Wildfires are burning through the carbon budget that humans have allocated themselves to limit global heating, a study shows.
The authors said this accelerating trend was approaching – and may have already breached – a “critical temperature threshold” after which fires cause significant shifts in tree cover and carbon storage.
“Alarmingly, the latest temperature at which, globally, these impacts become pronounced is 1.34C – close to current levels of warming [above preindustrial levels],” said the UK Met Office, which led the research.
Forests are going up in smoke in Brazil, the US, Greece, Portugal and even the Arctic Circle amid the Earth’s two hottest years in recorded history.
Each fire has a double impact on the global climate: first, by emitting carbon from the burned trees, and second, by reducing the capacity of forests to absorb carbon dioxide.
This adds to the heat in the Earth system, which has already been raised by the burning of gas, oil and coal. Global temperatures are already 1.3C higher than in the preindustrial age, according to the Met Office.
As temperatures rise, droughts become more frequent, rainy seasons shorten and forests become more vulnerable to fire. This is made worse by human clearance of land for farms, which is particularly pronounced in South America. A separate study last week showed the continent is becoming warmer, drier, and more flammable.
Other research showed the Amazon is undergoing a “critical slowing down”, with more than a third of the rainforest struggling to recover from drought after four supposedly “one-in-a-century” dry spells in less than 20 years.
These compounding impacts, which scientists call positive feedbacks, are turning forests from carbon sinks into carbon sources.
This makes it harder to slow global heating, even before the world reaches the 1.5C lower target of the Paris climate agreement.
“Fires are reducing the ability of forests and other ecosystems to store carbon, narrowing our window to keep global warming in check,” said Dr Chantelle Burton, the study’s lead author.
This is not the only positive feedback that concerns scientists, who are also worried that the rapid melting of ice caps is reducing the planet’s “albedo” ability to reflect sunlight back into space.
Climatologists say the already dire situation will deteriorate until humankind, particularly in the wealthy global north, stops burning fossil fuels.
Analysis of satellite data finds plant cover has increased more than tenfold over the last few decades
Plant cover across the Antarctic peninsula has soared more than tenfold over the last few decades, as the climate crisis heats up the icy continent.
Analysis of satellite data found there was less than one sq kilometre of vegetation in 1986 but there was almost 12km2 of green cover by 2021. The spread of the plants, mostly mosses, has accelerated since 2016, the researchers found.
The growth of vegetation on a continent dominated by ice and bare rock is a sign of the reach of global heating into the Antarctic, which is warming faster than the global average. The scientists warned that this spread could provide a foothold for alien invasive species into the pristine Antarctic ecosystem.
Greening has also been reported in the Arctic, and in 2021 rain, not snow, fell on the summit of Greenland’s huge ice cap for the first time on record.
“The Antarctic landscape is still almost entirely dominated by snow, ice and rock, with only a tiny fraction colonised by plant life,” said Dr Thomas Roland, at the University of Exeter, UK, and who co-led the study. “But that tiny fraction has grown dramatically – showing that even this vast and isolated wilderness is being affected by human-caused climate change.” The peninsula is about 500,000km2 in total.
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The Oregon lawsuit alleges that the utility knew of the dangers of burning fossil fuels and misled its customers.
Oregon officials have added the state’s largest natural gas utility as a defendant in their $50 billion lawsuit against fossil fuel companies over their contribution to climate change.
The suit — the first to make climate-related deception claims against a utility, experts said — alleges that the company, NW Natural, knew that the burning of natural gas contributed to global warming, but misled its customers about the consequences. It is an expansion of a lawsuit that was first filed last year by Multnomah County, which includes Portland.
The complaint alleges that Exxon, Shell and other companies, now including NW Natural, had schemed to “rapaciously” sell fossil fuel products and cover up what they knew about the risks to the planet, and that the companies bear responsibility for the effects of climate change including a deadly heat wave in 2021 that killed at least 69 county residents.
Experts said the addition of NW Natural to the amended lawsuit on Monday was the first instance of a gas utility being named as a plaintiff in a case like this. Overall there are about two dozen lawsuits by state and local governments alleging that oil companies covered up the dangers of climate change.
Alyssa Johl, vice president of legal and general counsel at the nonprofit advocacy group the Center for Climate Integrity, said that gas utilities had been “significant players in the historic and ongoing deception campaigns to mislead the public about the dangers of fossil fuels.”
