP31 hosts – Türkiye and Australia – want from their presidency. Signs are that they will push for a global goal on the share of final energy consumption that will come from electricity, which may be based on a target proposed by the International Renewable Energy Agency of 35% by 2035.

Watch back: Webinar – From Santa Marta to Bon, where next for the fossil fuel transition?

Other priorities already identified include energy storage, energy security and clean cooking. Türkiye has stressed reducing emissions from landfills as a priority for the “Action Agenda” strand of COP31, which encompasses government and business initiatives outside the formal discussions. Türkiye will lead on the Action Agenda, while Australia handles the negotiations.

Just transition mechanism

The Bonn negotiations are tasked with producing a draft decision on how to set up a new just transition mechanism that can facilitate a fair and orderly shift from a high-carbon world to a greener future. This decision will be forwarded for approval by countries at COP31. 

Governments agreed at COP30 in Brazil to set up what civil society has dubbed the “Belém-Antalya Mechanism” (BAM) but the details have yet to be worked out. Climate Action Network International, which has advocated strongly for the global mechanism, said it should be designed to provide decent jobs, social protection, public investment, energy access and support for affected workers and communities.  

How Belém launched the Just Transition mechanism

“If governments move decisively, the [BAM] could become one of the most significant developments in the climate regime since the Paris Agreement – helping connect climate action with economic transformation and tangible improvements in people’s daily lives,” the coalition of hundreds of green groups said in a statement ahead of Bonn.

Let’s talk trade

At COP30, after two years of trying, emerging economies finally got the overlap between trade and climate policy onto the UN climate talks agenda. Governments agreed to hold dialogues on trade at the June Bonn talks in 2026, 2027 and 2028 before a summary of these dialogues is presented at a “high-level event” in 2028.

What aspects of trade are to be discussed at the first such dialogue on Saturday June 13 is undecided. Developing-country heavyweights like China and India will likely be keen to criticise the European Union’s new carbon border adjustment mechanism, which they regard as protectionist and burdensome for their exporters. Representatives of the World Trade Organization and other trade bodies will make presentations, which governments and civil society will be allowed to comment upon.

Brazil’s call for COP trade forum gets lukewarm response

On Sunday June 14, a separate meeting of the fledgling Integrated Forum on Climate Change and Trade – an initiative launched by the Brazilian COP30 Presidency – will take place in a grand hilltop hotel overlooking Bonn and the Rhine. The meeting is not part of the official UN climate process or the official Bonn talks and will be more informal than the previous day’s dialogue. 

Topics that will be discussed are trade and climate adaptation, how to create a level playing field for low-carbon products, how to trade particularly polluting products and how to bridge climate and trade tools. An expert panel chaired by South Africa’s Faizel Ismail and New Zealand’s Jo Tyndall has been appointed to advise the forum.

Aligning on adaptation 

At COP30, talks on finalising a list of indicators to measure progress on adapting to climate change ended in recriminations, with several Latin American governments complaining that the decision was adopted by the Brazilian presidency without their consent.

The indicators, which were developed by experts in a two-year process, were stripped down by the Brazilians on the last night of COP30 and presented to governments at the last minute as a done deal. 

New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance

Several governments and some of the technical experts have argued that many of the adopted indicators are unworkable, as they lack definitions or explanations of how they will be measured. Many indicators for important areas – like poverty reduction, ecosystems, infrastructure and food production – are missing or inadequate, they say.

Government negotiators and experts now have two years to fix the mess, through a “policy alignment process” due to end at COP32 in Ethiopia. At the Bonn talks, governments will try to agree on who will make up a new taskforce of experts to help countries put the indicators into practice and how it will operate.

Our most in-depth Bonn coverage — including most of our Bonn Bulletins from the negotiating floor — will be available exclusively to paid subscribers. Sign up today to ensure you don’t miss out.

Mission to 1.5 and Global Implementation Accelerator

After pressure from small island nations, governments at COP30 agreed to set up the Belém Mission to 1.5 and the Global Implementation Accelerator (GIA) to speed up the implementation of countries’ emissions-cutting and adaptation plans.

