The European Commission has reaffirmed its commitment to cutting emissions 90% by 2040 as it published a “clean industrial deal”, setting out plans to help the bloc’s most polluting industries decarbonise, reports the Guardian. The plan includes 40 different measures to help speed up the transition, it continues, such as faster permits for windfarms and other infrastructure, and changing public procurement rules to favour clean technology made in Europe. The newspaper adds: “The commission also published a plan aiming to bring down energy bills for businesses and consumers, as well as controversial proposals to relax environmental reporting requirements on small and medium-sized businesses.” Bloomberg says the commission’s plan “preserves its ambitious climate goals while trying to improve industrial competitiveness in the face of increasing rivalry from the US and China”. The plan will include €100bn in funding to “supercharge climate-friendly manufacturing in the EU”, reports Politico. The deal will help support renewable energy companies “struggling with cheap foreign imports and sluggish demand”, reports DW. The plan includes a target for 40% of renewable energy technologies to be manufactured in the EU, it adds.The commission has also proposed the creation of an EU Critical Raw Material Centre to facilitate the joint purchase of key metals and minerals needed for the energy transition, reports Reuters. The wider clean industrial deal includes “simplifying red tape and carbon duties and is subject to approval in the European Parliament and amongst a reinforced majority of EU member states”, it adds. The proposal to reduce corporate environmental reporting requirements would limit rules to companies with more than 1,000 employees and revenue over €50m ($53m), reports the New York Times.

Oil and gas giant BP has “abandoned a radical attempt to reinvent itself as a green energy company”, reports the Financial Times in an article on its frontpage. The newspaper says the company has “bow[ed] to pressure from investors after its aggressive shift away from fossil fuels over the past five years backfired”. Almost £1bn was wiped off the value of BP shares after the announcement, reports the Times. BP’s CEO Murray Auchincloss has said that the company “went too far, too fast” in its shift to net-zero, adding that its decision to cut spending on oil and gas was “misplaced”, reports the Daily Telegraph. The company is now planning to cut it’s investment into renewables to between $1.5bn and $2bn a year, around $5bn lower than previously announced, the article adds. Funding for oil and gas extraction will increase to $10bn (£7.9bn) annually, as the company shifts its focus, reports Sky News. BP announced that new “major” oil and gas projects will start by the end of 2027, with eight to 10 more to begin by 2030, it adds. The company’s “radical overhaul” will mean it is “very selective” about investing in low-carbon options while producing 2.4m barrels of oil and gas a day by 2030, or 60% more than the figure in its net-zero plan released five years ago, reports the Guardian. The article adds that this represents a “stark shift” from the plan put forward by former chief executive Bernard Looney, who “had promised to shrink the company’s fossil fuel production to about 1.5m barrels a day and make BP a net-zero energy company by 2050”. The company will look to sell off its lubricants business Castrol and its solar developer Lightsource BP for a possible $20bn in total, despite announcing a full takeover of the solar company just four months ago, reports the Times. A separate piece in the Times asks “What does BP stand for now?” It says: “As Murray Auchincloss tries to reset the oil major’s strategy, some are asking if it is lost in a strategic fog.” The Associated Press, the Sun, BusinessGreen, CNN and others also covered BP’s shift. 

China is “willing” to cooperate with all parties to “address the challenges of extreme weather and climate risks”, according to Chen Zhenlin, head of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) and chief representative of China to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who was speaking at the IPCC meeting in Hangzhou, state news agency Xinhua reports. The outlet also quotes Chinese climate envoy Liu Zhenmin, who says that the IPCC reports reflect “humanity’s deepening understanding of climate science”. Separately, as the world faces an “increasingly severe” climate crisis while “grappling” with the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, developing economies, such as China, Brazil and the UAE, have begun to “firmly implement their own emission reduction measures”, taking “greater responsibility”, says the state-supporting newspaper Global Times.

