The German government has suspended approval of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in response to Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine, Reuters reports. It says the $11bn pipeline under the Baltic Sea is designed to double the flow of Russian gas direct to Germany and was completed in September, only to stand idle pending certification by Germany and the EU. The newswire cites Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and now deputy chair of its security council, tweeting that gas price could double as a result of the decision, but notes that the European benchmark price was up just 10% yesterday to €79 per megawatt hour, a level “much like the price for the fourth quarter [of 2021]”. It also says Russian president Vladimir Putin pledged not to interrupt any of its existing gas supplies to Europe. Qatar, a major supplier of liquified natural gas (LNG) to Europe, has said it would not be possible for any single country to replace Russian supplies to the region, Reuters reports. The EU “plans to limit its reliance on fossil fuel imports over the next decade and beyond, by shifting to renewable energy and using less energy”, says another Reuters piece. Associated Press reports that EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson said on Monday that increasing supplies of renewables would help reduce dependency on Russian gas. (Yesterday evening, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen tweeted her support for Germany’s Nord Stream 2 decision, adding: “We are still too dependent on Russian gas. We have to strategically diversify our suppliers and massively invest in renewables.”) The Independent says the suspension “could mean greater investment in clean energy across Europe”, according to “climate experts”.

The Financial Times reports: “[German chancellor Olaf] Scholz said on Tuesday that gas accounted for a quarter of the country’s energy mix, and more than half of it comes from Russia…Scholz insisted, however, that Germany would wean itself off its addiction to gas. It would be carbon-neutral in 25 years, he said, and would expand solar and wind power capacity.” Politico reports under the headline: “Ukraine crisis prompts Germany to rethink Russian gas addiction.” Another Financial Times article asks if Europe can “survive without Russian gas”. The Daily Telegraph says: “Ukraine invasion threatens to push energy bills even higher.” It reports: “UK and European gas prices climbed 9% and 10% respectively after Germany halted the approval process for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which is being built to deliver supplies from fields controlled by the Kremlin. Britain is much less directly reliant on Russian gas than continental Europe but is affected by higher prices in the global wholesale market.”Axios, New Scientist and BBC News are among those reporting on the Nord Stream 2 decision.

Reuters reports separately that oil prices rose to nearly $100 a barrel yesterday, the highest level since 2014, following the Russian invasion. A further article from the newswire says oil prices could “jump by $20 if Ukraine crisis worsens, says Bank of America”. The Times reports on “inflation fears as oil price nears $100 amid Ukraine crisis”. Bloomberg says UK fuel prices are expected to rise as a result of the crisis, according to motoring organisation the RAC.

Another Reuters story says Estonia has said Europe “should develop green energy and import more liquefied natural gas (LNG) to reduce its dependence on Russia”.

Sea ice around Antarctica has dropped to its lowest level in more than 40 years, the Guardian reports, citing preliminary data from satellites that began measuring ice levels around the poles in 1979. The paper quotes climate scientists saying “the record drop can’t yet be linked to global heating”, but who call for urgent research to understand why the region’s sea ice broke a record “last set only five years ago”. Bloomberg, meanwhile, reports that the shrinking of the Antarctic ice sheet shrinking to 1.97m sq km, its “smallest surface area on record, is another sign that the accelerating pace of climate change is hitting some of the coldest regions the hardest”. It cites the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) warning last year that the West Antarctic ice sheet would “be lost almost completely and irreversibly over multiple millennia”, if warming continued between 2C to 3C. The i newspaper reports that the “Antarctic ice sheet is melting three times faster now than in the 90s”, with “rapid warming and melting ice already push[ing] populations of Antarctic krill southward”. MailOnline quotes one scientist saying “what’s going on in the Antarctic is an extreme event” and while there is a link between what is happening in Antarctica and “a general warming trend around the rest of the world, it’s different from what we see in mountain glaciers and what we see in the Arctic”.

Separately, another new study estimates that black carbon pollution from tourism and research activities is potentially increasing snowmelt in Antarctica by an average of 83 tonnes per visitor, the Guardian reports.

