LONDON — Britain will reduce its aid sent to Africa by more than half, as the government unveils the impact of steep cuts to development assistance for countries across the world. On Thursday the Foreign Office revealed the next three years of its overseas development spending, giving MPs and the public the first look at the impact of Labour’s decision to gut Britain’s aid budget in order to fund an increase in defense spending. Government figures show that the value of Britain’s programs in Africa will fall by 56 percent from the £1.5 billion in 2024/25 when Labour took office to £677 million in 2028/9. It follows the move to reduce aid spending from 0.5 to 0.3 percent of gross national income. However, the government did not release the details of the funding for specific countries, giving Britain’s ambassadors and diplomats time to deliver the news personally to their counterparts across the world ahead of any potential backlash from allies. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told MPs that affected countries want Britain “to be an investor, not just a donor” and “want to attract finance, not be dependent on aid,” as she pointed to money her department had committed to development banks and funds which will help Africa raise money. The decision shows a substantial shift in the government’s focus, moving away from direct assistance for countries, and funneling much of the remaining money into international organizations and private finance initiatives. Chi Onwurah, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Africa, told POLITICO that she was “dismayed at the level and extent of the cuts to investment in Africa and the impact it will have particularly on health and economic development.” She added: “I hope the government recognizes that security of the British people is not increased by insecurity in Africa and increased migration from Africa, quite the opposite.” Ian Mitchell from the Center for Global Development think tank noted the move was “a remarkable step back from Africa by the U.K.” NEW PRIORITIES Announcing the cuts in the House of Commons, Cooper stressed that the decision to reduce the aid budget had been “hugely difficult,” pointing to similar moves by allies such as France and Germany following the U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to dramatically shrink America’s aid programs after taking office in January 2025. She insisted that it was still “part of our moral purpose” to tackle global disease and hunger, reiterating Labour’s ambition to work towards “a world free from extreme poverty on a livable planet.” Cooper set out three new priorities for Britain’s remaining budget: funding for unstable countries with conflict and humanitarian disasters, funneling money into “proven” global partnerships such as vaccine organizations, and a focus on women and girls, pledging that these will be at the core of 90 percent of Britain’s bilateral aid programs by 2030. A box with the Ukrainian flag on it awaits collection in Peterborough, U.K. on March 10, 2022. | Martin Pope/Getty Images Only three recipients will see their aid spending fully protected: Ukraine, the Palestinian territories and Sudan. Lebanon will also see its funding protected for another year. All bilateral funding for G20 countries will end. Despite the government’s stated priorities, the scale of the cuts mean that even the areas it is seeking to protect will not be protected fully. An impact assessment — which was so stark that ministers claimed they had to rethink some of the cuts in order to better protect focus areas such as contraception — published alongside the announcement found that there will likely be an end to programs in Malawi where 250,000 young people will lose access to family planning, and 20,000 children risk dropping out of school. “These steep cuts will impact the most marginalized and left behind communities,” said Romilly Greenhill, CEO of Bond, the U.K. network for NGOs, adding: “The U.K. is turning its back on the communities that need support the most.” Last-minute negotiations did see some areas protected from more severe cuts, with the BBC World Service seeing a funding boost, the British Council set to receive an uplift amid its financial struggles, and the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) — the aid spending watchdog that had been at risk of being axed — continuing to operate with a 40 percent budget cut. GREEN THREAT Though the move will not require legislation to be confirmed — after Prime Minister Keir Starmer successfully got the move past his MPs last year — MPs inside his party and out have lamented the impact of the cuts, amid the ongoing threat to Labour’s left from a resurgent Green Party under new leader Zack Polanski. Labour MP Becky Cooper, chair of the APPG on global health and security said that her party “is, and always has been, a party of internationalism” but today’s plans would “put Britain and the world at risk.” Sarah Champion, another Labour MP who chairs the House of Commons international development committee said that the announcement confirmed that there “will be no winners from unrelenting U.K. aid cuts, just different degrees of losers,” creating a “desperately bleak” picture for the world’s most vulnerable. “These cuts do not aid our defense, they make the whole world more vulnerable,” she added. Her Labour colleague Gareth Thomas, a former development minister, added: “In an already unsafe world, cutting aid risks alienating key allies and will make improving children’s health and education in Commonwealth countries more difficult.” The announcement may give fresh ammunition to the Greens ahead of May’s local elections, where the party is eyeing up one of its best nights in local government amid a collapse in support for Labour among Britain’s young, progressive, and Muslim voters. Reacting to the news that Britain will cut its aid to developing countries aimed at combatting climate change, Polanski said: “Appalling and just unbelievably short-sighted. Our security here in the U.K. relies on action around the world to tackle the climate crisis.”

