The EU will push for a phase out of all fossil fuels at the COP28 climate summit later this year, Reuters reports, after the bloc’s environment ministers agreed a common position on the talks. It notes that the ministers agreed to call for a phase out of “unabated” fossil fuels, adding that this “leaves a window for countries to keep burning coal, gas and oil if they use technology to ‘abate’ – meaning capture – the resulting emissions”. The newswire continues: “Around 10 countries including Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia had wanted a stronger deal to phase out all fossil fuels. However, a similar number of countries – including Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Malta and Poland – successfully argued for the caveat on abatement technologies.” Still, the newswire says: “The agreement sets up the 27-country European Union to be one of the most ambitious negotiators at the annual UN climate talks, where nearly 200 countries negotiate efforts to fight global warming.” Montel quotes the agreed EU position as calling for a phase out of all unabated fossil fuels “well before 2050”, as well as for a “fully or predominantly decarbonised global power system in the 2030s, since cost-effective emissions reduction measures are readily available”. The outlet adds: “The EU wants global unabated fossil fuel use to peak before 2030, and for fossil fuel subsidies to be phased out ‘as soon as possible’, unless they are focused on reducing energy poverty or aiding the transition to lower carbon fuels.” It continues: “[The EU] wants to see the world’s installed renewable energy capacity triple to 11TW [terawatts] and the global rate of energy efficiency improvements double, both by 2030.” Deutsche Welle quotes a statement released after the EU agreement was reached: “[The European] Council stresses that the transition to a climate-neutral economy will require a global phase-out of unabated fossil fuels and a peak in their consumption in this decade.”

A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) finds that global investment in electricity grids needs to double to more than £492bn per year by 2030 to hit national climate targets and ensure reliable power supplies, the Guardian reports. According to the newspaper, the IEA says the equivalent of the entire global electricity grid – 80m kilometres of wires – needs to be added or refurbished by 2040.  The Associated Press reports that spending on electrical grids has “stalled” in recent years, according to the IEA. It says that, according to IEA executive director Dr Fatih Birol, renewable energy projects waiting for a connection to the grid could generate 1,500 gigawatts of power – five times the amount of solar and wind capacity that was added worldwide last year. The newswire adds Birol saying that the chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels “is going to be diminished substantially” if spending on grids stays at current levels. The IEA “warned that grid constraints were becoming a bottleneck in some areas and called for policymakers and companies to ‘quickly take action’ to address the issue,” the Times adds. Bloomberg also covers the report.

A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) finds that global investment in electricity grids needs to double to more than £492bn per year by 2030 to hit national climate targets and ensure reliable power supplies, the Guardian reports. According to the newspaper, the IEA says the equivalent of the entire global electricity grid – 80m kilometres of wires – needs to be added or refurbished by 2040.  The Associated Press reports that spending on electrical grids has “stalled” in recent years, according to the IEA. It says that, according to IEA executive director Dr Fatih Birol, renewable energy projects waiting for a connection to the grid could generate 1,500 gigawatts of power – five times the amount of solar and wind capacity that was added worldwide last year. The newswire adds Birol saying that the chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels “is going to be diminished substantially” if spending on grids stays at current levels. The IEA “warned that grid constraints were becoming a bottleneck in some areas and called for policymakers and companies to ‘quickly take action’ to address the issue,” the Times adds. Bloomberg also covers the report.

“Russia’s opposition to holding next year’s United Nations climate summit in a European Union country has left nations scrambling to find an alternative in time to organise the massive global event,” Reuters reports. According to the newswire, the COP29 summit is supposed to take place in eastern Europe in 2024, but Russia earlier this year opposed it being held in an EU country. It adds that “Armenia and Azerbaijan also offered to host COP29 – but each is expected to veto the other, amid heightened tensions after Azerbaijan retook the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh with a military operation last month”. The newswire reports that Bulgaria also volunteered, but was opposed by Russia. It notes that “the 23 countries in the UN’s eastern European group must be unanimous in their choice for the host”.

