Most UK newspapers cover the speech by Labour leader Keir Starmer later today in which he is expected to say that his party remains committed to its “green prosperity plan”, despite attacks from rightwing newspapers and politicians plus some criticism from unions. The Times says: “Sir Keir Starmer will face down internal critics as he insists that plans for £28bn of investment in green energy will deliver economic growth. The Labour leader will address the GMB union’s conference [in Brighton] just days after its general secretary attacked the party’s plan to ban new oil and gas extraction in the North Sea as ‘naive’…[Starmer will compare his plan] to Joe Biden’s inflation reduction act in the US. The plan would see Labour borrow £28bn a year to fund a range of green industries and other schemes such as home insulation. Starmer is set to unveil more measures in his green missions speech next week.” The Daily Mail leads its frontpage with a story claiming that “families face £1,000-a-year bill for Labour eco plans”. It continues: “Labour’s ‘bonkers’ green energy plans will drive up mortgage rates and make Britain more reliant on foreign oil and gas, ministers warned last night. Treasury analysis suggests that the idea of investing £28bn a year in tackling climate change could increase interest rates by 0.75%, piling misery on millions of homeowners. The study said a rise of that level would see the standard interest payments on a £200,000 home loan go up by £83 a month, almost £1,000 a year. Quizzed about the proposals, Labour hinted the pledge could be scaled back, with a spokesman saying the final plan would be ‘subject to our fiscal rules being met, which includes getting debt falling’. The Treasury’s analysis warns the unfunded spending would leave the government and Bank of England ‘pulling in opposite directions’ over inflation.” The Sun, which is also relentlessly hostile to Starmer, says “union bosses have warned [him] against making the mistake of putting ‘all the nation’s eggs in one energy basket’. They are increasing the pressure on him over his plans to ban new North Sea oil projects.” The Press Association says that “Starmer will try to persuade unions [today] to back his plan for a shift to green energy as part of a ‘new business model for Britain’”. BusinessGreen reports that  Starmer will “take aim at Tories’ ‘laissez-faire’ approach to industrial strategy, arguing bolder government direction required to drive next phase of UK green growth”.

The Guardian takes a different line by covering the views of Lord Deben, the chair of the Climate Change Committee. It says: ”The UK’s most senior climate adviser has strongly endorsed Labour’s vow to halt new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea and slammed the government for failing to show leadership on the issue. [Deben] told the Guardian he approved of Labour’s commitment. ‘I welcome this policy, I am absolutely in favour and it is the right thing to do,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry this is not a common view to all parties,’ he added.” Deben leaves his role later this month with the newspaper noting that a successor has not yet been appointed. (See Comment section below for more reaction to Labour’s plans.)

Meanwhile, City AM is among the newspapers covering Starmer’s visit yesterday to see the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, which is under-construction in Somerset. It says: “Starmer has lent his support to the UK’s nuclear industry calling for a vast ramp-up in projects and slamming the Tory’s ‘shambolic’ failure to open [new] nuclear power plants during its 13 years of power.” The Times reports that “the only nuclear plant under construction in Britain is at growing risk of further delays and cost overruns, its French developer has warned”. It continues: “When the Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset got the go-ahead in 2016, first power was expected in late 2025. That then slipped to June 2027 at the earliest, with the potential for a further 15-month delay.”

In other UK news, the Sun breathlessly “reveals” that “Labour’s £28bn climate spending spree is being partly driven by Extinction Rebellion’s former legal brain”. The Times says that, according to Baroness Brown of Cambridge, chairwoman of the adaptation committee at the Climate Change Committee, the UK “should deploy its new smartphone emergency alert system to protect people from climate change-driven flash floods that are made worse by the paving over of green space in the UK’s cities”. Another Times article previews prime minister Rishi Sunak’s upcoming visit to the US where US president Joe Biden is “expected to offer fresh trade concessions to help the UK car industry, which is under threat from US green subsidies for domestic manufacturers”. It adds: “This is likely to take the form of a new critical minerals agreement, which would allow UK companies that export electric vehicles to the US to benefit from some of the tax credits available to US manufacturers under Biden’s inflation reduction act.” Finally, City AM has an article under the headline: “Boosting renewables is the best way to just stop oil, says Octopus Energy boss.”

The latest round of UN climate negotiations have started in Bonn, Germany, “without an agreed final agenda for technical discussions”, reports Reuters. The newswire adds that it is “clouding optimism that the 10-day meeting would result in a clear programme for the COP28 conference in Dubai”. The talks are “seen as a mid-way check for how ambitious international climate talks will take shape at COP28 in December”, but “despite months of discussions since the previous COP27 in Egypt, there was no agreement on adopting the agendas proposed by the COP permanent subsidiary bodies for the Bonn conference, Nabeel Munir, chair of UN Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), said at the opening of the talks”.

