Climate Change

August 2026 averaged 16.96°C, 0.85°C above the 1991–2020 August mean — the warmest August on record and the joint-warmest month ever measured, level with July 2023. Against the 1850–1900 baseline it stood 1.65°C higher, the first month above 1.5°C since November 2025. That is one month, not the long-term average the Paris target is set against. Western Europe had its warmest summer on record; extra-polar sea surface temperature hit 21.07°C, the highest of any month. On the trend itself, a UNEP report concludes the long-term average is set to cross 1.5°C within a few years, peaking at 1.8°C in its most optimistic scenario and higher in most others — with overshoot, peak and decline now the best remaining route back. On September 14 the US Environmental Protection Agency finalised the removal of most of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards for power plants, and proposed rescinding every remaining greenhouse-gas standard for the sector, arguing the Clean Air Act no longer authorises it to regulate those emissions on climate grounds. It projects coal production for power rising more than tenfold.

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Today8

NewSep 14, 2026high

The EPA Strikes Most of the 2024 Power-Plant Rules, and Proposes to Strike the Rest

The Environmental Protection Agency finalised a rule removing most of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards for American power plants, announced by administrator Lee Zeldin at a G20 energy ministerial in Houston, with projected savings of $310 billion. Separately and on the same day it **proposed** rescinding every remaining greenhouse-gas standard for the sector — a further $370 million in claimed compliance savings — arguing that after the repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding and the Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision, Clean Air Act section 111 does not let it regulate power-plant emissions on climate grounds. It projects coal production for power to rise more than tenfold. One is final; the other faces a hearing and a 45-day comment period. Every figure is the agency’s own.

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epa.gov

Sep 3, 2026high

El Niño Is Being 'Supersized,' and the Forecast Is Near-Certain It Lasts Into 2027

The World Meteorological Organization issued its most unequivocal El Niño forecast yet: the event is firmly established and will strengthen to 'very strong,' peaking towards the end of 2026, with a likelihood its models put near 100 percent that it persists through February 2027. The tell is in the tropical Pacific, where the Niño 3.4 index climbed from about 1.5°C above normal in May–July to between 2.2 and 2.6°C by mid-August, and subsurface water ran more than 8°C above average in places. Above-normal temperatures are expected across almost all land through autumn. El Niño is a natural cycle, not a product of warming — but it is landing on an already record-warm ocean, and its heat usually shows up in global temperatures most strongly the year after it develops, pointing the record toward 2027. UN chief António Guterres said the planet is 'in uncharted waters.'

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wmo.intreuters.comnews.un.org

Sep 2, 2026high

China's Emissions Fall on Oil, Not Coal, for the First Time

China's carbon dioxide emissions fell about 1 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2026 — the first time a drop in oil use, rather than coal, has been enough to turn the world's largest emitter down. Oil consumption fell roughly 9 percent overall and 16 percent in transport after supply disruption through the Strait of Hormuz, while coal burnt for power rose 2.4 percent as wind and solar output was curtailed. Electric vehicles displaced more oil in the first half of the year than the United Kingdom consumed over the same period. The analysis, made by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air from national statistics, customs and power-industry data, cautions that about 60 percent of the 32 percent fall in oil imports reflects stockpile drawdown rather than lower consumption. Emissions remain marginally up across the half-year, and flat since peaking in March 2024.

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carbonbrief.orgstats.gov.cn

NewSep 2, 2026high

UNEP Says the Crossing Is Coming, and Names the Peak

A UNEP report, Limiting Overshoot, concludes that global temperature rise is set to cross 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels — the long-term average, not a single month — likely within the next few years. Its most optimistic scenario peaks at 1.8°C; most others peak higher, some above 2°C. It argues that an overshoot-peak-decline pathway is now the best remaining route back below 1.5°C, and that the exceedance should be made as small and as short as possible. Read alongside August’s single month at 1.65°C, it is the difference between weather inside a trend and the trend itself.

