W elcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed. An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
UK proposes new emissions target
‘ON COURSE’: The UK government has proposed reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions to 87% below 1990 levels by 2040, reported the Associated Press . The newswire cited scientists saying that the goal “puts the UK on course to meet its 2050 net-zero target”. To meet this target, the UK would “need to invest around £880bn over 25 years…but doing so would yield benefits worth £1,620bn”, according to an in-depth analysis of the plans by Carbon Brief .
UPCOMING ‘FLASHPOINT’: The Financial Times noted that, for the target to become “legally binding”, it must be approved by parliament. While the UK’s previous carbon budget “received cross-party support”, this time the proposal is “expected to become a flashpoint among lawmakers”, it added, with both the Conservatives and Reform pledging to “scrap” net-zero policies.
DRIVING FORCE: Separately, a new report by consultancy Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Economics has valued the UK’s “net-zero economy” at more than £100bn a year, reported the Guardian . It added that, by a broad measure, the UK energy transition supports 1.1m jobs and provides “nearly 4% of the UK’s economic output”.
US ‘dismantling’ oceans data
SYSTEMS OFFLINE: The Trump administration is “dismantling” a “$368m deep-ocean observation system” that, among other things, allows scientists to monitor the ocean currents that affect the global climate and understand how the “ocean is absorbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere”, said the New York Times . Bloomberg reported that Trump’s efforts to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), a key climate science research institution, has been “temporarily blocked” by a judge.
RULE ROLLBACK: The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an independent body that regulates US securities markets, has proposed repealing the climate-disclosure rule, which “requires some public companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions and the risks they face from global warming”, said the Associated Press . The Trump administration also announced plans to allocate $700m to support “clean, beautiful coal” power and export infrastructure, said BBC News .
Around the world
EU EXEMPTIONS: The EU will allow member states to breach the bloc’s fiscal rules to “cope with high energy prices stoked by the Iran war”, as long as the measures they use help “accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels”, reported Bloomberg .
SLOW SPENDING: The German government has only paid out €24bn of the €37bn it was “supposed to disburse” in 2025 from a special fund for infrastructure and “climate neutrality”, reported Clean Energy Wire .
URGENT WARNING: UN secretary-general António Guterres said a likely upcoming El Niño weather event must be treated as the “urgent climate warning it is”, said Al Jazeera .
HOEKSTRA ON COP: The outcomes of many of the most recent COPs have been “underwhelming”, EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra has said, according to Reuters . COPs should be supplemented by “smaller groups…who are willing to move faster”, he added.
3,400
The number of excess deaths across India caused by a single day of extreme heat, according to coverage in the Hindustan Times of a new study.
30,000
Excess deaths caused if the extreme heat lasts five days.
Latest climate research
In a 1.5C warmer world, the timing of floods will shift by more than seven days across half of the world’s landmass | Nature Communications
Temperature and rainfall together account for more than 13% of methane generated from landfills in Incheon, South Korea | Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
The postponed International Maritime Organisation “net-zero framework” could increase biofuel use in shipping to 40% by 2050 | Nature Energy
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday , Tuesday , Wednesday , Thursday and Friday .)
Captured
China’s carbon dioxide emissions grew by 2% in the first quarter of 2026 due to a rise in “wasted” wind and solar generation, according to new analysis for Carbon Brief . However, emissions remain below their March 2024 peak, it added.
Spotlight
Why China’s solar boom is slowing down
China made headlines in 2025 for installing record levels of solar. But in 2026, new capacity is expected to be lower than last year’s figures.
This week, Carbon Brief examines what is behind China’s lower 2026 solar additions.
Solar power has been a major element of China’s renewables buildout since the mid-2010s.
The country installed 315 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in 2025, adding more than half of all new solar globally. The year before, it added 277GW .
But the picture in 2026 to date is very different. Installations in March fell 56% year-on-year to 9GW, while new capacity in April totalled 10GW, a 79% drop compar…
Read the full article at Carbon Brief →
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