NW Natural said Wednesday that it had not received the complaint, though it was aware of reports that it had been added to the lawsuit. “We believe adding the company to the suit now is an attempt to divert attention from legal and factual flaws in the case. NW Natural will vigorously contest the County’s claims should they come to court,” the company said in a statement.
The original suit also named other companies and industry trade groups as defendants, including the consulting giant McKinsey & Company. Exxon Mobil, Shell and McKinsey did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants had known about the risks of global warming since the 1950s because of their own internal forecasting, and covered up that information. The county said it had incurred more than $50 million in damages from wildfires and extreme heat and other disasters, and that future economic damage would amount to at least $1.5 billion. The suit seeks a much greater sum, “at least $50 billion,” for adaptation projects to forestall harms related to climate change.
The amended complaint also added the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, a nonprofit research group, as a defendant, alleging that it ran a misinformation campaign with funding from Exxon Mobil, among others. An email to the address listed on the organization’s website on Wednesday bounced back.
The chair of Multnomah County, Jessica Vega Pederson, cited the lawsuits against tobacco companies in the 1990s that led to extraordinary payouts. Lawyers have looked to those cases, as well as litigation over the opioid crisis, as blueprints for action against oil companies over climate change.
“We’re already paying dearly in Multnomah County for our climate crisis with our tax dollars, with our health and with our lives,” Ms. Vega Pederson said.
The attorneys general of 10 states or territories have sued oil companies over what they say is deception about the dangers of climate change. Municipal and tribal governments have filed similar suits. None has gone to trial yet, amid years of wrangling over whether they belong in state court (where they were filed, and where legal experts think the plaintiffs will fare better) or federal courts (where fossil fuel companies argue they belong).
In June a federal judge rejected the defendants’ attempts to get the Multnomah County case moved to federal court.
Legal experts say the case in Massachusetts is likely to be the first to make it to trial, as early as next year. That case was filed in 2019 by then-Attorney General Maura Healey against Exxon Mobil, alleging that the company had violated consumer protection laws by misleading customers and investors.
The climate change lawsuits, which have mostly come from Democratic-led states, are also being challenged by the governments of Republican-led states. In May, Alabama and 18 other states asked the Supreme Court to block climate-related lawsuits by California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island against oil and gas companies.
The plaintiffs argued that the defendants were trying to “dictate the future of the American energy industry” by imposing “ruinous liability and coercive remedies” on companies. They also argued that disputes over emissions that cross state lines fall under federal, not state law.
On Monday, the Supreme Court justices asked the U.S. solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, for her input on the case, in a sign that they could decide to hear the case.
We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.
Conclusions
Despite six IPCC reports, 28 COP meetings, hundreds of other reports, and tens of thousands of scientific papers, the world has made only very minor headway on climate change, in part because of stiff resistance from those benefiting financially from the current fossil-fuel based system. We are currently going in the wrong direction, and our increasing fossil fuel consumption and rising greenhouse gas emissions are driving us toward a climate catastrophe. We fear the danger of climate breakdown. The evidence we observe is both alarming and undeniable, but it is this very shock that drives us to action. We recognize the profound urgency of addressing this global challenge, especially the horrific outlook for the world's poor. We feel the courage and determination to seek transformative science-based solutions across all aspects of society (table S4). Our goal is to provide clear, evidence-based insights that inspire informed and bold responses from citizens to researchers and world leaders.
Rapidly phasing down fossil fuel use should be a top priority. This might be accomplished partly through a sufficiently high global carbon price that could restrain emissions by the wealthy while potentially providing funding for much-needed climate mitigation and adaptation programs. In addition, pricing and reducing methane emissions is critical for effectively mitigating climate change. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and unlike carbon dioxide, which persists in the atmosphere for centuries, methane has a relatively short atmospheric lifetime, making reductions impactful in the short term (Shindell et al. 2024). Drastically cutting methane emissions can slow the near-term rate of global warming, helping to avoid tipping points and extreme climate impacts.
In a world with finite resources, unlimited growth is a perilous illusion. We need bold, transformative change: drastically reducing overconsumption and waste, especially by the affluent, stabilizing and gradually reducing the human population through empowering education and rights for girls and women, reforming food production systems to support more plant-based eating, and adopting an ecological and post-growth economics framework that ensures social justice (Table S4). Climate change instruction should be integrated into secondary and higher education core curriculums worldwide to raise awareness, improve climate literacy, and empower learners to take action. We also need more immediate efforts to protect, restore, or rewild ecosystems.