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unep.org

NewAug 31, 2026high

August Was the Warmest Month Ever Measured, and the First Above 1.5°C Since November

August 2026 averaged 16.96°C globally — 0.85°C above the 1991–2020 August average, the warmest August in the ERA5 record, and the joint-warmest calendar month ever measured, level with July 2023. Against the 1850–1900 pre-industrial baseline it stood 1.65°C higher, the first single month above 1.5°C since November 2025. That is a month, not the long-term average the Paris target is defined against. June to August was the joint-warmest boreal summer on record with 2024; Western Europe had its warmest summer ever, passing 2003. Extra-polar sea surface temperature averaged 21.07°C, the highest for any August and joint-highest of any month, with a daily record of 21.11°C — though Copernicus notes some other datasets do not show an August SST record. Arctic sea ice ranked 12th lowest for the month, Antarctic fourth lowest.

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climate.copernicus.eu

Aug 28, 2026high

A Land Convention Meets for Twelve Days and Cannot Agree on Drought

UNCCD COP17 closed in Ulaanbaatar having adopted 34 decisions — on rangelands and pastoralists, which cover 54 percent of the world's land and support nearly 500 million people, on sand and dust storms, land tenure, finance and the science-policy interface — and having failed on the one it was called to settle. Parties reached no substantive agreement on drought, nor on migration, aridity or knowledge sharing, and IISD's negotiations bulletin records an unprecedented number of agenda items blocked from consideration outright, with gender, civil society participation and inter-convention synergies pushed to COP18. On drought the obstacle was named: a small group led most vocally by the United States would accept no international instrument, binding or voluntary, holding drought to be domestic, bilateral or regional. The Africa Group argued the opposite. The same disagreement stopped the question at Riyadh in 2024.

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enb.iisd.orgdowntoearth.org.in

Aug 27, 2026high

The Caribbean Drought Is Attributed — Except Where the Data Runs Out

World Weather Attribution assessed the drought gripping Puerto Rico, Jamaica and the Lesser Antilles since May. The May-to-July rainfall shortfall was a roughly 50-year event in Puerto Rico and 30 years in Jamaica; measured as effective precipitation — rainfall minus the evaporation warmth drives — 15 years in Puerto Rico, 30 in Jamaica. Combining observations with models, the study puts about 6 percent of Jamaica's rainfall decline and 9 percent of Puerto Rico's down to human-caused warming, and finds a shortfall this severe now about 40 percent more likely in Jamaica and 30 percent more likely in Puerto Rico than in a climate 1.4°C cooler. For the Lesser Antilles it declines to attribute: small islands, sparse stations, observations and models pointing opposite ways. On the ground: water rationing in Puerto Rico, more than 300 brushfires there in July, restrictions across several Jamaican parishes.

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worldweatherattribution.orgcarbonbrief.org

Aug 27, 2026high

A Fire Season That Would Have Been a Fifty-Year Event

World Weather Attribution assessed the weather behind Canada's 2026 fire season, in which more than 3 million hectares burned — about 94 percent of it in the five weeks from late June to late July — and smoke carried air-quality alerts to more than 120 million people from Minnesota to New Hampshire. In the Northwest Territories the week-long extreme in fire severity now recurs roughly every two years; in a climate 1.4°C cooler it would have been a fifty-year event, and the month-long measure a hundred-year one. Ontario's week-long extreme was about 3.5 times more likely. Climate models show a much weaker effect than the observations do, so the study's combined estimates are lower: around five-fold for the Northwest Territories week, about two-fold elsewhere. It declines to attribute the two years of dryness that preceded the fires.

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worldweatherattribution.org

Earlier this month10

NewSep 14, 2026

Americans will see a decrease in electricity prices, but this is just the beginning.^?

— Lee Zeldin

Read

epa.gov

Checked

Said by the EPA administrator announcing his own agency’s repeal of the 2024 power-plant standards. A dated, checkable forecast about a price the administration influences but does not set. EIA publishes the deciding figure monthly.

Sep 3, 2026

El Niño will strengthen to a very strong event peaking towards the end of 2026, and forecasts put at nearly 100 percent the likelihood it persists through February 2027.^?

— World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

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wmo.int

Checked

Not yet checkable. It settles once the peak three-month Oceanic Niño Index is known and whether El Niño ran unbroken through February 2027; 'very strong' conventionally means an ONI of 2.0°C or higher. WMO calls this its most confident El Niño outlook ever.

