According to a landmark German government report, global warming represents an “existential threat” to the EU, reports Politico. The report, created by Germany’s federal intelligence service along with researchers and the country’s foreign office, is a “first-of-its-kind assessment” of the dangers posed by climate change to Germany and European security over the next 15 years, the outlet continues. “[The report] shows that climate change’s destabilising effects will drive up migration and food prices, threatening economic and political upheaval in Europe. The authors also warn that the unequal impact of rising temperatures in the EU – with southern countries hit worse than others – risks tearing the bloc apart,” Politico adds.

In other EU-related news, the bloc has announced it is not planning to include a gas price cap in its upcoming strategy to “slash energy prices”, reports a separate article in Politico. Siemens Energy chief executive Christian Bruch has said that European net-zero rules will “force” companies to disclose 1,000 sustainability metrics, reports the Daily Telegraph. He dubs the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requirements “disproportionate” and says they are hurting the bloc’s competitiveness, the article adds. 

Meanwhile, ahead of the upcoming German election, a Deutsche Welle video report posits that climate change is taking a “back seat” as attention falls on migration, security and the economy. (Carbon Brief has published an interactive grid showing all the climate and energy-focused policy pledges from German parties.) Similarly, Politico reports on Germany’s “disappearing green agenda”, noting “the country once seen as a climate trailblazer is in danger of becoming a laggard, as the party almost certain to lead the next government is on a mission to dilute environmental targets”. The Times has an interview with German vice-chancellor Robert Habeck, who argues that there is “no realistic way back to nuclear power”. (See Comment below.) The Independent highlights the German election as “one to watch” to “test Trump’s impact on climate”, along with upcoming elections in Canada, Australia and Chile. In other German news, the country’s coal operator Steag GmbH is suing the energy regulator for putting its coal-fired power plants on standby instead of switching them on, reports Bloomberg. Subsided gas auctions to “boost flagging underground storage caverns” have failed to tender plans, reports Reuters.

The US has seen “record-breaking growth” in renewable energy capacity in 2024, “but the future of the sector is uncertain amid threats from Donald Trump’s administration”, reports the Guardian. According to a new report from research organisation Cleanview, the US brought 48.2 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale solar, wind and battery storage capacity online last year, the article continues. “That surge in capacity – enough to power some 3.6m homes – was 47% larger than the increase the US saw in the previous year,” it adds.

Meanwhile, one of the world’s largest owners of renewable energy Brookfield is “hunting for bargains” in the US solar and wind sector, reports the Financial Times, “in a bet that investor panic over Donald Trump’s anti-green agenda has been overdone”. The group’s president Connor Teskey says it is actively looking for sustainable energy producers across the US to buy, it adds. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved an operator’s proposal to “head off the potential for power shortages as demand for electricity grows due in part to a surge in artificial intelligence and energy-hungry data centres” in the “mid-Atlantic” (an area of grid in the northeastern US), reports the Associated Press. However, critics have said the changes will effectively fast-track the construction of new gas power plants, prioritising them over clean-power projects, it adds. Data-centre power demand has almost doubled in Virginia, reports Bloomberg. Total data-centre power capacity increased to 40.2GW in December from 21.4GW in July in the hotspot Data Center Alley, it adds. 

In other US news, Donald Trump has nominated “oil and gas advocate” Kathleen Sgamma to run the Bureau of Land Management, reports the New York Times. Sgamma is president of the Colorado-based oil industry trade group Western Energy Alliance and “has been a leading voice for the fossil fuel industry, calling for fewer drilling restrictions on public lands that produce about 10% of US oil and gas”, reports the Associated Press. If Sgamma is confirmed by the Senate, she would have “wide influence over lands used for energy production, grazing, recreation and other purposes”, and would be a key architect of Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda, it adds. Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency’s (Doge) website includes information from controversial rightwing thinktank CEI, reports the Guardian. “The CEI claims to fight “climate alarmism”, and has long worked to block climate-focused policies, successfully lobbying against the ratification of the international climate treaty the Kyoto protocol in 1997, as well as the enactment of the 2009 Waxman-Markey bill, which aimed to place a cap on greenhouse gas emissions”, the article explains. A separate article in the Guardian reports that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has placed “onerous new restrictions” on scientists that could hamper the quality and availability of the world’s weather forecasts and other services. 

