Chile wildfires | Southern Africa floods | ‘High seas treaty’ enters force

19.01.26

News

Chile declares ‘state of catastrophe’ as wildfires leave at least 18 dead

Chilean president Gabriel Boric has “declared a state of catastrophe in two regions where deadly wildfires have left at least 18 people dead”, reports BBC News. It says more than 50,000 people have been evacuated in the Ñuble and Biobío regions south of the capital Santiago. The broadcaster adds: “Strong winds have fanned the flames, exacerbated by high summer temperatures, endangering communities and hampering firefighting efforts. Much of Chile is under heat alerts, with temperatures expected to reach 38C between Santiago and Biobío in the coming days. Chile has experienced a series of devastating fires in recent years, worsened by long-term drought.” The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters, CBS News, Al Jazeera, New York Times, CNN, Guardian and Daily Mail all cover the news. [Carbon Brief’s database of extreme weather attribution science shows that climate change contributed to Chile’s “exceptional” fire seasons in 2017 and 2023, but that there was no discernible influence on fires in 2024.]

More than 100 dead in torrential rain and floods across southern Africa

The Associated Press

More than 100 people have been killed by floods across three countries in southern Africa, reports the Associated Press. It adds that more than 200,000 people have been affected in Mozambique, while South African president Cyril Ramaphosa said the region of Limpopo had received around 400mm of rain in less than a week. Another Associated Press article says that South Africa “declares a national disaster over flooding and severe weather”. The Daily Maverick, Guardian, Agence France-Presse and Independent have the story.

China: MEE outlines seven key tasks for 2026 at ecological and environmental protection conference

BJX News

At the 2026 national conference on ecological and environmental protection, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) called for “maintaining strategic resolve” on advancing the energy transition and building a “Beautiful China”, reports industry news outlet BJX News. The ministry plans to “accelerate green transformation” and “strengthen green growth drivers”, it adds. The meeting also underscored the need for “improvement in environmental quality and a continued reduction in total emissions of major pollutants”, as well as for advancing source control through carbon peaking and a low-carbon transition, it says. Business news outlet 21st Century Business Herald also covers the story, listing the MEE’s seven key tasks for 2026, which include promoting development of “green productive forces”, focusing on “regional strategies” to build “green development hubs” and “actively responding” to climate change.

Shanghai-based news outlet the Paper reports that in 2026, emissions reduction in China will move from the “preparatory stage into a phase of substantive and intensive efforts”, according to China Energy Research Society deputy secretary general Jiang Bing. Jiang also tells the outlet that local governments are beginning to “feel the pressure” from facing “formal carbon assessments for the first time” this year. Business news outlet 36Kr says that from 2026, the “dual carbon goals are transforming into tangible constraints”, with an “increasing number of industry participants” realising that they have to begin finalising decarbonisation plans. It adds that the “next five years offer little room for systematic trial and error”. Chai Qimin, director at the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC), tells China Environment News that carbon emission peaking will be a “natural outcome” of upgrading China’s development model, rather than meeting targets through “simple, heavy-handed means”.

MORE ON CHINA

Xinhua reports that Li Qiang decided at a state council meeting to repeal a regulation on management of “town-level coal mines”.
China will require that batteries in retired electric vehicle (EV) batteries are scrapped along with the vehicle, to prevent them being recycled illegally, says Xinhua.
China and Canada have agreed to “slash tariffs” on EVs, as the two sides “promised to tear down trade barriers while forging new strategic ties”, reports Reuters.
Politico reports that the UK will not “make it easier” for Chinese-linked EVs to qualify for subsidies. New research found that a “year-long disruption” to EV battery-related supply chains could endanger 90,000 UK jobs, reports the Guardian.
An article on the frontpage of People’s Daily by Jin Sheping, which signals the thoughts of party leadership on economic issues, says China must “unswervingly shift” to low-carbon development.
A second People’s Daily commentary written by Zhang Yongsheng at the Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought says “building a global ecological civilisation is an important component” of China’s concept of ecological civilisation.

US: Judge allows a third offshore wind project to resume construction as the industry challenges Trump

The Associated Press

A federal judge ruled on Friday that work on a windfarm off the coast of Virginia can resume, reports the Associated Press, which adds that this was the third project to be reprieved last week. The newswire explains: “The administration announced last month it was suspending leases for at least 90 days on five East Coast offshore wind projects because of national security concerns. Its announcement did not reveal specifics about those concerns. Developers and states sued in an effort to block the order.” It quotes a trade union spokesperson saying: “With energy demand surging and prices spiking, the last thing our government should do is take any form of power generation offline.” The New York Times notes that the Virginia project “would be the nation’s largest windfarm”. It quotes president Donald Trump saying at a meeting with oil executives on Friday: “My goal is to not let any windmills be built.”

