Daily Briefing: Countries ‘far short’ on nature goals | IEA lowers oil demand forecast | ‘Postpone’ methane rules

15.10.26

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Midway to 2030 deadline, countries falling far short on promise to protect nature

Mark Hillsdon, Reuters

Reuters says governments attending the COP17 biodiversity conference in Armenia next week will be meeting “against a backdrop of patchy progress”. The newswire details a number of recent nature assessments, including one from the Campaign for Nature that finds that government commitments could take the amount of land and inland waters protected to 27% by the end of the decade, up from 20% today. Fifty countries have so far met the 30% target by 2030 set in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), says Reuters.

A separate report from Together for the Ocean shows that – at the “half-way point to delivering the GBF” – just 10% of the world’s oceans are protected, with existing commitments only likely to raise this to around 12% by 2030, according to Reuters. It says the “finance gap for nature” is expected to “top the COP17 agenda”, adding that there is hope the talks will lead to a “roadmap for the next four years of implementing the GBF”. [See Carbon Brief’s new COP17 interactive negotiating text tracker.]

MORE ON CLIMATE AND NATURE

Climate Home News: “Global deforestation slowed in 2025 but Brazil’s election could undo ‘fragile’ gains.”
The Washington Post, Time, CBS News and Scientific American cover a new report on the state of the global climate, which finds that some of the Earth’s “vital signs” reached record extremes in 2026.
A new study presents the first “comprehensive seismic analysis” of what happened during the disastrous Himalayan floods in August, reports Inside Climate News.
In a run-down of “six things scientists say you need to know about El Niño”, CNN notes that “El Niño is different to human-caused climate change”.
The Associated Press: “Study says global warming did more than El Niño to turbocharge Hurricane Polo.”
The peak of Mont Blanc shrank by more than a metre last year due to changes in the Alpine climate, according to the Guardian.

International Energy Agency lowers world oil demand forecast for the year

Michelle Chapman, Associated Press

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has lowered its world oil demand forecast for the year, noting that war in Iran is leading to “escalating fuel prices, limited oil supplies and a deteriorating economic outlook”, reports the Associated Press. The IEA predicts that oil demand will drop by 2.5m barrels a day year-over-year in the fourth quarter and fall 2.6m barrels a day on average this year, according to the newswire. The Financial Times is among a number of outlets to cover an IEA forecast that the global shortage of diesel could continue until the middle of next year. The Guardian reports this has been a “lucrative crisis” for companies that turn crude into diesel. It carries a quote from TotalEnergies’ CEO Patrick Pouyanné, who says refineries that were previously seen as “liabilities” are “suddenly becoming goldmines”. The market value of three of the largest US oil refiners have “more than doubled” since the start of the crisis, according to the Guardian.

MORE ON FOSSIL FUELS

On social media, Donald Trump said “massive” oil, gas and mineral exploration is set to begin in “our new and beautiful Greenland”, reports the Associated Press. (It adds that it was not “immediately clear what exploration or developments the US president was referring to”.)
Taiwan says it will buy liquified natural gas from an Alaska pipeline project, in a deal described by Trump “one of the biggest ever made”, according to the Associated Press.
BP is bracing a hit of up to $4.5bn (£3.4bn) after a write down in its energy transition unit, as it pivots from its “green targets”, says the Daily Express.
The Financial Times reports that fossil-fuel companies face a “$32bn dilemma” over what to do with their “huge windfalls” from war.
CNBC looks at Trump’s “diesel dilemma”.

Brussels moves to postpone methane reporting rules

Robert Hodgson, Rapporteur

Rapporteur – previously known as Euractiv – reports on a new European Commission proposal for fossil-fuel importers to be given an extra year to comply with EU rules on upstream methane emissions reporting. The outlets says that the “widely anticipated legislative move” comes after months of “heavy lobbying from Washington and the fossil-fuel industry”. The change – which is subject to approval by the European Parliament and Council – would mean that an obligation to certify that oil, gas, and coal entering the EU was produced in line with European standards of monitoring, reporting and verifying methane leaks would kick in in 2028, it says. Reuters – which notes that methane is the “second-largest contributor to climate change, after carbon dioxide” – says that “environmental groups, which say ⁠delaying the law would not address energy security concerns caused by the disruption from the Iran war, decried the delay, while industry groups called for a longer, three-year postponement”. A separate Rapporteur article notes that the conservative European People’s Party and “big oil” are “unsatisfied” with the delay.

