Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropy organisation, along with other US funders, have said they will step in to cover the US’s financial obligations to the UN climate framework, after US president Donald Trump said he will pull the country out of the Paris Agreement, reports Reuters. Bloomberg, who serves as a UN special envoy on climate change, “announced Bloomberg Philanthropies will once again cover the amount of money the US owes each year to the UNFCCC and ensure the US meets its emissions reporting obligations to the body despite the pullback from global climate diplomacy under Trump”, adds the newswire. The US typically provides 22% of the UNFCCC secretariat’s budget, reports Agence France-Presse, with the body’s operating costs for 2024-2025 projected at €88.4m ($96.5m). The article quotes Bloomberg, who says: “From 2017 to 2020, during a period of federal inaction, cities, states, businesses and the public rose to the challenge to uphold our nation’s commitments – and now, we are ready to do it again.” When Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement during his first term, Bloomberg pledged up to $15m to support the UNFCCC.

In addition to taking the US out of the Paris Agreement, Trump has passed a range of executive orders since taking office earlier this week, including one aimed at “boosting oil and gas drilling, mining and logging in Alaska”, reports the Associated Press. The move is now being “cheered by state political leaders who see new fossil fuel development as critical to Alaska’s economic future and criticised by environmental groups that see the proposals as worrying in the face of a warming climate”, the newswire explains. The Financial Times reports that “Donald Trump halts more than $300bn in US green infrastructure funding”.

Speaking in Davos at the World Economic Forum UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has said that economic growth “trumps” the government’s net-zero commitment as she prepares to signal her support for a third runway at Heathrow airport, reports the Financial Times. Reeves is expected to give her support for the Heathrow expansion as well as bringing a second runway at Gatwick into full-time use plus increase capacity at Luton airport, reports the Guardian. “The climate secretary, Ed Miliband, is understood to be opposed to Heathrow expansion, and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has gone public with his concerns about the plan”, it adds. The Press Association quotes Reeves, who said: “The answer can’t always be no. And that’s been the problem in Britain for a long time: that when there was a choice between something that would grow the economy and sort of anything else, ‘anything else’ always won.” The Times notes that the Climate Change Committee has warned that there must be no airport expansion unless emissions are reduced sufficiently to allow for the import of extra flights. A separate piece in the Guardian notes that the expansion of Heathrow could add £40 to the cost of an airline ticket, according to analysis by the Treasury. Reeves’ comments on the expansion of Heathrow are also covered by Sky News, the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Reuters and others.

In other UK news, prime minister Keir Starmer has said nimby (not in my back yard) “blockers” of major infrastructure projects will have few chances to “frustrate growth” through legal challenges, reports BBC News. Currently, major infrastructure projects such as nuclear power stations, railway lines and wind farms can be challenged in the courts up to three times, it adds, with ministers now planning to reduce this to once. Starmer said he would no longer let the courts be “abused by pressure groups to frustrate critical infrastructure”, reports the Times. 

Elsewhere, “wind generation in the UK was all but wiped out on Wednesday morning, forcing a switch to costlier gas-fired power”, reports Bloomberg. Wind generation dropped to  0.22GW during the calmest period on Wednesday morning from an average of 10GW in the UK, driving up power prices for a period, it continues. The low wind generation and cold temperatures led the country to rely more heavily on interconnectors, with 10% of power coming from France, Norway, Belgium and Denmark, reports the Daily Telegraph. The Guardian reports that a “weather bomb” is “expected to snuff out a surge in wholesale energy prices after windfarms produced the lowest levels of electricity since September 2023”. 

China’s electric vehicle (EV) industry has ranked first in the world by “production and sales for the 10th consecutive year”, as of 2024, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has announced, reports business news outlet Yicai. The news outlet adds that 70% of the world’s battery materials and 60% of power batteries were made in China last year. Guangming Daily also covers the announcement, adding that MIIT will continue to use targeted measures to “maintain the positive momentum” of the industry, including implementing trade-in programs to stimulate EV consumption and exploring “carbon emissions management” for vehicles and batteries. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports that China’s EV shipments to the EU in December 2024 increased 8.3% year-on-year, defying the bloc’s “newly imposed tariffs”.

