Oil and gas major BP is to drop its target to cut production by 2030, the Times reports, saying that the firm is “battl[ing] to close a valuation gap with rivals in the energy industry”. It explains that in 2020, BP introduced a target to cut oil and gas output to 40% below 2019 levels by 2030, with this goal being weakened last year to a 25% cut. Citing an earlier report by Reuters, the Times says chief executive Murray Auchincloss “is planning to formally abandon the target in February”. Reuters says Auchincloss “will present his updated strategy, including the removal of the 2030 production target, at an investor day in February”, although in practice, the company has “already abandoned” the 2030 target. The Times adds: “Bidding on new offshore wind projects has also been halted in an attempt to simplify operations and cut costs. Instead, resources have been focused on existing projects in the UK and Germany. BP sold its ten US onshore wind farms last month and exited the market.” The Daily Telegraph says: “London-listed rival Shell has also scaled back its energy transition strategy since chief executive Wael Sawan took charge in January, selling power and renewable businesses and scrapping projects including offshore wind, biofuels and hydrogen.” The Guardian reports that “green groups have reacted with fury” to the news.

This comes as the New York Times reports that intensifying conflict in the Middle East is driving fears of a “shock to the global oil supply”. Reuters notes that oil prices fell more than $1 on Tuesday. And the Financial Times says that “Princeton University has reversed a policy that had sharply constrained the funding of academic research by fossil fuel companies, after pressure from faculty members and concerns that the rules risked hindering work on environmental challenges”.

The UK government’s pledge to give up to £22bn over 25 years to carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, announced last week, “followed a sharp increase in lobbying by the fossil fuel industry”, according to the Guardian. The newspaper says: “Oil and gas giants such as Equinor, BP, and ExxonMobil attended 24 of 44 external ministerial meetings to discuss CCS in 2023, according to official transparency records. That represented a surge in activity relative to 2020-22, when ministers held about half as many meetings to discuss the technology, and oil and gas companies would attend seven to 10 of these discussions each year…The growing engagement by oil and gas companies has sharpened concerns among climate advocates that industry is skewing the UK’s carbon capture strategy to preserve demand for fossil gas…Other sectors engaging frequently with ministers on CCS policy include heavy manufacturing companies, CCS technology firms, lobby groups and investment funds.” The newspaper adds: “Researchers, climate advocacy groups and local councils were less well represented, the transparency records showed. No individual organisation from these sectors has attended more than three meetings with ministers on carbon capture since the start of 2020. Meanwhile, lobby group the Carbon Capture and Storage Association (CCSA) – which represents dozens of fossil fuel companies – attended 20 meetings, and Equinor 16. BP, ExxonMobil, Scottish power company SSE, and Drax, a biomass power plant that is one of the UK’s biggest emitters, also attended nine meetings each during the same period.” The Press Association reports that the government has been “criticised” for committing billions to carbon capture while continuing its plans to “means test” winter fuel payments. BBC News reports that “pensioners have called for the restoration of universal winter fuel payments at a rally at Stormont organised by the National Pensioners’ Convention”. 

In other UK news, the Guardian says the “risk of winter blackouts in Great Britain” has reached a four-year low, “thanks to investments in low-carbon electricity sources”. The paper continues: “The National Energy System Operator (NESO) expects Britain’s winter power supplies to outstrip demand by almost 9% this year in its base case scenario, the greatest margin since the winter of 2019 to 2020…The UK is expected to rely on record levels of imported electricity this winter, the first since the world’s longest high-voltage power cable began importing enough clean electricity from Denmark to power 2.5m British homes.” Reuters notes that “the improved margin comes despite the closure of Britain’s last coal plant last month”. The Financial Times reports that “British households and businesses will be offered payments to cut their electricity usage at times of tight supply throughout the year under plans to help the country’s power network cope with an increased reliance on wind turbines and solar panels”, under the “demand flexibility service” scheme that was introduced in 2022. According to the paper, the scheme was originally only run during the winter, but NESO has now applied to energy regulator Ofgem to run the programme all year round. It adds: “The scheme is part of a major shift that will need to take place in the way consumers use electricity as part of the transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy.”

The US National Hurricane Centre has warned that Hurricane Milton, which is due to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday, poses an “extremely serious threat”, the Financial Times reports. The newspaper notes that Milton is expected to bring heavy rainfall and storm surges of up to 15 feet (4.5m) to Florida, hitting areas that are still recovering from hurricanes Helene and Debby. It says: “The speed and intensity of this year’s hurricanes have led scientists to raise the alarm on the frequency of ‘compound events’, or dangerous weather episodes that occur at the same time or in short succession, making it more difficult for communities to prepare and recover from natural disasters. Climate change is increasing the frequency of compound events, according to the latest US government National Climate Assessment.” The Associated Press reports that Milton is expected to hit Tampa Bay, which “hasn’t been in the direct path of a major hurricane in over a century”. The Guardian says that Florida is “gearing up for what could be its biggest evacuation in seven years”. It continues: “Experts attribute such a high rate of powerful, destructive storms to the climate crisis, which is spurred in part by the burning of fossil fuels.” The New York Times reports that with wind speeds of up to 180 miles per hour, Milton is “one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes ever”. An article for the Conversation by two climate scientists says that Milton is “one of the most rapidly intensifying storms on record”. It continues: “Milton’s wind speed went from 80 mph to 175 mph from 1 pm Sunday to 1 pm Monday, and its pressure dropped from 988 millibars to 911. Most of that intensification was over just 12 hours.” The Hill, Phys.org and Vox also discuss Milton’s rapid intensification.

