There is widespread coverage of new advice from officials advisers the Climate Change Committee saying that the UK should cut its emissions to 87% below 1990 levels by 2040 under its seventh “carbon budget”. The Press Association reports that the CCC has set out “what it says is a deliverable and cost-effective route to the greenhouse gas emissions cuts required from 2038 to 2042 to ensure the UK meets…net-zero by 2050”. Under the CCC’s cost-effective pathway, “around a third of the emissions cuts in the period will have to come from action by households, mainly buying an electric car and a heat pump to replace an old gas boiler”, PA says. It adds that behaviour changes such as eating less meat and dairy, and flying less, would play a “smaller, but important role”, according to the CCC advice. The shift away from fossil fuels could save households “hundreds of pounds a year on driving and energy bills”, the newswire says, adding that the CCC said the government should introduce more support to help people deal with “upfront costs” from switching from boilers to heat pumps. The coverage in UK media has a sharp focus on what the CCC advice could mean for UK lifestyles, with BBC News reporting that half of homes would need a heat pump by 2040, the Guardian saying that the average person might need to skip “two kebabs’ worth of meat a week” and the Financial Times focusing on how a third of emissions cuts from 2038-2042 come from household decisions, including on EVs and heat pumps. The Times reports that the advice says regulations to end the installment of new gas boilers by 2035 should be reintroduced, which it says could cause a “fresh headache” for energy secretary Ed Miliband, who has previously opposed a ban. Bloomberg reports that the new advice “include[s] higher projections for airline passenger numbers” than the previous version, which it says might “smooth the way for plans to expand London’s Heathrow Airport”. A story trailed on the Daily Telegraph’s frontpage focuses on a frequent flier levy, where people that take a large number of flights each year face a higher rate of tax. [This is discussed among a range of options in the advice, but contrary to the newspaper’s reporting is not recommended by the committee.] A separate analysis by the Daily Telegraph lists CCC options for different kinds of lifestyle changes under the headline: “Everything Labour wants you to give up.” [The CCC is a statutory independent adviser and is not affiliated with any political party.] The Daily Mail breathlessly claims that UK households could face “meat shortages, higher taxes and a mandate to install a heat pump in their homes”. The Daily Express focuses on the CCC saying meeting net-zero by 2050 could cost £5bn a year. Carbon Brief’s in-depth coverage of the report notes that the net cost of net-zero, at 0.2% of GDP, is 73% lower than previously thought under its sixth carbon budget advice, published in 2020.

UK prime minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday announced plans to cut the UK aid budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of national income and spend more on defence, which could “make it more difficult for the government to deliver on a promise to increase climate finance to developing countries”, Climate Home News reports. The UK’s climate finance commitment comes from its aid budget, CHN says, adding: “International charities and aid organisations have responded in dismay, slamming the move as ‘a betrayal’, ‘short-sighted’ and ‘a truly catastrophic blow’ that will cause more people to die and lose their livelihoods in the world’s most vulnerable nations…Tom Mitchell, executive director of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development, told Climate Home News that Starmer should consider cutting harmful fossil fuel subsidies ‘before raiding an already depleted support system that is relied on by some of the world’s most vulnerable people’.” In its coverage of the aid budget cut, the Guardian reports that it understands “the longstanding pledge to spend £11.6bn on climate finance for the developing world, made by Boris Johnson and reaffirmed by Starmer at the UN COP29 climate summit last year, will be ringfenced despite the slashing of the budget elsewhere”.

In other UK news, a frontpage story in the Times reports that Heidi Alexander, the UK transport secretary, has said she is not a “flight-shaming eco-warrior”, “the strongest indication yet that a major expansion of Gatwick airport would be approved on Thursday”. Gatwick wants to bring its “emergency” standby runway into regular use in a move that would allow an extra 100,000 flights a year by the turn of the decade, the newspaper says. BBC News reports that Alexander also said the government “believes in increasing airport capacity”. The Daily Mail reports that a “giant wind farm powered by Chinese turbines” is set to get the green light.

