The International Energy Agency has published a report stating that southeast Asia “needs to increase clean energy investments to $190bn, about five times the current level, by 2035 to achieve its climate goals”, according to Reuters. The newswire says that according to the IEA, electricity demand in Southeast Asia is set to grow by 4% per year over the coming years, with clean energy sources projected to meet more than a third of growth by 2035. It adds: “Ramping up energy investments needs to be accompanied by strategies to reduce emissions from the region’s relatively young fleet of coal-fired plants, the IEA said in a report.” This comes as Reuters reports that Vietnam will amend its national power development plan to include options for nuclear energy and hydrogen. And AAJ.TV reports that Pakistan has requested an additional $1.5bn loan from the International Monetary Fund to “address the country’s climate change challenges”.

China’s total installed power capacity nationwide has reached around 3,160 gigawatts (GW) in September, a year-over-year increase of 14.1%, the National Energy Administration-run CPNN reports. Of this, the news outlet adds, installed solar capacity has reached 770GW and wind has reached 480GW, increasing 48.3% and 19.8% year-over-year, respectively. Industry news outlet BJX News also covers the data release, saying that 21GW of solar was added in September alone, a month-on-month increase of about 27%. China’s first solid-state battery has “rolled off the production line”, marking a new chapter in the commercialisation of the technology, another BJX News report states. China’s solar industry association has urged companies to “avoid selling or bidding below cost” to avoid “harming the long-term, stable operation of projects”, according to the state-run news outlet China Energy Net. The government has published a series of case studies of “seven typical problems” with connecting distributed solar projects to the grid, BJX News reports. This is the first time China has issued a “public report on problems related to distributed solar”, news outlet Jiemian says, quoting an official from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning body, saying it reflects the importance of “addressing bottlenecks hindering the healthy development of the distributed solar market”. An article by China Petrochemical News, a newspaper managed by oil company Sinopec, says that while China has “made significant strides” in clean energy, the rapid expansion of renewables “poses challenges” for grid stability and supply.

Meanwhile, a representative of the China National Coal Association says that coal mines in China are “operating at high capacity” and coal imports have surged, which ensures a “stable supply for the upcoming winter and spring”, state broadcaster CCTV reports. The Communist-party affiliated China Youth Daily reports on the importance of coal power to “guarantee the safe and stable supply of energy and electricity in China”.

Elsewhere, Bloomberg reports that new rules for China’s carbon market will “increase the number of free allowances that power plants can obtain”, potentially cooling a current price rally driving prices higher. Zhou Xiaochuan, vice-chairman of the Boao Forum for Asia and former governor of China’s central bank, says that China must “align spot and future prices in carbon trading”, as future uncertainties could affect carbon prices, news outlet iFeng reports.

There is widespread ongoing media coverage of COP16, the UN biodiversity summit that began in Colombia yesterday. The New York Times reports that “representatives from more than 175 countries are gathering” for “what is expected to be the largest United Nations biodiversity conference in history”. The newspaper adds: “The US is essentially the only country that has not ratified the biodiversity treaty. Nevertheless, it is sending a delegation of several dozen people from the State Department and other agencies. The only other exception is the Holy See, which is also expected to attend.” Reuters quotes COP16 president Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister, who told the opening meeting that “the planet doesn’t have time to lose”, but “we all agree that we are underfunded for this mission”. Le Monde calls Muhamad a “rising star of the environmental movement” and publishes excerpts from an interview with her. Other outlets including the Guardian, New Scientist and BusinessGreen preview the summit. The Guardian has spoken to multiple scientists and academics, who warn that “human activity has pushed the world into a danger zone”. And Le Monde reports on Colombia’s efforts to reduce deforestation, stating that the government “is fighting both deforestation and drug production while contending with the presence of still-active armed groups”.

The US Supreme Court has agreed to “consider whether the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could steer certain lawsuits challenging agency actions designed to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions away from regional appeals courts favoured by opponents of its actions and to a court in Washington that regularly hears regulatory disputes”, Reuters reports. CNN says the move highlights a “a long-running battle over efforts to pick conservative or liberal courts parties believe will be more friendly to their cause”. The Supreme Court is likely to hear the arguments early next year, it adds. It continues: “Environmental groups warned that the decisions, if they come down on the side of the industry groups, could ultimately debilitate the agency’s regulations.” Meanwhile, Reuters reports that a US appeals court is likely to “reject a challenge by environmental groups to the Biden administration’s decision to approve exports from a planned $39bn liquefied natural gas project in Alaska”. The Financial Times reports that “the US oil industry won a delay in a high-profile legal clash with environmental advocates over rules that it claimed could trigger the complete shutdown of production in the Gulf of Mexico”.