According to the Guardian, Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, told delegates yesterday: “I believe we are at a tipping point. We know that rapid change often follows a long gestation period. Goodness knows that the gestation period for climate action has been long enough. We need to bring that tipping point forward.” The newspaper’s Fiona Harvey adds: “The Guardian understands that the EU and many developing countries wanted an agenda item to discuss the ‘mitigation work programme’, which deals with countries’ commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions, while China fought for a mandate to discuss countries’ plans for adapting to the impacts of the climate crisis. Other key sources of contention included a resolution to phase out fossil fuels, the role of renewable energy, the issue of loss and damage, which refers to funds to help rescue and rehabilitate poor countries struck by climate disaster, and the global stocktake, which is an assessment of how far off track governments are in meeting their Paris pledges. Stiell did not name these issues directly, but urged governments to find common ground.” Axios has an interview with COP28 director-general Majid al-Suwaidi who says the fossil fuel industry should be brought into the fold at the Dubai talks in December: “We can’t have an exclusive conversation that misses out the whole constituency who are really arguably, who are best placed to help you solve the problem. We’re asking them to come and say what they’re going to do to address the climate challenge.” Carbon Brief’s editor Leo Hickman has tweeted that it has been confirmed at Bonn that the UK has – due to leaving the EU – now joined the “Umbrella” negotiating bloc of nations, which includes the US, Australian, Canada and Japan. 

Meanwhile, the Financial Times says it has seen a “consultation document” which shows that “the World Bank is under increasing pressure to reform, following a call for $100bn in fresh capital to drive climate and development finance ahead of a summit in Paris to be co-hosted by the leaders of Barbados and France [later this month]”. It adds: “The proposal for extra capital and $100bn in foreign exchange guarantees are central to a big update, put forward by Barbados’s prime minister, Mia Mottley, of last year’s so-called Bridgetown Initiative to overhaul the lending institutions.” Climate Home News carries a piece by Power Shift Africa’s Amy Gilliam Thorp under the headline: “Bonn talks offer opportunity to bridge the adaptation gap.”

Finally, the Guardian covers new analysis published in the journal Nature Sustainability showing that “rich industrialised countries responsible for excessive levels of greenhouse gas emissions could be liable to pay $170tn in climate reparations by 2050 to ensure targets to curtail climate breakdown are met”. The newspaper adds: “It is the first scheme where wealthy countries historically responsible for excessive or unjust greenhouse emissions including the UK, US, Germany, Japan and Russia, are held liable to compensate countries which have contributed the least to global heating – but must decarbonise their economies by 2050 if we are to keep global heating below 1.5C and avert the most catastrophic climate breakdown. In this ambitious scenario, the study found that 55 countries including most of sub-Saharan Africa and India would have to sacrifice more than 75% of their fair share of the carbon budget. On the other hand, the UK has used 2.5 times its fair allocation and would be liable to pay $7.7tn for its excessive emissions by 2050. The US has used more than four times its fair share to become the richest country in the world, and would be responsible for $80tn in reparations under this scheme.”

Brazil’s government has unveiled how it plans to meet a pledge to eliminate deforestation in the Amazon by 2030, reports Reuters, using “strengthened law enforcement against environmental crimes and other measures in the world’s largest tropical rainforest”. The newswire adds: “Under former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil joined a 2021 pact with more than 140 countries to end deforestation globally by 2030. Left-wing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who assumed office on 1 January, has made it a centrepiece of his environmental policy…The Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Amazon (PPCDAm) sets a coordinated policy across more than a dozen ministries through the end of Lula’s term in 2027. It calls for boosted use of intelligence and satellite imagery to track criminal activity, regularisation of land titles and use of a rural registry to monitor correct management of forests considered vital for slowing global climate change.” Politico describes the move as a “major campaign pledge that is a critical step in addressing the country’s significant carbon emissions from the region”, adding that “this strategy, set to be implemented over four years…Lula’s term ends on 1 January 2027, so full implementation would depend on the willingness of whoever comes after him to continue the work.” A separate Reuters article says: “Brazil’s government will launch a social program to pay additional grants to poor families that work in forest protection, environment minister Marina Silva said on Monday, in a bid to boost protection of the Amazon rainforest. The program, called Bolsa Verde, would be initially implemented across Brazil’s Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, but Silva said the government intends to expand it to the country’s other biomes, which include the Atlantic Forest and tropical Cerrado savanna.”