US officials have missed recent UN climate change meetings – sparking concerns about a “potentially significant shift from Donald Trump’s first term”, a review of attendance records and interviews with delegates by the Centre for Climate Reporting and the Guardian finds. During the first Donald Trump administration, the US was taken out of the Paris Agreement but US officials continued to play a leading role in meetings convened by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Guardian says. It continues: “However, since the start of his second term last month, US officials seem to have not attended any meetings, according to meeting minutes and recordings posted to the UNFCCC website and people with knowledge of the meetings who spoke to CCR under the condition of anonymity. US representatives appear to have missed at least four international climate meetings in recent weeks.” Elsewhere, Reuters reports that former US national security officials have warned that Trump’s gutting of scientific research could lead to China outpacing the nation in “critical technology fields”. The New York Times reports that Trump’s cuts to the National Science Foundation could threaten US research in the Arctic and Antarctica. Axios reports that the state of Washington faces more than $1bn in research funding losses under Trump.

In other news, several publications report that Tesla’s sales in Europe have fallen by 45% following what Bloomberg describes as Elon Musk’s “political meddling”. It continues: “The Musk-led company registered only 9,945 cars in January, down from 18,161 a year ago, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. EV sales soared 37% for the overall industry, with carmakers posting big gains in Germany and the UK.” BBC News notes Tesla also faces “stiff competition” from Chinese manufacturers. The Guardian speaks to Tesla owners who feel “disgust” at Musk’s actions and the Washington Post says some are experiencing “buyer’s remorse”. 

A frontpage story in the Financial Times says Ukraine has agreed to the terms of a deal on minerals, including oil and gas, with the US. It reports: “Ukrainian officials said Kyiv was ready to sign the agreement on jointly developing its mineral resources, including oil and gas, after the US dropped demands for a right to $500bn in potential revenue from the deal. Although the text lacks explicit security guarantees, the officials argued they had negotiated far more favourable terms and depicted the deal as a way of broadening the relationship with the US to shore up Ukraine’s prospects after three years of war.” A Ukrainian official tells the FT that president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was planning to travel to Washington on Friday to see Donald Trump and formalise the deal.

China is looking to “effectively eliminate severe air pollution by the end of 2025” as authorities “ramp up efforts in pollution control and emissions reduction in the ‘battle for blue skies’”, Reuters reports, quoting the director of the department of atmospheric environment at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE). The newswire also quotes the official saying China will “boost the share of new energy vehicles and [new energy] machinery in airports, ports and logistics parks” and decrease long-distance road transport to achieve these aims. State-run newspaper China Daily also covers the story, saying MEE plans to “further reduce emissions by advancing clean heating, ultralow emission transformation, volatile organic chemical controls and transportation sector management”, according to the same official, who is quoted adding that the country will “transform the structures of industry, energy consumption and transportation toward green, low-carbon development”. According to the official, China has “deepened” emission reduction in key sectors in 2024, China News says, adding that in the steel industry, a transformation to “ultralow emissions” was completed for 130m tonnes of capacity. Business news outlet Yicai reports that China is accelerating the development of the national “VII” vehicle emission standards this year to combat air pollution as “mobile sources have become the primary cause of pollutant emissions” in China’s cities. The Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily publishes an article on the front page of its print edition, saying that China has been “steadily moving forward on the road of high-quality development oriented towards prioritising ecology and green development”. State newspaper China Daily republishes a CCTV article titled: “Matters general secretary [Xi] is concerned with – ‘Green power’ lights up Banyan village.” 

Meanwhile, the National Energy Administration will “continue promoting private sector involvement in major energy projects” in 2025, including nuclear power, energy storage and smart grids, China Daily reports. Business news outlet Jiemian covers the “dilemma” China’s power generation companies face under the new pricing mechanism for renewable energy, as power sold through the mechanism is not eligible for green electricity certificates. Another Jiemian article says the pricing reform has increased “uncertainty” for the energy storage sector, “slowing down the speed of project investment and development”. BJX News publishes an article discussing “misunderstandings and…points requiring clarification” surrounding the new pricing reforms. Shanghai-based news outlet the Paper says that MEE has released the “2023 electricity carbon footprint factor data”. State news agency Xinhua publishes an article on this week’s IPCC meeting in Hangzhou, saying that for China, “actively addressing climate change” has become an “intrinsic requirement for achieving sustainable development and a responsibility for building a community of shared human destiny”. Elsewhere, Bloomberg reports on an analysis finding China needs to cut its steel capacity by 15% to meet its 2025 climate goals.

