A nine-month joint investigation by the Guardian, Die Zeit and SourceMaterial shows: “The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation.” The Guardian, reporting the news on its frontpage, continues: “The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be ‘phantom credits’ and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.” It says the work is “based on new analysis of scientific studies of Verra’s rainforest schemes”, as well as dozens of interviews and on-the-ground reporting. It notes that Verra “strongly disputed the studies’ conclusions about its rainforest projects”. A separate Guardian article reports on one specific offset scheme: “While some local people are supportive of the scheme, others say they have been forced from their homes by park authorities.” A further Guardian piece speaks to climate scientists about carbon offsets and a fourth Guardian piece, analysis by environment editor Fiona Harvey, is titled: “Carbon offsets are flawed but we are now in a climate emergency.”

Separately, Energy Monitor reports: “While more than half of FTSE 350 companies have ‘dramatically’ increased carbon offset spending over the past two years, 41% of chief sustainability officers do not use carbon offsets due to trust issues, find new studies by Kana Earth and AiDash.”

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres used his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday to call on business leaders to make “credible” net-zero pledges, based on the principles in an expert report he commissioned, Reuters reports. It says Guterres warned failing to do so “leaves the door wide open to greenwashing”. It quotes him continuing: “The transition to net-zero must be grounded in real emissions cuts – and not rely on carbon credits and shadow markets.” BusinessGreen says Guterres “launched his latest stinging attack on the global fossil fuel industry, accusing the sector of knowingly pursuing business models that are ‘incompatible with human survival’”. It quotes him saying: “Just like the tobacco industry, they rode rough-shod over their own science. Big Oil peddled the big lie. And like the tobacco industry, those responsible must be held to account.” Axios says he “slammed fossil fuel companies, singling out ExxonMobil, in a grim table-setting speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos Wednesday morning”. The Hill quotes him saying: “We are flirting with climate disaster…The commitment to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C is nearly going up in smoke. Without further action, we are headed to a 2.8C increase and the consequences, as we all know, would be devastating.”

About two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) are being removed from the atmosphere each year, Reuters reports, citing a new report that it says finds nearly all of the total is happening through forests. BBC News says: “Technology to remove the planet-warming greenhouse gas CO2 from our atmosphere must be urgently ramped up, leading climate experts say in a new report.” Authors of the report explain their findings in a guest post for Carbon Brief (see above).

US treasury secretary Janet Yellen with her Chinese counterpart yesterday and “pledged an effort to manage differences” and “prevent competition from becoming anything ever near conflict” as the two nations try to “thaw” relations, reports the Associated Press. Yellen’s “first face-to-face meeting” with vice premier Liu He in Zurich is the “highest-ranking” contact between the two countries since their presidents “agreed last November during their first in-person meeting to look for areas of potential cooperation”, the article notes. It adds that a US treasury readout of the 2.5-hour meeting says the two agreed that the US and China would “cooperate more on issues around financing for battling climate change and work to support developing countries in their clean-energy transitions”. CNBC reports that US climate envoy John Kerry yesterday said he “hopes that the resumption of diplomatic talks with China” can make a “huge difference” in the “fight to prevent the worst of what the climate emergency has in store”. Kerry is quoted saying at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos that “we very much hope to be able to find the pathway to a breakthrough that could make a huge difference”. Additionally, former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers said at Davos that China and the US can “build stronger bilateral relations by working together to solve global issues such as fighting the pandemic and climate change”, reports Caixin Global.

Meanwhile, the South China Morning Post writes that the installation of solar farms in China “hit another record” in 2022, while the “amount of new fossil fuel-powered capacity fell for a second consecutive year as the nation continued to reduce its reliance on coal to generate electricity”. Citing new data published by the National Energy Administration (NEA), the outlet says that developers installed “86GW (gigawatts) of solar power capacity in 2022, up 62% from 2021, bringing total installed capacity to 392.6GW”. Dennis Ip, regional head of utilities research at Daiwa Capital Markets, is quoted saying that “we expect it to pick up sharply in 2023, especially offshore wind projects, since coastal provinces still have subsidy policies [until 2024 or 2025] to support new installations.” Bloomberg covers the same story, saying that “China set another record for solar power capacity last year as the country sped up renewable installations to reach its ambitious climate targets”. Additions “fell short of bullish industry forecasts” in the middle of last year for as much as “100GW” as “supply chain disruptions boosted prices and slowed installations”, the article highlights.

