Temperature datasets released this morning by three independent agencies have confirmed that last year was the third-hottest year on record, Bloomberg reports. The outlet notes that the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, the UK Met Office and Berkeley Earth have found that 2025 was hotter than the 1850-1900 average by 1.47C, 1.41C and 1.44C, respectively. Bloomberg says that what makes this year’s data “extraordinary”, according to scientists, is that “heat from greenhouse gases” countered the “cooling influence” of the La Niña phenomenon, which typically suppresses temperatures. The Guardian says that “mounting fossil fuel pollution” is behind the “exceptional” temperatures. It adds that EU scientists have noted that the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5C, which is measured over 30 years “to iron out fluctuations”, could be breached before the “end of the decade” – “10 years sooner” than expected when the treaty was signed in 2015. The Financial Times, Press Association, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Politico, BusinessGreen, Scientific American, DW News and Euronews all cover the data.

MORE ON 2025 IN CLIMATE

• The New York Times rounds up 2025’s extreme weather.
• In a separate interactive piece which invites readers to “look up” where they live, the New York Times notes that “thousands of cities” experienced their “hottest average temperature” last year.
• In a piece entitled “the great climate collapse”, Axios looks at the “climate agenda’s fall from grace over the past year”.

There is widespread coverage of a Rhodium Group report which finds that US emissions increased by 2.4% in 2025, following two years of decline. The New York Times says drivers included a 13% annual rise in coal use for electricity generation, due to rising demand – in part fuelled by data centres – and a rise in gas prices making coal power more economic. It also points to colder winter temperatures, which meant more oil and gas was used for heating. Solar generation grew by 34% year-on-year, whereas wind grew “modestly”, according to the outlet. Rhodium Group’s Ben King tells the newspaper: “If it weren’t for the growth of solar, we’d probably be in an even worse spot this year than we already are, emissions-wise.” In its coverage, BBC News cites Carbon Brief analysis to highlight that the “surge” in US coal use in 2025 is “in marked contrast” to declines in India and China. Axios, BBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, the Washington Post and Associated Press also have the story.

MORE ON US ENERGY

• The Wall Street Journal reports how the AI boom is pushing PJM, the US’ largest grid operator, to the “brink of a supply crisis”
• Microsoft has pledged to pay utility rates “high enough to cover its power costs” and work with local utilities to “expand supply when needed” for its data centers, says Reuters.
• Bloomberg reports on an initiative launched by New York state to require data centre operators to “shoulder more of the cost” of power.
• E&E News explores how Monday’s reversal of a stop-work order on a major wind project by a federal judge could impact other clean-energy schemes halted by the Trump administration. 
• French oil giant TotalEnergies has become the latest oil major to voice caution about extracting Venezuela’s oil reserves following the US’ toppling of its president, Bloomberg and Reuters report. (On Monday, Trump threatened to block Exxon from the country after CEO Darren Woods called the country “uninvestable”.)

The UK government has awarded contracts to 8.4 gigawatts (GW) of planned offshore wind projects in an auction that “beat…analysts’ predictions”, reports the Financial Times. It says the contracts, at prices of £89-91 per megawatt hour, “boost[s] [the UK’s] goal of decarbonising the power system by 2030”. The Guardian calls the auction the UK’s “most competitive”, adding that the result came after ministers “increased the amount of funding available to developers to help them deliver their plans without raising bills for consumers”. It quotes Energy Secretary Ed Miliband as saying:  “We’ve secured a record-breaking 8.4GW of offshore wind, enough to power the equivalent of over 12m homes. This is the largest amount of offshore wind procured in any auction ever in Britain or indeed Europe.”

Sky News reports that the auction will help shift the UK away from “volatile and polluting” gas, with the government stating it is “firmly on track” to meet its 2030 clean power target. However, it notes that the “strike price” agreed with wind developers of £90.91 marks an 11% increase on last year’s contracts. The Times leads with the claim the auction “could add £1.8bn to bills” – but later notes that industry expects these costs to be “largely offset” by reductions to wholesale power prices driven by the windfarms. BBC News, Bloomberg and Recharge also cover the story.

There is continuing coverage of a report put out by Tufton Street thinktank the Institute for Economic Affairs which falsely claims the “costs of net-zero” is £9tn. The Daily Express hands its lead comment slot to military historian Tim Newark, who uses the false figures to claim this makes “net-zero” “one of the most expensive government policies in British history”. DeSmog reports how the IEA report is one of two “anti-climate reports” endorsed earlier this week by Conservative shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho. [To understand how the IEA’s report misrepresents findings from the UK’s National Energy System Operator, read Carbon Brief’s “scary numbers” explainer.]