Relatedly, the Guardian’s global environment editor Jonathan Watts sets out “seven steps to save the Amazon” as parts of the newspaper’s “Bruno and Dom Project” which was launched recently in memory of activist Bruno Pereira and journalist Dom Phillips who were murdered in 2022 as they were investigating the future of the Amazon rainforest. Watts’s proposed solutions include political and Indigenous leadership, land reform, radically reforming the beef industry and rethinking the concept of national security.

China is outlining its plans to “avoid obstacles as it gears up for another year of record-breaking renewable power installations”, says Bloomberg. Over the past few weeks, both national and local governments have “unveiled various initiatives aimed at averting power outages, promoting energy storage, strengthening grid operator finances and introducing more flexible pricing”, the outlet adds. The financial service company BOCI Research says that the anticipated result of these efforts is a “more efficient” power system capable of accommodating a larger portion of clean energy, the article adds. The outlet also says that Beijing is actively promoting initiatives to mitigate power demand pressure. 

Meanwhile, China Economic Daily reports that a “blue policy document” called “blue book on the development of new power systems” written by the National Energy Administration and several other government bodies was released on 2 June. The document is viewed as providing “the key components of the new energy system and the crucial carriers for achieving the ‘dual carbon’ targets, including a safe, efficient, clean power system with low carbon emissions”, the state-run newspaper says. It adds that the “accelerated transition period” of building a new power system is from now until 2030. 

Separately, reducing “urban” greenhouse gas emissions plays a “crucial” role in China’s efforts to achieve its “dual carbon” targets, writes bjx.com. The Chinese industry news site highlights that industry experts say that the low-carbon energy transformation in China’s urban areas still faces multiple challenges. Sina Technology, a Chinese online news site, carries a comment piece by Ouyang Minggao, a Chinese Academy of Sciences academic and a professor at Tsinghua University. He writes that the country’s energy structure is undergoing a “revolutionary” transformation. China Daily reports that energy giant China Energy Investment Corporation recently “inaugurated a large-scale carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) facility” at one of its subsidiary coal-fired power plants in east China.

In other news, China Securities Journal quotes the head of China Energy Research Society Shi Yubo, who says that the financial sector can “guide more social capital to enter the green and low-carbon sector for achieving ‘dual carbon’ targets”. The national carbon emission trading market is one of the core policy tools for “dual carbon” targets, providing new opportunities for financial innovation and expansion, he highlights. Shanghai Securities News quotes Zhu Min from the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a thinktank based in Beijing, who says it is necessary for the financial sector to support the “dual carbon” targets to enter the era of “zero-carbon finance”. Additionally, industry experts say that there are four major bottlenecks in climate investment and financing in China,  reports China Internet Information Center, a state-run web portal, citing an article from China Economic Daily.

Germany is launching a programme that will “make available tens of billions of euros for firms facing substantial energy costs, in a bid to help its challenged industrial sector fund a shift towards carbon-neutral production techniques”, reports Reuters. The newswire adds: “The programme, which according to sources will have a volume of around €50bn ($53.45bn) over the next 15 years, comes as European industry faces pressure due to high costs for raw materials, energy and labour. The money is to come from a so-called climate and transformations fund, being fed by proceeds from emissions trading and other sources, although the economy and finance ministries both pointed to ongoing talks over Germany’s budget, suggesting details have yet to be hammered out. It also aims to provide a counterweight to programmes in other regions, most notably the US, that could lure companies away from the continent by offering lavish subsidies and more favourable legislation. The so-called climate protection contracts are a major pillar of Germany’s response to these challenges, hoping financial support can help makers of steel, cement, paper and chemicals to decarbonise their production.”

Separately, Reuters reports that “Italy could shut down its coal-fired power stations in 2024, a year earlier than planned, if gas prices remain at current low levels, environment minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said on Monday”. It adds: “Italy, which had to find an alternative for the gas it used to import from Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, increased its production of energy from coal to 7.5% of the total last year, from 4.6% in 2021.” Meanwhile, Politico has a news feature under the headline: “EU’s green renovation wave faces backlash: countries are wary of EU plans to slash emissions by retrofitting millions of homes.”

