Governments around the world collectively “spent a record $1tn last year subsidising energy sources that are the main driver of climate change”, reports Bloomberg. That is the finding of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which “estimates that the combined subsidies for oil, natural gas, electricity and coal hit an all-time high in 2022 as soaring energy prices crippled economies”, the newswire says. This spending by governments in 2022 was more than double total global investment in renewable energy sources, the article says. The record subsidies followed the COP26 climate summit in November 2021 when world leaders pledged to end such subsidies, the IEA report says: “The Glasgow Climate Pact emphasised that phasing out fossil fuel subsidies is a fundamental step toward a successful clean energy transition…However, today’s global energy crisis has also underscored some of the political challenges of doing so.”

With the early exit of current World Bank president Davis Malpass later this year, the US Treasury “is racing to assemble a list of contenders with strong credentials in climate finance to lead the overhaul of the World Bank”, the Financial Times reports. It says: “The US, which traditionally chooses the World Bank president, is expected to select a candidate who could attract the backing of other leading shareholders and accelerate its reform to put climate change at the heart of its work…The board is expected to announce soon a timeline for all the member states to propose potential candidates for the top job, and their vetting will begin after that process.” The newspaper takes a look at potential candidates, which include: “Samantha Power, the former US ambassador to the UN and now chief of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Rockefeller Foundation president Raj Shah, and World Trade Organization director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, according to development finance officials”. It adds: “Gayle Smith, a former senior Obama aide, US development official and Africa expert, and Mafalda Duarte, chief executive officer of the $11bn Climate Investment Funds, are also potential candidates.” The Guardian reports that Shah “has emerged as the favourite” for the job. However, the paper adds, “the likelihood that Washington will use a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ under which the US picks the World Bank president while Europe chooses the managing director of its sister organisation – the International Monetary Fund – brought immediate calls for the process to be opened up”.

Reuters carries an “exclusive” interview with Malpass, in which the outgoing World Bank president says he decided to leave before his five-year contract ended because he felt work was well underway on reforms aimed at expanding the bank’s lending. When asked about the timing of his departure, Malpass said: “There’s a lot of logic to it, both from the spot of the bank and also me personally…We’re completing the things that I needed to get done at the bank. We’ve launched the evolution process and it’s far along…And then, for me personally, it will have been more than four years, which is a long time in the job.” Malpass “dismissed suggestions that he was pushed out”, the newswire notes. The Washington Post also had a “brief telephone interview” with Malpass, where he “repeatedly resisted clarifying the reason for his early exit”, the paper says. Malpass also said the bank deserved credit for more than doubling its climate funding to nearly $32bn in its most recent financial year, the paper notes. “There’s been a lot of effort to personalise the challenge the world faces – this tremendous challenge of how to get enough resources to climate” without shortchanging education and health programmes, Malpass said. “We’re doing a good job in balancing that.”

Malpass also tells Reuters that the World Bank “is considering taking on more risk to free up $4bn in additional lending capacity each year”. The bank is “under pressure to do more to help poor countries grapple with climate change”, the newswire says. It continues: “Malpass said the bank’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) arm may lower its equity-to-lending ratio by one percentage point to 19%. Lowering the equity-to-lending ratio would free up more resources at a time of mounting global challenges such as the Ukraine war, he said. The board was expected to decide on the issue by the April meetings of the bank and the International Monetary Fund.”

UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt is “poised to reject calls for an expanded windfall tax on energy firms’ profits after the parent company of British Gas revealed it had made £3bn”, reports the i newspaper. The outlet says it “understands” that the chancellor “will not announce a final decision on the levy until next month’s budget, but he is expected to argue that the tax in its current form is sufficient”. It continues: “Sources close to Hunt pointed to the relatively small level of profit which Centrica, the owner of British Gas, has made from supplying households – around £8 per customer. There are also concerns that repeatedly changing the details of the taxation system undermines the stability of the investment environment.” The outlet includes a response by shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband, who said: “It cannot be right that, as oil and gas giants rake in the windfalls of war, the Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives refuse to implement a proper windfall tax that would make them pay their fair share.”

Meanwhile, the UK arm of French energy giant EDF has returned to profit this financial year, reports BBC News – which says the firm was “boosted by it being able to sell the electricity it generated for a higher price”. The outlet says: “The firm’s underlying profit before one off items – EBITDA – was £1.12bn, compared with a loss of £21m in 2021. However, its UK energy supply arm lost more than £200m in the year. The firm said that was because the cost of buying energy for its residential customers was higher than the prices set under the energy price cap.”