Elsewhere, Climate Home News says that “negotiators from Africa and India have set out separate plans to push developed countries to do more to move away from fossil fuels”. The outlet adds: “The African group of negotiators want rich countries to stop greenlighting new fossil fuel production projects by 2030 while India is calling on them to go beyond net-zero and start sucking carbon out of the atmosphere by 2050.” Separately, the Guardian says that protesters at COP28 in Dubai could be arrested. 

Shares in the oil and gas company Shell have hit a record high after “concerns over the fallout from the Israel-Hamas conflict pushed up the price of oil”, the Guardian reports. The newspaper continues: “Oil prices surged over the past week in the wake of the outbreak of war, and Shell shares gained 1.5% on Monday to increase its stock price [to] as high as 2,763p a share. Brent crude has risen by more than 7% since the start of the war to more than $90 (£74) a barrel. Shell’s share price has gained 6.5% over the same period. The energy company’s commercial value has shot up by nearly 10% to £183bn since 4 October when the Opec+ cartel, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, promised to maintain cuts to oil supplies around the globe.” Bloomberg reports that the price rise follows “a series of strategic pivots by Shell under different leaders”. 

Elsewhere, Politico reports that US president Joe Biden is in a “political quandary” over his decision to sell more than 40% of the US strategic petroleum reserve when Russia invaded Ukraine, leaving the stockpile at its lowest levels since the early 1980s. The outlet says Biden’s decision is “fueling Republican accusations that Biden has left the US vulnerable to a disruption of global oil supplies – at a time when Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Israel are stoking fears of a wider regional war disrupting fuel shipments from the Middle East”. In related comment, Bloomberg opinion columnist Javier Blas writes that the US “needs to refill its dangerously low oil reserves”. The Financial Times reports that “smaller groups in the US oil and gas sector are raising outside cash again after years of getting a cold shoulder from capital markets, as higher energy prices and stronger balance sheets help them to win over investors”. Separately, the Financial Times reports that “Bulgaria has imposed punitive taxes on Russian-owned oil and gas operations, in an effort to make them less profitable and force them and their European buyers to look for other options, according to government officials”.

Russian president Vladimir Putin will meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing this week, drawing attention to the “deep energy ties” between the two countries, reports the Hong Kong-based outlet Asia Financial. This comes ahead of Xi’s possible meeting with US president Joe Biden next month, it says, adding that Putin will also participate in the “belt and road” forum, which begins today, accompanied by the heads of leading Russian energy giants. Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports that China may unveil a maritime cooperation plan at the forum, that includes a focus on “sustainable use of marine resources, biodiversity conservation and climate change”. Ahead of the forum, China Daily carries a comment piece by legal NGO ClientEarth’s James Thornton and Dimitri de Boer. They write that the meeting presents a “significant opportunity for energy transition” but urge that China and others “engage in bilateral dialogues to develop a joint vision [around climate action in the BRI],…ideally with time-bound targets”. Communist Party-backed People’s Daily carries an editorial saying that BRI projects will “actively fulfil their environmental responsibility”. Another editorial by the newspaper says that “green” and sustainable development is “gradually becoming a consensus” among BRI countries, while a third editorial by the newspaper recalls that president Xi said at the previous BRI forum in 2019 that “the belt and road is not an exclusive club; it aims to promote green development”. Separately, Reuters reports that Indonesia will seek China’s support for “renewable energy and infrastructure projects” during the forum. 

Meanwhile, Chinese financial site Eastmoney.com reports that an official from the ministry of commerce says that promoting “green trade” is a concrete method of advancing high-quality trade and addressing climate change. State news agency Xinhua reports that in a meeting with former UK prime minister Tony Blair, Chinese vice president Han Zheng stressed that there is “vast potential” for cooperation between the two countries in clean energy and that both sides should “jointly address climate change and protect biodiversity”. Energy news outlet BJX News reports that UK trade commissioner for China and Hong Kong Lewis Neal gave a speech in which he said that “the development of offshore wind power in China and the UK are complementary”. 

Elsewhere, BJX News writes that Chinese premier Li Qiang presided over a symposium where the chairmen of two new energy companies, solar firm LONGi and battery manufacturer Tianneng, spoke and raised policy suggestions. Industry news outlet IN-EN.com publishes an article explaining how “dual contracts”, fraudulent deposit claims and overdue electricity payments are common risks for investors in China’s solar power sector.