Meanwhile, Chinese president Xi Jinping has called on Chinese officials to “stay calm” amid domestic and global challenges, Bloomberg reports, adding that the remark from Xi indicates that Beijing will “take a measured approach” to the Trump administration’s new trade and investment curbs. The news outlet adds that the US has put restrictions on Beijing’s investment in US “strategic sectors”, such as energy and technology. Xi also calls on officials to accelerate the “establishment of a new development pattern”, deepen reform, expand “high-standard opening up”, and promote “sustained economic recovery and growth”, according to state news agency Xinhua. Elsewhere, around 35% of China’s cropland could disappear by 2100, converted into wetlands and forests, even if countries manage to meet Paris Agreement targets on climate change, according to new research, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports. 

In comment, Christine Loh, chief development strategist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Institute for the Environment, writes an opinion article for China Daily under the headline: “US retreat from Paris Agreement comes at a steep cost.” The Communist-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily publishes an article in its print edition saying that China’s contribution to the world includes a “key driving force for promoting the green and low-carbon transition”, with “green trade” becoming a “major highlight of China’s foreign trade”. Global Times publishes an editorial under the title: “CATL-Volkswagen cooperation to benefit both amid green transition.”

Heat in the south Atlantic is expected to worsen through March, likely producing drier and hotter weather and elevating the risk of disasters, such as flooding, Brazil’s O Globo newspaper reports. The outlet points out that the southern Atlantic Ocean “directly influences Brazil’s climate”. The beginning of 2024 has also been marked by high temperatures in Bogotá, which could extend until March, Colombia’s El Espectador reports. The newspaper notes that these temperatures pose a risk to people’s health. The newspaper cites Dr Ghisliane Echeverry, director of the government-funded Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies, explaining that the high temperatures are being driven by climate change, El Niño and the onset of a dry season in several regions. Likewise, Peru’s El Comercio reports that the first days of this month were the hottest in Lima in the past five years, reaching up to 30C. In an interview with the Peruvian newspaper, meteorologist Matt Nieto says temperatures are linked with “coastal El Niño and the presence of winds that keep the sky clear”. Maximum temperatures “above normal throughout the country, except for the south coast” are expected from January to March, the newspaper adds.

Elsewhere, after a severe drought in the Argentinian province of Santa Fe last year, the first days of January broke rainfall records with up to 508 millimetres, which has affected farmers in the region, Argentina’s La Nación reports. Meanwhile, Mexico’s Excélsior reports that global warming will also make “cold waves more frequent” in the country. Alfredo Sandoval, of the department of physics and mathematics at Ibero-American University, explains to the newspaper that some scientists say extreme cold can be produced as higher temperatures retain less Arctic air mass, allowing cold air to descend to lower zones.

UK transport secretary Heidi Alexander is expected to announce her decision on whether Gatwick airport can expand to two simultaneously functioning runways in a written ministerial statement to parliament today, reports BBC News. The airport wants to move its northern runway, which is currently used for taxing or as a backup, and make it fully operational by the end of the decade, it adds. Gatwick is Europe’s busiest single runway airport, BBC News notes, with more than 40 million passengers using it in 2024. Alexander is “likely to approve a development consent order for a second runway at Gatwick”, reports the Guardian. The newspaper says she told an aviation industry dinner on Tuesday night: “I am not some sort of flight-shaming ecowarrior. I love flying. I always have.” It says that Heathrow airport’s boss Thomas Woldbye has said that there is room for both of London’s biggest airports to expand significantly, following the government announcement of support for the airport’s expansion earlier this year. (Analysis by Carbon Brief found that a forest twice the size of Greater London would need to be planted in the UK to cancel out the extra emissions from the expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton airports.)

In other UK news, a frontpage story in the Times reports on a new Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) pilot scheme to paint wind turbines black to reduce the number of birds killed by them. Defra has highlighted that the “foraging areas” used by sea birds are often large and the expansion of offshore wind farms could adversely impact them, the article continues. However studies, including some from Norway, have found painting the turbines black can reduce collisions by 70%, it adds. Energy regulator Separately, Ofgem has announced it is inviting bids from investors to own and operate electricity transmission links worth £4bn ($5bn), reports Reuters. These would connect Britain to offshore wind generators in the North Sea, it adds. The Guardian covers concerns from ministers and Labour MPs over plans to cut overseas aid. BusinessGreen covers the reactions from ministers to the UK’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. 

