More than 2,000 buildings have been destroyed and at least five people killed in “wildfires scorching communities across Los Angeles County”, reports the Los Angeles Times in coverage that dominates its frontpage. The bodies were found in Altadena, where the Eaton fire “exploded Tuesday night, giving residents little time to flee”, it adds. There are multiple fires burning, including the Palisades fire, which is estimated to cover 15,800 acres and is still growing, reports the Times. It quotes Kristin Crowley, the Los Angeles fire department chief, who says the first is currently “0%” contained. At least 130,000 people across the LA area are under evaluation orders, with nearly 1.5 million people without power, reports the Washington Post. One fire is burning in the Pacific Palisades, “an affluent, celebrity-packed neighbourhood in the rolling hills of west Los Angeles overlooking the Pacific Ocean”, while, on the other side of the city in Eaton Canyon, a fire has been burning since Tuesday, leaving destruction in Altadena and moving south toward Pasadena, it notes. A third wildfire is burning near Sylmar, to the north of LA in the San Fernando Valley, which has grown to more than 700 acres, the article adds. Elsewhere, BBC News reports that firefighters have struggled with water supplies and are “unaccustomed to fighting multiple blazes at once”. Reuters adds that authorities have said the municipal water systems in LA are working effectively, but were designed for an urban environment, not for fighting wildfires. The wildfires are producing hazardous smoke that is making it hard to breathe, reports the Los Angeles Times. “Billowing wildfire smoke rolled over large swathes of Los Angeles County on 8 January, prompting school closures and triggering air quality advisories across the region,” it adds. According to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, about 17 million people living across Southern California are covered by smoke and dust advisories issued due to the three wildfires, reports the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, a range of explainers have tried to throw light on the “drivers” of the LA wildfires as well as how they might be controlled, including the Washington Post, which highlights the “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm. Inside Climate News explains that “sustained powerful winds reaching nearly 100 miles per hour are driving fast-moving wildfires near Los Angeles, spewing smoke, destroying homes, closing roads, and forcing thousands of people to evacuate”. BBC News explores the role of climate change in the wildfires, pointing to factors such as the decades-long drought in LA and the low humidity. Axios explains that “climate change is intensifying hydroclimate extremes, both wet and dry, including weather whiplash events where California see-saws between the two”. The Guardian notes that the human-caused climate emergency has contributed to a 172% increase in California’s burned areas since the 1970s, within a visual explainer of why the wildfires got “so bad, so fast”.

The Los Angeles Times states that the winds are expected to soon die off, as an ocean breeze begins to blow onto the coast.

The EU’s head of climate change policy has warned that global efforts to tackle climate change will be dealt a “serious blow” if incoming US president Donald Trump pulls the country out of the Paris Agreement, reports Reuters. According to sources, Trump’s transition team have been given orders to draw up plans to remove the country from the international climate agreement, it adds. Speaking to Reuters, EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said, “if that were to happen, that would be a serious blow for international climate diplomacy” that would require other countries to “double down on climate diplomacy”. Elsewhere, the Washington Post takes a look at the “surprising climate commitments of Trump’s new ‘energy czar’”. It notes that former North Dakota governor Doug Burgum is an “outspoken proponent of carbon capture” who is committed to making the state carbon neutral by 2030. 

In other US news, the US state of Alaska has sued Joe Biden’s administration for what it calls “violations of a congressional directive to allow oil and gas development in a portion of the federal Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)”, reports Reuters. The lawsuit focuses on the decision in December to add restrictions to an offer of oil and gas drilling leases in the coastal plain, it adds. The New York Times reports that the second leasing round for the coastal plain ended without a single bid, in “a significant setback” to Trump’s “Drill, baby, drill” initiative. The article quotes Laura Daniel-Davis, the acting deputy secretary of the Interior Department, who said: “The lack of interest from oil companies in development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reflects what we and they have known all along; there are some places too special and sacred to exploit with oil and gas drilling.”