OSLO — Norway is doubling down on its role as Europe’s energy lifeline as wars and geopolitical turmoil rattle global markets. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said the widening conflict in the Middle East, which has already pushed oil prices higher and reduced supply, underscores why Europe needs stable energy partners. “It’s a war that appears to have no plan,” Støre said at the Offshore Norge Annual Conference in Oslo on Thursday, referring to the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. “In such unpredictable times, Norway needs to be reliable.” Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Norway has become Europe’s largest pipeline gas supplier, replacing much of the fuel that once flowed from Russia. “All the gas we produce in Norway goes to Europe, and around 90 to 95 percent of oil we produce goes to Europe,” Anders Opedal, chief executive of Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor, told POLITICO. But while Oslo is positioning itself as a pillar of Europe’s energy security, Norwegian officials say the country cannot quickly ramp up production even if geopolitical tensions tighten global supply. Norway’s Energy Minister Terje Aasland said his country is already operating close to maximum output. “We are at the top of production capacity just now,” he told POLITICO. Increasing supply would require new exploration and investment, Aasland said, as his government works to slow an expected decline in production after 2030 by developing additional resources on the Norwegian continental shelf. “Our focus is to be a stable and long and predictable supplier of energy to the European market,” he said. ARCTIC TENSIONS At the same time, Norway is pushing back against calls in Brussels to halt oil and gas development in the Arctic as the EU revises its Arctic strategy. The EU’s current policy commits the bloc to pursuing an international moratorium on Arctic oil and gas extraction, but the strategy is now under review, with a public consultation closing March 16 and a revised version expected before the summer. Norwegian officials, industry groups and unions are lobbying Brussels to drop the idea, arguing Europe will continue to need Norwegian Arctic gas as it phases out Russian supplies. Aasland defended Norway’s record in the region, pointing to the Barents Sea — where the country launched the Johan Castberg oil field last August — as an example of responsible development. “We have delivered oil and gas to the European market from the Arctic for several decades,” he said. “And we will develop it.” Industry leaders say Arctic production already plays a role in replacing Russian supplies. “When we opened the Johan Castberg field last year, the first cargo went straight to Europe, replacing Russian oil,” Opedal said. “Any moratorium here would actually reduce Europe’s security of supply.” Norway supplies roughly a third of EU gas imports, though Arctic gas accounts for a much smaller share, around 3 percent of the bloc’s imports. Still, Norwegian leaders argue a moratorium would send the wrong signal while Europe remains dependent on external energy supplies. Norwegian officials, industry groups and unions are lobbying Brussels to drop the idea, arguing Europe will continue to need Norwegian Arctic gas as it phases out Russian supplies. | Soeren Stache/picture alliance via Getty Images Ine Eriksen Søreide, the leader of Norway’s Conservative party, said calls to stop Arctic development clash with Europe’s current energy security priorities. “It sends a very bad signal when the Commission says we need to stop oil and gas development in the Arctic, because that’s development the EU relies on,” she said. Experts say the broader Arctic energy picture is dominated by Russia, which has major plans to expand liquefied natural gas production through projects such as Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG 2. Malte Humpert, founder and senior fellow at the Arctic Institute, said climate change is rapidly transforming the once-inaccessible region. “If we didn’t have climate change, we wouldn’t be talking about Arctic geopolitics,” he told POLITICO. “Climate change is actively reshaping the map, where suddenly there’s new trade routes available that didn’t exist even 10, 15 years ago.” OIL AND GAS AREN’T GOING ANYWHERE FOR NOW Across Oslo’s political spectrum, the message is broadly the same: Europe still needs reliable fossil fuel suppliers, and Norway intends to remain one of them. Opposition leader Sylvi Listhaug of the right-wing Progress Party argued Europe should encourage Norway to produce more oil and gas to reduce reliance on authoritarian regimes. “The more Norway can produce of gas, the less dependent Europe will be” on non-democratic producers, she said. Ine Eriksen Søreide, the leader of Norway’s Conservative party, said calls to stop Arctic development clash with Europe’s current energy security priorities. | Pool photo by Olivier Doulier/AFP via Getty Images Listhaug also warned that high energy prices risk undermining European competitiveness. “Energy and economic growth are a one-to-one relationship,” she said. Even as Norway expands renewables, leaders insist fossil fuels will remain crucial to Europe’s energy system during the long transition to cleaner alternatives. “We have to have two thoughts in our heads at the same time,” Aasland said.

