I. Climate Science

This summer has seen Europe suffer through a series of record-breaking heatwaves.

Amid widespread media coverage of the number of deaths and the influence of climate change, the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported on new research with the incorrect headline: “Heatwaves caused by fall in pollution.”

The article was shared on social media by Richard Tice – deputy leader of the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform UK party – along with a number of prominent rightwing commentators.

Tice claimed that “net stupid zero is contributing to rising temperatures, not helping”, adding that “we have been gaslit and lied to”.

GB News followed up with its own article, incorrectly headlined: “Britain’s scorching heatwaves caused by falling pollution levels, researchers find.”

Scientists tell Carbon Brief that the framing of heatwaves being “caused” by declining air pollution is “wrong”.

While a drop in pollution has reduced the cooling impact it has had in the past, the scientists say, Europe’s summer heatwaves are primarily becoming more extreme “as a result of greenhouse-gas-induced warming”.

Another scientist adds that “any attempt” to link this research to net-zero policies is “simply wrong”.

Fast warming

The extensive reporting around Europe’s heatwaves in recent months has often mentioned that Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent. 

The new study in question aims to unpack why Europe’s summer temperatures are rising more quickly than other regions of the northern hemisphere’s mid and high latitudes. 

The research – published in Geophysical Research Letters – explores the role of air pollution and, specifically, how it affects circulation patterns in the atmosphere. 

(The study focuses on long-term trends in European summers and does not include the very recent heatwaves.)

Human-caused emissions of aerosols – tiny, light‑scattering particles produced mainly by burning fossil fuels – have long acted to “mask” global warming. This is largely because they absorb or reflect incoming sunlight and influence the formation and brightness of clouds. 

To understand how the climate of Europe – or any region – is changing, scientists need to take into account a whole range of factors, says Prof Bjørn Samset, a research professor at Norway’s Center for International Climate Research (CICERO), who was not involved in the work.

This includes “greenhouse gases, aerosols, land-use change, natural variability and how they all interact”, he says, adding:

“The effects of air pollution on circulation, which is the topic here, has long been difficult to pin down.”

As European countries improved their air quality through the second half of the 20th century, the cooling effect of aerosols has gradually been removed.

This can boost heatwaves in two ways – directly, by letting more sunlight reach the land surface and, indirectly, by influencing the jet stream.

Using hundreds of simulations from nine climate models, the new study finds that a decline in aerosols is resulting in more frequent “quasi-stationary Rossby waves”. 

Rossby waves are huge meanders in the jet stream. Occasionally, they become slow-moving – or “quasi-stationary” – which allows weather systems to get stuck over one region, leading to prolonged heatwaves.

These circulation changes have contributed to Europe’s rapidly warming summers.

However, while Europe’s heatwaves are being influenced by declining aerosols, it is “wrong” to say they are being “caused” by them, says Prof Erich Fischer, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich.

Headline in the Daily Telegraph, 22 July 2026.

Fischer, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief:

“Heatwaves are caused by high-pressure systems and are now much more frequent and intense because they are happening in a climate that is much warmer than 100 years ago as a result of greenhouse-gas-induced warming. 

“The paper shows that the greenhouse-gas-induced summer warming had been temporarily masked by air-polluting aerosols. The full extent for European summers only becomes visible now as the air-polluting aerosols have declined.”

Samset adds:

“Air pollution never causes or removes global warming, it only temporarily moderates it.”

Study lead author Dr Pedro Roldán‐Gómez, an associate researcher at the Barcelona Supercomputer Centre, is quoted in the Daily Telegraph saying that “most” of the “excess warming” in Europe, beyond that of comparable regions in the northern hemisphere, can be linked to declining aerosols.

But, earlier in the article, the newspaper interprets this as, simply, “most of the extra heat experienced in Britain and Europe” is down to air pollution. 

GB News uses a similar phrasing, reporting that “much of the additional warming across Britain and western Europe since the 1980s is linked to the sharp decline in airborne particles known as aerosols”.

This is “misleading”, says Fischer, while Roldan-Gomez tells Carbon Brief that this is a “tricky point”, which “could lead to wrong interpretations if not properly explained”. He adds:

“The contribution of greenhouse gases is, in any case, the most important factor.”

Headline on GB News, 23 July 2026.
Cleaner air

The Daily Telegraph’s article was seized upon by Reform’s Richard Tice to claim that “cleaner air” was causing higher temperatures, rather than CO2.

This continued his position – refuted by long-established climate science – that CO2 does not drive global warming. 

Tice also claimed in his post that net-zero policies are “contributing to rising temperatures”. Tice appears to be linking declining air pollution to a shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Samset points out that net-zero became a goal “decades later” than the cumulative efforts to reduce air pollution since the 1980s and that it is “simply wrong” to link it to the study. 

“The scientific community will keep working to understand how greenhouse gas warming and air pollution interact,” he says, but “nothing we do will change the fact that the consequences of global warming are due to human-induced CO2 emissions”.

Fischer adds:

“Let us not forget that cleaning up air-polluting aerosols is highly desirable. According to the World Health Organisation, 7 million people still die prematurely every year due to air pollution.”

Clean air legislation

Finally, the Daily Telegraph article and the study itself both attribute Europe’s declining air pollution from the 1980s onwards to the Montreal Protocol.

This is a “glaring error”, Samset says, and it is “surprising that it wasn’t picked up” in the peer-review process for the study. He explains:

“The Montreal Protocol did not deal with air pollution. It dealt with ozone-depleting gases and has been an extremely successful multi-national effort against environmental damage. “

Clean air legislation was already in place in many European countries by the time the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987, says Samset. 

In response, Roldán‐Gómez says that while the protocol did not target aerosols specifically, it “boosted the clean air policies”.

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Empowering women through greater access to finance could “strengthen” households’ resilience to “climate shocks”, according to a new study.  

Published in Climate Risk Management, it analyses the impact of financial access on “women-headed households” in sub-Saharan Africa. 

The study finds that where women had formal financial access – such as through owning a bank account – households were more able to withstand short-term shocks.

It adds that “climate shocks”, such as extreme weather events and the impacts of climate change, can cause economic crises, which destabilise communities and households. 

However, the authors say that in order to protect households from long-term climate vulnerabilities – including “droughts, floods and sea-level rise” – financial access would need to be paired with wider efforts to tackle gender inequality. 

They add that the findings could have important implications for policy in sub-Saharan Africa, where many countries and households are vulnerable to climate disasters. 

Financial inclusion 

The study highlights that entrenched gender disparities mean many women still have unequal access to financial services in sub-Saharan Africa

For example, women are still less likely to have their own bank accounts and instead are often dependent on male relatives for access to finance. 

The number of women with access to an account in the region had risen to 52% as of 2024, according to data from World Bank Group.

However, as shown in the chart below, the gap between men and women has also increased, rising from just under 5 percentage points in 2011 to 12 in 2024. 

Share of population with bank accounts by gender over 2011-2024, %. Source: Global Findex Database, World Bank Group

Using survey data from Afrobarometer, the new study analyses 25,511 women-headed households across 37 sub-Saharan countries. 

The authors use the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) framework to measure “financial inclusion”. This looks at factors such as having a bank account, owning a mobile phone and having internet access. 

Francis Anaisie, a co-author on the study, tells Carbon Brief the researchers were motivated by the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). Anaisie, an economist at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, says the study specifically looked at SDGs five and 13, on gender equality and addressing climate issues. He adds: 

“Financial inclusion is one of the key policy tools for empowering women or for empowerment. But as to whether this actually translates into better climate outcomes for women is not known or is limited; this study seeks to address that gap.”

The study finds households with higher levels of financial access for women had higher levels of women’s empowerment, when this is defined as the ability to make choices and have control over economic and social outcomes. 

This was checked by cross-comparing financial access against different measures of women’s empowerment, such as financial security, voting rights and connection to communities.

In particular, the study found that “financially included” women had greater political and economic empowerment, such as financial security and voting rights. On some measures of social empowerment, however, the link was weaker – financial access alone was not enough to erase cultural and social barriers to gender equality. 

Women and climate change 

It has been well documented that women are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than men. 

Environmental shocks affect women disproportionately due to a range of factors. These include income disparities, higher rates of displacement and unequal access to land.

Financial inequality and barriers to economic resources, such as needing internet access to make digital payments, play a key role in climate vulnerability, says Tracy Kajumba. She is director for the Least Developed Countries initiative for Effective Adaptation and Resilience (LIFE-AR) interim secretariat at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). 

Kajumba, who was not involved in the study, explains to Carbon Brief:

“Women are on the front line doing farming, planting, harvesting and these things that are all impacted [by climate change]. If they don’t have the income to invest either in drought-resistant crops or water-saving technologies, it becomes difficult for households to adapt.”

Calculating climate resilience 

The new study measures the impact of financial inclusion on women’s empowerment and, in turn, on climate resilience.  

It evaluates a household’s ability to withstand and recover from “shocks and stressors” by using a UN Food and Agriculture Organization metric for “resilience index measurement and analysis” (RIMA). 

For example, questionnaires are used to gather information about households in certain areas. The data is then used, together with key indicators, to quantify a household’s resilience to food insecurity, climate variability and economic crisis, amongst other risks. 

The 25,511 households surveyed across sub-Saharan Africa were found to be relatively resilient overall and had a high capacity to bounce back from climate shocks. However, they had much lower ability to adapt, in order to build protective capacity in advance of extreme events.

In addition, the study finds that women’s financial empowerment had a positive impact on a household’s ability to “absorb” a climate shock, suggesting that financial access is critical for responding to climate change. 

Community garden and climate adaption project, focusing on women’s empowerment, Niger. Credit: Joerg Boethling / Alamy Stock Photo

Increased empowerment through financial access enables women to make decisions about planting crops, to access credit in emergencies and to buy or sell food at a better price, the study notes. 

For example, it says increased financial access and women’s empowerment help households to deal with the immediate consequences of an extreme weather event, such as a drought. This could be through building community mutual-support networks and by enabling access to savings, to keep the household running. 

Anaisie says the study shows women’s empowerment has a significant impact on climate resilience. He tells Carbon Brief: 

“If we include women in the financial system, in the case of any climate issue they can save, they can be independent, they can rely on investment to absorb these shocks. This empowerment will help them to be more resilient to climate shocks…We can make progress because SDG goals are all about inclusiveness. It’s all about inclusive growth.”

However, the study notes that financial access does not necessarily create long-term change, which would make the household less vulnerable to extreme weather in the first place. 

The authors suggest that lasting structural and cultural change is important for bringing about long-term resilience. They say that policies to address gender inequalities would help bring this about.

They say such policies could include gender-sensitive agricultural credit schemes, subsidised climate insurance for women farmers in drought-prone regions, joint land-titling programmes and quotas for women in local climate-adaptation committees. 

Such policies would have helped women impacted by recent severe floods in Ghana to protect their savings, Anaisie explains. He tells Carbon Brief: 

“Women are engaged in economic activities, especially informal activities. They have resources and money, but when the flood came in, many women lost that. If they had access to insurance, this flood wouldn’t have cost them that much. 

“So, if the government comes out with financial initiatives, training, civic education and gender-focused initiatives, leadership training, women will be empowered and this will translate into their resilience with regards to climate change.”

Addressing climate vulnerability in sub-Saharan Africa 

The study could have policy implications for sub-Saharan Africa, a region particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The region faces increasingly extreme weather, heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods, as well as food scarcity and threats to crops. 

The study suggests that policies to address structural and cultural barriers to women’s financial autonomy could be a key way to build climate resilience across the region. 

However, it recognises that even where financial access is expanded, gender norms and cultural constraints continue to shape women’s social empowerment. This, in turn, affects their ability to adapt to climate change in the long term. 

Ultimately, addressing structural inequalities is needed to minimise climate vulnerability, says Kajumba. She adds that supporting adaptation with financial access can allow households to absorb shocks without falling into poverty – and to rebuild after climate impacts. 

Kajumba says that supporting adaptation with women’s financial access can allow households to absorb shocks without falling into poverty – and to rebuild after climate impacts. She adds:

“When they are supported [with] microloans, savings and all that, you will see change in income, change in households, change in health and education for the children as well.”

However, Kajumba notes that structural inequalities still “amplify” women’s vulnerability to climate impacts and make it harder for them to exercise agency and leadership. She adds:

“The tools that are being used are not always favourable for women…When we look at women in leadership and participation, you cannot lead or you cannot participate unless you have some level of income.”

Article information

Essossinam, A. et al. (2026) Effect of financial inclusion and women empowerment on climate resilience: Evidence from sub-Saharan African households, Climate Risk Management, doi:10.1016/j.crm.2026.100848

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As 2026 passes its halfway point, the world is watching one of the most rapidly intensifying El Niño events in the modern record take shape in the tropical Pacific.

The developing El Niño is boosting expectations for global temperatures, both this year and next.

El Niño is the warm phase of a recurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific that releases heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, temporarily raising global temperatures and reshaping rainfall and extreme weather around the world.

Carbon Brief’s “state of the climate” report in April gave 2026 a 19% chance of setting a new global temperature record. 

That chance now stands at 35% – a near-doubling in four months – with virtually all of the change driven by ever-stronger El Niño forecasts.

The key findings from the first half of 2026 include:

• The first six months of 2026 were the third-warmest start to a year on record – around 1.4C above pre-industrial levels – behind only 2024 and 2025. 
• While the first few months of the year came in as the fourth or fifth warmest, both May and June were the second-warmest ever recorded as El Niño conditions took hold.
• El Niño conditions arrived in April and reached the threshold for a “strong” event by June, when the Niño3.4 index reached 1.6C. Of the 667 model runs Carbon Brief examined, 91% project a peak later this year that is above the strongest El Niño in history.
• The chance that 2026 beats 2024 as the warmest year on record has risen to 35%. Carbon Brief’s central estimate remains that 2026 will be the second-warmest year, at around 1.51C above pre-industrial levels.
• Whether 2026 sets a record will depend on the dataset: the odds range from around two-in-three in NASA and Berkeley Earth data to around two-in-10 in ERA5 and one-in-10 in the JRA-3Q reanalyses.
• June 2026 was western Europe’s hottest June on record, amid a heatwave that set hundreds of individual records. Nearly 9% of the world’s surface saw record June warmth.
• The developing El Niño will have its largest impact on 2027, which Carbon Brief projects to be around 1.7C above pre-industrial levels – this would comfortably set a new record for the warmest year.
• Arctic sea ice has spent 39 days of 2026 so far at, or below, record daily lows following its joint-lowest winter maximum in the satellite era.

Third-warmest start to a year

Carbon Brief analyses records from six different groups that report global surface temperatures: NASA GISTEMP, NOAA GlobalTemp, Hadley/UEA HadCRUT5, Berkeley Earth, Copernicus/ECMWF ERA5 and the JMA JRA-3Q reanalysis.

The first half of 2026 was the third warmest on record in every one of the six datasets, behind only 2024 and 2025. The figure below shows annual temperatures since 1970, along with the 2026 year-to-date average (January-June) for each group.

Annual global average surface temperatures from the six groups (lines), along with 2026 temperatures so far (January-June, coloured dots). Note that HadCRUT5 and ERA5 dots reflect January-May, as their June values were not yet published. Chart by Carbon Brief.

January 2026 was only the fourth- or fifth-warmest January on record, as lingering weak La Niña conditions suppressed temperatures. Since then, each month has climbed the rankings.

La Niña is the cool phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). It typically brings wetter conditions to Australia, Indonesia and equatorial South America and drier conditions to the southern US.

March was second-to-fourth warmest across datasets, April the third and both May and June were the second warmest ever recorded, behind only the corresponding months of 2024.

The chart below shows how June 2026 (thick red line) came in around 0.08C below the June record set in 2024 in the average of the six datasets.

Meanwhile, Copernicus reported that global sea surface temperatures over the ice-free oceans set a new June record.

Average global surface temperatures for each month from 1940 to June 2028 from six forecasting groups, with lines coloured by decade. Chart by Carbon Brief. A record-breaking El Niño 

ENSO is the largest source of year-to-year variability in global temperatures. 

The most common way to assess the strength of an El Niño or La Niña event is by looking at the sea surface temperature anomaly in the “Niño3.4” region of the tropical Pacific. 

El Niño and its sister La Niña occur when temperatures in the tropical Pacific are more than 0.5C (El Niño) or less than 0.5C (La Niña) below normal, where normal is defined by removing the effects of long-term climate change. 

The thresholds for defining the strength of an El Niño or La Niña are above/below 1C for “moderate” events, 1.5C for “strong” events and 2C for “very strong” (or “super”) events.

After two years dominated by La Niña conditions, the tropical Pacific flipped decisively in April when the Niño3.4 index crossed the 0.5C El Niño threshold. It subsequently reached 1C in May and hit 1.6C in June, marking one of the fastest onsets in the observational record. 

In the first few weeks of July, the index shot above 2C, significantly outpacing the speed at which any prior El Niño events developed.

Forecast models expect even more to come. 

An analysis by Carbon Brief of the median of 667 model runs from 14 different modelling groups suggests that sea surface temperatures in theNiño3.4 region could peak at 3.59C between July and December. 

More than 91% of runs predict the strongest El Niño event in the modern record. The previous record was set during the event of 2015-16, when temperatures peaked around 2.75C.

This is shown in the chart below, which features a histogram of the likelihood of different possible 2026 El Niño peaks across all the models on the top. The forest plot beneath shows the best estimate and range of outcomes predicted by each individual model.

Top panel: Model-weighted distribution of each member’s peak Jul-Dec 2026 Niño3.4 anomaly (red bars), with the dotted yellow line indicating the weighted median (+3.6C) and the dotted blue line the prior record peak (2015-16, 2.75C). Bottom panel: median and 10th-90th percentile peak for each modelling group, with its typical peak month. The figure includes 667 model runs from 14 different modelling groups (from the CFS, NMME, C3S, CanSIPS and SINTEX-F systems). Chart by Carbon Brief.

The median forecast in every one of the 14 models suggests a peak that exceeds the 2C “super” El Niño threshold, with most models peaking in November or December.

Some caution here is warranted, however. Raw model Niño3.4 anomalies are measured against a fixed climatology. Because the entire tropical ocean has warmed due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, the models tend to overstate event strength relative to the historical record. 

A cleaner comparison uses the relative Niño3.4 index (RONI), which subtracts the average tropical ocean warming.

This relative measure suggests the median forecast peak for El Niño in the latter half of 2026 is 3.1C. The prior record stands at a lower 2.69C, set in 1982-83. 

Nevertheless, 77% of model runs still show a new record event occurring. This is shown in the chart below.

Top panel: Model-weighted distribution of each member’s peak Jul-Dec 2026 RONI (red bars), with the dotted yellow line indicating the weighted median (+3.1C) and the dotted blue line the prior record peak (1982-83, 2.69C). Bottom panel: median and 10th-90th percentile peak for each modelling group, with its typical peak month. The figure includes 667 model runs from 14 different modelling groups (from the CFS, NMME, C3S, CanSIPS and SINTEX-F systems). Chart by Carbon Brief.

In summary, on both indexes, the central expectation is now for the strongest El Niño in the observational record. 

Model forecasts made in the spring and early summer have historically shown some bias toward overpredicting event strength. However, forecasts made after the spring are considerably more reliable.

Widespread record warmth and a massive European heatwave

The map below shows the temperature anomaly for the first half of 2026 in the ERA5 dataset, relative to a 1981-2010 baseline period.

Global mean surface temperatures for January-June 2026 compared to a 1981-2010 baseline, using data from ERA5.

It shows how the largest warm anomalies were found across the Arctic – particularly north of Scandinavia and Svalbard – as well as western Europe, the western US, northern Mexico, central Asia, western China, eastern Russia and the Antarctic Peninsula region. 

The developing El Niño is clearly visible as a tongue of warm anomalies stretching along the equatorial eastern Pacific. Only a few regions – central Canada, Alaska and parts of the Southern Ocean – saw temperatures below the 1981-2010 average.

Where 2026 ranks against history is even more striking. The map below shows where the period of January-June 2026 ranked among all 87 years in the ERA5 record, which stretches from 1940 to 2026. Grid cells marked in red saw temperatures in the first half of the year that were in the top-five warmest years.

January-June 2026 per-gridcell ranks in ERA5. 30% of the global surface saw a top-five warmest first half of the year; 7.1% saw record warmth. No areas (0.0%) saw top-five cold.

More than 30% of the global surface had a top-five warmest start to the year and 7.1% saw its warmest on record, including much of western Europe, the eastern equatorial Pacific and the seas around Japan. 

Not a single grid cell had a top-five coolest start to the year. In June alone, 8.9% of the world’s surface saw record warmth for the month. This is illustrated in the map below, where grid cells marked in red saw temperatures that were in the top-five warmest years and grid cells in blue in the top-five coolest.

June 2026 per-gridcell ranks in ERA5.

The standout regional temperature event was a heatwave that struck Europe in late June. 

Western Europe had its hottest June on record, recording an average temperature of 3.05C above the 1991-2020 average and beating the record set only a year earlier, according to Copernicus. A heat dome over 22-30 June broke 10 all-time national heat records and around 400 long-record station records. 

France set a new June national record of 44.3C, while the UK broke its June record on three consecutive days, reaching 37.3C. The humid heat drove a death toll estimated in the thousands. 

A separate heat dome also brought record June temperatures to parts of North America in late June.

On track to be second warmest, but a real chance at first

Carbon Brief’s updated projection for 2026 as a whole combines the observed January-June temperatures with the latest El Niño forecast. It uses a statistical model trained on the historical relationship between the first half of the year, ENSO conditions and annual temperatures observed over 1950-2025, excluding major volcanic eruption years.

Carbon Brief estimates that 2026 will be around 1.51C above pre-industrial levels, with a 90% range of 1.45C to 1.57C, shown by the yellow dot in the chart below. 

This is up from 1.47C in the projection set out in April – and is notably more certain now that half the year has passed. 

This central estimate would make 2026 the second-warmest year on record, just below 2024 (1.52C) and ahead of 2023 (1.43C) and 2025 (1.41C).

Annual composite temperatures over 1970-2025, the 2026 year-to-date value (January-June, red dot), and Carbon Brief’s 2026 annual estimate (yellow dot with the 5th to 95th percentile range). Chart by Carbon Brief.

Carbon Brief’s modelling puts the chance that 2026 beats 2024 as the warmest year on record at 35%, using the average of the six different surface temperature records assessed. It puts the chance that 2026 comes in above 1.5C at around 63%.

If it does, 2026 would be the second calendar year – after 2024 – where warming averaged above 1.5C, in a further sign that the world is rapidly approaching the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit.

A single year above 1.5C does not by itself constitute a breach of the goal, which refers to the longer term average temperature of the planet. This is defined as the midpoint of a 20-year period by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

These likelihood of a record have been climbing rapidly throughout 2026. 

Global temperatures so far throughout the year have run well below the record-setting levels of 2024 – around 0.13C cooler over the first six months. 

On their own, temperatures observed so far in 2026 would make a new annual record unlikely. 

However, rerunning the projection using only the data available at the end of each month since March – including both the year-to-date observations and the El Niño forecast issued that month – shows a shifting picture.

Using March data, 2026 had just a 7% chance of setting a new record. That rose to 16% in April, 24% in May, 27% in June and 35% using the latest data in mid-July.

This is shown in the chart below.

Columns show the probability that 2026 exceeds 2024 as the warmest year on record, based on data available at the end of each month; the line shows the corresponding forecast of July-December ENSO conditions (relative Niño3.4 index). Chart by Carbon Brief.

Notably, this rise has little to do with observed temperatures. The year-to-date anomaly has actually drifted slightly down, from 1.41C after March to 1.39C after June.

Observed temperatures and fewer remaining months of the year contributed only around four percentage points of the 28-point rise in the likelihood; the remaining ~84% of the change comes from successive upward revisions to the El Niño forecast for late 2026.

However, whether 2026 ends up becoming the warmest year on record may end up depending on which dataset is used.

Running the same projection gives odds of a 2026 record of around two-in-three for Berkeley Earth (66%) and NASA GISTEMP (65%), but only 35% for HadCRUT5, 24% for NOAA and just 13% and 9% for the ERA5 and JRA-3Q reanalyses, respectively. 

This is shown below.

Observed annual temperatures since 1990, with each dataset’s own 2024 record (dashed line) and the 2026 projection (median, 25-75% bar and 5-95% whisker), with the per-dataset chance of a 2026 record in each panel’s title. Chart by Carbon Brief.

The divergence between projections mostly reflects how exceptional each dataset’s 2024 was. 

The reanalysis approaches recorded a particularly warm 2024, leaving 2026 more ground to make up. GISTEMP and Berkeley, on the other hand, project 2026 modestly above their 2024 values. 

A repeat of the situation in 2015 where different groups disagreed on record rankings is a real possibility. Headlines in January 2027 may hinge on choices of dataset.

2027 likely to be the warmest year in human history

The biggest climate story of the developing super El Niño may not be 2026 at all. 

Global temperatures typically lag in the tropical Pacific by around three months. So, an El Niño event peaking in November and December 2026 will have its largest warming influence on 2027. 

We saw this same pattern occur in 1997-98, 2015-16 and 2023-24 – where the year in which the El Niño developed was warm, but the following year was record-smashing.

Carbon Brief has extended its projection into 2027 by using the historical relationship between year-over-year temperature changes and ENSO conditions in the preceding autumn. 

This yields a best estimate for 2027 of around 1.71C above pre-industrial levels, with a 90% range of 1.49C to 1.93C. This is shown by a yellow square on the chart below.

Observed annual composite temperatures 1970-2025 and Carbon Brief’s projections for 2026 and 2027 (medians and 5th to 95th percentile ranges). Chart by Carbon Brief.

That would give 2027 a 92% chance of setting a new global temperature record and a 94% chance of exceeding 1.5C. 

Taking 2026 and 2027 together, there is a 93% chance that at least one of the two years sets a new record. 

The 2027 estimate is more uncertain than the 2026 one. As with 2026, there are uncertainties in the projection due to unknowns around exactly how strong the El Niño peak proves to be and how quickly it decays. 

However, even the low end of the 2027 range would put it among the warmest years on record and the central estimate of 1.71C would exceed 2024 by nearly 0.2C.

If these projections bear out, the 2020s will have delivered new global temperature records in 2023, 2024 and 2027 – and potentially 2026 too – with a number of individual years well above the 1.5C threshold. 

The long-term warming trend, driven by human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, has increased from around 0.18C per decade in the early 2000s to around 0.27C per decade today. El Niño and La Niña play a big role in determining which years along that rising path stand out as records.

Arctic sea ice at record lows 

Arctic sea ice has spent much of 2026 in record-low territory. 

Following the joint-lowest winter maximum in the satellite record in mid-March, daily extent has set or tied record lows for the date on 39 days so far this year, including extended spells in mid-to-late March and in early-to-mid June. 

The most recent record-low days were in early July.

The chart below shows how Arctic sea ice in 2026 (dark red line) has been below the historical range (shaded red). 

It also shows how Antarctic sea ice (dark blue), meanwhile, has remained below the 1979-2010 range for almost all of 2026 to date.

Daily 2026 sea ice extent (bold lines) compared to the 1979-2010 historical range (shaded) and the record daily low from any prior year (dotted). Chart by Carbon Brief using data from NSIDC

As of mid-July, Arctic extent is a bit below the 1979-2010 historical range for the date, though it remains around 0.6m square kilometres (km2) larger than the record low for the date set during 2020’s exceptional summer melt season. 

The trajectory over the coming two months will determine whether 2026 challenges 2012’s record September minimum. Early-summer conditions are a poor predictor of the September minimum, which depends heavily on summer weather.

Antarctic sea ice, meanwhile, is currently around 300,000km2 below the historical envelope, but has stayed well clear of the record lows set in 2023 and has not set any new daily records yet this year.

Factcheck: No, Europe’s heatwaves are not being ‘caused’ by declining air pollution 24.07.2026 Heatwaves Q&A: Europe’s May and June heatwave deaths – and how they were counted 17.07.2026 Extreme weather Guest post: France’s June heatwave caused more than 2,700 heat-related deaths 07.07.2026 Health and society Guest post: Climate change has caused one-fifth of Pine Island glacier retreat 29.06.2026 Antarctica

The post State of the climate: Rapidly developing El Niño raises chance of record-warm 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Open access notables

Record-low 2025 and 2026 ice extents restore Arctic winter sea-ice decline, Chan et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Recent analyses have suggested that the decadal rate of Arctic winter sea-ice extent decline weakened in the early 2020s, with 20-y trends becoming statistically insignificant. Here we show from more up-to-date observations that the exceptionally low 2025 and 2026 ice extent winters reversed this picture, with sea-ice extent during the growth and peak phases returning to record lows and 20-y decline trends becoming significant again. Further analysis of CMIP6 model analogues shows that the observed 2025 decline was unusual but physically plausible under comparable Arctic warming, and is more consistent with ongoing winter sea ice reduction than with a return to values seen in the early 2020s.

As the planet heats, public doubt grows: The social structure behind rising climate change scepticism in Germany, Gies & Deutschmann, Global Environmental Change

In 2024, global heating exceeded 1.5 °C for the first time. Paradoxically, as the climate crisis becomes ever more evident, climate change scepticism (CCS) has recently grown (rather than declined) in Germany, a high-emissions country with enormous responsibility. Past research has not systematically studied which social groups and characteristics are behind this shift. We address this gap by examining the social structure of rising CCS in Germany, taking its multidimensionality into account. Drawing on GESIS Panel data that is representative of the German adult population, we detect a strong and consistent increase across a comprehensive set of 14 CCS indicators between 2022 and 2023. We find that this rise in scepticism is not driven by a small and ‘loud’ minority but rather constitutes a mass phenomenon: on average across all items, CCS increased among 59% of respondents, and for 93% of respondents at least one indicator rose. Regression models reveal a complex picture with socio-structural effects depending on the dimension of CCS, but right-wing political orientation, government distrust, and hierarchical worldviews are most consistently associated with increases in CCS. Overall, political attitudes – which are flexible and have shifted substantially in recent years – relate far more strongly to rising CCS than stable socio-structural factors like income or gender. These findings demonstrate an urgent need to restore trust in political institutions and to foster inclusive, participatory climate dialogue to secure broad public support for the transition towards a carbon-neutral society.

Climate Obstruction in the Digital Far-Right: Mapping the Climate Countermovement in German-, Danish-, and Swedish-Speaking Digital Information Environments, Henriksen et al., Environmental Communication

This article examines how climate obstruction narratives circulate in far-right digital information environments in Austria, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. We analyzed 41 million social media posts published across multiple social media platforms from 2019 to 2022. Using multilingual text classification and actor–source mapping, we identified which posts contained climate obstruction narratives, which actors produced them, and which sources they cited. The results revealed three configurations. In the German-speaking environment (Germany and Austria), obstruction is mainly driven by far-right citizen accounts embedded in a hyperpartisan media ecosystem. In Sweden, far-right grassroots actors coexist with climate-focused organizations that bridge mainstream and alternative sources. In Denmark, obstruction is comparatively mainstream-embedded and anchored in organizations and citizen groups drawing on legacy news. The article discusses how national media systems, political fields, and far-right actor constellations make certain forms of obstruction communicatively viable and thereby shape the digital climate countermovement.

Mapping climate change coverage: Causes, consequences, and solutions in German news media, 2010–2024, Dablander et al., Energy Research & Social Science

The media shapes how political leaders and the public understand the causes, impacts, and solutions to climate change. Here, we provide the most extensive analysis to date of how German news media report on climate change between 2010 and 2024. We develop and validate a methodology based on large language models to analyze the contents of over 50,000 articles from seven major newspapers across the political spectrum. We found that aspects relating to causes, impacts, and mitigation were all covered substantially more often than aspects relating to adaptation. While most articles identified climate change as human-caused, coverage about causes was dominated by fossil fuels, with agriculture, overconsumption, carbon inequality, and economic growth rarely mentioned. Left-leaning outlets more frequently reported that climate change is human-caused, highlighted fossil fuels as a cause, emphasized the need to reduce their use, and discussed systemic and social drivers more often. Coverage patterns have remained largely stable over time, except for growing attention to net-zero targets and carbon taxes. Our findings highlight opportunities for more comprehensive climate journalism to better support public understanding and policy debate by reflecting the scientific consensus and the full range of societal transformations needed to address climate change.

From this week's government/NGO section:

Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and Their Impacts, National Research Council, The National Academies Press

Decades of data and research indicate that human-caused climate change is altering the frequency and intensity of several types of extreme events, such as heat waves and extreme rainfall events. Even as those trends become clearer, extreme event attribution (EEA) seeks to assess the degree to which climate change contributed to any specific event. EEA studies provide information that can be useful for public understanding, planning and risk management, policy and legal contexts, and scientific research. The authors evaluate the state of EEA science, updating a National Academies report published in 2016. The authors also assess the emerging field of extreme event impact attribution (EEIA). The number of EEA studies has grown substantially over the past decade as scientific tools, observational datasets, and methods have advanced, enabling attribution studies to be completed within days of an event. However, challenges remain, including limited model capabilities for small-scale regional events, representation of key atmospheric processes, and attribution of compounding, cascading, and record-breaking events. The authors examine these advances and remaining challenges and provide recommendations for strengthening attribution science, improving collaboration with local experts and stakeholders, and advancing research, data, and modeling capabilities worldwide.