The surge in yearly climate disasters shows we are in a major crisis with worse to come if we continue with business as usual. Today, more than ever, our actions matter for the stable climate system that has supported us for thousands of years. Humanity's future depends on our creativity, moral fiber, and perseverance. We must urgently reduce ecological overshoot and pursue immediate large-scale climate change mitigation and adaptation to limit near-term damage. Only through decisive action can we safeguard the natural world, avert profound human suffering, and ensure that future generations inherit the livable world they deserve. The future of humanity hangs in the balance.
Editor’s summary
Anthropogenic climate change has made wildfires bigger, hotter, and more common. Jones et al. used a machine learning approach to break down the “why” and “where” of the observed increases. The authors identified different forest ecoregions, grouped them into 12 global forest pyromes, and described their differing sensitivities to climate, humans, and vegetation. Their analysis shows how forest fire carbon emissions have increased in extratropical pyromes, where climate is the major control, overtaking emissions from the tropical pyromes, where human influence is most important. It also illustrates the increasing vulnerability of forests to fire disturbance under climate change. —Jesse Smith
Structured Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Forest fires are a natural disturbance mechanism made more likely by climate change, with major impacts on global forest ecosystems and carbon (C) storage. Recent trends show a worrying increase in forest fire activity, particularly in extratropical regions. This study aims to disentangle the factors driving the recent increases in fire activity by analyzing global forest fire extent and emissions and their relationship with climatic, human, and vegetation controls. Using machine learning, we grouped global forest ecoregions into 12 distinct pyromes in which forest fire extent depends on similar sets of controls.
RATIONALE
Understanding the drivers of fires in distinct pyromes is essential for developing targeted strategies to predict and manage fire risks. By grouping forest ecoregions into pyromes with distinct fire controls, we aimed to better understand the regional variations in fire dynamics and their sensitivity to climate change. This approach allows us to isolate the effects of climate change from other influencing factors such as land use and vegetation productivity.
RESULTS
Our analysis revealed that extratropical forest fire emissions have increased substantially under climate change. Fire emissions in one extratropical pyrome spanning boreal forests in Eurasia and North America nearly tripled between 2001 and 2023. This increase was linked to a rise in fire-favorable weather conditions, reduced soil moisture, and increased vegetation productivity. By contrast, tropical pyromes showed a decline in fire emissions linked to reduced deforestation fires in moist tropical forests and increased fragmentation of dry tropical forests with agriculture and other land uses. Overall, forest fire C emissions increased by 60% globally during the study period, with the most substantial contributions coming from extratropical regions. The increase in extratropical fire activity highlights the strong influence of climatic factors compared with human activities, which play a more dominant role in tropical regions. The increases in forest fire C emissions were explained both by changes in fire extent and by changes in fire severity (measured in terms of the C emitted per unit area burned by fire). In the extratropical forest pyromes, we observed major increases in fire severity alongside expansion of areas affected by fire. This finding shows that the intensity and severity of fires is increasing in extratropical forests, which is consistent with fires affecting drier, more flammable stocks of vegetation fuels as the climate warms and as droughts become more frequent.
CONCLUSION
The steep trend toward greater extratropical forest fire emissions is a warning of the growing vulnerability of forest C stocks to climate change. This poses a major challenge for global targets to tackle climate change, with fire reducing the capacity of forests to act as C sinks. Effective forest management and policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions are essential to mitigate these risks. Our study underscores the importance of considering regional distinctions in the controls on fire when developing strategies to manage fire and protect forest ecosystems. Proactive measures such as monitoring changes in vegetation and productivity can guide the prioritization of areas for forest management in the extratropics. In tropical pyromes, reducing ignitions during extreme fire-favorable weather and preventing forest fragmentation should protect forests and enhance C retention. In regions with substantial fire suppression history, shifting focus to managed, ecologically beneficial fires may prevent C sink-to-source conversion. Addressing the primary causes of climate change, particularly fossil fuel emissions, is central to minimizing future risks of forest fires globally and securing resilient forests for the future. In addition, our work supports growing calls for more comprehensive reporting of forest fire emissions to the United Nations as part of national reporting of anthropogenic C fluxes. The present norm of counting forest fire emissions fluxes as natural, on both managed and unmanaged land, is increasingly at odds with the observed growth in fire emission fluxes tied to anthropogenic climate change. This contributes to emerging gaps between the anthropogenic C budgets that are officially reported to the United Nations and the budgets constructed based on models and observations of terrestrial C stocks or atmospheric concentrations of CO2. Finally, we highlight the potential for major overestimation of C storage (and therefore C credits) by reafforestation schemes in extratropical forests if the growing risk of fire disturbance is not appropriately factored into accreditation protocols.