Water levels in the Amazon river have fallen to their lowest in more than a century amid a “record” drought, Reuters reports. According to the newswire, the port of Manaus – the region’s most populous city, at the meeting of the Rio Negro and the Amazon river – recorded a water level of 13.59 metres on Monday. This is the lowest level since records began in 1902, passing a previous all-time low set in 2010, it says. The newswire adds: “Rapidly drying tributaries to the mighty Amazon have left boats stranded, cutting off food and water supplies to remote villages, while high water temperatures are suspected of killing more than 100 endangered river dolphins.” The Financial Times reports that around half a million people have been affected by the drought. It adds that scientists have also warned of potential outbreaks of diseases, including malaria and hepatitis A. The New York Times says the drought is “likely made worse by climate change”. It adds: “The rainy season is expected to start in the next weeks and if the drought, which started in June, persists it would mark the first time such extreme conditions took hold in the Amazon’s driest period and continued into its wettest.” Elsewhere, the Times reports that although the rate of deforestation in the Amazon has fallen this year, the benefits “could be undone” by an increase in fires caused by hot and dry conditions.

New polling suggests that most Scots support the new Rosebank oil field, the Times reports. It continues: “A poll found a narrow majority, 51%, supported the decision to go ahead with the oil field, while 22% were opposed and 27% did not know or had no opinion. Support was strongest among those aged 65 and over but all age groups were in favour.” However, the paper notes that Humza Yousaf, the Scottish first minister, said the field is the “wrong decision”. 

In other UK news, the Independent reports that 80% of food security experts surveyed think the country could face “civil unrest” in the coming decades due to climate-triggered food shortages. Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph reports that “car park spaces should become wider and burning electric cars dunked in baths of water, under proposed government guidelines to prevent battery fires spreading out of control”.

Global fossil-fuel subsidies expanded to a new record of $7tn last year, accounting for roughly 7% of global GDP, says a Bloomberg editorial. “It’s hard to think of a more misguided policy,” the editorial says. It adds that “the gap between efficient prices and actual prices is especially egregious in the case of coal”. The editorial continues: “Insisting that people pay full price for fuel would not only reduce consumption and slash emissions. It would also align that purpose with greater economic efficiency. First, it would make plain that some fossil fuels are worse than others, differences that can and should be priced accordingly. It would also provide a transparent basis for more effective international cooperation…Finally, cutting subsidies raises revenue, which allows for higher spending on worthwhile goals, lower government borrowing and/or cuts in other taxes.” The outlet concludes that although making fossil fuels more expensive is “unpopular”, the subsidies could be put to a “better and more popular use”.

Pakistani writer Fatima Bhutto calls climate change “the catastrophe to end all other catastrophes” in a comment for the Washington Post. She outlines some of the extreme weather events that have hit the world this year and then focuses on last year’s flooding in Pakistan, from which the country has still not recovered. She says that “Pakistan’s suffering is compounded by seemingly intractable problems of complacency and misgovernment”, adding that “it ought to be a scandal that six months after the super flood, 10 million Pakistanis still lacked reliable access to safe drinking water”. She continues: “I’d rather not write about the climate emergency…Yet I increasingly find myself unable to talk about anything other than the failure of our institutions to face up to the climate breakdown.” Bhutto calls herself a feminist, arguing that “there is no more urgent feminist issue in the world” than climate change. She adds: “Even our boldest notions of how to improve the status of women – expanding access to education, health care, housing and liberty – will be meaningless if women are swept away in mega floods, buried in landslides or suffocated by wildfires.”

New “correspondence” in Nature Ecology and Evolution says that deforestation alerts in the Brazilian Amazon were 42% lower between January and July of this year than in the same period of 2022, corresponding with the first few months of leadership from new Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. But, “despite promising signs of reduced deforestation, Amazonia faces surging wildfire”, the authors say. The number of active fires in June 2023 was the highest for this month since 2007 and total fire counts for the first half of this year were 11% higher than in the first six months of 2022, according to the researchers. They add: “The future of Amazon forests – even if illegal deforestation can be ‘zeroed out’ – remains unclear under the threats of climate change, drought and fire.”