DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?
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Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed. An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change. This week Absolute State of the Union ‘DRILL, BABY’: US president Donald Trump “doubled down on his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda” in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, said the Los Angeles Times. He “tout[ed] his support of […]
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Defending the Climate Science Reference Guide
On January 29, 2026, a coalition of 27 state attorneys general, led by West Virginia Attorney General John B. McCuskey, sent a letter to the Federal Judicial Center (FJC) demanding immediate withdrawal of the “Reference Guide on Climate Science” from the Fourth Edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence (“Reference Manual”). Twenty-two of […]
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New method could increase LLM training efficiency
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Reasoning large language models (LLMs) are designed to solve complex problems by breaking them down into a series of smaller steps. These powerful models are particularly good at challenging tasks like advanced programming and multistep planning. But developing reasoning models demands an enormous amount of computation and energy due to inefficiencies in the training process. […]
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Mixing generative AI with physics to create personal items that work in the real world
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Have you ever had an idea for something that looked cool, but wouldn’t work well in practice? When it comes to designing things like decor and personal accessories, generative artificial intelligence (genAI) models can relate. They can produce creative and elaborate 3D designs, but when you try to fabricate such blueprints into real-world objects, they […]
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Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight. This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here. Key developments Food inflation on the rise DELUGE STRIKES FOOD: Extreme rainfall and flooding across the Mediterranean and north […]
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Digital Delegation Is an Underused Sustainability Lever for Entrepreneurs
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Most sustainability discussions in business still center on the “big three”: supply chains, materials, and offsets. Those matter—especially for product companies. But for many modern entrepreneurs, the fastest, least expensive emissions reductions sit closer to home: how the business runs day to day. Office space, commuting patterns, administrative workflows, and the physical “stuff” required to […]
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AI to help researchers see the bigger picture in cell biology
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Studying gene expression in a cancer patient’s cells can help clinical biologists understand the cancer’s origin and predict the success of different treatments. But cells are complex and contain many layers, so how the biologist conducts measurements affects which data they can obtain. For instance, measuring proteins in a cell could yield different information about the […]
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Enhancing maritime cybersecurity with technology and policy
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Originally from the small Balkan country of Montenegro, Strahinja (Strajo) Janjusevic says his life has unfolded in unexpected ways, for which he is deeply grateful. After graduating from high school, he was selected to represent his country in the United States, studying cyber operations and computer science at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. […]
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Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Fossil Fuel Companies’ Appeal in Boulder Climate Case but Asks for Briefing on Threshold Jurisdiction Questions
“Supreme Court” by Mark Fischer, CC BY-SA 2.0 Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court granted three fossil fuel companies’ petition for a writ of certiorari seeking review of the Colorado Supreme Court’s opinion allowing the County Commissioners of Boulder County and the City of Boulder (together, Boulder) to proceed with their state-law claims that the companies […]
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Canadian Senate Report Recommends Canada Lead on Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Strategy
The Trump Administration’s increasing commitment to scientific nonsense regarding climate change creates an opportunity for other countries to lead. The Canadian Senate is recommending that Canada do just that with respect to marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). Canada is in a unique position to lead on mCDR development. Dalhousie University has been at the forefront […]
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Dangerous heat for Tour de France riders only a ‘question of time’
Rising temperatures across France since the mid-1970s is putting Tour de France competitors at “high risk”, according to new research. The study, published in Scientific Reports, uses 50 years of climate data to calculate the potential heat stress that athletes have been exposed to across a dozen different locations during the world-famous cycling race. The […]
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The Machine Learning Practitioner’s Guide to Speculative Decoding
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Large language models generate text one token at a time.
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From Waste Reduction to Brand Building Through Kraft Packaging
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The packaging system of Kraft has developed from its original purpose of waste reduction into a marketing instrument which shows environmental commitment while providing high-end product experiences to customers. Businesses operating in the present day have learned that using natural brown kraft materials helps them achieve two important goals which include waste reduction in packaging […]
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Responding to EPA’s Claim that U.S. Motor Vehicle Emissions Have a “De Minimis” Impact on Climate-Related Harms
On February 12, 2026, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule rescinding the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and eliminating all federal greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for U.S. motor vehicles and engines. To justify this action, EPA has adopted an interpretation of the Clean Air Act that has no judicial […]
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DeBriefed 20 February 2026: EU’s ‘3C’ warning | Endangerment repeal’s impact on US emissions | ‘Tree invasion’ fuelled South America’s fires
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed. An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change. This week Preparing for 3C NEW ALERT: The EU’s climate advisory board urged countries to prepare for 3C of global warming, reported the Guardian. The outlet quoted Maarten van Aalst, a member of the advisory board, saying that adapting […]
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Q&A: How Trump is threatening climate science in Earth’s polar regions
Since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, his administration in the US has laid off thousands of scientists and frozen research grants worth billions of dollars. The cutbacks have had far-reaching consequences for all areas of scientific research, extending all the way to Earth’s fragile polar regions, researchers say. Speaking to Carbon […]
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Limiting warming to 2C is ‘crucial’ to protect pristine Antarctic Peninsula
Keeping global warming to less than 2C above pre-industrial temperatures is “crucial” for limiting damage to the Antarctic Peninsula’s unique ecosystems, according to a new study. The paper, published in Frontiers in Environmental Science, reviews the latest literature on the impacts of warming on Antarctica’s most biodiverse region. The Antarctic Peninsula is home to many […]
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Climate Resilience Strategies for Industrial Facilities
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Image by marcinjozwiak from Pixabay Industrial facilities now operate in a climate that refuses to behave predictably. Heatwaves linger longer, storms arrive harder, and cold snaps strike with little warning. For warehouses and factories, these disruptions are recurring stress tests that expose weak infrastructure, fragile workflows, and outdated assumptions about normal conditions. Downtime, equipment damage, […]