Executives from major oil and gas companies used the CERAWeek conference last week in Houston, Texas “to argue against a rapid transition to green energy”, the Financial Times reports. It says “fossil fuel companies are emboldened by high demand and record profits despite rising alarm over climate change” and that “industry leaders argue consumers are unwilling to pay the costs associated with a rapid shift to wind and solar energy”. The newspaper continues: “The bullish comments at the event – which boasted a record attendance of more than 8,000 delegates – came against a backdrop of record temperature rises and growing scientific concern over the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions to tackle climate change.” (See Comment, below, for the FT’s accompanying editorial.) The paper adds: “Last year, the IEA predicted demand for oil and gas would peak before the end of the decade, a forecast that has been disputed by the Opec+ producers group and by many oil majors, who do not expect demand to peak until the 2030s or later…But the IEA faces a backlash from Big Oil and Republican supporters in the US Congress, with a group of lawmakers accusing the agency on Wednesday of adopting ‘misguided and troubling’ positions on fossil fuels and straying from its core mission of promoting energy security.” The same article notes: “A report released by Carbon Tracker this week found the world’s biggest oil and gas companies still not aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement on tackling climate change, despite corporate messaging on supporting a low-carbon future.” The Guardian also covers the Carbon Tracker report under the headline: “World’s largest oil companies ‘way off track’ on emissions goals, report finds.” The Hill and Axios also cover the report.

New Ipsos polling for Euronews shows that more than half of European voters “believe the fight against climate change is a priority”, the outlet reports. It adds: “A further 32% said it was important, but not a priority and 16% believe the fight against climate change is a secondary issue.” The publication says 25,916 people were polled across 18 countries, representing 96% of the EU’s population. It adds: “Denmark (69%), Portugal (67%) and Sweden (62%) were the countries where the highest percentage of people saw climate change as a priority…Poland, Czech Republic and Finland had the lowest percentage of respondents who believed climate change was a priority for the EU. Still, just over a third of people (34%) in these three countries see it as a priority.” The outlet continues: “Women were slightly more likely to say the fight against climate change was a priority at 55% compared to 49% of men. The poll also shows that age isn’t a significant indicator of people’s perspective on climate action. Around half of people in all age groups said this issue was a priority and roughly a third believed it was important.” It adds: “Less than a third of voters think the EU has had a positive impact on environmental protection.”

The delayed blooming of spring flowers has left local governments in South Korea that usually host flower festivals “grappling with flowerless venues this year”, the Korea Times reports. It says: “The delayed blooming of seasonal flowers, primarily attributed to climate change, has resulted in a significant setback, leaving these venues bereft of their usual vibrant displays.” It explains: “This year, many local governments moved up the dates for the festivals in response to last year’s abnormally early blooming caused by warming temperatures. Even a month ago, many anticipated the flowers to bloom earlier than usual, again, as abnormally high temperatures were recorded last winter. The country’s average temperature last month was 4.1C, registered as the highest in February since 1973. But the weather changed suddenly in March, with abnormal subzero temperatures and lower precipitation levels, failing to offer the necessary and sufficient conditions for the spring flowers to bloom.” Axios has an article about how climate change is affecting Washington DC’s famous cherry blossoms.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Kristalina Georgieva has called on China to “reinvent itself for a new era of high-quality growth” at the China Development Forum in Beijing, the Financial Times reports. It continues: “The conference comes as China’s trading partners confront oversupply risks in major industries including electric vehicles and steel, which could spur manufacturers to dump excess goods on global markets.” Opening the meeting, it reports Chinese premier Li Qiang saying: “We will focus on expanding domestic demand…[and] accelerate the development of a modern industrial system.” The newspaper adds: “[Georgieva] said 2024 would be challenging for fiscal authorities in most countries. ‘They need to embrace consolidation to reduce debt and rebuild buffers, and at the same time finance the digital and green transformations of their economies,’ she said.” CNBC reports Georgieva saying: “A key feature of high-quality growth will need to be higher reliance on domestic consumption…[and this] depends on boosting the spending power of individuals and families.” China Daily reports: “In terms of advancing the green economy, [Georgieva] described China as a global leader in deploying renewable energy with enormous potential, adding that China was making rapid progress in green mobility.” The IMF has published a transcript of Georgieva’s speech, in which she says: “[China’s] continued leadership is vital to addressing the global climate crisis. Building on progress in recent years to sell a greater share of electricity at market prices would make China’s decarbonisation even more efficient. So, too, would extending the coverage of the emissions trading system to the industrial sector.” Bloomberg reports the comments of Apple chief executive Tim Cook, speaking at the same forum in Beijing: “Cook said artificial intelligence is an essential tool for helping businesses reduce their carbon footprint, as he joined a climate change dialogue Sunday at the China Development Forum.” It quotes him saying that AI “provides an enormous toolkit for every company that’s wishing to be carbon neutral or to lower their emissions by a substantial amount”.