Meanwhile, the state-run newspaper China Daily says that the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement poses “significant challenges to global efforts to combat climate change”. State news agency Xinhua says the US announcement has “sparked significant international controversy”, with officials and experts criticising the move as “unilateral actions that negatively impact…climate change efforts”. An unbylined “opinion” article in China Daily says that Trump’s decision “breaks trust in the US” and has “undoubtedly dealt a heavy blow to the world’s efforts to fight climate change at this crucial stage”. The state-supporting newspaper Global Times says in an unbylined “opinion” article that the decision is a “sign that the US is retreating from its leadership role in global environmental initiatives”. Reuters reports that the Trump administration is “discussing a 10% punitive duty on Chinese imports”. 

Elsewhere, China News reports on how “solar buildout” is replacing coal industry jobs in China. Industry news outlet BJX News lists different provincial governments’ key energy policies for 2025. China Energy News carries an article by Zhang Xiliang and Kang Chongqing, professors at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, saying it is “timely and necessary” to revise China’s renewable energy law to boost the country’s uptake of renewable energy. Century New Energy Network reports that distributed solar in China has “significant growth potential” in 2025. 

According to a new report from Ember, Europe generated more electricity from solar than in 2024, reports the Guardian (Carbon Brief also covered the report). Solar generated 11% of the block’s electricity while coal generated 10%, it notes. The article quotes Beatrice Petrovich, co-author of the report, who said: “This is a milestone. Coal is the oldest way of producing electricity, but also the dirtiest. Solar is the rising star.” Gas generation fell to 15.7% from 16.9% in 2023, while wind was almost flat at 17.4% reports Reuters. Although around 13 gigawatts of new wind capacity was added in 2024, wind conditions were less favourable than the previous year, it adds. “The rise of renewable power sources was also aided by lackluster demand in the EU, which increased about 1.2%, still far below the level seen before the pandemic and the 2022 energy crisis stifled consumption”, adds Bloomberg in its coverage.

The area affected by fires in Brazil surged by 79% in 2024 compared to 2023, Folha de São Paulo reports. The outlet cites data from MapBiomas’s fire monitor program, which reveals that 30.9m hectares in the country was impacted by wildfires, with the Amazon being the “hardest hit ecosystem”. MapBiomas attributes these figures to a “long dry period in the country in 2024” and the effects of El Niño between 2023 and 2024. 

Meanwhile, in Colombia, 152 municipalities are on red alert for fires, reports El Espectador. A red alert indicates that an event could threaten the population and “requires immediate attention”, according to Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Ideam). The departments of Cundinamarca and Meta currently have the highest number of alerts. 

In other Latin American news, the Chilean government has presented a plan to update its next climate pledge under the Paris Agreement and announced it will hold a public consultation in April, Diario Financiero reports. Meanwhile, subnational governments in Mexico have signed a “memorandum of understanding” aimed at enhancing efforts to fulfill the country’s climate and biodiversity commitments, Valor Compartido reports.

Another fire has broken out in Los Angeles County and quickly spread, forcing thousands of residents to evacuate, reports the Times. The Hughes fire broke out near a small unincorporated community named Castaic, about 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, it explains. The fire rapidly spread to more than 9,400 acres (38km2), reports Reuters. “The blaze, named the Hughes fire, was being fanned by strong, dry Santa Ana winds that were racing through the area, pushing a vast pall of smoke and embers ahead of the flames”, reports the Daily Telegraph. The cause of the fire is still unknown, but “forecasters had warned of more critical fire weather affecting the region through Thursday”, reports the Independent. 

Elsewhere in the US, freezing weather is straining the power system, reports Bloomberg. Power demand on the country’s largest grid in the eastern US reached “an all-time winter high as the South digs out from one of the worst snow storms in 130 years”, it adds. On Wednesday, the grid, which stretches from Washington to Illinois, reached 145GW topping a record set in 2015 and pushing prices as high as $742.91/MWh, more than triple the price seen on Tuesday, it notes.

A US “climate denial group” has been working with European far-right parties to campaign against environmental policies, the Guardian reveals. The article notes that MEPs have been accused of “rolling out the red carpet for climate deniers” to give them a platform in the European parliament, amid warnings of a “revival of grotesque climate denialism”. The Heartland Institute, an organisation with links to the Trump administration and which has counted ExxonMobil and wealthy US Republicans as donors, has “seized on a time when rightwing anti-climate action sentiment has been surging” and set up European bases, it adds. The Heartland Institute has worked with politicians in Austria and Hungary to try to stall the EU’s Nature Restoration Law, notes DeSmog, which has revealed the links alongside the Guardian. In a blog post now removed from the Heartland Institutes website, it noted that, in a meeting with Austrian MEPs, the institute’s president James Tayor falsely “explained why there is no climate crisis according to the best available data, and he warned of the economic, political and geopolitical suicide that net-zero would bring”, the article adds.