Methane emissions from the global energy sector are 70% higher than officially reported according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), Reuters reports, with the coal sector being the single biggest source. The IEA’s 2022 Global Methane Tracker says the world needs to boost monitoring and policy to curtail emissions, the newswire adds. It says the report gives the “first-ever comprehensive emissions estimates for each country”, with the global totals for coal, oil and gas reaching 42m tonnes (Mt), 41Mt and 39Mt, respectively. The newswire adds that more than 100 countries pledged to cut methane emissions 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels, at the COP26 climate summit last November, with the energy sector being responsible for 40% of the annual total. The Financial Times reports IEA chief Fatih Birol calling the underreporting of energy-sector methane emissions “alarming”. It quotes the IEA report saying many countries’ greenhouse gas inventories “have not been updated for years, and, even for those that have, many of these inventories are not yet accurate enough to provide a clear picture of emissions”. It adds: “China’s coal-related methane pollution was equivalent to the total carbon emissions from the world’s shipping sector, the report said.” The Guardian reports the IEA findings under the headline: “Oil and gas facilities could profit from plugging methane leaks, IEA says.” It adds: “Russia is one of the biggest sources of methane emissions from its vast oil and gas operations, but few efforts are made there to control the leaks. According to the IEA, Turkmenistan and Texas are also leading sources of leaks.”

Extreme wildfires are to occur 50% more frequently by the end of this century as a result of rising temperatures and changing land-use patterns, BBC News says, citing a new report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). It reports: “The scientists…say that large fires that burn for weeks are already becoming hotter and burning longer in many parts of the planet where wildfires have always occurred.” The Guardian says extreme wildfires will increase 14% by 2030 and 30% by 2050, according to the report. Reuters reports the findings along with the results of a second study, which it says shows that “the slow disappearance of cool, damp nights that once helped to temper fires also means they are getting harder to extinguish”. The Independent quotes the UNEP report saying: “The heating of the planet is turning landscapes into tinderboxes, while more extreme weather means stronger, hotter, drier winds to fan the flames.” The New York Times and Inside Climate News also have the story.

The Biden administration is delaying decisions on new oil and gas leases and other actions after a Louisiana court ruling on the climate impact of each tonne of carbon dioxide emissions, known as the social cost of carbon, Associated Press reports. (See Carbon Brief’s Q&A on the social cost of carbon for background.) The Washington Post says the judge ruled that the Biden administration should not have returned this metric to the level set under former President Obama. The paper adds that the Biden administration intends to appeal the ruling, but that in the meantime the injunction could affect a series of “major decisions that relied on the higher social cost of carbon” across the Environmental Protection Agency, the Transportation Department and the Interior Department. The Hill also has the story.

Solar capacity in China is expected to expand by 75-90 gigawatts (GW) this year according to the country’s solar manufacturing association, Reuters reports, noting that this would be “far higher than a record increase” last year, when 55GW was added. The newswire says that China’s solar capacity reached 306GW by the end of 2021 and is expected to add “an average of 83 to 99GW of new capacity each year during 2022 to 2025”, according to the solar association.

The National Portrait Gallery in London is terminating its 30-year partnership with BP, the Financial Times reports, adding that activists are “calling [it] a major victory for the campaign against fossil fuel sponsorship of the arts”. The paper explains that the gallery’s annual portrait award has been sponsored by BP since 1990 adding: “But alongside other major cultural institutions in Britain, the National Portrait Gallery has come under mounting pressure from climate activists to look for funding elsewhere.” BBC News, the Guardian, Sky News and Independent all cover the story.

Some 14,472 empty or nearly empty “ghost flights” have departed UK airports since the start of the coronavirus pandemic – an average of 760 a month – reports a Guardian “exclusive”, based on official figures. It says: “Under current rules, airlines lose their valuable [landing] slots if they are not sufficiently used. However, during the pandemic-hit period covered by the new UK data, the rules…were completely suspended.” The paper says that the Department for Transport had said it did not hold the ghost flight data, while the Civil Aviation Authority had turned down a Guardian freedom of information request but later gave the figures to the government. The Independent also picks up the story.

