International: All stories
Pope Leo condemns climate change critics
3 Oct 2025
Pope Leo XIV has hit out at those who minimise the "increasingly evident" impact of rising temperatures in his first major statement on climate change.
When China makes a climate pledge, the world should listen
3 Oct 2025
A few years ago, one of us (Myles Allen) asked a Chinese delegate at a climate conference why Beijing had gone for “carbon neutrality” for its 2060 target rather than “climate neutrality” or “net zero”, both of which were more fashionable terms at the time.
UK to speed up fracking ban
3 Oct 2025
The government is to speed up its plans to permanently ban fracking in the UK, in order to counter the Reform party’s promises to bring back the controversial practice.
Antarctic sea ice winter peak in 2025 is third smallest on record
3 Oct 2025
Provisional data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that Antarctic sea ice reached a winter maximum of 17.81m square kilometres (km2) on 17 September.
Countering the Trump administration’s attack on climate science
3 Oct 2025
The Trump Administration is attempting to remove the legal basis for U.S. action on greenhouse gas emissions by attacking the climate science that underpins it.
New Singapore-led initiative to boost protection, restoration of marine habitats for carbon credits
3 Oct 2025
A Singapore-led initiative that aims to boost the protection and restoration of marine and coastal habitats in South-east Asia to generate carbon credits was launched in New York on Sept 24.
With federal support for wind and solar waning, states are trying to push policy through on their own
2 Oct 2025
A new report from the think tank Clean Tomorrow tracks how states are expanding – or restricting – where renewable energy projects can be built.
Travellers bothered by their flight’s pollution can pay to reduce it elsewhere. Do offsets work?
2 Oct 2025
So you’re booking your flight, and just when you’re about to check out, the airline asks if you’d like to pay a little something to offset your share of the flight’s pollution. Or, maybe you’re an environmentally minded person, and you’ve heard you can buy these things called carbon offsets.
NGOs urge no green label for fossil fuel investments
2 Oct 2025
Fossil fuel developers should be excluded from financial investments labelled sustainable, NGOs and associations urged on Tuesday, as part of any reform of the European Union's green finance transparency rules.
Can the courtroom save the climate?
2 Oct 2025
It was in early 2017 when it seemed like nearly every person I knew from home was asking me the same question: Should they be worried about what was about to happen in Washington, D.C.?
Renewables are a global economic engine, not a culture war threat
2 Oct 2025
Energy companies are learning this lesson faster than Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
Want to know the grotesque truth about the oil industry? Then look at their tacky paperweights
2 Oct 2025
Tanoa Sasraku has been collecting – and creating her own – gaudy paperweights with a drop of crude oil encased within.
The current war on science, and who’s behind it
1 Oct 2025
Summers across the global north are now defined by flash floods, droughts, heat waves, uncontainable wildfires, and intensifying named storms, exactly as predicted by Exxon scientists back in the 1970s.
Transport will make or break Australia’s new climate plan – and time is running out to fix it
1 Oct 2025
Australia has a new climate target: cutting emissions by 62-70% below 2005 levels by 2035. Meeting even the lower end means halving emissions in a decade.
Banks still finance fossil fuels far more than sustainable energy, report finds
1 Oct 2025
The world’s major banks are still financing fossil fuels twice as much as their sustainable alternatives, according to eight NGOs.
China calls EU hypocritical over criticism of climate goal
1 Oct 2025
The EU climate chief's criticism of China's new climate pledges shows "double standards and selective blindness," China's foreign ministry said on Friday, accusing the bloc of being slow to act on its own climate targets.
Half of global emissions covered by 2035 climate pledges after UN summit in New York
1 Oct 2025
Half of global greenhouse gas emissions are now covered by a 2035 climate pledge following a key UN summit this week, Carbon Brief analysis finds.
Meat is a leading emissions source – but few outlets report on it, analysis finds
1 Oct 2025
Less than 4% of climate news stories mention animal agriculture as source of carbon emissions, according to new analysis.
Low-cost clean energy now trumps politics, says architect of Paris Accord
30 Sep 2025
As Climate Week delegates turn to COP, Christiana Figueres says the debate over green investment is being negated by the fall in cost.
US Energy Department adds ‘climate change’ and ‘emissions’ to banned words list
30 Sep 2025
The Energy Department has added “climate change,” “green” and “decarbonisation” to its growing “list of words to avoid” at its Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
‘I couldn’t look’: European farmers on losing crops as the industry collides with worsening drought
30 Sep 2025
Global heating means annual drought losses across Europe could reach €17.5bn. Shipping and power generation are also being affected by low water levels.
