Analysts have warned that new oil and gas licences for drilling in the North Sea are incompatible with the UK’s official carbon budgets and the Paris Agreement, according to the Guardian. The newspaper notes that the government is considering new licences “under pressure from backbench MPs and media commentators, who claim new fossil fuel development is needed to reduce energy bills”. However, the piece cites a “research note” by scientists at University College London, commissioned by the campaign group Uplift, which recommends “a moratorium be placed on all new oil and gas fields” and suggests that the government should “focus its efforts on supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy, both domestically and internationally”. One of the note’s authors tells the Guardian that for the government to justify licensing new fossil fuels, ministers would have to persuade other countries to cut their production. The piece notes that, within the next few weeks, government advisers at the Committee on Climate Change will deliver their verdict on whether new North Sea licences can be compatible with the UK’s carbon budgets. Separately, a piece in BusinessGreen by Joe Tetlow – senior political adviser at the Green Alliance thinktank – argues that it is “no longer economic to extract more oil and gas from the North Sea”, citing a new report set to be published by the organisation this month. “The UK government is skewing the market, tipping the scales in favour of more extraction through tax reliefs and subsidies,” he states. Meanwhile, in an “exclusive” story, Reuters reports that oil giant Shell plans to sell its stakes in two clusters of gas fields in the southern British North Sea, as part of “an ongoing retreat of long-time producers from the ageing basin”.

In the US, the Guardian reports on an investigation by the corporate accountability non-profits LittleSis and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project that provides a “snapshot” of the “dirty energy projects financed by some of the country’s largest private equity firms”.

Finally, the Financial Times profiles BP chief executive Bernard Looney, in which he states that in his haste to advocate a greener BP, he says his messaging failed to strike the right “balance”. Looney tells the newspaper: “In those early days, I think we talked a lot about building the company of the future, and I think people wanted to hear more, particularly in a difficult time, about the performance today.”

By 2050, seas levels around the US will be 25-30cm higher, with parts of Louisiana and Texas projected to see waters 45cm higher, according to a new report from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and six other federal agencies, covered by the Associated Press. The news outlet notes that the 111-page report warns these kind of changes will be the equivalent of sea levels rising in the next 30 years by as much as they did in the entire 20th century, and will result in major eastern cities being hit regularly with costly floods. The piece quotes a scientist who adds that the US will experience slightly more sea level rise than the global average, with the the west coast and Hawaii hit less hard. The Independent says that the report warns of disruptive coastal floods happening 10 times as often as they do now, meaning some coastal areas would see multiple floods each year, including Miami, New York City, and Charleston, South Carolina. According to Reuters, the official report draws on a combination of tide gauge measurements, satellite observations and analysis from the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to determine sea level rise projections around the country, adding that this rise is driven “primarily by melting ice sheets and glaciers as global temperatures increase”. The New York Times reports that the new study updates previous NOAA estimates from 2017, but includes the results of better computer modelling and improved understanding of the impact of global warming on the melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The article quotes NOAA administrator Rick Spinrad who says that while cutting emissions to limit warming remains critically important, the projected sea level rise by 2050 “will happen no matter what we do about emissions”. While not everyone will be impacted equally, the newspaper notes that 40% of the US population – 130 million people – live within 60 miles of the ocean. Politico states that, according to the report, high tides and storm surge heights will increase, “propelling damaging waters further inland, increasing flooding rates and turning once-dry places soggy”. Looking further ahead, the news website reports that limiting global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels – one of the Paris Agreement targets – would give a 50% chance of US sea levels rising by more than more than 2 feet (61cm) by 2100. A rise of 3-5C would entail “much larger” sea level rise as hotter temperatures destabilise ice sheets.