Listen on Ukraine is running out of money to fight Russia — but Hungary still isn’t budging on its opposition to the EU’s €90 billion loan to Kyiv. On today’s episode, host Zoya Sheftalovich and Kathryn Carlson, senior finance reporter, outline some of the contingency plans European countries have up their sleeves to get Ukraine the funding it needs before it’s too late. Also on the podcast, POLITICO’s Karl Mathiesen has interviewed Frank Furedi, who runs MCC Brussels, a think tank linked to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government.  The Hungarian-born sociologist argues Europe’s rising populist right may not be ready for power — Zoya and Kathryn try to understand why. Finally, a 350-page report published today by the EU’s climate advisers lays out recommendations to tackle the carbon footprint of the agriculture sector … but don’t expect a warm response from farmers. Do you have questions or comments for our hosts? Send a message or a voice note to our WhatsApp: +32 491 05 06 29. **A message from Amazon: Across Europe, businesses are growing with the AWS Cloud to build innovative, scalable products. From Europe’s largest enterprises and government agencies to the continent’s fastest growing startups, learn more about how AWS Cloud is helping businesses across Europe grow at AWS.eu.**

FAVERSHAM, U.K. — Frank Furedi, one of the European populist right’s intellectual darlings, has a nagging anxiety. What if they gain power, then blow it? A Hungarian-born sociologist who spent decades on the political fringes himself, Furedi now runs MCC Brussels, a think tank backed by Viktor Orbán’s Budapest government. It aims to challenge what he calls the European Union’s liberal consensus — and help sharpen the ideas of a rising populist right. Speaking in his home office in the English market town of Faversham, where he was recovering from a recent illness, the 78-year-old professional provocateur — who has risen to prominence in Europe’s right-wing circles — hailed what he sees as the impending collapse of Europe’s political center. But he also questioned whether the insurgent movements benefiting from that upheaval have the discipline needed to govern if they win. “You can win an election, but if you’re not prepared for its consequences, then you become your worst enemy,” he said during a two-hour conversation in his paper-strewn office. “You basically risk being doomed forever.” Across Europe, the movements Furedi is talking about are already testing the political mainstream. Nigel Farage’s Reform Party is surging in Britain, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has a real shot at the French presidency, and the Alternative for Germany is consistently at or near the top of polls. In Italy and Hungary, Giorgia Meloni and Orbán have already shown what populists in power can look like. Inside his house in Faversham, the conversation turned from Europe’s populist surge to the ideas that might shape what comes next. As Furedi led the way up the stairs, a yapping cockerpoo was hauled away into some back room. At the top of the staircase was a framed poster of Hannah Arendt, the philosopher who understood the attraction of radical political movements for the disenfranchised and alienated — and the potential for those movements to veer into evil. Nigel Farage’s Reform Party is surging in Britain, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has a real shot at the French presidency, and the Alternative for Germany is consistently at or near the top of polls. | Nicolas Guyonnet/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images But Furedi isn’t worried about a return of European totalitarianism — if anything, he thinks the current regime is where freedom of thought and speech are being crushed. His real fear is that Europe’s right-wingers arrive in power unprepared — failing to learn from the experience of the U.S. MAGA movement, which almost blew its chance after Donald Trump won power in 2016 but couldn’t execute a coherent vision for government.  “There’s a real demand for something different,” he said. “It’s the collapse of the old order, which is really what’s exciting.” But while Furedi is eager to watch it all burn down, he’s unconvinced by the right-wing parties carrying the torches.  “At the moment, all politics is negative,” he said, noting two exceptions where the right has managed to govern with stability: Meloni and Orbán.  “It’s a fascinating moment in most parts of Europe, but it’s a moment that isn’t going to be there forever,” he said. “But whether these movements have got the maturity and the professionalism to be able to project themselves in a convincing way still remains to be seen.”  