In related news, the Guardian reports on new research that shows “soaring energy prices triggered by the Russia-Ukraine conflict could push up to 141 million more people around the globe into extreme poverty”. The study, published in Nature Energy, modelled the impact of higher energy prices on the spending of 201 groups, representing different expenditure levels, in 116 countries, covering 87.4% of the global population, the paper explains. The findings suggest “the cost of energy for households globally could have increased by between 62.6% and 112.9% since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”, the paper says, adding: “Despite efforts by governments to insulate consumers from the price rises, researchers estimated that overall household expenditure rose by between 2.7% and 4.8%. As a result, they estimate that an additional 78-141 million people worldwide could be pushed into extreme poverty.” The study authors have written an article for the Conversation.

There is now less sea ice surrounding the Antarctic continent than at any time since scientists began using satellites to measure it in the late 1970s, BBC News reports. Citing the latest data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the outlet says that, while it is the southern hemisphere summer, when less sea ice is expected, “this year is exceptional”. It continues: “Winds and warmer air and water reduced coverage to just 1.91m km2 (737,000 sq miles) on 13 February. What is more, the melt still has some way to go this summer. Last year, the previous record-breaking minimum of 1.92m km2 (741,000 sq miles) wasn’t reached until 25 February. Three of the last record-breaking years for low sea ice have happened in the past seven years: 2017, 2022 and now 2023.” The outlet adds: “Scientists consider the behaviour of Antarctic sea ice to be a complicated phenomenon which cannot simply be ascribed to climate change.” The Guardian also covers the story. For more on the factors affecting Antarctic sea ice, see Carbon Brief’s guest post from 2021.

New analysis suggests that extreme high temperatures in Argentina linked to climate change exacerbated the impact of a historic drought that has hit the South American country’s farm regions since last year, reports Reuters. It continues: “Scientists affiliated with the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group said that a rapid analysis showed climate change did not reduce rainfall directly, but that high temperatures likely reduced water availability and worsened the impacts of drought…The lack of rain is linked to the presence of the La Niña climate phenomenon, a cooling of the equatorial Pacific that cuts rainfall in parts of Argentina.” The Associated Press quotes study co-author Dr Friederike Otto, who says: “There is no climate change signal in the rainfall…But of course, that doesn’t mean that climate change doesn’t play an important role in the context of these droughts. Because of the extreme increase in heat that we see, the soils do dry faster and the impacts are more severe [than] they would have otherwise been.” The New York Times notes that, in an earlier analysis, WWA “found a link between climate change and the December heatwave, saying that it was about 60 times more likely to occur than it would have been in a world that had not warmed”. Carbon Brief has all the details on the drought study, as well as the earlier heatwave analysis.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the drought is having “big repercussions for global food markets, forcing farmers to slash harvest outlooks and denting grains supply from the world’s top exporter of soy oil and meal, the [third highest] for corn, and a major wheat and beef supplier”. It adds: “This in turn hits Argentina’s ability to build up much-needed reserves of dollars, threatening to derail a fragile economic revival and leave the government unable to meet debt repayments amid spiralling inflation and a deep fiscal deficit.”

Net-zero is “absolutely the right agenda” for the UK government to pursue, former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng said in an interview last night, reports the Daily Telegraph. In only his second public appearance since his short-lived tenure in the role last year, Kwarteng told TalkTV that “the idea that just burning more coal and burning fossil fuels is the future I think is wrong, it’s false…I think the net-zero agenda is absolutely the right agenda. The idea you can burn coal like we did in the 50s, forever and ever, is absurd”. Kwarteng also “said energy price shocks had been caused by supply chain issues after lockdown and the invasion of Ukraine, rather than emissions targets”, the paper notes. And Kwarteng said that he was never particularly supportive of fracking because it created a “big political problem” and is far easier to do in the US than in the UK.

Yicai reports that the European Parliament’s “recent ban on the sale of carbon-emitting vehicles from 2035 will without doubt boost China’s new energy vehicle manufacturers”. The European Union has been the “biggest importer of China’s electric cars since 2021”, the Shanghai-based financial outlet adds. Separately, the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) has hosted a symposium on the industry’s “overview of 2022 and outlooks of 2023”, reports the China Energy News. According to the CPIA’s infographics published by the state-run industry newspaper, the association forecasts that “in an optimistic scenario, the national newly installed photovoltaic capacity will reach 120GW (gigawatts) in 2023”. 