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner, has announced a renewal of trade-in subsidies, including up to 20,000 yuan ($2,730) for purchasing new electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrids, plus up to 15,000 yuan ($2,047) for gasoline cars with engine smaller than two litres. The programme has helped to sell more than 3.7m vehicles since being introduced last year, the outlet continues.

Meanwhile, state-run newspaper China Daily reports that China aims to “open new paths to international collaboration in meteorological early warning” – a promise it made at COP29 in Baku. The Chinese government has pledged to “deepen its anti-corruption drive across a broad sweep of industries”, including the energy sector, Bloomberg reports. China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) has issued a guideline for the compilation of “product carbon footprint accounting standards”, International Energy Net reports. 

In other news, state news agency Xinhua reports that China has become the world’s “second-largest holder of lithium reserves”, with the country’s reserves increasing from 6% to 16.5% of the global total, according to China’s Ministry of Natural Resources. China’s “marine economy” has “emerged as a key driver in boosting energy reserves, renewable energy and global trade”, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources, China Daily reports. The newspaper adds that the ocean’s role “as the backbone of the country’s energy expansion” has been “reinforced”. The energy-focused US website Cipher has an article under the headline: “China has a new sweeping energy law. Here’s what you need to know.”

Elsewhere, news website 360info says that an “overwhelming reliance” on China for lithium and lithium-ion batteries poses a “significant challenge for the sustainability goals” of other countries. Reuters reports that Chinese company CATL, the world’s largest battery maker, is planning a “Hong Kong share sale to fund factories in Europe and beyond”.

New worldwide research has found that nearly a quarter of freshwater animal species including fish, shrimps and crabs are facing extinction, reports the Financial Times. “The creatures in highly diverse ecosystems that help prevent flooding, mitigate climate change and recycle vital nutrients are suffering from human activities including pollution, dams and shifts in agricultural land use”, it continues. Researchers looked at 23,496 species of freshwater animals, finding 24% at risk of extinction, reports Reuters. The newswire highlights that freshwater covers just 1% of the planet, but accounts for 10% of its known species. The Associated Press quotes the study’s co-author Patricia Charvet, a biologist at Brazil’s Federal University of Ceará, who says: “Huge rivers like the Amazon can appear mighty, but at the same time freshwater environments are very fragile.” (See “New climate research” below.)

Great Britain’s National Energy System Operator (Neso) called on power plant owners to provide extra electricity on Wednesday evening as temperatures dipped and demand rose, reports the Guardian. Neso said it needed an extra 1,700 megawatts of power generating capacity between 4pm and 7pm to stay within its normal safe margins, it adds. The article quotes a spokesperson for Neso saying: “This is a routine tool that we use most winters and means we are asking market participants to make any additional generation capacity they may have available. [It] does not mean electricity supply is at risk.” Combined with the high demand expected due to cold weather, low wind generation across the evening and limited interconnector availability with Europe “put more pressure on the grid”, reports the Daily Telegraph. The electricity margin notice was subsequently cancelled by Neso in the evening, reports Reuters. A separate piece in the Daily Telegraph notes that gas-fired power stations were paid £2m an hour to run during the period of tight margins. The Guardian reports that two power station operators will be paid more than £12m for three hours of electricity generated across the period. The article states that “German utility Uniper and a subsidiary of the Swiss commodities trading giant Vitol offered to fire up their gas plants during the evening hours in exchange for ‘super-high’ payouts of more than 50 times the market price earlier this week, according to experts”. 

In other UK news, work has begun on what will be “Europe’s largest battery storage project” at Coalburn in South Lanarkshire, reports BBC News. “Developers say the two huge neighbouring battery farms – one at the site of a former opencast coal mine – will store enough electricity to power three million homes”, the article says.

Elon Musk’s Tesla has received almost £200m in UK government grants since 2016, reports the Guardian. The transport funds are related to the plug-in car grant, introduced in 2011 and designed to increase the uptake of EVs, notes the article. According to analysis by Tussell, Tesla received £191m from Westminster through grants, the bulk of which came from the Department for Transport, it adds. “Tesla emerging as a beneficiary of UK government grants sits at odds with Musk’s talk of shrinking the state and slashing federal spending”, notes the Guardian.

