The 25th EU-China summit took place in Beijing, China on 24 July. President of the European Council, António Costa, and President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, representing the EU, met Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang at two separate sessions. The High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, also participated in the meetings.
Category: Climate
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Chestnut Carbon: financing for US afforestation in the voluntary carbon market
Chestnut Carbon, a nature-based carbon removal developer, has announced the successful closing of a landmark non-recourse project finance credit facility of up to $210m – a first-of-its-kind bank financing for a US voluntary carbon removal afforestation project.
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$2.5m for blue carbon project in Sierra Leone
FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi) is investing $2.5m in West Africa Blue’s blue carbon project in Sierra Leone’s Sherbro River Estuary. FSDAi’s investment will contribute to the conservation and restoration of approximately 94,000 hectares of mangrove ecosystems across 11 chiefdoms.
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Countries may sue each other under ICJ ruling
In a landmark ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued its Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change, which reinforce climate obligations on States under existing treaties, conventions and protocols. It may open the way for countries to enforce climate obligations on other nations. This is a major step forward for decarbonisation, the acceleration of renewables and a renewed focus on Industrial Revolution 5.0.
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UK air quality: better but not good enough
UK air pollution improved between 2015 and 2024, but is still dangerous too often, research from the University of Reading says in ‘Environmental Science: Atmospheres’. Scientists from the University studied pollution at more than 500 monitoring sites around the UK. They found that two types of pollution got better over the decade: nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which is mainly produced by traffic, fell by 35% on average at monitoring sites; and fine particles called PM2.5, which are small enough to get deep into lungs, dropped by 30%.
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Climate-related financial risks: data is key says FSB
The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has delivered a report to the July 2025 meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. It provides a factual update on the work undertaken by the FSB, standard-setting bodies and other international organisations in the four areas identified by the 2021 ‘Roadmap for Addressing Climate-related Financial Risks’. The Roadmap had been welcomed by the G20 in 2021.
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Weather records and extremes now the norm in UK climate
Record-breaking and extreme weather has become increasingly commonplace in the UK, says the Met Office. Baselines are shifting, records are becoming more frequent and temperature and rainfall extremes are becoming the norm. The latest 'State of the UK Climate report', published by Wiley in the Royal Meteorological Society’s ‘International Journal of Climatology’, provides insight into the UK’s changing climate.
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CPI: moving public climate finance along the transformation curve
The Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) has identified 10 key elements for public climate finance to deliver transformational change. It says that this means moving beyond the project level toward transformational change at the market and system levels, which is both an imperative and an opportunity for public climate finance providers.
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UK’s OBR: cost of climate uncertain but cost of inaction higher
The costs of climate change are highly uncertain, but represent a significant risk to the public finances in all the scenarios explored by the UK’s Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR). These costs come from both transitioning the economy to net zero emissions, and from damage to the economy caused by climate change. However, the latter is the more significant fiscal cost in the scenarios the OBR presents.
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Record volume of climate finance for developing countries
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) board has approved a record volume of climate finance for developing countries, green-lighting 17 new projects for climate action around the world. The $1.225bn fund is the largest amount approved at a single board meeting. GCF now has a portfolio of 314 projects amounting to $18bn in GCF resources, $67bn including co-financing.
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Communications are central to climate action
Even the accountancy profession is talking about communications. Time and again it proclaims that financial and non-financial reporting (especially in relation to climate and nature impacts) should be integrated; but increasingly it says that this integration – and the outcomes of business strategy underpinned by green credentials – should be communicated. But it rarely is.
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Profitable growth for marketing – without fossil fuels
Campaign group Clean Creatives has put forward a way for the marketing industry to exit fossil fuel relationships while taking up the opportunities available to them from emerging high-growth industries such as renewables, the circular economy and healthcare.
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Extreme heat and cold threaten health across the globe
The World Meteorological Organisation, its members and partners are ramping up action against extreme heat in Western Europe, parts of North America, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Meanwhile, a cold spell in South America could also be a health threat.
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The Climate Finance Vulnerability Index shows how hot the world is
The Climate Finance Vulnerability Index (CliF-VI) provides a comprehensive understanding of nations' climate vulnerability to help improve the targeting and provision of climate change adaptation financing. It shows a country’s climate and financial vulnerability as well as governance considerations that may impact lending.
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WMO: Asia is warming twice as fast as global average
Asia is currently warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). The WMO’s 'State of the Climate in Asia 2024' report says that 2024 was the warmest or second warmest year on record (depending on the dataset), with widespread and prolonged heatwaves. The warming trend between 1991-2024 was almost double that of the 1961-1990 period.