Early Warnings: Government Knowledge of Climate Change and Legal Responsibility for Climate Harm, Lindsay Fenlock and Nikki Reisch, Center for International Environmental Law

The authors examine publicly available government records, scientific evidence, and historical archives to document when major emitting States became aware of the causes and foreseeable consequences of climate change. They demonstrate that many governments understood the risks decades earlier than they have claimed, strengthening the evidentiary foundation for climate litigation, human rights, and climate advocacy, and the implementation of the International Court of Justice climate advisory opinion. By tracing the history of government knowledge, the report provides a critical resource for advancing climate accountability and ensuring that high-emitting States are held responsible for failing to prevent the climate crisis. 284 articles in 105 journals by 2495 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

A 21-Year Global Daytime Satellite Climatology of Cirrus Cloud Cover and Its Links to Upper-Tropospheric Conditions and Aviation Over Europe and the North Atlantic, Huu et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70506

A Reconciled Satellite Record Reveals a Negative Low Cloud Feedback Over the Past 47 Years, Cesana & Arouf, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl124158

Distinct Characteristics of Contiguous Heatwaves Across Terrestrial, Marine, and Coastal Environments, Bekris et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl118531

Explaining the Equatorial Pacific Thermocline Response to Climate Change With a Model Hierarchy, Luongo et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023559

Heating the land cools the eastern and equatorial Pacific, Günther et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.aeb7004

How Clear-Sky Spectral Overlap Shapes Radiation in Cloudy Atmospheres, Czarnecki & Pincus, Journal of Climate pdf 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0589.1

Marine Heatwave Imprints on Salinity in the Northwest Atlantic, Stamper et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl124293

Nordic overturning increases as AMOC weakens in response to global warming, Roewer et al., Ocean science Open Access pdf 10.5194/os-22-1195-2026

On the Utility of the Transient Climate Response, Jeevanjee et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl121354

Post-1990s Warming of Circumpolar Deep Water Off West Antarctica and Its Drivers, Damini et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023856

Projected Arctic Ocean Warming Accompanied by a Restructuring of the Overturning at the Fram Strait and the Barents Sea Opening, Oldenburg et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-24-0735.1

The remarkable inefficiency of stratocumulus, Hernandez et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-9337-2026

Trans-basin linkages prolong Northwestern Pacific marine heatwaves through a circumglobal wave pattern, Zhao & Yu, Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adz4647

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Climate and Tropospheric Oxidizing Capacity, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 10.1146/annurev-earth-032320-090307 21 cites.

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Observations of climate change, effects

Climate Warming Intensifies Cascading Risks Along the Heatwave-Drought-Wildfire Hazard Chain in Northeast Asia, Liu et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70507

Decadal Shifts Towards Higher Riverine Silicon Relative to Nitrogen and Phosphorus Across High Latitudes, Carey et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access 10.1029/2025gb008926

Distribution characteristics of newly formed glacial lakes across High Mountain Asia during 2000–2020, YIN et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.accre.2026.07.007

Drought, heatwave, and fires: The impact on air quality during São Paulo's record-breaking fire season in 2024, Silva et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103045

Frequent, Intense and Prolonged Human-Perceived Heat Waves Over the Arabian Peninsula in Recent Decades, Ullah et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access 10.1002/joc.70510

Increasing Tropical Cyclone Activity Over the North China Plain, Liu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2026jd046567

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2025: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence, Forster et al., Earth system science data Open Access 10.5194/essd-18-3889-2026

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2025: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence, Forster et al., Earth system science data Open Access 10.5194/essd-18-3889-2026

Precipitation Over the Contiguous United States Is Coming From Farther Away Than in the Past, Aerenson et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122565

Record-low 2025 and 2026 ice extents restore Arctic winter sea-ice decline, Chan et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2614134123

Time series forecasting of climate variables in three selected major cities in Nigeria, Ibrahim et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103014

Warming Trends in Basin-Scale Heatwaves Across Ethiopia: An Observational Analysis Using Crossing Theory, Gebremariam et al., International Journal of Climatology pdf 10.1002/joc.70477

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Impact of an unprecedented marine heatwave on extremely hot summer over Northern Japan in 2023, Scientific Reports, 10.1038/s41598-024-65291-y 41 cites.

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Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

A four-decade global Lagrangian air-parcel trajectory dataset for atmospheric moisture and heat analysis, Deman et al., Earth system science data Open Access 10.5194/essd-18-4593-2026

Attribution of 2022 and 2023 extreme heat in China using conditional and unconditional frameworks, Zhang et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100937

CoCO2-MOSAIC 1.0: a global mosaic of regional, gridded, fossil and biofuel CO2 emission inventories, Urraca et al., TNO Repository Open Access pdf pmh:oai:oai-pmh.tno.nl:58273

FORMS: Forest Multiple Source height, wood volume, and biomass maps in France at 10 to 30 m resolution based on Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, and GEDI data with a deep learning approach, Schwartz et al., HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) Open Access pmh:oai:HAL:hal-04499509v1

Modeling air temperature from snow-buried sensors to refine multi-decadal warming trends in Great Basin National Park, NV, USA, Mazan et al., Theoretical and Applied Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00704-026-06436-z

Multidecadal reconstruction of terrestrial water storage changes by combining pre-GRACE satellite observations and climate data, Hacker et al., Earth system science data Open Access 10.5194/essd-18-1747-2026

PolyU2025 SLA: a global 0.25°  ×  0.25° monthly sea-level anomaly dataset (1993–2024) determined from satellite altimetry for sea-level and climate change research, Yuan et al., Earth system science data Open Access 10.5194/essd-18-4155-2026

Robustness of Radiative Kernel Methods in Reproducing Arctic Outgoing Longwave Radiation Variability, Liu & Jin, Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2025jd046213

Satellite estimation of global air sea CO2 flux from 2000 to 2020, Ji et al., Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-026-51215-5

Sensitivity of marine heatwaves metrics to SST products, focusing on the Tropical Pacific, Chevillard et al., Ocean science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-1213-2026

Temporal Heterogeneity of In Situ Ocean Observing Capacity Could Cause an Artificial Intensification of Extreme Warm Water Events Globally, Wang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl123043

Wikimpacts 1.0: a new global climate impact database based on automated information extraction from Wikipedia, Li et al., Natural hazards and earth system sciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/nhess-26-2609-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
ClimaMeter: contextualizing extreme weather in a changing climate, Weather and Climate Dynamics, 10.5194/wcd-5-959-2024 39 cites.

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Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

Assessing projected changes in meteorological drought severity and frequency under future climate scenarios: Insights from CMIP5 Models in Eastern Tigray, Northern Ethiopia, Rubangakene et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000944

Enhanced ENSO-driven potential predictability over the Euro-Atlantic under greenhouse warming, Santuy et al., npj Climate and Atmospheric Science Open Access 10.1038/s41612-026-01482-w

Enhanced response of extreme compound events to cumulative CO2 emissions, Li et al., Nature 10.1038/s41586-026-10544-1

Future Shifts in Severe Storm Environments Revealed through Profile-Based Clustering, Hua, Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.20469719

Heterogeneous future Arctic Ocean primary productivity changes projected in CMIP6, Champiot-Bayard et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-23-4735-2026

Impact of Continental Configuration on the Climate Response to Greenhouse-Gas Forcing in an Idealized GCM, Bonan et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl120128

Irreversible climate changes driven by degree-years of temperature overshoot, Dickau et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03761-z

Responses of the Tropical Easterly Jet to Different Global Warming Patterns and Implications for Future Tropical Cyclone Activity, Zhan et al., Advances in Atmospheric Sciences 10.1007/s00376-026-5865-3

Small Tropical Islands Also Exposed to Extreme Humid Heat by the End of the Century, Bald et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122466

Spatiotemporal variation and future projections of air freezing and thawing indices in China–Mongolia–Russia under CMIP6 warming scenarios, JIANG et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.accre.2026.07.009

The Destination Earth digital twin for climate change adaptation, Doblas-Reyes et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-2821-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Asymmetries in the Southern Ocean contribution to global heat and carbon uptake, Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-024-02066-3 23 cites.

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Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

Application and Evaluation of a Novel Python-Based Ensemble Data Assimilation Framework NEDAS in Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM), Liu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres pdf 10.1029/2025jd045622

Climate models with moderate climate sensitivity best simulate the magnitude of Earth's energy imbalance, Bimpiri et al., Earth System Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.5194/esd-17-877-2026

CMIP7 data request: Earth system priorities and opportunities, McPartland et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-2849-2026

CMIP7 data request: ocean and sea ice priorities and opportunities, Fox-Kemper et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-6043-2026

Contribution of physical latent knowledge to the emulation of an atmospheric physics model: a study based on the LMDZ Atmospheric General Circulation Model, Crossouard et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-5907-2026

Developing Guidelines for working with Multi-Model Ensembles in CMIP, Katzenberger et al., Earth System Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.5194/esd-17-495-2026

Ecosystem climate sensitivities drive the divergence in aerosol-induced carbon uptake across CMIP6 models, Zhang et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-5363-2026

EXSoDOS 1.0: downscaling of weather extremes shifts for ensemble climate projections using ground-based measurements, reanalysis and stochastic modelling, Wouters et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-5805-2026

Future Global Warming Constrained by Observed AMOC Strength, Hao et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl118802

Global climate modeling with improved precipitation characteristics by learning physics (GRIST-MPS v1.0) from global storm-resolving modeling, Wang et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-5553-2026

Hacking Kilometer-Scale Models: A Participative Model for Climate Information, Gettelman et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 10.1175/bams-d-25-0183.1

North Atlantic influence reconciling model-observation discrepancy in the tropical Pacific warming pattern, Lin & Watanabe, Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-73763-0

Past, present, and future arctic radiative states simulated by Polar-WRF, Bertossa et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-3653-2026

Stratospheric Subtropical Transport Barriers in CESM1-WACCM and Observations: Climatology, Variability, and Trends, Ivaniha et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2025jd045069

The coupled Southern Ocean–Sea ice–Ice shelf Model (SOSIM v1.0): configuration and evaluation, Liu et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-2985-2026

The Influence of Tropopause Temperature Biases on Climate Model Simulations of Tropical Cyclones, Mahoney et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl120545

The Radiative Forcing Model Intercomparison Project (RFMIP2.0) for CMIP7, Kramer et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-4447-2026

The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP7 (ScenarioMIP-CMIP7), Vuuren et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-2627-2026

Winter Arctic polynyas in CMIP6 models, Heuzé et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-3643-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Comparison of three reanalysis-driven regional climate models over New Zealand: Climatology and extreme events, International Journal of Climatology, 10.1002/joc.8578 11 cites.

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Cryosphere & climate change

An improved 15-year record of ice sheet elevation from CryoSat-2 radar altimetry, Huang et al., Remote Sensing of Environment 10.1016/j.rse.2026.115561

Brief communication: Temperature-driven shrinkage of a disappearing Himalayan glacier, Fujita & Kayastha, cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-4005-2026

Climate change induces rapid growth of dead ice in Asian glaciers, Wang et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.06.008

Increased Frequency, Duration, and Area of Winter Polynyas North of Greenland in a Warming Climate, Shu et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl121125

Increasing Winter Storminess in the Southern Ross Sea, Antarctica, and Its Impact on Land-Fast Sea-Ice, Radlwimmer et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl123090

Learning to melt: Emulating Greenland surface melt from a polar RCM with machine learning, Schlager et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-3313-2026

Mass changes of the Antarctic Peninsula ice sheet and peripheral glaciers, 2007–2021, Bernat et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-3025-2026

Observation-constrained explainable reconstruction of Antarctic sea ice snow depth reveals strong regional asymmetry during 1993–2021, Cao et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.accre.2026.07.008

Record-low 2025 and 2026 ice extents restore Arctic winter sea-ice decline, Chan et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2614134123

The Greenland GNSS Network (GNET): geodetic grade GNSS measurements of Greenland's 3D bedrock displacement from 1995–2025, Solgaard et al., Earth system science data Open Access 10.5194/essd-18-5117-2026

Three Decades of Glacial Changes on the Western Antarctic Peninsula Revealed by Historical Aerial and High-Resolution Satellite Imagery, Thota et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122660

Unveiling the Role of Sea-Ice Loss in Early-20th-Century Arctic Warming, Li et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl121178

Wintertime evolution of landfast ice stability in Alaska from InSAR, Einhorn & Mahoney, cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-3683-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Stability of Ice Shelves and Ice Cliffs in a Changing Climate, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 10.1146/annurev-earth-040522-122817 38 cites.

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Sea level & climate change

PolyU2025 SLA: a global 0.25°  ×  0.25° monthly sea-level anomaly dataset (1993–2024) determined from satellite altimetry for sea-level and climate change research, Yuan et al., Earth system science data Open Access 10.5194/essd-18-4155-2026

Quantifying UK coastal flood exposure under future sea-level rise to 2300, Palmer et al., Explore Bristol Research pmh:oai:research-information.bris.ac.uk:openaire_cris_publications/62032aef-becd-4ddc-a902-ff39b2c8a275

Sea level rise and fall north of Greenland reorganize Arctic freshwater export to North Atlantic, Wang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-75610-8

The economically optimal mix and timing of coastal adaptation in Europe to 2150, Völz et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-74042-8

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Implications of Variability and Trends in Coastal Extreme Water Levels, Geophysical Research Letters, 10.1029/2024gl108864 14 cites.

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Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry

Climate-extreme-driven genesis of a cretaceous dinosaur Lagerstätte, Fanti et al., Global and Planetary Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105589

Continental-scale fern savannah wildfires during end-Triassic greenhouse warming, Hollaar et al., Repository@Nottingham (University of Nottingham) Open Access pmh:oai:nottingham-repository.worktribe.com:66232704

Dynamic Deglacial Evolution of Interior Seaways and Ice Streams in the Weddell Sea Embayment, Bollen et al., Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology Open Access 10.1029/2026pa005438

Ice core nitrogen isotopes archive dramatic changes in West Antarctic Ice Sheet thinning, King et al., Climate of the past Open Access pdf 10.5194/cp-22-1291-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
The 4.2 ka BP event in western Anatolia: Tracing the impact of climatic change, The Holocene, 10.1177/09596836241259774 4 cites.

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Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Adaptational lag at high elevations depends on life stage in a California wildflower, Quarles et al., Journal of Ecology pdf 10.1111/1365-2745.70379

Additive Dominance and Context-Dependent Nonlinearities in Soil Greenhouse Gas Responses to Concurrent Global Change, Ding et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles 10.1029/2026gb009164

Biogeography of Stress: Graded and Threshold Phenological Responses in European Beech-Dominated Forests Under Disruptive Heatwaves, Cesaretti et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70986

Body Size Decline in an Endangered Bat Is Associated With Climate Change at a Continental Scale but Varies by Phenophase and Region, Zuben et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.70983

Climate change is likely to negatively affect a marine apex predator (Steno bredanensis, Cetacea) and its prey on the coast of Brazil, Ferreira et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108065

Climate Crisis in the Mediterranean Hotspot: Conservation Challenges for Endangered Salamanders in Southern Türkiye, Ananymous, Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.19074814

Climate physical risks, ecological resilience, and spatial spillovers: evidence from China, He et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1879596

Climate-driven distribution dynamics of the teak defoliator Hyblaea puera under current and future climate scenarios, Mahanta et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1843989

Climate-induced forest destabilization and shrub stabilization in Africa, Cheng et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105627

Climate-Driven Changes in Resources Shift Reproductive Season and Effort of Insectivorous Montane Bird Species, Whelan & Garfinkel, Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71013

Climatic stress and species interactions shape tree vitality decline in Iberian pine species, Aguirre et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111333

Current and future thermal habitat suitability of the European clam Ruditapes decussatus (Linnaeus, 1758) in Mediterranean coastal lagoons, Palmas et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108139

Differential responses of trees to heatwaves in a desert-oasis ecotone: the role of isohydric/anisohydric stomatal regulation, Huang et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111362

Diurnal cycles of cloud and rainfall over North-East Queensland during the coral bleaching season, Chapman et al., Weather and Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.5194/wcd-7-1265-2026

Effects of ocean acidification on radular tooth material properties in Littorina littorea (Gastropoda, Mollusca), Krings et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108096

Global analysis suggests nitrogen deposition as an underestimated driver of vegetation greening, Trepel et al., Ecography Open Access 10.1002/ecog.08631

Here Comes the Heat: Urban Warming Increases Abundance but Compromises Fitness in the Common Woodlouse, Jame et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.73654

Intact coastal nursery rearing amid climate-driven phenological shifts in threatened salmon, Munsch et al., Conservation Biology Open Access 10.1111/cobi.70355

Long-Term Population Monitoring Reveals Changes in Mesocarnivore Occupancy in Response to Severe Drought, Tucker et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.73960

Mass flowering of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica after 2022 record-breaking marine heatwaves, a Pan-Mediterranean study, Astruch et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03631-8

Masting Breakdown in European Beech Reduces Fitness Benefits of Masting, Partly Explained by Climate Change, Jantzen et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.73809

Metabolic trade-offs shape acute thermal responses in the marine predator Rapana venosa, Xu et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108249

No apparent impact of moderate temperature increase on growth and fecundity in the sea star Asterias rubens, Bourg & Keraudran, Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108072

Ocean acidification influence on Cymodocea nodosa seedling development, Crobu et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108272

Past Acropora mortality on the Great Barrier Reef linked to climate variability and anthropogenic impacts, Clark et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03800-9

Projecting seasonal and future thermal suitability of the invasive and commercially valuable Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum (A. Adams and Reeve, 1850) in a warming Mediterranean sea, Chiappi et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108263

Range-edge asymmetry in growth responses of English yew to climate warming: Stronger responses near the northern limit, Camarero et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111354

Seabird range contraction and dispersal under climate change, Avaria-Llautureo et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access 10.1038/s41558-026-02655-4

Shifts in climate-growth relationships of Pinus kwangtungensis in a warming subtropical forest of China, Yu et al., Dendrochronologia 10.1016/j.dendro.2026.126574

Shifts in growth phenology of Tsuga dumosa in the central Himalayas under climate warming, Rai et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111307

Temporal Autocorrelation Increases Temperature-Driven Extinction Risk by Clustering Stressful Conditions, Robey et al., Ecology Letters pdf 10.1111/ele.70441

The North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre and Phytoplankton Bloom Under Potential Future Climate Scenarios, Oliver et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023561

Water-use strategy shift mediates C4 plant response to altered precipitation seasonality, Zhou et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105616

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Whole-genome duplication in an algal symbiont bolsters coral heat tolerance, bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), 10.1101/2022.04.10.487810 28 cites.

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GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

A Top-Down View of Global and Regional Carbon Budgets From an Ensemble of Atmospheric Inversions, Woude et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access 10.1029/2025gb008779

Abiotic CO2 cycling in a desert soil: Linking surface fluxes and subsurface dynamics across seasons, Bekin et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111250

Adapter-enhanced CLIP for railway brake shoe anomaly detection, Shehzad et al., Complex & Intelligent Systems Open Access 10.1007/s40747-026-02377-2

Addition of brackish water to tundra soils does not inhibit methane production: implications for Arctic coastal methane production, Roy-Lafontaine et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-3777-2026

Airborne Observations Reveal Underestimated Riverine Methane Emissions Across the Amazon, Ort et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122310

Anthropogenic perturbations to atmospheric methane reflected in Greenland firn air clumped isotope measurements, Sivan et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aeb2203

Body mass index, sedentary lifestyle, and HbA1c predict cardiac autonomic neuropathy in type 2 diabetes, Haji et al., Cardiovascular Diabetology – Endocrinology Reports Open Access 10.1186/s40842-026-00308-1

Briefing Chat: Sweet! Elusive sugar molecules found in space, Thompson & Howe, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02263-4

Capturing the Global Variability of Marine Particulate Organic Carbon Flux: A Hierarchical Bayesian Approach, Edwards et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl123203

Carbon input manipulation significantly alters soil CO2 and CH4 fluxes across stand ages in boreal birch forests of China, Gao et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111212

Comparative effects of A-site ionic radius and disorder on structure, magnetism, and transport in perovskite La0.8Sr0.1A0.1MnO3 (A=Ca, Sr, Ba), Zhang et al., Journal of Materials Science Materials in Electronics 10.1007/s10854-026-18036-8

Disease landscape–guided design of neutrophil-specific reporters for early and accurate pneumonia detection in vivo and in urine, Li et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aeb4417

Divergent long-term trends in vegetation carbon turnover between mature and young forests, Ren et al., Journal of Ecology 10.1111/1365-2745.70396

Dynamical analysis of a discrete reaction-diffusion-convection predator-prey model based on coupled map lattices, Du & Han, Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computing 10.1007/s12190-026-02860-6

Effects of hummock-hollow microtopography on CO2 and CH4 emissions from sedge peatlands in the Changbai Mountains, Northeast China, Li et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111220

Environmental controls and temporal trends of CO2 and CH4 emissions in a former cultivated peatland under rewetting, Pullens et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111363

Evaluation of a Decade of Methane Observations From a Tower Network in Indianapolis, Indiana, Barkley et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2026jd046734

Fatigue Properties of WAAM-Fabricated 2209 Duplex Stainless Steel Evaluated by Temperature Measurement and Heat Source Reconstruction, Viola et al., Experimental Mechanics 10.1007/s11340-026-01354-7

Filtering of Second Order Generalized Stochastic Processes Corrupted by Additive Noise, Wahlberg, Journal of Fourier Analysis and Applications Open Access 10.1007/s00041-026-10282-y

Geochemistry of CO2-rich gas emissions in the Carpathians: Multiscale geological sources and implications for orogenic degassing, Kis et al., Earth-Science Reviews Open Access 10.1016/j.earscirev.2026.105528

GHGPSE-Net: a method towards spaceborne automated extraction of greenhouse-gas point sources using point-object-detection deep neural network, Pang et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-1683-2026

Global burden and temporal trends of colorectal cancer in East Asia based on the global burden of disease 2023 study, Qin et al., Discover Oncology Open Access 10.1007/s12672-026-05561-5

Global warming makes nitrogen oxide abatement key to ozone pollution mitigation, Wang et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aea4124

High-performance multijunction perovskite LEDs with reduced interconnection loss, Zhao et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-75756-5

Hybrid Neuro-Symbolic Models for Transparent and Adaptive Decision-Making in Dynamic Real-World Environments, Welekar et al., National Academy Science Letters 10.1007/s40009-026-02325-1

Incorporating observed fire severity in refined emissions estimates for boreal and temperate forest fires in the carbon budget model CBM-CFS3 v1.2, Thompson et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-3617-2026

Increasing Warming May Inhibit Land Carbon Uptake in Northern High Latitudes, Madani et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122135

Insights of climate-driven changes in CH4 and CO2 source contributions at European coastal observatories, Adame et al., Atmospheric Research Open Access 10.1016/j.atmosres.2026.109076

Iron overload suppresses LKB1 and induces IL36G anti-tumor immunity in PDAC metastasis, Biancur et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adz8681

Leader as the “Glue” that holds the teams together: examining how identity leadership influences intra-team cooperation and inter-team knowledge sharing, Feng et al., Current Psychology 10.1007/s12144-026-09780-5

Livestock grazing, plant community and abiotic factors shape blue carbon stocks in Nordic coastal marshes, Richard et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-4583-2026

Methane and Ethane Emission Rates, Intensities, and Trends: Aircraft Mass Balance Insights Over the Denver-Julesburg Basin, Fall 2021, Daley et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2025jd044370

Methane and Nitrous Oxide Reshape the Air-Water Greenhouse Gas Budget of a Tropical Estuarine Delta, Cotovicz et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access 10.1029/2026jg009956

Methane oxidation in African and European rivers depends on stream size and wetland connectivity, Borges et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aeb8250

Microstructural Evolution and Acid Corrosion Mechanism of Laser-Clad FeCoNiCrx High-Entropy Alloy Coatings, Xiao et al., Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A 10.1007/s11661-026-08305-w

Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy on Postoperative Complications of Rectal Cancer: A Retrospective Study Integrating MRI Radiomics and Deep Learning, Bu et al., Journal of Imaging Informatics in Medicine 10.1007/s10278-026-02137-1

Organic carbon oxidation state shapes fermentative methanogenic microbiomes and controls greenhouse gas fluxes, Hu et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-73281-z

Organic Matter Stoichiometry Regulates the Continental Shelf Carbon Pump Efficiency of the Northwest European Shelf Seas, Demir et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access 10.1029/2025gb008724

Peatlands Have the Potential to Emerge as Significant Contributors to Future Climate Warming, Chaudhary et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access 10.1029/2025jg009540

Permafrost carbon release scales linearly with overshoot warming mediated by AMOC tipping, Steinert et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-73612-0

Physics-constrained machine-learning surrogates for the colebrook friction factor: monotonic gradient boosting, uncertainty quantification, and open benchmarking, Müftüo?lu, Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-026-62231-w

Plants are a powerful proxy for global tidal marsh methane fluxes, Wilson et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2530848123

PLATO on the footsteps of Kepler for transit timing, Maltagliati, Nature Astronomy 10.1038/s41550-026-02933-3

Projected future warming induces a long-term loss in global dissolved organic carbon pool, Tjiputra et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-03809-0

Quantifying facility-scale CO2 emissions using spaceborne hyperspectral imageries, Han et al., Remote Sensing of Environment 10.1016/j.rse.2026.115478

Rademacher-type exact formula and higher order Turán inequalities for cubic overpartitions, Agarwal et al., Research in Number Theory pdf 10.1007/s40993-026-00765-8

Rapid and sensitive NO2 detection using optimized flower-like ZnO nanorods synthesized via chemical bath deposition, Ambi et al., Journal of Materials Science Materials in Electronics 10.1007/s10854-026-18001-5

Reversed functional gradient in primate prefrontal cortex: Posterior dominance and frontopolar task-related deactivation, Watanabe et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aea1094

Revising the Magnitude and Trends of the Global Methane Soil Sink With Process-Based, Machine-Learning, and Atmospheric Inversion Modeling Approaches, Oh et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access 10.1029/2025jg009668

Rock weathering can counteract river CO2 emissions induced by permafrost thaw, Zhang et al., Nature Open Access 10.1038/s41586-026-10664-8

Satellite estimation of global air sea CO2 flux from 2000 to 2020, Ji et al., Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-026-51215-5

Shoreline exposure controls teal carbon accumulation in boreal lakes, Dauner et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-3637-2026

Short-Term Effects of PM2.5 Exposure on Hematological and Biochemical Blood Indices in the Middle-Aged and Elderly, Dinh et al., Aerosol and Air Quality Research Open Access 10.1007/s44408-026-00131-4

Simultaneous measurements of translation rate and transcriptome uncovers linked regulation within an active bacterial cell population, Baumann et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adz1707

Soil Carbon Saturation Constrains Long-Term Sequestration Under Revegetation on China's Loess Plateau, Zhang et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef006739

The RhMPK3-RhLOB41-RhWRKY9 module orchestrates ethylene-induced petal abscission via dual control of ROS homeostasis in rose, Zhang et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adu6821

The spliceosome component SNRPC promotes glioma progression by sustaining mitochondrial function and TNFAIP2 signaling, Ma et al., Cell Death and Disease Open Access 10.1038/s41419-026-09065-6

Towards operational automated greenhouse gas plume detection and delineation, Bue et al., Remote Sensing of Environment Open Access 10.1016/j.rse.2026.115506

TundraFlux: A database of ecosystem respiration with biotic and abiotic metadata from Arctic and alpine tundra warming experiments, Schwieger et al., Earth system science data Open Access pdf 10.5194/essd-18-4965-2026

Understanding the resilient carbon cycle response to the 2014–2015 Blob event in the Gulf of Alaska using a regional ocean biogeochemical model, Abe et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-3871-2026

Urban CO2 and CH4 pilot atmospheric measurements in the Milan city area (Northern Italy), Cristofanelli et al., Atmospheric Environment Open Access 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.122124

Varicose projection astrocytes: Conserved reactive cells in brain pathology, Ciani et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.ady8204

When trust building looks like surveillance: Public polarization toward Chicago policing, Cheng & Liu, Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aeb7575

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Trends and Drivers of Terrestrial Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide: An Overview of the TRENDY Project, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 10.1029/2024gb008102 121 cites.

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CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

Contrasting first-year and tenth-year responses of soil CO2 efflux and soil carbon storage indicators to biochar addition in plantation forests, Yu et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1879259

Global quantification of the eco-hydrological co-benefits of soil carbon sequestration, Vanderkelen et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-23-3829-2026

Hydrogen bond network disruption enables efficient direct reactive capture of CO2 from flue gas, Liu et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-74647-z

Insights lost at points of vulnerability in UK policy evidence gathering on carbon dioxide removal, Hope & Vaughan, Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104412

Mapping CO2 Migration Pathways: Interactions With Geological Structures, Ashmore et al., Edinburgh Research Explorer Open Access pmh:oai:pure.ed.ac.uk:openaire/0386afc5-3b2c-436f-b35d-44a153274556

Naturalness catalyzes public support for carbon dioxide removal and low-carbon energy technologies, Coffin & Boven, Open MIND pmh:10.17605/osf.io/g37ku

Unobserved confounders cannot explain over-crediting in avoided deforestation carbon projects, Guizar-Coutiño et al., Nature Ecology & Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41559-026-03049-7

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Cost-effectiveness of natural forest regeneration and plantations for climate mitigation, Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-024-02068-1 75 cites.

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Decarbonization

A global feasibility gap in resilient island energy transitions, Huang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-75606-4

Accuracy, robustness and comprehensibility – Challenges in bottom-up energy system models, Prina & Noussan, PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000890

Beyond lithium: how sodium-ion batteries could change the world, Castelvecchi, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02150-y

Climate change reshapes resource adequacy risks and optimal renewable energy siting in wind and solar energy systems, Qiu et al., Nature Energy 10.1038/s41560-026-02109-3

Climatic Impacts of Large-Scale Wind Farms in Arid and Semi-Arid Region in China: A Case Study of the Huitengxile Wind Farm in Inner Mongolia, Su et al., Wind Energy Open Access 10.1002/we.70141

Energy transition in India and the race for renewable energy to outpace fossil fuels in carbon reduction, Noor et al., Discover Sustainability Open Access 10.1007/s43621-026-04129-1

Ensemble-based projections of future climate extremes and their implications for photovoltaic power potential in China, Ma et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.06.011

Optimized decarbonization pathway coupled with carbon trading mechanism for China's steel industry towards carbon neutrality, Sun et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115428

Stakeholder perspectives on decarbonizing Thailand's power sector: A SWOT-fuzzy AHP approach towards net zero, Altaf et al., Energy Sustainable Development/Energy for sustainable development 10.1016/j.esd.2026.102084

The trade route to renewables: Import as a catalyst for the diffusion of renewable energy technology, Rabbani & Quaiyyum, Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115390

Toward net-zero water systems: mechanisms and challenges in low- and middle-income Asian countries, Ahmed et al., Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 10.1016/j.cosust.2026.101681

Urban decarbonization needs strategic reserves for critical materials, Allam et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03819-y

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Critical mineral mining in the energy transition: A systematic review of environmental, social, and governance risks and opportunities, Energy Research & Social Science, 10.1016/j.erss.2024.103672 85 cites.

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Geoengineering climate

Intended and unintended consequences of atmospheric methane oxidation enhancement, Horowitz, Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-9471-2026

Ocean alkalinity enhancement reduces silica ballasting during export due to amplified dissolution, Suessle et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-4691-2026

Reflecting on the politics and power dynamics of contested climate technologies, Fritz et al., Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104448

Black carbon

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Changes in the Direct Climate Effect of Black Carbon Aerosols in East Asia Under the “Dual Carbon” Goal of China, Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, 10.1029/2024jd040874 5 cites.

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Aerosols

Global Characterization of Stratospheric Sulfate Aerosols by the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE), Bernath et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2025jd046214

Rising dust pollution across Europe in a changing climate, Vasilakos et al., Nature Open Access 10.1038/s41586-026-10743-w

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Assessment of aerosol-cloud interactions over the Northern Indian Ocean, Atmospheric Research, 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107601 4 cites.

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Climate change communications & cognition

As the planet heats, public doubt grows: The social structure behind rising climate change scepticism in Germany, Gies & Deutschmann, Global Environmental Change Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103202

Climate Change Advocacy in Libraries: Practices, Challenges and Future Research Directions, Oladokun et al., Environmental Communication 10.1080/17524032.2026.2702627

Climate change concerns and perceived intergenerational mobility, Gugushvili & Präg, Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103119

Climate Obstruction in the Digital Far-Right: Mapping the Climate Countermovement in German-, Danish-, and Swedish-Speaking Digital Information Environments, Henriksen et al., Environmental Communication Open Access 10.1080/17524032.2026.2701866

Confident judgments of (mis)information veracity are more, rather than less, accurate, Ak et al., PNAS Nexus Open Access 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag186

Lagos Is Drowning: Media, Resistance, and Climate Coloniality in Flooding Narratives, Ogungbemi, Environmental Communication 10.1080/17524032.2026.2706163

Listening to climate change: sound, imagination and environmental sociology, Clark, Environmental Sociology Open Access 10.1080/23251042.2026.2704790

Mapping climate change coverage: Causes, consequences, and solutions in German news media, 2010–2024, Dablander et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104833

Medical students’ perspectives on climate change, climate-health education, and professional identity: a qualitative study, Loh et al., BMC Medical Education Open Access 10.1186/s12909-026-09775-7

Temporal horizons in US climate change news, Wozniak, Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02716-8

The Digital Representation of Greta Thunberg in Internet Memes: Gender, Ideology, and Digital Violence, Lucena & Colacios, Environmental Communication 10.1080/17524032.2026.2701872

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Patterns of climate-change coping among late adolescents: Differences in emotions concerning the future, moral responsibility, and climate-change engagement, Climatic Change, 10.1007/s10584-024-03778-3 19 cites.

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Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

Paphia undulata enhances sedimentary CH4 and N2O emissions via divergent microbial mechanisms, Zhong et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108103

Climate stressor projections inform adaptation needs in South Asian oilseed systems, Barik et al., npj Sustainable Agriculture Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44264-026-00170-9

Crop migration is not a viable long-term strategy for mitigating climate change impacts on winter wheat production in the North China Plain, GUO et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.07.006

Decoding Heat Tolerance in Rice: Physiological Mechanisms, Genetic Architecture, and Breeding Innovations, Saha et al., Plant Molecular Biology Reporter 10.1007/s11105-026-01743-1

Depicting the response of crop photosynthesis to elevated CO2: the unique role of sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence, Ye et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111211

From perception to action: attitudes and climate change adaptation practices among smallholder farmers in Nakivale refugee settlement, Mohamed et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2026.1868338

Modeling short- and long-term climatic and non-climatic drivers of wheat yield in Somalia (1986–2019): Evidence from an ARDL approach, Osman et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000804

Regional flooding enhances N2O and CH4 emissions from agricultural fields: Evidence from a single extreme event across the North China Plain, Ge et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111284

Simulating Agroecology Policy Options for the Resilience of Smallholder Food Security to Climate Shocks, Dagunga et al., Climate Resilience and Sustainability Open Access 10.1002/cli2.70055

Sizing blue carbon risks and benefits from bivalve aquaculture, Gentry et al., npj Ocean Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44183-026-00199-w

Tibetan Pasture Restoration Causes Additional Cooling by Reflecting Solar Radiation, Wang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences 10.1029/2025jg009479

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Land use modulates resistance of grasslands against future climate and inter-annual climate variability in a large field experiment, Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.17418 29 cites.