In other EV coverage, the Daily Telegraph reports that UK automotive company Rolls-Royce is to invest a “record £300m to double the size of its UK factory”. This comes as demand for customised cars remains high, with the factory to provide more space to build electric car models, it adds. A separate Daily Telegraph article reports on comments made by Emma Pinchbeck, the chief executive of independent government body the Climate Change Committee (CCC), to MPs about her switch to an EV. The Press Association carries her hearing before MPs under the headline: “Public will not have to change lives ‘radically’ for 2035 climate goal, MPs told.” Meanwhile, bus operator First Bus has withdrawn 30 electric buses due to “technical failures” in Glasgow, reports BBC News. And the Financial Times says “Scotland is to host the three largest battery energy storage systems in Europe after an infrastructure investment fund committed £800m to build two new battery projects, with a combined 1.5 gigawatts of power capacity”.

Brazil’s government has cancelled a tender for docking cruise ships in Belém during COP30 later this year after investigations revealed the “negative impacts on water and animals caused by dredging” the Amazon, Folha de São Paulo reports. Due to Belém’s limited capacity to host the 40,000 people expected at COP30, the government had planned to use transatlantic cruise ships to serve as hotels at the port city, the capital of Pará state, the newspaper adds. Meanwhile, 200 workers “labour seven days a week to prepare the city for COP30”, reports Agence France-Press.

Relatedly, Elio Gaspari argues in a Folha de São Paulo comment article that, if COP30 continues the “tradition of much talk and few results” rather than favouring technical discussions and diplomatic negotiations, Brazil and the Amazon “will be associated with failure”. In a separate article, the newspaper reports that the federal government is cutting disaster funds amid the “climate crisis”.

Meanwhile, Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum has said that climate change is “one of the most important challenges” reports Gatopardo. The country faces problems such as droughts spreading across the nation and “an urgent energy transition”, according to the outlet. It cites a Mexican researcher who says it is “good” that Sheinbaum included environmental actions during her swearing-in, but questions the pledges’ feasibility due to her results as governor of Mexico City.

Writing in the Washington Post, columnist Philip Bump explores incoming US president Donald Trump’s “archaic climate politics”. Bump begins by highlighting that the mechanism for climate change – and, indeed, tackling it by limiting fossil fuels through actions like electrifying transport and switching to renewables – are “well established”. “It’s not perfect and it’s not fast and it isn’t always cheap, but it’s a way to reduce the long-term dangers of climate change”, he notes. The alternative is to take Trump’s stance of curtailing renewables, drilling for more oil and blaming the effects of climate change like the LA wildfires on “fate or his political opponents” argues Bump. The article details Trump’s stance on climate action and energy, arguing that to access aid following the wildfires in LA, the state needs to highlight the high number of supporters who live there. “Or the county’s leaders could somehow convince him that his presentations of energy production, fuel prices and natural disasters are hopelessly archaic.” Bump concludes: “Good luck with that.”

In other comment, an editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald argues that the “petty blame game played by the president-elect should not blind people to the real tragedy unfolding in Los Angeles”. In the Financial Times, director of research and co-founder at Energy Aspects Amrita Sen argues that Trump will struggle to drive down oil prices in the US. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal looks at a court case launched by Hawaii on the grounds of climate change, questioning: “Can Honolulu punish companies for CO2 produced in Texas?” Finally,  an editorial in Japan’s Asahi Shimbun argues that small actions by individuals can “add up in battle with climate change”.

New research finds that one-quarter of freshwater fauna species are at “high risk” of extinction. The species face several “prevalent threats” including pollutants, dams and water extraction, agriculture and invasive species, the study authors write. The research assesses the global extinction risk of more than 23,000 freshwater species. Almost one-fifth of the species are affected by climate change and extreme weather, the researchers note, but this effect may be “underestimated” due to a lack of modelling studies on this issue.