Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
UK parliament’s climate takeover
MILIBAND SPEECH: UK energy security and net-zero secretary Ed Miliband delivered a “scathing” address to parliament on the “state of the climate and nature” in the UK, Edie reported. Ahead of his speech, Miliband told the Guardian he intends it to become an annual event, adding: “I feel a deep sense of responsibility to the British people to tell them the truth about what we know about the climate and nature crisis.”
RENEWABLES ‘BOOST’: Elsewhere, the government unveiled a strategy for “longer clean power contracts”, reported BusinessGreen, with the aim of “boost[ing] investor confidence” and “curb[ing] consumer costs”. It said the government will amend its “contracts for difference scheme” (CfD), raising contract duration from 15 to 20 years. Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans provided more details.
REFORM U-TURN: The Financial Times reported that the hard-right Reform UK party wrote a letter to “green energy bosses” threatening to “strike down” renewable energy subsidies and “reassess all net-zero related commitments” due to “intolerable costs to the economy”, if successful in the next election. However, deputy leader Richard Tice appeared to backtrack just 24 hours later in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s PM, claiming the letter had been “misread” and that a “contract is a contract”.
- NASA DATA: In the US, the Trump administration aborted plans to publish major climate change reports on NASA’s website, the Associated Press reported. This will “make it harder to find major, legally mandated assessments of how climate change is endangering the nation and its people”, the newswire added.
- ‘LANDMARK’ BATTLE: The Australian government has no obligation to protect Torres Strait islanders from the impacts of climate change, concluded a major federal case covered by BBC News. It added that the verdict left community leaders “in shock”.
- ‘FAIR COMPETITION’: The European Union seeks “fair competition” with China on clean energy, Agence France-Press said. However, “tensions are high” ahead of an upcoming summit in Beijing on 24 July, according to the Economist, with electric vehicles a “particular crunch point”.
- MONSOON DEATHS: More than 60 people were killed in 24 hours in ongoing torrential monsoon rains in Pakistan, the nation’s Dawn newspaper reported.
- CANCELLED CELEBRATIONS: Traditional Bastille Day celebrations were cancelled across France due to the risk of fire amid extreme temperatures, Le Monde reported.
The potential UK economic losses by 2040 due to stranded fossil-fuel assets, according to a new report covered by Edie.
- There were a “record number” of compound drought and heatwaves in the Amazon over 2023-4, compared to the period since 1981 | Environmental Research Letters
- The “clean-up” of aerosol emissions in east Asia is likely a “key contributor” to a recent acceleration in global warming | Communications Earth & Environment
- Transformation of abandoned open-pit mines into “solar hubs” could “meet projected 2050 global electricity needs” | Nature Sustainability
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
India has reached a milestone of 50% of its installed electricity capacity coming from “non-fossil fuel” sources (renewables and nuclear) – ahead of its 2030 target under the Paris Agreement, Reuters reported. The newswire said the move “signal[s] accelerating momentum in the country’s clean-energy transition”. A press release from India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy stated that, “despite having one of the lowest per-capita emissions globally, India remains among the few G20 countries that are on track to meet – or even exceed – their NDC commitments”. The research group Climate Action Tracker rates India’s climate pledges as “highly insufficient“.
‘Climate justice and cultural survival’ in Kenya
This week, Carbon Brief interviews Julianna Loshiroan Indigenous Yaaku activist working in Kenya to conserve nature and her native language.
Carbon Brief: Can you explain who you are, where you come from and the projects you work on?
Julianna Loshiro: I’m a proud Yaaku woman from Mukogodo Forest, north in Laikipia, Kenya, where our language, Yaakunte, and way of life have been passed down through generations. Raised by my grandparents, I was immersed in Indigenous knowledge systems.
Living in the forest is a struggle because of land insecurity. Evictions have been happening to the Ogiek of Mau, the Sengwer community from Cherangany, and even the Yaaku community.
Currently, I am leading efforts to revitalise the Yakuunte language through storytelling, theatre, curriculum development and digital tools. My work is driven by a commitment to cultural resilience and intergenerational justice.
CB: You’ve recently published a book, “Climate Justice is Gender Justice”. Could you outline the key messages that you are trying to get across and also what motivated you to write the book?
JL: My book is an extension of our ancestral wisdom. Every chapter echoes the values and land-based knowledge that I grew up with in the Mukogodo forest. It is an urgent call to centre Indigenous knowledge in the climate conversation and to understand justice through the lens of lived experience. I wrote this book to amplify the stories and wisdom that often go unheard, especially from rural Indigenous communities.
One of the key ideas I share is that climate solutions are not just scientific, they are also cultural, emotional and relational. The book reflects how climate change impacts everyday lives and how different genders experience this crisis differently, but it also shows how we can heal by listening to those closest to the land.
Writing the book was a way of sharing our Yaaku worldview with the wider world, where nature is family and language is spirit. Culture is a form of resistance. So, by linking climate justice with our cultural survival, I am showing that language and environmental conservation are deeply intertwined. If we lose one, we risk losing the other. This book is a living testimony that our Indigenous identity is key to the future of our planet.
CB: Your book promotion also references the organisation, Indigenous Young Momsfor which you serve as project manager. What perspectives does motherhood lend to efforts to achieve both climate and gender justice?
JL: Motherhood sharpens our sense of urgency and hope. As an indigenous young mother, I don’t just see climate change in statistics, I see it in the drying rivers, the struggling bees and the questions my child will ask tomorrow.
Climate justice is gender justice because it demands that we account for these differences. It means dismantling systems that exclude women, men, non-binary and gender-diverse people from decisions, and it is Indigenous women who often lead the way.
CB: What has been missing from the conversation around preserving Indigenous cultural heritage and empowering Indigenous communities? How do you see your book filling this gap?
JL: Indigenous systems are too often ignored in development efforts. As a Yaaku woman, I have felt the silence imposed on both my language and my gender. We need to create solutions led by Indigenous people. We must be trusted as experts and storytellers in this journey.
Now, it is young people bringing positive and impactful solutions, at the grassroots level, and to even bigger platforms, like speaking at Indigenous caucuses. We’re really happy to see individuals and organisations holding out their hands to us. It’s really moving because it’s been hard for our voices to be heard.
FRUITS OF LABOUR: Migration Story highlighted the “daily struggle” of informal workers in Asia’s “largest wholesale fruit and vegetable market” as they endure the economics of heat stress.
COMMODIFICATION: Indigenous storyteller Nina Gualinga, in a Guardian documentary, explored the “extractivism” associated with “spiritual healing in the Amazon”.
HOLIDAY HEATWAVES: In the BBC’s The Climate Question podcast, host Graihagh Jackson asked how more frequent extreme temperatures will transform the travel industry.
- Emberdigital communications intern | Salary: £25,207. Location: Remote
- Sequoia Climate Foundationprogramme manager | Salary: $185,000-$190,000. Location: Irvine, California (hybrid)
- Australian National Universityresearch fellow | Salary: $118,632-$134,507. Location: Canberra, Australia
- WWFhead of policy (climate) | Salary: £56,297-£65,680. Location: Woking, UK
- The Conversationcommissioning editor, environment | Salary: £34,000-£40,000. Location: London (hybrid)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to [email protected].
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
About The Author