The National Energy Administration (NEA) has issued “guiding opinions” for its energy work in 2024, reports BJX News, which include calls to strengthen the energy supply security. Total national energy production should reach “about 5bn tonnes of standard coal”; crude oil production should stabilise at “more than 200m tonnes”; natural gas production should continue on its “rapid upward trend”; installed power generation capacity should reach 3.2 terawatts; and power generation capacity should exceed 9960 terawatt-hours”, the industry news outlet adds. Economic outlet Jiemian covers the same news, saying that the NEA says the proportion of installed non-fossil fuel power generation should increase to “about 55%” of the total, and wind and solar power should account for “more than 17%” of national power generation.

Meanwhile, Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily says that Chinese clean-energy companies have been “continuing to expand into overseas markets” and that “vast” market opportunities exist for Chinese firms, despite “challenges such as obstacles put up by Europe and the US”. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports that China’s Australian coal imports rose by “3,188% year-on-year to $1.3bn” in January and February 2024, “replacing Russia as the top supplier”, citing Chinese customs data. Bloomberg reports that US president Joe Biden is “promoting Navtej Dhillon to deputy director of the National Economic Council”, with a brief that focuses on “industrial policy, climate finance and what the US says are unfair Chinese economic practices”. The Wall Street Journal says that Chinese president Xi Jinping plans to meet a “group of US business leaders” at the annual China Development Forum. The agenda for the forum this year includes “China’s economic growth, artificial intelligence and climate change”, the newspaper adds.

An article in industry newspaper China Energy Net says that the “external noise” of foreign platforms accusing Chinese “new three” industries – electric vehicles, solar panels and lithium-ion batteries – of unfair business practices and “containment” of China by western countries will be “reduced to the dust of history”. China.org says that, as the world’s largest developing country, China is “not only a victim of climate change, but also an active participant in and important contributor to global climate governance”. Finally, Tokyo-based Nikkei Asia carries a comment piece by Christoph Nedopil, director of the Griffith Asia Institute, who writes that “the Asia-Pacific region has the potential to surpass global standards in its green transition…but concerted effort will be required to overcome pressing challenges and there will be a need for unique regional approaches, multidisciplinary research, capacity building and collaborative action”.

Grace Oluchi Mbah, the head of the Climate Action Africa Forum (CAAF), has said leaders on the continent have a “huge part to play in curbing the harsh realities of climate change crises”, Nigerian newspaper Vanguard reports. Ahead of the 2024 edition of the forum CAAF24, the paper says: “Mbah lamented that Africa is disproportionately affected by climate change crises and there was the urgent need to collectively address the threat climate change crisis portend to the wellbeing and livelihoods of people on the continent.” It quotes her saying: “This event is not just a conference; it is a clarion call to action, a gathering of minds and spirits committed to safeguarding our continent from climate change and redefining what impact means to us on the African continent.” Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the government of Nigeria is to oblige companies to “disclose their eco-friendly practices and how they manage the effects of climate change in their financial reporting within four years or face sanctions”.

Separately, NilePost reports that a senior Ugandan minister has “urged [Ugandans] to prioritise environmental conservation amidst climate change crisis”. Elsewhere, a feature in the Guardian reports on “surviving west Africa’s blistering heat”. The paper says: “This year, west Africa was hit by a searing heatwave, with the most severe heat occurring from 11-15 February, and temperatures peaking above 40C and averaging 36C. Humidity was also high, making it harder for people to cool down by sweating. The heat index, a measure combining temperature and humidity to reflect how heat feels, reached 50C.” It quotes Wasiu Adeniyi Ibrahim, an official at the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, saying: “The February heatwave happened early in the year, meaning many people would not have been acclimatised to the heat. With every fraction of a degree of global warming, heatwaves like this will become even hotter.” (See the article published by Carbon Brief last week: “Climate change made west Africa’s ‘dangerous humid heatwave’ 10 times more likely.”)