Abstract
Climate change intensifies fire smoke, emitting hazardous air pollutants that impact human health. However, the global influence of climate change on fire-induced health impacts remains unquantified. Here we used three well-tested fire–vegetation models in combination with a chemical transport model and health risk assessment framework to attribute global human mortality from fire fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions to climate change. Of the 46,401 (1960s) to 98,748 (2010s) annual fire PM2.5 mortalities, 669 (1.2%, 1960s) to 12,566 (12.8%, 2010s) were attributed to climate change. The most substantial influence of climate change on fire mortality occurred in South America, Australia and Europe, coinciding with decreased relative humidity and in boreal forests with increased air temperature. Increasing relative humidity lowered fire mortality in other regions, such as South Asia. Our study highlights the role of climate change in fire mortality, aiding public health authorities in spatial targeting adaptation measures for sensitive fire-prone areas.
Significance
Documenting the human activity in the Arctic is a crucial step toward the sustainable development of the region. Dividing human activity to its components of urbanization and industrialization enhances our understanding of the mechanisms, heterogeneity, and concentration of the economic activity of different regions. Here, we provide a pan-Arctic scale assessment of industrial human activity, detecting spatial hotspots and a high annual development rate that adds pressure on the vulnerable Arctic ecosystems that are already threatened by strong climate change and where the smallest anthropogenic disturbance persists for decades. Our study provides the basis for investigating further economic and ecological questions in relation to industrial human activity in the Arctic.
Abstract
Climate warming enables easier access and operation in the Arctic, fostering industrial and urban development. However, there is no comprehensive pan-Arctic overview of industrial and urban development, which is crucial for the planning of sustainable development of the region. In this study, we utilize satellite-derived artificial light at night (ALAN) data to quantify the hotspots and the development of light-emitting human activity across the Arctic from 1992 to 2013. We find that out of 16.4 million km2 analyzed a total area of 839,710 km2 (5.14%) is lit by human activity with an annual increase of 4.8%. The European Arctic and the oil and gas extraction regions in Russia and Alaska are hotspots of ALAN with up to a third of the land area lit, while the Canadian Arctic remains dark to a large extent. On average, only 15% of lit area in the Arctic contains human settlement, indicating that artificial light is largely attributable to industrial human activity. With this study, we provide a standardized approach to spatially assess human industrial activity across the Arctic, independent from economic data. Our results provide a crucial baseline for sustainable development and conservation planning across the highly vulnerable Arctic region.
Abstract
The record-breaking temperatures in Europe during the 2022 summer were associated with over 60,000 heat-related deaths. By combining epidemiological models with detection and attribution techniques, we attribute half of this mortality burden (~56% [95% CI 39–77%]) to anthropogenic warming. Likewise, this applies to all sexes, ages, and heat-related mortality burdens during previous years (2015–2021). Our results urgently call for increasing ambition in adaptation and mitigation.
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The summer of 2022 was the hottest on record in Europe, characterized by intense series of heatwaves, and +1.4 °C warmer than the reference period 1991–20201. With temperatures on the European continent increasing at least twice as fast as the global average, and most recent years breaking one temperature record after another, Europe is already experiencing the adverse impacts of anthropogenic warming, especially an unprecedented increase in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves2. One of the significant impacts of human-induced climate change on human health is heat-related morbidity and mortality3. Up-to-date, heatwaves account for the majority of weather-related fatalities in Europe4. Heightened risks of death from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases related to heat exposure have been identified among people with pre-existing conditions, particularly in vulnerable populations, including the elderly and those in disadvantaged socio-economic conditions3.
Despite the growing awareness of those risks during recent decades, and the implementation of public health strategies to cope with the adverse effects of heat, European societies are still largely vulnerable to high summer temperatures. Ballester et al.5 used epidemiological models to estimate that the record-breaking temperatures observed in Europe during the 2022 summer were associated with 61,672 [95% CI 37,643–86,807] heat-related deaths. Moreover, they found heat-related mortality rates greater than 200 summer deaths per million inhabitants in several Southern European countries, i.e. Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal, with decreasing impacts towards higher latitudes. In a recent analysis of the 2023 summer, Gallo et al.6, similarly, found a notably high heat-related mortality burden, i.e. 47,690 deaths [95% CI = 28,853–66,525].
In this study, we aim to quantify the contribution of human-induced climate change to the heat-related mortality burden of the 2022 summer in Europe and analyze it within the context of other less extreme recent years (2015–2021). ... ... ... ... ...
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on Monday that he believes climate change is caused by abortions, not burning fossil fuels.
Speaking on a podcast with former Trump campaign strategist and fellow Trump ally Stephen Bannon, who was just released from prison, Carlson denied the scientific consensus that fossil fuel use is behind global heating, and that this in turn fuels hurricanes like those which recently struck the American Southeast. Striking a religious note, Carlson attributed continuously rising temperatures to the supposed moral failures of American women.
“It’s probably abortion, actually,” Carlson said, later describing the practice as “human sacrifice.” After conceding that he will be “attacked” for his opinion, Carlson added “I really believe it.”
While hurricanes are a natural phenomenon, they have become more frequent and more intense over the years. Scientists have provided strong evidence that the dynamic behind this is an increase of greenhouse gasses from human industry that trap heat, cooking the oceans to extreme levels that cause greater evaporation. Additionally, the increase in CO2 allows more vapor to form in the air. This supercharges these tropical storms — and obviously it has nothing to do with health care or reproductive rights.
Carlson’s comments are part of a broader trend of spreading misinformation about both climate change and the pair of recent hurricanes, Helene and Milton, that struck millions of Americans. A recent report by the London-based think tank the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) found that when those hurricanes struck in October, social media accounts linked to Russian state-affiliated media spread misinformation that promoted right-wing themes. They inaccurately claimed relief organizations such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were incompetent or actively trying to harm ordinary Americans. Many hurricane victims were told FEMA would only pay them up to $750 or that accepting relief money could get their land seized. Trump spread some of this misinformation himself, particularly regarding the relief efforts.
On one occasion, the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti shared an AI-generated image of Florida's Disney World being supposedly destroyed by Hurricane Milton, which quickly went viral on Elon Musk’s social media platform X. Some of the conspiracy theories claimed the hurricanes had been created by Jews to help Vice President Kamala Harris win the upcoming election.
“This type of content is especially prominent on X (formerly Twitter), in line with other recent moderation failures identified by ISD” the authors write. Their views are echoed by other scholars who specialize in climate change denial. Speaking to Salon in April, University of Pennsylvania climatologist Dr. Michael E. Mann said that “Twitter has become a cesspool for the promotion of misinformation and disinformation; Elon Musk is not an honest actor. By some measures, he has engaged in criminal behavior, and I think it's pretty clear that he has to be reined in and we are going to need much tougher regulatory policies.”
The year 2024 is on track to be the warmest year on record after an extended streak of exceptionally high monthly global mean temperatures.
The WMO State of the Climate 2024 Update once again issues a Red Alert at the sheer pace of climate change in a single generation, turbo-charged by ever-increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. 2015-2024 will be the warmest ten years on record; the loss of ice from glaciers, sea-level rise and ocean heating are accelerating; and extreme weather is wreaking havoc on communities and economies across the world.
The January – September 2024 global mean surface air temperature was 1.54 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ±0.13°C) above the pre-industrial average, boosted by a warming El Niño event, according to an analysis of six international datasets used by WMO.
The report was issued on the first day of the UN Climate Change Conference, COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan. It highlights that the ambitions of the Paris Agreement are in great peril.
Barbados PM asks Donald Trump for face-to-face meeting on climate
Mia Mottley, who has championed climate action, says she would seek common ground with US president-elect
Mia Mottley, the climate-championing prime minister of Barbados, has invited Donald Trump to a face-to-face meeting where she would seek “common ground” and persuade him that climate action was in his own interests.
“Let us find a common purpose in saving the planet and saving livelihoods,” she told the Guardian at the UN’s Cop29 climate summit in Azerbaijan. “We are human beings and we have the capacity to meet face-to-face, in spite of our differences. We want humanity to survive. And the evidence [of the climate crisis] we are seeing almost weekly now.”
Only by personal meetings among world leaders can the massive changes needed on climate action be achieved, she believes. “President Trump has been very clear about the importance of that kind of face-to-face conversation in the things that he believes that he can solve as well.”
Mottley, the prime minister who took Barbados out of the Commonwealth realm to be a republic, has been an electrifying presence at recent UN climate summits since she took to the stage at Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021 with an impassioned speech demanding world leaders “try harder” to avoid passing a death sentence on her country. Since then, she has gained a global reputation as a formidable champion of the developing countries most affected by climate breakdown.