With the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) now in effect, Chinese steelmakers are facing challenges in “establish[ing] a monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system that meets EU requirements” and proves if they are decarbonising their operations or not, financial news outlet Caixin reports. If they cannot meet EU requirements, they will be “slapped with high ‘default values’ that will raise costs”, it adds. The outlet says that Chinese steelmakers are projected to be the “largest buyers of CBAM certificates”, given China’s “continued reliance” on high-carbon blast furnaces. It quotes an analyst saying the default values assigned to Chinese steel are “elevated” and “inconsistent with the actual progress in emission reductions” seen in the industry. Shanghai-based news outlet the Paper reports that CBAM is not a “single trade policy”, but rather an external factor that is pushing China’s steel industry to advance its energy transition.

MORE ON CHINA

• China is “stepping up its efforts to use its vast coal reserves instead of oil to produce plastics and synthetic rubber”, with 36 such projects already approved, says SCMP.
• “Local authorities are steadily advancing energy supply measures to ensure uninterrupted economic activity and reliable heating”, the People’s Daily reports, with gas increasingly becoming a “vital” heating source in the face of China’s climate goals.
• A cold snap in northeast China could “further boost[]” LNG imports, says Bloomberg. [The stories follow reports that some residents of areas subject to coal-to-gas switching policies are choosing not to heat their homes due to high gas prices.]  
• China has developed an AI model that can help investors “analyse the impact of weather patterns” on markets, boosting “climate risk management” abilities, reports Xinhua. Science and Technology Daily also covers the story, noting that weather is becoming an “increasingly important factor of production” due to climate change.
• People’s Daily quotes MIIT minister Li Lecheng saying China will continue developing “green manufacturing” and establish zero-carbon factories and industrial parks over the next five years.
• China will impose anti-dumping duties on solar-grade polysilicon imports from the US and South Korea, says Xinhua.

Much less winter snow is “falling on the Himalayas, leaving the mountains bare and rocky…in a season when they should be snow-clad”, BBC News reports. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) “recorded no precipitation – rainfall and snowfall – in almost all of northern India” in December, the story adds. It says the IMD predicts that much of north-west India, including Himalayan states, “will see 86% less” rainfall and snowfall between January and March, with meteorologists in the UK, India and Nepal pointing the BBC to increasing evidence that “the sharp drop” in winter precipitation in the mountains is “not just a one-off thing”. The Times of India reports that high-altitude peaks in the Garhwal Himalaya have remained “snow-free” in January “for the first time in nearl four decades”, “signalling a climatic anomaly”. Separately, Down to Earth reports that “[e]xtreme”, “uncharacteristic” cold conditions have “gripped” many parts of the country, with the possibility of it turning “freakishly cold” in the coming weeks.

MORE ON INDIA

• Critics warn that the US withdrawal from the India and France-led International Solar Alliance (ISA) “undermines global solar energy cooperation”, India Today reports.
• The ISA pullout “came as a surprise as the Trump administration never hinted at it” after exiting the Paris Agreement, says the Times of India.
• An NDTV comment notes that the US “was not a full member, it had merely an observer or partner status in the ISA”.
• In an Indian Express comment, Dr Anjal Prakash says that the UNFCCC should “priorit[ise]” how to raise and direct climate funds “to countries that need them most”, in the aftermath of the US withdrawal from the climate convention.
• Writing for Table.Briefings, Urmi Goswami says that India’s climate non-profits are “particularly prone” to a “broad stroke definition of national interest” underpinning its foreign funding laws. She concludes: “India will need to resolve these internal contradictions if it is to cement its role as a progressive actor on climate change and the energy transition.”
• A Scroll.in investigation records a “startling” number of landslides and “stories of loss and damage” on highways built to Hindu shrines in the Himalayas. 

In a long-read published as the US and Denmark meet to discuss Greenland, New York Times journalist Katrin Bennhold explores what the history of Svalbard – a clutch of islands near the North Pole – says about the “quest to control the Arctic”. It notes that both Svalbard and Greenland are “rapidly becoming entangled in the race for the Arctic” as “climate change melts the ice and places at the top of the world become more accessible and livable”. It continues that the Arctic has “long” been of strategic interest due to its minerals and rare-earth elements – but stresses that this urgency has “increased” as climate change makes the region and its resources easier to reach. The article argues that the “unusual territorial statuses” of both Greenland and Svalbard – Greenland is a Danish overseas territory “partly controlled” by Copenhagen, whereas Svalbard is “technically part of Norway”, but governed by a treaty that allows other countries to have equal access – have become “liabilities” in the current era of “elbows-out geopolitics”. 

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Cecilia Keating, with contributions from Henry Zhang, Anika Patel and Aruna Chandrasekhar. It was edited by Simon Evans.

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