Elsewhere, the Financial Times reports that, according to the International Energy Agency, global oil demand is “set to rise to an all-time high in 2023 as China relaxes its Covid-19 restrictions in a move that may push crude prices higher in the second half of the year”. The IEA says nearly half of the forecasted rise in oil consumption this year will come from China, even though “the shape and speed” of the country’s reopening “remained uncertain”, the article notes. Finally, the state news agency Xinhua reports that Chinese premier Li Keqiang “underlined efforts to ensure stable energy supply and prices to better serve economic and social development” during an inspection of the State Grid Corporation of China on Tuesday. Li said that, “despite high inflation globally, the prices in China only increased 1.8% in December thanks to the stable domestic energy supply”. Li “called for more efforts” to “ensure the stable supply and prices of energy and other important commodities, and promote reasonable economic growth and stable price levels”, the article notes.

The Crown Estate – which is the “the sovereign’s public estate”, but is neither owned by the UK government or the reigning monarch – has confirmed leases for six offshore wind projects that will generate an estimated £1bn per year for the Treasury, the Times reports on its frontpage, after King Charles “turned down the chance to bolster palace finances so that money is ‘directed for wider public good’ by the government”. The paper adds: “The King’s decision, which highlights his desire to fend off any accusations of the royals enjoying bumper funding during a cost-of-living crisis, comes as the Crown Estate confirmed the wind farm lease awards that were provisionally handed out two years ago.” BBC News reports: “King Charles has asked for a surge in profits from a £1bn per year Crown Estate offshore wind farm deal to be used for the ‘wider public good’, rather than for the Royal Family.” Sky News, the Evening Standard, Press Association, Bloomberg and the Daily Mail all have the story.

Separately, the Independent reports: “Call for Welsh floating windfarm supply chain to be ‘as local as possible’.” Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports on the “financial pressure” facing wind energy developers, following an interview with Mads Nipper, chief executive officer of Ørsted. Finally, an article in the Conversation says: “Offshore wind farm construction is noisy – but gadgets used to protect marine mammals are working.”

Central and northern parts of Greenland were warmer in the first decade of this century compared to all other periods over the past 1,000 years, the Press Association reports. Using data gathered from the ice cores spanning more than a thousand years, the researchers have found that, between 2001 and 2011, central-north Greenland was on average 1.5C warmer than during the 20th century, the newswire says. Co-author Thomas Laepple tells Inside Climate News that the findings provide “clear evidence” that the effects of global warming have reached the remote, high-elevation areas of central-north Greenland. The outlet adds: “Many previous research efforts suggested it’s still hard to distinguish a clear global warming signal in the region against the backdrop of annual and decadal changes driven by regional wind shifts and atmospheric pressure patterns that also affect temperatures.” Greenland is the “largest contributor currently to sea level rise”, lead author Maria Hörhold tells CNN, warning. “And if we keep on going with the carbon emissions as we do right now, then by 2100, Greenland will have contributed up to 50 centimetres to sea level rise and this will affect millions of people who live in coastal areas.” Glaciologist Isabella Velicogna, who was not involved in the research, tells the Washington Post that, while “this is not changing what we already knew about the warming signal in Greenland”, it “adds momentum to the seriousness of the situation”. She adds: “This is bad, bad news for Greenland and for all of us.” Forbes and Al Jazeera also cover the study, which is published in Nature (see climate research section below).

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has “unveiled plans for a new Green Deal Industrial Plan designed to ‘make Europe the home of clean tech and industrial innovation on the road to net zero’”, BusinessGreen reports. The outlet says she used a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos to “highlight[] how major geopolitical and economic shifts were underway that all underscored the urgent need to decarbonise the European economy”. It continues: “Von der Leyen stressed that increasing competition for green investment on the global stage meant the EU needed to step up its clean tech ambitions once again, as she trailed fresh plans for a new green policy package designed to support and scale clean industries across Europe.” Bloomberg reports: “Brussels is coming under pressure from European business to respond to the US’s multi-billion dollar clean energy subsidy plan or risk losing investment and falling behind in the green energy revolution.” The Financial Times reports the comments of the US climate envoy under the headline: “John Kerry says Europe could do more to match US on green spending.”

