In his keynote speech to the Labour party conference in Liverpool yesterday, Keir Starmer “placed climate action at the heart of his economic vision for the UK”, laying out his intention to remove planning barriers and boost investment in renewable energy, the power grid, electric vehicle manufacturing and green steel plants, BusinessGreen reports. The news website quotes Starmer saying: “Clean British energy is cheaper than foreign fossil fuels. That means cheaper bills for every family in the country. But also a chance to make us more competitive. Countries like America are using this gift to create manufacturing jobs the likes of which we haven’t seen for decades, and they’re not the only ones.” The Herald notes that Starmer repeated his pledge to set up a new, publicly owned energy company, Great British Energy, in Scotland, to scale up the UK’s domestic, low-carbon energy infrastructure. The Guardian says Starmer “drew a dividing line” with the Conservatives over climate change following Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to water down the government’s net-zero commitments. According to the newspaper, the Labour leader stated: “When Rishi Sunak says row back on our climate mission, I say speed ahead.” A separate analysis piece in the Guardian notes that Starmer’s “full-throated defence of Labour’s climate policies marked a change in tone”, after some earlier signs that Labour was also scaling back its own climate ambitions. BBC News reports that Starmer pledged to build “the next generation” of new towns, along with 1.5m homes, as part of a “decade of renewal under Labour” that would include building on parts of the greenbelt that are currently protected from development. Another Guardian article says green campaigners broadly welcomed the proposals, but called for reassurances that the new homes would “minimise damage to nature” and be built to low-carbon standards. A Labour spokesperson told the newspaper that the new houses would conform to the future homes standard currently being considered by the existing, Conservative government – but the article adds that “it is unclear as yet what that would involve”.

The speech was interrupted by a protester throwing glitter over Starmer and calling for the use of proportional representation in UK elections, the Daily Telegraph notes. The newspaper says that while the activist, Yaz Ashmawi, is an Extinction Rebellion protester and once called activist Greta Thunberg his hero, “the climate change group said in a statement that he had not been protesting on its behalf”. The Daily Express identifies him as a “senior member of Extinction Rebellion” and a “self-proclaimed” member of the group’s strategy team. Meanwhile, DeSmog reports that Tony Ballance, a senior executive at the UK’s largest gas distributor Cadent, “has been accused of lobbying to slow down climate action after pushing for the use of hydrogen in heating” at a Labour conference panel on net-zero. According to the article, Ballance told the audience to “ignore a growing body of scientific evidence that finds the fuel to be expensive, resource intensive and inefficient at heating homes”.

In more UK news, speaking to City AM, Phil Thompson, chief executive of renewables company Balance Power, warns that the government risks “repeating the mistakes which led to a collapse of investment in onshore wind developments through its reported clampdown on farmland solar projects”.

A period of deadly heat across swathes of South America in August and September was made 100 times more likely, and significantly hotter, by climate change, according to new rapid analysis carried out by World Weather Attribution (WWA) and covered by Scientific American. Millions of people in Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina and Paraguay experienced temperatures that exceeded 40C during what should have been the end of winter across the region, the article notes. It adds that the unseasonable heatwave “significantly affected crops such as coffee and has killed at least four people”, although the scope of heat-related deaths “will take weeks or months to become clear”. The Guardian explains that the WWA team used statistical analysis of historical trends, on-the-ground data and climate models. They showed that, while El Niño was partly responsible for the heat, temperatures across the 10 consecutive hottest days were elevated by between 1.4C and 4.3C as a result of human-caused climate change, the article continues.

Separately, the Independent reports that more than 2 billion people in India, Pakistan and some of the world’s largest cities could be “exposed to intolerable levels of heat within this century”, according to new research. The article cites a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (see the “New climate science” section below), which finds that around 750 million people could experience one week per year of potentially deadly humid heat, if global temperatures rise 2C above pre-industrial levels, while at 3C of warming, more than 1.5 billion people would face such a threat. It notes that the world is currently on track for around 2.8C of warming by 2100. 

