This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including Trump’s latest moves to halt key climate efforts in and outside the US and Europe’s new AI-powered weather monitoring system.
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1. Warfare Now Largest Source of Ukraine’s Annual Carbon Emissions, Report Warns on Third Anniversary of Russia’s Invasion
The war in Ukraine has become the largest source of carbon emissions in the country, according to a new report released on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Emissions topped 230 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) at the end of the third year of conflict, an assessment by non-profit Initiative on GHG Accounting of War revealed. This is the equivalent of the annual emissions of Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia combined or the annual emissions of 120 million fossil fuel-powered automobiles, it said.
A team of researchers attributed the sharp rise primarily to warfare. This includes fuel-powered tanks, fortification construction, as well as the manufacturing and use of ammunition, explosives, and military equipment. They also found that the impact on climate from artillery shells remained significant throughout 2024 despite drones becoming a prominent feature of the conflict.
2. Trump Ends US Initiative to Boost Renewable Energy Projects, Electricity in Africa
The Trump administration has terminated most projects carried out under Power Africa, a foreign aid program in a continent where some 43% of the population still lacks reliable access to electricity.
Launched in 2013 under then-president Barack Obama, the program sought to support renewable energy initiatives and enhance electricity access for over 600 million people. It operated under the now-shuttered US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Power Africa received just over $1 billion from the US since its inception. But that finance went a long way, enabling a cumulative $29 billion in power project finance from others. Over 150 power projects adding 15,498 megawatts to power generation in Africa, have reached financial close, enabling electricity access for some 216 million users.
Since Trump took office in January, over 90% of USAID programs around the world have been terminated, resulting in the loss of jobs for approximately 1,600 federal workers
3. BP Increases Oil and Gas Investments, Drops Renewable Targets
The British multinational announced its plans on Wednesday, describing it as a “strategic reset” as it looks to boost performance and reduce net debt. As part of the new strategy, the company will grow oil and gas investment by about 20% to $10 billion per year and production between 2.3 million and 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2030.
Funding for the energy transition – including renewables, hydrogen, biogas, biofuels, electric vehicle charging, and carbon capture and storage – will be instead cut by more than $5 billion to $1.5-2 billion yearly.
BP’s carbon-cutting target had stood out as one of the industry’s most ambitious when it was announced in 2020. But this week, BP’s Chief Executive Murray Auchincloss said the company had gone “too far, too fast” in transitioning away from fossil fuels, and that its faith in green energy was “misplaced,” the BBC reported.
4. Europe’s New AI Weather Forecasting Model Up to 20% More Accurate Than Conventional Methods
The Artificial Intelligence Forecasting System (AIFS) is the first fully operational weather prediction open model using machine learning technology, and will run side by side with its traditional physics-based Integrated Forecasting System (IFS), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) said in a press release on Tuesday. The independent agency, which is headquartered in the UK, tested the model over the past 18 months and found that it outperformed conventional models’ predictions by up to 20%.
But aside from higher accuracy rates, including in predicting the track of tropical cyclones 12 hours further ahead, the system will also require some 1,000 times less energy and will be much faster at making a forecast.
ECMWF’s Director-General Florence Rabier called the new system a “milestone” that will “transform weather science and predictions” and make global predictions freely available to everyone at any time.
5. Trump Pulls US Out of Key Global Climate Assessment Ahead of Meeting in China
US State Department officials didn’t take part in a meeting in Hangzhou, China this week, where the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is set to agree on the outlines, timelines, and budget of its upcoming reports – the Seventh Assessment Report and the Methodology Report on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies, Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage.
Sources told various media late last week that the State Department delegation’s travel plans had been denied. President Trump also ordered federal scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Global Change Research Program to stop work on all other IPCC climate assessment-related activities, a NASA spokesperson told CNN.
Johan Rockström, an internationally acclaimed Earth scientist and Director of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said the move was “another irresponsible self-destructive US behaviour” that “will damage US science and society.”