Reuters describes the ruling as the “third legal blow this week to president Donald Trump’s anti-offshore wind agenda”. It adds: “North-eastern states including New York, Massachusetts and Virginia are relying on offshore wind to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide needed electricity as power demand from data centers tied to artificial intelligence soars.” Bloomberg reports: “The White House echoed its response to earlier court losses by pledging to keep fighting against offshore wind.” Agence France-Presse notes: “As with the other cases, the Virginia ruling greenlights construction but does not render a judgment on an underlying challenge to the Trump administration action.” Politico describes the ruling as a “major loss” for Trump. Bloomberg says that despite the loss, Trump is “winning the fight against offshore wind”. CNBC and the Hill also have the story.

MORE ON US

Financial Times: “US green energy growth is proving hard to kill.”
Bloomberg says that “cheap electric SUVs could sway buyers” despite the end of US subsidies, while the Associated Press reports: “Chinese EVs are making inroads in North America. That worries industry experts.”
Reuters: “Trump administration touts push to lower car prices, de-emphasise EVs.”
The Wall Street Journal covers the “battle” over “climate-disaster scores” that could “make or break your home sale”.
Agence France-Presse reports that the administration is moving forward with the “repeal of a foundational scientific determination that underpins the US government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions”, the “endangerment finding”.
Bloomberg: “How the US is abandoning joint climate action under Trump.”

White House seeks emergency power auction for largest US electric grid

Reuters

The Trump administration is urging the largest US grid operator, PJM, to hold an emergency auction to “protect against rolling blackouts as energy demand from data centers grows”, reports Reuters. The administration is calling for a focus on coal, gas and nuclear plants, says Bloomberg, while excluding renewable energy. The outlet adds that no new coal has been built in a decade, nuclear projects have been hit by delays and cost overruns and gas plants are facing lead times of up to five years. Inside Climate News says clean-energy advocates criticised the “glaring” omission. Politico notes that power providers have faced “roadblocks for solar and wind projects” from the Trump administration. The Wall Street Journal has a piece titled: “Soaring electricity costs are now a hot political issue.”

The White House is also backing a proposal with two Democrat governors to “push tech companies to fund their own power generation”, says the Washington Post. The newspaper adds: “Underneath the bipartisan fanfare, the Republicans sought to shift blame for surging prices away from tech companies and toward the Biden administration’s investments in solar and wind power…Many energy experts question those claims, noting that wind and solar power generate some of the cheapest electricity available, and construction of new gas plants that the tech companies are seeking is a major factor in projections for further spiraling residential utility bills.” Axios and Politico also cover the story.

MORE ON US POWER PRICES

The Guardian: “How Trump’s promise to slash energy bills in half has failed across the US.”
The Associated Press: “Climate activist predicts high electricity prices and Trump’s attacks on green energy will hurt GOP.”

UN biodiversity treaty enters into force, aims to protect 30% of oceans by 2030

Reuters

A “landmark” global treaty designed to protect biodiversity on the high seas came into effect on Saturday after receiving sufficient ratifications to enter force, reports Reuters. The newswire says the treaty on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) sets out a “legally binding framework to tackle threats such as overfishing and meet a target to protect 30% of the ocean environment by 2030”. The Guardian says the UK has been “urged to ratify” the treaty to avoid being shut out of a “historic oceans summit”. Agence France-Presse says China on Friday proposed to host the secretariat of the new treaty, adding: “Until now, Belgium and Chile had been vying to host the future organisation.” BusinessGreen carries reactions to the entry into force of the treaty. Vox calls the treaty “a major step forward in protecting the oceans”. [For more on the treaty, see Carbon Brief’s Q&A.]

UK: Network Rail and BP object to ‘nationally important’ power line

The Times

Rail operator Network Rail, energy firm BP and a water company have all objected to plans for a power line through East Anglia that is “crucial to the government’s 2030 energy and decarbonisation goals”, reports the Times. It continues: “The companies have joined thousands of residents and dozens of local councils in registering their opposition to National Grid’s Norwich to Tilbury link, underscoring the challenges of delivering critical infrastructure in Britain. The proposed 114-mile cable through Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex is designed to help bring electricity from new offshore windfarms off the coast of East Anglia to users in London and the south-east.” Meanwhile, the Times covers the concerns of local campaigners over a proposed new cable on a Devon beach that would connect an offshore windfarm to the grid.

MORE ON UK

In a story trailed on its frontpage, the Daily Telegraph reports Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey “says climate change and initiatives to tackle it risk damaging the economy”. The Sun also has the story.
The Daily Telegraph continues its campaigning against climate action with stories on a homeowner’s “botched” insulation, the removal of pylons in Snowdonia, claims by the boss of a car firm that “nobody really wants” EVs, power exports to Europe and the use of Chinese steel at a power plant.
Another Daily Telegraph article claims regulator Natural England “orders staff not to tackle wildfires”. An accompanying Daily Telegraph editorial criticising the body mentions the “growing threat” of wildfires without mentioning climate change.
The Daily Telegraph says a satellite start-up planning to monitor droughts and pollution has “secured backing from a British space fund”.
The Observer: “Huge offshore wind deal speeds UK’s path to decarbonisation.”