Ocean acidification threatens planetary health
30 Sep 2025
The newly published 2025 Planetary Health Check report confirms transgression of the ocean acidification planetary boundary — the seventh Earth system threshold crossed, putting a “safe operating space for humanity” at risk.
Singapore to contract high-quality nature-based carbon credits from four projects in Ghana, Peru, and Paraguay
30 Sep 2025
The Singapore government will purchase 2.175 million tonnes of nature-based carbon credits from projects in Ghana, Peru, and Paraguay, marking one of its largest commitments to international offsets to date.
The political killings you don’t hear about
30 Sep 2025
While many consider Charlie Kirk’s murder an unprecedented act of political violence, activists across the world are brutally gunned down almost every day for their political speech.
BP predicts higher oil and gas demand, suggesting world will not hit 2050 net zero target
29 Sep 2025
Conflict in Ukraine and Middle East as well as trade tariffs are making states focus on energy security.
What does China’s new Paris Agreement pledge mean for climate action?
29 Sep 2025
President Xi Jinping has personally pledged to cut China’s greenhouse gas emissions to 7-10% below peak levels by 2035, while “striving to do better”.
Electric vehicle sales surge across EU as overall car market stalls
29 Sep 2025
Battery-electric and hybrid models are gaining ground in the EU, while diesel and petrol car sales continue to lose momentum.
Revisiting the geoengineering question
29 Sep 2025
We are already geoengineering the planet today, but badly. Humans are cooling the climate today by emitting 75 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the lower atmosphere, almost entirely as a byproduct of burning fossil fuels.
Human-driven climate change intensified super typhoon Ragasa, researchers find
29 Sep 2025
“Super Typhoon Ragasa intensified over waters made hotter by human-caused climate change. These exceptionally warm sea surface temperatures increased the chances that Ragasa would rapidly intensify…”
Heat stress is a major driver of India’s kidney disease epidemic
29 Sep 2025
Cases of chronic kidney disease unrelated to pre-existing conditions are on the rise in India and other tropical nations. As climate change raises temperatures and humidity, the disease is increasingly prevalent among outdoor laborers without access to rest, shade, or hydration.
Chris Bowen meets Turkey’s first lady as lobbying to hold Cop31 intensifies
26 Sep 2025
Climate minister, who is trying to persuade Turkey to allow Australia to host the summit, appears with Emine Erdoğan at New York event.
Former world leaders call for fossil fuel taxes to fund global climate action
26 Sep 2025
Dozens of former world leaders, including ex-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, have called for permanent taxes on fossil fuel profits to fund climate action.
Vanuatu pursues new UN resolution to turn ICJ climate opinion into action
26 Sep 2025
The Pacific island nation, which led a campaign for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to clarify states’ climate duties, said the legal opinion must not be “left on paper”.
Familiar tensions emerge at the Pacific Islands Forum
26 Sep 2025
With China-Taiwan rivalry, China-Western competition, and big carbon emitters at odds with the islands on climate policy, there is plenty of tension to go around.
How to track the super polluters next door
26 Sep 2025
A new interactive map and groundbreaking database allows people in the world’s largest metropolitan areas to track their air pollution exposure, along with their region’s biggest sources of planet-warming pollution.
China makes landmark pledge to cut its climate emissions
25 Sep 2025
China, the world's biggest source of planet-warming gases, has for the first time committed to an absolute target to cut its emissions.
Regenerative agriculture is all over the agenda at Climate Week NYC. But what does it mean?
25 Sep 2025
Critics say the term is vague and are pushing for specific standards so consumers aren’t lured into false climate promises.
Gas makes a comeback at Climate Week
25 Sep 2025
At a number of events on Tuesday, senior officials made a case for gas as essential for energy security and a buttress to renewables
The stupidest speech in UN history
25 Sep 2025
COMMENT: Trump described climate change as not only a “hoax", but even more: “the largest con job ever perpetrated on the planet.”
EU proposes delaying anti-deforestation law, again
25 Sep 2025
The European Commission has proposed pushing back the European Union Deforestation Regulation for another year, to December 2026, citing concerns that its IT system is not yet ready to handle the demands that the regulation would place on it.
Climate change tripled death toll from European heatwaves this summer, study says
25 Sep 2025
Experts say just a few degrees of extra heat can be the difference between life and death for thousands of people.