MORE ON EUROPE

“Battles over how to respond to soaring energy prices” are set to “dominate” an EU leader summit kicking off today, “threatening to crowd out efforts to advance negotiations on the bloc’s next long-term budget”, writes the Financial Times.
Euronews says France is on track to cut emissions by 2.8% this year amid “soaring fuel prices, but is still “falling short” of the pace needed to meet long-term climate targets.
Climate-sceptic US outlet Fox News covers criticism from US conservative group Moms for Liberty of French newspaper Le Parisien’s coverage of a Plan International report, which noted that climate-related disasters are driving a rise in child marriages.
European carmakers are betting on “affordable electric revivals of retro models” to drive sales as they seek to fight off a second wave of Chinese brands “flooding into” home markets, reports the Financial Times.

UK: 10 unions call on Burnham to reject drilling at Rosebank oil field

Katrine Bussey, Press Association

Ten trade unions representing “millions” of workers have called on Andy Burnham to reject plans for drilling in the Rosebank oil field, reports the Press Association. The unions, including Unison, the Public and Commercials Services Union and the Fire Brigades Union, said the “government must do the right thing by the planet, UK communities and workers and stop Rosebank”, it says. It quotes Unison general secretary Andrea Egan saying that public service workers are “on the frontline of extreme weather” and “need guarantees that the government is serious about tackling climate change”. BusinessGreen says that energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh indicated at a conference yesterday that a decision on the Jackdaw gas field was “imminent”, while a decision on Rosebank will “take a little bit longer”. BBC News reports that Burnham said during Prime Minister’s Questions that he would take a “pragmatic approach on oil and gas, we will set out our decisions shortly”.

MORE ON UK

The Scotsman counts five other oil and gas projects in the North Sea “waiting in the pipeline”, if Rosebank and Jackdaw get the green light.
The Daily Telegraph says Fahnbulleh is considering a proposal to raise annual heat pump installation targets for manufacturers.
The government, saying it will be “good for food and climate resilience”, has set an ambition to increase the share of English land farmed organically to 10% by 2036, reports the Guardian.
The Daily Telegraph covers comments from the Climate Change Committee member Prof Piers Forster, where he highlighted the impracticality of a government suggestion to “trade” emissions generated by a third runway at Heathrow against those from agriculture.
Climate Home News: “Carbon capture industry faces tough future, as UK raids green spending.”
The Times and Daily Telegraph cover criticism of “emissions-based” parking charges in London.

China’s September exports soar, putting $1 trillion trade surplus in sight

Yukun Zhang, Ellen Zhang and Liz Lee, Reuters

Reuters reports that global demand for “green-tech” and other products has helped keep China’s ‌factories “humming”, in its coverage of the latest export data. In the first three quarters of 2026, exports of wind turbines and parts and solar products rose 22.4% and 10.3%, respectively, says industry outlet BJX News, citing the customs figures. State news agency China News Service adds that battery exports increased 34.8% over the same period. Meanwhile, China’s exports of rare earths rose 6.7% year-on-year in September, says Reuters, adding that they are “essential” to cleantech. In 2025, Chinese wind-turbine makers secured more than 14 gigawatts of overseas orders, reports BJX News separately. It cites Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s head of wind research, who adds that system integration capabilities will become a “key competitive advantage” for Chinese wind turbine manufacturers.

At an industry conference, a National Energy Administration official has called for advancing “high-quality development” of the wind sector, including faster system integration, says BJX News. State broadcaster CCTV reports China’s installed wind-power capacity has remained the world’s largest for 16 consecutive years. However, Bloomberg says the industry “could be” heading for “renewed price wars” as falling profits and investment slow domestic demand. Meanwhile, China’s five largest solar manufacturers cut 21% of their staff in 2025 as “overcapacity persists”, reports Reuters. Energy newspaper China Energy News quotes experts saying the “new-energy” sector has “completely bid farewell” to the traditional model of “building capacity and earning returns”.

MORE ON CHINA

President Xi Jinping has said China will continue to encourage its companies to transfer “green technologies” to Africa, reports China Daily.
The EU’s economics commissioner has said the EU-China deal to cap hybrid vehicle imports is “only the first step”, says Bloomberg. A Chinese vice premier has said China is willing to work with the EU to “boost stability” in trade, reports Reuters.
A Chinese thinktank predicts China’s coal consumption will “enter a peak plateau transition” during 2026-30, says China Daily.
A former Chinese vice-foreign minister has called for “greater” scientific cooperation on climate in the Arctic, reports China Daily.
China Energy News reports that, as of early September, most of China’s first batch of 52 national zero-carbon industrial parks “remain at the planning stage”.