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Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

Exceptionally Warm Event in the Tropical South Atlantic in 2023–24: Physical Drivers and Impacts on South American Rainfall, Hounsou-Gbo et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023901

North American Winter Precipitation Extremes: Changes in Variability and Driving Mechanisms in a Warming Climate, Jeong et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008659

Precipitation Over the Contiguous United States Is Coming From Farther Away Than in the Past, Aerenson et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122565

Quantifying UK coastal flood exposure under future sea-level rise to 2300, Palmer et al., Explore Bristol Research pmh:oai:research-information.bris.ac.uk:openaire_cris_publications/62032aef-becd-4ddc-a902-ff39b2c8a275

Rethinking future flood hazard: Hourly data challenge daily flood projections in Alpine catchments, Astagneau et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aed6012

Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Extreme Hourly Rainfall in the Hawaiian Islands, Gayte et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access 10.1002/joc.70501

Uncertainty in California Winter Precipitation Linked to Future Projections of North Pacific Large-Scale Atmospheric Circulation, Choi et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres pdf 10.1029/2025jd045669

Understanding changes in Iceland's streamflow dynamics in response to climate change, Helgason et al., Hydrology and earth system sciences Open Access 10.5194/hess-30-3979-2026

Unraveling daily dynamics of supraglacial lakes in response to hydrological pulses and anomalous climate signals, Song et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-75669-3

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
The increasing water stress projected for China could shift the agriculture and manufacturing industry geographically, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01560-y 49 cites.

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Climate change economics

Carbon pricing, economic resilience, and transport decarbonization: evidence from Finland, Msefula et al., Humanities and Social Sciences Communications Open Access 10.1057/s41599-026-08428-w

Climate-induced loss and damage in Nepal: attribution analysis and institutional readiness for international support, Dhakal et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1782991

How the money flows: analyzing international finance for climate change adaptation in Ethiopia, Kidane et al., Global Environmental Change Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103201

Inequality in flood insurance arrangements to finance flood recovery under climate change, Tesselaar & Botzen, Climate Risk Management Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100850

Prioritizing the welfare of vulnerable nations promotes equitable achievement of Paris target, Biswas et al., npj Climate Action Open Access 10.1038/s44168-026-00385-z

Research on the impact of climate risk on corporate cost of debt financing, Yang et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1763661

Statistical learning for climate-GDP panels: Data cleaning, flexible trend controls, and predictive validation, Schötz et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000962

Views of EU citizens on economic growth and implications for climate policy, Savin et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-73323-6

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Towards a more transformative approach to climate finance, Climate Policy, 10.1080/14693062.2024.2377730 27 cites.

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Climate change mitigation public policy research

Improvement of ambient air quality and the synergistic governance of CO2 and pollutant emissions in Shenyang, Zhao et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-50803-9

The impact of conventional policy instruments on climate change mitigation in China, Matutinovi? & Borozan, The Anthropocene Review 10.1177/20530196261464201

Waste and CO2, an intricate relationship. Metrics, policy and technology in the climate-framing of waste, Rocher, Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104443

“Mitigation + adaptation” climate policy synergy and urban ecological resilience: Evidence from China, Zhang & Dou, Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103046

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Power supply disruptions deter electric vehicle adoption in cities in China, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-50447-1 53 cites.

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Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

A battleground of climate change: Summer air temperatures in social housing, Pfautsch et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103051

Assessing the vulnerability of livelihoods and ecosystems during the KwaZulu-Natal floods and their implications for climate resilience, Anekwe, Climate and Development Open Access 10.1080/17565529.2026.2696367

Economic optimization of climate adaptation for water security: an integrated water–energy nexus risk assessment framework, Ran et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1817765

Inequality in human development amplifies climate-related disaster risk, Teber et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-73873-9

Instrumentalizing ‘uninhabitability’ at a time of climate change: the case of Barbuda after Hurricane Irma, ???????? et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2026.2696370

Maladaptation can contribute to aggregated, amplified, compounded, and cascading climate risks, Shah, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 10.1016/j.cosust.2026.101689

Producing resilience: governance, social relations, and climate risk in coastal communities, Nurhayati et al., Environmental Sociology 10.1080/23251042.2026.2699296

Promises and pitfalls of climate adaptation tools across the Mediterranean, Koutroulis et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03795-3

Rethinking urban climate adaptation: A degrowth perspective for policy and practice, Acuña & Fernández-Baldor, Environmental Science & Policy Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104445

The Destination Earth digital twin for climate change adaptation, Doblas-Reyes et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-2821-2026

The national knowledge politics of monitoring and evaluating adaptation to climate change: processes of repair, theatrical performance and legitimacy, Adhikari & Fisher, Environmental Politics Open Access pdf 10.1080/09644016.2026.2700733

Women and climate adaptation in South Africa: a gender-responsive policy review, Baloyi et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1821218

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Weaving scientific and local knowledge on climate change impacts in coastal Kenya, Western Indian Ocean, Environmental Science & Policy, 10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103846 10 cites.

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Climate change impacts on human health

Assessing and Refining the Heat Index for Subdaily Heat Conditions, Liu, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 10.1175/jamc-d-25-0250.1

Climate change, hygiene, and health: A research roadmap for climate adaptation, Gerard et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000907

Environmental suitability of Coccidioides in the USA under climate change scenarios: a modelling study, Deshpande et al., The Lancet Planetary Health Open Access 10.1016/j.lanplh.2026.101481

Feeling the heat: Socio-spatial inequalities in indoor overheating and heat adaptation in Greater London, Assan, Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104868

Global climate risks for outdoor sports under CMIP6 scenarios: A multi-indicator assessment based on WBGT, Heat Index, heavy rainfall, and heatwaves, Defrance & Lescure, PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000969

Local drivers in accelerating North American heat stress, Prein et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-72795-w

Mental health experiences amid climate change and sexual and reproductive health challenges: A scoping review focused on low-and middle-income countries, Vahedi et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000984

Recognizing the human health impacts of marine heatwaves, Falkenberg & Russell, Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-026-01892-x

The science of climate heat risks has a metric problem, Jay & Jahan, Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03804-5

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Indoor overheating: A review of vulnerabilities, causes, and strategies to prevent adverse human health outcomes during extreme heat events, Temperature, 10.1080/23328940.2024.2361223 87 cites.

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Climate change & geopolitics

Critical misalignments in climate pledges reveal imbalanced sustainable development pathways, Larosa et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-73564-5

Defragmenting Mangrove Law Towards Coherent Global Governance, Lorber & Cappa, Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.73721

Other

AI-assisted longitudinal comparison of scenario knowledge representation in IPCC synthesis reports, Warin & Bisson, PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000965

Co-Producing Climate Services for California's Energy Sector, Freitas et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef005959

Extreme Weather in the Southern Hemisphere in Early 2022, Vries et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Open Access 10.1175/bams-d-23-0141.1

From continental to street scales: climate change impacts on atmospheric composition over Europe and London, Doherty et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-10115-2026

Mercury mobilization and export from the Greenland Ice Sheet using an ice-to-ocean approach, Youssef et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03818-z

Modelling the anthropocene: A brief and partial history, Turnbull, The Anthropocene Review Open Access 10.1177/20530196261472817

Resource consumption in global concrete production, Kane et al., Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-026-01858-z

The true impacts of the built environment, [authors did not process], Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-026-01910-y

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
How Has the Ferrel Cell Contributed to the Maintenance of Antarctic Sea Ice at Low Levels From 2016 to 2022?, Geophysical Research Letters, 10.1029/2024gl108801 2 cites.

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Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

Missing Western Pacific moorings threaten weather and climate forecasting and research, Cravatte et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1861050

U.S. researchers express outrage over proposed changes to managing federal grants, Mervis, Science 10.1126/science.aek5959

‘Climate free fall’: why the biggest risk to our economies is yet to be recognized, Levermann, Nature Open Access pdf 10.1038/d41586-026-02154-8

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Science-based targets miss the mark, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01535-z 30 cites.

buffer/IOPN Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

Early Warnings: Government Knowledge of Climate Change and Legal Responsibility for Climate Harm, Lindsay Fenlock and Nikki Reisch, Center for International Environmental Law

The authors examine publicly available government records, scientific evidence, and historical archives to document when major emitting States became aware of the causes and foreseeable consequences of climate change. They demonstrate that many governments understood the risks decades earlier than they have claimed, strengthening the evidentiary foundation for climate litigation, human rights, and climate advocacy, and the implementation of the International Court of Justice climate advisory opinion. By tracing the history of government knowledge, the report provides a critical resource for advancing climate accountability and ensuring that high-emitting States are held responsible for failing to prevent the climate crisis.

Bait and Switch. The Impacts of Trump Administration Policies at the Intersection of Clean Energy, Manufacturing, and Labor, BlueGreen Alliance

The authors found that largely due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), 223 manufacturing, clean energy, and industrial projects are already facing cancellations and delays representing at least $82.8 billion in capital investment which could cost 111,765 jobs. Additionally, more than 3,034 manufacturing, clean energy, and industrial sites face tax restrictions due to OBBBA, putting at risk $695.2 billion in capital investment and 1,184,996 jobs.

Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and Their Impacts, National Research Council, The National Academies Press

Decades of data and research indicate that human-caused climate change is altering the frequency and intensity of several types of extreme events, such as heat waves and extreme rainfall events. Even as those trends become clearer, extreme event attribution (EEA) seeks to assess the degree to which climate change contributed to any specific event. EEA studies provide information that can be useful for public understanding, planning and risk management, policy and legal contexts, and scientific research. The authors evaluate the state of EEA science, updating a National Academies report published in 2016. The authors also assess the emerging field of extreme event impact attribution (EEIA). The number of EEA studies has grown substantially over the past decade as scientific tools, observational datasets, and methods have advanced, enabling attribution studies to be completed within days of an event. However, challenges remain, including limited model capabilities for small-scale regional events, representation of key atmospheric processes, and attribution of compounding, cascading, and record-breaking events. The authors examine these advances and remaining challenges and provide recommendations for strengthening attribution science, improving collaboration with local experts and stakeholders, and advancing research, data, and modeling capabilities worldwide.

Military Escalation in the Middle East: Cushioning the Global Shock, Molina et al., United Nations Development Program

The economic, fiscal and social impacts of the recent Middle East military escalation are expected to persist despite the June 18 Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the United States. Since April, many developing economies have sought to shield households and businesses from rising energy costs through subsidies, price caps, tax reductions and demand-management measures. While these policies have softened the immediate affect of higher prices, they have come at a significant fiscal cost. Without such interventions, poverty is projected to increase substantially. Under an adverse global growth scenario, an additional 17 million people could fall into poverty by upper-middle-income standards, rising to 45 million under a severe scenario. Global fossil fuel subsidies are projected to exceed $1 trillion in 2026 and could reach $1.43 trillion if oil prices rise to $110 per barrel. The effects of the shock differ across regions. Remittances have helped cushion affects in South Asia, fertilizer disruptions risk worsening food insecurity in Africa, and energy subsidies in East Asia have contained inflation while increasing fiscal exposure. These pressures come at a time when nearly half of the world’s poorest countries are already in or at high risk of debt distress. As debt service costs continue to rise and fiscal buffers are exhausted, many governments are being forced to divert resources away from health, education and infrastructure. Sustained multilateral support will be essential to help vulnerable countries manage the crisis and protect development gains.

Disproportionate Regulation of Residential Plug-in Solar, Stephen Smith and Amanda Arthur, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

The authors examine the scientific and regulatory basis for the differential treatment of residential plug-in solar photovoltaic (PIPV) units and portable gas/diesel generators with respect to line-worker safety. The authors use documented fatality records from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), peer-reviewed electrical injury science, utility industry safety publications, applicable federal inverter safety standards, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funded national laboratory barrier analysis, and the emerging bipartisan legislative consensus in multiple states. They noted that A DOE-funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study (2025) systematically catalogued the technical, interconnection, and regulatory barriers to plug-in solar adoption in the United States, confirming that interconnection requirements—not technical safety limitations—are the primary barrier to deployment.

Washington State Climate Action Plan, Washington State Departments of Commerce and Ecology

Washington already has a strong set of policies to advance climate action. However, the state can and must do more The Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP) is designed to meet this need and be a far-reaching, implementable, equitable, and thorough roadmap to ensure a sustainable future for the state. The CCAP identifies opportunities across all sectors of the economy to further reduce emissions and provide direct benefits to communities and businesses such as cleaner air, healthier communities, boosting the economy, and protecting vulnerable populations.

Retail Electricity Price Trends and Drivers: Data Update−2026 Edition, Wiser et al., Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Prices largely tacked inflation; all-sector average prices are only up 3% since 2019 in real dollars. Real prices are down in 29 states; A majority of states saw a decline in inflation-adjusted prices (2019-2025). Electricity burdens are lower that in 2019 in most regions; total bills as a fraction of income are near all-time lows.

The 2025 small island developing states report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: building resilience in the face of rising heat, Gordon-Strachan et al., The Lancet Global Health

In this second iteration of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) report, the authors present the findings of 28 indicators from five thematic areas: health hazards, exposures, and impacts; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement in health and climate change. General statements about SIDS were only made for indicators with data coverage of at least 70%, with the number of SIDS with available indicator data explicitly stated when this threshold was not met. The 2025 report includes a dedicated chapter on financing with a deep dive into international climate financing for SIDS.

A Majority of Voters Support Worker Protections Against Extreme Heat, Ayseli Karabekmez, Data for Progress

Rising global temperatures are causing more frequent and severe extreme heat, droughts, and flooding across the United States. Last week, a dangerous heat wave with temperatures of 103–105 degrees Fahrenheit prompted heat alerts across multiple states. As climate-driven extreme weather events become more common, a majority of Americans are connecting the dots between climate change and extreme weather like heat waves. Recent polling finds that a majority of voters (61%) believe that extreme weather events — like hurricanes, flash floods, droughts, and heat waves — have become more frequent over the past five years. This includes majorities of Democrats (72%) and Independents (63%). Republicans are more divided, with a plurality (46%) saying extreme weather events have become more frequent, and 42% saying the frequency has stayed the same. Perceptions of extreme weather also vary by age. Half of voters under 45 (50%) believe the number of extreme weather events has increased over the past five years, compared with 66% of voters over 45 – a 16-point difference.

Heat, health and increasing cost of living. A call for action, Mathilde Wilkens and Dennis Tänzler, Adelphi Global

The authors recommend embedding heat-health effects into UNFCCC processes, including the Global Goal on Adaptation indicators and the Belem Health Action Plan (BHAP); linking national adaptation plans to concrete social protection measures, including compensation for lost working time and state-supported insurance schemes; extending formal labor protections to cover heat-related losses, particularly for informal workers, and addressing the gender dimensions of heat vulnerability; and mobilizing adaptation finance specifically for health, with clear guidance on how funding can be deployed to protect living standards.

Grid Action Report – July 4th Heat Wave. How clean energy provides cost savings and boosts grid reliability during extreme heat, Will Taylor and Jamie Dickerson, Acadia Center

The authors provide a response to recent extreme weather events affecting energy systems and consumers in the Northeast. The region’s experience with last week’s heatwave again points to the power of a portfolio approach to deliver savings and resource adequacy: a combination of clean energy resources helped the region ride through a period of significant grid stress – periods which will only increase in frequency, duration, and cost under a changing climate. This portfolio of resources – including solar, energy efficiency, demand response, battery storage, interregional transmission, and on/offshore wind – will serve as the foundation for a less volatile, more affordable, and more secure energy system. For example, distributed solar drives major savings during heat wave. The authors estimate 6+ gigawatts (GW) of distributed solar saved New England ratepayers $130-149 million in wholesale electricity (energy) costs during the week of June 28 through July 4, 2026. Distributed solar output exceeded 25% of all demand on the grid at times and contributed more to the grid mix than the region’s nuclear fleet between 2PM and 7PM on the peak heatwave day of July 2.

Modernizing New Jersey’s Electric Utility Business Model, Patel et al., New Jersey Board of Public Utilities

Electricity bills in New Jersey have risen faster than most household essentials, which makes affordability the central concern of this study. Most of a typical bill (supply and transmission) is set in federal and regional markets with limited ability at the state level to influence those costs. Utility business-model reform that is regulated at the state level can act mainly on the distribution and programmatic portion of the bill, roughly a quarter of the bill, though some reforms may indirectly lower exposure to supply and transmission costs. The jurisdictional review and evidence show that no single reform or modernization option is a silver bullet. The most reliable near-term gains could come from “cost-discipline” measures available under existing state authority. More ambitious financing, incentive, and performance-based reforms could follow as data, baselines, and customer protections mature.

China's wind and solar mega-bases face a coal test, Yu et al., GEM

China is building more wind and utility-scale solar than the rest of the world combined, concentrated in northwestern and northern regions. Over 500 gigawatts (GW) of China's vast 1,360 GW of prospective utility-scale solar and wind capacity is already under construction. Six provinces and autonomous regions — Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Shaanxi — hold 714 GW, or more than half of China’s prospective wind and utility-scale solar pipeline. China’s wind and solar deployment has moved from an installation race to a system-integration test. China’s wind and solar mega-bases constitute the largest renewable-energy deployment project in the world, but grid bottlenecks and electricity market arrangements that limit system flexibility are preventing that capacity from being fully used. The result is rising curtailment: wind and solar output that could have been generated under prevailing weather conditions, but was instead reduced or withheld. The question is no longer whether China can build renewable capacity at scale, but whether it can transmit, store, price, and consume that power in ways that reduce coal use.

The Fraud of “Clean” Natural Gas. How Big Oil and Gas Created the Myth that Natural Gas is a Climate Solution, John et al., The Center for Climate Integrity

For decades, the oil and gas industry has perpetuated the fraud that natural gas is clean and a climate solution, despite knowing that it is a significant source of air pollution and a major contributor to climate change. The gas industry knew as early as 1907 that natural gas was a source of respiratory problems when burned indoors, and by the 1950s it knew that gas caused problems in outdoor air. Beginning in the 1960s, the oil and gas industry learned of another threat — emerging science showed that natural gas was a potentially significant contributor to methane in the atmosphere. As companies and their representatives closely monitored scientific developments on methane, the chemical name for natural gas, they also learned that it was a potent greenhouse gas and damaging for the climate, About New Research

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This is a re-post from The Climate Brink

Over the past week smoke from Canadian wildfires has once again poured into cities across Canada and the northern US. Toronto briefly had the worst air quality of any major city on Earth, Thunder Bay’s readings went off the top of Canada’s air quality health index scale, and unhealthy air alerts stretched from Minneapolis to New York City.

This smoke-pocalypse has renewed a long-standing debate online that these fires aren’t really about climate change at all, but about forest mismanagement. Decades of aggressive fire suppression, the argument goes, have let fuel pile up. We don’t log enough, thin enough, or do enough prescribed burning The forests are overgrown tinderboxes and we have only ourselves to blame. Climate is a distraction from a problem we created by listening to Smokey Bear’s insidious propaganda.

I want to take this argument seriously, because it has a real kernel of truth. The fire-deficit story is a genuine phenomenon in the dry conifer forests of the western United States. But most of what’s burning in Canada is boreal forest, and the boreal is a fundamentally different beast. So in this piece I’ll try to explain why the management argument, largely valid in a California pine stand, mostly falls apart when you move it a couple of thousand kilometers north, and explore what the fire data actually shows.

Here’s the short version. Canada’s area burned has surged, and it has surged in step with warming: hot, dry fire seasons burn far more forest, with area burned rises roughly 80% for each 1C increase in fire-season temperature (with a correlation coefficient of 0.61). This relationship is robust to a variety of statistical tests and controlling for confounding variables. The boreal burns in rare, high-intensity crown fires on a natural cycle measured in a century or more, across enormous remote areas that have never been logged, thinned, or effectively suppressed. Only about a fifth of Canada’s burned area over the past four decades was even inside forest regions that have ever been actively managed. You cannot have a fuel-buildup from forest mismanagement in a forest you were never managing.

Forest mis-management?

The forest-mismanagement argument was, in fairness, based on real evidence from some regions. In the frequent-fire dry forests of the western US that are dominated by ponderosa pine and mixed conifers the natural fire regime is low-to-moderate intensity surface fire returning every 5 to 30 years, historically stoked in part by Indigenous burning. A century of fire exclusion in those forests really did remove that frequent fire, let stands grow denser and more continuous, and build up a “fire deficit” that raises the odds of severe fire (Hagmann et al. 2021). And in that setting, fuel treatments work: Prichard et al. (2021) find wide agreement that mechanical thinning combined with prescribed burning measurably reduces subsequent fire severity. If you’re arguing about the Sierra Nevada, the management story is as important if not more important than the climate one.

The problem is that the Canadian boreal is not the Sierra Nevada. It burns in infrequent, high-intensity, stand-replacing crown fires that kill the whole stand on natural fire cycles measured in many decades to centuries (commonly a century or more, and two centuries or longer in the east), not 5 to 30 years. It is, ecologically speaking, supposed to burn this way; black spruce is practically built for it. Fire in this system was never the gentle recurring ground-clearing that suppression interrupted in California. And the burning is astonishingly concentrated: across the boreal, something like 3% of fires account for about 97% of the area burned. This is not a landscape full of many small fires that “used to clean out the fuel.” Rather, its a landscape that waits, and then burns catastrophically under extreme weather.

Why do we know that Canadian boreal forest fires are not being driven by mismanagement?

First, and most importantly, most of the boreal was never being managed in the first place. As University of Alberta fire scientist Jen Beverly has pointed out, only about one-fifth of Canada’s total burned area from 1986 to 2023 occurred within long-term forest tenure (the land that’s actually logged and managed). The vast majority burns in remote forest with no timber operations. In Canada’s so-called “extensive” fire-management zones there has been no serious suppression efforts historically. Fires there are monitored and largely left to burn unless they threaten people or infrastructure. You can’t blame overgrown, over-suppressed forests for fires in places nobody was suppressing.

Second, the fuel-buildup mechanism doesn’t fit the recent fires. If decades of suppression had loaded the forest with excess old fuel, you’d expect the big fire years to preferentially consume the oldest, most fuel-laden stands. But in Alberta’s brutal 2023 season, fires burned stands of essentially all ages in proportion to how much of each was on the landscape. That’s the signature of fire driven by weather, which doesn’t care how old the trees are, not by fuel accumulation.

Third, the proposed fixes don’t scale to the boreal even if you wanted them. This is the conclusion of the very scientists who documented Canada’s fire deficit. Coogan, Parisien and colleagues (2020) state it flatly: mechanical fuel treatments “require continued maintenance over time, are too expensive to apply across large boreal landscapes, and are usually not designed to halt extreme wildfires.” The boreal is on the order of three million square kilometers. You are not going to thin or prescribe-burn your way across it, and the crown fires that produce the smoke wouldn’t stop at a fuel break anyway.

So if it’s not mismanagement, what is it? Let’s look at the data.

The Canadian fire record

To start with, here is the long-term record of area burned, combing the satellite-mapped NBAC composite from 1972 on with the less-complete point-based records before that shown in grey (note that this is primarily for illustration; I don’t compute any statistics across the 1972 splice to avoid potential bias from changing measurement approaches).

Annual forest area burned in Canada, 1959–2026. Grey bars show the point-based record (1959–1971); red bars the NBAC satellite composite (1972–2025); the hatched bar is 2026 through mid-July (CIFFC, preliminary). Data: NRCan CNFDB/NBAC; CIFFC.

2023 stands out like a sore thumb with 14.8 million hectares in the satellite-mapped data (Canadian agency tallies actually run higher at 17–18 Mha as different products count differently),1 roughly 2.5 times the previous record. 2025 came in second at ~7.3 Mha in the satellite data. And 2026 so far is about 2.8 Mha by mid-July, a bit above the typical pace for this date, but far below the last few extreme years.

One caveat around how unprecedented this actually is. A recent tree-ring reconstruction back to 1800 (Danneyrolles et al. 2025) found that while 2023 itself was off the charts in most regions they studied, the decadal burn rate for 2014–2023 still sits within the range of the past two centuries in several zones, especially in the eastern boreal. We are not necessarily seeing more fire than ever everywhere, but rather a rapid rate of increase with the increasing prevalence of fire weather driving it. In addition, parts of the northwestern boreal are now burning at rates that do appear to exceed anything in thousands of years.

One important driver: higher temperatures Change in fire-season (May–September) mean temperature, 1959 to 2025, computed as a per-gridcell LOWESS trend. Canada-wide mean change is +2.2C, exceeding +3C in parts of the high Arctic. Data: ERA5-Land (ECMWF/Copernicus) via Google Earth Engine.

Canadian fire seasons (May through September) have warmed about 2.2C on average since 1959. Canada warms at roughly twice the global rate, and its north at roughly three times. That warming matters for fire through a well-understood mechanism: warmer air is exponentially “thirstier” (saturation vapor pressure rises ~7% per degree), so it pulls moisture out of live vegetation and dead fuels alike, priming the landscape to burn. It’s the same fuel-drying pathway that Abatzoglou and Williams (2016) found had roughly doubled cumulative forest area burned in the western US.

Hanes et al. (2019), examining the Canadian record from 1959 to 2015, found fire seasons starting earlier and ending later, more days with conditions suitable for fire spread, and increases in both annual area burned and the frequency of large fires. They found that these trends were consistent with human-caused warming, not with changes in forest management (which have been broadly stable since the 1980s even as the fire seasons have gotten dramatically worse).

Hot and dry years burn

A few years ago my Berkeley Earth colleague Robert Rohde made a lovely figure plotting each California fire season by its temperature and precipitation. Here is my Canadian version: every year from 1959 to 2025 placed in climate space, with dot size proportional to national area burned and the ten largest fire years outlined in black.

Each dot is one year (1959–2025), positioned by its fire-season (May–Sep) mean temperature and total precipitation averaged over burnable land, sized by national area burned (NBAC). Adapted from Robert Rohde’s California fire season weather chart. Data: ERA5-Land; NRCan CNFDB/NBAC.

The pattern is hard to miss. The biggest fire years pile up in the hot-and-dry corner with 2023 really standing out, and the recent era (red dots, 2011–2025) has shifted visibly toward that corner relative to the black dots of the 1960s. Canada’s fire seasons are migrating into the part of weather-space where the big burns happen.

We can also try and more directly quantify the relationship between area burned and temperature. Nationally, fire-season temperature correlates with log area burned at r = 0.61 (1972–2025), which means that a fire season 1C warmer sees ~80% more area burned. I want to be careful about what this does and doesn’t show, so I stress-tested it: the correlation survives detrending (r = 0.57), first-differencing (r = 0.46), and partialling out precipitation (r = 0.58). It isn’t just two things drifting upward together, and it isn’t a rebranded precipitation effect.2

Correlation of fire-season mean temperature with log annual area burned by province/territory, 1972–2025, with 95% moving-block bootstrap intervals. Red dots are significant after false-discovery-rate correction. Data: NRCan CNFDB/NBAC; ERA5-Land.

The relationship is strongest in the western and northern boreal – Yukon, BC, the Northwest Territories, the Prairie provinces, Ontario – and weak to non-significant in Nunavet, Quebec, Newfoundland, and New Brunswick, matching the literature’s finding that eastern boreal fire is generally less temperature-limited.

Lightning in the middle of nowhere Cumulative area burned by ignition cause, 1990–2023. Data: National Forestry Database (agency-reported).

About 71% of Canada’s area burned over 1990–2023 came from lightning-ignited fires, and in the record 2023 season it was ~93%. These are remote boreal megafires, ignited by lightning far from any road, timber lease, or fuel-treatment crew. This is worth considering in the context of the management debate: the fires driving the smoke are not escaped campfires or mismanaged plantations. They are lightning strikes into a drying landscape, often burning in exactly the places no one was managing. And because warming is expected to increase high-latitude lightning, climate change can contribute to both the fuel dryness and the ignition side of the equation.

What attribution science actually says

This week the National Academies released a major report on the attribution of extreme weather events and their impacts, updating their influential 2016 assessment. Its wildfire findings are careful, and they land almost exactly on the distinction I’ve been trying to make in this piece.

On the general question, the report concludes it is very likely that climate change has increased the likelihood and severity of extreme fire weather: the hot, dry, windy conditions that let fires ignite and spread. At the same time it assigns low confidence to attributing any specific individual wildfire, because fires are irreducibly multivariate: ignition, fuels, land management, and suppression all mediate the on-the-ground relationship between fire weather and hectares burned. Notably, the report also flags that no attribution study has yet isolated the role of fuel or ignition changes, precisely because those human factors are so entangled. The science is much stronger on “climate change made conditions like these more likely” than on “climate change, specifically, caused this fire.”

For Canada’s exceptional 2023 fire year the evidence is unusually strong, and the report devotes a whole box to it. Kirchmeier-Young et al. (2024) found the record burned area was 2–5 times more likely thanks to human influence in Canada’s eastern and western ecozones, and the extraordinarily long fire season more than 5 times more likely. World Weather Attribution found the cumulative fire-weather severity at least 7 times more likely and ~50% more intense. Jones et al. (2024) put the fire-weather likelihood increase at ~2.9–3.6x and burned area ~10% higher (95% CI: 3-40%) than without warming. And Barnes et al. (2025) found the James Bay severity rating at least 32% more intense, while noting the season was amplified by an extreme run of atmospheric blocking (~50 blocking days versus an average of 15), a reminder that in any single year the weather still matter enormously.

Where management does matter

The prior sections are about the physical science of what’s driving the fire trend. What we should do about it is a policy question, and here the management crowd is not wrong so much as aiming at the wrong target.

There genuinely is a fire deficit in parts of boreal Canada — but it’s local, and it’s about people, not country or regional fire totals. Parisien, Coogan and colleagues (2020) found that of 160 boreal communities they studied, 54% were surrounded by less recently-burned forest than their fire regime would predict reflecting a suppression legacy that leaves older, more flammable forest ringing towns. This is a place where thinning, fuel breaks, and prescribed burning could genuinely help.

Fuel management is valuable around communities, but is essentially useless across the remote boreal. But in Canada it does not explain and cannot reverse the rise in area burned that’s filling the sky with smoke. Treating the wildland-urban interface and cutting the emissions that are drying the forest should be seen as complementary rather than as competitors.

Why the smokey skies

One last point on the thing thats actually dominating the news a the moment. Even a year like 2026 that appears not to be headed for a top-5 record for area burned in Canada can still have catastrophic air pollution impacts.

Large-fire footprints (≥200 ha) across Canada, 2015–2024 (grey, ~39 Mha total), with the 878 fires still active as of 17 July 2026 (red, sized by area). Data: NRCan CNFDB large-fire polygons; CIFFC year-to-date feed.

Whether a given city chokes on smoke depends on where fires burn, how high their plumes loft, which way the wind blows, and how many people live downwind, not on total hectares burned nationwide. This July, fires across northwestern Ontario, the Prairies, and Quebec have sat upwind of the Great Lakes population corridor under a persistent transporting flow. A modest fire season in the wrong place can choke tens of millions, while a record season in the remote north can have much smaller impacts on populated regions. While overall area burned is the climate-linked trend, who breathes the smoke on a given week in July is mostly driven by the weather.

A few takeaways

So what are the takeaways here?

First, the forest-mismanagement explanation is borrowed from the wrong forest. Its a real problem in the frequent-fire dry forests of the western US, but the Canadian boreal is a rare-crown-fire system, mostly unmanaged and unsuppressed, where only about a fifth of the burned area is even on managed land and where the fire scientists themselves say landscape-scale fuel treatments can’t scale or stop the megafires.

Second, the surge in Canadian burning tracks temperature with striking consistency, and hotter, drier fire seasons burn far more forest (+80% per 1C), the biggest fire years are almost universally hotter and drier, over 90% of the record 2023 burn was remote lightning fire, and the attribution studies tie these extremes to a warmer atmosphere without needing to invoke forest management at all.

And third, where management does matter like for the forests ringing communities it’s a genuine and worthy fix. But here it just protects towns; it doesn’t solve the underlying factors driving area burned or wildfire smoke pollution.

So next time someone tells you Canada’s fires can be solved by raking the forests, you can point out that the thing filling their sky with smoke is a lightning-struck, drought-primed boreal forest doing what a warming climate is making it do more and more often.

In case its helpful, I’ve put the code and data to reproduce this analysis on my GitHub here.

1 Burned-area products genuinely differ: the National Burned Area Composite (NBAC) maps fire perimeters from satellite imagery and is more conservative, while agency/CIFFC tallies are reported figures with different cutoff dates (2023 is 14.8 Mha in NBAC vs ~17–18 Mha in agency totals). I use NBAC as the primary series and avoid computing statistics across the 1972 data-source splice; the 2026 number is a preliminary CIFFC year-to-date figure.

2 The gory methodological details: correlations use the homogeneous NBAC record (1972–2025), with effective sample sizes adjusted for autocorrelation (Bretherton et al. 1999), 95% moving-block bootstrap confidence intervals, and Benjamini–Hochberg false-discovery-rate control across jurisdictions. The national relationship also holds when refit excluding 2023 and 2025 (r = 0.52), so it is not an artifact of the two recent extreme years. Temperature and precipitation are area-weighted over each jurisdiction’s forested/woody land (MODIS IGBP classes 1–9) from ERA5-Land. Fire-season precipitation correlates with area burned at r = −0.49.

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters

As climate change bakes forests across North America, dense smoke from dozens of out-of-control wildfires burning in northern Minnesota and adjacent portions of Ontario is blanketing tens of millions of people with hazardous pollution.

The fires are bringing the worst air quality on record to much of the Great Lakes, mid-Atlantic, and Northeast United States. Pollution from small particles called PM2.5 — the fine particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter are the primary air pollution killers — has been far into the “Hazardous” range across five states since Wednesday morning.

The award for worst air in the nation on July 16 went to the city that has in the past billed itself as a climate haven: Duluth, Minnesota. The city’s 24-hour air quality index, or AQI, for PM2.5 particle pollution hit 934, over three times the threshold for “Hazardous” pollution. This shattered Duluth’s previous all-time AQI record of 159 set July 20, 2021. EPA pollution records go back to 1999.