Sep 3, 2026

The Arctic Ice Record Comes Back Online, and the Summer Tracked 2012

The National Snow and Ice Data Center resumed monthly sea-ice analysis in September, eleven months after funding lapsed and suspended much of its Sea Ice Today service. Philanthropic support has restored the monthly posts and the announcements of the annual maximum and minimum; mid-month updates, the ice-volume series and several analysis tools remain shut. Its first post back reports that Arctic extent this summer tracked 2012 — the record-low September year — until August. The 2026 minimum, normally reached in the second half of September, has not yet been called.

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nsidc.orgnsidc.org

Sep 2, 2026

Britain's Warmest Summer Was Made 130 Times More Likely by Warming

Summer 2026 was provisionally the UK's warmest on record at a 16.5°C mean, beating the mark set the previous year by 0.4°C, with England, Wales and Northern Ireland each setting national records. A Met Office rapid attribution study found that a summer this hot has become roughly 130 times more likely in today's climate than it would have been without human-caused warming. It was also strikingly dry — drought declarations, hosepipe bans and wildfires followed, and Wisley went more than 60 days without measurable rain. The figure is a probability ratio, not a claim the season was impossible before.

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metoffice.gov.uk

Sep 2, 2026

China is on track to add enough wind, solar, nuclear and hydropower this year to cover electricity demand growth, despite a slowdown in new capacity.^?

— Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA)

Read

carbonbrief.org

Checked

Not yet checkable. It settles on full-year 2026 Chinese generation data: whether the combined increase in wind, solar, nuclear and hydro output at least matches the increase in total electricity generation. Clean capacity additions have slowed this year, and the first quarter went the other way.

Aug 28, 2026

Attribution Looks at the Assam Floods and Finds No Signal

The floods that hit Upper Assam and neighbouring states between late June and early August killed at least 99 people in Assam, affected more than 500,000 and submerged over 45,000 hectares of cropland. World Weather Attribution found the rainfall behind them was not exceptional: a return period of under two years, no trend in the observations, and no material change in likelihood or intensity from 1.4°C of warming in the models. It points instead at exposure — unplanned urbanisation, deforestation and embankment-led flood control. Sparse rain gauges, the team cautions, leave the trend uncertain rather than proven absent.

Read

worldweatherattribution.org

Aug 26, 2026

For the First Time, Britain's Heat Deaths Outnumber Its Cold Deaths

New Office for National Statistics data put more than 40,000 excess deaths on England's hottest days between 1988 and 2025, against 139,000 on its coldest — and, for the first time in the series, heat overtook cold in the latest year, with 2,805 heat-related deaths in England and Wales exceeding 2,244 cold-related ones. Nearly every English region and Wales saw the risk of dying rise about 50 percent once temperatures passed 24°C. The count stops before summer 2026, already estimated to be more lethal still: the UK health agency attributed some 2,877 deaths to the May and June heatwaves alone.

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ons.gov.uktheguardian.com

Aug 18, 2026high

Europe's Seas Warmed Faster Than the Models Said They Would

World Weather Attribution assessed July's record sea surface temperatures around Europe across four regions. The warmest 14-day period of the year has warmed by 1.2°C in Celtic waters, 1.5°C off Biscay and Iberia, 2.6°C in the eastern Mediterranean and 3.1°C in the western — the last two well above the rate of global warming. In the Celtic region the probability ratio is about 30, making this a roughly one-in-a-hundred-year event in a climate 1.4°C cooler; in the other three, July values like these would have been virtually impossible before industrialisation. Marine heatwaves covered nearly 70 percent of the eastern Mediterranean against 9 percent in that cooler climate. One finding cuts against the instruments: in three of the four regions the observed trend is much stronger than the models simulate, which is why WWA calls its attributable figures — about 2°C in both Mediterranean regions — a conservative estimate.

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worldweatherattribution.org

Jul 31, 2026high

July ties the warmest on record and the oceans set a new high

Two independent records agree that July 2026 was as hot as any July measured, and differ only on the ranking. NOAA put it 1.18°C above its twentieth-century average — tied with 2024 as the warmest July in the record — with North America, Africa and Asia each having their warmest July and Northern Hemisphere land setting an all-time July high. The European reanalysis put it at 1.47°C above pre-industrial levels and called it joint-second, behind 2023 and level with 2024. They agree on the ocean: sea surface temperatures were the highest ever recorded for a July, and in NOAA’s accounting this was the first July to pass 1.0°C above average, a departure matched only by months inside previous El Niño events. Western Europe had its hottest June–July on record, with drought deep enough to push the Seine, Rhine and Danube to exceptionally low flows. The past four Julys are the four warmest measured.

