The German government has rejected the European Commission’s attempt to compromise in a battle over the future of combustion engines, reports Politico, “deepening a row that has overshadowed an ongoing summit of EU leaders in Brussels”. The outlet explains: “As Politico reported earlier this week, the EU executive had said it would not reopen draft legislation mandating a zero-emission sales-only policy for cars and vans from 2035 – agreed by the parliament and EU countries last year – to make room for synthetic so-called e-fuels, as demanded by Berlin. Instead, it agreed to Berlin’s request to make tweaks to separate, existing legislation known as Euro 6, setting out a classification for vehicles running exclusively ‘carbon neutral fuels’ such as e-fuels. But Berlin has now rejected Brussels’ offer, according to a formal response seen by Politico.” In its response, sent late yesterday, the German transport ministry said that it will continue its blockade of the 2035 measures unless either Commission president Ursula von der Leyen or the EU’s Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans signs their draft declaration, which states that the Commission should propose a delegated act “before autumn 2023” that will allow the sale of vehicles running solely on e-fuels after 2035, by when the zero-emissions mandate should come into force. A second Politico article says that the “behind-the-scenes tussle…became a public war of words – overshadowing an EU leaders’ summit in the process”. After leaders broke up for the night yesterday, von der Leyen said: “The negotiations are progressing…There is the will on both sides to resolve this topic.” Energy Monitor also follows the events.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz defended the government’s position on wanting newly registered cars to only be running on “e-fuels” from 2035 onwards, reports Merkur.de. It adds that Luxembourg’s prime minister Xavier Bettel was “annoyed” by the debate, saying that “it’s not a wish concert when we come to Brussels” because this topic was not meant to be formally on the agenda. Handelsblatt adds that Latvia’s prime minister Krisjanis Karins said: “The entire architecture of European decision-making would fall apart if everyone behaved like Germany.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reports that the European Commission never promised a proposal on “e-fuel” cars, but only made a statement on the new limits for CO2 emissions for cars with the following wording: “After the final adoption of the regulation by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, the Commission will assess the potential contribution of CO2-neutral fuels to achieve climate-neutral mobility.” Germany, on the other hand, has received support from Austria and the Netherlands, notes FAZ. Bloomberg reports that, “in an effort to break the deadlock”, the European Commission has promised to publish a statement that would include “timelines and outline regulatory solutions” essential for allowing new combustion-engine vehicles running on e-fuels to be registered after 2035. The “dispute” is linked to “fundamental disagreements” between the German Greens and their two coalition partners, chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), over how the EU’s climate-protection targets should be implemented, notes Politico.

Meanwhile, German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan has laid out Germany’s priorities for the COP28 climate summit at the end of this year, which include a “concrete global target” for the expansion of renewables by 2030: “We need a terawatt target for renewables by 2030 at the COP in Dubai,” says Morgan in an interview with Table.Media. She also expresses optimism about a global target for climate adaptation at COP28, noting that, “in order for adaptation to work, it needs to be local and involve local communities”. For Germany, another goal at COP28 is a decision to “phase out” fossil fuels worldwide: “We are working on it, we need a breakthrough and the emissions peak before 2025,” says Morgan. In addition, the climate envoy mentions in the interview that the German foreign ministry is “fighting” to increase funding for international climate finance in the national budget to be €6bn for 2025.

Finally, Der Spiegel reports that the German federal government has reached a rapprochement in the dispute over the ban on installing new gas and oil heating systems from 2024. It was presented by economy minister Robert Habeck after both the FDP and the SPD had criticised the draft amendment to the Building Energy Act. However, the outlet adds there are still technical questions to be clarified, which is why the draft law will not be ready for adoption by the federal cabinet next Wednesday when it meets. In addition, Clean Energy Wire reports that homeowners are concerned about the ministry’s plans for a de-facto oil and gas heating ban. 

UN secretary general António Guterres has warned that water is at the heart of climate change, with an increasingly dire carousel of droughts, floods and sea level rise felt “making our planet uninhabitable”, the Guardian reports. On the second day of the three-day UN water conference in New York, Guterres said: “As countries hurtle past the 1.5C limit (2.7F), climate change is intensifying heatwaves, droughts, flooding, wildfires and famines, while threatening to submerge low-lying countries and cities and drive more species to extinction.” The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which holds the presidency for COP28, came under pressure to put water front and centre of the UN climate talks to be held in Dubai in November, the paper says: “Advocates, NGOs and ministers from the Netherlands, Finland, France, Tajikistan and Egypt urged the UAE to formally include water in the four negotiating tracks – mitigation, adaptation, finance and loss and damage.” The paper quotes Johanna Sumuvuori, Finland’s deputy foreign minister, who said: “COP28 needs to keep water high on the agenda, it should be part of climate adaptation and mitigation and this conference must feed into the global stocktake.” Simon Stiell, executive director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, added: “The global stocktake will be the moment of truth…although we already know we’re not where we need to be, the response will be an opportunity for course correction and water has to be a key element of that roadmap.” The conference is expected to culminate today with the “Water Action Agenda” – a non-binding collection of commitments that advocates hope will snowball into binding agreements at COP28, the paper says. However, it notes, “despite what’s at stake, there have been few concrete financial pledges, few world leaders and no protesters to call out government and private sector hypocrisies”. Bloomberg also reports from the conference.

There is continuing coverage of the synthesis report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) earlier this week, with a number of outlets focusing on the summary of the report approval process published by the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) Climate Home News says that governments “fought over how their favoured green technologies are described”. It says: “As governments met in Switzerland to approve the report, a group led by Saudi Arabia pushed for an emphasis on sucking carbon out of the atmosphere through carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. But a group of mainly European nations wanted the report to say that solar and wind electricity ‘is now cheaper than energy from fossil fuels in many regions’.” Germany said this sentence was of “paramount” importance but, according to the summary, Saudi Arabia “strongly opposed inclusion of the sentence”. CHN adds: “The Bahamas’ representative called for the report to say specifically that CCS technology, unlike wind and solar, is not getting cheaper. But Saudi Arabia pushed back, saying that CCS and CDR are ‘in fact unavoidable’. The paragraph they were debating ended up referring to ‘sustained decreases’ in the cost of solar, wind and batteries without mentioning CCS or CDR.” Bloomberg’s coverage focuses on how countries, including China, the US, Saudi Arabia and Norway, “watered down” the report. And Quartz notes that the ENB summary is excluded from the smaller “huddles” where detailed discussions happen. The Distilled newsletter has a post headlined: “How meat and fossil fuel producers watered down the latest IPCC report.” Carbon Brief has now published its detailed summary of the IPCC report, which also draws on the ENB’s reporting.

A Conservative thinktank has suggested that new climate visas should be created to allow victims of natural disasters to come to the UK, and to bring in skilled workers needed for the transition to net-zero, reports the Guardian. It continues: “Onward, whose co-founder Will Tanner recently became Rishi Sunak’s deputy chief of staff, is urging the government to prepare for the likely increase in global migration as a result of the climate crisis. The authors of the report call for the government to prioritise financial support for climate adaptation in developing countries, but also to open up new legal migration routes.” The paper quotes Ted Christie-Miller, an author on the report, who says: “We cannot allow climate-related migration to become the defining crisis of the 21st century. The government needs to act now to build climate resilience in the most vulnerable regions on the planet and open up safe and legal visa routes for those fleeing environmental disasters.” A separate “environmental resilience visa scheme” could involve the UK establishing partnerships with climate-vulnerable countries, the thinktank says. In this way, “migration could form part of the answer to ensuring the UK has the skills necessary to meet the government’s target of hitting net-zero carbon emissions by 2050”, the Guardian says. The Independent also has the story, while Christie-Miller writes in the Times Red Box about the recommendations. He says: “Immigration has firmly returned to the top of the political agenda. And as the world’s climate changes and people are forced to move, it is likely to stay there.” The piece concludes: “Solely tackling migration at our borders, without thinking about the causes, passes the buck to future generations. We need to act now to ensure this doesn’t become the defining crisis of the 21st century, at home and beyond.” 

