More than a quarter of new cars sold worldwide in 2025 were electric, according to new analysis from thinktank Ember, reports BusinessGreen. The report is based on monthly data from January to October from 60 countries that cumulatively account for 97% of global EV sales, which shows an estimated 26% of all passenger cars sold were either fully electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, it adds. China remains the biggest EV market, with more than 50% of market share being electric, but demand is now growing across Asia as well as other markets such as Mexico and Brazil, the article notes. It quotes Euan Graham, electricity and data analyst at Ember, who says: “In 2025, the centre of gravity has moved. Emerging markets are no longer catching up, they are leading the shift to electric mobility. These countries see the strategic advantages of EVs, from cleaner air to reduced fossil-fuel imports.”

MORE ON EVS:

• The Financial Times says the EU “plans to scrap” its 2035 combustion engine ban, with carmakers required instead to cut fleet emissions to 90% below 2021 levels and meet “certain conditions”, which are “still being discussed”.
• Nissan has started producing a new Leaf EV at its plant in Sunderland in north-east England, the Financial Times reports. The Guardian and Times also have the news.
• The Guardian covers comments from an industry body that the chances of the European trucking industry hitting its zero emissions targets are “dire”.
• Bloomberg explores what a slowdown in the transition to EVs could mean for industry and the climate.
• BBC News reports that Ford is “backing away from plans to manufacture large electric vehicles” in favour of hybrids, conventional cars and “smaller, more affordable EV models”. Reuters, Bloomberg, the Guardian, the Associated Press and the New York Times cover the story, while the Wall Street Journal has an editorial on Ford’s “brutal EV lesson”. 
• The Daily Mail covers a survey from consultancy EY that it says shows [contrary to actual sales data] that UK “demand for electric vehicles has gone into reverse”. The Daily Telegraph also covers the survey.

China’s fossil-fuel power plants are set to “chart their first annual drop in generation in a decade” as renewable energy sources continue to meet rising demand, reports Bloomberg, citing data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday. Coal and gas-fired power decreased by 4.2% year-on-year in November, bringing thermal electricity output so far this year down 0.7%, “on track for the first annual decline” since 2015, barring a “sharp jump” this month, according to the outlet. However, it adds that the drop in power-sector emissions has been “largely offset” by increases from a “growing fleet of chemicals and plastics factories”, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). [See the latest analysis published by Carbon Brief.]

Meanwhile, overall electricity generation increased by 2.7% year-on-year in November, with wind power and solar power rising by 22.0% and 23.4%, respectively, according to the industry news outlet BJX News. Separately, state broadcaster CCTV says that China’s electricity use could double from current levels by 2060, according to a report linked to the state-run China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). It adds that electricity could be meeting 62% of China’s energy demand overall by this point, according to the report, also roughly double today’s levels.

MORE ON CHINA

• Zheng Shanjie, head of the NDRC, laid out the commission’s top tasks in the economic area for next year, including strictly controlling the addition of new “dual-high” projects, reports BJX News.
• People’s Daily cites data from the NEA, saying that China’s crude oil production is expected to reach between 215m and 216m tonnes this year, a record high, with the country’s gas output reaching 300bn cubic metres by 2030.
• China News reports that natural disasters in China have caused direct economic losses of 433m yuan and affected 172,300 people nationwide in November, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.
• The New York Times publishes a feature saying that the Chinese government has made clean, “near-limitless” fusion energy, a “national priority, marshalling resources at daunting speed”.
• A “GT Voice” comment article by Global Times argues that ensuring clean energy technology is “widely accessible” worldwide will be “essential” for the global energy transition.
• Reuters reports that Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said during a meeting with his Saudi Arabian counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, that the two countries should enhance cooperation in “new energy” and “green transformation”. Xinhua carries the full readout of the meeting.

Flash flooding in the Moroccan city of Safi has left at least 37 people dead, marking the “deadliest such incident in more than two decades” in the country, reports Bloomberg. Le Monde adds that “a muddy torrent swept cars and bins from the streets of the town” and schools have been shut for at least three days. It says: “Morocco is struggling with a severe drought for the seventh consecutive year, while last year was the North African kingdom’s hottest on record. Climate change has made storms more intense, because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture and warmer seas can turbocharge weather systems.” BBC News notes: “Experts say the climate crisis is in part responsible for the extreme weather fluctuations seen in the North African state.”

MORE ON EXTREME WEATHER: 

• The Associated Press reports that parts of three suburbs have been issued an evacuation order in Washington state due to concerns over flash flooding. 

Kenya has signed an agreement for a $311m investment into the construction of two high-voltage electricity transmission lines with a pan-African infrastructure fund and PowerGrid Corporation of India, reports Reuters. It says: “The east African nation has turned to public-private partnerships, and securitisation of some revenue streams, to provide funds for infrastructure projects in the face of high public debt and tight fiscal space.” Bloomberg reports that the companies will build 202km (125 miles) of power lines in the west of the country, with the first line linking Lessos to Loosuk and a second running between Kibos through Kakamega to Musaga. A separate Reuters piece covers news that Kenya’s cabinet has approved the creation of an infrastructure fund and a sovereign wealth fund, to help finance projects such as power plants.

In a comment for the Guardian, Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, argues that the oil and gas industry must be legally bound to cut methane emissions, writing, “with climate tipping points approaching, time is running out”. She says that the three-year temperature average is expected to exceed 1.5C for the first time and that “far greater catastrophes lie ahead as feedback loops push the planet past irreversible tipping points”. Mottley says that cutting methane emissions is the “fastest and simplest way” to slow near-term warming and avoid tipping points. She highlights previous efforts to limit methane emissions, as well as their limitations, before pointing to the potential of the roadmap to phase out fossil fuels announced at COP30. Mottley concludes: “Preventing methane energy waste makes sense for industry, and it makes sense for people and the planet. As Aristotle taught us, waste is a form of injustice. Preventing it is not too much to ask.”

Writing in the Financial Times, Lorah Steichen, global systems and policy manager at the Climate and Community Institute and research manager at the Transition Security Project, argues that critical minerals should not be funnelled away from new climate technologies and into defence. Steichen says that the US defence department has been stockpiling critical minerals since the summer, at the same time as deploying a “suite of strategies” to “tighten its grip” on the sector. Yet these minerals are also “indispensable” to the technologies needed to decarbonise, she writes, using cobalt as a particular case study. She concludes that the US faces a pivotal choice: “Continue shovelling resources into an expanding military apparatus or direct them towards an industrial strategy that delivers public benefits, stabilises the climate and provides the foundation for climate co-operation, including between the US and China.”

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Molly Lempriere, with contributions from Henry Zhang. It was edited by Simon Evans.

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