Jennifer Granholm, energy secretary in the Biden administration and governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011, argues in the New York Times that the US’s “economic competitors are lying in wait to entice companies overseas and turn our innovation into their prosperity”. After a decline in US manufacturing, new factories have been opening due to the the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act brought in under former president Joe Biden, which means “America is finally playing hardball with its economic competitors”, writes Granholm. She details how Trump rolling back incentives will hit electric vehicle manufacturing and says his administration is “deluding itself if it believes ‘drill, baby, drill’ will create a jobs boom”. She concludes: “When we flipped off the lights in our offices on Monday, we left the next occupants a plan for success – already in motion. It will be up to them to decide if they want to make the most of it.”

Also in the New York Times, David Wallace-Wells writes that “Trump’s Paris withdrawal is grimmer this time”. In the Daily Telegraph, climate-sceptic Reform UK leader Nigel Farage questions “Can we please Make Britain Great Again?”, adding (without supporting evidence): “The mainstream media and the great and the good of the British Establishment may support [net-zero], but increasing numbers of the public do not.” In the Los Angeles Times, an editorial questions whether, after the fires, the state should get rid of its “flammable eucalyptus and palm trees”. A Lex column in the Financial Times states: “Climate risk is the US housing market’s neighbour from hell.”

In other comment, the Financial Times’s chief UK business columnist John Gapper argues that “BP is a victim of wishful thinking on fossil fuels”. In the Washington Post, columnist Eduardo Porter argues that “the global south is growing resentful of climate hypocrisy”.

UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s government has “started talking some sense on the economy”, argues an editorial in the Times. The article points both to chancellor Rachel Reeves’ comments about economic growth in light of the potential expansion of Heathrow airport and Starmer’s move to “axe to the thicket of judicial review ­protections” that he says will ease the development of infrastructure such as wind farms. “The need for growth could not be more acute,” the editorial notes, pointing to figures showing an unexpected rise in government borrowing reaching £17.8bn. “Now is the right moment to do what the Conservatives failed to do­ and get Britain building,” it concludes. 

Writing in the Daily Mail, Starmer outlines his plans to “stop the time-wasting nimbys and zealots from holding the country to ransom”. Starmer notes a range of cases where claims are “gumming up the legal system”, as people push back against infrastructure development such as wind farms. “​​Growth is the No 1 mission of my government. My Plan for Change is about concrete action to rebuild Britain – brick by brick,” he concludes.

Meanwhile, there is continuing reaction to Rachel Reeve’s reported support for approving the expansion of Heathrow airport. In the Independent, political columnist Andrew Grice argues that Reeves is “right to go for growth”, adding: “For the woman who wants to be known as the Iron Chancellor after Margaret Thatcher, there really is no alternative.” An editorial in the climate-sceptic Sun dubs it “refreshing to hear Rachel Reeves say growth must trump net-zero”. An editorial in the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph argues “net-zero vs growth is Labour’s dilemma”. (The UK and others have shown over recent decades that economic growth and carbon emissions can be decoupled, Carbon Brief analysis has repeatedly shown). A separate comment piece in the Daily Telegraph by William Atkinson, assistant editor of ConservativeHome, argues that Reeves’ comments on Heathrow have meant she “admitted the net-zero emperor has no clothes” and sends Miliband a message to “put up or shut up”. (Carbon Brief analysis recently showed how UK newspaper editorials attacked Miliband relentlessly throughout 2024.) 

Anti-climate change groups are more likely to develop in countries with strong environmental plans, new research finds. The study authors analyse data on organisations that oppose climate change in more than 160 countries between 1990-2018. Their results also indicate that nations in which there appears to be more reason to attack climate discourse, such as those with high greenhouse gas emissions per capita, are not more likely to see climate counter organisations crop up. These findings have “broad implications for understanding ongoing resistance to climate change discourse and policies”, the study authors write.