POLITICAL PROGRAM Like Farage, Meloni and many of their ilk, Furedi is riding a political wave after a lifetime spent far from power or relevance. Since the 1960s he has been an agitator at the obscure edge of politics, first on the left as a founder of the Revolutionary Communist Party and its magazine Living Marxism, which attacked the British Labour Party for its centrism, later to become a writer for Spiked, an internet magazine that attacked Labour from the right.  His real fear is that Europe’s right-wingers arrive in power unprepared — failing to learn from the experience of the U.S. MAGA movement. | Heather Diehl/Getty Images He’s pro-Brexit, but thinks the EU should remain intact (albeit with diminished power). He despises doctrinaire multiculturalism, is a defender of women’s right to have an abortion, and thinks Covid and climate change reveal an undesirable timidity in the face of danger. He’s an implacable supporter of Israel, but thinks freedom of speech should extend even to abhorrent ideas, including Holocaust denial. He thinks the far right should support trade unions.  “I don’t see myself as right-wing. So even though other people might call me far-right, right, fascist or whatever, I identify myself in a very different kind of way,” he said. That evening he planned to watch Wuthering Heights. The best thing he’s seen recently? Sinners.  Under Furedi, MCC Brussels has gained notoriety — and some level of mainstream acceptance — as a far-right counterweight to the hefty centrist institutes that dot the city’s European Quarter.  The think tank promotes Hungary’s brand of right-wing nationalism and its rejection of European federalism, immigration policy and LGBTQ+ inclusion. But he insists the project isn’t about being a mouthpiece for Budapest so much as creating a place where right-wing ideas can be tested and hardened. Across all of politics, he laments, “ideas are not taken sufficiently seriously.”  MCC Brussels is fully funded by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, a private higher education institution that has received massive financial backing from Orbán’s government. While Furedi acknowledges that the think tank’s publications frequently echo the Hungarian government — “we have our sympathies” — he denies that Orbán calls the shots.  MCC Brussels is fully funded by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, a private higher education institution that has received massive financial backing from Orbán’s government. | János Kummer/Getty Images Hungary’s upcoming election, which threatens to end the prime minister’s 16-year rule, is unlikely to affect its funding. The college is floated by assets permanently gifted by the government, said John O’Brien, MCC Brussels head of communications.  OTHER MOVEMENTS’ WEAKNESSES In his eighth decade, Furedi worries he will run out of time to see “something nice happening.” But he’s convinced the political order he has spent his life attacking is ready to fold. To illustrate why, he points to Faversham. He arrived in the area in 1974 to study at the University of Kent, where he later became a professor. In the last few years the town has become a flash point for anti-immigration protests after a former care home was converted to house a few dozen refugee children.  Last summer and fall, left and right protest groups clashed over a campaign to hang English flags across the town. One Guardian reader reported hearing chants of “Sieg Heil” in the streets at night. To Furedi, the anger behind the clashes is the inevitable consequence of a narrow politics that has not only lost touch with the people it represents, but actively shut them out. “Our elites adopted what are called post-material values and basically looked down on people who were interested in their material circumstances,” he said. YouGov’s most recent seat-by-seat polling analysis in September put Farage’s Reform easily ahead in Faversham. But Furedi doesn’t give the party a lot of credit for winning people’s backing with a positive program for government. “I think Reform recognizes the fact that they have to be both more professional,” he said. But, he added, “You cannot somehow magic a professional cadre of operators.”  YouGov’s most recent seat-by-seat polling analysis in September put Farage’s Reform easily ahead in Faversham. | Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images The successes of the right are, in Furedi’s view, primarily based on being “beneficiaries of other movements’ weaknesses.”  The same was also true for Trump, he said. “It wasn’t like a love affair or anything of that sort. The U.S. president just happened to act as a conduit for a lot of those sentiments.” Is this a recipe for good government? “No,” he said. “One of the big tragedies in our world is that democracy in a nation requires serious political parties.”