Comment

Petrostates are trying to hijack the planet’s future

Mark Gongloff, Bloomberg

Bloomberg columnist Mark Gongloff weighs in on the timeline of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) next climate-science reports, currently being debated by governments in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Citing Carbon Brief’s explainer, he notes that publication of the reports before the global stocktake at COP33 in 2028 matters because the exercise will be “more meaningful if those countries have fresh climate science” from the IPCC. Without a “fresh IPCC report”, there will be “less pressure” on countries to “step up” their climate efforts and a “very real risk” that certain countries will “drag their feet on climate action”, he says. While some arguments from India and other developing nations on the need to delay reports “may be legitimate”, this “legitimacy is weakened by the enthusiastic agreement of Russia and Saudi Arabia, petrostates known for throwing sand in the gears of climate action”, he continues. Gongloff concludes that delaying the reports would be “another grim step” in a trend where politicians worldwide have been “backtracking on climate”.

MORE COMMENT

Reflecting on upcoming International Monetary Fund meetings, Guardian columnist Larry Elliot says there is “no chance” ministers will decide to return to “New Deal principles” and draw up a “Marshall Plan to help poorer countries cope with the climate crisis”. As a result, he says, “the world will become hotter, more fractured, more prone to conflict, less equal and a lot angrier”.
An anonymous modeller working at a “major insurer” writes in the Guardian that the industry is “collectively fudging the numbers and taking on more risk than we should” in the face of the climate crisis.
In Al Jazeera, WWF International director-general Kirsten Schuijt says governments meeting at the COP17 biodiversity and COP31 climate conferences have a “vital opportunity to work together…to trigger positive tipping points and to build resilience into societies and the global economy”.
In the New York Times, author and critic Jayson Greene says Tom Cruise’s new film “Digger may be the best climate crisis movie ever made, cleverly disguised as the worst”.
In the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph editor Allistair Heath cites, without evidence, the pursuit of net-zero in the UK as among a series of “lies and conspiracy theories” embraced by the “Left”.
Guardian columnist Zoe Williams says every party in the UK needs to find “language and ideas that turn passion for the environment into impetus”.

Australia and Turkey must stop treating fossil fuels as business as usual

Shani Tager, Backchannel

Shani Tager, a senior campaigner at 350.org, writes that the co-hosts of COP31 are “deeply entangled in coal and gas”, including through a “bilateral coal trade” that has produced 75m tonnes of CO2 since the Paris Agreement. Australia, she notes, approved the largest coal mine in the history of New South Wales a week ago. She continues that Australia cannot ask Pacific leaders “to trust its climate leadership while continuing to expand coal and gas exports”. The same “contradictions” are visible in Turkey, the “biggest coal-power generator in Europe”, according to Tager. She concludes that COP31 gives both countries an “extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate what climate leadership actually looks like. But leadership cannot simply mean hosting the negotiations. It means being willing to change course at home.”

Nick O’Malley, the Sydney Morning Herald’s climate editor, details how Pacific leaders have rejected criticism that the recent pre-COP climate talks in Fiji and Tuvalu were a “failure”. However, he says there is “frayed” trust among the politicians over Australia’s commitment to transition away from fossil fuels. In the Guardian, climate correspondent Graham Readfearn argues that emissions generated overseas by Australian fossil fuels “generate harms around the world that climate scientists are increasingly able to quantify”.

MORE ENERGY COMMENT

An editorial in the Washington Post argues that the Trump administration’s ongoing mission to halt offshore wind could jeopardise the “landmark” permitting reform deal that has been reached in the Senate.
Prof Jason Bordoff writing in Foreign Policy says environmentalists are “wrong” to oppose the permitting deal.
Reuters’ global energy transition columnist Gavin Macguire says the future of fuel demand “increasingly depends” on whether developing economies replace combustion vehicles or “continue adding electric and conventional cars side by side”.
Climate-sceptic columnist Juliet Samuels claims in the Times that “governments, [electricity grid] regulators, operators and owners” in the UK have “all conspired in the delusion that…we can keep going at breakneck speed to clean power 2030”.
In the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph, money writer Benedict Smith argues that the “[UK] Labour [government] has gone cold on its heat-pump dream” as “net-zero falls down the government’s agenda”.

Research

The number of people simultaneously exposed to air pollution from landscape fires and heatwaves increased by 287 million per decade over 2000-19 | Science Advances
Models show the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation weakens as global temperatures increase, but “consistently and promptly recovers” if warming is reversed | Science Advances
Citizens’ assemblies “consistently propose” more ambitious climate measures than existing policies, but, in the vast majority cases, have “minimal or absent” impact on future policy | Nature Climate Change