Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

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US debt deal

‘CLIMATE SHADOW’:A deal struck between US president Joe Biden and Republicans to allow the US to borrow more money inched towards becoming law after being approved by both chambers of the US Congress,BBC Newsreported – potentially “cast[ing] a shadow over climate politics in 2024”, according toAxios. The deal involves “compromises” on key climate measures, including a weakening of environmental review measures and the approval of the Mountain Valley pipeline, a major gas project in Virginia and West Virginia, according to Axios.

‘EGREGIOUS ACT’:TheGuardianreported that environmentalists “reacted in outrage” to the deal. Peter Anderson, Virginia policy director at the campaign group Appalachian Voices, told the publication: “Singling out the Mountain Valley pipeline for approval in a vote about our nation’s credit limit is an egregious act.”

Eyes on Brazil

AMAZON COP:Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this week confirmed that the country has been chosen to host the 2025 UN climate summit, COP30,CNN报道。Lula plans to host the event in the Amazonian city of Belém do Pará, according to the publication. It comes after Lula, fresh from an election victory, made waves at theCOP27 climate summitin 2022 by promising to reach “zero deforestation” and install new rights for Indigenous people.

INDIGENOUS THREAT:But, despite winning praise overseas, Lula is struggling to enact his ambitious climate agenda at home. He was dealt a blow this week when members of Brazil’s conservative-dominated lower house overwhelmingly endorsed a bill that could threaten Indigenous land rights and pave the way for more Amazon deforestation, theGuardian报道。Lula’s plan to establish a ministry for Indigenous people is also under threat, said Brazilian newspaperFolha de S.Paulo.

China faces heatwave

上海闷热:China’s largest city, Shanghai, recorded its hottest May day in 100 years when temperatures hit 36.7C on Monday,Al Jazeera报道。According to the publication, the record was announced via a post on the city’s meteorological service’s official Weibo account.

40C FORECAST:The heat is expected to continue across many areas of China in the coming days,Reuters报道。中国人forecasters said earlier today temperatures could exceed 40C in many areas, “putting power grids under strain as air conditioners are turned on full blast at homes, offices and factories”, the newswire said.

Around the world

• STRONGEST STORM:Super Typhoon Mawar, the strongest storm on Earth fortwo years, raged across the Pacific this week, strikingGuam,PhilippinesandJapan.
• NIGERIA FUEL CRISIS:Nigeria’s new president Bola Tinubu used his first address to announce an abrupt end to fuel subsidies, sparking national chaos as the public rushed to gas stations to stock up before prices rose, theFinancial Times报道。
• AIRLINE CLIMATE CLAIMS QUERIED:DeltaAirlines is facing a lawsuit after inaccurately claiming to be the world’s first “carbon-neutral” airline,Associated Press报道。The lawsuit alleges that the claim was based on “bogus” carbon offsets.
• INSURANCE TURMOIL:Lloyd’s has joined a string of big insurers in leaving the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), a UN body set up in 2021 for insurers wanting to cut emissions and reduce climate risk, theFinancial Times报道。

440GW:

The amount of new renewable energy capacity that the world is set to add this year.

Latest climate research

• Seven out of eight “safe and just” boundaries for Earth have already been crossed, research inNaturesaid.亚慱官网spoke to a range of scientists about why the findings are contested.
• There is “outstanding geographical inequality” between the emissions of individuals living in the global north and south, according to research inScientific Reports.
• Human-caused climate change did not play a “significant” role in the heavy rainfall that led to recent flooding in northern Italy, arapid attribution analysisconcluded.亚慱官网explained the details.

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summarises of the top climate news stories onTuesday,Wednesday,ThursdayandFriday.)

Captured

US fossil-fuel job losses offset by net-zero

New research covered in-depth by亚慱官网this week addressed a common trope from climate-sceptic Republicans that the transition to net-zero in the US could leave some communities jobless. The study, published inEnergy Policy, found that, as the country shifts to net-zero, the loss of jobs in fossil-fuel rich regions would be more than offset by new jobs in low-carbon industries. This is true for both “red” (Republican-voting) and “blue” (Democrat-voting) states, as illustrated in the charts above.

