What the Budget statement means for different sectors
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One year on: Rachel Reeves in 2024 (image credit: Fred Duval / Shutterstock). Observers in sectors such as waste, energy and construction responded to Rachel Reeves’ Autumn Budget, delivered on 26 November. The statement talked much about growth but seemed to offer little to fund it. The main headline-grabber was a £150 cut to the […]
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China Briefing 27 November 2025: COP30 wraps; Climate and critical minerals at G20; Coal use up
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing. China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here. Key developments China called for ‘strengthened’ climate cooperation ‘URGENT ACTION’: As the COP30 climate talks in Brazil drew to a close (see today’s spotlight below), world leaders gathered […]
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UK budget 2025: Key climate and energy announcements
UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced new measures to cut energy bills alongside a “pay-per-mile” electric-vehicle levy as part of Labour’s second budget. The policy changes are expected to cut typical household bills by around £134 per year, amid intense political scrutiny of energy prices and a government pledge to reduce them. This cut is […]
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COP30: Key outcomes for food, forests, land and nature at the UN climate talks in Belém
The COP30 climate summit – held in the city of Belém, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest – saw the Brazilian presidency launch a new forest fund and promise a “roadmap” to put an end to deforestation. Almost every country in the world signed off on a final COP30 package called the “global mutirão” […]
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Attacking nature protections with fudged figures is not the solution to slow growth: rivers charity responds to Hinkley Point C report
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A 3d illustration of the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, currently under construction (image credit: gov.uk, OGL) A statement from Mark Lloyd, Chief Executive of The Rivers Trust Yesterday [(25 November)], several prominent newspapers published articles quoting a government-commissioned report into the spiralling costs of EDF’s Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. These articles focused […]
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£25 million Water Efficiency Lab competition aims to drive innovation and cut water use across England and Wales
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Ofwat announced its inaugural Water Efficiency Lab (‘WEL 1’) on 25 November. The £25 million challenge-led competition is intended to unlock and scale innovations that reduce water use across England and Wales. The first year of the competition, offering £5 million in total funding and up to £1.5 million for individual projects, is inviting innovators […]
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Air quality gains expected as fovernment backs ‘Environmental Factors’ Amendment to Devolution Bill
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Stronger legal duties on regional leaders to tackle air pollution and other environmental risks are set to be introduced after the Government approved a key amendment to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. The Bill, introduced in July, aims to shift decision-making power away from central government and towards local and regional bodies in […]
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Low-carbon and smokeless fuels receive Made in Britain trademark
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This article contains sponsored content. Homefire and ecoke, two pioneering brands under the Invica Industries portfolio, have officially been awarded the Made in Britain trademark, recognising their commitment to sustainable manufacturing, innovation, and the strength of British industry. The accreditation celebrates the fact that both ecoke, a reduced carbon alternative for industrial processing and production, […]
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Researchers discover a shortcoming that makes LLMs less reliable
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Large language models (LLMs) sometimes learn the wrong lessons, according to an MIT study. Rather than answering a query based on domain knowledge, an LLM could respond by leveraging grammatical patterns it learned during training. This can cause a model to fail unexpectedly when deployed on new tasks. The researchers found that models can mistakenly […]
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K-Means Cluster Evaluation with Silhouette Analysis
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Clustering models in machine learning must be assessed by how well they separate data into meaningful groups with distinctive characteristics.
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MIT scientists debut a generative AI model that could create molecules addressing hard-to-treat diseases
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More than 300 people across academia and industry spilled into an auditorium to attend a BoltzGen seminar on Thursday, Oct. 30, hosted by the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (MIT Jameel Clinic). Headlining the event was MIT PhD student and BoltzGen’s first author Hannes Stärk, who had announced BoltzGen just a few days […]
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Webinar: Carbon Brief’s third ‘ask us anything’ at COP30
Following the end of COP30, Carbon Brief’s journalist answered a range of questions exclusively asked by its Insider Pass holders. COP30 officially closed at 8:44pm on Saturday evening, with the final gavel coming down and more than 150 pages of decision text adopted at the summit in Belém, Brazil. Less than 24 hours later, Carbon […]
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New Book Explores the Need for Climate-Compatible Infrastructure Development and the Legal Issues it Raises
The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) reached a disappointing conclusion on Saturday. Just a few days earlier, things had looked promising. The COP President—Ambassador André Corrêa do Lago of Brazil—had proposed a draft decision recognizing the need for countries to “overcome their dependence on […]
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Brighton SuDS scheme is a landmark intervention to protect groundwater
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Wild Park Rainscape, photograpped in September 2025 (image credit: BHCC). A project led by Brighton & Hove City Council, based on research from the University of Brighton, aims to protect 90% of the city’s drinking water from toxic road pollution. The focus of the initiative is stormwater runoff, which carries a toxic mix of oil, […]
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Junior Scholars Call for Papers
Columbia Law School’s 14th Annual Sabin Colloquium on Innovative Environmental Law Scholarship will allow junior environmental law scholars to present early-stage work and receive constructive feedback from a panel of senior scholars and from each other. It will be held on Zoom on May 21-22, 2026. Eligible applicants are pre-tenure professors, fellows, visiting assistant professors, and […]
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How artificial intelligence can help achieve a clean energy future
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There is growing attention on the links between artificial intelligence and increased energy demands. But while the power-hungry data centers being built to support AI could potentially stress electricity grids, increase customer prices and service interruptions, and generally slow the transition to clean energy, the use of artificial intelligence can also help the energy transition. […]
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Looking Back at U.S. Climate Litigation During the Biden Years—and Some Thoughts on Emerging Trends During the Second Trump Administration
Today the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law published a report analyzing climate change lawsuits filed in United States courts while President Joseph R. Biden was in office. During the Biden administration, the federal government reversed course on the first Trump administration’s climate deregulation and embarked on a “whole-of-government approach to combatting the climate crisis.” […]
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Conference will explore how biogas can expedite journey to net zero
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From policy and regulation to innovation, operations and global markets, this year’s ADBA National Conference in London on 10 December will hold the essential discussions required to advance the UK’s biogas and biomethane sector and accelerate the transition to net zero, according to organizer the Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association (ADBA). Organised under the theme […]