Russia is holding back at least a third of the gas it could be sending to Europe, according to Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), reports the Financial Times on its frontpage. Birol said Russia was limiting supply at a time of “heightened geopolitical tensions”, the paper says, adding that this “impl[ies] that Moscow has manufactured an energy crisis for political ends”. It quotes Birol saying: “We believe there are strong elements of tightness in the European gas market due to Russia’s behaviour…Russia could increase deliveries to Europe by at least one-third – this is the key message.” The FT adds: “The comments from Birol are his most pointed yet on Russia’s role in the energy crisis. They come as households in Europe expect steep increases in energy bills after wholesale gas and electricity prices hit record levels.” It notes that Russian gas deliveries to Europe were down 25% year-on-year in the last quarter of 2021, according to the IEA. The Guardian also reports Birol’s comments, saying he has “accused Russia of orchestrating Europe’s deepening energy crisis at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions by withholding up to a third of its gas exports”. The Moscow Times says Russia “has been blamed for withholding shipments to Europe during a cold snap last year and keeping gas storage facilities low”. It adds: “The Kremlin and Gazprom, Russia’s monopoly gas exporter, have denied any wrongdoing, and said Europe should have struck multi-year contracts if it wanted to secure stable energy supplies, rather than relying on short-term market prices.” The paper continues: “The criticism [from the IEA] renews a bitter war of words between Russia, the EU and US over whether Russia is abusing its role as Europe’s main energy supplier to secure final approval for its controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline. That initiative, led by Russia’s Gazprom, has been thrown into new uncertainty in recent days, with US officials saying it would work to block the pipeline from ever going live if Russia invades Ukraine.” Bloomberg reports Birol saying: “While we understand Gazprom is fulfilling its contractual commitments under long-term contracts, it has reduced spot sales to Europe and this is despite the fact that the price under Gazprom’s long-term contracts are well below current spot price levels.” The Daily Telegraph reports the news under the headline: “Russia to blame for energy crisis sweeping Europe, declares IEA.”

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that gas in the the Yamal-Europe pipeline, that normally brings Russian exports to the continent, has for the 24th day in a row been “reversed”, flowing eastwards instead, from Germany to Poland.

ABC News covers a new study, which finds that the increase in daily rainfall and rainfall extremes caused by climate change can dampen economic growth. The paper quotes the lead author of the study, Leonie Wenz, who explains that “intensified daily rainfall turns out to be bad, especially for wealthy, industrialized countries like the US, Japan or Germany”, but adds that smaller agrarian economies could see benefits. Politico adds : “The survey of 1,554 regions in 77 countries found societies were ill-equipped to cope with unusual weather…An increase in the number of wet days that would normally be expected during a six-year period could shave more than 1 percentage point off annual economic growth. More extreme storms and droughts also hurt.” Nature also carries a news and views piece on the study.

Shipping giant Maersk is aiming to reach net-zero emissions by 2040, a decade earlier than previously announced in 2018, Reuters reports. It says the shift comes “on the back of rising customer demand for green transportation and technical leaps”. The newswire adds that Maersk has “so far ordered 12 vessels able to run on carbon-neutral methanol” and aims to transport a quarter of its sea freight using “green fuels” by 2030. It cites a senior executive saying that such fuels are twice as costly and currently in limited supply, but that Maersk’s customers are willing to pay. The Financial Times says Maersk is the world’s second-largest container company by volume and also aims to reduce emissions per container by half in 2030. It says the Maersk is expecting to need to use offsetting to cover the final 5-10% of its emissions in 2040, citing the firm’s head of decarbonisation. Bloomberg, BusinessGreen and the Independent also have the story.

In other shipping news, Reuters reports that European Commission proposals to regulate emissions from the sector “contain exclusions for small commercial and military vessels that would leave millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions unregulated, an NGO study showed on Thursday”.

NGO Milieudefensie, the Dutch wing of Friends of the Earth, has launched a legal campaign against 30 major corporate emitters, following its successful case against Shell, Reuters reports. It says the group is targeting large companies with legal bases in the Netherlands, reporting: “The heads of the companies were being sent letters demanding that they provide plans outlining how they will trim emissions by 45% from 2019 levels by 2030, in line with the Paris climate accord. A failure to do so may result in legal action, said Peer de Rijk, policy officer at Milieudefensie.”

Separately, the Bank of England is calling for banks and insurers in the country to “act urgently to address the risks posed by a warming climate”, the Times reports. It adds: “Many financial institutions are focused on the ‘business opportunities presented by climate change’, according to officials from the Bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority, who reminded firms ‘that climate change also presents an increasing business risk that is foreseeable and demands action now’.”

Meanwhile, the Financial Times “moral money” briefing is titled: “Why companies must take shareholder petitions more seriously this year”. And another Financial Times article says activists are “target[ing] public relations groups for greenwashing fossil fuels”.

One-third of the companies that rely most on commodities responsible for deforestation have no policies around reducing deforestation, Inside Climate News says. This is according to a report by the NGO Global Canopy, which investigated the deforestation policies of “350 companies that most rely on commodities responsible for deforestation and the 150 banks and financial institutions that support them, including pension funds and asset managers”, according to the outlet. It adds: “Only one quarter of food manufacturers, retailers and restaurant chains have pledged to eliminate deforestation from the beef, soy and palm oil in their supply chains, while only half the agribusiness commodities companies have done so. Together the food and agribusiness industries comprise half of the companies in the Global Canopy analysis.” Reuters adds that of the 150 financial institutions, “just 38% had a clear policy on addressing deforestation”.

