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Sunday, 12 July 2026

102 briefs so farlast update 17:39 UTC

Key points

  • NRC Proposes 553-Page Reactor Licensing Overhaul.
  • Energy Secretary Wright Backs July 4 Cutoff for New Wind and Solar Tax Credits.
  • Centrus Finalizes $900M DOE Task Order for Ohio HALEU Cascade.
  • Russia Strikes Kyiv After Ukraine Hits Nearly 30% of Refining Capacity.
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Climate

Six Candidates Nominated to Succeed Guterres as UN Secretary General

UN member states have nominated six candidates to become the next secretary general, according to Carbon Brief, as António Guterres prepares to step down at the end of 2026 after nearly a decade in the role.

Guterres became the ninth UN secretary general on 1 January 2017, according to Carbon Brief. He has been a strong advocate for climate action, describing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 2021 report as a "code red for humanity".

Carbon Brief reports that more candidates are expected in the coming months. Four of the six nominated so far are women, and Carbon Brief notes that a woman has never held the position in its 80-year history.

One nominee is Macky Sall, a former Senegalese president, who was put forward by Burundi, according to Carbon Brief.

Carbon Brief also recalls that Ban Ki-moon worked to mobilise USD 100 billion per year by 2020 in climate financing from developed to developing countries, a target met two years late.

Source: carbonbrief.org (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink

Rows of national flags on flagpoles in front of a modern glass headquarters building at dusk.
Photo: Jan van der Wolf / Pexels (opens in a new tab)

Climate

Congo Basin logging concessions hold 56.8% of net carbon removals, study finds

Selectively managed logging areas account for 56.8% of net carbon removals across the Congo Basin, according to a Nature Communications study reported by Mongabay.

The basin's rainforests stretch across 3.3 million square kilometers of Central Africa, which Mongabay describes as the planet's largest forested carbon sink.

Almost all of the carbon these forests pull from the atmosphere each year, 98.7%, sits in land under some form of management, the study's model found, per Mongabay. Protected areas take in 41.9% of that annual removal, while logging concessions take in 56.8%.

To reach those figures, the team trained a machine-learning program on land-cover records gathered from 1990 to 2020 across the six forested countries of the Congo Basin, pairing them with aboveground carbon estimates drawn from lidar, Mongabay reported.

Le Bienfaiteur Sagang, a tropical ecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, led the research, according to Mongabay.

Source: news.mongabay.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink

Climate

Tropical Forest Fund at Risk as UK Withholds Pledge, Threatening Norway's $3 Billion

The Tropical Forest Forever Facility has raised $6.8 billion but must mobilise at least $10 billion by the end of 2026 to unlock Norway's pledge, under conditions Norway set, according to Climate Home News.

If the fund falls short of that goal, Norway's contribution of up to $3 billion in loans over 10 years will not be disbursed, Climate Home News reported.

The TFFF was launched on the sidelines of last November's UN climate summit as a mechanism to raise public and private money, invest it in financial markets, and pay rainforest countries a share of the returns, according to Climate Home News.

Norway, Germany, France, Brazil, Indonesia and Luxembourg have pledged to the fund, but the UK did not follow with a pledge during London Climate Action Week, Climate Home News reported.

The Times reported that energy and climate minister Ed Miliband had been poised to announce a £400-million ($528m) investment pledge to the TFFF but was opposed by UK finance minister Rachel Reeves, according to Climate Home News.

The Congo Basin Forest Action Programme has had its budget slashed by nearly 80% amid UK cuts to foreign aid, Climate Home News reported.

Source: climatechangenews.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink

Climate

Green Climate Fund Frees Nearly USD 6 Billion by Cutting Reserve Requirement

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) will have nearly USD 6 billion more to spend on emissions-reduction and climate adaptation projects in developing countries after its board agreed to reduce the share of money it holds in reserve, according to Climate Home News.

The board backed a management proposal to revise the fund's financial rules so it no longer has to set aside one dollar for every dollar it spends, Climate Home News reported. The change leaves the fund with USD 5.65 billion to deploy into projects, up from around USD 1 billion under the previous rules.

The GCF holds a portfolio of 360 projects to which it has allocated USD 20.5 billion, according to Climate Home News.

GCF chief financial officer Darren Tan said the old rules had led to too much cash building up in the fund's reserves and constrained the resources it could deploy.

Germany's Annette Windmeisser said the reform responds to the COP29 decision to triple outflows from the multilateral climate funds.

The new system has been independently validated and is supported by the GCF's trustee, the World Bank, Climate Home News reported.

The move follows similar reserve adjustments at the World Bank. In 2023 and 2024, the World Bank lowered its equity-to-loans ratio from 20% to 19% and then to 18%, freeing up around USD 7 billion a year to invest, according to Climate Home News.

Source: climatechangenews.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink