Donald Trump has claimed victory in the US election after winning southern-battleground states of Georgia and North Carolina and swing-state Pennsylvania, the Financial Times reports this morning. Carbon Brief analysis in March 2024 found that a Trump victory could lead to an additional 4bn tonnes of US emissions by 2030 compared with incumbent Joe Biden’s plans. This is enough to negate – twice over – all of the emissions savings from deploying wind, solar and other clean technologies around the world over the past five years. Carbon Brief has also produced an analysis on how Trump spoke about climate and energy this presidential election campaign, noting his pledge to “drill, baby, drill” and to withdraw the world’s second-largest emitter from the Paris Agreement once again. E&E News has a report on what a Trump victory could mean for US efforts to adapt to rising climate impacts and its pledge to cut emissions. Separately, E&E News reports on “five ways nations can counter Trump on climate”. Inside Climate News examines why climate change was “barely mentioned” during the campaign. Politico says there is one “guaranteed winner” from the election, which is “Europe’s addiction to American fossil fuels”. Radio New Zealand speaks to a Cook Islands-based NGO that says a Trump victory “won’t be good for the Pacific islands”. BusinessGreen publishes an analysis from two academics on “how Trump threatens to turn back the tide on America’s environmental laws and climate progress”. 

Elsewhere, the Independent reports that a record number of US states are currently facing drought. The Associated Press reports that voters in Washington state on Tuesday upheld “a groundbreaking law that is forcing companies to cut carbon emissions while raising billions of dollars for programs that include habitat restoration and preparing for climate change”.

World leaders from major economies such as the European Union, the US and Brazil are planning to miss the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, Reuters reports. It says European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will not attend the summit “because of political developments in Brussels”, a Commission spokesperson confirmed to Reuters on Tuesday. Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva already cancelled his trip to COP29 following a head injury last month, it adds. Reuters also reports that China has requested that countries hold talks at the summit on carbon border taxes and other “restrictive trade measures” that Beijing says are harmful to developing countries. The Newswire says it has seen documents showing that China, on behalf of the BASIC country group which also includes Brazil, India and South Africa, has submitted a proposal to the UN climate convention to add talks on “concerns with climate-change related unilateral restrictive trade measures” to the COP29 agenda. It says: “The request raises the prospect that mounting trade tensions between major economies could disrupt this year’s [talks].” The Indian thinktank CSE has a comment for Down to Earth “supporting” the proposal, with the headline: “Unilateral trade measures will delay climate transition. COP29 must address this.” Elsewhere, Nature has an editorial calling for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s science advisory body, to be involved in setting a definition for climate finance, a key issue at this year’s negotiations. Finally, DeSmog reports that the “European Commission is facing criticism from politicians and campaigners for giving a free pass for senior oil and gas executives to attend last year’s COP28 summit in Dubai”.

Shanghai is looking to “build its capacity to supply cleaner fuels in preparation for more stringent global emissions mandates” for shipping, aiming to raise its “low-carbon bunkering” to more than one million tonnes a year by 2030, Bloomberg reports, citing a local government policy. The outlet continues: “Shanghai’s goal is just a fraction of the near 20m tonnes of fuel oil sold to international shipping in China in 2023, suggesting that the transition to hydrogen-based propellants like methanol and ammonia is likely to take many years.” The country is “stepping up competition” with Singapore ahead of a “decarbonisation plan that’s expected from the International Maritime Organization next year”, the outlet adds. 

Meanwhile, four of the five biggest Chinese state-owned power generators that have reported profits are “under pressure from falling prices” as more “renewable energy comes on tap”, business news outlet Yicai reports. Reuters reports that Chinese companies are expanding in Cuba, which recently had a power system collapse. State-run newspaper China Daily reports that China’s energy storage sector has seen “unprecedented growth” in recent years, with the “operational capacity” surging to 34.5 gigawatts, up 166% from a year ago. The desertified land area in China has decreased by about 4.3m hectares since 2012, state news agency Xinhua reports.

Elsewhere, the Communist Party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily covers Kang Yanbing, deputy director and researcher at the National Energy Conservation Center of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top economic planner, giving comments on a recent NDRC “opinion” for “accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development”. It reports Kang saying that achieving China’s “dual-carbon” goals requires “essential policy support”, which includes “subsidies, interest discounts, and tax credits” and other measures. A China Daily editorial says that global south countries “risk falling victim to the ‘digital divide’ and ‘green divide’ created by the West” once again in the new round of the “industrial revolution”. But with the help from China in “advanced green technologies”, these countries “are on track to achieve green transition”, it says. Finally, the Financial Times has a column on how China is making “big inroads” in Norway’s electric vehicle market.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez has announced a €10.6bn plan to help victims of the country’s recent deadly flooding, Ireland’s RTÉ reports. Spain’s national guard has also asked relatives of people missing in the floods to provide DNA samples to identify bodies, the broadcaster adds. The Associated Press reports that 89 people are still unaccounted for, with the official death toll now standing at 217. For the Conversation, a Spanish climate scientist explains how climate change likely influenced the weather patterns behind the deadly floods.

The Times reports that specialist engineers at the Hinkley Point and Sizewell nuclear plants have gone on strike, “saying they have not had a pay rise in four years and that cheap foreign labour is being used to undercut British workers”. The Times also reports that UK electric car sales rose by 24% in October since last year to take more than one-fifth of the new vehicle registrations market. The Daily Telegraph says a “Dunkelflaute” period of weather has sent “wind power generation tumbling” in the UK, Germany and other parts of northern Europe.

UK energy and net-zero secretary Ed Miliband has a piece in the Guardian responding to the National Energy System Operator (NESO) report on pathways to clean power by 2030. He says: “It is conclusive proof that clean power by 2030 is not only achievable but also desirable, because it can lead to cheaper, more secure electricity for households, it breaks the stranglehold of the dictators and the petrostates, and it will deliver good jobs and economic growth across this country in the industries of the future.” The Guardian also has an editorial on the government’s clean power by 2030 pledge, with the headline: “Britain should go for it.” BBC News examines whether meeting the pledge is possible, noting that industry experts say it is “absolutely doable from an engineering point of view” and that “the challenge for the government is to lead the advance on all fronts of renewable energy and grid connections”.

Striking a different tone, the Daily Telegraph’s editorial on the report is titled: “A zealot’s delusion can’t prevent blackouts.” The Daily Telegraph also has a piece by climate-sceptic columnist Matthew Lynn peddling the false narrative that the NESO report suggested UK households will have to ration electricity. The Daily Telegraph has a third piece on how net-zero policies could “play into the hands of Nigel Farage”. Meanwhile, the Daily Mail also has inaccurate reporting claiming UK households will have to ration power. The lead comment slot in the print edition of the Daily Mail has been handed to Andrew Montford, director of the climate-sceptic lobby group Net Zero Watch, where he says Miliband is like a “mad prophet in a sandwich board”. The Times has an editorial on the National Employment Savings Trust pension scheme, saying the idea it should be used to advance the clean energy transition is “superficially attractive”.

New research explores how “ecological fear” shapes attitudes to climate change across the political spectrum in the US. Analysing data from a 2023 online survey, the findings support the idea that “conservatives demonstrate lower climate concern and that fear of natural and environmental disasters increases climate concern”. However, political differences diminish at higher levels of ecological fear, the authors find, as “all orientations converge on higher levels of acknowledging climate risks and causes”. The findings “challenge expectations of dominant paradigms related to threat perception and political orientation”, the study concludes.