In an “exclusive”, the Sun reports that “alarming gaps in the UK’s ability to cope with a national power outage have been revealed in an emergency test”. The UK government’s analysis of last year’s “war game” trial – named Mighty Oak – found “different levels in the readiness to respond to an outage” both locally and nationally, the paper says. A second nationwide three-day exercise has been ordered, beginning on 28 March, and will involve hundreds of participants across the country. This will include “the Scottish and Welsh Governments, Border Force, NHS England, the BBC and prison officials”, while “No 10 will be involved in meetings to deal with the staged crisis”. The Sun quotes the government’s report as saying “the aim is to fully test… the impacts this catastrophic risk would cause were it to occur”. In an editorial, the Sun says it is “alarming, if unsurprising, to learn that a nationwide power cut would cause mayhem for which we are woefully unready”. The editorial attacks the UK’s use of renewables, even though renewables are not mentioned in its news report.

In other UK energy news, the Times follows up on a Bloomberg investigation, published yesterday, which “suggests that energy companies have received more than half a billion pounds from consumers ‘by using a controversial trading manoeuvre to demand higher prices for generating power’”. The investigation found that “gas and coal power plant owners including Vitol’s VPI, Uniper and SSE opted not to generate electricity through Britain’s main power market, forcing National Grid to pay them much higher prices through a separate market to prevent blackouts”, the paper explains. It notes that “Downing Street described the behaviour as ‘completely unacceptable’, while MPs described it as ‘morally wrong’ and a ‘scandal’”. And Bloomberg reports on analysis showing that sales of heat pumps in the UK are “among the worst in Europe”.

Ford says it expects to lose $3bn making electric vehicles this year, reports the Financial Times, as it ups spending through building new assembly and battery plants, as well as adding a new type of battery technology. The EV business, known as “Model e”, reported a $900m loss in 2021 and $2.1bn in 2022 as it accelerated production of electric models, the paper explains. The company is now reporting profits and losses in three separate categories: cars and trucks powered by internal combustion engines, vehicles powered by batteries, and commercial vehicles. The paper quotes Ford’s chief financial officer John Lawler, who said: “Ford Model e is an EV start-up within Ford and, as everyone knows, EV start-ups lose money while they invest in capability, develop knowledge, build volume and gain share.” The Daily Telegraph, Reuters and Ars Technica all have the story, while an editorial in the Wall Street Journal says that Ford can afford to make the losses because “federal subsidies and gasoline-powered trucks make the business too big to fail”.

Meanwhile, life and arts columnist Simon Kuper writes in the Financial Times Magazine that “if we’re serious about keeping the planet liveable, we have to regulate and tax huge cars out of existence”. Huge cars “have gone global”, he says, noting that “SUVs last year accounted for a record 46% of the world’s car sales”. Getting rid of them is “about reducing emissions first and road accidents second”, he argues.

Offshore Engineer Magazine reports that China “plans to use renewable energy sources such as wind and solar to provide onsite power for enhanced oil and gas recovery techniques”, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA), the country’s top energy regulator. In an “action plan for 2023-2025” issued by the NEA this week, gas output could be “increased by 3bn cubic metres (bcm) through pressure-boosted mining techniques”, while crude oil production could be “lifted by more than 2m tonnes through renewable-powered CO2 flooding and thermal recovery techniques”, it adds. Reuters also covers the action plan, saying that China will launch a “pilot scheme to promote the development of renewable energy in rural areas”, citing the plan. Under the scheme, “provincial-level” government departments are to “identify rural ‘pilot counties’ for the construction of renewable energy projects and submit development plans to the NEA for evaluation and approval by the end of May this year”, the newswire adds, citing the statement.

Meanwhile, China Dialogue writes that a “special” agency focussed on ESG (environmental, social and governance) reporting will “help reform China’s environmental disclosure system”. It adds that Zhang Yujun, director of the Foreign Environmental Cooperation Centre of the environment ministry, revealed the existence of the new agency during a conference on 17 March. Finally, state newswire Xinhua reports: “China, as a responsible developing country, has been honouring its commitments to tackling climate change and boosting high-quality development through meteorological modernisation.”