The award for worst air in the nation on July 16 went to the city that has in the past billed itself as a climate haven: Duluth, Minnesota. The city’s 24-hour air quality index, or AQI, for PM2.5 particle pollution hit 934, over three times the threshold for “Hazardous” pollution. This shattered Duluth’s previous all-time AQI record of 159 set July 20, 2021. EPA PM 2.5 pollution records go back to 1999.

Record 24-hr PM 2.5 air quality on July 16, 2026

Duluth, MN: 934 AQI for PM2.5 (Old record: 159, July 20, 2021)
Toledo, OH (5 monitors): 624 (Old record: 190, June 28, 2023)
Chicago. IL (42 monitors): 511 (Old record: 246, June 28, 2023)
Detroit, MI: 490 (Old record: 226, June 28, 2023)
Cleveland, OH: 297 (Old record: 285, June 28, 2023)
Milwaukee, WI: 414 (Old record: 270, June 27, 2023)
Flint, MI: 343 (Old record: 178, June 27, 2023)
Minneapolis, MN (39 monitors): 251 (Old record: 193, July 29, 2021)
Green Bay, WI (5 monitors): 372 (Old record: 179, June 29, 2023)
Grand Rapids, MI (4 monitors): 482 (Old record: 227, June 27, 2023)
Lansing, MI (2 monitors): 408 (Old record: 194, June 29, 2023)
Buffalo, NY (11 monitors): 206 (Old Record: 176, June 7, 2023)

Record 24-hr PM 2.5 air quality on July 17, 2026

Washington D.C. (21 monitors): 246 AQI at Ashburn, VA, and 234 at Springfield, VA (Old record: 222, June 8, 2023, at Franconia Park, VA)
Pittsburg, PA (25 monitors): 261 (Old record: 237, June 29, 2023)
Dover, DE (2 monitors): 223 (Old record: 207, June 8, 2023)
Columbus, OH (8 monitors): 272 (Old record: 210, June 28, 2023)

Because of the huge number of people affected, and since this is occurring at the same time as a severe humid heat wave, this extreme and widespread pollution event — which will be followed by many months of repeated wildfire smoke incursion into the U.S. — will undoubtedly cause hundreds and perhaps thousands of premature deaths. The only comparable wildfire smoke event affecting this portion of North America occurred in 2023; a 2025 study blamed that event for 33,000 premature deaths in the United States, 8,300 in Canada, and 23,000 in Europe. According to the EPA, a premature air pollution death is one that occurs on average 14 years before a person would have otherwise died.

The climate change connection to the wildfires

As the climate warms, fire danger increases, mostly because the atmosphere gets “thirstier” – more water vapor can evaporate into warmer air. This results in more water vapor evaporating from plants, which dries them out and creates an increased risk of large and intense fires that can generate huge smoke plumes. Most of the fires grew out of control under extreme heat conditions made up to five times more likely by climate change (Fig. 1). According to Climate Central, the heat that helped fuel these fires would have been “highly unlikely” to have occurred in a world without climate change.

Figure 1. Climate Shift Index for Monday, July 13, 2026, showing the factor increase in high temperatures because of human-caused climate change. (Image credit: Climate Central)

Five states recorded “Hazardous” air quality on Thursday

On Thursday, July 16, portions of Ontario and five states — Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio — experienced 24-hour levels of PM2.5 with an air quality index in the “Hazardous” (brown) range. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, these conditions necessitate health warnings of emergency conditions, with the entire population more likely to be affected. Purple “Very Unhealthy” air was observed in three other states — New York, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. This level of pollution triggers a health alert, and everyone – not just people with vulnerabilities – may experience more serious health effects.

Figure 2. Observed 24-hour air quality index (AQI) for PM2.5 pollution for Jul. 16, 2026. Fifty monitors in five states had “Hazardous” air, plus an additional nine monitors in Ontario. (Image credit: EPA)

According to air pollution scientist Ryan Stauffer, yesterday’s air pollution event blows away the previous most extreme wildfire smoke event in this region — in June 2023 — for extremity. During the 2023 event, only about three EPA monitors, all in Pennsylvania, recorded a 24-hour AQI in the hazardous range. But on Thursday, 50 official EPA monitors recorded a 24-hour AQI in the “Hazardous” range (Fig. 2), plus an additional nine monitors in Ontario. According to rankings at iqair.com, Detroit was the most polluted major city worldwide for most of Thursday, with Chicago bumping Detroit out on Thursday night. On Friday morning, the top five most polluted cities in the world were all in North America: Detroit, Chicago, Washington D.C., Toronto, and New York City.

On an hourly scale, some truly extreme AQI readings above 1,000 were recorded Thursday in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. The “Hazardous” (brown) range is for an AQI in above 300, so these readings were more than three times beyond the “Hazardous” threshold. The most extreme readings occurred in northern Minnesota downwind of the fires burning in the Boundary Waters park, where an AQI of 3,567 was measured by a purpleair.com sensor.

How the trouble started: record heat and a record-strong high-pressure system

The wildfire event began on Monday, when the strongest upper-level ridge of high pressure ever observed in the north-central U.S. baked the region. All-time record heat exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8°C) was observed, worsening existing moderate to severe drought conditions. Thunder Bay, Ontario, on the north shore of frigid Lake Superior, hit 39.5 degrees Celsius (103.1°F), smashing its all-time heat record by over 2°C. To the north, Armstrong hit 40.7°C (105.3°F), the hottest temperature observed in all of Ontario since the great Dust Bowl heat wave of July 1936.

Strong winds moved in with the heat, fanning multiple wildfires that feasted on the dry fuels, which featured plenty of dead trees from a spruce budworm infestation and a 1999 derecho event that felled thousands of trees. Extreme fires with a rapid rate of spread resulted and created at least two massive pyrocumulus clouds — giant thunderstorms spawned by the heat of intense fires that reached the stratosphere. Tomer Burg has an excellent thread explaining the meteorology that led up to the wildfire event:

How to interpret PM 2.5 readings at airnow.gov and purpleair.com

You can access EPA’s real-time PM2.5 NowCast AQI numbers at https://www.airnow.gov (note that you can’t just type in “airnow.gov” to get to the website, since they haven’t configured it to allow that). The AQI numbers are updated once per hour (shortly after the top of the hour). Because the EPA standard is based on a 24-hour average, the raw hourly data is not reported. Instead, EPA’s NowCast AQI numbers are computed using a 12-hour weighted average from the past 12 hours of data.

When air quality is highly variable (e.g., during a wildfire or a sudden wind shift), the algorithm heavily weights the past 1-3 hours. Otherwise, the past 12 hours are weighted nearly equally, and the AQI number is a 12-hour average. At the end of a day, the official daily AQI is calculated using a true arithmetic 24-hour average.

Don’t miss out: If you sign up by August 1 to support our extreme weather coverage with a monthly donation, you’ll be invited to an exclusive conversation with our meteorologists later this season. Become a monthly supporter of Jeff Masters, Bob Henson, and Irene Sans’s extreme weather coverage today.  Donate

In contrast, the AQI numbers at purpleair.com update every few seconds, so you get a much better idea of rapid changes in air quality. Clicking on a dot will bring up a graph of the past few days of data; the default averaging time for this graph is 10 minutes, but you can change this to a longer time span. Important: you need to choose “US EPA” in the “Apply Conversion” setting, or else the PM 2.5 readings will be too high.

The current situation: over 20 large fires out of control

As of Friday, there were 193 active fires covering 1.7 million acres (673,000 ha) in Ontario, with the vast majority of these considered to be “out of control,” according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Of the 22 large fires in over 2,000 acres burning nearest the U.S. border, 18 were receiving a full fire-fighting response, and four were not being fought. In the U.S., the National Interagency Fire Center reported six large fires in northern Minnesota, all 0% contained, covering 60,000 acres.

Figure 3. Monthly fire assessment for North America for July 2026 (left) and August 2026 (right). Red shading indicates areas where conditions would favor increased fire activity. Green shading indicates areas where conditions would favor decreased fire activity. (image credit: National Interagency Fire Center).

The forecast: relief coming by Saturday for the worst-affected states

Thunderstorms moved over the Minnesota/Ontario fire area Friday morning, bringing up to two inches of rain. This water will help firefighting efforts, but the fire danger index in Ontario is still high to very high, and the thunderstorms may have sparked additional fires.

The cold front accompanying this storm will bring westerly winds that should flush the worst of the smoke out of Chicago and Wisconsin by Friday afternoon, and out of Michigan by early Saturday morning. However, a renewed invasion of smoke is predicted for Michigan and Wisconsin Saturday night into Sunday, bringing more “Hazardous” AQI conditions. Another pulse of smoke is predicted to move deep into the central U.S. on Wednesday, perhaps reaching Arkansas and Missouri.

We can anticipate that some of the major smoke-emitting fires in Minnesota/Ontario will continue to burn for an extended period, with some lasting until the first snows come in October. The long-range fire assessment (Fig. 3) calls for above-average fire risk over much of the forested areas of northern Canada and the western U.S. this summer, and we should anticipate frequent bouts of poor air quality from wildfire smoke across much of North America. July and August are usually the peak months of fire season, which typically extends well into September. A potent North American Monsoon is now bringing heavy rains to parts of the southwest U.S., so the overall fire risk in that region may decrease to average levels by August.

Many lightning-caused fires occurred in the Pacific Northwest yesterday. With hot, windy weather expected to move in during the coming week, some of these fires may well become significant smoke producers.

Climate change predicted to further worsen wildfires

The number of people in the U.S. who experienced at least one day each year with smoke-related fine particle pollution levels at three times over the EPA standard has increased 27-fold over the last decade, and we can expect climate change to significantly worsen wildfire smoke problems in North America in the coming years.

For example, the frequency and magnitude of extreme wildfires around the globe have doubled in the past 21 years because of climate change, according to a study published last year in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. Rising temperatures have ushered in an era of hotter and drier weather, lending the right conditions for wildfires to erupt, the researchers found.

Here are some additional resources on climate change and wildfires:

• Explore how climate change has worsened wildfire smoke.
• Explore how fire weather has changed in your area on Climate Central’s interactive map.
• Visit their More U.S. Fire Weather analysis for science background and methodology.
• Explore our guide to staying safe from wildfires and smoke.

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The European Commission has put forward new plans to cut emissions under the EU carbon market more slowly, from 2031 onwards. 

On 17 July, the commission presented its long-awaited proposal for reform of the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS). 

It recommended a number of changes, including giving companies free allowances to cover their emissions for longer than previously planned, conditional on climate investment plans. 

The proposal would result in around 2bn tonnes of extra emissions from sectors that are part of the trading system, say WWF and other analysts.  

This means other sectors would need to pick up the slack in order for the EU to stick to its climate goals overall. 

The plan offers a more business-friendly and “savvy” approach, argued EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra in a press conference.

In this Q&A, Carbon Brief outlines the details of the new ETS proposal – which is subject to negotiation with member states – and explores what it could mean for climate action. 

• What is the EU Emissions Trading System?
• What did companies and countries want from the ETS review?
• What is in the new proposal from the European Commission?
• Free allowances extended
• Slowing path to reach zero emissions by a decade
• Aviation
• Auction money
• CO2 removals
• International credits
• Other sectors extended
• Market stability reserve review
• UK-EU ties
• What could the changes mean for greenhouse gas emissions?
• How was the proposal received?
• What is ‘ETS2’?
• What happens next?

Article Contents Expand menu

• What is the EU Emissions Trading System? 
• What did companies and countries want from the ETS review?
• What is in the new proposal from the European Commission?
• Free allowances extended 
• Slowing path to reach zero emissions by a decade
• Aviation 
• Auction money 
• CO2 removals 
• International credits 
• Other sectors extended 
• Market stability reserve review 
• UK-EU ties
• What could the changes mean for greenhouse gas emissions? 
• How was the proposal received? 
• What is ‘ETS2’? 
• What happens next? 

What is the EU Emissions Trading System? 

The EU ETS is a carbon market, which puts a price on the greenhouse gas emissions of companies in power generation, industry, aviation and other sectors.  

It covers everything from electricity generation to steel production, as well as flights within the EU and a handful of other European countries. 

Emissions in these sectors have halved since the ETS launched in 2005, according to the European Commission. 

A European parliament briefing describes the system as a “cornerstone” of EU climate policy, covering around 40% of the bloc’s overall emissions. 

It applies to emissions in all 27 EU countries alongside Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and electricity generation in Northern Ireland. (The UK established its own ETS after Brexit.)

The ETS operates as a “cap and trade” system, which puts a limit on the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) that can be emitted within the sectors it covers. 

The “cap” on emissions gradually decreases each year until, eventually, they are expected to reach zero. 

The currency of trade within the system is “allowances”. One allowance is equal to one tonne of CO2-equivalent emissions. 

At present, around 57% of these allowances are bought by companies in auctions. The EU generated around €43bn in revenue from these auctions in 2025.

The remaining 43% of allowances are given to companies for free, to cover some or all of their emissions. 

This is intended to prevent “carbon leakage” – the idea that companies operating in countries with strict climate policies will relocate to countries with looser rules.  

The amount of free allowances varies by sector, depending on factors including the level of competition with overseas firms that do not face a carbon price. 

What did companies and countries want from the ETS review?

Countries and companies have been divided on how they wanted the ETS to evolve. 

Some pushed for more ambition to help meet European climate goals. Others called for it to be rolled back, amid rising costs for businesses. 

In March, 10 countries including Italy, Hungary and Poland wrote a letter to the commission calling the ETS an “existential risk” for key industrial sectors, reported Euronews. 

Italy had earlier even called for the system to be suspended outright. 

France and other countries favoured introducing a slower descent towards bringing the emissions cap to zero by 2039. 

Some steel and chemical companies also criticised the cost burden of the ETS. 

Other organisations focused on calls for stability and predictability in the system. 

In recent weeks, Spain, the Netherlands and five other countries called on the commission to “resist gutting” the ETS in its review, said E&E News. They said the ETS should be strengthened to “ensure long-term investment predictability and regulatory stability”. 

Weakening the system could “undermine investment signals and leave Europe more exposed to fossil-fuel shocks”, said a March 2026 briefing from climate thinktank E3G.

Another E3G briefing said the “risk” is that politicians weaken the system as a short-term economic fix, “undermining one of the EU’s main tools for delivering on its industrial transformation ambitions”. 

Dozens of investment organisations called on EU countries to facilitate a “robust and predictable” ETS. They said that “policy stability is the cheapest investment stimulus available to the EU”. 

In its list of priorities for ETS reform, the NGO Carbon Market Watch said that “now is not the time to backslide” on its aims and terms. 

What is in the new proposal from the European Commission?

The commission’s proposal outlines a number of changes to the ETS, to bring it in line with the EU’s climate goal to cut emissions to 90% below 1990 levels by 2040. 

The review will “bring relief to industry”, the commission says, while also continuing the ETS’ “essential” role in climate action. 

However, others are more sceptical about the impacts it could have on climate action. 

Below, Carbon Brief details the main aspects of the proposal. 

Free allowances extended 

The European Commission proposes to extend free allowances beyond a previously agreed date. 

Free allocations were due to reduce from this year and be fully removed by 2034. 

However, the commission has proposed to extend this to 2038, on the condition that companies receiving free allowances set out how they will invest in decarbonising their EU operations. 

It proposes that from 2031 onwards, 80% of free allowances in the system would be given to companies that have submitted plans for investment in EU decarbonisation. 

The remaining 20% of free allowances would only be allocated to those that can prove they followed through with planned investments and achieved the emissions reductions they had previously outlined. 

This move is a “step in the right direction”, says Dr Kirsten Scholl, the director for EU affairs at thinktank Epico, but it must not “impose excessive administrative burdens”.

The EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) was designed to replace the existing system of free allowances in the ETS. 

It is a tax applied to certain imported goods, based on the amount of CO2 emissions released during their production. It began to be phased in at the start of 2026. 

As a result, free allocation is being gradually phased out from 2026-38.

However, the commission has proposed that 15% of free allocations due to be removed  because of CBAM should be reintroduced from 2028, to “reduce the speed at which CBAM is phased-in and mitigate the remaining carbon leakage risk”. 

The commission says that preventing carbon leakage “remains a crucial element” of the ETS.

Pushing back the phase-out of free allowances and the full implementation of CBAM “risks squandering the EU’s credibility with investors and trading partners alike”, says Francesco Lombardi Stocchetti, a policy advisor on sustainable economy at the Bellona Foundation, an environmental NGO. 

“Europe cannot lead the clean industrial transition just by moving the goalposts,” he adds in a statement.

Slowing path to reach zero emissions by a decade

The commission has proposed to cut emissions in the ETS more slowly from 2031 onwards.

This could mean new allowances are able to enter the scheme into the 2040s, instead of ending in 2039 as previously planned. 

But the planned changes are still “aligned” with the EU’s 2040 climate target and net-zero requirement by 2050, says the commission. 

The overall ETS cap on emissions was reduced by 1.7% each year up to 2020 and then by 2.2% annually since 2021. 

It is then agreed to drop by 4.3% over 2024-27 and 4.4% from 2028 onwards. 

Maintaining similar rates after 2030 would not be “realistic”, says the commission’s proposal. 

Instead, it suggests that the cap should fall by 3.7% per year over 2031-35 and by just 1.7% annually over 2036-40. The chart below outlines how this would look.

Different trajectories for allowances in the EU Emissions Trading System over 2030-50, in MtCO2e. Source: Oeko-Institut analysis.

This will make the path to zero emissions within the ETS “more gradual and aligned with domestic climate ambition level”, claims the commission. 

But WWF says that the proposal would allow an extra 2bn tonnes of CO2e to be emitted. (See: What could the changes mean for greenhouse gas emissions?) 

Aviation 

The commission has proposed plans to incorporate more airline emissions into the ETS. 

The plan outlines that, from 2029, all flights departing from the European Economic Area (EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) and landing in other countries within 5,000km of a point in central Europe should be added to the ETS.

This distance means that the changes would not apply to flights landing in China or the US. (Both the US and China have opposed the expansion of ETS coverage for flights.)

The commission also proposes including emissions from private jets and other “business flights” in the ETS. 

It notes that aviation currently accounts for 14% of EU transport emissions. This is expected to skyrocket to around 90% by 2050, given it is more difficult to decarbonise than other modes of transport. 

Some aviation emissions have been included in the ETS since 2012. This included emissions from air travel within the EEA and flights departing from Switzerland and the UK.

The airline industry did not respond favourably to reports of plans to expand beyond this scope. 

On 8 June, the biggest airlines in Europe urged commission president Ursula von der Leyen not to extend the ETS to cover international flights, saying that it would raise ticket prices. 

A study commissioned by Carbon Market Watch found that the ETS encompassing all flights departing from the EEA, not just those within it, would result in a “very small impact on ticket prices and passenger demand”.  

Auction money 

Under the proposed changes, EU countries would need to funnel half of the money they receive from ETS auctions towards decarbonising sectors covered by the system. 

This would amount to more than €100bn in investment for decarbonisation before 2030, says the commission. 

Around three-quarters of the money generated by the ETS has been allocated to EU countries since 2013, the proposal notes.

Since 2023, countries have been required to spend all of this money on climate and energy-related activities – at least on paper. 

But the proposal says the “transparency and effectiveness” of this mechanism has been “insufficient”. 

Currently, only around 5% of the ETS money “directly supports industrial decarbonisation in sectors such as steel, chemicals and fertilisers”, it adds. 

Going forward, the proposal says that 50% should be put towards actions aiding clean-energy plans, industrial decarbonisation and improved waste management, as some examples. 

A briefing by thinktank Institut Montaigne noted that the money generated within the system for EU countries to help finance the energy transition should be “at the heart” of ETS discussions, amid budget constraints in many EU countries at the moment. 

CO2 removals 

The commission has proposed integrating permanent carbon removals into the ETS to “give additional flexibility” for certain sectors that struggle to decarbonise. This action was previously agreed within the terms of the EU’s 2040 climate target.

“Permanent” removals refer to direct air capture with carbon storage and similar measures, rather than temporary removals such as planting trees. 

The removals would be integrated into the system by increasing the allowance cap by an amount equivalent to the number of removals purchased. 

This will set up “additional emission space” for hard-to-abate sectors and also support the “scale-up of the carbon removals industry”, outlines the proposal. 

It also proposes that certain companies, such as shipping and aircraft operators, could compensate for their emissions with their own certified carbon removals. 

These emissions would not be permitted to “go beyond zero”, adds the proposal.

Sven Harmeling, the head of climate at Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, says that adding carbon removals “would weaken the ETS impact, undermine the carbon price and create new loopholes for polluters instead of accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels”. 

The proposal “fails to ensure that only high-integrity removal technologies would be considered”, he adds in a statement. 

However, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Prof Ottmar Edenhofer, describes the move as “an important step”, saying: 

“For the first time, it creates a credible and long-term investment framework for carbon-removal technologies in Europe.”

International credits 

The commission proposes that firms covered by the ETS could make use of “high-integrity” credits bought on the global carbon market from 2036 onwards. 

This relates to the EU’s 2040 climate target, in which up to 5% of the 90% reduction in GHGs can come from global carbon credits. 

Amélie Laurent, a policy advisor in carbon accounting at the Bellona Foundation, says in a statement that these credits “should be in a strategic last resort reserve, not an excuse to avoid doing our homework”. 

Aurora D’Aprile, the EU policy director at the International Emissions Trading Association, notes in a statement: 

“For international credits, early preparation on governance and procurement and greater certainty around a pilot from 2031, will be essential to establish a credible demand signal.” 

Other sectors extended 

The commission has outlined plans to expand the inclusion of the maritime sector in the ETS. 

Maritime accounts for around 4% of the EU’s total emissions. The new proposals for the sector include adding certain small ships of 400-5,000 tonnes to the system.

The proposal also outlines plans to incorporate more waste incineration into the ETS on a gradual basis from 2031. 

Since 2024, some waste-burning companies have been required to monitor and report their emissions under the ETS. But they did not have to purchase credits. 

Now, the commission proposes introducing the sector on a gradual basis. 

Under the proposals, companies would require allowances for 25% of their emissions in 2031, 50% in 2032, 75% in 2033 and 100% from 2034 onwards. 

Market stability reserve review 

The market stability reserve was added to the ETS in 2019 to help stabilise the flow of allowances. 

It acts like an overflow container holding extra allowances. If the number of allowances in the market falls below a certain threshold, more are brought out from the reserve to balance things out. 

Equally, if the market is flooded with too many allowances, depressing prices, then some are removed and put into the reserve. 

The commission has proposed a reform of the reserve, including changing the upper and lower limits for when allowances are released or removed. 

It wants to reduce the rate at which allowances are withdrawn from auctions when they exceed a certain threshold from 24% to 12% from 2028. 

This means that the permits would be able to stay in the market for longer. 

As shown in the chart below, the price of carbon in the EU increased tenfold over 2017-2021, exceeding €80 (£68) per tonne of CO2.  

Carbon price in the EU ETS over 2012-26, in € per tonne of CO2. Credit: Carbon Brief, based on data from Energy Instrat and EEX

Nevertheless, the commission proposal says the reserve was “effective in mitigating price shocks” on the ETS caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the surge in energy prices after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2021. 

UK-EU ties

The EU and UK have agreed in principle to link their carbon markets, but the commission’s proposal says negotiations are still “under progress”.

It adds that the commission “foresees” future financial contributions from the UK to the EU’s ETS, if a final agreement is reached. 

Many companies have called for the systems to be linked. In June, dozens of carbon-capture organisations and industry groups signed a letter calling for greater certainty on EU-UK links to ensure cross-border carbon-capture and storage projects are covered, for example. 

Switzerland’s ETS has been linked to the EU since 2020. 

What could the changes mean for greenhouse gas emissions? 

The European Commission says the ETS plays a “crucial role” in meeting its climate targets “cost-effectively”.

Emissions in the sectors included in the ETS have halved since its launch in 2005, according to the European Commission. 

(Roughly three-quarters of this reduction has come from the power sector, according to Carbon Brief analysis of data compiled by the thinktank Bruegel.)

As highlighted in the chart below, the EU’s overall GHG emissions have dropped by 40% since 1990. 

Greenhouse gas emissions in the EU over 1990-2025 (solid line) and projections out to 2050 (dotted line). The red dots indicate climate targets for 2020, 2030, 2040 and 2050. Credit: Carbon Brief, based on data from the European Environment Agency

Climate commissioner Hoekstra told a press briefing that the proposal is “fully aligned” with the EU’s target to cut GHGs to 90% below 1990 levels by 2040. He called the plan “completely climate-law proof”.

He also noted that no other EU policy has contributed to reducing emissions on the scale of the ETS, describing it as a “phenomenal asset”. 

But campaigners and experts are concerned that the proposed changes could slow decarbonisation and put the EU’s climate goals at risk. 

Carbon Market Watch says the plans would “severely weaken” the ETS and “risk undermining the achievement of the EU’s 2040 and 2050 climate targets”. 

The proposals “would represent a major setback for EU climate ambition, weakening incentives to cut emissions, extending reliance on fossil fuels and putting the 2040 climate target at risk”, says a statement from WWF. 

WWF estimates that 2bn extra tonnes of CO2 would be emitted if the proposals were approved in the EU. 

This is similar to analysis by Ingmar Rentzhog, chief executive of the We Don’t Have Time platform and published in Forbes, which puts the figure at around 2.4bn tonnes by 2050. A figure of 2.4bn tonnes is also given in analysis by Benjamin Görlach, the EU climate economics and finance lead at thinktank Agora Energiewende.

Michael Bloss, a German member of the European parliament (MEP) for the European Greens, says the plans would release around 1.4bn tonnes of extra CO2 [likely due to considering a shorter time period]. He describes the proposal as “climate vandalism”. 

Chiara Martinelli, the director of CAN Europe, says:

“Every extra tonne of CO2 allowed under the ETS makes Europe’s climate challenge harder and more expensive. Weakening the ETS now is a gift to polluters that have prioritised shareholder payouts instead of investing in cleaner production.”

How was the proposal received? 

The European Commission’s new ETS proposal has been met with a mixed response. 

Scholl from Epico says the proposal has “important flexibilities that can help address competitiveness challenges and provide greater certainty for industrial investment”. But she adds in a statement: 

“Concerns remain about whether the proposed changes preserve the long-term investment signal of the ETS and sufficiently recognise companies that have already committed to ambitious decarbonisation pathways.”

Edenhofer from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research adds that the proposals provide “clarity on the contribution that emissions trading is intended to make towards the 2040 climate target”. 

Elisa Giannelli, a programme lead at E3G, says in a statement: 

“Today’s proposal might please some, but it risks increasing both the long-term cost and the time needed to deliver the EU’s growth strategy.”

Pepe Escrig, a senior researcher, also at E3G, adds that the commission held onto some of the ETS’ “essential foundation”, but “yielded to political pressure to weaken it as a quick fix to broader challenges”. 

This has left the plan “pull[ing] in two directions: strengthening support for industrial investment while weakening parts of the framework meant to drive it”, says Escrig. 

Andrea Spignoli, the policy manager of sustainable markets at Bellona Europa, says the proposal risks “weakening green investments”.

It also means “more efforts will be needed in other sectors…which come with their own political and economic challenges”, says Agora’s Görlach on LinkedIn. 

Greg Van Elsen, a senior industrial policy coordinator at CAN Europe, says in a statement:

“Free pollution permits were never meant to become a permanent subsidy. Extending them until 2038 rewards delay instead of industrial decarbonisation.”

Lobby groups also had mixed reactions to different aspects of the proposal. 

The International Air Transport Association says it is “deeply frustrated” with the proposal. 

The organisation’s director general, Willie Walsh, claims the consequences will be “harmful”, “sowing acrimony over extraterritoriality, slowing global decarbonisation and sapping European competitiveness”. 

WindEurope says the proposal risks “slowing decarbonisation and failing to channel billions in ETS revenues to industrial electrification”. 

BusinessEurope’s director general, Markus J Beyrer, says some aspects “raise concerns”. For example, he says the “new conditionalities for free allocations risk increasing bureaucratic complexity and the uncertain role for international carbon credits”. 

What is ‘ETS2’? 

ETS2 is a separate emissions trading system to the main ETS. It is due to take effect in 2028 and is not affected by the current ETS review or resultant proposals. 

It will operate under a similar system as the existing ETS, covering emissions from transport, buildings and smaller industries in other sectors.

One key difference, however, is that ETS2 will not provide any allowances for free. They will all be auctioned and bought by companies. 

On 15 July, 10 countries, including Italy and Poland, had urged the commission to also reconsider the ETS2 during this review. They were unsuccessful. 

Similar to the original ETS, the commission believes the carbon price under the new ETS2 system will “provide a market incentive for investments in building renovations and low-emissions mobility”. 

However, in June, member-state governments and the European parliament agreed on a number of “safeguards” to support price stability. 

For example, if allowance costs under the ETS2 exceed €45 per tonne of CO2, they agreed that 40m allowances will be put into the system from a reserve to normalise the supply – double the amount previously agreed.  

A European Environment Agency briefing said the ETS2 will “affect fuel prices and mobility costs” and that money will be syphoned into a social climate fund to “support vulnerable households and investments”. 

What happens next? 

EU countries will now negotiate over the terms of the commission’s proposal before it goes to a vote in the European parliament.

Ireland, which recently took over the six-monthly rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, has stated that it wants the ETS proposals to be signed off by the end of this year. 

A previous document from the council, which represents member-state governments, outlined a target to agree a deal by the first quarter of 2027.

Clean Energy Wire says that this would be an “unusually ambitious timetable for one of the bloc’s most technically complex pieces of climate legislation”. 

Politico notes that “months of arguing” is likely to occur.

Related Eight facts about air conditioning amid an overheated global debate 10.07.2026 Energy Iran war: EU strategy sets out 44 actions to limit ‘fossil-fuel price shocks’ 23.04.2026 EU policy Q&A: What the EU’s new industry and ‘Made in Europe’ rules mean for climate action 05.03.2026 EU policy Analysis: EVs just outsold petrol cars in EU for first time ever 27.01.2026 Energy

The post Q&A: What the EU’s carbon market review means for climate action appeared first on Carbon Brief.

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink

I’m generally pretty measured in how I discuss climate data. There has been only one time in recent years when I was truly shocked: when global temperatures came in for September 2023 at a full 0.5C warmer than any prior September on record.1 Once until today, that is. With the July runs now in from 667 ensemble members across 14 different seasonal forecast models, it looks like this year’s El Niño is not only very likely to be the strongest event since reliable records began – it may end up the strongest by a truly mind-blowing margin.

The multi-model median for the event’s peak (measured as detrended sea surface temperature anomalies in the Niño 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific) currently stands at 3.6C, roughly 0.8C hotter than the prior record of 2.75C set in 2015-16. For context, the gap between the strongest and the fifth strongest El Niño of the past 150 years is only about 0.5C. The models are forecasting something outside the envelope of anything we have ever observed.

Peak monthly Niño 3.4 anomaly for every El Niño event since 1877, with each event measured against its own era’s centered 30-year climatology (the ONI convention, applied at monthly resolution to match the forecasts’ monthly values). Events after 1950 (blue) use ERSSTv5; earlier events (open gold) use the HadISST reconstruction. The 2026-27 forecast shows the weighted median of 667 ensemble member peaks from 14 models (July 2026 initializations, members weighted so each model counts equally), with the bar spanning the middle 80% of members.

A few things stand out in this figure. First, no event in a century and a half of observations has ever pushed meaningfully past 2.75C. The legendary 1877-78 event comes closest, in a statistical dead heat with 2015-16 (2.73C vs 2.75C, well within the uncertainty of 19th-century ship data). Second, the middle 80% of this year’s forecast ensemble sits entirely at or above that all-time record: even the low end of the plume (2.8C) grazes it. Around 91% of ensemble members exceed the 2015-16 record at their peak.

To see what this would look like as the event unfolds, we can compare the forecast trajectory against the five strongest events ever observed, month by month through the development year and into the following spring.

Monthly Niño 3.4 anomaly trajectories for the five strongest observed El Niño events across their development year and decay, against the 2026-27 multi-model forecast. Note that the expected peak (3.6C) sits slightly above the top of the dashed median trajectory (3.5C): individual models peak in different months (e.g. CFSv2 in November, ECMWF in December) so the median of the individual model peaks runs a bit higher than the peak of the median line.

What is remarkable here is not just the level but the trajectory. The 2026 event is developing faster than 1997-98, the previous gold standard for explosive El Niño onsets. And unlike 2015 which started its year already warm from a precursor event, this one launched from genuinely La Niña-ish conditions in January.

Of course, a multi-model median can hide a lot of disagreement, so it is worth looking at where each individual model puts the peak. The figure below shows the distribution of member peaks across all 14 models.

Peak 2026 Niño 3.4 forecast: model-weighted histogram of each ensemble member’s July-December 2026 maximum (top) and per-model medians with 10-90% member ranges (bottom).

Every single model’s median peak lands at very strong (”super”) El Niño intensity, and all but one (JAMSTEC’s SINTEX-F, at 2.2C) put their median above the 2015-16 record. Model agreement this strong is unusual, though I’d note that agreement is not the same thing as skill as I discuss later on.

Long-time readers may recall that in a warming world, the raw Niño 3.4 anomaly risks conflating El Niño with the broader ocean warming trend. NOAA’s answer is the relative ONI (RONI), which subtracts the tropical-mean SST anomaly to isolate the ENSO signal. In RONI terms the record holder is actually 1982-83 (a peak monthly value of 2.69C), not 2015-16. However, even using RONI the multi-model median in 11 of the 14 models shows a record event.

As above, but for the relative Niño 3.4 index (RONI): Niño 3.4 anomaly minus the 20S-20N tropical-mean anomaly, with the L’Heureux et al. (2024) variance-restoration scaling applied. The record event in RONI terms is 1982-83 (a peak monthly value of 2.69C).

Putting the two together: models give a ~91% chance of a record peak in Niño 3.4 terms and ~77% in RONI terms this year. Whichever way you slice the index, the forecast says the same thing: this is more likely than not to be the strongest El Niño ever observed.

So how did we get here? The forecast has been building all spring. The figure below shows how each model’s projection evolved from its March run through its July run, against observed monthly conditions.