The UK government has awarded £375m of contracts at record high prices to power plant owners “to help to keep the lights on next winter”, the Times reports. It notes that energy company SSE secured contracts worth almost £170m through the government’s “capacity market” auction, to ensure the company will make three big gas-fired power plants available when needed. The newspaper describes the auction as being “designed to ensure that power supplies can meet demand even when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine”. Other contracts were awarded to Uniper, the German owner of Britain’s last coal-fired plant, which was awarded £31m, and several new battery storage projects and small gas-fired reciprocating engines. Separately, the Financial Times reports that as Rolls-Royce seeks to move ahead with its plans for a fleet of mini-nuclear reactors, the company is preparing to open talks with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority about leasing disused nuclear sites. It notes that several locations in England and Wales are in the running to be home to the nation’s first small modular reactor, including Dungeness on the south-east coast, Moorside in west Cumbria and Wylfa on the island of Anglesey.

In other UK news, the Times reports that mining and commodities group Glencore has emerged as a cornerstone investor in Britishvolt, the giant “gigafactory” for electric car batteries under construction at Blyth.

A new fact sheet from the White House has set out the Biden administration’s steps to promote green manufacturing and address climate action in the industrial sector, the Hill reports. The news website states that the administration is planning a series of initiatives aimed at promoting clean hydrogen and using the federal government’s purchasing power to advance its climate goals. It adds that the Environmental Protection Agency will also propose an increase in scrutiny of carbon capture facilities by collecting individual emissions data from them. The New York Times expands on these announcements, reporting that a new Buy Clean Task Force will be created to ensure federal agencies purchase low-emissions construction materials, helping to drive the decarbonisation of the US industrial sector, which accounts for one-third of national emissions. The newspaper notes that on top of this, the Energy Department will spend $9.5bn to encourage the commercial-scale development of clean hydrogen.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that industry group the American Clean Power Association has warned the US is well off-track to meet the president’s goal of an emissions-free power sector by 2035, and the Financial Times has a report that the White House could scrap federal gasoline taxes in a bid to bring immediate relief to drivers. The latter is described as “a startling step for an administration that talked of ending oil industry tax breaks and weaning Americans off the combustion engine in favour of electric alternatives”.

In more US government news, the New York Times reports that despite president Joe Biden’s professed focus on tackling environmental racism – the disproportionate burden of impacts felt by people of colour – the White House’s new environmental strategy to tackle this problem “will be colourblind: Race will not be a factor in deciding where to focus efforts”. It states that officials are “worried that using race to identify and help disadvantaged communities could trigger legal challenges”, so they are “designing a system to help communities of colour even without defining them as such”.

A couple of articles call into question the idea of “clean” hydrogen, notably a piece in Climate Home News citing “scientists and analysts” who tell the news outlet that the oil-and-gas industry is promoting the use of “low-carbon” hydrogen derived from methane, known as “blue hydrogen” that is “potentially dirtier than burning fossil gas for energy”. Unlike “green hydrogen” made using renewable power, blue hydrogen is made using fossil gas with the resulting carbon dioxide (CO2) captured and stored. The piece notes that the European Commission has set an emissions threshold of just over 3 tonnes of CO2-equivalent (CO2e) per tonne of hydrogen for projects to comply with its green taxonomy, which one analyst tells Climate Home News “could include some types of high-efficiency blue hydrogen projects”. Meanwhile, Energy Monitor reports on findings by the NGO Global Witness that suggest just 48% of CO2 emissions from Shell’s Quest blue hydrogen plant were captured over a five-year period, “falling far short of the 90% carbon capture rate promised by the industry”. Shell responds to the claim in the article, noting that the Quest facility in Alberta, Canada, “was designed some years ago as a demonstration project to prove the underlying CCS concept”. Finally, Reuters reports that Germany’s biggest power producer RWE, and oil-and-gas company Neptune Energy have announced they will jointly develop a green hydrogen demonstration project in the Dutch North Sea by 2030. For more on this topic, see Carbon Brief’s hydrogen explainer.