In a frontpage story, the Daily Mail reports that around 120 top legal professionals are set to sign a “Declaration of Conscience” vowing to refuse their services in prosecuting protesters from climate activist groups, such as Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. It continues: “Amid accusations of virtue signalling, the group – who call themselves ‘Lawyers are Responsible’ – will also refuse to act on behalf of clients involved in oil and gas on the grounds that they are destroying the environment. Prominent lawyers understood to be involved are Jolyon Maugham KC, founder of the Good Law Project, and Sir Geoffrey Bindman KC, chairman of the British Institute of Human Rights.” However, it also notes that “i​n English law, the so-called cab rank rule means a barrister must take a case that is within their knowledge and expertise, provided they are free to do so, no matter how unpalatable the cause”. The paper quotes Conservative MP Sir Geoffrey Cox KC, a former attorney general, who said: ‘It’s difficult to see, given the very clear rules that the profession requires, how you could justify refusing instructions for political reasons.” However, Prof Leslie Thomas KC, the Gresham professor of law, said: “Signing the [declaration] does not mean I reject the cab rank rule or that I would refuse to act for any client who instructs me in accordance with it. It simply means I support the right of lawyers to take a stand against new fossil fuel projects and to defend those who peacefully protest against them.” In an editorial, the Daily Mail – which was one of several UK newspapers accused of being “corrupt as f**k” and targeted with green spray paint by Extinction Rebellion this week – says that it is “disgraceful” that “these self-important lawyers” let “political views get in the way of professional obligations”. The Daily Telegraph picks up on the story.

In the Guardian, Sadiq Khan – the Labour mayor of London – and Conservative MP and “net-zero tsar” Chris Skidmore team up to write that “there is no greater challenge facing our capital, our country and our world” than climate change. They say: “The only way we can keep the hope of limiting global heating to 1.5C is if we commit to further and faster action as cities and countries. That’s why we must work together wherever possible – across the political divide – to help achieve net zero by cleaning up our rivers and air, insulating our homes, unlocking a revolution in renewable power and ending our toxic reliance on polluting vehicles.” Focusing on London, the article Khan and Skidmore write that, last summer, the city “faced record-breaking 40C weather, causing wildfires and the busiest day for the London fire brigade since the blitz. The year before, we saw the devastating impact of flooding, leaving tube stations filled with water, roads impassable and people losing their homes. All these things are a trailer for a movie we really don’t want to watch, which is why national and local leadership is so important”. Skidmore’s net-zero review, published earlier this year, “made clear that reaching net-zero is not just about avoiding climate catastrophe, but about grasping the opportunity to reap the economic benefits of green economic growth”, they write: “As politicians from different political parties, we want to set an example of what’s possible. We want to work together to remind investors that net-zero is a huge opportunity, and that London is always open to it. We want to work together to inspire other politicians, at home and abroad, to follow our lead by putting tribal politics to one side. We want to work together so that we don’t let down younger generations who are, rightly, demanding faster action. And we want to work together to prove to our fellow citizens and colleagues that a better way is possible – and that the long-term health of our people and planet can come ahead of short-term politics.” In an accompanying news piece, the Guardian notes that, next week, “the government is set to respond to Skidmore’s review of net-zero, which criticised politicians for a lack of action and ambition on the climate emergency”.

New research shows that the risks from sea level rise are higher than previously thought, due to cascading effects, such as flooded roadways cutting off populations from essential services. Scientists use projected maps of sea-level rise alongside maps of roadways, population density and essential services such as fire stations to determine the risk of isolation during flooding events. They find that the number of people at risk of isolation from flooding is 30-90% higher than the number of people at risk of flooding alone, and that the “risk of isolation may occur decades sooner than risk of inundation”. The authors conclude by saying that “both risk metrics provide critical information”and should be used in tandem to support communities at risk.

Natural genetic variation in white-tailed jackrabbit populations may allow the species to rapidly adapt to climate change, according to a new study. Researchers model wintertime coloration of the rabbits and compare the distribution to snow cover across North America, then use genetic sequencing to identify specific genes associated with winter coat colour. They find that the colour variation is “primarily determined” by natural variation of a few genes and that their modelled rabbit populations “are predicted to adapt rapidly”. They conclude: “These discoveries demonstrate how the genetic basis of climate change adaptation can inform conservation.”

A new study finds that in a future, warmer ocean, carnivorous zooplankton, such as jellyfish, and gelatinous filter-feeding zooplankton will “increasingly dominat[e]” marine food webs. Using a marine ecosystem model and projections of future ocean warming, researchers determine how zooplankton distribution and biomass will change under continued climate change. They find that the rise of carnivorous and gelatinous zooplankton comes at the expense of omnivorous zooplankton. The authors contend that their new modelling framework is a “powerful way to generate new insights into how climate change will affect zooplankton and the pivotal role they play in the world’s marine ecosystems”.