Ensemble-mean Niño 3.4 forecast from each model’s March, April, May, June and July 2026 runs (blues deepening with recency; July in red with its full member range shaded), against observed monthly means from the daily OISSTv2.1 series (black). One corrupted NCAR-CESM1 ensemble member is excluded from the July run for clarity.

Nearly every panel shows the same thing: each successive run warmer than the last, across five months and thirteen independent modeling systems.2 This pattern of sustained revision as initialization improves is the classic signature of a real intensifying event rather than model noise. The reason is visible in the black line: observed conditions kept outrunning the forecasts. (Though credit where credit is due: NCAR’s CESM1 was calling ~4C back in March when that looked absurd, and I and others called it out as unrealistic at the time. The ensemble has since converged toward it.)

The combined multi-model picture makes the same point more concisely.

The model-weighted median Niño 3.4 forecast from each monthly initialization, March through July 2026 (July with its 10-90% member band), against observed monthly OISSTv2.1.

The peak median has climbed from ~2.8C in the March runs to 3.6C in July — though notably the revisions are decelerating (+0.5C, +0.14C, +0.14C over the last three cycles), suggesting the forecast is converging rather than still escalating.

It is also worth looking at what this event looks like spatially. The figure below maps each model’s SST anomaly field at its own forecast peak month.

Sea surface temperature anomaly forecasts at each model’s own 2026 peak month (the July-December month maximizing its Niño 3.4 mean), from the July 2026 initializations of 6 NMME models, 7 C3S centres, and SINTEX-F (seasonal mean, June initialization). Niño 3.4 region boxed; panels ordered warmest first.

The classic east-Pacific El Niño tongue is there in every model. I’d flag CMCC as the outlier to discount: its 5.3C peak sits a full 1.3C above the next warmest model. Because we are looking at the multi-model median, even discounting CMCC doesn’t change the overall forecast meaningfully.

Meanwhile, the ocean is not waiting for the models. Daily SSTs in the Niño 3.4 region are already running around 2C above their era-adjusted average – the threshold for a very strong (”super”) El Niño if sustained – and it is only mid-July. The figure below puts this in context, showing the daily Niño 3.4 anomaly for every year in the satellite record, with each year measured against its own era’s climatology so the long-term warming trend doesn’t mess up the comparison.

Daily Niño 3.4 SST anomaly for every year since 1982, from NOAA OISSTv2.1 (final plus near-real-time) via NOAA CoastWatch ERDDAP. Each year is referenced to its own centered 30-year day-of-year climatology (the ONI convention), removing the long-term warming trend. 2026 is shown in red; the great El Niño development years 2015 and 1997 are highlighted for comparison.

No prior year in the 45-year record has been anywhere near this warm this early: not 1997 (+1.6C at this date), the previous benchmark for an explosive onset, and not 2015 (+1.3C). And El Niño almost always peaks near the end of the calendar year – typically between November and January, occasionally as early as October – so the physics of ENSO’s seasonal phase-locking says there is likely a good deal of intensification still to come.3

What does all this mean for global temperatures? Because global temperature lags ENSO by around three to five months, most of this event’s warming will land in 2027, which is now shaping up to be a genuinely alarming year and the warmest on record by a sizable margin. But a strengthening El Niño does load the dice for late 2026: our dashboard currently gives this year a non-trivial chance (~28%) of edging out 2024 as the warmest on record, up from ~13% at the start of the month..

I want to end with an important caveat about these numbers: the models have never been verified in this territory. Seasonal forecast systems have real, demonstrated skill at this lead time for ordinary events, but no ensemble has ever forecast (and then verified against) a 3.6C El Niño, because one has never happened. Model agreement is reassuring, but it is not proof. But the uncertainties can cut both ways, and the observed ocean, not just the models, is already in uncharted waters.

As always, for daily updates on the El Niño forecast and global temperatures head over to our Climate Dashboard.

1 I referred to it as “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas” at the time, which might be the only time something I said ever went properly viral online.

2 The SINTEX-F model is not included in this plot as I only began tracking it in July.

3 The lone exception in the modern record is the unusual two-year 1986-88 event, which reached its ONI maximum in August 1987. Every other strong event since 1950 peaked between October and January.

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 12, 2026 thru Sat, July 18, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Change Impacts (7 articles)

• New research : Doomsday Glacier ice shelf could 'give way any day now' "Just have a Think" on Youtubue, Dave Borlace, July 5, 2026.
• Grey whales are dying along our shores. Researchers say a warming climate may be part of the problem Although a number of factors may be contributing to the die-off, scientists say it’s likely at least partly due to climate change. Melting Arctic ice and warmer waters may be reducing the number of small sea creatures the whales rely on for food, and altering the selection of what does remain. CBC'', Brandie Weikle, Laura Lynch, Jul 12, 2026.
• The Strongest El Niño Ever With the July runs now in from 667 ensemble members across 14 different seasonal forecast models, it looks like this year’s El Niño is not only very likely to be the strongest event since reliable records began – it may end up the strongest by a truly mind-blowing margin. The Climate Brink, Zeke Hausfather, Jul 13, 2026.
• Global warming's new wrinkle - it's too hot for nuclear reactors to operate The scorching summer in the U.S. and Europe and wildfires across both continents are well documented, but global warming flexed its power in a new way this week as France said it shut down a handful of nuclear reactors because of the extreme heat. Callaway Climate Insights, David Callaway, Jul 14, 2026.
• Climate Change Contributes to a Smokier World Higher temperatures and drought conditions are contributing to more intense wildfires and extending the summer fire season in North America. NYT, Quinn Glabicki, Jul 16, 2026.
• Canada's boreal wildfires aren't just bad forest management Higher fire season temperatures are strongly correlated with increased area burned The Climate Brink, Zeke Hausfather, Jul 17, 2026.
• Dangerous and historic wildfire smoke pollution event engulfs the U.S. and Canada Most of the fires grew out of control under extreme heat conditions made up to five times more likely by climate change. Yale Climate Connections, Jeff Masters, Jul 17, 2026.

Climate Science and Research (6 articles)

• Scientists finally solved the mystery of Earth's greatest mass extinction According to the researchers, the work also has important implications for the present. The environmental conditions before the Great Dying resembled the relatively cool, oxygen rich oceans that existed for millions of years before human activities began rapidly altering Earth's climate through fossil fuel emissions. ScienceDaily, Stanford University press office, Jul 12, 2026.
• Changes in Funding Could Tank Quality of Ocean Heat Content Data An uncertain funding landscape threatens the longevity of an ocean observation system critical to projecting tropical storms, sea level rise, and more. Eos, Grace van Deelen, Jul 13, 2026.
• A deep pool of extremely warm water is available to fuel El Niño in summer 2026 Climate.us, Rebecca Lindsey, July 16, 2026.
• The report oil companies are worried about: Climate attribution science New report says our ability to tie weather damages to climate change is improving. Ars Technica, John Timmer, Jul 17, 2026.
• As climate extremes collide, attribution science evolves A National Academy of Sciences report on extreme climate event attribution confronts political climate denialism with scientific evidence. Inside Climate News, Bob Berwyn, Jul 17, 2026.
• "iT'S CaLLeD SuMmER" Dr Gilbz on Youtube, Ella Gilbert, July 17, 2026.

Climate Policy and Politics (4 articles)

• Trump taps climate skeptic to run US government`s flagship climate report Matthew Wielicki frequently criticizes established climate science online, including in videos from rightwing PragerU The Guardian, Dharna Noor, Jul 10, 2026.
• The Climate Deal Trump Won`t Kill CORSIA, the global aviation climate scheme run by the UN’s aviation body (ICAO), may be the only climate agreement Trump will never try to kill precisely because it asks almost nothing of the United States, or of airlines anywhere in the world. CleanTechnica, William Todts, Jul 13, 2026.
• An extraordinary White House meeting NYT, David Gelles, Jul 14, 2026.
• Political representatives found more polarized on climate change than their constituents Phys.org, University of Konstanz, Jul 16, 2026.

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (3 articles)

• Sweeping victory for Europe as 15 nations top climate scoreboard Europe has come top in the latest Environmental Performance Index, partly due to the boom in renewables. But experts warn that more progress is needed. EuroNews, Liam Gilliver, Jul 12, 2026.
• Renewables, Led By Solar, Were Largest Source of Energy Supply Growth Globally in 2025 Solar achieved 30% growth in 2025 and its share of total power generation reached 8.7% – surpassing wind (8.4%) for the first time and almost equalling nuclear’s share of 8.8%. Behind solar, wind power was the second largest source of renewables growth in 2025, increasing by 8.2% year-on-year. CleanTechnica, Zachary Shahan, Jul 13, 2026.
• The Fake Air-Conditioner Climate Debate ClimateAdam on Youtube, Adam Levy, July 13, 2026.

Miscellaneous (3 articles)

• 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #28 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 5, 2026 thru Sat, July 11, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom, Jul 12, 2026.
• You can help scientists study walruses A global science project is asking volunteers to search Arctic satellite images for the animals, which are threatened by climate change. Yale Climate Connections, YCC Team, Jul 14, 2026.
• National Academies Report Backs Climate Change Attribution Science Attribution science is advancing quickly, researchers said. That could support lawsuits seeking damages for severe events worsened by global warming. New York Times, Raymond Zhong, Jul 16, 2026.

Climate Education and Communication (2 articles)

• Why climate scientists need to talk more about the very worst-case scenarios The Conversation, Peter Stott, Jul 13, 2026.
• Daniel Swain PhD: New Climate Denial, Same as the Old Climate Denial 'New Climate Denial" is not so new after all. This is Not Cool, greenman3610, Jul 14, 2026.

Climate Law and Justice (1 article)

• He sued the oil industry for $51B. Now he faces Republicans in a private grilling. The fossil fuel industry and its allies have targeted the science that factors into many of the climate lawsuits for nearly a decade; with attribution science showing how fossil fuel companies supercharge extreme weather the industry claims that the growing field exists solely to propel litigation. Politico, Lesley Clark, Hailey Fuchs, Corbin Hiar and Chelsea Harvey, Jul 15, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (1 article)

• The 13 biggest myths about heatwaves – and how to bust them With some still unable to accept humanity’s role in climate chaos, we tackle common misconceptions and deceptions The Guardian, Jonathan Watts, July 11, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Solutions (1 article)

• Do electric vehicles stop working in extreme heat? No - Extreme heat can temporarily reduce range, but recent research does not show that EVs are unable to operate in hot weather. Skeptical Science, Sue Bin Park, July 14, 2026.

If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed. 
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week Heat and firewaves

‘FIREWAVE’: Wildfires ravaged Europe and North America this week. France utilised water-dumping planes collecting from the Seine to contain a fire in the Fontainebleau forest near Paris, according to the Associated Press. The Financial Times reported that the UK has had “25 non-consecutive days with temperatures of 30C or more, including nine days above 34C”, creating a “firewave” and putting pressure on emergency services. Meanwhile, an “orange haze from Canada wildfires” could be “seen in Ontario and northern US”, said BBC News. 

‘NEW NORMAL’: Climate events previously seen as extreme are becoming the “new ‘normal’”, said the Met Office, in a report on the UK’s climate. While last year was the UK’s hottest on record, rising temperatures mean it is expected to be surpassed in the next few years, reported Reuters. Liz Bentley, head of the Royal Meteorological Society, told the Guardian that “climate change has been described by scientists for many years but is now increasingly being felt by the UK population in their own homes and communities”. 

Around the world

• ELECTRIFYING PUSH: The European Commission has announced a target for electricity to account for 46% of energy consumption across the bloc by 2040, reported Carbon Pulse. The commission has also made plans to adapt its emissions trading system to “bring relief to industry”, it said.
• FALLING OIL: The International Energy Agency said that global oil demand is expected to decline this year for the first time since 2020, reported the Associated Press.
• US ROLLBACKS: Trump cuts to clean energy support “led to the cancellation ​or delay of $83bn in investment across hundreds of projects”, reported Reuters. The Trump administration has also changed environmental law to allow development in the habitats of endangered species, according to CNN. 
• BURNHAM BEGINS: Incoming UK prime minister Andy Burnham is preparing to announce new North Sea drilling “within days of taking office”, said Bloomberg. Carbon Brief looked at 28 statements that Burnham has made about climate change and fossil fuels.
• DRY JULY: Drought in Uganda led to significant crop losses and at least 16 deaths from starvation, said BBC News. 
• ON AI: Australia planned to implement restrictions on energy and water usage for datacentres “amid [an] AI boom”, said the New York Times. 

38%

The drop in Brazilian Amazon deforestation in the first half of 2026, compared to last year, reported Al Jazeera.

Latest climate research

• The area of land burned by wildfires in Africa each year has reduced due to a shrinking dry season | Geophysical Research Letters
• Most people do not distinguish between climate adaptation and mitigation when thinking about tackling climate change | Climate Outreach
• An “effort-sharing framework” has been developed to support progress towards the Paris Agreement | npj Climate Action

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

Captured

Carbon Brief explained how more than 1,000 heat-related deaths in England and Wales during May and June were attributed to climate change, accounting for almost half of all heat-related deaths experienced during those months. The article also unpacked the different methods for estimating heat deaths around the world.

Spotlight Natural History Museum exhibits climate change

This week, Carbon Brief interviews Meaghan Macdonald, senior project and programme manager for London’s Natural History Museum, about their first permanent climate-themed exhibition, Fixing Our Broken Planet.

Carbon Brief: Why are programmes such as Fixing Our Broken Planet so important?

Meaghan Macdonald: One of the main things we’re trying to achieve with Fixing Our Broken Planet is to place the museum as a convener of conversations around the planetary emergency…trying to bring together the different groups of people who need to be involved in this conversation in order to work together to find a solution. 

And we find that a lot of the people who come into the gallery weren’t necessarily coming here to see it; they come across it, which is a really great way to engage people who may not have been engaged in that discussion previously.

CB: How does the exhibition engage and inspire visitors?

MM: A driving force for this exhibition is that you are dealing with a subject matter that can be quite disheartening, and one of the things that we were very careful about is to try to make sure that woven throughout the scientific data… is a sense of hope… to enable people to feel empowered to make a difference. 

We were able to do things like our “what you can do” labels, which give an example that people can take away with them. We also have “conversation starters”, which is a digital screen that asks people a series of questions related to the planetary emergency. Things like: “Should we mine the deep sea to power the green economy?”…And there’s no right or wrong answer. 

We [also] set out very specifically to…forefront the science that’s happening here. We know from multiple studies from thinktanks and organisations that people actually trust our scientists the most. 

Natural History Museum’s Fixing Our Broken Planet exhibition. Credit: Micheal Melia / Alamy Stock Photo

CB: The museum has set out a goal to “create advocates for the planet”. What does this mean? How does it relate to the exhibition and the museum’s wider climate action?

MM: The aim of the museum is to get to a place where both people and the planet thrive. Being a library of the natural world, it is our duty to be standing up for it and to help people find their way, fighting for nature’s side. 

In order to create those advocates, the aim of the [exhibition] and the wider advocacy programmes at the museum is to try to find ways to bring all these people [individuals, policymakers, industry, scientists] together. 

We have the wider programme with Fixing Our Broken Planet. We have Generation Hope…a free graphic panel version of our display in the gallery that we have been able to get into a number of venues in Bangalore…the very long-standing and beloved wildlife photographer of the year [exhibition]…our urban nature movement…[and] an initiative that we are doing with the Department for Education called the National Education Nature Park.

Watch, read, listen

STUBBORN HOPE: For the Conversation, climate scientist Prof Peter Stott argued that researchers need to “talk more about the very worst-case scenarios” and the possibility for action. 

EXTREME: Vox’s the Gray Area podcast spoke to New York Times journalist David Wallace-Wells about the possibility of a “Godzilla” El Niño.

RESPONSIBILITY: For Climate Home News, two researchers from the Center for International Environmental Law explored how “major emitting countries knew of climate risks decades earlier than claimed”.

Coming up

• 13-31 July: Meeting of the International Seabed Authority assembly and council, Kingston, Jamaica
• 17-19 July: 3rd International Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development, London
• 19 July: Presidential election, São Tomé and Príncipe

Pick of the jobs

• Zero Carbon Analytics, research lead | Salary: Unknown. Location: Remote
• Met Office, ocean climate scientific manager | Salary: £54,515-£58,582. Location: Exeter
• National Trust, land use and nature delivery partner | Salary: £44,499. Location: Newcastle or York

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

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

DeBriefed 10 July 2026: Deadly Europe heat | EU electrification leak | COP31 president interview

DeBriefed

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10.07.26

DeBriefed 3 July 2026: US faces scorching Independence Day | Record ocean temperatures | Vietnam’s EV surge

DeBriefed

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03.07.26

DeBriefed 26 June 2026: Heat records broken across Europe | London climate action week | Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’

DeBriefed

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26.06.26

DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations

DeBriefed

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19.06.26

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The post Debriefed 17 July 2026: UK ‘firewave’ | Fossil-fuelled heat deaths | London’s Natural History Museum spotlights climate appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Recent weeks have seen a flurry of reports from public health authorities and scientists that estimate the deaths caused by Europe’s record-breaking summer heatwaves. 

In France, the national public health agency reported 2,025 excess deaths over the week where the heatwave peaked in June. 

Authorities in Germany and Netherlands put the excess death toll during the same seven-day period at 5,753 and 533, respectively.

An analysis from climate scientists in Carbon Brief found that France saw more than 2,700 heat-related deaths over 17 days in June.

Separate research estimated there had been 2,700 heat-related deaths in the UK’s May and June heatwaves – 42% of which had been caused by human-caused climate change.

There are a number of methods for how academics and governments tally deaths caused by extreme heat, each with their own advantages and drawbacks.

Here, Carbon Brief looks at the different ways scientists and public health authorities have calculated the death toll of Europe’s record-breaking summer heat. 

• How established is the science of calculating heat deaths?
• What are the different approaches to counting heat deaths?
• What do the latest figures show for Europe’s May and June heatwaves?
• What are the pros and cons of the ‘excess deaths’ method?
• What are the pros and cons of the ‘statistical modelling’ method?

How established is the science of calculating heat deaths?

Economists and epidemiologists have been studying the relationship between heat and mortality for nearly a century. 

A pioneering study published in 1923 by geographer Ellsworth Huntington and economist Margaret Justin that looked at mortality data for New York City over 1882-88 found that deaths increased rapidly as temperatures rose above 17C. 

As global temperatures have risen in response to human-caused carbon emissions, scientists have increasingly sought to understand how warming could impact mortality. 

The study of mortality caused by specific heatwave events dates back a few decades, with a 1995 heatwave in Chicago among the earliest events to be studied in detail.

Over the past decade, a growing number of studies have gone a step further, by estimating the number of deaths caused by a specific heatwave event and then attributing a percentage or number of those deaths to human-caused climate change. 

Carbon Brief covered the first study of this type, which was published in Environmental Research Letters in 2016 and focused on a 2003 summer heatwave that caused tens of thousands of deaths across Europe.

The study estimated that 506 of the 735 summer fatalities in Paris and 64 of the 315 in London were a result of human influence on the climate.

More recently, a study in Climatic Change found that 27% of deaths in a 2018 heatwave in Zurich, Switzerland were linked to human-caused climate change and a paper in Science Advances estimated that 11-15% of deaths in a 2021 heatwave in British Columbia were attributable to global warming. 

Dr Christopher Callahan, assistant professor at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, tells Carbon Brief this type of “two-step” study has “really exploded” in recent years:

“It is really only in the last five to 10 years that we have seen this, partly because it does require interdisciplinary expertise. You need people who know how to run the epidemiological models and you need a climate analysis of the counterfactual [world] without climate change, which is its own effort.” 

What are the different approaches to counting heat deaths?

A central challenge in estimating deaths from a heatwave is that heat is rarely recorded as the primary cause of death on death certificates.

However, exposure to high temperatures has wide-ranging effects on the human body, including the strain of keeping cool. This effort places pressure on the heart and kidneys.

As a result, heat extremes can worsen health risks from chronic conditions and cause acute kidney injury. Researchers have linked heat to increased mortality from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, as well as dementia and Alzheimer’s. 

As a result, public health authorities and scientists cannot depend on death certificates for a full count of heat-related deaths. They instead estimate heat deaths using a number of different approaches, each with assumptions baked into their calculations. 

Dr Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, who researches methods for calculating excess mortality due to extreme events at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College, tells Carbon Brief there is “no ground truth” when it comes to tallying heat-related deaths: 

“We don’t know what the heat-related deaths are, so we rely on different models to describe the picture.”

This makes the study of deaths from heatwaves similar to those from air pollution, he says:

“This sort of health-impact assessment has been done for years on studies related to deaths from air pollution, which have the same problem. Air pollution, until very recently, was not recorded on death certificates. 

“[However], for air pollution, the [scientific] literature is much larger, so no one questions that air pollution is toxic and kills. This sort of messaging for heat is more recent.”

There are, broadly speaking, two approaches to calculating deaths during a heatwave. 

The first involves counting the number of excess deaths relative to a period in the past. 

This method – often referred to as an “excess deaths” approach – looks at how many people died during a particular time period compared to a baseline period where there was no heatwave. 

To do this, public health authorities and researchers rely on official death figures reported by country authorities. 

The heat death tolls published in recent weeks by public health agencies in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands relied on this approach. 

(For more, see: What are the pros and cons of the ‘excess deaths’ method?)

The second method uses long-term mortality data to understand the statistical relationship between temperature and mortality in a given place. The model that emerges can be used to infer the number of deaths from a heatwave in that place. 

In a rapid analysis published this week, researchers at Imperial College London, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the Met Office used this approach to estimate that the May and June heatwaves in the UK caused the deaths of 2,700 people.

Dr Callahan – working with Prof Andrew Dessler, director of the Texas Center for Extreme Weather at Texas A&M University – used this method to estimate that more than 2,700 people had died in France over a 17-day period in June in an analysis for Carbon Brief. 

(For more: see: What are the pros and cons of the ‘statistical modelling’ method?)

The majority of the figures released in the wake of Europe’s June heatwave have relied on these two methods.

There is a third way to calculate heat deaths, which is to look at official counts of deaths attributed on death certificates to heatstroke.

Callahan tells Carbon Brief that the “death-certificate coding” appears to have fallen out of favour in Europe – which he says is a “smart move” given that it does not provide a “full accounting”. 

Nevertheless, some public health authorities are still using this method. For example, in the wake of the heatwave in the US earlier this month, public health data showed 29 people in New Jersey and three people in New York had died from “heat-related illnesses”.

Scientists tell Carbon Brief the excess deaths and statistical modelling approaches both have advantages and drawbacks. These are explored below.

What do the latest figures show for Europe’s May and June heatwaves?

The table below shows the death numbers that have been reported by governments and researchers for Europe’s May and June heatwaves, including the approach used to reach the figures.

It suggests that multiple countries in Europe experienced more than 1,000 heat-related deaths during the late June heatwave, with authorities in Germany counting more than 5,000.

Meanwhile, the EuroMoMo mortality monitoring system estimated there were more than 10,500 excess deaths across 27 countries during the June heatwave. 

ReportedSourceCountry / regionDatesDaysDeathsLinkApproach 28/06/2026Public Health France ​France22-27 June61,000santepubliquefrance.fr Excess deaths 29/06/2026World Health OrganizationEurope21-28 June81,300x.com/DrTedros/status Excess deaths 01/07/2026Carlos III Health Institute (MoMo)Spain1-30 June301,033dw.com Excess deaths (all-cause and temperature-attributable) 02/07/2026National Institute for Public Health and the EnvironmentNetherlands22-28 June7480rivm.nl
Excess deaths 03/07/2026Public Health France ​France22-28 June72,025santepubliquefrance.fr Excess deaths 07/07/2026Chris Callahan/Andrew DesslerFrance12-29 June182,766carbonbrief.org Statistical modelling 08/07/2026Chris CallahanEurope15-28 June1413,975zenodo.org Statistical modelling 08/07/2026SciensanoBelgium18 June - 1 July141,747brusselstimes.com

Excess deaths 09/07/2026Robert Koch InstituteGermany22-28 June75,120rki.de Statistical modelling 13/07/2026Met Office/LSHTM/ImperialEngland and Wales22-27 June62,183drive.google.com Statistical modelling 13/07/2026Met Office/LSHTM/ImperialEngland and Wales24-26 May3553drive.google.com

Statistical modelling 13/07/2026EURO Mo/Mo27 European countries22-28 June710,650reuters.com Excess deaths 07/07/2025National Institute for Public Health and the EnvironmentNetherlands22-28 June7577archive.ph

Excess deaths 14/07/2026Germany Federal Statistical Office (Destatis)Germany22-28 June75,753destatis.de
Excess deaths

In most instances, Carbon Brief has linked to the figures published by public health authorities, where numbers were first reported. In some instances, figures were released on dashboards or webpages that are updated weekly. In these cases, Carbon Brief has linked to media reports or archived web content. 

What are the pros and cons of the ‘excess deaths’ method?

The excess deaths approach looks at how many more people died during a particular time period compared to a baseline period of the same length. 

For instance, on 14 July, Germany’s federal statistics agency, Destatis, published figures showing Germany saw 32% more deaths than the average in the week of 22-28 June, which was dominated by the heatwave.

Specifically, the agency said that 23,932 deaths had been recorded that week, compared to an average of 18,179 in that calendar week across the years 2022-25.

This suggests there were 5,753 excess deaths during the heatwave week. (This was a slight increase from preliminary Destatis figures released a week earlier, covered by Bloomberg.)

The Netherlands similarly calculates excess deaths by comparing death figures against an average of deaths in a similar period during unspecified “previous years”.

Data published by the country’s National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) shows that, during the week of 22-28 June, an estimated 3,626 people died in total in the northern European country. 

This is 577 more deaths than the 3,049 expected at that time of year, it said. (This is a slight revision upwards from the 480 excess deaths reported on 4 July by NL Times based on preliminary figures from NVIM.)

Callahan says that the excess deaths approach has the benefit of being rapid and relatively uncomplicated:

“It is something that public health authorities can put out fairly quickly without having to run a fancy model and do coding like the academic scientists do. It is a short-term, high-impact, rapid estimate of mortality.” 

The drawback to the approach is that it is impossible to decipher what percentage of these “all-mortality” excess deaths are, in fact, heat-related. 

Imperial College’s Konstantinoudis notes that the public often “feels more comfortable” with the excess deaths approach over the statistical modelling approach because the data it is using – the official death numbers – is based on real-world data. 

However, he stresses that excess deaths figures are based on a series of assumptions, including the reference period picked by researchers and how the numbers are interpreted.

Statisticians and researchers have to make a series of decisions, including what period to use as a comparative baseline. For example, the baseline period could be the week before a heatwave, the same week a year before – or an average of the same week across multiple years in the past. If averaging mortality of a similar period across a number of previous years, they must decide how much “weight”, or influence, each year should have.

They must also decide how to account for spikes in deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic years, as well as the gradual rise in average temperatures due to global warming.

During the pandemic, many governments and the World Health Organization (WHO) used the excess deaths approach to count deaths. The WHO said this metric was more “comparable” and “objective” than relying on national reports of Covid-19 deaths, given that different countries used different criteria for this classification.

A notable example of how assumptions can skew excess death figures came during this period, when the WHO estimated in 2022 that Germany had seen 195,000 excess deaths over two years of pandemic. 

However, after statisticians and epidemiologists pointed out the assumptions in the model were not suited to Germany’s demographics, the WHO retracted the figure and eventually reduced it to 122,000 and then later to 102,000.

Konstantinoudis explains:

“Covid taught us that it is complicated. Depending on the different assumptions used in the excess-mortality approach, you get different results…There is a scientific basis, but we should acknowledge the assumptions.” 

What are the pros and cons of the ‘statistical modelling’ method?

In the statistical modelling approach, researchers use models to determine the specific relationship between mortality and temperature for a particular location and then apply it to temperatures observed during a heatwave. 

This allows them to estimate the overall number of deaths that were caused by a heatwave. 

Previous research has revealed that, in most places of the world, there is a U-shaped response of mortality to temperature – where deaths increase rapidly in cold or hot conditions as daily maximum temperatures depart further from an “optimum temperature”.

For example, research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2025 found that mortality rates in France rise as daily maximum temperatures move away from approximately 20C. This is shown in the chart below.

Relationship between daily high temperature and all-cause mortality rates in France, estimated using data over 2004-19. Credit: Dr Christopher Callahan, based on data and methods in Callahan et al. (2025)

Indiana University’s Callahan say this approach allows scientists to “formally establish a relationship between the temperature and the mortality”, adding:

“If you do these calculations right, you can credibly say your entire estimate of mortality is heat-related.”

Prof Antonio Gasparrini, biostatistician and epidemiologist at LSHTM, explains the method relies on “timeseries models that apply relatively sophisticated statistical methods in which you ‘smooth’ trends occurring in time, so you control for long-term trends and seasonality”. 

He says that these models also allow researchers to “remove” trends affecting mortality that are unrelated to heat – for instance, the impacts of the pandemic. They can also “add” other information, such as around how air pollution combines with heat to threaten vulnerable populations.  

Gasparrini adds:

“What statistical modelling can bring is that it is more refined. It can link specific temperatures to specific impacts rather than just looking at the event [in the whole]. And also, it can be localised – [data] can be stratified at a fine scale and we can look at impacts at different scales.

“So, it is more informative. But, at the same time, of course, it’s based on more assumptions than the [excess deaths approach] and, of course, needs to be checked and compared.” 

The approach depends on a number of judgment calls from scientists and statisticians, including the years picked to underpin the model and how to capture the lag in deaths in the days and weeks after a heatwave event. 

They must also decide at what threshold to start counting deaths – in other words, whether to count all deaths above the “optimum temperature” or set a higher, more extreme value – and whether and how to account for any adaptation to heat extremes that may have been put in place in the study area.

A benefit of the statistical modelling approach is that it opens the door for being able to attribute a specific number of deaths to human-caused climate change. 

By applying the temperature-mortality curve to both the temperatures of the recent heatwave and a counterfactual world without climate change, scientists can estimate what proportion of estimated deaths only occurred because the world is warming.

For instance, Imperial College, LSHTM and Met Office researchers found that 59% and 38% of heat-related deaths in the UK’s May and June heatwaves, respectively, could be attributed to climate change. Their findings are shown in the chart below.

Number of heat deaths in England and Wales over 21-29 May and 18-28 June attributable to climate change. Source: Barnes et al (2026).

Some climate-sceptic commentators have argued that modelled estimates are hypotheses and should therefore be treated with caution.

On 13 July, climate-sceptic news website GB News covered a blog post by Oxford academics that argued the figure that 2,700 people had died in the UK’s May and June heatwaves was not reflected in the provisional “all-mortality” data put out by the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS). Quoting the blog, GB News said:

“Modelling tells us nothing. Models explore possibilities; surveillance tells us what happened. When the two disagree, our instinct should be to investigate the data rather than simply trust the model.”

However, Imperial’s Konstantinoudis – who worked on the models behind the 2,700 figure – says it is important to await the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA)’s annual heat mortality report before arriving at any conclusions. He explains:

“While we are entirely clear that our current findings are modelled estimates, this methodology has consistently delivered comparable results to the UKHSA’s own official analyses of observed deaths for past heat events.”

(The UKHSA report will include updated figures and estimate excess deaths from heat based on specific periods of heat in different regions, whereas the provisional ONS figures cover all national deaths during a full-week period.)

Konstantinoudis says both the excess deaths and statistical modelling approaches have been the subject of extensive peer-reviewed scientific study and can provide a “holistic view of what is happening” when used together. 

Studies that have compared statistical modelling approaches for estimating heatwave deaths with excess death figures in the UK have found they yield broadly similar results. 

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Open access notables

Renewable energy discourses of fossil fuel companies: obstruction and delay of climate action, Desai et al., Energy Sustainability and Society

For decades, multinational fossil fuel companies have strategically promoted discourses to obstruct climate action. Initially, the fossil fuel industry publicized communications that denied the role of fossil fuels in climate destabilization. Recently, however, they have advanced nuanced messages to delay climate action and policy. As the climate crisis worsens and calls to phase out fossil fuels intensify, research into the industry has revealed pervasive “greenwashing” and a discrepancy between external messaging on renewable energy and internal operational positions. Corporate annual reports, which are public-facing communications, offer insights into how companies align their internal strategy with their external messaging. Based on a textual analysis of the annual reports of four of the largest fossil fuel companies (ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies), this research compares how companies have adapted their communication strategies about renewable energy between 2016 and 2022.

When algorithms decide the climate: AI, disinformation, and the crisis of environmental truth in the Anthropocene, Vidal, PLOS Climate [commentary]

We often describe the Anthropocene as a planetary emergency. Yet beneath the ecological upheaval lies a deeper and more destabilising fracture: the erosion of environmental truth [1]. By environmental truth, I refer to the collectively negotiated understanding of climate and ecological realities, shaped by scientific, social, and technological processes. Climate knowledge today is reported, debated, and contested, but increasingly it is computed [2]. Algorithmic infrastructures now decide what becomes visible, credible, and politically actionable. My argument here is direct: AI systems and digital platforms have become co-producers of environmental truth, and this reconfigures the very conditions under which climate policy, public debate, and democratic decision-making occur. The Anthropocene is as much a crisis of meaning as it is of ecology.

When models outrun politics: Biofuels as a stress test for scenario plausibility, Hedenus, Energy Research & Social Science

Long-term energy scenarios often assign a substantial role to biofuels in net-zero pathways, despite decades of policy support and limited evidence of sustained cost reductions or large-scale diffusion. Using biofuels as a critical case, this paper examines a broader problem in scenario construction: the misalignment between modelled technology pathways and socio-technical feasibility. Drawing on innovation theory, learning-curve evidence, and observed patterns of policy support and investment, it argues that biofuels are constrained by a configuration of mutually reinforcing limitations, including feedstock-dominated costs, weak learning dynamics, and permanent policy dependence. These constraints do not form a simple causal chain, but jointly limit the conditions under which large-scale competitiveness could emerge. Despite this, energy system and integrated assessment models often project extensive biofuel deployment under assumptions that abstract from political volatility and investment risk. The paper argues for greater use of empirical plausibility checks to improve the relevance of long-term energy scenarios.

