Climate News February 2026
UK and EU Climate News
The UK government has unveiled a major package aimed at cutting household energy bills by expanding access to solar panels, heat pumps, and other low carbon technologies. This new Warm Homes plan extends the boiler upgrade scheme through 2029 to 2030 and allocates an extra 600 million GBP to help low income households fully fund rooftop solar and home battery systems. The wider 15 billion GBP programme includes 5 billion GBP for efficiency upgrades, 2 billion GBP for low cost loans, 2.7 billion GBP for heat pump support, 1.1 billion GBP for heat networks, and another 2.7 billion GBP to encourage innovative financing models.
Wind and solar together generated more electricity in the EU than fossil fuels for the first time in 2025, according to new analysis from Ember. Renewables supplied 30 percent of EU power, edging ahead of gas, coal, and oil combined, which supplied 29 percent. This is a major turning point in the Europe clean energy transition. Nuclear provided around 20 percent of EU power last year.
Fully electric vehicles overtook petrol cars in monthly EU sales for the first time in December 2025. This milestone comes despite the EU announcing plans to soften its earlier proposed 2035 phase out of combustion engines. EV sales grew 30 percent across 2025, representing about one fifth of new car registrations, although carmakers such as Volkswagen and Porsche have moderated their earlier electrification timelines.
A pioneering hydropower system capable of storing energy on gentle slopes, rather than the steep valleys typically required, is now generating electricity near Plymouth. The installation could enable long duration storage in terrain previously thought unsuitable for hydropower, potentially broadening the geographic range for this type of green energy worldwide.
The UK recorded 262,000 new solar installations in 2025, its highest annual figure since 2011, driven largely by a surge in domestic rooftop systems. The Telegraph attributes the 37 percent rise to government efforts to accelerate progress toward net zero, led by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.
The European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change has urged the EU to rapidly strengthen and coordinate its climate adaptation policies as escalating heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, floods and coastal erosion inflict rising human and economic losses across the continent. Europe is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, with extreme heat causing tens of thousands of premature deaths and weather related damage now averaging 45 billion euros annually. The Advisory Board warns current adaptation efforts are insufficient and calls for coherent EU wide action to protect lives, infrastructure and ecosystems as climate risks intensify.
New analysis from Aviva shows that 11 percent of homes built in England between 2022 and 2024 were constructed in areas with medium or high flood risk, up from 8 percent during the previous decade. The insurer warns that the government house building ambitions could worsen exposure unless planning rules are strengthened. The Environment Agency has also warned that climate change could put one in four properties at flood risk by 2050.
Global Climate News
A major UN assessment warns that decades of overuse combined with shrinking rivers, lakes, and glaciers are pushing the world toward irreversible water bankruptcy. Nearly three quarters of the global population now lives in water insecure countries, with four billion people experiencing severe scarcity at least one month per year. The Guardian reports that climate driven extremes are deepening the crisis, creating rapid shifts between drought and intense rainfall.
A new analysis shows nearly 4000 climate related policies enacted worldwide between 2000 and 2022 collectively reduced global CO2 emissions by over 3 billion tonnes. The study highlights the growing impact of coordinated policy action, noting that while many individual measures had limited effect, broad policy packages, particularly those combining regulations, incentives and carbon pricing tools, proved most effective at cutting emissions at scale. Researchers say these findings offer a roadmap for designing more impactful climate policies globally.
Global investment in the energy transition rose by 8 percent in 2025, reaching a record 2.3 trillion USD, according to BloombergNEF. Growth was driven primarily by electrified transport, which attracted 893 billion USD, alongside an investment of 483 billion USD in grid infrastructure. Renewable energy remained a major destination for capital at 690 billion USD. However, this represented a decline of nearly 10 percent from the previous year, largely due to new power market regulations in China that created uncertainty and slowed approvals for large solar and wind projects.
Climate Change Could Force the Winter Olympics into January
The International Olympic Committee is weighing up whether to shift future Winter Olympics from February to January, as warming temperatures make late season snow increasingly unreliable. Officials say the change is under active discussion because stronger sun in February accelerates snowmelt, and warmer winters are eroding the conditions needed for outdoor snow sports. A recent study commissioned by the International Olympic Committee shows that by 2040, only about 10 countries will still have climates reliable enough to host the Winter Olympics, reflecting a sharp decline in natural snowfall worldwide. A World Economic Forum analysis similarly warns that reduced snowpack is already narrowing the pool of viable host venues.
The 2026 Games in Milan and Cortina illustrate the trend. Despite high altitude venues, organisers have had to rely heavily on artificial snow, producing more than 56 million cubic feet to guarantee competition grade conditions. Machine made snow is now a necessity for major events, but it requires intensive water and energy inputs and highlights how dependent the Games have become on artificial support as natural snowfall declines.
Trump Administration Climate Rollbacks Spark Legal and Political Fallout
The Trump administration has rescinded the EPA 2009 endangerment finding, the scientific and legal basis for federal greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act. This repeal eliminates the authority of the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases, and removes emissions standards for vehicles, with potential implications for power plants and industrial facilities.
Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin described the move as the largest deregulation in U.S. history, asserting it will save over 1.3 trillion USD and expand consumer choice. The final rule removes federal compliance, certification, and reporting requirements tied to vehicle emissions rules. The White House framed the decision as reversing what it called burdensome climate mandates.
The decision follows a sharp fall in federal enforcement against polluters since Trump came back into power. Only 16 civil environmental cases were filed in 2025, the lowest level recorded across modern administrations. Analysts link this to broader rollback of environmental protections by the administration, EPA staffing cuts, and efforts to accelerate fossil fuel permitting. Critics warn the decline increases community exposure to illegal pollution.
The repeal has sparked immediate lawsuits from major environmental and public health groups, including the American Public Health Association, Sierra Club, NRDC, Environmental Defence Fund, and others, filed in the D.C. Circuit Court. These suits argue the EPA acted unlawfully, ignored scientific evidence, and violated its statutory duty to protect public health.
Several states and cities are joining the legal pushback. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced the state will sue, calling the repeal unlawful, anti science, and harmful to a state experiencing worsening wildfires and extreme heat. In the Midwest, the Chicago based Environmental Law and Policy Center has also filed a lawsuit, arguing the loss of emissions regulations will worsen extreme heat and storm impacts in the region.
However, EPA Administrator Zeldin argues that the Clean Air Act does not authorise greenhouse gas regulation and that the repeal reflects updated scientific understanding. With multiple lawsuits underway, the dispute is expected to reach the Supreme Court, setting up a pivotal decision over the future of federal climate authority in the United States.
New Research
A growing body of research shows that compound climate extremes, which is drought and heat occurring at the same time, create outsized social and economic harm compared to single hazards. Recent analyses reveal that when drought reduces agricultural output and heatwaves suppress labour productivity, households across Europe experience cumulative financial strain, especially in sectors with outdoor work or heat sensitive supply chains. These overlapping shocks increase costs of living, undermine income stability and deepen inequality. Studies also highlight the cascading nature of compound events, where failures in transport, agriculture and energy systems amplify each other, pushing millions closer to poverty. As extreme weather becomes more frequent, researchers warn that compound drought heat events could increasingly destabilise vulnerable regions across Europe.
A major study projects that if global warming reaches 2 degrees centigrade, the number of people exposed to extreme heat each year will rise from 1.54 billion in 2010 to 3.79 billion by 2050. This dramatic increase, affecting 41 percent of the global population, will disproportionately impact tropical and southern hemisphere nations, where baseline temperatures are already high and adaptation capacity is limited. Researchers warn that rapidly rising cooling demand will strain energy systems, particularly in countries where access to air conditioning remains low. Even regions historically accustomed to cooler climates will face new adaptation challenges as urban heat island effects intensify. The study underscores that no part of the world will be fully protected from rising heat extremes under a 2 degrees centigrade scenario.
Long term monitoring shows that marine heatwaves have become so frequent and prolonged that many coral reefs have been living under chronic heat stress for almost ten years. Since coral bleaching is triggered by sea temperatures only 1 to 2 degrees centigrade above normal summer peaks, even small increases in ocean heat can disrupt the coral algae symbiosis, leaving reefs energy deprived and vulnerable. Scientists note that bleaching events, once rare, now occur with unprecedented regularity as marine heatwaves grow longer and more intense. The ongoing global bleaching event that began in 2023 has already affected over 80 percent of coral reef areas worldwide, pointing to the severity and persistence of ocean warming. This prolonged stress reduces the chance of recovery between events, contributing to long term degradation.
A landmark global analysis found that during the 2014 to 2017 marine heatwave, then the longest and most intense on record, over half of the global coral reefs experienced moderate or severe bleaching, and 15 percent suffered significant mortality. Researchers compiled more than 15,000 reef surveys alongside satellite derived heat stress data, revealing the vast scale of damage. The same study warns that the ongoing global bleaching event, which began in 2023, has already surpassed previous heat stress thresholds in many regions, prompting NOAA to introduce stricter bleaching alert levels. Evidence from 2023 to 2025 shows that over 84 percent of reefs have been exposed to bleaching level heat stress, suggesting the current event could be even more ecologically devastating than the 2014 to 2017 event.
Emerging research indicates that high temperatures during pregnancy and early childhood can significantly affect brain development. A large scale study of more than 100,000 children across 551 Chinese cities found a strong association between extreme heat exposure and suspected neurodevelopmental delays, with risks rising steeply at higher temperatures. Heat exposure in both prenatal and postnatal periods was linked to reduced cognitive, motor and behavioural development, following a J shaped pattern where risk increases disproportionately during extreme heat. Complementary multinational studies show similar findings: young children exposed to unusually high temperatures were less likely to reach developmental milestones in literacy and numeracy, with disadvantaged and urban households most affected. Together, these studies highlight extreme heat as a major, climate driven threat to early childhood development.