Meanwhile, the Global Times has an interview with Leslie Maasdorp, vice president and chief financial officer of the New Development Bank (NDB), a multilateral development bank established by the BRICS states. [BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.] Maasdorp said that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)’s “green push” is “likely to send a powerful message to the world amid the heating global battle against climate change”. He also “highlighted” the “growing role” of BRICS countries in the global economy, “projecting that China and India together are likely to account for 50% of global growth in 2023”, says the state-run newspaper. 

Elsewhere, Reuters reports that Europe’s ”growing need“ for liquefied “natural” gas (LNG) will ”boost competition with Asia for LNG over the next two years as supply remains limited”, citing Shell. The article quotes Steve Hill, executive vice president for energy marketing of Shell, who said that “the faster the growth in Chinese economic demand and, therefore, in the LNG demand, the tighter the [European gas] market will be”. Bloomberg also has the story. Finally, Reuters reports that “at least one ship carrying Australian coal” that was “destined for China has been diverted due to uncertainty around Chinese customs policies following the easing of a ban on imports from Australia”, citing “traders and ship-tracking data”.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz and Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo have signed an agreement to intensify their energy collaboration and enhance their energy independence during a Belgian-German energy summit held in Belgium port city Zeebrugge, reports Offshore Energy. Zeebrugge plays a crucial role in ensuring Germany’s gas supply, explains EurActiv. The outlet also notes that the two countries have agreed to link their hydrogen networks, double gas transit to Germany and conduct a study to construct a second electricity interconnector. “Today, we put a booster on energy cooperation. Belgium is a European energy crossroads. Today for gas for Germany and tomorrow for the energy of the future: renewable energy and green hydrogen,” Belgian energy minister Tinne Van Der Straeten is quoted saying. Clean Energy Wire also covers the story, adding that the goal of connecting the hydrogen infrastructure between Belgium and Germany is set for 2028. 

Meanwhile, Germany’s Handelsblatt reports the growing fear in the nation’s solar industry of the consequences of depending on China. “There is an inescapable dependence on China that cannot be denied. And that is significantly greater than the dependency on Russia when it comes to gas,” says a high-ranking manager from the solar industry speaking to Handelsblatt. The outlet says that the Chinese economy ministry has published a catalogue with proposals for new export regulations, which restricts the export of machines to produce essential components for photovoltaics (PV). Der Spiegel adds that China’s Xinjiang province “is the Silicon Valley of the global solar industry”, producing around 45% of the global polycrystalline silicon and hosting four of the five largest manufacturers. The outlet quotes the head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg, Andreas Bett: “When the export restrictions come, the technology in Europe cannot develop further.” 

Elsewhere, Reuters reports that German finance minister Christian Lindner and vice-chancellor Robert Habeck “have clashed” over plans for next year’s budget. “We suggest that we discuss how to improve revenues, push ahead with the reduction of environmentally damaging subsidies,” wrote Habeck in a letter to “pro-business FDP leader” Lindner. However, Lindner replied that “tax increases or other additional structural burdens for citizens or the economy are excluded from the coalition agreement.” Der Spiegel also covers the story, adding that Habeck’s proposal means, for example, bans on technologies with high CO2 emissions. 

Finally, Die Zeit reports that the federal government commissioner for eastern Germany, Carsten Schneider, does not currently believe that an early exit from coal in the region is feasible: “The conditions for getting out early in 2030 are not visible at the moment,” said the SPD politician yesterday during a visit to the Lippendorf power plant in the central German lignite mining area.

In an “exclusive”, the Guardian reveals that “the Science Museum in London signed a sponsorship contract containing a gagging clause with the Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor, agreeing to take care not to say anything that could damage the firm’s reputation”. Working with the investigative journalism organisation Point Source, the Guardian obtained a copy of the agreement, which concerned sponsorship of the museum’s current Wonderlab exhibition. The paper explains: “It stated that the Science Museum and its trustees must take reasonable care to ‘not at any time’ during the exhibition term ‘make any statement or issue any publicity or otherwise be involved in any conduct or matter that may reasonably be foreseen as discrediting or damaging the goodwill or reputation of the sponsor’.” The inclusion of the so-called non-disparagement clause “has led to accusations of greenwashing from environmental groups”, the paper says, adding that “Equinor and the Science Museum declined to reveal how much the oil company paid to sponsor the Wonderlab exhibition”.