In a comment piece for the Guardian, the paper’s former environment editor John Vidal writes: “The bitter truth is that UK aviation, as it exists today, and tackling the climate crisis are incompatible…We need to reduce emissions from air travel fast – and that can only mean fewer flights.” He concludes: “The best way to start addressing [aviation’s] impact on climate change is by banning all ghost flights.”

A BBC News feature by its new environment correspondent Jonah Fisher scrutinises the claims of the “small but vocal group of Conservative MPs [who] are arguing that with energy prices soaring, the government should rethink how it reaches what’s known as ‘net-zero’ by 2050.” The article quotes Craig Mackinlay, one of those leading the so-called “net-zero scrutiny group” of 19 Conservative politicians – who recently hired the former head of policy of the climate-sceptic lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation – saying it “would be more sensible to ‘backload’ net-zero closer to 2050”. But Fisher notes that this is “at odds with the Treasury’s Office for Budget Responsibility, which says that delaying decisive action on climate change by ten years could end up doubling the total cost”. The article goes on to cite Carbon Brief analysis showing that nearly 90% of the coming increase in household energy bills is due to the high price of gas. It also illustrates, reproducing a Carbon Brief chart, how the “economics of electricity generation have dramatically changed in the last decade” such that renewables have become the “cheapest option”.

Meanwhile, fellow “net-zero scrutiny group” leader Steve Baker writes for Conservative Home that he has “no in-principle objection” to the UK’s legally binding target for 2050 but, he claims, “there has never been a democratic choice” about the goal. (The policy was a prominent part of his party’s 2019 election campaign.) Among other false claims in his article, Baker says the current energy crisis – in reality being driven by high global gas prices – is “substantially a result of the emissions reduction policies of previous [UK] governments”. Instead of the UK’s current approach, Baker backs the “gas-to-nuclear policy” espoused by the climate sceptic thinktank the Global Warming Policy Foundation – although he does not credit them. Baker says this “would work” but makes no attempt to explain how it would cut UK emissions or help the country reach net-zero.

In a comment piece for the Daily Telegraph, Conservative MP John Penrose discusses rising household energy bills and points to the “skyrocketing international wholesale price of gas”, which he says “remains a serious problem” with “energy bills…follow[ing] the gas price”. He adds that the cost of renewables “has fallen massively” but says the energy market must be redesigned “so it delivers energy that keeps our net-zero promises, but far more cheaply and reliably than today, and no matter what’s happening in the international gas market”. Penrose points to solutions including “thinks like batteries or low-carbon hydrogen, so we won’t have power cuts if the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining”.

Another Daily Telegraph comment piece, by Allison Pearson, rails against wind power, making a series of false claims including that turbines cannot operate in high winds. (Wind power generated 40% of the UK’s electricity on Friday, when the country was being buffeted by Storm Eunice.)

Writing for the Conversation, Prof Matthew E Kahn of University of Southern California criticises attempts to summarise in a single number the long-term cost of mitigating climate change versus allowing temperatures to keep rising. One major challenge, Kahn writes, is that “[h]uman behaviours shift as public policies change and new technology arrives and evolves”. Kahn sets out the range of assumptions needed to estimate the costs of climate action or inaction and concludes: “As much as everyone might like a concrete answer to how much climate change and acting on climate change will cost, we’ll have to live with uncertainty.” Similarly, Bloomberg‘s Akshat Rathi writes: “Human behaviour is key to determining our climate future, but most scientific models don’t take it into account.” Meanwhile, City AM carries an “exclusive” interview with the climate-sceptic commentator Bjorn Lomborg.

Human-produced carbon pollution could cause the Antarctic snowpack to shrink by 23 millimetres every summer in the most impacted areas, according to new research. The authors analysed black carbon (soot) levels from 28 sites across a 2,000 km stretch of the northern Antarctica Peninsula. They find that black carbon levels in the snow surrounding research facilities and popular shore tourist-landing sites are “considerably above background levels measured elsewhere in the continent”. The study estimates that 53,000 tourists visited Antarctica over 2016-19, and suggests that on average, each visitor contributes to 83 tonnes of snow melt each summer.