Spotlight

UK minister’s oil and gas claims factchecked

The UK’s opposition Labour Party last weekendconfirmedit would end new oil and gas developments if elected to power, after first announcing intentions to do so in2021. This prompted the country’s current net-zero secretary, Grant Shapps, totweeton Wednesday that Labour was pursuing a “just stop oil plan” (a reference to climate campaign group Just Stop Oil) that would “harm the economy”. Below, Carbon Brief factchecks his claims.

Is Labour’s pledge to end new oil and gas licences a ‘Just Stop Oil plan’?

The climate campaign group Just Stop Oil is certainly not the only one to call for an end to new oil and gas licences.

Back in 2021, the world’s most influential energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency, said there wasno roomfor new oil and gas expansion anywhere in the world if the global energy system is to reach net-zero by 2050. Furtheryabo亚博体育app下载conducted since then has confirmed that there is a “large consensus” across all published pathways that new fossil-fuel expansion is “incompatible” with limiting global warming to 1.5C.

Several countries, including France, Ireland and Denmark, havealready announcedthat they will no longer allow new oil and gas developments. Many climate scientistshave calledon the UK to follow suit. Setting an end date for new oil and gas licences was a recommendation of both areviewof net-zero led by Conservative and former energy minister Chris Skidmore and aparliamentary reportconducted by the Environmental Audit Committee, which is chaired by Conservative MP Philip Dunne.

Would ending new oil and gas development ‘harm the economy’?

The UK is currently reliant on fossil fuels for78%of the energy it needs, mostly to heat homes and fuel vehicles. Resources in the North Sea are in decline and the UK is anet importerof both oil and gas, leaving it vulnerable to global energy price hikes.

It is argued by some that ending new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea could increase the UK’s reliance on costly imports further, endangering the economy.

但是,正如西蒙·亚慱官网埃文博士碳短暂的副主编s explained in athreadin January, it is unlikely that sourcing a greater share of our fossil fuels from overseas in the future would “harm our economy”.

Oil and gas licences typically take an average of28 yearsto produce new fossil fuels. A new licence approved today may not produce oil and gas until the 2040s. By this time, the UK should be well on its way to meeting its legal target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

The journey to net-zero will see petrol cars replaced by electric cars, fossil-fuel boilers replaced by heat pumps and gas power stations replaced with low-carbon alternatives, such as renewables, nuclear and storage. All of this will see oil and gas demand plummet over the coming decades.

As oil and gas demand decreases, so too will the need to import costly fossil fuels. Even if the UK has to source a larger proportion of its oil and gas from imports because of ending new North Sea licences, it will need far less oil and gas than at present.

The reduced need to import oil and gas in the future is expected to improve the UK’s balance of payments deficit. (“Balance of payments” is a measure of cross-border transactions between the UK and the rest of the world.) This is one of the major reasons why meeting the UK’s net-zero target couldboost the country’s GDPin the long run.

Watch, read, listen

FINANCE INVESTIGATED:Reuterspublished an interactive special report detailing how countries have used “climate finance” to fund chocolate shops, hotels and even coal-fired power plants.

COP28 CONCERNS:Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate outlined inAl Jazeerawhat COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber must do to ensure legitimate progress is achieved at the next UN climate summit in UAE later this year.

‘CARBON COLONIALISM’:Thelatest episodeof the Green New Deal Media podcast speaks to geographer Dr Laurie Parsons about how rich nations “export their emissions to poorer ones”.

Coming up

• 5 June:World Environment Day
• 5-15 June:Bonn Climate Change Conference SB58, Germany
• 6-8 June:International Energy Agency (IEA) 8th Global Conference on Energy Efficiency, Paris
• 6 June:Kuwait general election

Pick of the jobs

• Uplift, a group scrutinising UK North Sea oil and gas, is hiring acampaign manager| Salary: £46,739-£49,585. Location: UK (remote).
• UNICEF is hiring anational consultant for climate change| Salary: Unspecified. Location: New Delhi, India.
• The Green Africa Youth Association is hiring aclimate officer. Salary: $200 a month. Location: Kampala, Uganda.

DeBriefed is written in rotation by Carbon Brief’s team and edited byDaisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to[email protected].