DeBriefed 14 February 2025: Nearly 95% of countries miss UN climate deadline; 1.5C on horizon; Behind-the-scenes of CB analysis

Verner Viisainen

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

§ This week

1.5C looms

1.5C EXAMINED: The run of record heat last year suggests the world is close to exceeding the Paris Agreement’s target of limiting global temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, according to two new studies covered by the Press Association. In 2024, annual average temperatures reached 1.5C for the first time. However, the Paris goal is measured as a 20-year average – meaning breaching 1.5C in a single year does not yet show the target has been crossed, the publication noted.

BREACH IN REACH: The first of the two studies “looked at real-world observations of already reached warming levels…and showed that the first single years exceeding each threshold have consistently fallen with the first 20-year period which averaged the same level of warming”, said the newswire. The findings suggest the Paris goal could be crossed within 10 years – unless there are “stringent” emissions cuts, Agence France-Presse reported. This is in-line with recent estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Carbon Brief.

HEAT GOES ON: The second study explored what the run of temperatures above 1.5C from July 2023 to June 2024 could mean for the Paris Agreement, the Independent reported. It continued: “The study shows that having 12 consecutive months above 1.5C means there’s a 76% chance that we’ve already hit that long-term warming threshold under current climate policies. If this trend continues for 18 consecutive months, the research says, the breach of the Paris Agreement threshold will be virtually certain. January 2025 was the 19th month to cross that mark.”

§ Around the world

  • BP SWITCH: According to the Times, BP’s chief executive – under pressure from an activist investor – has pledged to “fundamentally reset” the company’s strategy, which is expected to involve a formal ditching of its target to cut oil and gas output and a further scaling back of its renewables projects. 
  • 35% RENEWABLE: Under Indonesia’s new electricity plan, the country aims to increase its renewable energy share from 12% to 35% in 2034 by expanding solar, battery, hydro and geothermal capacity, reported Reuters.
  • ‘EXISTENTIAL THREAT’: A first-of-its kind German government report found that climate change poses an “existential threat” to the European Union due to its “destabilising and unequal” effects, reported Politico. 
  • COAL ON A HIGH: As covered by Carbon Brief, China’s construction of coal-fired power plants reached a new 10-year high in 2024, according to a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor.
  • ‘100% SUSTAINABLE WOOD’: The UK government agreed a new deal for the Drax power plant – which burns wood pellets to generate electricity – halving its subsidies and requiring all wood to come from “100% sustainable” sources, the Guardian said. Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans had more details.
  • INDIA DEALS: Reuters reported that Nigeria is seeking assistance from India with its energy transition plans. Meanwhile, BBC News reported on the US and India agreeing a new deal that will see more American oil and gas imported by Delhi. 

§ 57%

The annual increase in second-hand EV sales in the UK from 2023 to 2024, with 188,382 cars changing hands in 2024, reported BusinessGreen.

§ Latest climate research

  • New research in npj Climate Action showed that the more pronounced local climate change effects become, the stronger the relationship between a person’s education level and their level of “climate concern”. 
  • A new study published in Nature Cities showed that people in more disadvantaged neighbourhoods are more exposed to floods, based on studying nearly 45,000 neighbourhoods in eight Latin American countries between 2000 and 2018.
  • Carbon emissions from permafrost “may pose a considerable risk” to climate mitigation efforts, “even if net-zero and negative emissions are achieved”, according to a new study published in Science Advances.

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

§ Captured

Nearly 95% of countries miss UN climate pledge deadline

Image - Countries meeting a UN deadline to submit 2035 climate pledges by 10 February. (note)

Nearly 95% of countries have missed a UN deadline to submit new climate pledges for 2035, Carbon Brief analysis shows. Just 13 of the 195 parties – highlighted on the map above –  signed up to the Paris Agreement published their new emissions-cutting plans, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs), by the 10 February deadline. Countries missing the deadline represent 83% of global emissions and nearly 80% of the world’s economy, according to Carbon Brief analysis. The US submitted its NDC under the previous Biden administration and has now announced plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

§ Spotlight

From faint idea to ‘forest twice the size of London’

This week, Carbon Brief takes you behind the scenes of its recent rapid analysis on UK airport expansion.