BRUSSELS — Europeans should eat less meat and farms must be taxed for their planet-warming pollution if the bloc is to reach its climate goals, the EU’s scientific advisers argue in a set of far-reaching recommendations that are unlikely to get a warm welcome from farmers.  In a 350-page report published Wednesday, the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change also calls on the EU to scrap farm subsidies for climate-damaging practices, arguing sweeping measures are necessary to reduce agriculture’s contribution to global warming. To aid farmers, they propose scaling up financial support to help them transition toward greener alternatives as well as aid to cope with increasing droughts and climate disasters.  Yet environmental policies that so much as touch on agriculture have become politically toxic in recent years, with Brussels and EU capitals reluctant to address farm emissions in the face of large-scale tractor protests and intense lobbying campaigns.  Still, sticking with business as usual isn’t an option, said the board’s chair Ottmar Edenhofer.  “In order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 within the EU, the sector has to contribute to emissions reduction,” he said.  “And if we do this in a smart way during the transition process, in a gradual way, pricing the emissions but also using the revenues to support the transition … I think this is a beneficial pathway for the whole sector and for the whole of society.”  While politically sensitive, the board’s recommendations are not revolutionary.  Plenty of scientists and even the World Bank have in recent years urged governments to ensure their citizens eat less meat and to cut environmentally harmful subsidies in order to rein in greenhouse gas emissions from food, which account for about a third of all planet-warming pollution.  And Denmark is on track to become the first country to tax agricultural pollution after Copenhagen and farmers’ associations agreed in 2024 to impose a carbon price on livestock emissions from 2030.  Yet the board’s reports carry weight. The independent consortium of scientists is tasked by EU law with providing guidance on climate policy; past recommendations have proven influential, with the board’s 2023 advice on setting a 2040 emissions-slashing target of at least 90 percent playing a major role in leading the EU to enshrine this goal in law last week.  The entire food system, from farming to consumption to waste management, produces 31 percent of the bloc’s emissions. | Quentin Top / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images The recommendations on agriculture also come just as the EU drafts new policies that could incorporate some of the board’s advice — from the bloc’s next long-term budget and an upcoming revision of the EU farm subsidy program, to a slate of new green legislation designed to meet the new 2040 target, and a plan to increase resilience to climate disasters. CAPPING CAP PAYMENTS The Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), a behemoth that absorbs around a third of the EU’s budget, is a key target of the report. The current framework contains provisions around climate and biodiversity, but has failed to sufficiently slash greenhouse gas emissions. The entire food system, from farming to consumption to waste management, produces 31 percent of the bloc’s emissions. More than half of that occurs during food production — think super-polluting methane released by cows as well as fertilizer use, tractor fuel and more.  The CAP, the scientists warn, still incentivizes climate-harming practices through its vast subsidy system. The EU should therefore gradually phase out payments that are tied to livestock production, a type of income support for farmers that consumes 5 percent of the current CAP budget, they say.  In fact, they add, the EU should reconsider the entire idea of subsidies based on farmland size, worth 39 percent of the CAP budget or more than €100 billion, as they “incentivize agricultural production over other land use” such as forestry, and thus drive up emissions. On top of reforming the CAP, the EU should introduce a carbon pricing mechanism covering agriculture, building on the Emissions Trading System architecture that has successfully halved industry and power plant pollution, the scientists say.  But they argue that agricultural carbon pricing should consist of three separate systems — one each for energy-related farm emissions, non-CO2 pollution such as methane, and agricultural emissions and carbon dioxide removals from land.  The EU also needs to address consumer demand to tackle food emissions, the board says. In particular, Europeans eat too much red meat, driving up methane pollution.  The scientists recommend the EU set up national guidelines for climate-friendly diets and set mandatory standards for marketing and sustainability labeling of food to push consumers toward greener choices.  CLIMATE-PROOFING FARMS To sweeten the deal for farmers, the board suggests that with the money saved from a reformed CAP and generated through carbon pricing, the EU should support them in the transition toward climate-friendly practices and in adapting to a warmer world.  Whether the promise of funding would be enough to placate farming lobbies that have launched massive tractor protests across Europe at any hint of additional burdens for farmers is uncertain. Political appetite for green legislation has also declined in both Brussels and capitals amid a shift toward industry- and security-focused policies.  As part of its Green Deal, the European Commission in 2020 launched a Farm to Fork Strategy designed to make the bloc’s food system more environmentally friendly. The plan, however, was effectively abandoned following a backlash from lobby groups and conservative politicians.  Political appetite for green legislation has also declined amid a shift toward industry- and security-focused policies. | Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images Only last week, EU institutions struck a deal to ban vegetarian products from using certain meat-related terms.  But Edenhofer believes that there is political space to enact the board’s recommendations, pointing to Denmark’s tripartite deal establishing a carbon tax — an agreement between the government, farmers and environmental groups — as a hopeful example.  “We acknowledge that this is very complicated, but … we need a regulatory system which incentivizes emission reductions in the agri-food system,” Edenhofer insisted.