Elsewhere, there is continued coverage of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) advice for the seventh carbon budget, released yesterday. Sky News notes that the aim to cut emissions to net-zero by 2050 is “hugely ambitious”, but “so much work has been completed as wind and solar power continue to take a bigger share of power generation”. The Independent focuses on lifestyle changes suggested in the CCC’s advice, including “reducing meat and dairy consumption, buying an electric car and getting a heat pump”. The Times similarly details the lifestyle changes discussed by the CCC to help decarbonise the country. BBC News highlights that by 2040, 80% of cars would be electric and one in two homes have a heat pump, under the CCC’s suggested pathway towards net-zero. The Daily Telegraph runs a piece on the “pros and cons of buying a heat pump”. A separate piece in the Daily Telegraph focuses on one homeowner who has installed a heat pump. 

An editorial in the Times responds to news that UK household energy bills are set to rise again after wholesale gas prices increased: “There is a clear and straightforward reason why energy bills are soaring: the UK is achingly overreliant on expensive natural gas. After a particularly cold winter, wholesale prices for gas have risen sharply, accounting for 78% of Ofgem’s price cap rise.” The editorial continues by noting that while many countries are facing similar challenges, the UK is “particularly exposed”. It says “part of” the solution is a “greater emphasis on nuclear”. However, it adds: “A greater focus on nuclear does not negate the need for the continuing expansion of renewable energy to reduce the UK’s reliance on imported gas. The construction of more wind turbines is critical for reducing bills.” An editorial in the Daily Telegraph, meanwhile, says the latest advice from the Climate Change Committee (CCC) is “divorced from reality”, before going on to blame rising energy bills on renewable energy rather than the higher gas prices flagged by the Times as accounting for four-fifths of the latest increase. The Sun also carries an editorial attacking the CCC as “delusional clowns”. A Daily Mail editorial is titled simply: “Drill, baby, drill.” The Daily Mail also hands its lead comment slot to columnist Stephen Glover to ask, over nearly a full page, if prime minister Keir Starmer will “stop net-zero Ed [Miliband] destroying Britain”. In addition to its editorial, the Daily Telegraph carries several more comment articles attacking climate action, including Matthew Lynn calling for the CCC to be “abolished” and Allison Pearson claiming, based on a series of anecdotes, that “Labour’s net-zero obsession is driving Brits abroad”. Finally, Daily Telegraph economics editor Szu Ping Chan claims that the new CCC advice – which, as Carbon Brief explained yesterday, estimated that the cost of net-zero would amount to just 0.2% of GDP, some 73% lower than previously thought – is instead “another financial headwind for [chancellor Rachel] Reeves”.

For the Times, chief business commentator Alistair Osborne questions how BP’s shareholders can have any faith in BP’s bosses Murray Auchincloss and Helge Lund “after their latest – and costly – U-turn”. Osborne discusses BP’s strategic U-turn, shifting away from renewables and back to fossil fuels. While US president Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” mantra is “back in vogue”, he writes, “global warming hasn’t gone away”. He adds: “BP wasn’t wrong to spot a societal need for a long-term shift to renewable energy. It was the cack-handed way it went about it, as its writedowns on US offshore wind testified.” A Financial Times Lex comment argues: “Rather than having to lay siege to boards and management, [activists arguing for a stronger focus on fossil fuels] now appear to be pushing at an open door.”

A new study suggests that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – a system of ocean currents that moves water, heat and nutrients around the Atlantic Ocean and the globe –  is unlikely to collapse this century. The study authors assess greenhouse gas and freshwater forcings across 34 climate models, finding that upwelling driven by winds in the Southern Ocean sustains a weakened AMOC, “preventing its complete collapse”. They note the “urgen[t] need” to better understand Southern Ocean and Indo-Pacific circulations to more accurately predict future AMOC change.