The rightwing, climate-sceptic populist Reform party, which has a small handful of MPs, has set out plans for a windfall tax on renewables as part of efforts to “undo the effects of net-zero”, reports the Independent. Deputy leader Richard Tice said farmers who build solar panels on their land will not be able to claim inheritance tax relief under their plans, it adds. Tice argued, without presenting any evidence, that net-zero policies are to blame for higher energy bills and deindustrialisation in the UK, adding that renewable energy is a “massive con”, reports BBC News. He told a press conference that Reform would recover money paid in subsidies to wind and solar companies, adding “the British people are being ripped off by the renewables industry”, the article notes. [Tice is presumably referring, in part, to the contracts-for-difference auction that, last year, secured a record amount of renewable energy capacity, which Carbon Brief analysis has shown will cut consumer bills.] Tice outlined plans to impose a tax on renewable energy firms that he claimed would raise about £10bn a year, reports the Daily Telegraph. The article further quotes Tice, who said: “We plan to win the next general election, and we’ll scrap net stupid zero and we will do whatever it takes to bring the bill down, to bring down the cost of living.” Tice outlined plans to “force the National Grid to put cables underground,” reports CityAM, adding: “[National Grid] will not be allowed to pay any dividends to shareholders, until the cables are put underground.” Reform claims that its “war on net-zero” will bring down energy bills for millions of households, reports the Sun. Tice said the proposed windfall tax on the renewable industry could make families £350 a year “better off”. [Adam Bell, head of policy at the consultancy group Stonehaven and former head of energy at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, explains on Bluesky that Reform’s proposed plan will “massively increase costs”, making investment in energy “almost impossible” and prompt blackouts.] The story is also covered by Bloomberg, as well as by Reform-sympathetic outlets such as GB News and the Spectator.

In other UK news, a new report has found that solar panels could cut fuel-poor UK families’ energy bills by 24%, reports the Guardian. According to the Resolution Foundation, solar panels could cut energy bills by a quarter, but the upfront costs mean those who stand to benefit the most from the technology are prevented from getting panels installed, it adds. The economists behind the research have called for the government to consider means-tested grants or loans to cover the costs, it continues. The government has launched a scheme that allows offshore-wind developers to apply for financial support to drive investment in clean-energy factories and supply chains, dubbed the “Clean Industry Bonus” scheme, reports BusinessGreen. Prime minister Keir Starmer has been urged to impose “green taxes” on foreign steel imports, as fears a trade war between the US and EU could lead to “dumping” in the UK, reports the Daily Telegraph. An “investigation” in the Daily Mail claims to show “how China has been allowed to takeover Britain’s energy industry in the name of Ed Miliband’s net-zero dream”. (Recent Carbon Brief analysis highlights the extent to which Miliband has been attacked in right-leaning newspapers over the past year.) 

Several outlets, including the Guardian, Financial Times, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Straits Times and Bloomberg, cover a new analysis by the Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which finds that China’s major advances in energy production were being held back in 2024 by a commitment to coal power. The Guardian adds: “China’s energy production is putting coal and renewables in competition with each other, according to a new analysis that found continuing approval of coal-fired projects in 2024 undermined the “unprecedented” surge in clean energy production.” Carbon Brief has published a detailed summary of the report’s key findings.

Meanwhile, the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) battery maker, CATL, has filed for a secondary listing in Hong Kong to raise funds to “boost its international expansion plans”,  reports the Financial Times. Business news outlet Jiemian, Nikkei Asia and the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) also cover the story. Reuters reports that “global electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle sales in January rose 18% year-on-year, as growth in Europe and the US outpaced China for the first time since last February”. 