BRUSSELS — Soaring fossil fuel prices caused by the war in the Middle East show that the European Union’s climate efforts are vital for its independence and security, the new chair of the European Parliament’s environment committee said. When Italian center-left lawmaker Pierfrancesco Maran was elected committee chair last month, he described the bloc’s Green Deal as a “freedom deal” — and he feels vindicated in this argument following the American and Israeli strikes on Iran.  The outbreak of war last week effectively halted tanker traffic through the Persian Gulf, sending oil and gas prices skyrocketing. This development, much like the energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, demonstrates that the green transition is necessary not only for the climate but also for Europe’s security, Maran told POLITICO.  “Today, after the bombs in Iran, the Green Deal represents even more our idea of freedom and autonomy,” he said in an interview.  “We can have different strategies — we can go on looking for gas and oil in country after country, in a world that is less stable every day, or we can be much more autonomous,” he added. “Pushing for renewables, pushing to have better industries that can produce more while consuming less, are part of a strategy of autonomy of Europe that is fundamental.”  Maran replaces Antonio Decaro, a fellow Italian from the center-left Democratic Party, who returned to domestic politics after less than two years in Brussels.  Like Decaro, Maran joined the European Parliament in 2024 from local politics — prior to becoming an MEP he served for nearly two decades as a city councillor in Milan.  He describes himself as a European “federalist” who would like to see the bloc have common foreign and defense policies, and believes that the EU needs to massively scale up future-oriented investments — if necessary, through joint borrowing.  Maran also is wary of taking the bloc’s new deregulation drive, which has seen several environmental policies weakened over the past year, too far.  “Many companies ask mainly for stability. So even changing rules day after day and giving the impression that nothing is sure because you can change it is problematic,” he said. Until he beat the only challenger, far-right MEP Roman Haider, by a large margin to become chair last month, Maran was not even a member of the Environment Committee.  Still, he can claim some experience in green policymaking, having worked on environmental issues as a city councillor and recently serving as the internal market committee’s lead lawmaker on recycling rules for cars. His work on the car recycling file, he says, has left him “optimistic” that majorities can be built to support ambitious green policies even in this more right-wing European Parliament.  “I think there is a space, after people loudly talk about their ideological positions, to find an agreement among persons of common sense,” he said.  As chair, he represents all MEPs on the committee, and insists he’s not shutting out the far right. “If they want to be open to cooperation for good results, of course, the door is open.”  But he has no patience for politicians who deny or downplay climate change. “It’s normal we have different positions on how to face this problem, but whoever says it doesn’t exist is outside of reality.” 

BRUSSELS — Global warming intensified a series of torrential rainstorms that battered Spain and Portugal in recent weeks, new research has found.  Nine destructive winter storms hit the Iberian Peninsula with extensive flooding between mid-January and mid-February, killing six people in Portugal, forcing the evacuation of more than 12,000 people in Spain and leaving a trail of devastation across both countries.  The economic damage was significant: The Spanish government has already allocated €7 billion in relief payments to help people affected, while in Portugal the damage is estimated to reach €6 billion, equivalent to more than 1.5 percent of the country’s GDP. The Portuguese government has said the reconstruction cost will constrain the nation’s finances.  On Thursday, a team of international scientists published research showing that climate change intensified the rainfall in the Iberian Peninsula as well as neighboring Morocco, where the same storms displaced hundreds of thousands.  The World Weather Attribution consortium — a group of scientists who run rapid analyses assessing the role of climate change in extreme weather events based on peer-reviewed methods — looked at two specific rainfall events over the last month, one stretching from northwestern Spain into Portugal and another in southern Iberia and northern Morocco. They found an increase in the intensity of rainfall of 36 percent in the northern region and 28 percent in the southern area. “This means the wettest days are now around a third wetter” than before humans began heating the planet by burning fossil fuels, they write.  To understand to what degree climate change is responsible for this increase, they ran simulations comparing similar downpours in the present climate and in a world without global warming. The results complicated the picture but nevertheless demonstrated that global warming has driven up rainfall intensity.  