As the bushfires have continued to rage across large parts of Australia over the weekend, the domestic political debate has intensified. The Guardian reports that “moderate Liberals have seized on [prime minister] Scott Morrison’s apparent shift on climate change policy to argue the government will do more to cut emissions, as some conservatives push back against any ‘symbolism’ that could damage the economy”. It adds: “In a sign of the challenge facing the prime minister as he seeks to ‘evolve’ climate change policy, government MPs have split over the prime minister’s comments on the weekend that the coalition wanted to reduce emissions ‘even further’ than current commitments.” Over the weekend, the embattled Morrison, according to the Guardian, “indicated the government could bolster its carbon emission reduction efforts as he flagged a royal commission into Australia’s horror bushfire season and warned of a ‘new normal’ that will require a greater role for the commonwealth”. ABC News in Australia carried a long interview with Morrison on Saturday and has published a “highlights” package online. Meanwhile, ABC News also reports that in addition to the bushfires that “towns across New South Wales are facing a confronting prospect, running out of water”. Newshub in New Zealand says that “incredible images of Australia’s bushfires have been captured by Kiwi pilots”. Reuters says that “the Australian government [has] committed A$50m ($34.58m) to an emergency wildlife recovery program, calling the bushfires crisis engulfing the country ‘an ecological disaster’ that threatens several species, including koalas and rock wallabies”. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that last Friday “thousands of Australians took to the streets to protest against government inaction on climate change”. It adds: “Anger spread to Britain, where scores of people gathered in the Strand in central London to denounce…Scott Morrison, branded by one placard as a ‘fossil fool’.”

The Independent has published the results of a poll it commissioned showing that there is “overwhelming support for radical change to end the UK’s net carbon emissions by the end of the decade”. It adds: “Some 70% of those questioned by pollsters BMG said they supported the target of net-zero emissions by 2030, with only 7% opposing it. And support for swift action over the next 10 years was high across all age ranges, social groups and parts of the country, countering perceptions of a generational or urban/rural split on the climate emergency. The survey found high levels of concern over the threat which climate change poses to everyday life for people in the UK, with 57% saying they expected it to have a negative impact, against just 12% who said it would be positive and 21% who thought it would not make any difference.” The UK is currently legally committed to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. BusinessGreen reports on a new report by engineering consultants Atkins which warns that “net zero will not be reached in the UK without radical changes to the energy system”. It calls for significant investment in both offshore wind (especially floating wind) and new nuclear. The Guardian reports on the views of the New Economics Foundation thinktank, which says, according to the newspapers, that “the [UK] government fightback against the next recession should include pumping as much as £50bn into green projects, in a move that would help reboot the economy and tackle the climate emergency”. It adds: “In the event of a recession, it said the government should spend at least 2% of gross domestic product (GDP), or around £30bn, to decarbonise the economy, by investing in renewable energy projects, planting trees, transport infrastructure, electric vehicles, and retrofitting homes with new insulation. For a larger economic shock, as much as 3% of GDP, or around £50bn, could be spent.” Separately, the Guardian reports that, due to a deal offered by Co-op Energy, “UK homes will soon be able to plug into community wind and solar farms from anywhere in the country through the first energy tariff to offer clean electricity exclusively from community projects”. And the Times reports that “EDF seeks funding to save Sizewell C nuclear plant”.

Meanwhile, the Mail on Sunday looks ahead to the forthcoming cabinet reshuffle by Boris Johnson who, it says, has a “plan to become a ‘chairman of the board’ prime minister – leaving to others the hard graft of running his administration – [which] clears the way for Michael Gove to become the government’s effective chief executive”. It quotes a “source” saying: “[Gove] wants to play a key part in all the trade talks and hopes to lead the UK’s preparations for the UN climate change summit in Glasgow later this year.” Elsewhere, the Guardian has an exclusive showing that the UK’s counter-terrorism police had placed the non-violent group Extinction Rebellion (XR) on a list of extremist ideologies which meant they were classified as the same threat as neo-Nazi terrorism and a pro-terrorist Islamist group: “Later, after further inquiries from the Guardian, police said they would recall the document.”

Several outlets report on the news that Siemens has, says the Financial Times, “refused to rip up a contract to provide infrastructure for a controversial Australian coal project, despite mounting pressure from victims of the country’s bushfires, environmental activists and some of the company’s own employees”. The FT adds: “Joe Kaeser, the chief executive, said there was ‘no legally and economically responsible way’ for Siemens to renege on an agreement to build rail signalling systems at the proposed A$2bn Carmichael mine in [the] Galilee Basin, Queensland. The German industrial giant has been the target of persistent protests since signing the contract, worth roughly €18m, with the Indian company Adani in December.” Bloomberg reports that Kaeser had pledged to taking the concerns “seriously” and review the contract, but in the end choose to stick with it. The environmental group Australian Conservation Foundation says: “Siemens’ announcement that it will continue working on Adani’s coal mine while bushfires rage in Australia is nothing short of shameful.”

The Guardian has published a letter co-authored by Greta Thunberg and other youth climate campaigners “demanding that global leaders immediately end the ‘madness’ of huge ongoing investments in fossil fuel exploration and enormous subsidies for coal, oil and gas use”. Meanwhile, the Swiss tennis player Roger Federer has, according to the Daily Telegraph, “issued a non-committal reply to Greta Thunberg and the rest of the climate activists who have been protesting against the sponsorship deal he holds with Credit Suisse – a bank [that is] closely associated with fossil-fuel extraction”. The Guardian also has the story.