Elsewhere, Economic Daily, run by China’s State Council, says that, as the global energy transition drives up demand for key minerals, Africa, with its large reserves of minerals including cobalt, nickel, lithium and rare earth elements, will have “greater influence and new opportunities”. SCMP reports that Australia, which holds “huge reserves of critical minerals”, is “increasingly getting stuck in the middle” between the US and China. In its “energy daily” newsletter, Bloomberg says that China’s electricity demand for computing has been growing just as fast as other countries, but the data-centre power consumption is “still less than a 10th of the energy required by China’s massive manufacturing sector”. Goldman Sachs predicts that data centres in China may need 600 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity before the end of the decade, the outlet adds.

Finally, Guo Jiakun, spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, says that US tariffs on steel and aluminium imports “seriously violate WTO rules” and “severely undermine the rule-based multilateral trading system”, state-supporting newspaper Global Times reports. And the Hill publishes a comment article by Gordon G Chang, a US lawyer and author known for hawkish views on China, under the title: “Tariffs or no tariffs, the world wants and needs America’s natural gas.” He argues that the US can “get along without Chinese purchases of natural gas”. 

The Guardian covers the suspension of classes in schools across the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul due to a strong heatwave. The state – which was hit by a deadly flood last year – recorded “the [country’s] highest temperatures” with 60 municipalities under “state of emergency due to drought”. The newspaper adds: “Quaraí, a city of 23,500 inhabitants on the border with Uruguay, recorded the country’s highest temperature of the year on 4 February: 43.8C (110.8F), with a heat index of over 50C – the highest ever recorded in the state since measurements began in 1910.”

Meanwhile, Diario Amapá has interviewed Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who discussed his intentions to start oil exploration on the coast of the northern state of Amapá. Lula also said he chose Belém to host COP30 this November “for being an example of environmental conservation worldwide” and his desire to highlight the need for “compensation for nature preservation”. (Lula is scheduled to visit the city tomorrow to inspect preparations for the UN climate conference.)

In other Latin American news, Colombia’s energy transition is being “led by solar energy”, with 32 new solar plants coming on stream last year which, in turn, led to a 70% increase of the nation’s renewable energy capacity, according to a new report covered by El Espectador. However, the report adds that 40 wind projects were cancelled last year illustrating the nation’s “bittersweet balance” with renewables.

Finally, Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum has announced an investment “worth $22bn” to expand the country’s federal electricity commission, Excélsior reports. It adds that the “strategy is to set up 51 energy production projects and allow the private sector to contribute to renewable energy production”. There will be seven wind farms, nine solar projects and five combined cycle gas projects, according to Sheinbaum, who added: ““We are talking about 22.6GW. The private sector will contribute 6.4GW and most of them will come from renewable sources.”

An editorial in the Times argues that Germany’s Green party is entering “the political wilderness as fashionable policies on the environment and migration alienate ever greater numbers of voters”. The editorial points to Germany’s energy transition to date, with the country’s last remaining nuclear power plants turning off in recent years, the end of coal power approaching and a shift from Russian gas to imports of LNG, along with growing renewable energy capacity. It argues that “German citizens and industry have paid dearly for Green policies”, pointing to the high power prices in the country. [Recent price spikes have been caused by expensive fossil power generation, German publication Clean Energy Wire reports.] Germany provides a lesson for the UK’s Labour party, concludes the Times, writing: “Labour’s championing of new nuclear is rational and welcome. But to avoid a backlash in 2029 it must adopt a realistic, and that means more gradualist, approach to the decarbonisation of this country’s energy mix.”

In other comment, John Gapper, the Financial Times’ chief UK business columnist, argues that “Drax’s power is not really green – but Britain needs it”. 

Carbon emissions from permafrost “may pose a considerable risk” to climate mitigation efforts, “even if net-zero and negative emissions are achieved”, according to a new study. The researchers use modelling to examine changes in permafrost under net-zero and negative emissions scenarios. They find that permafrost becomes a “net ecosystem carbon source” before the planet reaches net-zero and negative emissions. The researchers note that permafrost slowly recovers, but net-ecosystem carbon loss continues until the end of their simulations. These effects could “hinder climate change mitigation efforts”, the study authors write.