Politico reports that as the EU looks for “a big reset with Africa” when European and African leaders meet on Thursday and Friday, the French EU presidency is planning to announce a “flagship” for climate deals in the region. This is expected to consist of the chance for other countries to repeat a blockbuster $8.5bn deal announced for South Africa during the COP26 climate summit in November. However, the news website says that some EU officials say the French announcement is “more about looks than about substance”. Another Politico piece states that with “China reducing its spending in Africa, Europe sees a chance to boost its influence”, noting that at the meeting the EU hopes to unveil a series of major projects that will benefit from €150bn in funding, including support to “accelerate the shift to lower-carbon energy sources”.

Ben Wright, a columnist and associate editor for the Daily Telegraph, issues a plea apparently aimed at backbench Tory MPs and several of his fellow newspaper columnists to avoid making the UK’s net-zero emissions by 2050 target the next “culture war” issue following Brexit and Covid lockdowns. He notes that, like Brexit, “net-zero can similarly be presented as a set of policies with clear costs and abstract benefits being imposed by out-of-touch metropolitan experts”, pointing to claims by the Net-Zero Scrutiny Group of backbench Conservative MPs that the policies will make working people “colder and poorer”. He continues: “Fans of net-zero can pick holes in this thesis. Anyone who thinks high energy bills are the result of “green cr–” obviously hasn’t been paying attention to the price of crude oil or noticed that tankers full of liquefied natural gas are doing U-turns in the Indian Ocean as they are diverted from Europe to China and then back again”. He then notes that “such a defence feels a bit… well, Remainer-y” and suggests that both sides should be looking for some common ground. He adds: “Whereas Brexit was a binary question, net-zero is the product of a sum and there are an almost infinite number of variables…Rather than bashing opponents for their stupidity or trying to scare them with tales of environmental apocalypse, supporters of net-zero should use that flexibility to their advantage”. He suggests advocates should push for a faster rollout of nuclear power stations and small modular reactors, “giving ground on fracking (given that individual projects will almost certainly be killed off by local communities anyway)”, “accepting the North Sea will be crucial to meeting our energy needs for years to come” and “for heaven’s sake, stop pushing for a windfall tax on oil companies”.

Meanwhile, BusinessGreen editor James Murray has a blog post titled “Is this it? Are we at risk of over-estimating the neo-climate sceptics?”. In the piece, Murray writes that while “it is important not to underestimate” the MPs and campaigners using a “Brexit playbook for taking a fringe concern of limited interest to the public and turning it into a wedge issue”, he has his doubts about the current anti net-zero push. “Their arguments are comically partial and their analysis deeply questionable. They will almost certainly not succeed in blocking the economic and technological trends that are underpinning the steady construction of the UK’s net-zero economy,” he concludes.

Finally, the Sun has an editorial taking aim at environmental protesters, which says “let us hear no excuses from police if and when eco-anarchist loons try to block the M25 this weekend”.

In a blog post, Climate Change Committee (CCC) chief executive Chris Stark looks ahead to “a busy year” for the government advisers, which exist to advise and hold the government to account on its climate targets. Stark writes that with the UK’s climate goals now “substantially reset” to net-zero, the CCC’s focus will now move to delivery and implementation of those targets. “Ministers have made clear that the lion’s share of progress will be made by the private sector, led by Government. So that is where the CCC’s attention must also turn: private sector delivery and implementation of the public policies to underpin it,” he writes. Stark also notes that this will come amid a “dramatic spike in global fossil fuel prices and new pressures on the cost of living, as we recover from the pandemic”.

New research projects that Arctic coastal erosion will double by the end of the century, exceeding its historical range of variability. The authors “develop a simplified semi-empirical model” to project Arctic coastal erosion rates over the coming century under a range of shared socioeconomic pathways. The paper estimates that the Arctic coastline was eroding at a rate of 0.9 metres per year over 1850-1950. This will increase to 1.6-2.6 metres per year by the end of the century, it projects. The study “provides a new and crucial piece in understanding projections of Arctic coastal erosion”, says an accompanying News & Views article, and shows that “Arctic coastal erosion can be reduced when greenhouse gas emissions follow the pathway of sustainable development in which society transitions to renewable energy”.