An extreme wildfire fanned by strong winds tore through the affluent Los Angeles neighbourhood of Pacific Palisades yesterday, forcing 30,000 people, including many celebrities, to evacuate, the Times reports. The fire has spread to 3,000 acres and threatens 13,000 structures, the Times says. It adds that residents fleeing the fire abandoned their cars after getting stuck in gridlocked traffic, forcing emergency services to use a bulldozer to clear a path for emergency vehicles. The Financial Times reports that it is unknown what ignited the blaze. The newspaper says the extreme winds fanning the flames are projected to reach as high as 100mph, the strongest in at least a decade for southern California. The Los Angeles Times reports that a second fire broke out in the LA hills above Altadena near Eaton Canyon on Tuesday night. The “fast-moving” fire has already burned through 400 acres, it adds. The LA Times live blog adds that two more fires broke out on Tuesday night, in the areas of east Pasadena and Sylmar. BBC News and the Guardian also carry live blogs. Elsewhere, the Associated Press reports that Oregon homeowners living in areas at high risk of wildfire will face stricter building rules to reduce vegetation on their properties under new “wildfire hazard maps”. 

US president-elect Donald Trump has pledged that no wind farms will be constructed during his second term, threatening billions of dollars in planned wind projects, reports Bloomberg. In a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida yesterday, Trump said: “We are going to have a policy where no windmills are being built,” the newswire reports. This was part of a “lengthy tirade against wind power”, it adds. The outlet continues: “As president, Trump will have broad authority over the approval of multi-billion dollar projects being planned off the US coast as well as wind farms proposed for large swathes of federal land…Trump, who has fought against a wind project within view of his golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland, has long decried the energy source, and has even falsely claimed wind turbines cause cancer.” BBC News has an audio recording of Trump’s “scathing attack” on renewables. 

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Trump is also weighing an executive order that seeks to stop gas-powered appliances including stoves and heaters from being phased out by federal and local regulators, according to inside sources. Bloomberg Law examines the difficult path Trump will take if he seeks to repeal Joe Biden’s recent memorandum blocking offshore oil and gas leasing. The Associated Press reports that the Biden administration yesterday finalised new tax credits available for companies that generate zero-emissions energy. The New York Times explores whether the new incentive is “Trump proof”. The Associated Press also reports that the Biden administration has “abruptly dropped” a new plan to protect old-growth forests on Tuesday after “pushback” from Republicans and the timber industry.

The largest US bank JP Morgan has quit the UN Net-Zero Banking Alliance, meaning the six biggest banks in the world have all left the initiative started by banker and economist Mark Carney in the space of a month, Reuters reports. It continues: “JP Morgan gave no clear reason for leaving the initiative, yet it comes after months of pressure from some Republican politicians who said membership of such coalitions could breach anti-trust rules.” In a statement, a spokesperson for the bank said: “We will continue to work independently to advance the interests of our firm, our shareholders and our clients and remain focused on pragmatic solutions to help further low-carbon technologies while advancing energy security,” the newswire reports. The Daily Telegraph says the exodus represents a “backlash against environmentalist capitalism”.

In other corporate news, the Times reports that a “showdown” with investors looms for Shell after three UK local government pension funds urged the energy group to explain an “apparent disconnect” between plans to increase gas production and a goal to hit net-zero by 2050.

China’s top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), has issued a guideline for building a “national unified market”, including a united electricity and energy market, industry news outlet BJX News reports. The news site includes the full guideline, which says a unified system that operates under the same rules for capital, labour, technology, data, and service will be completed. The national unified energy market also includes an oil and gas system that “promotes fair and open infrastructure, and optimises oil and gas resource allocation”, according to the plan. State news agency Xinhua says that the plan aims to break down market barriers to “boost domestic demand while enhancing openness”. Bloomberg calls the guidance “a ‘working direction and basic reference’ for local governments to implement the initiative that’s been in the works for years”. Reuters also covers the story.

Meanwhile, the US defence department has added Chinese tech companies, including the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturer CATL, to “a list of companies it says work with China’s military” – a move that is likely to escalate tensions between the two countries, Reuters reports. Bloomberg covers the same story, saying that with around a third of EVs powered by CATL batteries, the move by the US could cause “major disruptions” to the global industry if automakers are “forced to find alternatives”. CATL says it has “never engaged in any military-related business or activities”, calling the decision by the US a “mistake”, according to the state-supporting Global Times. 

Elsewhere, Japanese automakers are “united in their struggle to regain ground they’ve lost to the flashy offerings that have turned China into a global EV superpower”, Bloomberg reports. The Global Times publishes an editorial on a “​​significant collaboration” between German automobile giant Volkswagen and Chinese EV giant XPENG. One of Tesla’s suppliers, Panasonic Energy, says its “No.1 objective” is to “eliminate its supply-chain dependence on China” for EV batteries made in the US, Reuters reports. 

Finally, Bloomberg reports that Chinese companies are “investing heavily” in Africa’s lithium resources from Mali to Zimbabwe, “even after prices slumped almost 90% from a peak in 2022. They are seeking to lock down feedstock for refineries at home in anticipation of soaring future consumption” of the EV battery metal. And the US news outlet the Hill carries an opinion article by Brahma Chellaney, a geostrategist, arguing that China’s newly approved hydropower project on the Yarlung Tsangpo River will have impacts on the Sino-Indian relationship and “impose incalculable environmental costs extending from the Himalayas to the delta in Bangladesh”.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, world economy editor at the Daily Telegraph, says the UK has the “greatest concentration of skills in nuclear fusion anywhere on the planet”, yet “Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, scarcely mentioned fusion in his speech last month to the nuclear industry”. He continues: “One has to ask whether Miliband fully understands that fusion is at the point of exponential take-off right now, not far off in the blue yonder, and that the US, China and Japan are in a technology race to win this incalculable economic and diplomatic prize.” The article concludes: “Fusion ought to tick every box for Labour. It is clean. Its main by-product is inert helium. The fuel is effectively limitless and does not come from Russia. It uses almost no land, and little water, and can be made unobtrusive. Unlike today’s big fission, it can dial up and down, and it produces industrial high-grade heat to help decarbonise industry. It would be a crying shame, Mr Miliband, if we blew such a marvellous chance.”

Elsewhere, the Daily Mail carries full-page comment pieces attacking e-bikes and e-scooters, and heat pumps. The Daily Express carries a comment commending Trump’s attack on the UK for prioritising new wind projects over oil and gas in the North Sea by Lois Perry, the European lead for the Heartland Institute, a US climate-sceptic thinktank. 

European countries that have pursued “more aggressive electricity decarbonisation” are not more vulnerable to gas price shocks, a new study finds. However, it notes that countries with a higher share of solar and wind are “slightly” more vulnerable, potentially due to the “complementarity” of intermittent renewable generation with gas generation. To estimate how gas shocks impact electricity prices, the researchers developed a “country-specific vulnerability metric”. The study emphasises that national decarbonisation goals can be met without risking vulnerability. It argues that “country-specific” policies are needed to avoid extreme electricity prices, in contrast to the existing, EU-wide price cap.