The Financial Times reports that the new head of Verra – the world’s largest carbon credit registry – has “defended its policies on conflicts of interest, after a former board member and client was charged in the US over fraud involving credits that it had certified”. The newspaper continues: “US federal prosecutors in New York accused former Goldman Sachs and Verra director Kenneth Newcombe earlier this month of faking data to obtain some of the $100m invested in C-Quest Capital, a carbon credit developer backed by Macquarie and Shell…Newcombe was a long-standing board member of Verra, serving from 2007 till the end of 2023. This included the period when the registry gave its stamp of approval to credits issued by 26 of his projects, based on inflated data he had allegedly submitted to Verra between 2021 and 2023, in exchange for a per-credit fee.…Newcombe could face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of offences including wire fraud and securities fraud.”

In a comment piece for New Scientist, Pierre du Plessis, lead negotiator for the African Group at the Convention on Biological Diversity for 15 years, says that at COP16, there is a $200bn funding gap. He continues: “One possible solution on the table in Cali is a proposal to collect a 1% benefit sharing levy on global retail sales and channel the money to support conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. With global retail sales predicted to reach $25tn soon, a ‘penny on the pound for life on Earth’ could mobilise $250bn a year.” Du Plessis says this solution was proposed in June 2021 by the African group, and calls it “by far the simplest of the options now on the table”. He adds: “That simplicity is why most scientists, businesses and governments I’ve spoken with privately support this proposal in principle. They don’t say so in public, though, because they think it’s too idealistic to work in practice.”

Meanwhile in the Guardian, UK government chief scientist Angela McLean writes that “scientific collaboration is essential to understanding how we are affecting the natural world”. She explains digital sequence information (DSI), the ability to “decode and digitally archive” genetic data, which is “vital to biodiversity research”. She continues: “Much of the capacity to analyse this data lies within the global north, while much of the biodiversity from which this data comes is located in the global south. It is a priority for the UK to ensure that the benefits derived from scientific technologies like DSI flow back to the biodiverse places needing protection and restoration.” Elsewhere, Fiore Longo, a researcher and campaigner at Indigenous peoples’ NGO Survival International writes in African Arguments that the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework has a “number of fatal flaws”. She says these “collectively mean that what could, and should, have been a transformational initiative is instead repeating the same old approach to ‘biodiversity protection’ – promoting a top-down, government- and international agency-driven colonial model that is rooted in racism and has been comprehensively discredited but persists nonetheless”. She concludes: “The answer to how to protect the world’s biodiversity is really quite straightforward: respect Indigenous peoples’ land rights, and tackle the underlying causes of biodiversity destruction, namely the exploitation of the world’s resources for profit.”

A comment piece for Climate Home News says “it’s time to end the UN’s artificial divide between biodiversity and climate”. The article is by An Lambrechts, Cyril Kormos and Virginia Young, respectively senior campaign strategist at Greenpeace International, founder and executive director of Wild Heritage, and director of the International Forests and Climate Programme at the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society.

Journalist and author Jonathan Mingle writes in the New York Times that the oil and gas industry is “afraid” of Kamala Harris. He says the Biden administration has been “very good for US oil and gas producers”, noting that even Biden’s “signature climate legislation” – the Inflation Reduction Act – “offers the industry generous subsidies”. However, he says that in the long run, “other policies of the Biden administration – which would probably be continued by a Harris administration – could pose a significant threat to their interests”. Mingle concludes: “A Trump victory would drag it out and delay any peak in fossil fuel demand. It would also prolong the industry’s primacy by undoing Biden-era regulations, such as vehicle and power plant emissions standards, that weaken demand for oil and gas. Industry lobbyists have reportedly already prepared a how-to guide for that effort, spelling out exactly which executive orders a Trump administration should cancel first. A President Harris, on the other hand, is likely to maintain those policies and perhaps go even further – for instance, by strengthening new limits and fees on methane leaks from oil and gas production or more aggressively regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant.”

Elsewhere, Bloomberg opinion columnist Laura Williams writes that “medical workers are key to adapting to the realities of global heating, but they aren’t receiving the necessary training”. Separately, Alistair Osborne, the chief business commentator of the Times, writes about the proposed expansions of London’s five main airports. He says: “Green-light all five and that’d be extra capacity for more than 120 million passengers: roughly one and a half times the present Heathrow. Could Labour really square such bold expansion with Britain’s obligations to be net-zero by 2050?” Finally, in the Daily Telegraph, writer Sherelle Jacobs says “Labour’s green energy plans…will leave Britain facing intermittency issues and ignore the potential of nuclear and fracking”.

A 1% increase in Amazon deforestation is linked to a 6% increase in malaria cases one month later, according to a new study. The authors developed a statistical model of deforestation and malaria using municipal, monthly data on deforestation and malaria cases over 2003-22. They find that the impact of deforestation on malaria cases increased four-fold for every 1% increase in forest coverage within a given region, although they add that the impact of deforestation on malaria transmission varies across states.