There continues to be a flow of negative commentary in the UK’s right-leaning newspaper about Labour’s plans to ban new oil and gas drilling licences in the North Sea. An editorial in the Times says: “An embargo on new licences will do nothing in itself to reduce fossil-fuel consumption. That can only come with investment in nuclear, renewables, heat pumps and insulation. It will simply result in Britain having to satisfy its fossil needs in the global marketplace, where prices are set by the likes of Gulf dictators and Vladimir Putin. Furthermore, this oil and gas will be more polluting than the domestic equivalent. The carbon footprint of British gas is less than half that of Russia’s and less than a third of Qatar’s. And with the accelerated death of the North Sea will come an accelerated loss of jobs from an industry employing 200,000 people…Domestic gas and oil production is a hedge in a highly uncertain world. Labour is taking a huge and unnecessary risk by cashing in the nation’s insurance policy.” An editorial in the Sun (the fourth in as many days on Labour’s plans) froths: “Labour’s extreme net-zero policies are…steered not by reason and ­evidence but by hysterical fanatics who wilfully misread and exaggerate environment science to justify their wild predictions of imminent apocalypse…Labour is so convinced victory is in the bag it thinks it can get away with anything. That includes insane, job-wrecking schemes even the unions brand wrong and naïve.” An editorial in the Daily Telegraph concludes: “Since the country will continue to rely on oil and gas for the foreseeable future, [Labour’s plan] is a short-sighted policy opposed even by the GMB union, one of the party’s biggest supporters. Gary Smith, the GMB’s general secretary, said Labour had ‘got it wrong’ and risked creating ‘a cliff-edge with oil and gas extraction from the North Sea’. He is right. Sir Keir Starmer needs to rethink.” (See Carbon Brief’s factcheck on the claims made against Labour’s plans to ban new oil-and-gas licences in the North Sea. It can be found in the Spotlight section of last Friday’s DeBriefed, Carbon Brief’s new weekly email newsletter.)

The same newspapers also give plenty of space to commentators to direct their rhetorical canons at Labour. The Daily Telegraph has three comment pieces attacking either Labour or climate action more widely. The omnipresent climate-sceptic Ross Clark has yet another article claiming heat pumps are “becoming a plague on all our houses”. (Ross Clark also pops up in the Sun under the headline: “Our leaders are living in an eco-bubble if they think ordinary people can afford their breakneck race to net-zero.”) Fellow climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph commentator Andrew Orlowski claims that “green zealots want to downgrade Britain in pursuit of ideology”. And associate editor Ben Wright says “Labour’s green masterplan will destroy Britain’s energy security – and they know it”.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times has a “big read” by Jim Pickard and George Parker on the “Starmer Project: Labour’s surprisingly bold economic agenda”. They write: “For all its orthodox rhetoric, the party’s plans for an interventionist industrial policy would represent a striking shift…Little remarked upon until recently, Starmer put his most radical proposal on the table back in September 2021 – a plan to borrow £28bn a year until 2030 to spend on green transition policies such as subsidising wind farms, insulating homes, building battery factories and accelerating Britain’s nuclear programme. It will be by far the most costly policy in Labour’s draft manifesto for the next election, currently dwarfing in financial terms its plans to improve Britain’s creaking schools, hospitals, police and other public services.” In the Daily Telegraph, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary David Lammy and shadow defence secretary John Healey write: “As our colleague Rachel Reeves laid out last week in Washington, Britain needs a new business model, not only to play our part in the green transition, but also to de-risk our economy and protect our security in an increasingly dangerous world. Our £28bn-per-year green prosperity plan recognises the scale of the climate, security, and economic challenges the UK faces. Our plan for 2030 zero-carbon power will cut bills, provide energy security, create jobs, tackle the climate crisis and give clarity to investors.”

There is continuing reaction to the misinformation and falsehoods contained in a controversial comment piece in the Guardian last Saturday by the comedian Rowan Atkinson, in which he sought to attack electric vehicles. Inside Climate News’s Dan Gearino says: “His conclusion is frustrating for people who do research on EVs and emissions because it is a familiar trope of fossil-fuel aligned groups that have a financial interest in slowing the transition to EVs, and it’s based on a misleading view of the data.” He quotes Auke Hoekstra of Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands who has studied the lifecycle emissions of EVs. “Hoekstra said it’s especially damaging that the anti-EV message is coming from a well-liked celebrity. ‘If he was a cranky old professor, in a way that’s easier to deal with, because then it becomes sort of scientists debating him or each other,’ he said.” In contrast, some commentators are happy to admit they find Atkinson’s argument appealing. The Independent’s Sean O’Grady says “given he’s a trained engineer as well as a brilliant entertainer, when the Blackadder star says he feels ‘duped’ by electric vehicles, we should listen”. Meanwhile, in other commentary, an editorial in the Los Angeles Times argues that “cleaning up California’s oilfields may cost $21.5bn…taxpayers shouldn’t get the bill”.

New research uses satellite imagery of the western Pacific to map the distribution of Kelp, one of the most productive ecosystems on Earth. The researchers estimate that only 13.7% of Kelp forests are fully or partially protected, and only 0.7% of persistent kelp that can act as refuges to buffer valuable species from the impacts of climate change is fully protected. Five years after the 2014-2016 marine heatwaves, kelp forests have not recovered in California, the images show, suffering 90% losses. Meeting a target of protecting 10% of existing kelp habitat will require a 2.5-fold increase in kelp representation in Marine Protected Areas, the researchers say.