Germany has launched a new “carbon contracts for difference” (CCfD) that aims to “help businesses hedge against future price movements” in the EU carbon market (EU ETS), the Financial Times reports. The paper explains: “Under the scheme, industrial producers will submit a notional CO2 price that they say would allow them to invest in decarbonisation, while remaining competitive against fossil-fuelled rivals. For example, a steel producer replacing coal with hydrogen might say that it requires a carbon price, or ‘strike price’, of €100 per tonne to be competitive. At an ETS carbon price of €50, the state would pay it €50 per tonne of CO2 avoided. But if the carbon price later rises to €110, the company would pay €10 per tonne to the state. Contracts will be awarded through an auction process, intended to incentivise companies to submit competitive prices.” It says that Germany launched bidding on the first round of a CCfD auction worth up to €4bn and that the neighbouring Netherlands runs a similar scheme. Separately, Reuters reports: “The German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation said the government’s decision to help fund the expansion of an offshore terminal is important to achieve expansion goals for wind energy at sea.”

The UK government is “stifling the development of cheaper offshore wind power”, the Times reports, citing new analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). It says this year’s contracts for difference auction, which opens for bids this week, is being hampered by “unrealistic” power price forecasts that effectively diminish the pot of money available, according to the ECIU. It quotes the ECIU’s Jess Ralston saying: “Treasury’s caution will likely backfire on bill payers, leaving households at the mercy of greater price volatility. By stifling British offshore wind farms at this next auction the UK could end up importing two and a half times more foreign gas. It’s a backwards step for UK energy security.” The paper quotes a government spokesperson saying: “The wholesale or reference prices used for contracts for difference do not significantly impact the running of the auction and which projects are successful.”

The Daily Express covers new analysis from consultancy Aurora on plans to decarbonise the country’s electricity supplies: “Energy experts have suggested that achieving Labour’s 2030 net-zero goal would require £116bn in additional investment.” The paper adds that under the government’s plan to reach net-zero power by 2035: “Total additional investment of £104.6bn would be needed over next 11 years under the 2035 scenario.” The paper adds: “Meanwhile Labour leader Keir Starmer will tomorrow say that Britain must ‘take back control of our national energy security’, with a publicly owned clean energy company that can ‘get Putin’s boot off our throat’.” The Daily Mail also covers the Aurora analysis: “Labour’s plan to make the electricity grid zero-carbon by 2030 will cost taxpayers an extra £116bn over the next 11 years, according to new analysis. [This is inaccurate as the figure refers to the cost of investment rather than the cost to taxpayers.] The Tories are already committed to a net-zero power system by 2035 – which will cost the economy an additional £104bn over the same time frame.” It says the right-leaning thinktank Policy Exchange, which commissioned the work, said “decarbonising the grid by 2030 is a fundamentally different proposition” to the government’s 2035 aim. The paper quotes the Aurora analysis saying of Labour’s 2030 target: “The extremely rapid and concurrent overhaul of the power system components would require a policy, planning and investment shift that is infeasible in the timeframe, and is unlikely to be supportable by existing supply chains and workforce skills.” It quotes Bim Afolami, the Conservative economic secretary to the Treasury, saying: “This report shows Keir Starmer’s eco-pledge would cost billions of pounds.” It quotes a Labour spokesperson saying: “After 14 years, the government is still not on track to meet its clean power targets. Britain cannot afford five more years of Rishi Sunak’s inaction.” It adds that Labour leader Keir Starmer will use a visit to Wales today to say that his party’s “green prosperity plan” will “get [Vladimir] Putin’s boot off our throat” by boosting “secure, homegrown British energy”. The Daily Telegraph (not online) also covers the story. In related news, BusinessGreen covers a report by consultancy Newton: “Building enough new offshore wind capacity this decade to meet hugely challenging government targets is set to place intense pressure on limited domestic steel supplies, potentially leaving the UK reliant on increasingly expensive imports.”

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak will declare a “critical national endeavour” to secure the future of the country’s nuclear industry, the Press Association reports. It quotes Sunak saying: “Today we usher in the next generation of our nuclear enterprise, which will keep us safe, keep our energy secure, and keep our bills down for good.” The newswire adds: “The defence nuclear enterprise command paper, which the government says will set out for the first time the full breadth of activity aimed at sustaining and modernising Britain’s continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent, will also be laid in Parliament on Monday.” Separately, the Daily Telegraph reports that windfarm owners are being investigated for “alleged market manipulation after they were accused of overcharging consumers by £100m”. The paper explains: “[Energy regulator] Ofgem is to examine claims that renewable energy companies artificially inflated compensation payments given to them for switching off their turbines on windy days when the grid did not need extra capacity. It has been handed a dossier gathered by analysts at the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF, which has a long history of generating anti-wind farm news coverage), which suggests wind farm companies could be boosting the price of ‘virtual energy’ they never actually generated.” Another Daily Telegraph article says Chinese battery manufacturer EVE Energy is planning to build a “gigafactory” in the West Midlands, near Coventry airport. The Times says the firm, which makes batteries for BMW, “is on the cusp of investing billions of pounds into the building of Britain’s biggest gigafactory”. BusinessGreen says the number of EVs on the UK’s roads is “set to increase by almost a quarter this year” to 1.24m vehicles.