In the northern region, the climate models consistently showed that rainfall was getting heavier, said Clair Barnes, a researcher with the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London and a co-author of the study.  “Overall, we estimate that the wettest days are now about 11 percent wetter than they would have been without human-caused climate change,” she said.  In the southern region, “the climate models actually don’t show any increasing trend in rainfall on the wettest days.” For that reason, “we can’t quantify the effect of climate change on extreme rainfall in that southern area,” Barnes added, but stressed: “This does not mean that climate change didn’t contribute to the extreme rainfall in the southern region as well, just that it’s difficult to detect overall trends over time.”  HOTTER OCEANS, HEAVIER RAIN In particular, the researchers also found that the succession of storms was driven in part by a so-called atmospheric river, a long band of wind and water vapor that transports moisture across vast distances.  Nine destructive winter storms hit the Iberian Peninsula with extensive flooding between mid-January and mid-February. | Jorge Guerrerp/AFP via Getty Images The atmospheric river was “intensified by passing over a very strong marine heatwave in the Atlantic on its way up to Spain,” said Barnes. This increase in sea temperatures, she added, was found to have been made 10 times more likely to happen as a result of climate change.  “The storm … is carrying moisture from the Atlantic up towards Iberia, up towards northern Morocco, and because this atmospheric river passed over this very warm patch of ocean, it was able to pick up more moisture than it would have if the ocean had been cooler, and that means that when that rain makes landfall … there is more water to fall,” she said.  A so-called blocked weather pattern — describing a high-pressure area that diverts winds around it — also influenced the extreme weather by channeling storm after storm toward Iberia for a month. Scientists are still investigating whether climate change is increasing the occurrence of blocking patterns. The authors noted that at an estimated 49 fatalities across the three countries, the death toll remained relatively low, thanks to concerted early-warning and evacuation efforts.  The precise reconstruction cost of homes, infrastructure and agriculture is still being assessed. The knock-on damages for the economy will likely run even higher; Portugal’s main highway, for example, collapsed in one of the storms in mid-February and is expected to take weeks to repair.  “These early warning and anticipatory actions reduced loss of life, but they don’t reduce the underlying exposure” to risk, said Maja Vahlberg from the Red Cross-Red Crescent Climate Centre, one of the study co-authors.  She added: “While humans can be moved out of harm’s way, that’s not true for our homes, our workplaces, our roads, our buildings — carriers of history, culture, and memory.” 

Czech President Petr Pavel approved Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s nominee for environment minister, ending months of turmoil marked by blackmail allegations, protests and political scandal. Igor Červený, a member of the right-wing populist Motorists party led by Foreign Minister Petr Macinka, takes over as a second choice after Pavel blocked the nomination of former MEP Filip Turek due to allegations of involvement in numerous scandals. Macinka also led the environment ministry in an interim capacity before Červený’s appointment, scrapping its climate protection section during his short-lived reign. “The environment ministry has, in recent times, been marked by a number of emotions, as if all the issues this ministry should be dealing with had been reduced to some kind of fight against green ideologies. I am convinced that we should do everything possible to return to the essence of what this ministry is for, which is environmental protection,” Pavel said after appointing Červený at Prague Castle on Monday. A first-term MP elected last October, Červený is an IT specialist and digitalization expert who serves as deputy chair of the Czech parliament’s economic committee and rejects “green demagogy.” Červený has vowed to “protect nature, free ourselves from green ideology and defend our industry.” He also has criticized renewable energy sources and the EU emissions trading scheme, similar to Babiš, who has called it “an absolute disaster.” The Motorists party was insistent on Turek being installed as the environment minister, even leading to a bitter standoff between Macinka and Pavel that saw allegations of blackmail and threats aimed at the president. A new position was created for Turek in the ministry as commissioner for climate policy and the Green Deal. The former racecar driver posted a video on Instagram before the appointment of Červený, saying: “It will be a minister who is very serious and who will do at the ministry what I want him to do.” He then called himself “the wiser one” for stepping back.