India is “expected to flag” its concerns over the EU’s carbon border tax and “oppose any kind of unilateral trade barrier” at talks with the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who is visiting the country this week, the Times of India reports. The “first ever visit of the EU college of commissioners together” to India will see the carbon border tax being discussed in ministerial meetings, at the India-EU Trade and Technology Council and in “delegation-level” discussions between von der Leyen and India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, it adds. Meanwhile, India might fail to achieve its target of deploying 500 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030 “if the annual funding does not increase by 20% from the current levels”, according to an Ember report covered by the Economic Times. Separately, national thinktank Niti Ayog has said that the central government “is planning to set up a National Green Financing Institution to support its net-zero target by 2070”, according to the Deccan Chronicle. The Financial Times reports that officials and experts have warned that India’s renewable sector must boost investments and access foreign financing if the nation is to meet a target to double non-fossil fuel sources of power by the end of the decade.

In extreme weather news, Kannur in Kerala clocked temperatures of 40.4C on Monday, “marking the first instance of temperatures crossing the 40-degree threshold in 2025” and signalling an early onset of summer, the Hindustan Times reports. Average February temperatures over south and central India so far are the “highest since 1901” according to India Meteorological Department (IMD) experts quoted by the newspaper. According to HT analysis of the IMD’s “century-long temperature data”, the October-December season “is warming at a rate of 1.01C per century, followed by January-February winter months at 0.73C”. Scientists quoted by Mongabay attribute Kerala’s current record heat “to local conditions coupled with long-term climate change impacts” while pointing to “a clear trend toward a hotter climate”. Business Standard reports that Mumbai “is set to experience an unusual February heatwave”, with temperatures “soaring to 37-38C, nearly 5C above normal” and the IMD issuing a “yellow warning” for the city. With Mumbai experiencing “above-normal” temperatures for over a week and the monsoon four months away, civic officials quoted in the Indian Express say that continuing heat could lead to “a reduction in lake levels”, with the city’s water stocks “dipping” to 51%. Heatwaves in Mumbai are the “new normal”, according to climate scientist Prof Raghu Murtugudde quoted in another Indian Express explainer. The IMD has also issued a heat warning for Goa, the Times of India reports. India’s air-conditioner market demand “​​has doubled” in the last four years to 15m “[w]ith the impact of climate change and people looking for comforts”, the Hindu reports. Finally, climate activist Sonam Wangchuk has “urged” Modi to “set up a commission to assess the state of glaciers in the Himalayas”, the Economic Times reports.

Writing in the Daily Mirror, energy and net-zero secretary Ed Miliband says that he understands that energy bill price rises in the UK are “worrying for many families” and says the “main reason” is wholesale gas price increases. He says: “The British people are paying the price for our country being stuck on the rollercoaster of global fossil fuel markets controlled by dictators and petrostates. That is why our government is sprinting to homegrown, clean energy that we control here in Britain.” An editorial in the Daily Mirror says “turbo-charging clean energy will help in the long term”. Elsewhere in the Sun, an editorial celebrates the UK government cut to foreign aid, saying “net-zero madness” should be next. An editorial in the Daily Telegraph (print edition only) fumes against the idea of a frequent flier tax, saying: “[M]embers of the middle class might as well be issued with placards to wear reading: Kick me.” A Daily Telegraph column by assistant editor Jeremy Warner falsely blames net-zero for recent energy bill rises. The Spectator gives space to climate-sceptic columnist Ross Clark to claim that the CCC is “living in cloud cuckoo land”.

The Antarctic sea ice system might now be in a ‘changing state’, according to new research which investigates the significance of record summer sea ice minima observed between 2017-24. Using a Bayesian reconstruction of Antarctic sea ice extent to extend the record back to 1899, the researchers conclude the recent sequence of extreme minima was ‘unlikely’ to have happened in the 20th century. The trend represents a ‘structural change’ in the sea ice system, manifested by ‘increased persistence in the sea ice extent anomalies’ and ‘a strongly reduced tendency to return to the mean state’, they explain. The study argues that past, long-term behaviour of the Antarctic sea ice system may ‘no longer be relied on’ to predict its future state, which may be characterised by ‘extreme conditions’.