Global Warming Has Accelerated Significantly, Foster & Rahmstorf, Geophysical Research Letters

Recent record-hot years have caused discussion over whether global warming has accelerated. Previous analysis found acceleration (i.e., increase in warming rate) has not yet reached a 95% confidence level, given natural temperature variability. We remove the estimated influence of three main natural variability factors: El Niño, volcanism, and solar variation. The resulting adjusted and thus less “noisy” data show that there has been acceleration with over 98% confidence, with faster warming over the last 10+ years than during any previous decade.

Compound coldwave and freezing-snow events decrease during 1994−2023 over global land area, Ma et al., Advances in Climate Change Research

With accelerating global warming, compound climate extremes pose amplified threats to ecosystems and socio-economic stability. However, the occurrence and evolution of Compound Coldwave and Freezing-Snow (CCFS) events in a warming climate remain a critical knowledge gap. This study provides a quantitative assessment of the spatiotemporal changes of CCFS characteristics, including its frequency, duration, and severity from 1964 to 2023, by integrating daily minimum temperature data from Berkeley Earth with hourly precipitation amount and precipitation type data from the ERA5 reanalysis. The spatial distribution of CCFS events exhibits a pronounced interhemispheric asymmetry, with over 90% of occurrences located in the Northern Hemisphere. Mid- to high-latitude regions of Eurasia and North America, where show the highest CCFS frequency, also experienced substantial temporal changes. Compared to the earlier period (1964−1993), notable declines in CCFS frequency, total duration, deficit heat, and combined severity are observed across most land regions during the recent warming period (1994−2023). Globally averaged trends reveal a faster reduction in CCFS frequency and total duration, as opposed to a slower decline in deficit heat and combined severity. The reduction has been particularly rapid in the top 20% most affected land areas, concentrated in subtropical North America, northern/eastern Europe, and Siberia. In these regions, average event frequency, duration, deficit heat, and combined severity declined markedly from approximately 3.5 events, 28 d, −44 °C, and 25 in 1964 to about 2 events, 18 d, −14 °C, and 17 in 2023. However, the average duration per event extends from 1964 to 2023, especially across mid to high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Furthermore, CCFS frequency and duration demonstrate a nearly linear decrease with global warming, while severity indicators follow a nonlinear, logarithmic decay. This disparity indicates distinct sensitivities among different CCFS characteristics. For all CCFS indicators except average duration, the linear component of the response outweighs the nonlinear component. The results will aid forecasting efforts and help to improve hazard preparedness and mitigation strategies.

From this week's government/NGO section:

Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes, Spring 2026, Leiserowitz et al., Yale University and George Mason University

Americans who think global warming is happening outnumber those who think it is not by a ratio of more than 4 to 1 (68% versus 16%). By a margin of more than 2 to 1, Americans are more likely to think global warming is mostly human-caused (59%) than to think it is mostly caused by natural changes in the environment (27%). 66% of Americans say they are at least “somewhat worried” about global warming, including 29% who say they are “very worried.” 59% of Americans think global warming is affecting weather in the United States, including 35% who think weather is being affected “a lot.” 13% of Americans have considered moving to avoid the impacts of global warming.

Cheaper. Cleaner. Unstoppable. Clean technologies that are delivering for the climate, James Haselip and Lakshmi Bhamidipati, United Nations Environment Program

At a time when climate risks are intensifying, this policy briefs highlights a powerful and hopeful shift: many clean solutions are no longer niche—they are becoming the new normal. Across energy, transport, buildings and food systems, “positive tipping points” are emerging. As costs fall, technologies scale, and public support grows, adoption is accelerating in self reinforcing ways. Solar power, electric mobility, and sustainable cooling are proving that climate action can be economically competitive, socially beneficial and globally scalable. This report shows that the transition is not only possible—it is already underway. With the right policies, investments and partnerships, we can amplify these positive tipping points, unlock cascading benefits, and deliver a future that is more resilient, equitable and sustainable. 287 articles in 92 journals by 1998 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

A strong constraint on radiative forcing of well-mixed greenhouse gases, Feng et al., Nature Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41586-026-10289-x

A Weakened East Asian Winter Monsoon Triggered Record-Breaking Marine Heatwaves in the South China Sea During 2023–2024, Lu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans 10.1029/2026jc024234

Bipolar Oceanic Processes Drive Indonesian Throughflow Decline Under Climate Warming, Wang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl121630

Contrasting Responses of Dissolved Oxygen in the Northern Benguela Upwelling System to Four Decades of Warming, Salama et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023848

Deep ocean control of global temperature after net-zero emissions, Lee et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-01934-1

Drivers of Trends in Northern Hemisphere Cold Spell Characteristics Over 1980–2025, Osmolska et al., White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) pmh:oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:242617

Dry and moist convective upper bounds for near-surface temperatures, Nicolas & Hotz, Weather and Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.5194/wcd-7-843-2026

Marine Heatwaves in the Java Sea, Indonesia: Characteristics and Atmospheric Onset Drivers, Bayhaqi & Iskandar, Open MIND Open Access pmh:10.6084/m9.figshare.31444423

Ocean acidification as a planetary signal linking Earth system memory to deep-time lithosphere–ocean geochemical interactions, Das & Choudhury, Earth-Science Reviews Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.earscirev.2026.105623

Recent equatorward shift of the summer North Atlantic jet dominated by internal climate variability, Sheng et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aee8136

Sea-surface temperature variability and climate drivers in Cuba's Jardines de la Reina National Park (2003–2022), Castillo-Álvarez et al., Ocean science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-1409-2026

The Arctic overturning circulation: transformations, pathways and timescales, Dörr et al., Ocean science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-565-2026

The Response of the Global Overturning Circulation to Recent and Projected Antarctic Meltwater Changes, Gülk et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2026jc024622

Understanding the Response of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation to Carbon Dioxide and Sea Surface Temperature Increases in Aqua-Planet Simulations, Johnson et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2025jd045481

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
The correlation between Arctic sea ice, cloud phase and radiation using A-Train satellites, Atmospheric chemistry and physics, 10.5194/acp-24-7899-2024 12 cites.

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Observations of climate change, effects

Assessing climate change impacts on heat waves and heat index: a case study of Uttar Pradesh, India, Awasthi et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1679941

Attribution of the 2022 Asian Spatially Compound Heatwave-Flooding Event to Atmospheric Circulation, La Niña and Anthropogenic Warming, Wang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025jd045461

Burned Area Over Africa Reduced by Shortened Dry Season, Mohammed et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl121751

California Temperature Since 1520 CE Shows Interactions in Extremes of Heat, Drought, and Fire, Harley et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl118590

Century-Scale Climate Evolution in Semiarid High Plateaus, Algeria, Rouabhi, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 10.1175/jamc-d-25-0181.1

Climate impacts from North American boreal forest fires, Gerrevink et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-026-01940-3

Compound coldwave and freezing-snow events decrease during 1994−2023 over global land area, Ma et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.06.032

Drivers of Trends in Northern Hemisphere Cold Spell Characteristics Over 1980–2025, Osmolska et al., White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) pmh:oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:242617

Emerging dryland flooding, Bai et al., Earth-Science Reviews 10.1016/j.earscirev.2026.105612

From stationary to non-stationary: Characterizing extreme precipitation behavior in an arid environment, Nikoo, Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2026.109212

Global Warming Has Accelerated Significantly, Foster & Rahmstorf, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl118804

Intensifying droughts, heatwaves, and compound drought–heatwave events and their spatiotemporal patterns in Africa (1979–2024), TIAN et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100879

Modeled and Observed Stratospheric Temperature Changes: Implications for Fingerprint Studies, Santer et al., AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2025av002196

Nonlinear increase of compound drought-heatwave events since the early 2000s, Kim et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aea3038

Quantification of the influence of anthropogenic and natural factors on the record-high temperatures in 2023 and 2024, Farago et al., Earth System Dynamics Open Access 10.5194/esd-17-451-2026

Rainfall and Rain-on-Snow Events Over Greenland in Summer: Climatology, Trends, Synoptics, Frame et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2025jd044726

Seasonal characteristics and trends in precipitation partitioning in the Arctic, Cast et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-2127-2026

Spatiotemporal Variations in Warm Season Heat Extremes in the Midwestern United States, 1959–2020, Rasaq-Balogun & Schoof, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 10.1175/jamc-d-25-0202.1

Warming of the high-mountainous climate sensitive Jammu and Kashmir during the period 1980–2024, Gopikrishnan et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-61302-2

Winter Warmth: Quantifying Historical Changes in Very Warm Winter Days across the United States, Martin et al., Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 10.1175/jamc-d-25-0120.1

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Amplified warming of North American cold extremes linked to human-induced changes in temperature variability, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-49734-8 21 cites.

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Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

A satellite-based approach for estimating runoff and river discharge in the Pan-Arctic region from 2003 to 2022, Leopardi et al., Remote Sensing of Environment Open Access 10.1016/j.rse.2026.115353

A standardized permafrost ground temperature collection for Canada 2025, Meier-Legault et al., Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.18675016

Advancing Climate Services in South Asia: The SARCI Framework for Actionable Climate Information and Regional Capacity Building, Bhuyan et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 10.1175/bams-d-25-0172.1

Earth observation for land representation: implementing the Paris Agreement requirements for greenhouse gas reporting, Cima et al., Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2026.2638495

Low Cross-Product Agreement in Global Coastal Marine Heatwaves (1982–2023) and Implications for Trend Attribution, Sun et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl124134

Modeled and Observed Stratospheric Temperature Changes: Implications for Fingerprint Studies, Santer et al., AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2025av002196

Performance of gauge-based and reanalysis gridded temperature datasets in representing means and extremes across different climate zones of the Brazos River Basin, United States, Tarkegn et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1731069

The Observed Circumpolar Decline of Antarctic Bottom Water Volume, Wyatt et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl121359

Trends and Sensitivities of Low-Cloud Cover and Top Height From Spaceborne Lidar Observations, Tesche et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122478

Trends in Atmospheric Radiative Cooling from Satellite, Reanalyses, and CMIP6 Datasets, Jouan et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0511.1

Weather and Climate Extremes: Simplex, Dynamical Systems and Hull Clustering, Hannachi et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2025jd045044

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Improving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 10.1002/qj.4791 7 cites.

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Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

Assessing the Likelihood of Unprecedented Antarctic Heat in the Current Climate, Suitters et al., Journal of Climate Open Access 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0436.1

Climate response to Nature Future scenarios in a regional Earth System Model, Sieber et al., Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich) Open Access pmh:oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/800243

Dynamic and steric sea-level changes due to a collapsing AMOC in the Community Earth System Model, Westen et al., Ocean science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-1353-2026

Dynamically downscaled future projections of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean across low to high emissions scenarios, Kim et al., Ocean science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-1987-2026

Extreme Coastal Waves Due To Australian East Coast Lows in a Warming Climate, Deshmukh et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023405

Future Climate Projections of Hazardous Convective Weather Using an Ensemble of Environment-Informed, Convection-Permitting Dynamical Downscaling Simulations, Wang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2025jd045354

Robust Yet Diverse Tropical Responses to Antarctic Meltwater Across Models, Zhang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl120291

The Antarctic Peninsula under present day climate and future low, medium-high and very high emissions scenarios, Davies et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1730203

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Emergence of lake conditions that exceed natural temperature variability, Nature Geoscience, 10.1038/s41561-024-01491-5 40 cites.

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Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

A statistical-dynamical method for projecting temperature across multiple SSPs from a limited subset: A CMIP6 case study, Xie et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.06.030

Accessible Climate and Impact Model Output for Studying the Human and Environmental Impacts of Nuclear Conflict, Harrison et al., Geoscience Data Journal Open Access 10.1002/gdj3.70076

AerChemMIP2 – unraveling the role of reactive gases, aerosol particles, and land use for air quality and climate change in CMIP7, Fiedler et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-3477-2026

CMIP7 data request: land and land ice priorities and opportunities, Li et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-3129-2026

Marine Secondary Aerosols Are Required for Modeling Clouds in the Arctic, Lapere et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl121724

MESMER v1.0.0: consolidating the modular Earth system model emulator into a sustainable research software package, Bauer et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-5669-2026

Modifying Mountains in Models Reduces Wet Bias in Western North America, Sexton et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0428.1

Optimizing global forest burned area simulations: Multi-earth system model assessment, Bayesian model averaging synthesis, and climate drivers, Wang & Di, Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105390

The PolarRES dataset: a state-of-the-art regional climate model ensemble for understanding Antarctic climate, Gilbert et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-2629-2026

Uneven Spatial Distribution of Arctic Warming in Boreal Winter and CMIP6 Historical Simulation Bias, Bao et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2026jd046383

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Improving CMIP6 Atmospheric River Precipitation Estimation by CycleConsistent Generative Adversarial Networks, Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, 10.1029/2023jd040698 28 cites.

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Cryosphere & climate change

A standardized permafrost ground temperature collection for Canada 2025, Meier-Legault et al., Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.18675016

Brief communication: Inferring Glacier Equilibrium Line Altitudes in the Europe Alps with FROST, Herrmann et al., cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-20-3817-2026

Brief communication: Uncertainties in Southern Ocean sea surface conditions and their impact on Antarctic climate over 1958–1978, Dalaiden & Bethke, cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-20-2089-2026

Changes in 1958–2019 Greenland surface mass balance are attributable to both greenhouse gases and anthropogenic aerosols, Kuo et al., cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-20-2317-2026

Changes in Arctic Sea Ice Lead Width Distribution: Model Development and Experiments, Zhang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2026jc024245

Changes in glacier mass balance and their drivers in the Kangri Karpo Mountains from 1980 to 2023, Ji et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.06.034

Contrasting dynamics of lake- and marine-terminating glaciers under same climatic conditions, Vacek et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-3827-2026

Fracture-driven weakening amplifies projected ice loss from West Antarctica, Blasco et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2601529123

Future Retreat of Great Aletsch Glacier and Hintereisferner – application of a full-Stokes model to two valley glaciers in the European Alps, Rückamp et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-2999-2026

High Fraction of Glacial Meltwater Along Two Separate Isopycnals Observed in Summer 2020 Near and Off the Pine Island and Thwaites Ice Shelves, West Antarctica, Kim et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023212

Long-term variations in precipitation types (rain, snow, and sleet) on the Tibetan Plateau: Implications for the cryosphere and ecohydrological systems, LI et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.03.009

Modelling the sensitivity of ice loss to calving front retreat rates in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, West Antarctica, Barnes et al., cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-20-777-2026

Projecting the response of Greenland's peripheral glaciers to future climate change: glacier losses, sea level impact, freshwater contributions, and peak water timing, Shafeeque et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-875-2026

Recent Observations of Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica Are Consistent With High Rates of Loss in Next 50 Years, Goldberg et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl118823

Regime transitions in Arctic surface momentum balance reveal persistent and predictable dynamical states, Liu & Liang, Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-75328-7

Review article: 30 years of airborne radar surveys on the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Franke et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-2485-2026

Skillful multiyear prediction of Atlantic sector Arctic Sea ice and its link to AMOC variability, Li et al., Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.21118022

Synergistic effects of precipitation and phase changes intensify future rain-on-snow events in the Tianshan and Pamir regions, Central Asia, Yang et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2025.100833

Tidal Mixing on the Antarctic Continental Slope Enhances Ocean Heat Transport With Implications for Sea Ice, Hus et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122819

Wind-triggered Antarctic sea-ice decline preconditioned by thinning Winter Water, Spira et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-026-02601-4

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Degradation and local growth of “Xing'an-Baikal” permafrost responding to climate warming and the consequences, Earth-Science Reviews, 10.1016/j.earscirev.2024.104865 46 cites.

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Sea level & climate change

Dynamic and steric sea-level changes due to a collapsing AMOC in the Community Earth System Model, Westen et al., Ocean science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-1353-2026

Sea-level rise in a coastal marsh: linking increasing tidal inundation, decreasing soil strength and increasing pond expansion, Huyzentruyt et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-751-2026

Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry

Barriers and facilitators for using palaeoclimate evidence in UK climate decision making, Boyall et al., Geoscience Communication Open Access pdf 10.5194/gc-9-275-2026

Differences in physiological tolerance to global warming caused the Permian–Triassic transition between the Paleozoic and Modern faunas, Marquez et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10.1073/pnas.2533086123

Global ocean heat content over the past 3 million years, Shackleton et al., Nature 10.1038/s41586-026-10116-3

Holocene Climate Changes: Unraveling Processes, Mechanisms, and Impacts Across Spatiotemporal Scales, Tan et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl120388

Multi-proxy resolved timing of permafrost initiation in a peat plateau, northern Norway, Kiss et al., The Holocene Open Access 10.1177/09596836261432397

Terrestrial Ecosystem Response to Changing Temperature and Seasonality in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum: Shallow Marine Records From the Salisbury Embayment, USA, Willard et al., Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology Open Access 10.1029/2025pa005278

The 8.2 Ka Abrupt Climate Event: Causes, Impacts and Future Implications, Dixit & Kumari, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change 10.1002/wcc.70050

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Large-ensemble simulations of the North American and Greenland ice sheets at the Last Glacial Maximum with a coupled atmospheric general circulation–ice sheet model, Climate of the past, 10.5194/cp-20-1489-2024 2 cites.

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Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Climate Change Projected to Increase Rates of Background Tree Mortality Across Eastern North America, Wang et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70995

Climate Warming Drives Northward Contraction and Genetic erosion in a Cold-Adapted Soil Worm Species, Chen et al., Diversity and Distributions Open Access 10.1111/ddi.70236

Climate-Driven Range Shifts Limit the Role of Non-Native Trees for Adaptation Processes of European Forests, Hazarika et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.73999

Coral Reef Protection May Help Avert Risks to People, Property, and Economic Activity Caused by Projected Reef Degradation, Storlazzi et al., Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025ef006255

Declining Vegetation Response to Soil Moisture and Vapor Pressure Deficit in Inner Mongolian Grasslands, Zhou et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0597.1

Deeper waters, more calcifiers: Spatial variation in benthic assemblages highlight conservation challenges in sub-Antarctic Marine Protected areas, Bergagna et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.107889

Developmental Stage-Specific Responses to Extreme Climatic Events and Environmental Variability in Great Tit Nestlings, Satarkar et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.70794

Effects of Marine Heatwaves on Chlorophyll-A Concentration and Carbon Uptake in the Northwest Pacific over the past Decade, Dong et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans 10.1029/2026jc024050

Elevated CO2 and warming intensify plant reliance on soil nitrogen reserves despite intensive fertilization, Zhu et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-75147-w

Exploring turnover dynamics in Iberian Oak forests under climate change scenarios, Passos et al., Discover Conservation Open Access pdf 10.1007/s44353-026-00084-0

Fall and Spring Staging in a Refugia-Dependent Migratory Snake, Jesper et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.73890

General Predictions for the Effects of Warming on Competition, Davis et al., Ecology Letters pdf 10.1111/ele.70395

Graminoids Increase Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Thawed Permafrost at the End of the Growing Season, Mollenkopf et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.70783

Greater climate sensitivity of older forests than younger forests in the Extratropical Northern Hemisphere, Jin et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111081

Heatwaves induce strong vegetation functional suppression rather than structural changes in Sub-Saharan Africa, Okrah et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111351

Heavy Rain, Less Bloom Under Heat: Succession of Size-Structured Phytoplankton Community Without Biomass Increases in a Monsoonal Korean Coastal Ecosystem, Shin et al., Microbial Ecology Open Access 10.1007/s00248-025-02680-4

Heterotrophic respiration by soil microbes in a changing climate, Jansson et al., Nature Reviews Earth & Environment 10.1038/s43017-026-00806-x

Human-induced intensification of sea surface temperature regime shifts threatens global Large Marine Ecosystems, Xing et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-70986-z

Integrating ensemble species distribution modeling and ecological niche dynamics to assess climate-driven distributional changes of two major forest pests (Anoplophora chinensis and Anoplophora glabripennis) in China, Yang et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1874688

Long-term monitoring reveals biomass loss and concurrent dominance changes in coastal zooplankton community, Stoffers et al., Ecography Open Access 10.1002/ecog.07958

Marine Heatwave Persistence Drives Phytoplankton Miniaturization and Productivity Decline in the South China Sea, Zhao et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans 10.1029/2025jc023755

Modelling root exudation and plant-microbe interactions under CO2 fertilization in a mature forest, Schufft et al., VU Research Portal pmh:oai:research.vu.nl:openaire_cris_publications/5249553c-3d95-4531-8c0d-286e0b0ec00c

Modelling the impacts of marine heatwaves on plankton in the Salish Sea, Suchy et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-4667-2026

Predicting Coral Offspring Survival From Reef Thermal Histories in Ningaloo World Heritage Reef, Nobre, Open MIND Open Access pmh:10.5281/zenodo.21017257

The Interplay of Climate Change, Urbanisation, and Species Traits Shapes European Butterfly Population Trends, Colom et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography Open Access 10.1111/geb.70204

Towards rainy high Arctic winters: How experimental icing and summer warming affect tundra plant phenology, productivity and reproduction, Moullec et al., Journal of Ecology Open Access pdf 10.1111/1365-2745.70234

Tropical forests are facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temperature thresholds, Tiel et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2528622123

Wallace's pARCs—Making Climate, Climate Change and Biodiversity Data Available to Protected Area Managers and Conservation Planners With an Example From Biebrza National Park, Poland, Price et al., Climate Resilience and Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1002/cli2.70031

Warming summers limit reindeer grazing, weakening herbivory pressure in the mountain tundra, Stoessel et al., Ecography Open Access 10.1002/ecog.08209

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Vegetation resistance to increasing aridity when crossing thresholds depends on local environmental conditions in global drylands, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01546-w 41 cites.

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GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

A Critical Review of Carbon and Phosphorus Linkages in Soils, Ibrahim et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70804

A Drier Year Markedly Enhances Methane, but Not Carbon Dioxide, Emissions in a Mediterranean Reservoir, Ramón et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.70979

Air and soil warming have different effects on soil organic carbon storage, Luo et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03367-5

An Ice Sheet-to-Ocean Analysis of Carbon Stores and Fluxes in Earth's Polar Regions (RECCAP2, Polar Ice Sheets), Wadham et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles 10.1029/2025gb008677

An integrated framework combining multi-resolution satellite data, deep learning, and process-based modeling for urban carbon accounting, Dhawi et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1787442

Carbon exchange in a tropical montane rainforest: Annual budgets, drivers, and anomalies, Liu et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111049

Changes in Oceanic Carbon Storage Due to Anthropogenic Carbon Input Over the Past Three Decades, Hong & Zemskova, ATMOSPHERE-OCEAN pdf 10.1080/07055900.2026.2660361

Exploring the dynamic impact of biomass energy, deforestation, fossil fuels and green technology on greenhouse gas emissions in China, Chen & Arshad, Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1695374

Greenhouse Gas Emission Characteristics and Mitigation Pathways of Wastewater Treatment Plants Based on Monthly Emission Data, Zhou et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.70037

Impacts of historical land cover changes on carbon stocks in the Itacaiúnas River Basin, eastern Amazon, Cavalcante et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1724355

Interannual Variability of Oceanic Carbon Uptake Associated With Long-Term Sea-Ice Loss in the Western Arctic Ocean, Zhou et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans 10.1029/2025jc023831

Methane exchange in a California oak savanna: insights from tree stem, soil, and ecosystem fluxes, Kasak et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111347

Millennial-aged peat carbon outgassed by large humic lakes in the Congo Basin, Drake et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-026-01924-3

Millennial-aged peat carbon outgassed by large humic lakes in the Congo Basin, Drake et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-026-01924-3

Observation-constrained sensitivities of Arctic methane emissions to warming, Liu et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2523274123

Peak season soil GHG exchange after 23 years of ungulate exclusion in an old-growth temperate forest, Philipsen et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111329

Peat fires contribute disproportionately to Siberian fire carbon emissions, Khairoun et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adl2368

Photosynthesis, heat, and structure: an evident hierarchy of environmental conditions driving wetland carbon assimilation, Romero et al., Remote Sensing of Environment Open Access 10.1016/j.rse.2026.115339

Projecting nitrous oxide over the 21st century, uncertainty related to stratospheric loss, Prather & Wilson, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2524123123

Riverine woodlands as a dynamic source of the marine sedimentary carbon sink, Herzschuh et al., PNAS Nexus Open Access 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag229

Soil black carbon decline following deforestation and farming in karst rocky desertification Southwest Guangxi, China, Zhang et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1706399

Spatiotemporal dynamics and driving mechanisms of carbon sequestration advantage across ecological zones: a case study from 2000 to 2023 in the Zhangjiakou–Chengde region, China, Huang et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1709990

Strong monsoon influence on South Asian methane emissions in 2020 revealed by a Bayesian inversion constrained by satellite observations, Subramanian et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-9757-2026

Transcontinental Divergence in Soil Carbon Stock Response to Decades of Wetland Drainage, Liu et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70797

Unlocking the climate and market potential of China's blue carbon ecosystems, Benani et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.06.017

Upland Methane Sinks Under Climate Change: Global Patterns, Drivers and Trends, Cheng et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70747

WaterLANDS: A Database of Carbon Stocks, GHG Fluxes and Biodiversity Indicators in Restored European Wetlands, Ascenzi et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography Open Access pdf 10.1111/geb.70199

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Temperature responses of ecosystem respiration, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43017-024-00569-3 93 cites.

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CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

Adoption of carbon farming schemes: risk matters, Photinodellis et al., Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2026.2623365

Negative emissions to mitigate Earth system risks, Gasser et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-69896-x

Optimized deployment of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) in China's cement industry: A scenario-based analysis, Wang et al., Energy Sustainable Development/Energy for sustainable development 10.1016/j.esd.2026.101948

Temporary carbon dioxide removal to offset short-lived climate forcers, He et al., Nature Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41586-026-10607-3

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Evaluating the near- and long-term role of carbon dioxide removal in meeting global climate objectives, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01527-z 34 cites.

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Decarbonization

Decarbonising UK industrial clusters: the role of green finance and the risk(s) of lock-in, Finkill et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1836939

Decentralized solar adoption in the Global South: A comparative analytical review of pathways, trade-offs, and development outcomes, Shastri et al., Energy Sustainable Development/Energy for sustainable development 10.1016/j.esd.2026.101991

Drivers, barriers and interventions for green hydrogen supply chains: A multi-actor framework, Luukka et al., Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115160

Energy intensity, offshoring and the illusion of decarbonization, Amadei et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-74721-6

Geologic hydrogen: From natural occurrences to anthropogenic generation – A review of fundamentals, potential, challenges and prospects, Liu et al., Earth-Science Reviews 10.1016/j.earscirev.2025.105338

Intensifying research on regional decarbonization through citizen participation and communication: Insights from a Japanese case study, Hatakeyama et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104438

Long-duration electricity storage needs for coping with Dunkelflaute events in Europe, Kittel et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-75342-9

Scenario-based analysis of electric vehicle adoption in the United States: Technology, infrastructure, and electricity pricing, Gong et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115218

Selective and direct hydrogen generation from mixed plastic waste via alkaline thermal treatment with inherent carbon storage, Park et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2537552123

Towards high resolution, validated and open global wind power assessments, Peña-Sánchez et al., JuSER Publikationsportal Open Access 10.34734/fzj-2026-00534

Understanding the resource potential of natural hydrogen on Earth: Scientific gaps, uncertainties and recommendations, Etiope et al., Earth-Science Reviews Open Access 10.1016/j.earscirev.2026.105413

Wavelet Analysis of Coastal Near-Surface Wind Speed Over China and Teleconnections to Large-Scale Climate Anomalies, Tan et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70509

Wind turbines do not appear to harm health, unlike fossil power plants, Auffhammer, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10.1073/pnas.2614642123

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Circular battery production in the EU: Insights from integrating life cycle assessment into system dynamics modeling on recycled content and environmental impacts, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 10.1111/jiec.13527 36 cites.

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Geoengineering climate

Air quality impacts of stratospheric aerosol injections are likely small and mainly driven by changes in climate, not aerosol settling, Wang et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-1339-2026

Efficacy assessment of stratospheric aerosol scrubbing as a counter climate intervention strategy, Jones et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-26-7589-2026

Efficacy assessment of stratospheric aerosol scrubbing as a counter climate intervention strategy, Jones et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-26-7589-2026

Solar radiation modification in Asia: Current progress, knowledge gaps and future priorities, TANG et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.accre.2026.07.005

Targeted marine cloud brightening weakens subsequent El Niño, Wan et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adx3012

Aerosols

Asian Dust Emissions under Climate Change, Zhou et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0680.1

Global expansion of the sensitive aerosol-limited marine cloud regime under emission reductions, Han et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aef9665

Reductions in Anthropogenic Aerosol and Greenhouse Gas Drive Divergent Regional Impacts on Wildfire Risks in China Under Carbon Neutrality, Yang, Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.17538507

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
How well can persistent contrails be predicted? An update, Atmospheric chemistry and physics, 10.5194/acp-24-7911-2024 20 cites.

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Climate change communications & cognition

Associations between Climate Extremes Indicators and Changes in Subjective Well-Being in China, Xu et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103133

Backlash, Borders, and Bunkers: Critical Approaches for Research on Antidemocratic Politics and Climate Change Communication, Morris, Environmental Communication 10.1080/17524032.2025.2607041

Beyond awareness: navigating the attitude-behavior gap in climate action among urban Egyptian youth, Ead et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1806407

Change in flood and climate risk perceptions after the 2021 flood in Germany: A panel study, Ulrich & Kause, Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103129

Climate change on television reaches the engaged but misses distant audiences, Hoppe et al., Refubium (Universitätsbibliothek der Freien Universität Berlin) Open Access pmh:oai:refubium.fu-berlin.de:fub188/52246

Climate obstruction in unlikely contexts: de-thematization, scare frames, and strategic differentiation in Germany, August et al., Environmental Politics Open Access pdf 10.1080/09644016.2026.2644016

Complexities of climate change education in conflict-settings: the case of Birzeit University, Palestine, Jallad & Mukhtarova, Figshare Open Access 10.6084/m9.figshare.31375946.v1

Discourses of climate delay promoting fossil fuel extraction in Uruguay, Dorronsoro, Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2026.2632372

Emotional responses to state repression predict collective climate action intentions, Davies-Rommetveit et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-026-02570-8

Exploring the Association Between Emotions and Policy Support Across Diverse Audience Segments of Climate Change, Thaker & Bhargav, Environmental Communication 10.1080/17524032.2025.2590037

How climate justice beliefs motivate youth climate action: Distinct longitudinal emotional pathways and qualitative evidence from a climate-vulnerable and non-Western context, Tabligan et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103126

Ideology, environmental attitudes, and perceived pace of transition: explaining public acceptance of fossil fuel phase-out in Spain, Pérez-Sindín, Environmental Sociology Open Access pdf 10.1080/23251042.2026.2627449

Intraparty polarization on climate change in Republican Party discourse, 1987–2016, Bryant, Environmental Politics 10.1080/09644016.2026.2701573

Oil exploration in the Amazon Basin: narratives of disinformation and climate obstruction, Kuzuyabu & Fernandes, Global Environmental Change 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103148

Perceived state capture and corruption regarding climate change: Links to mobilisation, perceptions, and climate action intentions, Zinn et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.102937

Professional Engagement With Climate Change Among Five Communities of Practice in Virginia, USA: An Exploratory Study, Myers et al., Climate Resilience and Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1002/cli2.70029

Renewable energy discourses of fossil fuel companies: obstruction and delay of climate action, Desai et al., Energy Sustainability and Society Open Access pdf 10.1186/s13705-026-00565-z

The role of information source in climate beliefs, behavioral commitments, and policy preferences, Goldwert & Vlasceanu, Journal of Environmental Psychology 10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102896

United we stand, divided we fall: social differences in climate efficacy and beliefs among young people in Flanders, Pauwels et al., Environmental Sociology 10.1080/23251042.2025.2592166

When algorithms decide the climate: AI, disinformation, and the crisis of environmental truth in the Anthropocene, Vidal, PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000799

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Do People Respond to the Climate Impact of their Behavior? The Effect of Carbon Footprint Information on Grocery Purchases, Environmental and Resource Economics, 10.1007/s10640-024-00873-y 36 cites.

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Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

A coupled LSTM model for predicting blue carbon and fishery dynamics in tropical coastal wetlands under climate change, Zhang et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-59981-y

A modelling system for identification of maize ideotypes, optimal sowing dates and nitrogen fertilization under climate change – PREPCLIM-v1, Caian et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-627-2026

Bridging smallholder farmers to climate information: the role of agricultural advisors in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Ncoyini-Manciya & Manciya, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1746574

Carbon sequestration potential of mixed garden land use in the Gombong tropical Karst landscape of Central Java, Indonesia, Agniy et al., Discover Sustainability Open Access 10.1007/s43621-026-02894-7

Climate change, disease dynamics, and breeding responses in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) production in Tanzania: a systematic review (2005–2025), Daud et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1763987

Confidence and uncertainty: Small-scale, direct-marketing vegetable farmers’ relationship with climate change adaptation and mitigation, Webb et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000647

Confidence and uncertainty: Small-scale, direct-marketing vegetable farmers’ relationship with climate change adaptation and mitigation, Webb et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000647

Contrasting Warming Responses of Crops Harvested for Aboveground and Belowground Organs: A Global-Meta Analysis, Ys et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70996

Dual pressures of climate change and wildfire hazard on wine-growing potential in California, Hiraga & Matsumoto, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1838268

Elevated CO2 and warming intensify plant reliance on soil nitrogen reserves despite intensive fertilization, Zhu et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-75147-w

Impact of forestry carbon sink policies on farmers’ willingness to utilize idle forest land: evidence from Fujian province, China, Tan et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1718836

Knowledge, attitudes, and practices of fisherfolk in Ghana toward climate change: A cross-sectional study, Labik et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000813

Living with drought: climate change perceptions, adaptation, and mitigation among farmers in rural Bangladesh, Mahedi et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1744133

Meta-modelling of carbon fluxes from crop and grassland multi-model outputs, Hollós et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-4385-2026

Mineral Stabilization Slows Losses of Peatland Carbon Following Long-Term Drainage for Agriculture, Faulkner et al., Apollo (University of Cambridge) Open Access pmh:oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/405882

Pastoral resilience under threat: impacts of climate change, invasive plant species, and traditional ecological knowledge erosion in the Kashmir Himalayas, Sheergojri et al., Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability Open Access 10.1016/j.cosust.2026.101620

Reduced exposure diminishes compound extreme climate risk for rice, yet yield losses intensify across Southeast Asia, Chen et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111353

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Probabilistic analysis of drought impact on wheat yield and climate change implications, Weather and Climate Extremes, 10.1016/j.wace.2024.100708 33 cites.