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ncei.noaa.govclimate.copernicus.eu

Jul 24, 2026high

First half of 2026 runs third-warmest on record as a strong El Niño builds

The first six months of 2026 came in as the third-warmest start to a year in all six major surface-temperature datasets — around 1.4°C above pre-industrial levels, behind only 2024 and 2025 — as a rapidly intensifying El Niño took hold in the tropical Pacific. Carbon Brief's central estimate is that 2026 will finish near 1.51°C, the second-warmest calendar year behind 2024's 1.52°C, with a 63% chance of averaging above 1.5°C. A single year above 1.5°C is not a breach of the Paris goal, which the IPCC defines as a 20-year mean; it would, however, be only the second such calendar year after 2024.

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carbonbrief.org

This quarter9

Aug 24, 2026

The Ocean Sets Its Warmest Day in August, Not April

The daily average sea surface temperature across the extra-polar ocean, 60°S to 60°N, reached 21.1°C on 22 August, the highest in the ERA5 record. It beat the March 2024 mark by a hundredth of a degree — inside the dataset's precision, and not the interesting part. Ocean temperatures normally peak in March and April after the southern summer; this was August, and it beat the previous August high of 20.98°C by a wider margin. It follows a run of monthly records through 2026 and arrives as a strong El Niño develops. Copernicus notes daily records must be read in context.

Aug 14, 2026

EU emissions tick up on the quarter, down on the year

Eurostat’s first estimate for 2026 put EU greenhouse gas emissions at 837 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in the first quarter, 0.3% above the previous quarter while economic output was flat. Against the same quarter of 2025 the picture reverses: emissions down 1.2% while GDP grew 0.8% — the decoupling on which the bloc’s target of a 55% net cut by 2030 depends. Electricity, gas and heat supply drove the quarterly rise, at +4.8%, while households, manufacturing and transport all fell. Twenty member states emitted more than in the previous quarter and seven less. Eurostat counts on a residence basis, which differs from the accounting the EU submits under the Paris Agreement.

Our reading

Aug 10, 2026

Two forecasters, two different finishes for 2026

NOAA’s annual outlook, published on 10 August, says it is very likely that 2026 will rank among the five warmest years, “with the highest probabilities favoring it as the third- or fourth-warmest year on record”. Carbon Brief’s projection of 24 July put the year second-warmest, at around 1.51°C above pre-industrial levels, with a 35% chance of beating 2024 outright. Much of the gap is a question of which thermometer is being read: Carbon Brief’s own table of record odds runs from 66% in Berkeley Earth and 65% in NASA GISTEMP down to 24% in NOAA’s dataset and 13% in the European reanalysis. NOAA’s record is therefore the second most conservative of the six, and its outlook reads accordingly.

Jul 30, 2026

Attribution study ties record France and Spain wildfires to warming

World Weather Attribution found human-caused climate change sharply raised the odds of the fire-weather conditions behind the July 2026 wildfires in France and Spain. Using the seven-day fire-severity index against a 1.4°C-cooler counterfactual, it judged the extreme at least 20 times more likely — and about 42% more intense — in central Spain, and at least twice as likely (about 46% more intense) in southwest France. Spain's Ávila fire burned roughly 44,000 hectares, its largest on record; France logged a record ~115,000 hectares burned year-to-date, with about 220,000 people evacuated near Bordeaux. The study points to 'weather whiplash' — a wet winter growing fuel, then a hot, dry summer drying it out — as an increasingly important driver.

Jul 24, 2026

Arctic sea ice tracks near record lows after joint-lowest winter maximum

Arctic sea ice had spent 39 days of 2026 at or below record daily lows by late July, following its joint-lowest winter maximum in the satellite era. The measure anchors the present state of a cryosphere thread whose decades of 'ice-free Arctic' forecasts — some badly overshot — are a target of this topic's historical record. Through July the retreat stayed near the bottom of the record: NOAA ranked Arctic extent sixth lowest for the month and Antarctic extent fifth lowest, giving the smallest combined global sea-ice cover for a July in four years of the 48-year record.

Jul 24, 2026

2026 will finish around 1.51°C above pre-industrial levels — the second-warmest calendar year on record behind 2024 — with a 35% chance of setting a new annual record and a 63% chance of exceeding 1.5°C.^?