She has also led a movement among developing and some developed countries to change the global financial system to generate the funds needed to shift the world to a low-carbon economy.
The re-election of Trump has thrown a deep shadow over Cop29, which kicked off on Monday in Baku. Scores of world leaders flew in for the summit, but the heads of government of most of the world’s biggest economies stayed away.
Delegates fear Trump will withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, dismantle regulations and climate targets, and push forward with plans to “drill, baby, drill” for more fossil fuels. Scientists have warned that if he follows through on his campaign promises the world has little hope of limiting global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial temperatures.
Argentinian negotiators representing the government of climate science denier Javier Milei were ordered on Wednesday to withdraw from Cop29 after just three days, adding to concerns about the stability of the Paris agreement.
But Trump had shown a willingness to deal with crises before, Mottley noted. “I think that there are possibilities for discussion. The same warp speed that President Trump addressed the issue of vaccines and the development of a vaccine is the same warp speed that we want to encourage him and others to look at for decarbonising technology,” she said.
She also believes she could show Trump that the US would benefit economically from tackling the climate crisis.
For instance, she pointed to the flaring of methane from oil and gas production sites. Installing relatively simple equipment to catch and use the methane instead would be profitable, according to the International Energy Agency, which should appeal to Trump.
“Why would you want to flare gas and lose money, when you can use gas and earn money?” she asked.
She also pointed to climate migration. “If I can’t live because I can’t farm because I don’t have access to water, or floods are now coming with an intensity and a regularity that makes it impossible for me to sustain my way of life, I’m going to shift where I’m living from.
“Or if I have no ability to access insurance, and insurance is critical to my ability to get a loan, I’m going to have to move from where I’m operating. So the volume of climate migration hopefully will wake up those who have been slow to see that this must be a win-win.”
Mottley argued Trump would also find it hard to fully reverse the Inflation Reduction Act, which incentivises clean energy, because many formerly depressed areas around the US, including traditionally Republican-voting ones, had seen new jobs and industries spring up because of it.
“We’ve had four years of municipalities, states and the private sector all making significant investments [in a low-carbon economy] in the US,” she said. “You are unlikely to see a U-turn on everything in as bald a way as some people fear.”
Cop29 is focused on the issue of climate finance, with the aim of setting out a new global goal that would deliver at least $1tn a year to developing countries, to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate-driven extreme weather.
Developed countries, however, are likely to pledge as little as a third of that in public finance from their overseas aid budgets and through the World Bank and similar institutions.
Mottley recognises rich countries will not stump up enough cash from their own budgets, though she argues they ought to do far more than they are now pledging. She has a set of proposals, known as the Bridgetown agenda after the capital of Barbados, that would generate more than $1tn a year in climate finance.
First off are reforms to the World Bank that would help free up hundreds of billions more in cash, and make loans cheaper and easier to access for the poorest and most vulnerable countries. Mottley says these moves are already under way, and have been successful so far.
She also wants new sources of revenue, called “global solidarity levies” – ways of raising money, particularly from polluting activities, that can go towards climate finance. These include a compulsory levy on business and first class flights, with a voluntary charge on economy flights that passengers could choose to pay (“because the agency of individuals matters”); a charge on international shipping; a charge on fossil fuel extraction that could reap $210bn a year; and a 0.1% levy on financial transactions that would raise $480bn a year.
“The reality is that global public goods need dedicated sources of global financing. And if we were to extend the polluter-pays principle, then those who contribute to the problem should help carry some of the burden. And those who make profit egregiously should also leave a little something on the table,” she said. “This is the one issue for sure that binds us all, because without a planet there will be no life that we can sustain.”
Mottley also favours a wealth tax on billionaires, which has been proposed by Brazil. “When you took the [Covid] vaccine injection, you didn’t even feel it. The super wealthy, if asked to leave a little something on the table, will not feel it.”
It is beyond the scope of Cop29, or the UN, to impose such levies, and they do not form part of the formal discussions in Azerbaijan. However, a special taskforce including Barbados, France, Spain, Kenya and others – but not, so far, the UK – is working to bring the proposals to reality.
One vitally important action that she hopes Cop29 will take is to focus on methane. Emissions of this gas – which comes from fossil fuel exploration, agriculture and waste, and is many times more powerful than CO2 in heating the planet – have been rising, but efforts to control them have so far had little impact.
“There needs to be a global methane agreement,” she said. Scientists have said that controlling methane could prevent 0.5C of heating in the short term. “It seems like it’s a no-brainer,” Mottley said.