Meanwhile, there is continuing reaction to Hurricane Helene. In the Conversation, Prof Cary Mock from the University of South Carolina says: “As the climate warms, hurricane risk is changing…Helene’s extraordinary rainfall and the consequences may become a signature of future hurricanes.” Forbes says Helene “busts the myth of climate havens”, showing that “no region is safe from a changing climate”. And Phys.org outlines how attribution science can be used to assess the impact of climate change on extreme events such as hurricanes, in a piece quoting Carbon Brief contributing editor Dr Friederike Otto.

In other US news, the New York Times assesses the accuracy and major takeaways of an advert by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s team “attacking” Kamala Harris on energy and environment. The Financial Times reports that “John Kerry, the former US secretary of state and climate envoy, has joined the green investment group run by billionaire fund manager and top Democratic donor Tom Steyer, making him the most high-profile politician to move into climate finance since former US vice-president Al Gore”. Inside Climate News reports that a federal appeals court is hearing arguments in a case claiming “environmental racism” in Louisiana’s St James Parish – also known as “cancer alley”. And Reuters reports that “the US Supreme Court on Monday asked president Joe Biden’s administration to weigh in on whether the justices should allow 19 Republican-led states to try to block five Democratic-led states from pursuing lawsuits over climate change against major oil and gas companies in state courts”. 

China has invested 220bn yuan ($31bn) and launched 37 “major” hydropower projects in 2024, state news agency Xinhua reports in a video. The agency cites the Ministry of Water Resources, which says that the projects could “improve flood control capabilities in river basins” and “ensure food safety”. State broadcaster CCTV publishes the transcript of Xinhua’s report. Another Xinhua article says that China has nearly 100 carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) projects “in operation or under construction” with a “combined annual carbon capture capacity of 4m tonnes”.

Following the EU’s decision to impose tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), Bloomberg says that “the focus” now is “how and when Beijing will retaliate for the escalation”. A comment for the Diplomat, by Indian researcher Rakshith Shetty argues that the EU’s tariffs “may be too little, too late to effectively protect the European Union’s domestic EV industry”. In its “trade secrets” newsletter, the Financial Times says that Germany “didn’t vote against EV duties out of free-trade principle, but for fear of retaliation”, adding that the next move for the EU member states would be to “attract real value-added manufacturing” from China. Meanwhile, Chinese EV dealers are seeing “brisk sales” during the “golden week” national holiday (1-7 October) with “the soon-to-end government subsidies pushing buyers to hasten their decisions”, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports. However, a “slowdown in EV sales” may happen if “the incentives are scrapped next year”, the news outlet adds. The Bloomberg “hyperdrive” newsletter says China’s auto market “isn’t ready to scrap the internal combustion engine just yet”. Pointing to firms offering plug-in hybrids and “range-extended” EVs, it says these are “enjoying a surge in popularity in China and beyond as they help assuage range anxiety and tend to be more affordable”.

Elsewhere, Reuters reports that according to Keisuke Sadamori, a director with the International Energy Agency (IEA), China will “remain the world’s top buyer” of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in both 2024 and 2025 due to “strong domestic demand growth”. Microgrid, an energy news outlet, reports that “Chinese companies are projected to control about half of the US solar panel market by next year”. Chinese economic news outlet Jiemian reports that the EU is now “strengthening trade protection measures in the hydrogen technology sector”. 

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) state of global water resources report finds that 2023 was the driest year in more than three decades for the world’s rivers, according to the Associated Press. The newswire continues: “The report said the southern United States, Central America and South American countries Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Uruguay faced widespread drought conditions and ‘the lowest water levels ever observed in Amazon and in Lake Titicaca,’ on the border between Peru and Bolivia. The Mississippi River basin also experienced record-low water levels, the report said. WMO said half of the world faced dry river flow conditions last year.” The Guardian notes that 2023 was the hottest year on record. However, it adds that according to the report, the extremes were also influenced by the transition from La Niña to El Niño in mid-2023. Euronews quotes WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo saying: “Water is the canary in the coalmine of climate change…We receive distress signals in the form of increasingly extreme rainfall, floods and droughts which wreak a heavy toll on lives, ecosystems and economies. Melting ice and glaciers threaten long-term water security for many millions of people. And yet we are not taking the necessary urgent action.”

Elin Suleymanov, the ambassador of Azerbaijan to the UK, “responds to his nation’s critics ahead of Baku hosting COP29” in an article for the Daily Telegraph. Suleymanov writes that at COP29, “Azerbaijan is determined to deliver tangible progress on climate finance, carbon markets, and change for Small Island Developing States”. In other comment, the Financial Times Lex column says that EU tariffs on Chinese EVs will “put a drag on shipping”: “Just as Chinese EVs have increased on the world’s roads, so too have they filled ships to journey from factories to motorists.” Meanwhile, columnist and associate editor for the Daily Telegraph, Ben Wright, says that “Britain is becoming a case study in the consequences of shamefully wasting nuclear know-how”. The Daily Telegraph’s technology journalist, Andrew Orlowski, says that carbon capture and storage “does not come cheap” and that “technical problems have plagued the endeavour for decades”. And the Guardian has published a long read on “the scandal of food waste and how we can stop it”. The piece says “the greatest impact of food waste is on the climate crisis”, noting that if it were a country, food loss and waste “would be the third biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions”.

The whale shark, the world’s largest fish species, is likely to increasingly come into contact with large ships as climate change worsens, new research suggests. The study uses global climate models and habitat information estimated from long-term satellite-tracking data to estimate how climate-driven changes to whale sharks’ range will bring them closer to global shipping routes under various emissions scenarios. The research finds that whale sharks could shift their range by an average of 12km a year as the climate warms, with estimated contact with large ships some 15,000 times greater under a high emissions scenario than a “sustainable development” scenario.