Gas prices have “surged”, with wholesale costs rising by as much as 14% in the UK yesterday, after Russia was accused of sabotaging an undersea pipeline between Finland and Estonia, the Daily Telegraph reports in a frontpage story. Finnish president Sauli Niinistö announced that the 48 mile-long Balticconnector link between the two Nato allies has been damaged by “external activity”, the newspaper notes. The event has “fuelled speculation that Russia was behind an attack on the connector, with Moscow previously threatening repercussions for Finland’s decision to join the Nato military alliance”. Reuters reports that Norwegian seismology institute Norsar announced it had identified “a probable explosion” close to the pipeline at around the time of the outage on Sunday, but said there was significant uncertainty and that more analysis was required.

This comes as conflict in Israel and Palestine continues to affect gas prices, with City AM reporting that gas prices have risen to their highest level since June, as UK and European benchmarks are affected by the closure of one of Israel’s largest fields in the Mediterranean Sea. It notes that the Tamar gas field in question is in range of Hamas rockets from Gaza. Bloomberg notes that, as a result, Israel’s gas shipments to Egypt have fallen by 20%, threatening onward deliveries to Europe. The Daily Telegraph has a piece exploring why instability in the region could significantly push up oil prices. In particular, Axios points to the possibility of the US tightening enforcement of sanctions on Iran, due to its alleged support for Palestinian militants. It notes that this would reverse the nation’s growing exports that are helping to meet global demand.

Xie Zhenhua, China’s special envoy for climate change, held a video conference with his US counterpart John Kerry on Monday, reports the state-run newspaper China Daily. The meeting focused on “key topics” of COP28, as well as the “practical cooperation areas” outlined in the China-US joint statement addressing the climate crisis and the “China-US joint Glasgow declaration on enhancing climate action. Another China Daily article carries an interview with Brandon Wu, a director at the NGO ActionAid, who says the US should “stop using China as an excuse for [its] own inaction or to water down international agreements”. DC-based newspaper the Hill publishes commentary by Sadek Wahba, chair of the Wahba Institute for Strategic Competition at the Wilson Center thinktank, who explains how the global water crisis could become a point of collaboration between the US and China. Additionally, China’s Tsinghua University has published its 2023 global progress report on carbon neutrality, reports energy news outlet BJX News. The report states that countries should “strengthen regional and sectoral carbon neutrality targets” and accelerate decarbonisation in cases where “carbon intensity is used as a measure of carbon neutrality”. 

Meanwhile, China has issued guidelines on clean aviation manufacturing for the period of 2023-35, which call for active exploration by state-owned enterprises of hydrogen energy and liquefied natural gas (LNG) as potential solutions, according to the state-run industry newspaper China Energy News. The Chinese business outlet Jiemian states that the southern Chinese tech city Shenzhen will “pioneer” a dual control system for carbon emissions and carbon intensity. Its energy strategy will focus on “controlling coal, reducing oil, increasing gas, promoting non-fossil fuels, and using clean electricity”.

Singaporean newspaper the Straits Times reports that China experienced “direct economic losses of 308.3bn yuan ($59bn) over the first nine months of 2023 from natural disasters”, citing a report by Reuters. Chinese state broadcaster CGTN covers predictions by Chinese experts of a more intense Mei-yu (a significant seasonal rain phenomenon) in China’s Yangtze River valley region.

The state news agency Xinhua reports that China’s new energy vehicle ownership reached 18.2m units by the end of September 2023. Chinese business outlet Caixin says that Huawei’s new electric car has garnered “tens of thousands of orders within a month”. Finally, Chinese financial outlet Yicai finds that China’s electric vehicle battery sector is experiencing restructuring due to “excess supply within the country and increased limitations in international markets”. 

Nearly half a million coal miners face unemployment globally by 2035 due to mine closures and a market shift towards cheaper renewables, according to a report by the NGO Global Energy Monitor (GEM) covered by the South China Morning Post. It adds that, by 2050, one million coal mining jobs – 37% of the existing workforce – will no longer exist, and China and India are likely to be hit hardest. Euronews says the report’s authors emphasise the need for governments to implement “just transition” policies to ensure workers do not suffer from the energy transition. As it stands, “most of the mines set to shut down have no plans to move to a post-coal economy”, one of the authors tells the news website.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that an Australian court has backed the government’s decision to approve the expansion of two coal mines “in a case that’s challenged the climate credentials of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s administration”.

Oil major BP will stick to its existing climate commitments despite the resignation of chief executive Bernard Looney, who spearheaded the company’s net-zero strategy, the Financial Times reports. BP’s interim chief executive Murray Auchincloss told an investor event in Denver that “strategy, financial frame and net-zero ambition are unchanged”. However, the article notes that Looney already scaled back the company’s climate plans back in February, announcing that the company’s oil and gas output in 2030 would be 25% lower rather than the 40% lower initially pledged.