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Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

A depth-duration-frequency model for analysis of extreme precipitation events, with application to past and projected future climates in Ireland, O’Brien et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100862

Beyond Annual Averages: Multi-Scale Rainfall Variability, Drought Indicators, and Seasonal Shifts Under a Changing Climate, Wang et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70330

Beyond the 100-year flood: probabilistic flood hazard assessment for King and Pierce Counties under future climate scenarios, Nederhoff et al., Natural hazards and earth system sciences Open Access 10.5194/nhess-26-3231-2026

Contrasting Changes in Rainy Season Length, Rainfall Frequency, and Intensity across Eastern Africa, Kisembe et al., White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) pmh:oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:236346

Digital transformation in climate change management: tools for managing droughts, floods, and frost in South America: a systematic review, Arana-Ruedas et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1765251

Emerging dryland flooding, Bai et al., Earth-Science Reviews 10.1016/j.earscirev.2026.105612

From stationary to non-stationary: Characterizing extreme precipitation behavior in an arid environment, Nikoo, Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2026.109212

Future flood risk concentration for residents near small rivers across the USA, Jiang et al., Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-026-01896-7

Glacier changes and their impact on water resources in the qilian mountains, China between 1970 and 2020, Cao et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2026.1708150

Glacier Retreat Amplifies Interannual Variability in Watershed Runoff, Organic Carbon and Nutrient Yields, Holt et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl119026

Insights from Climate Tipping Point Science for the Forthcoming IPCC Seventh Assessment Report and Reflections for National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, Stocker et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 10.1175/bams-d-26-0119.1

Regional Changes in Precipitation Concentration, Seasonality and Intermittency in China, Xiao-meng et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70199

Seasonal characteristics and trends in precipitation partitioning in the Arctic, Cast et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-2127-2026

Synergistic effects of precipitation and phase changes intensify future rain-on-snow events in the Tianshan and Pamir regions, Central Asia, Yang et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2025.100833

The opposite trends in precipitation total and extremes during two rain-seasons across Ethiopia, the Water Tower of Africa, Yate & Ren, Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2025.100813

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Modeling nonstationary intensity-duration-frequency curves for urban areas of India under changing climate, Urban Climate, 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.102065 11 cites.

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Climate change economics

Climate Change Projected to Worsen Global Economic Inequality Due To Lost Worker Productivity, Tan et al., GeoHealth Open Access 10.1029/2026gh001815

G-2 and the climate crisis: How global exports to China and the U.S. drive carbon emissions, 2000–2022, Goh & Jorgenson, PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000774

Public spending on health care, education, and sanitation is linked to lower deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon: new empirical support for the climate debt framework, Ravikumar & Zhu, Global Environmental Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.103089

Returning European Union carbon border adjustment revenues to specific products increases global welfare and reduces emissions, Zhang et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03357-7

The effects of low-carbon transitions on labour productivity: analysing UK electricity, heat, and mobility with a techno-economic simulation model, Mercure et al., Climate Policy Open Access 10.1080/14693062.2025.2522836

TOWARDS RESILIENT AND INCLUSIVE CLIMATE COMPATIBLE DEVELOPMENT: A PARTICIPATORY, MIXED-METHOD SCENARIOS APPROACH FOR ZAMBIA, Hughes et al., Global Environmental Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.103072

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Land matters: how Indigenous land restitution can inform loss and damage policy and chart a path toward an otherwise climate justice, Climate and Development, 10.1080/17565529.2024.2378027 11 cites.

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Climate change mitigation public policy research

Air travel and carbon emissions: global evidence and a UK policy evaluation, Wang, Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2026.2633440

Beyond geography, destiny, and politics: Exploring policy styles for industrial decarbonisation in Norway, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, Iskandarova et al., Energy Research & Social Science 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104563

Big dilemmas, little time: intergenerational climate justice and public support for deep decarbonisation, Citi & Im, Environmental Politics Open Access 10.1080/09644016.2026.2633837

Carbon emissions and subjective well-being in Blue Zone Ikaria and Athens, Greece, Radke et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1669144

Carbon taxes and climate action: Lessons from Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina, Muzzi & Pereda, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115191

Climate policy feasibility across Europe relies on the conditional middle, Smith et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02562-8

Climate response to Nature Future scenarios in a regional Earth System Model, Sieber et al., Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich) Open Access pmh:oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/800243

Co-benefit premiums can enhance nature-based climate solutions, Hochard et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02690-1

Commodifying carbon between reconciliation, policies and market schemes: a case study from British Columbia, Canada, Brill & Dürr, Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2025.2609396

Global renewable hydrogen certification: Frameworks, gaps, and policies, Hussain & Syron, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115212

Legitimizing wind energy in Brazil: power coalitions, discourse lock-in and transition dynamics, Pulice et al., Environmental Sociology 10.1080/23251042.2026.2626624

National climate action can ameliorate, perpetuate, or exacerbate international air pollution inequalities, Nawaz & Henze, Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-68827-0

Perspectives on Social and Justice Issues in Climate Policy – Comparing the Just Transitions, Sustainable Welfare and Eco-Social Policy Literatures, Büchs et al., Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1002/wcc.70041

Practical implementation of artificial intelligence for climate change mitigation in cities – priorities, collaborations and challenges, Hintz et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104498

The ship has sailed: On the risk of undermining the legitimacy of EU Climate Policy through the implementation of EU ETS 2, Zapletalová, Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115221

Unleashing storage by driving electric: A pathway to affordable, secure and clean energy, Palsule et al., Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115138

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Substantial differences in source contributions to carbon emissions and health damage necessitate balanced synergistic control plans in China, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-50327-8 44 cites.

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Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

A climate-environmental quality screening framework for climate mitigation and adaptation portfolios: a review and action roadmap, Jew & Jiang, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1870126

Adapting and validating a subjective resilience scale to explore individual climate resilience: gendered evidence from Bhutan, Laos and Nepal, MacArthur et al., Open MIND Open Access pmh:10.6084/m9.figshare.31403852

Broadening climate migration research across impacts, adaptation and mitigation, Cattaneo et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02545-1

Climate-adaptive urban drainage modeling: Assessing future flood hazards in Algiers, Algeria, Lameche et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102843

Development and piloting of the rural water supply climate-resilience monitoring tool (RWS-CRMT), Daniel et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2025.2582560

Energy sovereignty and climate adaptation: A community model for empowering maya women in Ixil, Yucatan, Vega-Camarena et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104345

Energy transitions, clean fuel access and urbanization: a multi-level assessment of climate risk, Yang et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2025.2560489

Exploring intergenerational knowledge transfer within Inuvialuit families: connecting wellbeing, food security, and climate resiliency, Prieto et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1694926

Numerical simulation on the thermal stability of highway embankments in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau under different climate warming rates, Xia et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2026.1886025

Overcoming local-scale climate change adaptation implementation lag, Rose et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000998

Prefiguring multispecies justice: how communities are challenging and transfiguring care, labour, and belonging in the midst of climate catastrophe, Sturman et al., Environmental Politics Open Access pdf 10.1080/09644016.2025.2467527

Risk Without Values: Including Indigenous Perspectives in Climate Risk Assessments, Scadden et al., Risk Analysis Open Access 10.1111/risa.70309

Supporting migration as a response to climate risk: precarity, adaptive capacity, and well-being dimensions, Tebboth et al., Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability Open Access 10.1016/j.cosust.2026.101682

The climate-electricity nexus in the GCC: How rising temperatures drive electricity demand across Gulf states, Mikayilov et al., Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115490

The role of international law in governing climate-induced migration: normative gaps and policy innovations, Wen, Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2026.2701077

Transformational adaptation from the bottom-up: arts, alternative imaginaries, and everyday forms of resistance, Cass & Tasnim, Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2025.2522450

Urban parks as nature-based infrastructure for climate resilient tropical cities: Insights from cooling, carbon, and culture, Wiwoho et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102790

Urban water affordability crisis exacerbated by climate change, Skerker et al., Nature Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41893-026-01890-z

Values, rules, and knowledge: Understanding and enabling land use change decisions as adaptation to climate change, Cradock-Henry et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104309

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Defining and conceptualizing equity and justice in climate adaptation, Global Environmental Change, 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102885 61 cites.

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Climate change impacts on human health

Addressing Climate-Related Mental Health Challenges Among Children, Youth, and People Living With Disabilities: A Population Mental Health Commentary, Abadi et al., GeoHealth Open Access 10.1029/2025gh001597

Analysis of Multiple Measures of Heat Stress on Morbidity and Mortality in Louisiana, Thompson et al., Weather Climate and Society 10.1175/wcas-d-25-0060.1

BIM-PDCA framework for low-carbon hospital operation in hot-summer, warm-winter regions, Rao et al., Energy Sustainable Development/Energy for sustainable development Open Access 10.1016/j.esd.2026.101952

Climate shocks, not just warming, threaten malaria control efforts in Africa, Messina & Carrel, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-00491-2

Impact of urbanization and global warming on sea-breeze, heat stress and cooling demand over greater Houston area, Tewari et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2026.108889

Projections of Heat Stress and its Impact on Labour Capacity in North America, Li et al., Figshare Open Access 10.6084/m9.figshare.31650458.v1

Public health and wellbeing under compounding climate hazards: the scale of harm is larger than we can currently see, Leppold, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability Open Access 10.1016/j.cosust.2026.101680

Understanding Mosquito Vector Invasion Pathways: Synergistic Effects of Human Mobility, Climate and Natural Dispersal, Pardo-Araujo et al., Ecology Letters Open Access 10.1111/ele.70317

Urbanization processes widen global divergence in extreme temperature variability, Qiao et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-75457-z

Valuing wildfire smoke–related mortality benefits from climate mitigation, Qiu et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2533772123

Where heat adaptation is needed most - An open-source approach to developing a transferable heat risk index for urban planning, Rupp et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2025.102769

Wildfire smoke increases assaults: evidence from Seattle, Kircheis, Environmental Research Letters Open Access 10.1088/1748-9326/ae436c

‘Water is a good thing, but when it destroys it is not good’: The influence of changing weather patterns on access to antenatal care services in Western Kenya - A qualitative study, Matanda et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000882

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Soil Moisture-Temperature Coupling Increases Population Exposure to Future Heatwaves, Earth s Future, 10.1029/2024ef004697 12 cites.

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Climate change & geopolitics

Climate change, extractivist infrastructure and environmental conflicts at the Northern Sea-Polar Silk Road intersection, Hana?ek et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104600

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Strategies for promoting climate change transparency and inclusive growth through south-south climate change cooperation, Environment Development and Sustainability, 10.1007/s10668-024-05198-w 4 cites.

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Climate change impacts on human culture

Environmental impact of athletes’ diets: greenhouse gas emissions, water footprint, and sustainability awareness, Acar et al., Environmental Science and Pollution Research 10.1007/s11356-026-37459-8

Other

An analysis of energy efficiency of various ships sailing in the European Economic Area waters, Chou et al., Humanities and Social Sciences Communications Open Access pdf 10.1057/s41599-026-08173-0

Conflicts of Interest, Funding Support, and Author Affiliation in Peer-Reviewed Research on the Relationship between Climate Change and Geophysical Characteristics of Hurricanes, Weinkle et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 10.1175/bams-d-24-0260.1

Earth's Infrared Background: A Physics-Based Null Hypothesis for the Global-Scale Subannual Variability of Outgoing Longwave Radiation, Shamir & Gerber, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl123697

Role of the Atmospheric Circulation in the Observed Warming Over Europe Using a Neural Network, Cariou et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl121861

The Populationist Climate Futures Industry: NGO SF Capital, Eco-emotions and Speculative Ecofascism, Iossifidis, Environmental Communication 10.1080/17524032.2025.2601613

Translating urban climate research into practice: Practitioner evidence from Hong Kong on formats, barriers and adoption, Lee & Ng, Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102850

Volcanoes and wildfires contributed to increased stratospheric humidification, [authors did not process], Nature Open Access 10.1038/d41586-026-02011-8

When models outrun politics: Biofuels as a stress test for scenario plausibility, Hedenus, Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104840

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Gender diversity and climate disclosure: a tcfd perspective, Environment Development and Sustainability, 10.1007/s10668-024-05203-2 9 cites.

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Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

As we breach 1.5 °C, we must replace temperature limits with clean-energy targets, Quagraine et al., Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-00246-z

US climate actions must continue, despite setbacks, Widawsky, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-00660-3

Vulnerability of marine megafauna to global at-sea anthropogenic threats, VanCompernolle et al., Conservation Biology 10.1111/cobi.70147

We need a global assessment of avoidable climate-change risks, Stott et al., Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-00544-6

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Aquatic deoxygenation as a planetary boundary and key regulator of Earth system stability, Nature Ecology & Evolution, 10.1038/s41559-024-02448-y 45 cites.

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Book reviews

Apocalyptic authoritarianism: climate crisis, media, and power, Poberezhskaya, Environmental Politics 10.1080/09644016.2026.2629722

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

Draft Strategic Energy Assessment 2026-2032, Public Service Commission of Wisconsin

The biennial Strategic Energy Assessment (SEA) provides information to evaluate Wisconsin’s current and future electricity supply. The SEA provides this evaluation in the context of four primary goals maintained by Wisconsin electricity providers and the Commission including adequate electric supply that maintains sufficient total power to meet customers’ total electric demand (i.e. resource adequacy); reliable electric supply that provides all customers access to electricity at all times, avoiding outages whenever possible; affordable electric supply that offers adequate and reliable energy at the lowest feasible cost for customers; and environmentally responsible electric supply that minimizes the negative effects of electric generation on the natural environment.

Cheaper. Cleaner. Unstoppable. Clean technologies that are delivering for the climate, James Haselip and Lakshmi Bhamidipati, United Nations Environment Program

At a time when climate risks are intensifying, this policy briefs highlights a powerful and hopeful shift: many clean solutions are no longer niche—they are becoming the new normal. Across energy, transport, buildings and food systems, “positive tipping points” are emerging. As costs fall, technologies scale, and public support grows, adoption is accelerating in self reinforcing ways. Solar power, electric mobility, and sustainable cooling are proving that climate action can be economically competitive, socially beneficial and globally scalable. This report shows that the transition is not only possible—it is already underway. With the right policies, investments and partnerships, we can amplify these positive tipping points, unlock cascading benefits, and deliver a future that is more resilient, equitable and sustainable.

Battery Geopolitics: Balancing Industrial Power in the Race to Store Energy, Milo McBride, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The United States and Europe will provide the essential playing field for diversification because they have the largest battery markets outside of China. However, much of the current capacity is tied to incumbent nickel-cobalt supply lines, and it is important that the prospective capacity is developed as new battery chemistries, which could prevent technology lock-in and abate mineral supply risks in the long term. Policymakers should wield market access as a pragmatic tool for resilience and broader diversification; for example, partnering with Chinese firms for anode materials where few alternative producers exist while ensuring that other Asian players in battery cells continue to grow and innovate. If the United States and Europe are committed to scaling domestic battery companies and indigenizing midstream materials, this will require coordinated support measures ranging from trade barriers and local-content rules to targeted subsidies that help cover operating costs during scaling as well as a clear agenda to support factory efficiency. Efforts to bring new battery cells or materials to market might benefit from joint ventures with companies capable of delivering gigawatt-hour scale, which start-ups are currently struggling to achieve.

Taming Data Center Turmoil: Hyperscalers Push Electricity Markets to Their Limits, Climate Cabinet Education

Over the past century, states have built and finely tuned a regulatory apparatus to manage the power sector. These frameworks were designed for a world of gradual, predictable load growth. Today, hyperscale data centers are breaking the system. They are upending every assumption those frameworks depend on, faster than regulators can respond. More than 300 bills were introduced across 30 states in the first six weeks of 2026, underscoring the recognition that the existing guidelines are being overwhelmed, as well as the struggle to keep pace with hyperscale demand. A system best equipped to manage tidal flows is facing a tsunami. This unprecedented situation is occurring because hyperscalers are causing multiple conditions to converge, creating challenges no regulatory framework was designed to manage simultaneously including facilities large enough that a single exit can fundamentally alter project financials and who pays for them; 5–10 year contracts for infrastructure built to last 30 years, creating years of uncertainty after contracts expire; dedicated assets with little or no alternative use; hyperscale developer-supplied electricity demand forecasts, shaped by a financial interest in approval and, thus, far from impartial; and pressure to build new natural gas systems, locking in decades of climate pollution.

Taming Data Center Turmoil: The Rise of the Hyperscalers, Climate Cabinet Education

For most of the past century, electricity demand grew predictably. Utilities could plan for gradual increases across homes, offices, and factories with high confidence. Traditional growth was steady, measured in single-digit annual percentages, and closely linked to local economies. Hyperscale energy loads (data centers, cloud facilities), however, are rewriting this rulebook. A single facility can consume as much power as 100,000 homes, and clusters of centers can add multiple gigawatts of concentrated, rapid, and globally mobile demand within just a few years. Unlike traditional industries, these facilities can appear almost overnight, challenging the slow, predictable pace of electricity planning.

Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes, Spring 2026, Leiserowitz et al., Yale University and George Mason University

Americans who think global warming is happening outnumber those who think it is not by a ratio of more than 4 to 1 (68% versus 16%). By a margin of more than 2 to 1, Americans are more likely to think global warming is mostly human-caused (59%) than to think it is mostly caused by natural changes in the environment (27%). 66% of Americans say they are at least “somewhat worried” about global warming, including 29% who say they are “very worried.” 59% of Americans think global warming is affecting weather in the United States, including 35% who think weather is being affected “a lot.” 13% of Americans have considered moving to avoid the impacts of global warming.

One Year Since the One Big Beautiful Bill: An Economic Impact Analysis Of America’s Clean Economy, BW Research Partnership, Economy and Environment

The authors detail the far-reaching economic effects of clean energy investments cancelled by the private sector since the federal government began its attempts to slow or halt the growth of clean energy beginning in January 2025. The author's modeling shows that since January 1, 2025, large-scale clean energy manufacturing and generation projects canceled in the wake of this shift in US energy policy have cost the future US economy 468,000 jobs, including more than 343,000 permanent jobs and 125,000 construction jobs; $55 billion in lost GDP growth annually from cancelled manufacturing plants and other operations, in addition to $91 billion lost from cancelled construction work; $12 billion foregone in annual tax revenue for federal, state, and local governments, in addition to nearly $20 billion in lost tax revenues just from construction activities; and $31 billion in lost annual wages for permanent workers.

National Transmission Needs Study (Draft), Office of Electricity, Department of Energy

The needs study provides a comprehensive assessment of current and future transmission needs within and across geographic regions of the U.S. The definition of electric transmission need used in this study includes the existence of present or expected electric transmission capacity constraints or congestion in a geographic area. Geographic areas where a transmission need exists would benefit from an upgraded, uprated, or new transmission facility—including alternative solutions—to improve the reliability and resilience of the power system; alleviate transmission congestion and unscheduled flows; alleviate power transfer capacity limits between neighboring regions; deliver cost-effective generation to meet demand; and/or meet projected future generation, electricity demand, or reliability requirements. The needs study includes an analysis of transmission system operational data (informed by publicly available information) and a review of more than 120 recently published reports. The purpose of this study is not to prescribe particular solutions to issues faced by the nation’s power sector, but rather to assess need in order for industry and the public to suggest the best possible solutions for addressing them in a timely manner. There is a pressing need for additional transmission infrastructure due to load growth. Increasing interregional transmission is increasingly recognized for its multifold benefits to consumers. Many regional entities are approving their largest transmission portfolios.

Military climate strategies: Are they just greenwash?, Stuart Parkinson, Scientists for Global Responsibility

The author examines the carbon reduction plans for the militaries of 26 nations, mainly from Europe and North America. The findings give much cause for concern. They show that most military emissions within these 26 nations are not covered by any specific targets, most of the targets that do exist are unambitious, and most of the emission reduction achieved to date has relied on civilian action (especially decarbonization of national electricity grids), temporary reductions in military activity, or military base closure programs. Worse, the emission reduction that has occurred now looks like it will be overwhelmed due to massive rises in military spending.

Energy Superabundance: Unlocking Prosperity in the West initiative, Western Governors Association

In a year-long initiative featuring four workshops hosted by Utah Governor Cox, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, and Idaho Governor Brad Little industry experts, thought leaders, and policymakers examined various challenges and opportunities for achieving energy superabundance across the region through expanded and improved energy production, transmission, and storage. The authors highlight key issues explored during the workshops and present federal policy recommendations developed from those discussions to help plan, finance, develop, and deploy energy projects across the West.

Levelized Cost of Energy, Lazard

Renewables remain the lowest cost new-build generation; all generation faces increasing cost pressure. Unprecedented demand reinforces the need for diverse generation and thoughtful acceleration of permitting/approval processes. There is an increasing competitiveness of existing generation. Storage costs have increased reversing recent declines.

A Significant Moment in the Colorado River Water Supply Crisis, Schmidt et al., Getches-Wilkinson Center, University of Colorado, Boulder

On Sunday, July 12, the surface of Lake Powell was 3524.32 feet above sea level, and the surface of Lake Mead was at 1042.77 ft.7 These elevations equated to 5,505,869 and 7,169,640 acre feet (af), respectively, of live storage in the two reservoirs. The combined total live storage of these reservoirs was 12,675,509 af. The last time the combined total live storage in Lake Powell and Lake Mead was this small was May 23, 1957, during construction of Glen Canyon Dam when the entire amount of 12,668,000 af was stored in Lake Mead. These two reservoirs are the largest in the United States and hold slightly less than 60% of total amount of water presently stored in the Basin. Every day going forward, until runoff from the 2026-2027 winter snowpack begins next spring, a new record low will likely be set. This is a significant moment in the evolving Colorado River water supply crisis.

GST in NDCs. How the first Global Stocktake is reflected in the NDCs, Beuermann et al., German Environment Agency

The authors evaluate the extent to which the mitigation-related outcomes of the first Global Stocktake (GST) of the Paris Agreement have been integrated into subsequent Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The authors examine whether Parties are explicitly referencing the GST as a guiding framework or are merely aligning with its thematic area, e.g. renewable energy, fossil fuel transition. The findings suggest that the GST has signaled priority areas, yet the extent of the integration of GST outcomes into national planning processes greatly varies.

Rush. Global Scramble for Minerals Wages War on People and Planet, Frédéric Mousseau and Andy Currie, The Oakland Institute

As governments and corporations scramble to secure critical minerals, the authors expose the forces fueling today’s unprecedented mining boom. They dismantle the dominant narrative that massive amounts of minerals are needed for the energy transition, revealing instead a potent convergence of political, military, and corporate interests racing to control the resources that underpin modern warfare and artificial intelligence. To justify a massive scale up of mineral extraction, governments, corporations, and international financial institutions like the World Bank, frame critical minerals as indispensable to the green transition and as a pathway to prosperity for the Global South. However, the authors document that more than 70 percent of critical mineral demand today comes from industries unrelated to the energy transition, including the automotive, aerospace, military, communications, and technology sectors. Rapid growth in artificial intelligence, data centers, surveillance technologies, and military spending is expected to increase this demand massively. About New Research

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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bridgett Ennis

s the prices of home battery systems fall, they’re becoming a key part of the modern electric grid. They can help homeowners store power from rooftop solar panels or the grid for use during outages or periods of high demand. And they can reduce strain on the grid during heat waves when electricity demand soars.

In this interview with Yale Climate Connections, Raghu Belur, the chief products officer for Enphase Energy, explains how home battery systems can lower utility bills and create backup power during grid failures. He also says that batteries, including the batteries in electric vehicles, may one day make it possible for utilities to use power from many small sources to maintain a more reliable grid. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. 

Yale Climate Connections: Could you explain what a home battery is, how it works, and the benefits it provides customers? 

Raghu Belur: The beauty of the battery is it can do a few different things. The home – which traditionally has been only a consumer of energy – is actually producing its own energy with solar on the roof. One of the limitations to solar is that it’s an intermittent resource – we don’t have solar at night – so the best way to actually maximize the utilization or the usability of solar is to add a battery. 

The second use case is you can actually sell energy back to the grid [in some places]. When there is a lot of demand on the grid and you have all these stored electrons, those electrons are very valuable for yourself as well as for the grid. So you as a prosumer – a producer and a consumer – can sell that energy to the grid and actually make money. 

The third use case for that battery is, of course, if the grid were to fail. So when the grid goes out, these batteries can create a microgrid and power the home. The whole process is seamless: It senses that the grid is gone, takes over, and runs the home on the energy that it has saved so the homeowner wouldn’t even know that the grid is gone. 

YCC: How do batteries help provide resiliency for homeowners during power outages or extreme weather? 

Belur: We are living in times where 100-year storms are the norm now. We also have to deal with things like forest fires. Usually, if there’s a storm or winter event, it lasts for a finite period of time, and the sun eventually does come out. So if you have solar and a battery, then you can ride through a multiday outage. 

And the deployment of solar and batteries is going to become more and more critical, especially as the demand in the overall infrastructure is going up significantly. The electrical demand on homes is going up substantially – you’re seeing homes getting electrified, with everything from heat pumps, induction ovens, EVs. 

But that’s not all the story. Massive demand on the utility is coming from the hyperscalers, from the AI data centers as well. 

So addressing the demand on the residential side, with deploying more and more batteries, is massively beneficial for everybody because they can help alleviate some of the stress that the grid feels as a result of all that demand that’s coming from the data center side. 

YCC: How common is it to deploy batteries on homes that don’t have solar? 

Learn more: Find out which climate action best fits into your life.

Belur: It’s not that common, but I don’t see a reason why that cannot become a trend. Solar used to be the point of entry for [a home energy] system, but an EV is also a very large battery. So we can not only intelligently charge your EV, but [with a bidirectional EV charger] you can also discharge your EV to support the grid, provide grid resiliency, or you can use the EV to power your home in the event of an outage. So you’ll find that there will be a lot of deployments where people use their car as the battery, and that’s the only thing that they have – and we believe that an EV will be the point of entry into that energy system for a lot of people. 

Read: When the power went out, an electric car kept the AC running

If you look at the way technology evolves over the long run, it decentralizes. If you think about mainframes, 40 or 50 years ago, people used to have mainframe computers – that was the norm. That’s where all the intelligence was, and all the decision-making happened there. Today we have arguably much more intelligence in our laptops and in our phones, and so we have decentralized that intelligence. 

I believe the same thing is going to happen with energy as well. Historically, all the power production or generation of energy has been centralized – you’ve got big hydroelectric plants, nuclear plants, gas-powered plants, coal plants, and large-scale solar, large-scale wind. 

What we are seeing now is this decentralization or distribution of energy, where the home is becoming the unit of intelligence. It’s the one that produces its own energy, stores and consumes [energy] intelligently, and can also optimize not only for the homeowner’s needs but also provide resiliency to the grid by exporting electrons into the grid. 

YCC: We’re seeing rising energy prices. When we talk about consumers, whether they’re leasing or buying these battery systems, what does all of this mean for consumers’ bills? 

Belur: Here’s this opportunity for the homeowner to become a prosumer – produce your own energy, consume your own energy, manage your own energy intelligently – so you can optimize your bill as well as provide resiliency. It’s a way to hedge against future energy rate increases. Depending on the location, for example, you can have a payback period of as low as four to five years. Four to five years, your energy system pays off because what you’re offsetting is a very large utility bill.

Then other places may take seven to eight years, but you’re looking at a 25-year asset. When you’re looking at a 25-year asset, a payback period from anywhere from four to eight years, that’s not too bad because once I’ve paid off my system, because I’ve offset my consumption – and by the way, my rates don’t go up – it’s my own system. 

I think it makes absolute sense that people should deploy their own energy system within their home. Of course, solar is kind of the hero of the show. That’s what this is all about, but you do need solar. You need batteries. You need EV chargers. You need software to manage everything, and you can create a tremendous amount of value and shrink that payback period down even further.

YCC: What needs to happen to scale up this approach to reach those low-income consumers who might not be able to afford to make these investments up front? 

Belur: Investors look for some level of certainty, and this is an asset class that the investment community is starting to get very comfortable with because the default rates are very low. So you’re seeing more and more dollars being invested into deploying more of these systems, because not a lot of people are defaulting on their loans, because what is their alternative? It’s not a luxury. Energy is a necessity. 

The place where things are a little uncertain is all of these government regulations changing. Whatever decision the government makes regarding whether there is going to be tax incentives or no tax incentives, those decisions need to happen quickly so you bring stability into the market. 

Read: Trump just gave a huge gift to China’s economy

In the long run, I believe that incentives should be a catalyst and not a crutch. We know we have the technology capabilities, so let’s get some of these government uncertainties out of the way and let our industry do what it does best: Deliver great economics, great value to the homeowner, and the finance industry will love that because it’s a strong asset class. It’s got low default rates, and we know we’ll always need energy.

The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people.

Together, these initiatives would have made up around half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support conservation in the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.

When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge by 12 donors of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.

Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.

Alongside the US and much of Europe, the UK has significantly cut its aid budget in recent years, leading to much of its Congo rainforest spending being cancelled or reappraised.

The government says it still plans to “prioritise” rainforest regions, including the Congo basin, but civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.

COP pledge

At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030. This was backed by more than 140 nations.

The UK also made various funding pledges, including £200m to protect the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.

These commitments target the world’s three largest rainforests, all of which face major forest loss due to threats such as agriculture, logging and climate change. 

The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink. Yet, its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.

This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.

Forest cuts

Following successive aid cuts introduced by both the Conservative and then Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.

The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was launched by the UK at COP27. It was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.

CBFA set out to “empower central African nations”, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with support for “community forests” and other measures to curb forest loss.

Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s recent aid cuts, intended to free up money for defence spending. 

Its original £90m budget has now been reduced to £18.8m. Government data shows that £15m of this has already been spent.

This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to this latest round of aid cuts.

The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – championed by the previous government and worth at least £12.3m – has been closed, just two years into its seven-year schedule.

Government documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk as the UK scales back its aid budget, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region. 

One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”. Officials working on the other, while more optimistic, reported that the project may be forced to operate in fewer countries as the cuts set in.

Documents also reveal the difficulties that come when operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.

‘Breaking promises’

Damian Fleming, a senior director of forests at WWF International tells Carbon Brief:

“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”

In a series of recent parliamentary responses, Chapman revealed that the UK had only spent £39.8m on Congo forest finance, as of 2024. (She declined to provide any information on the Indonesia and Amazon regional goals.) 

Despite being presented as the UK’s “contribution” to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029. 

Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution so far has been relatively small.

Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, tells Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:

“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world for whom the environment is an existential issue.”

Future targets

The Labour government says it has met the five-year “climate finance” target of £11.6bn that expires this year.

Ministers also say the government has met “and exceeded” the £3bn and £1.5bn sub-goals for “preserving nature” and forests, respectively, within the £11.6bn. These are the funding streams that include support for the Congo basin and other rainforests.

The UK has funded a variety of projects in line with its forest goals, including mangrove restoration in Indonesia, support for carbon-offsetting projects in Brazil and promoting “forest stewardship” among farmers in Cameroon.

Chapman has stated that the UK will continue to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest, in line with its new plan for aid spending in Africa. The UK even helped to launch a new “call to action” for Congo basin funding at COP30 last year.

The UK government also says it supported the creation of Brazil’s flagship “Tropical Forest Forever Facility” (TFFF). However, so far it has not provided any funding for the facility.

When the government announced a new climate finance pledge for 2026 onwards, it stressed that nature would still be a “focus” and said it would also generate billions in “climate and nature positive investments”. Nevertheless, it dropped the “ring-fenced” amounts for nature and forests that had appeared in its previous pledge.

The UK, alongside other developed countries, has pledged to provide biodiversity finance to developing countries, under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) – a non-binding global pact to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. 

Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee of MPs, says “sub-pledges” for nature and forests are a “cost-effective and impactful” way to ensure this finance is provided, alongside climate finance. She tells Carbon Brief that she was “concerned” about the move away from this approach:

“When the minister recently appeared before the international development committee, I was concerned to hear her characterise this shift as a ‘gamble’.”

A government spokesperson tells Carbon Brief:

“We remain committed to providing finance for forests, including in the Congo basin, as a core element of our overall climate funding.”

A shorter version of this article was first published in Cropped, Carbon Brief’s fortnightly newsletter that provides a digest of food, land and nature news, on 15 July 2026. Subscribe for free.

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The post UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo  appeared first on Carbon Brief.

We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

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

Key developments Global drought and heat 

DRY THEN WET: A recent heatwave and months of low rainfall has led to a prolonged drought for Uganda, resulting in at least 16 deaths from hunger and significant crop losses, reported BBC News. Bastille Post Global suggested that “a developing El Niño later this year could bring heavier rainfall to parts of the region, raising the risk of flooding in areas now struggling with drought”. 

FUNDING FOOD: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have appealed for $200m in funding to help African nations deal with the impact of El Niño, stated Deutsche Welle. This would target 22 high-risk countries with measures, including “cash transfers, climate-resilient seeds, livestock protection and flood control.” The Guardian explained how El Niño could still “cause a severe shock to global food prices lasting into 2028”. 

FARMING FEARS: Extreme weather has devastated agriculture across the world. India saw its driest June in 12 years, reported BBC News, and France has had a “double-digit production” decline, according to Le Monde. The Financial Times reported that farmers in the UK are mitigating the impacts of extreme heat by eliminating “chemicals and intensive ploughing to improve soil quality so it retains water”.

EURO FIRES: Wildfires have spread across Europe, with Spain reporting at least 12 deaths so far, according to the Guardian, and France experiencing road closures, said Reuters. Wildfire Today reported that the most extreme conditions are “across France, Spain and northern Portugal, the Alpine arc extending into northern Italy, the south of the UK and south-east Ireland”. CNN explained how “the climate crisis is driving hotter, drier weather, which is setting the stage for fiercer fire seasons”.