At the end of January, Carbon Brief published an analysis showing that a forest “twice the size of London” would be needed to offset the emissions from the UK government’s proposed airport expansion. 

It was covered widely in the press, featured on an ITV current affairs show and was cited twice by MPs in UK parliament.

The analysis – by myself, Carbon Brief’s data scientist, and policy correspondent Josh Gabbatiss – came together in just a few days. Below, I explain how we undertook the rapid analysis. 

Heathrow third runway

In January, UK chancellor Rachel Reeves signalled that the UK government was planning to back a third runway at Heathrow airport, along with the expansion of two other London airports, Luton and Gatwick.

We decided to examine what the “climate cost” of such an expansion would be. The UK has so far done little to align its aviation sector with its net-zero target and this seemed like it could make that target even harder to reach.

The question was how should we go about this? Carbon Brief has previously published a guest post showing that airport expansion was not net-zero compatible and others had published more recent emissions analysis. What more could we add?

For a new angle, we wanted to focus on the extra emissions that would result specifically from the expansion of the three airports.

Calculating airport emissions

We noted that Carbon Brief’s guest post had used estimates for the average emissions per passenger to calculate the extra emissions in the year 2050 from the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the UK’s official climate advisers. 

But calculating the extra emissions for a single year more than two decades in the future did not feel sufficient because the expansions would be operational years before 2050 – and it is the cumulative that matters for global temperatures. 

However, calculating cumulative emissions would require modelling based on airport expansion dates.

Assuming the expansions are fully operational by 2040 and using CCC modelling, I produced the first rough chart (below) using pandas, a data analysis tool designed for the Python coding language.

This showed that the expansion of Heathrow, Luton and Gatwick would produce an extra 81m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) by 2050 (in orange on the chart below).

Image - Rough chart for DeBriefed_1 (note)

Forest figures

After calculating the extra emissions from the UK’s planned airport expansion, we decided that we needed to come up with a way of contextualising the number for our readers.

This is a common issue for us at Carbon Brief – how to communicate the scale of emissions. The average person does not necessarily know how to interpret 81m tonnes.

It can help to compare it to something more grounded and visible. In this case, we decided to work out how many trees would be needed to absorb all the extra emissions.

First, I redid the analysis with more accurate information on airport-expansion timelines from the Aviation Environment Federation, an NGO focused on the climate impacts of flying, which updated the total to 92m tonnes.

For converting this to trees, I drew on the methods of a previous analysis to get the emissions absorbed per hectare of forest planted over its lifetime.

From this, and assuming that the new forest is planted in 2028, I could calculate the forest area that would need to be planted so that by 2050 it has offset the extra aviation emissions from 2028 to 2050.

Using this, we got a forest “twice the size of Greater London”. 

For more context, I added the historical emissions from the aviation sector and separated out each airport’s contribution in the updated chart (below). 

Image - Rough chart for DeBriefed (note)

Visualising the headline

The last step of the analysis was to present it in Carbon Brief style. I sent the data to our multimedia team and asked them to add two London-shaped forests to the chart. 

Armed with the headline and caption text, the multimedia team turned the data into something visually captivating that could tell the story on its own. 

Image - Annual UK aviation emissions, MtCO2e. (note)

If such work interests you, consider applying for our data-analyst vacancy. Deadline: 9am GMT 17 February 

§ Watch, read, listen

CLIMATE BOWL: Super Bowl viewers in Los Angeles were shown the first-ever climate advert from a nonprofit group, showing the progress of climate change through the timeline of a young girl.

BIG SIX WASHING: A DeSmog investigation outlined how the six largest communication companies present themselves as climate friendly while helping to promote fossil fuels. 

‘TOTAL WIPEOUT’: A France24 video report highlighted how some lower altitude ski towns are adapting to their new snow-scarce reality in the face of climate change.

§ Coming up

§ Pick of the jobs

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to [email protected].
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