In other UK news, BusinessGreen says the government has granted development consent for a pipeline to transport CO2 from heavy industry in North West England and Wales to a storage site under Liverpool Bay. A comment for BusinessGreen by Richard Black of thinktank Ember asks if the UK’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) plans will “prove a model or a cautionary tale”. The Daily Mail hands a double-page spread in its Saturday print edition to climate-sceptic author and farmer Jamie Blackett to rail against “plans for a massive solar farm in the picturesque Wiltshire countryside”. Without evidence, he says of the Lime Down Solar Park: “It is every homeowner’s worst nightmare. Waking up to discover that the idyllic countryside surrounding your family’s beloved home is earmarked for a national infrastructure project. Meaning that your property may immediately be worth as much as 50% less – if you can sell it at all – and could be blighted for years, even if the development doesn’t ultimately go ahead…few doubt that, within the 40-year projected lifespan of Lime Down, the area under panels will be designated a brownfield site and eventually disappear under housing forever.”

Oil and gas executives are “chafing under President Joe Biden’s attempts to rein in their industry”, Politico reports, adding that they are also “sweating at the thought that Donald Trump might replace him”. It continues: “Industry executives assembled here for CERAWeek, one of the world’s premier annual energy conferences, disparaged Biden administration regulations on their greenhouse gas emissions and its pause on new gas export permits. But though they’re confident Trump would reverse those policies, many fear a return to the volatile international relations and idiosyncratic management style he brought to his previous four years in office.” Elsewhere, Nikkei Asia reports: “The liquefied natural gas industry has criticised the Biden administration for pausing export permits on LNG as uncertainties arise for developers planning massive amounts of investment.” Axios follows earlier coverage reporting that 16 Republican states have filed litigation against the federal government’s LNG pause. Separately, DeSmog reports that “fossil fuel interests” are moving to oppose new Biden administration rules on vehicle emissions standards.

A survey has found Australian investors see renewables as “deliver[ing] the best long-term financial returns”, reports the Australian Associated Press, adding that they “do not see nuclear power as a good investment”. It adds: “Investors have also become more confident about Australian climate policy under the Albanese government, according to the survey by the Investor Group on Climate Change…But Australia will need globally competitive, targeted incentives to suit the nation’s economic strengths and values to stop ‘ongoing capital flight’ to the United States and Europe where there are more generous tax breaks.” The Guardian also reports the findings. It says: “The opposition, led by Peter Dutton, plans to propose locating nuclear power plants on the site of retiring coal power plants, claiming that this would save having to build new transmission infrastructure for renewables. But the plan has been widely panned. The energy department has estimated it would cost $387bn to go nuclear, and Dutton faces opposition from his own state colleagues. Australia’s big private electricity generators have dismissed nuclear energy as a viable source of power for their customers for at least another decade, and likely more.” The Sydney Morning Herald covers the findings under the headline: “Investors eager to power Australia’s switch to renewables, not nuclear.”

Separately, the Guardian reports that a “surge” in emissions from Western Australia that it says is “put[ting] Australia’s net-zero targets in doubt”. Elsewhere, the Guardian reports from the Great Barrier Reef: “Tour boat divers have long borne witness to mass bleaching events. Once reluctant to wade into discussions about global heating, they are now opening up.” Finally, the Guardian reports “major blowback” to the Labor government’s offshore gas bill, quoting Greens leader Adam Bandt that Labor were “climate con artists”.