Progress towards the government’s 25-year plan to improve England’s natural environment has “fallen far short” with a “chronic decline” in certain species continuing unchecked, according to the Office for Environmental Protection, reports the FT. The post-Brexit environmental watchdog warns that none of the government’s 23 environmental targets for England are on track to be met. The newspaper adds: “Many of the targets, which include halving the length of rivers polluted by harmful metals from abandoned mines by 2038, and achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, are legally binding.” The Press Association says: “Progress towards adapting to a changing climate is poor, the OEP warn[s].” BBC News quotes a government spokesman saying: “A new environmental improvement plan, to be launched at the end of the month, will set out ‘the comprehensive action this government will take to reverse the decline in nature, achieve our net zero goals and deliver cleaner air and water’.”

A Financial Times “big read” looks at the prospects for new nuclear in the UK, saying: “New investment would allow the country to reduce its reliance on dirty gas-fired power plants but financing remains uncertain.” It continues: “Britain has been at this juncture before. Successive governments across the political spectrum have for decades vowed to build large new reactor fleets only to fail because of the high costs and complexity of delivering atomic plants, often driving away private sector companies from potential projects.” Citing “people familiar” with the matter, the piece says that “Great British Nuclear” (GBN), the new public body that is due to “oversee the revival of atomic energy in Britain and smooth the development of a new pipeline”, has been “delayed by a dispute between the Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) over funding and its scope”.

Writing in the Times, meanwhile, chief business commentator Alistair Osborne says of GBN: “Maybe Great British Nuclear will prove as successful as Great British Railways: another government invention still stuck in the sidings while the strike-bound network grinds to a halt. But at least Simon Bowen is after an improvement on that. Who he? The industry adviser picked by ministers to make their nuclear nirvana a reality.”

An editorial in the Daily Telegraph says the collapse into administration of the Britishvolt battery factory due to have been built on a site near Blyth in northeast England has “left a major hole in both the country’s industrial policy and its zero-carbon ambitions”. It adds: “Car companies switching to the production of electric vehicles will leave the UK if there is no battery capacity when it exists in other European countries.”

Columnist Javier Blas writes for Bloomberg: “[E]ven if the rest of the winter turns to be colder-than-normal, [Europe] would have enough gas in storage to avert the worst-case scenario: running out as a result of Russia reducing exports as part of its strategy against Ukraine’s allies.” He explains how the region has reached this point: “First, the region got very lucky, for want of a better word, with the weather – a factor it cannot control and the result of the broader calamity of climate change. Spring-like temperatures on New Year’s Eve are a cause of celebration for anyone worried about gas prices. But they should be concerning for anyone worried about the environment…Second, Europe has reduced industrial gas demand significantly, with some factories halting operations and others switching to diesel.” Blas concludes: “With more gas in store now, European utilities and governments would need to buy less over the spring and summer to prepare for the 2023-24 season. The earlier the current winter ends, the later the next one starts.”

Meanwhile, climate-sceptic columnist Matthew Lynn uses a Daily Telegraph article to criticise what he calls Germany’s “breathtaking” “hypocrisy” over climate change, citing recent protests over the expansion of the Lützerath coal mine.

Temperatures in the central and north Greenland are the warmest they have been in the past 1,000 years, according to new research. The authors created a “high-quality reconstruction” of central and north Greenland temperatures over the years 1100-2011 by “systematically re-drilling ice cores”. The paper finds that over 2001-11, the ice sheet was, on average, 1.5C warmer than it was over the 20th century. The findings “suggest that these exceptional temperatures arise from the superposition of natural variability with a long-term warming trend, apparent since AD1800”, according to the study.

New research finds that limiting global warming to 1.8C above pre-industrial temperatures will “greatly reduce the overall exposure of vertebrates” to extreme temperatures. The authors use daily maximum temperature data over 1950-2099 to determine the exposure of land vertebrates to high frequencies, durations and intensities of extreme thermal events. They find that, under a 1.8C warming scenario, 6% of all land vertebrates will be “exposed to extreme thermal events beyond their historical levels in at least half their distribution by 2099”. Under 2.7C, 3.6C and 4.4C warming scenarios, this percentage rises to 15%, 29% and 41%, respectively. The study concludes that “deep greenhouse gas emissions cuts are urgently needed to limit species’ exposure to thermal extremes”.