For the Mission to 1.5, several past and current COP presidencies are drawing up a report – scheduled to be published before COP31 – which will identify several especially impactful solutions to climate change. On June 12 in Bonn, governments and civil society will weigh in on what they want included.

Also in Bonn, governments will input into the GIA. The Brazilian COP30 Presidency’s vision is that it should drive forward the strongest climate solutions. According to COP30 CEO Ana Toni, an independent panel of experts will pre-select 10-15 solutions and a council will narrow this down to three to five each year which the GIA would then aim to speed up.

The GIA’s “added value is that it will focus exclusively on solutions with the potential to scale and generate cascading effects through high-impact exponential technologies”, she said last month. 

Whether Mission to 1.5 and the GIA will identify the same shortlist of solutions – and how they work together – is unclear. But the GIA could become a permanent body working on the real-world “Action Agenda” of COPs.

Ruenna Haynes is the deputy lead negotiator for the small islands group (AOSIS) which pushed for these two initiatives, but she is now worried about what the COP presidencies might make of them. 

She told a recent briefing, “the last thing we want to do is to set up a process that is nothing more than a talking shop that doesn’t deliver and doesn’t go anywhere”. To avoid that, the reports of the GIA and Mission 1.5 must be linked to the wider UN climate talks process and at least discussed by governments, she emphasised. 

Finance roadmap and dialogue

COP30 left a bitter taste regarding what was expected to be one of its main outcomes: progress on how to increase climate finance through the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to $1.3 trillion”. The initiative, included in the new finance goal agreed in Baku – the NCQG – was an effort to top up the 2035 target of $300 billion a year in public finance which fell short of what developing countries wanted and an independent panel of experts estimated would be needed.

The high expectations surrounding this roadmap began to fade during 2025 as the process lacked transparency, clarity, participation and ambition. The result was a report abundant in general recommendations of actions to be taken but lacking clear commitments. Most of the suggestions mentioned are targeted at institutions outside the UN climate process, such as multilateral development banks.

The COP30 decision merely “took note of” that report. So was it the end of the road for this particular roadmap? Not yet.

From Baku to Belém and beyond: How we turn a climate finance roadmap into reality

In Bonn, an “implementation” meeting will be held to “listen to the Parties and observers on the updated work being carried out,” as a member of the COP30 Presidency team told Climate Home News. The challenge is how to ensure the roadmap doesn’t remain fine words in a document and is put into practice. It will also serve either as a good or bad example for the other two voluntary roadmaps (on deforestation and fossil fuels) that the Brazilian presidency is putting together ahead of COP31.

Also in Bonn, the Veredas Dialogue will address the opportunities and obstacles to implementing Article 2.1.c of the Paris Agreement – on making finance flows consistent with low-carbon development – and its complementarity with Article 9 on the responsibility of developed countries to provide financial resources. The limitations of the Baku to Belém Roadmap could shift the divisions between developed and developing nations to this dialogue, especially considering that 2026 is the first year for mobilising finance under the NCQG. 

More roadmaps on fossil fuels and forests

At COP30, a group of 80 countries led a failed push to kickstart a process for a global roadmap to guide the transition away from fossil fuels (TAFF). As an alternative, the Brazilian presidency proposed to draft two voluntary roadmaps: one on phasing out fossil fuels and another to end deforestation by 2030, both commitments endorsed by all countries in the COP28 deal.

In the lead-up to Bonn and after months of consultations with countries, Brazil presented an outline for the forest roadmap – which will invite countries to submit their own voluntary national roadmaps to halt forest loss. 

It will also include a menu of options to bridge the $216-billion forest funding gap. One of the key initiatives to achieve this is the new rainforest fund, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which is still rallying investors for seed funding. Brazil convened an investor meeting in Rotterdam last week, with participation from over 50 financial institutions – including BlackRock, Bank of America and Barclays – and 30 government representatives.

COP30 rainforest fund unlikely to make first payments until 2028

While not on the formal negotiating agenda In Bonn, Brazil will continue consultations on the forest roadmap at an event with governments on June 8. The final document is expected to be published later in September.

As for the TAFF roadmap, Brazil will hold an open event on June 12 after receiving suggestions from 120 countries. It is expected to be informed by the first global fossil fuel phase-out summit held in Santa Marta in April.

COP30 advisor Flávia Bellaguarda told an online briefing that the informal sessions in Bonn are meant to open a “space for dialogue” on both roadmaps, and that the more countries engage, the more international relevance the process gains.

“We managed to get the elephant into the room. Now, it needs to stay there. For that, we need to give him plenty of food so he can’t fit through the door and leave. We achieve that with dialogue and creating space for genuine exchange,” the Brazilian advisor said.

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After recording a first full-year decline in 2025, China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy and industry grew by 2% in the first quarter of 2026, according to analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for Carbon Brief.

China burned more coal and gas to generate electricity than in the same period a year earlier, despite building record wind and solar capacity. Instead of being integrated into the network and used, clean power equivalent to more than France’s entire electricity output for the quarter was discarded.

Coal power plants protected

Lauri Myllyvirta, CREA’s lead analyst, said the paradox was primarily caused by China’s inflexible operation of coal and gas power plants, which supply electricity through long-term contracts that remove any incentive to reduce output when cheaper solar and wind power is available.

Electricity trading between Chinese provinces, also based on annual contracts, prevents surplus renewable energy from flowing to other areas in real time, the analysis found.

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Myllyvirta said all operators should be required to sell electricity in real time so that coal power plants would face competition from very low prices during hours of strong renewables output and have an economic incentive to cut down generation. “But that has not made a lot of progress in China,” he added.

Curtailment rates rising

The intentional reduction of renewable energy generation, a process known as curtailment, saw a significant increase in China at the start of 2026, reaching 9.2% for solar and 8.5% for wind respectively, according to Bloomberg.

Myllyvirta noted that real curtailment rates are likely to be even higher than those reported in official statistics. He added that, until tracking improves, there won’t be enough political pressure to fix the issue.

The findings highlight Beijing’s failure to make full use of its record renewables build-out to accelerate the country’s transition away from fossil fuels.

If curtailments had not risen, increased capacity means wind and solar could have generated an extra 170 terawatt hours of electricity (TWh) in the first quarter, more than satisfying the growth in power demand, CREA’s analysis found. But, instead, clean power generation rose by just 60 TWh, with wind showing almost no growth.

Global problem

China is not alone in under-utilising its full renewable energy potential. Curtailments have risen in countries including the UK, Australia, India, Chile and Brazil, primarily as a result of bottlenecks in national transmission systems unable to accommodate additional clean power output.

After failing to keep up with the installation of renewable generation capacity, annual investments in updating grids need to increase by around 50% by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. The watchdog said that, if power networks fail to prevent high levels of curtailments, clean energy operators risk facing significant revenue losses, threatening the investment case for renewables.

One of South America’s largest clean power generators said on Wednesday that it was putting plans for $1 billion in new renewables investment in Brazil on hold as the country’s grid operator rejected up to 25% of the power its existing projects could produce, Reuters reported.

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In the five years since, the group has notched up several wins: pressuring National Bank into providing $20 billion of finance to renewable energy, getting Royal Bank of Canada to improve its green finance labels and persuading 20-25% of investors to regularly back climate proposals at annual general meetings (AGMs) for shareholders.

But last month, the group’s then executive director Matt Price put out a statement saying it was shutting down. Despite some progress, Price explained, his organisation had concluded that “investor accountability has reached its limits”.

Companies and their investors often understand that climate change threatens the economic system, Price said. But, he added, they do not respond adequately because they are worried that, if they do, their competitors will not put in as much effort and could therefore gain a financial advantage.

This “tragedy of the commons” situation cannot be fixed by shareholder advocacy, Price said, but instead needs litigation, regulatory action and accountability mechanisms. “Some of our team will take those things on in new initiatives,” he said.

Price’s words echo the findings of a London School of Economics (LSE) report published last month, based on workshops with asset owners and managers in New York, Amsterdam, London and Singapore.

Government policy key

The LSE report noted that “action by investors on climate change is severely constrained by their duties, the limited tools at their disposal and the pathways of technology development”. To be effective, pressure from climate-conscious investors must be coupled with government policy that incentivises green investment and technological innovation, the authors concluded.