Comment

Trump is obsessed with yesterday’s energy. China is focused on the future

Dan Wang, The New York Times

For the New York Times, author Dan Wang writes that US president Donald Trump has an “unconcealed hunger for natural resources from abroad and the power they could grant him”. Wang continues: “His gamble is that countries will still want to buy oil from America to power their cars, trucks, ships and planes for decades to come. Though China is the world’s largest oil importer, its leader, Xi Jinping, is less brash about coveting foreign resources. The country’s leadership is pushing intensively at substituting electricity for oil.” He concludes: “America had better shape up before losing out to an electric age ushered in by Beijing. Otherwise, it will be stuck with outmoded products at home while China conquers markets through better technology.”

MORE COMMENT

Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva writes for the New York Times: “Cooperation is fundamental to mobilising the resources that we so desperately need to combat hunger, poverty, drug trafficking and climate change.”
The New York Times: “How Wall Street turned its back on climate change.”
The Sydney Morning Herald: “Trump’s war on the planet heats up.”
The Daily Telegraph: “Trump’s dream of ‘energy supremacy’ hits an unlikely roadblock: oil companies.”
Financial Times: “The dark truth of CEO silence on Trump’s climate retreat.”
The New York Times: “‘Landman’ isn’t just oil industry propaganda.”

How a melting Arctic makes Greenland more appealing to Trump

Ruby Mellen and John Muyskens, The Washington Post

A feature in the Washington Post explains how the Arctic is “warming about four times faster than the rest of the globe, exposing natural resources, opening up potential shipping routes and prompting an increase in activity among military powers”. The newspaper continues: “The changing landscape has created a region ripe for opportunity – and potential conflict – factors that may play a role in president Donald Trump’s quest to obtain Greenland.” It adds: “Though he has called climate change a ‘hoax’, part of the value Trump has described in the Danish autonomous territory’s location is a result of the environmental shifts.” The Times asks why Trump wants Greenland, explaining: “Almost no minerals or hydrocarbons are produced for export after a ban on all new oil and gas exploration in 2021. Officials said the environmental price of oil extraction was too high despite estimates of billions of barrels worth of oil along the west coast and under the seabed of the east coast.” The Associated Press and the Observer also look at the mineral resources under Greenland.

SSE boss: ‘We need new power plants, and renewables are cheapest’

Jon Yeomans, The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times interviews Martin Pibworth, the chief executive of energy firm SSE and “one of the biggest windfarm developers in the UK”. It says: “He is passionate about renewable energy, explaining that Britain’s power stations – both nuclear and gas – are ageing and need to be replaced, while we are increasingly dependent on electricity imports via undersea cables. Meanwhile, demand is going ever up – whether it be from electric cars or data centres.” It quotes Pibworth saying: “If you take rising demand and reducing generation capacity because of age, you’re going to need to build something…So then you have a choice: you can build gas generation or you can build renewables. You could build nuclear, but it’s on longer time scales. We would argue very strongly from everything that we can see that renewables are the cheaper option than gas generation.”

MORE UK COMMENT

An editorial in the Financial Times says the UK needs a “credible” Conservative party “that relishes the challenges of the future – from AI to the green transition, rather than rejecting net-zero goals”.
An editorial in the Sun takes a passing shot at climate action, saying: “This government has mired the public in its own mess, from the economy and defence to migration and net-zero.”
Daily Telegraph assistant editor Jeremy Warner criticises the government for “closing down the country’s once thriving North Sea oil and gas industries in pursuit of monumentally costly net-zero targets”. [Official figures show North Sea production fell two-thirds by 2010 and is set to fall another 95% even with new licensing.]
In the Daily Mail, climate-sceptic columnist Andrew Neil describes government energy policy as “madness on stilts”.
For the Sunday Times, Sky News economics editor Ed Conway writes under the headline: “Britain’s chemical factories are dying – the consequences are dire.”

Research

Global deforestation-driven surface warming increased between 1988 and 2016, mainly due to atmospheric warming and reduced snowfall

One Earth

“Climate change games” can broadly be split into five categories – “casual, knowledge, systems management, experience and backdrop”

Futures

Solar radiation management is only “beneficial” in scenarios with “robust global mitigation, extremely low failure risk and gradual phaseout”

Environmental Research: Climate

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Simon Evans, with contributions from Anika Patel and Henry Zhang. It was edited by Robert McSweeney.

Subscribe for free.