A “glimmer of good news” amid the “misery of war in Ukraine” is that the “green transition has speeded up”, says an editorial in the Economist, yet “even as governments have loosened the purse-strings, they have begun to blunt the incentives to invest”. It continues: “One problem is obtaining permits. Endless delays stop firms that want to invest from breaking ground. This has long been an obstacle to new projects in America and Europe; the worrying thing is that some places are going backwards. Denmark is a star in offshore wind. But on 6 February it stopped processing all applications for such projects, after a dawning realisation that it may be in breach of EU law.” However, the “bigger problem, says the Economist, is that ”some renewables providers are now rethinking their investments altogether, because energy projects are becoming less attractive. Price caps and various taxes, together with rising costs, are putting them off”. The result has been “squeezed profits”, which is “clogging up project pipelines”, the outlet says, warning: “From America to Asia, wind developers are trying to revise their bids or renegotiate financing deals, delaying construction. Some are withdrawing from big tenders, decrying projects as “uninvestible”. In America many solar projects are stalled, and in Europe fewer agreements to buy the power they generate are being signed.” The editorial concludes that “if investing is to stay attractive, green power will need to be sold at higher prices than governments would like. If the energy transition is to happen fast, there must not be a race to the bottom”.

In other energy-related comment, Mathew Lawrence – director of the thinktank Common Wealth – writes in the Guardian in favour of taking “UK’s wider renewable and nuclear energy assets” into public ownership. He argues that this would “ensure the energy system is organised for the public good” and “would eliminate value extraction for external shareholders”, as well as being “a spur to more rapid decarbonisation and the on-shoring of the green industrial supply chains of our post-carbon future”. The Financial Times Lex column says that although Centrica’s profits jumped in response to higher natural gas and power prices, the low stock rating of the British Gas owner “reflects doubts over the duration of recovery – as well as calls for higher windfall taxes”. Finally, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal warns of the “perils” of the new “hydrogen economy” in Europe – “even as political enthusiasm for it reaches a new peak”.

In an interview with the Press Gazette’s Future of Media Explained podcast, Carbon Brief’s editor Leo Hickman explains why climate change has become one of the most popular specialist areas for aspiring journalists. In a wide-ranging discussion, Hickman says that news reporting around climate change in national outlets has “improved dramatically in terms of its reliability and accuracy”. However, he notes, “the opinion pages, which obviously include the editorials, is still an incredibly mixed bag”. Nonetheless, there is a “heartening trend” of journalism jobs on the climate beat “being created or increased and boosted around this”, Hickman says, adding: “Now people see climate journalism as, I would say, up there as being something they really aspire to do, because they know that it’s important, they know it has impact, it has global impact. And to be honest, every [part] of journalism these days, you can probably argue there is a climate angle to be found if you look hard enough.” Elsewhere in the interview, Hickman explains how Carbon Brief has operated since its launch in 2010 on a philanthropic funding model: “I think hopefully we’re a really good case study of how it can work…how that form of funding of journalism can produce highly trusted and respected and impactful public-interest journalism.” However, he adds: “There’s nothing to say we have to be forevermore only funded via philanthropy. Like all publications, it makes sense to diversify your funding and look at other forms of income. And I think we’re probably at that point now, where we’re beginning to look at that.”

Elsewhere in climate journalism, the Washington Post has launched a new “Climate Lab” column, with climate graphics columnist Harry Stevens lined up to write this “experimental feature”. The bi-weekly column “will combine reporting and analysis, cutting-edge interactive graphics, and new features aimed at making our journalism more accessible and transparent to our readers”, the paper says. The first Climate Lab column looks at how climate change could affect global deaths from extreme hot and cold temperatures.

A new study finds that under a very high-emissions scenario, “almost half” of all ocean-dwelling species will lose 50% of their core habitat by 2100. Researchers project the habitat suitability of more than 33,500 marine species across three future climate scenarios based on their current ranges. They find that “many species [will] suffer range contractions and disruptions accompanied by a general loss of suitable habitat space” and that these shifts will result in “substantial changes” to the ecosystems and food webs of much of the ocean. However, they add, the degree of these changes “will critically depend on the realised greenhouse gas emission pathway”.

According to a new study, repurposing abandoned croplands for other land-based mitigation efforts could reduce emissions by 0.8-4bn tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year by mid-century. Using satellite imagery and projections of future cropland abandonment, researchers perform life-cycle analyses for different combinations of tree-planting, bioenergy crop growth and natural regrowth. They find that when combined with carbon capture and storage, bioenergy provides the highest mitigation potential in most places. The results, they write, “highlight opportunities for context-specific mitigation measures”.