Raylyst Solar, a Czech wholesale of Chinese solar panels, has become Europe’s fastest growing company, the Financial Times reports, in a development that it says “underscor[es] China’s dominance of the sector and the failure of local manufacturers to compete”. The success of Raylyst “comes as the European sector is ‘facing an existential threat’, according to the European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC), an industry group. Last month, the group wrote to the European Commission calling for emergency support from Brussels.” It adds: “Europe currently produces less than 3% of the panels needed to reach its 2030 target for solar power. Since August, eight companies in the European solar supply chain have either filed for bankruptcy, paused production, warned of factory closures, or restructured debts, according to industry association SolarPower Europe. The ESMC expects more to follow, but Brussels has hinted that state assistance is unlikely.” The Sunday Telegraph reports: “Europe’s ambitious plans to expand green energy generation with ‘Made in EU’ solar panels face a distinctly cloudy future as the continent faces a massive glut of the devices. Millions of solar panels are piling up in warehouses across the Continent because of a manufacturing battle in China, where cut-throat competition has driven the world’s biggest panel-makers to expand production far faster than they can be installed.”

An editorial in the Financial Times contrasts the applause at last week’s CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, Texas, where the head of Saudi Aramco said it was time to “abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas”, with the lack of applause when the head of the World Meteorological Organization issued “a report that showed climate records had been not just broken but smashed in 2023”. The editorial continues: “It is tempting to believe we have been here before. Oil, gas and coal executives have spent years insisting they must satisfy demand for the fossil fuels that still drive the global economy…Yet when it comes to the physical state of the climate, we have not been here at all. To an extent not widely appreciated, the world is now warming at a pace that scientists did not expect and, alarmingly, do not fully understand.” It concludes: “Oil company bosses may prefer to preach a message of business as usual. But neither they nor anyone else can afford once again to downplay what science is showing us about a climate threat that is now moving into uncharted territory.”

Seperately, a column by Financial Times European economics commentator Martin Sandbu says of the EU “carbon border adjustment mechanism” (CBAM): “While CBAM protects the level playing field for Europe’s green steel and aluminium producers, downstream manufacturers receive no such protection from imports made with carbon-intensive raw materials or power. What a downstream industry like carmaking should push for, therefore, is to widen the scope of CBAM to cars. This economic logic means CBAM is politically unsustainable in its current form. Once its effects are felt, politicians will face enormous and legitimate pressure to undo the competitive damage experienced by downstream manufacturers such as carmakers. At that point, expanding CBAM to more sectors will be a better policy than reversing it.” For the Scottish edition of the Sunday Times, Alf Young reflects on the verdict last week from the advisory Climate Change Committee (CCC), which he says “delivered a withering assessment of the Scottish government’s prospects of realising its core objective in the battle to reach net-zero by 2030”. It quotes CCC head Chris Stark saying: “This is the first report the CCC has ever produced that said that in any part of the UK, we have a target that cannot be met. It’s no good setting targets that you feel are ambitious if you haven’t put a plan behind it.”

Meanwhile, in the Daily Telegraph, columnist Nick Timothy writes of the UK: “Absurdities such as the unilateralist climate change policies that further undermine domestic production need to be rethought.” An editorial in the Sun says of the opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer: “Perhaps he meant he doesn’t know if there will be any money left after Labour ploughs billions into net-zero and cripples business with new workers’ rights.” An LSE commentary by Bob Ward “scrutinises the latest misleading article from Bjorn Lomborg, which as well as misrepresenting scientific data, draws on error-strewn work by Richard Tol”.

Extreme event attribution (EEA) studies – which aim to quantify the fingerprint of climate change on extreme-weather events, such as heatwaves and droughts – can provide new “insights” for infrastructure adaptation, according to a new review article. The authors find that “EEA can be used together with climate projections to enhance the comprehensiveness of decision making, including planning and preparing for unprecedented extreme events”. They add that EEA is more useful for adaptation planning when the “exposure and vulnerability of communities to past events are analysed, and future changes in the probability of extreme events are evaluated”. According to the paper, future work in this area “should examine the sensitivity of engineering design to climate model uncertainties, and adapt engineering practice, including building codes, to uncertain future conditions”.

The “severe hailstorm” that hit Spain on 30 August 2022 “would likely not have been as severe as the observed one” in a pre-industrial climate, without the influence of human-caused climate change, according to new research. The “unprecedented” hailstorm saw “giant hailstones” of up to 12cm in diameter fall, the authors say. They find that “the storm’s intensity was influenced by abundant atmospheric energy and moisture from the warm sea, partly influenced by human-induced warming”. According to the paper, this research presents a “novel” type of attribution study.

A new study finds that as the planet warms, many fish are eating “more abundant but less energetically rewarding prey”. The authors use a dataset of the stomach contents of more than 2,400 fish, collected over 12 years in the Baltic Sea from six species of fish with different feeding strategies. They find that the shift from “​​trait-to density-dependent prey selectivity in warmer and more productive environments” leads to “lower species coexistence and biodiversity”.