UN climate chief says new national climate plans will fall short on emissions cuts
24 Sep 2025
With 2035 targets expected to be too weak to meet global goals to limit warming, the UN’s Simon Stiell says COP30 should focus on how countries can speed up delivery of their plans.
‘Con,’ ‘scam,’ ‘hoax’: Trump’s UN speech on climate
24 Sep 2025
The president used a large chunk of his hour-long speech to world leaders to condemn climate science and clean energy policies.
With 2035 emissions targets set, what Australia does next will help shape global efforts to keep 1.5°C alive
24 Sep 2025
This week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will attend the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York. He will bring something important: Australia’s new 2035 emission cut target of 62–70% on 2005 levels.
How the world’s most elderly country is fighting heat in a deadly double crisis
24 Sep 2025
The alarm device is part of a government push to combat a deadly double emergency: the collision of Japan’s climate crisis and its aging population.
California's Newsom signs sweeping energy affordability package
24 Sep 2025
The new laws address electricity markets, wildfire costs, oil drilling and the state's landmark emissions-trading program.
Trump administration moves to revoke permit for Massachusetts offshore wind project
24 Sep 2025
The Trump administration has moved to block a Massachusetts offshore wind farm, its latest effort to hobble an industry and technology that President Donald Trump has attacked as “ugly” and unreliable compared to fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.
UN chief warns 1.5C warming goal at risk of 'collapsing'
23 Sep 2025
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told AFP Friday that efforts to cap climate warming at 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial level are failing, as the UN prepared to host a climate week event alongside its annual diplomatic gathering.
New York readies for record Climate Week despite Trump chill factor
23 Sep 2025
The boost in engagement has come “precisely as an antidote to the current U.S. administration's attitude toward climate change".
Key oceans treaty crosses threshold to come into force
23 Sep 2025
A global agreement designed to protect the world's oceans and reverse damage to marine life is set to become international law.
South Korean decision to close all coal-fired power plants by 2040 sounds alarm for Australian exports
Wed 19 Nov 2025
Decision announced at Cop30 climate conference signposts risks for Australia’s reliance on fossil fuel exports, analysts say.
A landmark court ruling looms over US absence at COP30
Thu 20 Nov 2025
The historic climate change advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice suggests the United States is violating international law on climate, legal experts say.
China’s top envoy blasts EU climate goals and Trump’s ‘bad example’
Thu 20 Nov 2025
The European Union’s new pollution-cutting targets are insufficient, China’s climate envoy told POLITICO on the sidelines of this year’s COP30 conference while also condemning the “bad example” set by the absent United States.
A crucial system of ocean currents may be on course to collapse. This country just declared it a national security threat
Mon 17 Nov 2025
As evidence mounts these currents could be on course for collapse, Iceland’s government has made the unusual move of designating the risk a national security threat.
Scotland's first wind farm 'supercharged' after upgrade
11 Nov 2025
Scotland's first commercial wind farm will be able to deliver five times more clean power than before after being upgraded.
The hidden dangers in Canada’s oil and gas ambitions
Tue 18 Nov 2025
Premier of Alberta Danielle Smith thinks global demand for oil will grow to 2050, perhaps beyond, and the Alberta industry will be viable for a hundred years.
South Korean growers sue state power utility, blaming climate change for crop damage
Mon 17 Nov 2025
Five South Korean farmers recently sued the state utility Korea Electric Power Corporation and its power-generating subsidiaries, alleging that their reliance on coal and other fossil fuels has accelerated climate change and damaged their crops.
Mystery heatwave warms Pacific Ocean to new record
21 Oct 2025
The waters of the north Pacific have had their warmest summer on record, according to BBC analysis of a mysterious marine heatwave that has confounded climate scientists.
Scientists discovered something alarming seeping out from beneath the ocean around Antarctica
13 Oct 2025
Planet-heating methane is escaping from cracks in the Antarctic seabed as the region warms, with new seeps being discovered at an “astonishing rate".
What do African countries want from COP30?
11 Nov 2025
At the UN climate summit, African negotiators are seeking more “debt-free” financing that would allow them to implement climate solutions – from adaptation to just transition.
Ecuador’s voters protect rights of nature, reject proposal to rewrite constitution
Wed 19 Nov 2025
Ecuadorians handed their Trump-allied president a resounding defeat, choosing to maintain their “ecological constitution” and rejecting an attempt to allow foreign military bases in the country.
At COP30, focus on wildfire prevention amid record destruction
Thu 20 Nov 2025
With wildfires causing unprecedented damage, countries and organisations at COP30 agree to boost community-based prevention.