BRUSSELS ― The EU is planning to spend as much as €16 million over the next four years to fly its top officials by private jet, according to a tender document. This is an increase of €3 million from the previous four-year period and is 50 percent higher than the period before that, which ended in 2021. “In a time where ordinary people can’t afford traveling during their summer holidays, this sends a very weird signal,” said Green MEP Rasmus Andresen. It’s “embarrassing,” and “doesn’t fit” the EU’s climate goals. The contract, whose buyers are named as the European Commission, Parliament, Council and the European External Action Service, is described as being “fully or partially financed with EU funds.” For the highest officials within these institutions, international travel is a key part of their role as they hold discussions with foreign leaders and make speeches around the world. But while the EU prioritizes commercial transport, the Commission said, sometimes it deems that impossible or too dangerous ― especially when staff travel to conflict zones. No company has yet been awarded the contract for “non-scheduled air-taxi transport services” worth €15.67 million despite it being out for tender for more than a year. The four-year contract from 2021 amounted to just over €12 million. That previous agreement, which was due to expire at the end of 2025, has been extended until June while the tender procedure continues, the Commission said. The increase in the estimated cost takes into account “the broader geopolitical context and increased volatility in international affairs, which may generate more short-notice travel needs,” a Commission spokesperson said. Market developments, including “higher aircraft charter rates and fuel costs,” have also been factored into the projections, the spokesperson said. “It is important to stress that charter air taxi services are not the primary means of transport,” adding that they’re used “only when scheduled commercial flights are incompatible with official agendas or when urgent, unforeseen political developments require rapid travel or when this is necessary for security reasons.” The EU already stumped up extra cash for private jet use in 2021, with the previous contract — which ran from 2016 to 2021 — set €10.71 million as the maximum value that could be spent on private jets. At the time, the Commission said the rise was down to a potential increase in demand, largely because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Prices in the eurozone have risen roughly 30 percent between 2016 and 2026. “If the Commission is serious about its leadership on climate change, it should start by leading by example, closing the tax loopholes that allow the most polluting form of flying to remain one of the least regulated, and it certainly should not increase its own use of private jets,” said Diane Vitry, aviation director at the NGO Transport and Environment. Private jets polluted “five to 14 times more than commercial flights and 50 times more than trains per passenger,” she said. In its response, the Commission said that increased private jet spending was not a row-back of its climate ambitions and that it retained its commitment “to be a front runner in the transition towards a climate-neutral society.” EU officials have faced criticism for their use of private jets in the past. The bloc’s joint presidents used one to fly to U.N. climate talks in Egypt in 2023, according to data seen by POLITICO that revealed heavy use of private flights by the then-Council President Charles Michel. The EU’s commitment to tackling climate change is being questioned by NGOs which criticize the bloc for prioritizing competitiveness and red-tape cutting. A key piece of climate legislation, the EU’s tough rules on car emissions, has been watered down in recent weeks. “Increasing spending on private jets for top officials in times of financial constraints and climate crisis is not only scandalous but also irresponsible,” said Green MEP Tilly Metz. “Sustainable forms of traveling such as high-speed trains are available and must become the rule also for EU’s political elite,” she added. “For overseas travel commercial flights can easily be used, no need for PJs!” Max Griera contributed reporting.

PARIS — The United States has succeeded in removing climate change from the main priorities of the International Energy Agency, following a tense ministerial meeting in Paris that reflected a dramatic shift in political mood around the clean energy transition. In the chair’s summary released at the end of the two-day meeting, addressing climate change is not listed among the agency’s priorities. Instead, the document focuses on energy security, resilience, critical minerals and electricity systems. The development, which comes after the U.S. threatened to leave the agency if it continued to focus on climate change, is a remarkable turnaround from the last ministerial two years ago, when addressing the climate crisis and phasing out fossil fuels was named as the IEA’s top priority. Unusually, there was no joint communique from the ministers at the end of this week’s meeting. The chair’s summary mentioned climate change just once, saying “a large majority of ministers stressed the importance of the energy transition to combat climate change and highlighted the global transition to net zero emissions in line with COP28 outcomes.” Despite that line, climate change was not highlighted as a priority in the closing remarks and was barely mentioned during the final press conference, reflecting the power of the U.S., the group’s richest member which contributes around 14 percent of the agency’s funding. U.S. President Donald Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and efforts to address it a “scam.” Since coming to office just over a year ago, he has taken a sledgehammer to domestic U.S. climate policies, withdrawn from international climate bodies, attempted to stall renewable projects, and promoted the global expansion of fossil fuels production — including through a military intervention in Venezuela. During the talks in Paris, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright had urged the agency to drop its net-zero scenario modeling and refocus on traditional energy security, warning that the U.S. could reconsider its membership if the IEA did not change course. During the closing press conference, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol sidestepped questions about whether Washington had pushed to dilute climate language. Asked directly about the agency’s net-zero scenario, he noted that the latest World Energy Outlook still includes one, but declined to say whether it would appear in future outlooks. Dutch Climate Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Sophie Hermans, who chaired the meeting, defended the outcome, arguing that each ministerial reflects its “own geopolitical situation.” “And I think the last thing we should do is compare today’s chair summary with, the summary of two years ago, because so much has changed,” she told reporters.