Endangering species 

REDEFINING HARM: The Trump administration “reversed decades of longstanding environmental law protecting endangered species…opening up sensitive habitats…to drilling, mining, farming and real estate development”, reported CNN.  According to the story, the change “redefines what constitutes ‘harm’” to endangered species, which historically prohibited habitat modification or degradation. Agence France-Presse reported that US environmental groups sued the Trump government over the move, arguing that it had violated “common sense, biological science and federal law”. 

OPEN SEASON: Reuters reported that the change “limits the reach of the 50-year-old Endangered Species Act” (ESA), which is a “key regulatory consideration” when granting permits for “oil and gas, mining, electric transmission and ​other operations on federal lands and water”. Legal scholars told the New York Times the US government “was acting without conducting scientific research into the impact” of the change, while the National Mining Association “applauded the announcement”. 

News and views

• INTERNATIONAL WATERS: After a significant delay, the UK ratified the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ), also known as the High Seas Treaty. Oceanographic detailed how this will allow for “marine protected areas across international waters for the first time”, but also stressed that the “hard part” starts now. 
• SCOPE-FREE: The world’s largest meat supplier JBS “scrapped a key climate goal” in its net-zero plan that accounts for its suppliers’ emissions, “which make up the vast bulk of the company’s environmental footprint”, reported the Financial Times. The company told the paper it was difficult to control these “indirect” emissions.
• DEEP TROUBLE: Pacific gray whales are facing a “catastrophic die-off” as sea-ice loss threatens their food sources, said the Guardian. Separately, conservationists warned that more than half of all molluscs that “cluster around underwater vents” could face extinction from deep-sea mining, reported Reuters.
• ETHANOL PUSHBACK: India’s new rules to promote 100% ethanol fuel and make ethanol-blended fuel mandatory at pumps “triggered a political row”, reported the Times of India. While the Indian government defended the push to automobile owners, a Hindu editorial and an Indian Express comment warned against incentivising fuels made from “water-intensive” sugarcane and rice. 
• AMAZON ACTION: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell to its lowest level in a decade, but president Lula’s plans to “end illegal deforestation by 2030” could be hampered if he is not re-elected, reported Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, Colombia’s outgoing environment minister warned of greater environmental and climate risk under the incoming government, said the Associated Press. 
• WAR WORRIES: The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned of the impact of the Iran war on Africa’s clean cooking efforts as disruption in the strait of Hormuz has stunted supplies and increased prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), explained Climate Home News. 

Spotlight UK ‘discards’ Congo rainforest funding

Amid worldwide cuts to aid spending, Carbon Brief explores how the UK is backtracking on funding for the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.

The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people. 

Together, these initiatives would have made up half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support forest conservation in the Congo basin.

When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.

Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.

COP pledge

At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030.

The UK also made various regional funding pledges, including £200m for the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.

All of these rainforests face major forest loss. The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink, but its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.

This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.

African elephant pictured in Congo. Credit: BIOSPHOTO / Alamy Stock Photo Forest cuts

Following successive aid cuts introduced by both Conservative and Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.

The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.

Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s aid cuts. Its £90m budget has been “quietly reduced by 79% to £18.8m”, according to the Times.

This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to aid cuts. The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – worth at least £12.3m – has closed five years early.

Official documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region. One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”.

Documents also show the difficulties operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.

‘Breaking promises’

Damian Fleming, a senior forests director at WWF International told Carbon Brief:

“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”

In a parliamentary response, Chapman said that the UK had spent £39.8m towards its £200m Congo target, as of 2024. 

Despite being described as the UK’s contribution to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029. Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution was relatively small.

Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, told Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:

“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world.”

The Labour government says it has met its overarching “climate finance” goals and still intends to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest. 

However, civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.

Watch, read, listen

TOXIC TROUBLES: DeSmog unpacked a new report that said Northern Ireland is being turned into a “toxic” pig and poultry farming “sacrifice zone” to satiate the UK’s meat appetite.

NEED TO NOAA: Laid-off scientists from the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) launched Climate.Us – an independent, public-backed version of the climate information website shut down by Trump last year.

DRY FRUIT: A Dialogue Earth long read looked at how climate change is impacting apricot harvests in the “stark, high-altitude desert” region of Ladakh, India. 

READING ALOUD: A London Review of Books podcast discussed Robin Wall Kimmerer’s influential book “Braiding Sweetgrass”, weighing its compelling themes and where it veers into “scientific overreach”. 

New science

• Climate change could cause Indigenous peoples in the Amazon to lose 28-34% of their plant species and 18-23% of their associated services | Nature
• Biodiversity in forests can act as a “buffer” against compound extreme weather events | Nature Communications
• Zero-deforestation commitments in Indonesia’s palm oil sector have had “no additional impacts” on reducing forest loss | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

In the diary

• 7-15 July: High-level political forum on sustainable development | New York City 
• 13-31 July: Meeting of the International Seabed Authority assembly and council | Kingston, Jamaica
• 16 July: International Energy Agency critical minerals outlook 2026, online
• 27 July-1 August: Scientific and technical subsidiary body meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity | Nairobi, Kenya

This edition of Cropped was written by Jess Milligan, Josh Gabbatiss and Aruna Chandrasekhar. Cropped is edited by Dr Giuliana Viglione. This edition was edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org.

Cropped 1 July 2026: Heatwave scorches Europe | UK 2050 farm plan | What’s next for the High Seas Treaty

Cropped

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01.07.26

Cropped 17 June 2026: Coral reef ‘hope’ | Ocean talks | Plant flowering times ‘shift’

Cropped

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17.06.26

Cropped 3 June 2026: Highway through the Amazon | El Niño impact | State of CO2 removal

Cropped

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03.06.26

Cropped 20 May 2026: Deforestation roadmap | Melanesian Ocean Summit | Returning pet parrots to the wild

Cropped

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20.05.26

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The post Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.

Do electric vehicles stop working in extreme heat?

Extreme heat can temporarily reduce range, but recent research does not show that EVs are unable to operate in hot weather.

Much of the decrease comes from energy diverted to cool the vehicle, not because EV batteries or motors stop functioning. Modern EVs use thermal management systems to keep components within safe operating temperatures.

U.S. Department of Energy testing in 2024 found EV range fell on average about 14% at an ambient temperature of 95°F (35°C) compared with mild weather. However, the same proportional decrease was measured for gasoline vehicles under comparable conditions. 

AAA testing of popular EV models in 2026 found an average range decrease of 8.5% at 95°F. Meanwhile, a 2025 study of 345,000 real-world EV trips found a 16% reduction at temperatures up to 122°F (50°C).

Extreme heat can reduce efficiency, but it does not make EVs unable to function.

Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact

This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as this one.

Sources

U.S. Department of Energy Impact of Cold Ambient Temperature and Extreme Conditions on Electric Vehicles

AAA TEMPERATURE EFFECTS ON ELECTRIC AND HYBRID VEHICLE EFFICIENCY

Applied Energy Extreme heat effects on electric vehicle energy consumption and driving range

Recurrent How Hot Summer Weather Affects EV Range

Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles

[Based on Evan's suggestion in the comments, we updated the title to eliminate the double negative. July 15, 2026]

Please use this form to provide feedback about this fact brief. This will help us to better gauge its impact and usability. Thank you!

About fact briefs published on Gigafact

Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer "yes/no" answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all of our published fact briefs here.

The UK’s incoming prime minister Andy Burnham has remained tight-lipped on his views on climate change during his leadership campaign.

When asked his views on reversing Labour’s manifesto pledge to stop new North Sea drilling in June – a move that the oil-and-gas industry and right-wing media have pushed for in recent months – he said he had “something of an open mind” on the issue.

But a trawl of Burnham’s past comments about climate change, net-zero and fossil fuels reveals a different picture.

Just a year ago in June 2025, Burnham, while mayor of Greater Manchester, gave his support to the fossil fuel treaty – a proposed international pact on phasing out coal, oil and gas – calling it a “lifeline” that “all governments” should join.

In a video message endorsing the treaty, he also said that “there should be no turning away from net-zero”.

During his last bid to be Labour leader in 2015, he used similar language, saying: 

“Labour under my leadership will never turn our back on either our duty to tackle climate change or the prospects offered by the green economy.”

Burnham has spoken about the threat of climate change since at least 2008, noting in 2021 that accelerated action could “create thousands of good jobs”, but also warning that net-zero risked becoming the “next Brexit”.

Burnham is yet to appoint his cabinet, but there is much speculation that he will select current net-zero secretary Ed Miliband as his chancellor – with their ally Miatta Fahnbulleh having a “strong chance” of taking Miliband’s former position.

Below, Carbon Brief recounts 28 things that Burnham has said about climate change, net-zero, fossil fuels, energy and transport.

Climate change 

“Tackling climate change isn’t just about protecting the planet – it’s a powerful opportunity to build a fairer, greener future for our communities and businesses.”  

Calling for local councils to be given more power and money for climate action, 29 November 2025 

“There is little doubt that Greater Manchester’s biodiversity has taken a hit over the years, with habitats being lost, destroyed and becoming less diverse due to the impact of development, climate change, pollution and invasive species…We are committed to delivering a city-region for all residents to enjoy – a fairer, greener and more prosperous place for everyone.” 

Statement after Greater Manchester declared a “biodiversity emergency”, 25 March 2022

“Over the next decade, if we accelerate our response to the climate crisis, we can create thousands of good jobs, improve homes, overhaul our transport system and make [Manchester] an even better place to live.”

Greater Manchester Green Summit, 18 October 2021

“The environment has never been higher on the national and international agenda.” 

Statement after visiting a peat bog restoration project in England, 9 January 2020

Andy Burnham (left) and others, including members of Massive Attack, endorsing the Fossil Fuel Treaty in June 2025. Credit: Fossil Fuel Treaty

“I think climate change [action] will be driven more quickly from the bottom up, if I’m honest. It’s the will of evolution if you wait for the government to act…When governments aren’t listening you get out and get your voice heard…so I think [climate protesters] deserve our encouragement, not our criticism.” 

Speaking to Manchester Evening News at a student climate protest in Manchester, 24 May 2019

“Labour under my leadership will never turn our back on either our duty to tackle climate change or the prospects offered by the green economy.” 

Labour leadership candidate speech, 15 July 2015 

“Climate change can seem a distant, impersonal threat – in fact the associated costs to health are a very real and present danger…We need well-designed climate change policies that drive health benefits.” 

Speaking to the Guardian about a study on climate and health, 25 November 2009

“The Stern report on the economics of climate change has changed the debate, in this country and around the world. It made it clear that the people who could suffer most from a failure to tackle climate change, or from a lack of ambition in our approach to it, are those living in the developing countries. They are the most vulnerable…[and] Stern said that the cost of not acting would be large. That is why the government took various measures in the recent spending review to ensure that we are prepared to face the challenges posed by climate change.” 

Speaking in the UK parliament on the economic impacts of climate change on his final day as chief secretary to the Treasury, 24 January 2008

Net-zero

“There should be no turning away from net-zero.” 

Speaking after giving his support to the fossil fuel treaty – a proposed global pact to introduce laws to phase out coal, oil and gas – on behalf of Manchester, 6 June 2025 

“An opportunity is opening up for Britain as other countries move away from net-zero. We should seize that…We can make Britain a green leader. This is not the time to tiptoe, it is the time to commit to this path.”

Speaking at Innovation Zero World Congress in London, 29 April 2025 

“[We] need a government that fully buys into the 2038 vision because the UK will not get to 2050 unless places like Greater Manchester are freed up to go faster – and we’re ready to go faster.”

Speaking about Greater Manchester’s aim to reach net-zero by 2038, 19 October 2022 

“In Greater Manchester we have plans to build 30,000 net-zero social rented homes because we recognise that a successful city region needs good quality, affordable accommodation for everyone.”

Speech on the future of cities, 24 June 2022  

“By building a broad consensus behind the drive to net-zero, we can ensure that the transition is a fair one that delivers social justice as well as climate justice. This is an opportunity for all of us to show how cutting carbon emissions in our cities can make a real difference to our communities – away from the abstractions and rooted in the real world.” 

Panel discussion in Glasgow during the COP26 climate summit, 12 November 2021 

“To the extent that people have picked up anything from COP26, it’s a sense that the drive to net-zero will mean cost and inconvenience for ordinary people and offsetting for the wealthy and entitled. All of a sudden, you can feel how net-zero could become the new Brexit –  a debate that gets very divided on class grounds…This has got to be a wake-up call. We cannot let this happen. We need to act now to build a broad social consensus behind the drive to net-zero. How to do that? It starts with taking control of the climate narrative from those steering it in the wrong direction and turning it around…We must show how, if done in the right way, the drive to net-zero is actually an opportunity to reduce the cost of living; to make people’s lives better and society fairer.”

Writing for the London Standard, 5 November 2021 

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“The drive to net-zero is a chance to re-industrialise the north of England, this time in a clean way. Create really good jobs, future-facing jobs for people, better public transport, improve people’s homes…If we go quickly towards net-zero, it’s the quickest way to level up the country.” 

ITV interview at COP26, 1 November 2021 

“If we really embrace the drive to net-zero, that is the route to level up the country…But it needs substantial investment, upfront, now, of the kind that Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor [and chancellor under Keir Starmer’s government], has been talking about. We need long-term predictable funding.” 

Interview with GB News at COP26, 1 November 2021 

“I would have preferred to hear slightly less about carbonated wine and much more about a decarbonised economy.” 

Referencing a UK budget, which included tax cuts for sparkling wine and other drinks, 28 October 2021 

“Decarbonising is not just about lowering costs on to people. It’s the route to get better, cheaper public transport. It’s the route to getting homes that are cheap to run. It’s actually the way we can create thousands of good jobs for the people who live in Greater Manchester. This is the route to levelling up the country by going further and faster on decarbonisation.”

Speaking to Manchester Confidential, 20 October 2021 

“[I am] asking people to stop seeing the environmental agenda as a cost and a burden agenda. I think this is a barrier that we’ve got to get over. Already in the media interviews I’ve done today, people are saying ‘can you afford it?’, ‘can it be achievable when times are tough?’. 

“My answer to that is, at some point in the 21st century, all homes will be zero-carbon. At some point in this century, all buildings of any kind will be zero-carbon…All cars will be zero-carbon, all public transport will be zero-carbon…The question is: when? And surely the places that embrace those things first are putting themselves in a position of economic strength when it comes to facing up to the future. Rather than seeing the whole agenda as a burden, we’ve got to see it for the benefits that it can bring. 

“There may be a greater upfront cost in a zero-carbon home, but let’s stop thinking, as we tend to do in Britain, of the short-term, the short-termist approach to life. Surely let’s start talking to the public about the lifetime cost.”

Greater Manchester Green Summit, 21 March 2018 

Fossil fuels

“I’ve got something of an open mind, you know. I don’t have a sort of fixed position.”

Speaking on the issue of new North Sea oil and gas in a New Statesman interview, 3 June 2026

“We would fight this in GM [Greater Manchester]…Communities across the north would face all the danger and disruption while big oil and gas walk away with all the profits.”

In response to Reform’s call for fracking, on X, 25 August 2025

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“I am proud to endorse the fossil-fuel treaty proposal today on behalf of Greater Manchester. It’s not just a plan – it’s a lifeline. It’s a call to end coal, oil and gas, hold polluters accountable…I urge all governments, nationals and subnationals to join this fight.” 

Statement upon endorsing the fossil-fuel treaty, 5 June 2025

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“Fracking is the past, it is not the future.”

Speech at London climate protest, 20 September 2019

“I have called for a moratorium on fracking. Far too many potential risks and unanswered questions.”

On X, 22 June 2015

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“What I would do, if successful, is lay out a plan for more public control over water, energy, transport, so that over the period we can get those bills down, fares down, and give people and give businesses breathing space.”

LBC interview, 2 July 2026

“I am all in favour of tough decisions at a national level. I don’t believe there should be a third runway at Heathrow, for instance. But I think those are decisions for national government.”

Guardian interview, 13 June 2019

“There is a debate to be had about aviation, isn’t there? There are changing public attitudes about aviation. Rather than just saying no to people flying, don’t we need to accelerate research into low and zero-carbon forms of aviation?”

Guardian interview, 13 June 2019

“Today, I stand alongside the mayors of some of the greatest cities in the world. I’m committed to a cleaner, greener and healthier future for Greater Manchester. Around a third of greenhouse gas emissions in our city-region come from transport.”

When signing the C40 Fossil-Fuel-Free Streets Declaration, which includes support for zero-emissions vehicles and walking and cycling, on behalf of Manchester, 14 September 2018

UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo 

Nature policy

|

15.07.26

Analysis: UK newspapers have already printed 63 editorials in 2026 backing North Sea drilling 

Media analysis

|

01.07.26

Livestock heat deaths in transit doubled in UK record-hot summer of 2025

Food and farming

|

25.06.26

Analysis: UK sales of electric vehicles just overtook petrol cars for the first time

Other technologies

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25.06.26

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The post 28 quotes from next UK leader Andy Burnham on climate, net-zero and fossil fuels appeared first on Carbon Brief.

by Neil Greet, first published at The Canberra Times 

The cost of living is at the centre of Australians’ concern and a major political battleground, but one of the biggest inflation threats is flying under the radar: a food-cost crisis brewing at the intersection of two current global events.

The first is the war on Iran that has cut global fertiliser supply by a third and doubled prices in some cases, the consequence being less planting of grain staples this year, and lower yields over the next year. Australia’s wheat harvest in 2025-26 is expected to be down by a quarter. Across Asia, it will also affect rice and other crop yields.

The second is that 2026 may be the hottest year in the modern record, and 2027 even hotter, as a result of a record-breaking “super”  El Niño driving up temperatures, on top of a world that has already heated by 1.5°C due to the burning of oil, coal and gas.

This will result in a hotter, drier 2026-27 summer in Australia and enhanced fire and drought risks, with the likelihood of lethal heat, record-breaking heatwaves, severe bushfires and adverse impacts on food production. In much of Asia, the El Niño will also produce hotter, drier conditions, unlivable heat and potentially weaker or delayed monsoons.

The deadly combination of a strong El Niño and the fertilizer crisis will have a significant impact on food production, and lead to shortages, higher prices, panic buying and perhaps social unrest and conflict in some parts of the world. We have seen this before: the main trigger of the Arab Spring was simultaneous wheat harvest failures in major producing countries, which led to a tripling of wheat prices and widespread rioting.

Four crops – wheat, rice, maize and soybeans – provide more than 60% of the world’s calorie intake. Wheat and maize are highly dependent on nitrogen fertiliser for protein content and yield; and high-yield rice is also significantly nitrogen fertiliser dependent. The threat to food security from the war on Iran is significant and ongoing, and so are extreme heatwaves which can severely affect yields.  

The global interconnection of food systems and markets means that no country is insulated from the consequences. Climate change can be abrupt, and so can the consequences. But the Australian Government is one of many that appears not to routinely consider extreme climate scenarios in their security plans, instead assuming that climate risks will gradually evolve over the long term.

This is a dangerous mistake that would leave Australia poorly prepared. The double-whammy of fertiliser shortages and extreme heat could produce unexpected events in neighbouring countries with whom Australia has security arrangements, and Australia will not be immune. Defence and emergency services may be spread too thin over multiple competing response demands. 

There is an urgent need to enhance the capacity of neighbours to withstand climate-changed-driven food shocks. Australia’s system for assessing and preparing for such climate risk is inadequate, and now is the time to establish an Abrupt Climate Change Early Warning System and fund and integrate climate research in Australia in a manner that will deliver a sound platform for realistic risk assessment and government planning and policy-making.

Domestically, climate disasters have had a dramatic impact on insurance premiums and availability. Premiums in disaster-prone regions have increased by up to 400%, posing a systemic financial risk.  

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority warns that an estimated one in seven households are uninsured today, which may be one in four households by 2050, and that a growing home insurance protection gap can lead to greater uninsured financial losses for households and banks, which can in turn erode financial system resilience.

Three food crops  — maize, rice and wheat —  account for 42 per cent of calories that people eat around the world. Scientists warn that even under an optimistic, low-emissions climate scenario, those crops will experience dramatic increases in heat stress by 2050, with 27 per cent of maize, 36 per cent of wheat and 87 per cent of rice at risk.

Climate-driven food shocks, reduced yields and higher production costs will drive ongoing food-flation. Research from the European Central Bank published in 2024 found that rising temperatures and extreme weather events will push food prices and inflation higher over the next decade, and that in a worst-case scenario food inflation would be more than four per cent per year across large parts of the world.

UN climate chief Simon Stiell says that the climate crisis is a cost-of-living crisis because “climate disasters are driving up costs for households and businesses… worsening climate  impacts will put inflation on steroids unless every country can take bolder climate action.”

How events will unfold over the next 6 to 12 months is uncertain, but it is prudent to look ahead and consider plausible scenarios. Are we prepared for this, and for the consequences for human security both at home and across the Indo-Pacific?

Neil Greet is a former Australia Defence Force Colonel.  

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler

I have a commentary in Carbon Brief today, written with my friend, Prof. Chris Callahan. It focuses on the recent heatwave in France.

One point we wanted to make, but that was downplayed after the elves at Carbon Brief edited the piece, is that this event should make us rethink the victory lap people took after RCP8.5 was judged to be implausible.

The focus on arguments about emissions scenarios that only affect the climate late in this century takes the spotlight off the fact that the impacts of climate change are already here and they’re significant, as this French heatwave shows.

The reduction in future emissions is good news, but it may be cancelled by the fact that models seem to be underestimating the extreme heat that Europe is experiencing.

Here is a reprint of our Carbon Brief piece:

In June 2026, a record-breaking heatwave swept across Europe, with France among the first and hardest hit countries.

In a new analysis, we estimate that the extreme conditions caused more than 2,700 heat-related deaths in France.

We also show how France’s extreme temperatures in June exceeded projections from climate models.

Our findings illustrate the human toll of extreme weather as the world warms.

We also highlight the challenges in projecting the magnitude of future heatwaves and their impacts on people.

Outpacing projections

For most of this century, Europe has seen summer heat extremes that outpace projections from climate models.

Several different factors likely explain this trend, including reductions in planet-cooling aerosols as nations have cleaned up their air pollution, as well as changes in atmospheric circulation patterns, which models struggle to represent.

In June 2026, daily high temperatures averaged across France reached 36.9°C, shattering the previous June record set in 2022 by 2.4°C1.

The rise in observed temperatures in France has outpaced projections made by climate models, with June maximum temperatures more in line with what was expected for the 2070s.

This is illustrated in the figure below, which shows how France’s average maximum daily high temperature for June recorded in 2026 (black line) compares to climate model projections (blue and orange lines).

Comparison of observed (ERA5, black) and modelled (blue and orange) temperatures across France from 2000 to 2080. Plot shows the maximum daily high temperature recorded in June for each year, after averaging temperatures across France. The model ensembles are bias-corrected CMIP6 model ensembles from the NEX-GDDP (blue) and CIL-GDPCIR (orange) projects. The dashed blue and orange lines are the ensemble averages. Credit: Prof Andrew Dessler. Counting the death toll of climate change

The downstream impacts of these extreme temperatures are lethal.

Scientists are able to estimate the death toll of high temperatures in many locations, depending on the availability of mortality and climate data.

There are several ways to do this.

One option is to examine death certificates to see which deaths have been directly recorded by physicians as related to heat. However, there is strong evidence that this method significantly undercounts heat-related deaths, as most death certificates do not consider environmental factors such as heat when diagnosing the cause of death.

Alternatively, it is possible to calculate the rate of total (“all-cause”) mortality in a given time period relative to previous time periods – for example, by comparing the total number of deaths in June 2026 compared to the average of previous Junes. This “excess deaths” figure can be used as an estimate of the deaths from a heat wave.

Using this approach, Public Health France attributed around 2,000 deaths in France to the extreme heat in the week of 22-28 June.

Finally, scientists can use long-term data on overall mortality and correlate changes in mortality with changes in temperature to understand the statistical relationship between the two.

Research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2025 that used this third approach found that mortality rates in France increase rapidly in cold or hot conditions as daily maximum temperatures depart further from approximately 20C.

This pattern of a U-shaped response of mortality to temperature — shown in the figure below — is very consistent across time periods and regions around the world.

  Relationship between daily high temperature and all-cause mortality rates in France, estimated using data over 2004-19. Credit: Dr Christopher Callahan, based on data and methods in Callahan et al. (2025)

To calculate the death toll of the June 2026 heatwave in France, we compared observed temperatures over 12-29 June to their baseline average over 1980-2025.

The difference between these two temperatures helps us understand how many more people died than they would have in the absence of such extreme conditions.

Over 12-29 June, we found that France has experienced around 2,700 heat-related deaths above the average baseline. Day-to-day heat-related mortality rates rose from less than 100 to almost 300 on the hottest days of 24 and 25 June.

This is shown in the graph below, which illustrates the cumulative total heat-related deaths seen in France over the two-and-a-half week period. The inset shows how heat-related deaths fluctuated on a day-to-day basis during this time.

Estimated heat-related mortality over 12-29 June, based on a U-shaped response of mortality to temperature. The main plot shows cumulative total deaths and the inset shows daily deaths. Credit: Dr Christopher Callahan, based on data and methods in Callahan et al. (2025)

Recent analysis by World Weather Attribution has already shown that human-caused climate change increased the frequency and intensity of the June heat wave across Europe.

Meanwhile, previousresearch has shown there is substantial evidence that heat-related mortality in Europe has already been elevated by greenhouse gas emissions.

As a result, we can be confident that at least some of the more than 2,700 deaths already seen in France are directly due to the burning of fossil fuels.

Calculating climate risk

In April, the UN-led body responsible for coordinating the work of climate modelling centres — the Coupled Modelling Intercomparison Project (CMIP) — unveiled a set of seven new emissions scenarios.

These are designed to replace the previous scenarios that have been used by scientists to understand how the climate might change in the future. They will feed into the upcoming seven assessment report (AR7) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The range of future emissions in the new CMIP scenarios is smaller, with scenarios of very high or very low emissions no longer on the table.

The retirement of the very-high emissions scenario — known as “RCP8.5” — led to certain commentators in the media and in politics, including US president Donald Trump, arguing that the risks of climate change had been “overstated”2.

Our analysis of June’s heat-related deaths in France suggests that, even if the most severe emissions pathways are no longer needed, climate impacts are taking a heavy toll on society.

Moreover, the temperatures seen in France show that climate models continue to underpredict the magnitude of heatwaves for a particular level of global warming.

This is because greenhouse gas emissions are only a first step in estimating the impacts of climate change.

The second step is converting emissions to changes in the climate at both the global and local levels — or hazards. This includes heatwaves, flash floods and droughts.

The third step is to determine how changes in the hazards will affect local populations. This can be determined by calculating people’s exposure and vulnerability to hazards.

Substantial uncertainty persists at every stage of this sequence.

For example, scientists do not know exactly how the global climate will react to ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions — nor the extent to which global temperature increases will drive local climate hazards. We also do not know how climate change at a local level impacts human health outcomes.

Managing the future of heat risk

Almost all heat-related deaths are preventable.

Adaptation options, such as air conditioning, heat action plans and social support for isolated people, will be crucial as the climate moves away from the typical conditions that people are used to.

Our previous research showed that France made a lot of progress reducing heat-related mortality after the deadly 2003 summer heatwave by taking many of these actions.

Adaptation can reduce deaths, but it cannot eliminate the risk created by continued warming.

Without a move away from fossil fuels, future heatwaves will keep testing the limits of public health systems and more people will die.

Thanks for reading The Climate Brink! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.

other stuff

My old friend3 Steve Wilson has a new Substack. It’s not about climate, it’s about U.S. drug policy. He’s writing a book and is posting chapters and they’re pretty good. Check it out.

I’d be grateful if you could hit the like button ?? below! It helps more people discover these ideas and lets me know what’s connecting with readers.

1 For more on the impacts and coverage of Europe’s June heatwave, see Carbon Brief’s explainer.

2 For more on false and misleading claims around the new emissions scenarios, see Carbon Brief’s factcheck.

3 I mean that I’ve been friends with him for a long time not that he’s old.

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 5, 2026 thru Sat, July 11, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Change Impacts (11 articles)

• Ocean surface temperatures hit record high as world enters ‘uncharted territory,’ scientists warn Temperatures on the ocean surface hit a record high in June, European scientists warned Wednesday, fueling fears of more dangerous heat waves this summer and fanning concerns over the escalating global climate crisis.y NBC News, Chantal Da Silva, Jul 1, 2026.
• Heat, Drought, & Fires Disrupt USA`s 250th Anniversary - But We Ain`t Seen Nothing Yet A country that is by and large ignoring global heating is having celebrations of its 250-year anniversary/birthday canceled because of global heating. CleanTechnica, Zachary Shahan, Jul 04, 2026.
• Rising seas make once-rare coastal floods 12 times more likely Phys.org, Alexa St. John, Jul 04, 2026.
• Where do heat waves come from? Just like the adage “a rising tide lifts all boats,” a warming climate raises the baseline temperature from which heatwaves start. '' The Climate Brink, Andrew Dessler, Jul 04, 2026.
• Deadly heat wave in France shows the future of climate risk Professor Andrew Dessler points out that celebration over the recently retired RCP 8.5 emissions scenario is premature and irrelevant, given how Europe's scorching summer illustrates how ''low end'' warming we already live with is profoundly destructive. The Climate Brink, Andrew Dessler, Jul 07, 2026.
• June heatwave in UK led to `mass sleep deprivation`, poll suggests Record temperatures fuelled by climate crisis left 86% of homes ‘too hot’ and many people feeling unwell The Guardian, Damian Carrington, Jul 07, 2026.
• The Arctic Ocean may have passed a crucial tipping point that could harm food webs and worsen climate change Sea ice loss seems to have triggered a decline in the nutrient nitrate, affecting the tiny organisms that form the foundations of marine food chains and absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study. Smithsonian Magazine, Sara Hashemi, Jul 09, 2026.
• The oceans are full of heat, and it`s coming ashore The ocean absorbs 90 percent of the excess heat from global warming. It doesn't all stay there. Grist, Sachi Kitajima Mulkey, Jul 10, 2026.
• The Irreversible Global Impacts of Earth`s Lost Frozen Regions In a U.N. side event organized by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, researchers and experts discussed how exceeding 1.5°C will bring irreversible damage from the loss of global snow and ice regions. State of the Planet, Amy Indieke, Jul 10, 2026.
• What happened to Australia`s snow season? A climate expert explains The Conversation, Andrew B. Watkins, Jul 10, 2026.
• Pacific gray whales facing `catastrophic` die-off as climate crisis hits food supply Trump administration urged to relist a species in ‘very, very serious trouble’ under Endangered Species Act The Guardian, Tom Perkins, Jul 10, 2026.

Climate Policy and Politics (5 articles)

• UK `only` contributes 1% global emissions - but alongside many other countries, that all adds up Percentages no matter how large or small always total as 100%. English - The Conversation, Chloe Brimicombe, Ella Gilbert, Jul 06, 2026.
• `Can you help us?`: US oil execs turn to Trump to topple Europe's climate rules The U.S. oil and gas industry has succeeded in exporting massive amounts of natural gas to Europe. Now, with the help of White House officials, it looks like it might also succeed in exporting the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda. Politico, Zack Colman, Ben Munster and Sara Schonhardt, Jul 08, 2026.
• Plans for more pipelines to export Canadian oil - and emissions - as planet keeps getting hotter PM Carney says choices being made now for 'Canada's energy future' will certainly increase emissions CBC Canada News, Nick Logan, Jul 09, 2026.
• Trump Administration Taps Climate Science Critic to Oversee Flagship Report Matthew M. Wielicki has criticized the scientific consensus on global warming as alarmist. Now he’ll oversee a major federal report on the topic. New York Times, Maxine Joselow and Brad Plumer, July 10, 2026.
• The Business Case for Climate Action Is Stronger Than It Looks TIME, Justin Worland, Jul 11, 2026.

Climate Education and Communication (4 articles)

• Trump victorious in legal battle to erase climate change and slavery signs from national parks Donald Trump has been given the green light to continue erasing the truth about climate change from national parks across the US, following a drawn-out legal battle. Euro News, EHN Curators, Jul 04, 2026.
• Fixing Climate Communications Messages that employed direct consequence framing, such as linking climate change to personal financial harm or health impacts, outperformed indirect frames, such as those focused on jobs and innovation, by nearly 2 to 1. CleanTechnica, Keith Zakheim, Jul 07, 2026.
• The plan to make climate science harder to erase As climate information disappears from federal websites, scientists are rebuilding it elsewhere. Grist, Kate Yoder, Jul 07, 2026.
• MPs call on UK government to host televised emergency briefing on climate crisis As UK swelters in another heatwave, 50-minute Chris Packham film outlines threats to security, economy and health The Guardian, Pippa Neill, Jul 10, 2026.

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (3 articles)

• Why California’s carbon manure math doesn’t add up A growing body of research suggests that California's manure-to-methane program is a case study in the shortcomings of our preferred approaches to climate action. MIT Technology Review, James Temple, Jul 2, 2026.
• Moving forests to save them: Here are the risks and rewards of assisted tree migration The Conversation, Anne Ola, Alison Munson, Mariétou Diouf, Jul 05, 2026.
• Confronting Salty Problems in the Coastal Plain An interdisciplinary network of scientists and stakeholders is working to understand how saltwater intrusion and sea level rise are affecting rural communities and to help address the consequences. Eos, Kiera O’Donnell, Emily S. Bernhardt, Aeran Coughlin, Ken W. Krauss and Xi Yang, Jul 06, 2026.

Climate Science and Research (2 articles)

• Historical records reveal how Canada`s weather has changed over the centuries The Conversation, Victoria Slonosky, Jul 05, 2026.
• Skeptical Science New Research for Week #28 2028 Skeptical Science's weekly climate research survey, covering hundreds of journals and myriad government and NGO reports, with a focus on easy readability access for ordinary members of the public. Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Jul 09, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (2 articles)

• Longtime Exxon CEO Lee Raymond’s legacy of climate denial and misinformation lives on – a psychologist offers ways to counter it The Conversation, Joe Árvai, June 22, 2026.
• 2026’s El Niño may bring storms, heatwaves – and misinformation Science Feedback, Edited by Rahul Rao, July 8, 2026.

Miscellaneous (1 article)

• 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27 A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, June 28, 2026 thru Sat, July 4, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom, Jul 05, 2026.

If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!