An investigation by the Guardian recently found that, despite overwhelming shareholder support for its climate action plan, Australian mining company BHP has carried on buying polluting diesel trucks instead of electric ones. The Australian government subsidises diesel, saving BHP hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

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Lindsey Stewart, director of institutional insights for investment research firm Morningstar, told Climate Home News that investor activism does work but it “doesn’t do everything that people expected it to do towards the beginning of the 2020s”.

“There is a limit to what can be achieved by minority shareholders exercising their votes and engaging with companies. Quite a lot, it does seem, is reliant on the legal and regulatory framework,” he said, adding that the closure of Investors for Paris Compliance shows this “realisation is sinking in a lot more than perhaps it was in 2020, 2021, 2022”.

Decline of investor activism

Stewart said that in the early 2020s, investor activists were pushing companies for “things that were sort of already on the regulatory conveyor belt anyway”, like companies setting targets for their operational (Scope 1 and 2) emissions, disclosing their carbon footprints, and assessing their exposure to risk from climate change.

With this low-hanging fruit picked, green-minded investors have moved on to make demands that are more controversial and have received less support from other investors, he said. He gave examples of just transition reporting, green capital expenditure financing ratios for banks and disclosing emissions from the use of products a company sells, known as Scope 3 emissions.

On top of this, Stewart said, there has been pressure from the “right-wing political establishment in the US” against investors taking climate change into consideration. BlackRock, which manages $9.5 trillion of assets, has walked back its climate commitments after pressure from US Republicans.

More fundamentally, Stewart described the idea that fossil fuel majors would dismantle their oil and gas business and transform into renewables companies as a “pipe dream on the part of environmentalists”. “Why would they have the skill or capability, or even the stakeholder backing, to completely transform a business of that size?” he asked.

Shareholder activism is only possible at privately owned and listed companies, while most investment in oil and gas is now coming from state-owned companies, like Saudi Arabia’s Aramco. In 2025, less than a quarter of investment was from oil majors like BP and Shell.

Business backlash shows power

Yet despite the uphill climb, Mark van Baal defends shareholder activism. He runs an Amsterdam-based campaign group called Follow This, which has tried to get investors to vote for pro-climate resolutions at the AGMs of oil and gas multinationals.

He accepts that success peaked around 2021, but says the effort oil and gas firms are now putting into winning over shareholders and discouraging pro-climate resolutions – which he characterised as “the Empire Strikes Back” – shows the power of shareholder activism, which was previously underestimated.

In January 2024, ExxonMobil sued Follow This, aiming to block the group’s climate resolution. Fearing the case would end up in the Supreme Court, where conservative judges could set an anti-climate precedent, Follow This withdrew the resolution.

But, said van Baal, although the legal battle created a “chilling effect among investors”, it is a “proof point that shareholder pressure works and that they’re really afraid of the shareholders”.

Vote, don’t sell

Stewart and van Baal both agreed that selling, or threatening to sell off shares is not an effective way to change a company’s behaviour.

It allows less climate-conscious investors to buy the shares, they said, adding that there is no evidence that threats to sell shares and therefore lower the valuation over climate concerns have influenced company management.

Van Baal said the share price is set by short-term traders, not long-term shareholders like the pension funds he works with.

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Nonetheless, investors’ engagement should be forceful, van Baal insisted – and not just within their comfort zone of talking to management about sustainability behind closed doors without voting for it at AGMs. “Shareholder democracy is the only democracy where voting is called escalation,” he said.

The Follow This website says that only investors can stop fossil fuel companies destroying the planet. “Marches didn’t change their minds. Lawsuits didn’t stop them. But shareholders can,” it trumpets.

But van Baal told Climate Home News this wording is “too strong” and may have to be revised, adding that shareholder activism just “fits me more than gluing myself to roads” and is a tactic he “stumbled on” 11 years ago.

Legal, political and investor activism can reinforce each other, he added. When Friends of the Earth sued Shell alleging inadequate climate action, for example, the green group’s lawyers cited the company’s rejection of a Follow This resolution as evidence. “The pressure needs to come from all sides,” van Baal said.

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