Various comment pieces in the UK media focus on Labour leader Keir Starmer’s speech at his party’s conference in Liverpool. The Guardian’s editorial notes that the speech included “Labour doubling down on pro-green plans in the wake of Tory attacks and the Conservatives’s troubling descent into conspiracy theories over net-zero”. The Guardian’s political sketch writer John Crace also mentions these elements of the speech, writing: “Full speed ahead on renewables. The climate crisis was an opportunity to be embraced, not to be shrunk from.…We were veering into territory seldom seen in British politics in recent years: hope. Starmer was making Britain sound like a place where you might want to live.” 

Veteran journalist and climate sceptic Andrew Neil was less positive in his appraisal of Starmer’s speech for the Daily Mail. He writes that Starmer’s stated aim to make the government “shoulder the load” for people is “a wise sentiment”, but then adds: “Yet within minutes he was doubling down on all of Labour’s net-zero targets for carbon emissions, which will add hugely to people’s financial load when it comes to everything from home heating to the cars they drive.” [This is a common framing of net-zero, but many experts reviews of net-zero, from those carried out by the government’s own advisers the Climate Change Committee (CCC) to the former Conservative “net-zero tsar” Chris Skidmore, have concluded that, ultimately, net-zero will save households money, and the government can play a crucial role in helping people to overcome any short-term costs.] Neil also criticises Starmer’s decision to base his proposed state-owned Great British Energy company in Scotland, calling it “that part of Britain where state enterprise goes to die”. A Daily Mail editorial is also critical of Starmer, again stating that net-zero will “place a huge financial burden on millions of ordinary families”.

In a comment piece for the Scotsman, environmental campaigner and consultant Dr Richard Dixon writes about recent Conservative efforts to roll back UK net-zero policies. He cites the “latest madness”, namely plans to restrict the development of solar farms because they might take land from agriculture. He writes: “All this anti-environment nonsense is not even to appeal to the electorate, since Rishi Sunak’s approval rating fell to its lowest-ever level after his attack on net-zero policies. It is only to appease a faction of the Conservative party that still wants to cut the ‘green crap’ as David Cameron did in 2013.”

Maldives environment minister Shauna Aminath has authored a guest essay for the New York Times in which she explains how her island nation has historically been highly reliant on imported diesel to power generators, but is switching to solar power and batteries with the help of financing from the World Bank. Aminath says that while producing electricity with solar is much cheaper than using generators, “we have been held back by the exorbitant cost of financing renewable projects. Our large debt and recent political instability, coupled with the hangover from the pandemic, have hurt the Maldives’ credit rating”. As a result, she says: “Loans available to us can therefore carry elevated interest rates. This sky-high cost of capital makes most solar projects non-starters. So we continue to burn diesel fuel.” Aminath points out that this is a common situation among developing countries, and calls for a “significant increase” in financing “with the risks underwritten” that she says could help to unlock large amounts of private investment.

Yields of hops in Europe could decline by 4-18% by 2050 under a moderate warming scenario, a new study suggests. The research combines observed weather data and model projections to assess the climate sensitivity of the yield and quality of European hops between 1970 and 2050. Comparing data before and after 1994, the researchers find that hop ripening is starting approximately 20 days earlier and production has declined by almost 0.2 tonnes per hectare per year. The study, which accounts for almost 90% of Europe’s hop-growing regions, “calls for immediate adaptation measures to stabilise an ever-growing global sector”.

Humans are “more vulnerable to moist heat stress than previously proposed”, suggests a new study that builds on recent research indicating there is a lower threshold of moist heat beyond which the human body cannot thermoregulate. The findings show that limiting warming to 2C “nearly eliminates exposure and risk of widespread uncompensable moist heatwaves as a sharp rise in exposure occurs at 3C of warming”. However, “parts of the Middle East and the Indus River Valley experience brief exceedances with only 1.5C warming”, the study notes, while “more widespread, but brief, dangerous heat stress occurs in a +2C climate, including in eastern China and sub-Saharan Africa”. The US Midwest emerges as a “moist heat stress hotspot” in a 3C warmer world, the authors add.