Reuters reports that “soaring demand for sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) drove record sales for premium carmakers including BMW and Mercedes last year, leaving the industry on collision course with government efforts to tackle global warming despite big investments in electric vehicles”. On Friday, BMW announced that deliveries of its main luxury brand rose 2% to a record 2,168,516 vehicles last year, “thanks to a 21% jump in sales of its ‘X’ branded SUV which now make up 44% of the BMW brand’s global sales”. Reuters adds: “At Mercedes-Benz, the world’s best selling premium car brand, every third luxury car sold last year was an SUV. Automakers across the world are investing billions in electric vehicles to try to meet tougher emissions regulations. But the jury is out on how many drivers will buy them.” The Guardian reports that in the UK “carmakers could pull models, the automotive industry has warned, as the British taste for polluting vehicles clashes with the difficulty of meeting post-Brexit carbon dioxide limits”. It adds: “Under new EU rules, average CO2 emissions of almost all cars sold in 2020 and 2021 across the single market, including the UK, must fall below 95g per kilometre, with major fines for those carmakers who miss individual targets designed to meet the goal. That means that the heavier, fuel-guzzling SUVs favoured by Britons are offset by the smaller, less polluting cars preferred in countries such as Italy. After Brexit, when the UK plans to copy EU rules, this will no longer be the case, making a UK-only limit harder to hit.” The Times reports that the AA has told ministers that “the government should scrap VAT on electric cars to boost sales”.

Meanwhile, BBC News notes that “Sweden has seen a 4% drop in the number of people flying via its airports, a rare decrease in recent years for a European country”. It says the figures come “as the Swedish-born movement of ‘flight shaming’ is gaining prominence”. [There have been complaints by some campaigners that the BBC and other media have not been using the original term “flight shame” instead of the pejorative “flight shaming”.] Bloomberg has a similar story from Germany: “The number of people flying between German cities fell 12% in November from a year earlier, according to the ADV industry group, marking a fourth straight monthly drop and mirroring a pattern emerging in Sweden.”

An editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald welcomes Scott Morrison’s “strongest indication yet that he will initiate a royal commission on this season’s bushfires”. It adds: “The Herald has argued that a NSW royal commission would have been the best course of action but acknowledges Mr Morrison’s proposed federal approach is still better than no royal commission…Climate change is emerging as one of the most life-threatening and expensive issues confronting Australia. As Mr Morrison categorically acknowledged, the change in climate will present Australia with longer, hotter and drier summer seasons…Mr Morrison also edged a little closer to conceding the government might need to do more to cut Australia’s emissions in future. The Herald has argued the bushfire crisis must be a catalyst for genuine reform and welcomes the Prime Minister’s comments. However, he must stare down the denialists in the Coalition and take bold steps. Promising not to use the accounting trick of cashing Kyoto credits to meet Australia’s Paris emission reduction targets would be a good start.” In contrast, an editorial in the Australian, a Murdoch-owned newspaper with a long history of promoting climate sceptics, has published an editorial seeking to defend its journalism: “Our political class has to do its job of weighing all sensible options, relying on sound policymaking, lowest-cost technical solutions and can-do realism. This will be impossible without unfettered, credible journalism digging out the facts and bringing to light a wide range of informed viewpoints…We should continue to be a good international citizen by contributing to climate change mitigation while being pragmatic about global politics and preserving the economic strength that allows us to fund Australia’s adaptation to new ecological realities. We should aspire to global leadership in handling the transition to renewable energy, and be quick to exploit new technologies and unexpected fixes.” (The Australian is under pressure, reports the Sydney Morning Herald, following the publication of an all-staff email sent by a commercial finance manager who said she could no longer work for the newspaper “knowing I am contributing to the spread of climate change denial and lies”.) The Guardian has published a comment piece by Malcolm Turnbull who was Australia’s prime minister from 2015-2018. He says: “How much of our country has to burn, how many lives have to be lost, homes destroyed before we resolve as a nation to act on climate change? Have we now reached the point where at last our response to global warming will be driven by engineering and economics rather than ideology and idiocy? Our priority this decade should be our own green new deal in which we generate, as soon as possible, all of our electricity from zero emission sources. If we do, Australia will become a leader in the fight against global warming. And we can do it…We can adapt to a hotter drier climate. But the lies of the deniers have to be rejected. This is a time for truth telling, not obfuscation and gaslighting.”

Elsewhere, ABC News’s Linda Mottram asks: “Is Australia meeting its international climate change obligations?” In the broadcast she examines whether “the way Australia achieves this target [is] actually hiding a gaping hole in Australia’s policy on climate change”. Vox has an explainer on “the viral false claim that nearly 200 arsonists are behind the Australia fires”. The Guardian has an explainer on “the underlying causes of Australia’s shocking bushfire season”. And Christopher Knaus writes in the Guardian about how “disinformation and lies are spreading faster than Australia’s bushfires”.

Global temperature rise of 2C could see rice production in China fall by more than 10%, a study finds. However, it adds that this reduction could be offset by elevated CO2 levels, which could stimulate plant growth. The research also finds that the whole rice-growing season duration in China could be shortened by about 3-15 and 4.5-18 days under 1.5C and 2.C warming scenarios, respectively.

Snow cover in England, Scotland and Wales could be particularly sensitive to changes in temperature, new research suggests. The study finds that while there is a long-term relationship between snow cover and temperature, in the short term, snow cover is most affected by atmospheric circulation patterns, such as the “North Atlantic Oscillation”. The North Atlantic Oscillation is a large-scale atmospheric pressure system in the North Atlantic which has a strong influence on winter weather and climate patterns in Europe and North America.