Saudi Arabia plans to develop a nuclear power programme and aims to be the world’s cheapest green hydrogen producer, Reuters reports, citing comments from the country’s energy minister ahead of publishing a new energy strategy. However, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al-Saud also said that the transition away from fossil fuels is complicated and that the world should not sacrifice energy security “for the sake of a publicity stunt”, Reuters adds.

EU budget commissioner Johannes Hahn is opposed to carving out climate spending from the bloc’s public debt calculations, the Financial Times reports, citing his comments to the paper. It explains that EU debt rules were suspended during the pandemic and are due to be discussed next week, with France and Italy among those supporting revisions to incentivise green spending. Hahn is Austria’s commissioner and “reflects the traditional view in frugal northern states such as the Netherlands, Nordics and Baltics”, the paper adds.

Germany will continue with its plans to phase out nuclear and coal power despite rising energy prices, chancellor Olaf Scholz told parliament yesterday, according to Reuters. It reports: “Scholz told parliament that his government would instead expedite the process of gaining permission to expand solar and wind farms to push prices down and meet power demand expected to rise to about 800 terawatts (TW) in 2030 from around 600TW today.”

Another Reuters story says that French state-owned utility firm EDF has announced a further six-month delay to the start of operations at the Flamanville new nuclear plant, as well as another €300m increase in costs. It says: “EDF now estimates the total cost of the project at €12.7bn ($14.42bn). Its expected cost has more than quadrupled from the first estimate made in 2004.”

Meanwhile, Politico reports from Italy: “Right-wing parties are pushing for a rethink of the country’s long-standing nuclear ban, citing the need to attain energy sovereignty to manage rising energy bills and to fill the gap left by fossil fuels as they’re phased out thanks to climate change pledges.”

Sky News carries an exclusive interview with Yasmine Fouad – Egypt’s environment minister – ahead of COP27, which the country is hosting in November. Fouad tells Sky News: “Egypt’s status as a lower middle-income country, outside of the powerful G20, was irrelevant to its diplomacy as the next COP host”, and that the country would “‘discuss with all the emitters, whether they are the big emitters or the least emitters’ on how they can each deliver on the Paris Agreement”. The outlet continues: “Speaking from the World Youth Forum in Sharm el-Sheikh, Fouad said the protests at COP27 would be ‘no different’ to protests at previous COP talks, where civil society usually turns out en masse to campaign for bolder climate action from leaders. Observers fear the right to protest at COP27 will be curtailed by Egypt’s authoritarian regime.“ The broadcaster adds: “Egypt is yet to publish its new [climate] plan – known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC) – but Fouad said there was ‘no shame because the NDC is not a prerequisite for the Paris Agreement…It is a process that the country has started internally’.”

Meanwhile, director of the climate and energy thinktank Power Shift Africa Mohamed Adow has penned an opinion piece in African Arguments entitled: “2022 is Africa’s year to lead the world on climate change.“ He argues that “nowhere experiences the bitter injustice of climate change like Africa”, and says that while “some progress” was made at COP26, “those of us from Africa came away feeling it had been a conference led by the Global North and whose outcomes reflected the interests of the UK hosts”. However, Adow says that COP26 “did lay the ground for 2022 to be the year that Africa changes this course”. He highlights the need for climate finance flows between the Global North and Global South and goes on to discuss the importance of loss and damage, which he calls “one of the biggest issues on the global climate stage”. He concludes: “Millions of Africans need their political leaders to become climate leaders in 2022. In parts of the continent, we’re already showing the way with the transition from dirty, polluting energy to the clean, green, renewables of the future. We have the wind and solar resources to be a trailblazer for decarbonisation around the globe. We now need to see African leaders uniting to make climate funding and loss and damage a red line for Africa at CO27 and ensure this African COP delivers for all those around the world on the front line of the climate crisis.”

Rather than imposing a windfall tax, the UK should cut rates for the North Sea oil and gas sector to accelerate domestic production, writes international business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Daily Telegraph. He continues: “But we should also speed up the switch to home-grown renewable power. These objectives are not in conflict: gas and wind fit hand in glove. By all means let us have nuclear power from small modular reactors – if they are cheap enough – but SMRs are a faraway story for the 2030s.” Evans-Pritchard adds: “One thing this winter drama is categorically not is a failure of wind power…Our problem is not wind. It is over-reliance on imported global gas.”

The intensification of rainfall extremes as a result of human-caused climate change will have “negative global economic consequences”, a new study suggests. Using economic data for 1,554 regions worldwide over the past 40 years, the researchers show that “economic growth rates are reduced by increases in the number of wet days and in extreme daily rainfall”. The study notes that “high-income nations and the services and manufacturing sectors are most strongly hindered by both measures of daily rainfall”. An accompanying News & Views article says the research shows that “incorporating the details of an extreme event – where and when it hits – can have a profound effect on the assessment of its macroeconomic impact”.