— Carbon Brief

Jul 24, 2026

2027 will be around 1.7°C above pre-industrial levels, comfortably setting a new record for the warmest year, as the developing El Niño has its largest impact that year.^?

— Carbon Brief

Jun 30, 2026

Western Europe records its hottest June ever in a lethal heat dome

Western Europe recorded its hottest June on record in 2026, averaging 3.05°C above the 1991–2020 norm during a late-June heat dome that broke around 10 national all-time heat records and roughly 400 station records. France set a new June national record of 44.3°C; the humid heat drove a death toll estimated in the thousands, and nearly 9% of the global surface saw record June warmth. The heat and the drought that followed set the stage for July's wildfires.

Dec 31, 2025high

Renewables overtake coal worldwide for the first time

Full-year 2025 data showed renewables supplying 33.8% of global electricity (10,730 TWh) and overtaking coal (33.0%, 10,476 TWh) for the first time in the modern power system — with coal falling below a third of generation for the first time in history. Record solar growth (+636 TWh to 2,778 TWh, up 30%) meant clean power met all of the year's demand growth, so global fossil-fuel generation did not rise for the first time since 2020. Fossil generation fell in both China (−0.9%) and India (−3.3%), the historic engines of its growth, and solar overtook wind for the first time.

Earlier this year10

May 21The $100bn climate finance promise, kept two years late
Dec 31Both solar and wind are each expected to overtake nuclear power in global electricity generation in 2026.?
Nov 22COP30 in Belém ends with a voluntary fossil-fuel roadmap, not a phase-out
Nov 13Fossil CO₂ emissions hit a record 38.1 billion tonnes in 2025
Nov 13With CO₂ emissions still increasing, keeping global warming below 1.5°C is no longer plausible; the remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C — about 170 billion tonnes of CO₂ — will be gone before 2030 at the current emission rate.?
Nov 12Warming is measurably weakening the land and ocean carbon sinks
Oct 31IPCC deadlocks again on the timeline for its next assessment
Oct 24Emissions hit a record as the newest national plans barely move the gap
Oct 24The world is very likely to breach the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C temperature limit this decade.?
Dec 12The Paris Agreement is adopted

Earlier16

Sep 21Scientists revisit the forecasts that said the Arctic would be gone by now
Oct 18Solar will overtake nuclear, wind, hydro, gas and, finally, coal, to become the world’s single-largest source of electricity by 2033.?
Oct 8The IPCC prices the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C
Aug 21Next year or the year after that, I think it will be free of ice in summer and by that I mean the central Arctic will be ice-free. You will be able to cross over the north pole by ship.✗
Nov 11Renewables will overtake coal to become the world’s number one source of electricity in the early 2030s.✗
Jun 30Arctic sea-ice extent in September 2015 will be 0.98 million square kilometres.✗
Mar 31The United States will reduce its emissions by 26–28% below 2005 levels by 2025, and make best efforts to reduce by 28%.?
Dec 9A hedged lower bound becomes a headline date
Sep 27The global mean surface temperature change for the period 2016–2035 relative to 1986–2005 will likely be in the range of 0.3°C to 0.7°C (medium confidence).?
Dec 31Given the estimated trend and the volume estimate for October–November of 2007 at less than 9,000 km3, one can project that at this rate it would take only 9 more years or until 2016 ± 3 years to reach a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer. Regardless of high uncertainty associated with such an estimate, it does provide a lower bound of the time range for projections of seasonal sea ice cover.✗
Dec 18Copenhagen ends with a political accord, not a treaty
Dec 11Kyoto sets the first binding emissions targets
Dec 15For the mid-range IPCC emission scenario, IS92a, the model-projected global mean warming is about 2°C by 2100. This estimate is approximately one third lower than the “best estimate” in 1990.?
Jun 4The Rio Earth Summit creates the UN climate treaty
May 25Under the IPCC Business-as-Usual (Scenario A) emissions... a rate of increase of global mean temperature during the next century of about 0.3°C per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2°C to 0.5°C per decade); this is greater than that seen over the past 10,000 years.±
Jun 23The earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements... With about 99 percent confidence we can state that the warming during this time period is a real warming trend... In my opinion, the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.±

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