China has told the International Court of Justice (ICJ), during hearings aimed at establishing an “advisory opinion” on countries’ legal responsibility for climate change, that existing UN treaties should “provide the basis for states’ legal obligations to fight global warming and address the consequences of their historic contributions”, Reuters reports. China says it understands the “enormous difficulties” faced by the small island state, the newswire adds. 

Relatedly, there was “fury” after the US argued against climate regulations in the ICJ hearing, stating that the current rules are “satisfactory”, reports the Guardian. The article quotes Margaret Taylor, legal adviser at the US state department, who told the ICJ yesterday that the current UN climate change regime “embodies the clearest, most specific, and the most current expression of states’ consent to be bound by international law in respect of climate change”. She added: “Any other legal obligations relating to climate change mitigation identified by the court should be interpreted consistently with the obligations states have under this treaty regime.” This statement drew a “flurry of condemnation” from small island states and environmental groups, reports the New York Times. 

In other China news, state-run newspaper China Daily publishes an opinion article by Chinese climate envoy Liu Zhenmin saying that China is “determined” to help “keep the cost of renewable energy for developing countries affordable”, adding that China will “join hands with other Asian countries and all partners” in a collective effort towards the “regional energy transition”. The Financial Times says that Chinese “exports and investment are pouring into Saudi Arabia”, with Saudi Arabia’s “demand for green tech” deepening its relationship with China. Agence France-Presse reports China has reported its “warmest autumn this year since records began”, according to the country’s National Climate Centre.

Energy news outlet International Energy Net quotes officials at the National Energy Administration (NEA) saying China’s new energy law is “significant” for enhancing energy security and accelerating the energy transition. China Coal News quotes a former NEA deputy director saying that China’s policy on “clean and efficient utilisation of coal” is a “prudent approach”. China Daily carries a commentary by World Economic Forum representatives, writing that China is “emerging as a key player in sustainable aviation fuel”.

Elsewhere, the Financial Times says that Chinese companies will “only be able to access” the new EU’s new fund for low-carbon technologies if they agree to “transfer intellectual property rights to the EU and meet other criteria, including cutting emissions”. Business news outlet Caixin quotes a manager at a major Chinese battery-maker based in Germany saying “high investment cost and Europe’s sluggish EV market growth have significantly increased the risk” of building plants in the EU. Wang Huiyao, the president of the thinktank Center for China and Globalisation and former state counsellor, writes in a China Daily commentary that there is “potential for a cyclical upswing” in US-China relations, across environmental issues as well as other areas. The New York Times analyses views on China in Donald Trump’s cabinet, highlighting Vivek Ramaswamy’s “accus[ations of] climate activists who want…to shackle America to let China catch up to the US economically” and Marco Rubio’s statement that “there is nothing the US could do to convince China, the world’s top greenhouse gas polluter, to emit less”.

A widespread power outage has “plunged Cuba into darkness” after the island’s Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant in Matanzas province, east of Havana failed, reports the Associated Press. The blackout, which occurred just after 2am, affected the entire nation, it adds. This is the “latest of several such failures as the island’s grid falls into disarray amid fuel shortages, natural disaster and economic crisis,” reports the Guardian. Cuba’s oil-fired power plants, “already obsolete and struggling to keep the lights on”, reached “full crisis” this year after imports from Venezuela, Russia and Mexico dwindled, contributing to blackouts over the past two months, the article explains. In October, a failure at the same power plant led to a days-long blackout and power was again knocked out by a hurricane shortly after, reports Bloomberg. “The cash-strapped, communist-run nation is mired in its worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union,” it continues, noting that 10% of Cuba’s population has left since 2020. Following the failure of the Antonio Guiteras plant, Cuba was only generating enough electricity to cover a sixth of peak demand late on Wednesday, reports Reuters. The country’s government has said it will focus on prioritising returning power to hospitals and water-pumping facilities, with schools and non-essential government buildings to remain closed, it adds. 

In November, one in four new cars sold in the UK were electric, according to transportation research group New Automotive, reports Bloomberg. This represents the highest monthly share of electric vehicles (EVs) for nearly two years and puts sales ahead of the 22% target manufacturers must hit under the country’s sales quota, it adds. New Automotive says that petrol cars made up 29% of market share in November, down from 42% in the same month the year previously, reports the Daily Telegraph. Meanwhile, EVs rose to take a 25% market share, up from 16% the year previously, it adds. Separately, a report from Auto Trader has found that the sales of petrol cars peaked in 2024 and are now set to “tumble by more than 40% over the next decade”, says the Press Association. There were 18.7m petrol cars on the roads this year, but, from 2025, this will steadily decrease to 11.1m by 2034, it adds. This “seismic shift” will see the number of EVs on the road jump from from 1.25m in 2024 to 13.7m in 2034, it notes. 

In other UK news, the Daily Mail reports that environmental group Just Stop Oil is planning to “blockade” parliament for weeks in the spring, as part of a new wave of action.  

South Africa’s high court has upheld a legal challenge to the government’s plans to develop 1,500MW of new coal-fired power, reports Bloomberg. The court has ruled that the development is unlawful due to the health impacts on the public and, as such, violates the constitutional right to health, it adds. The case was filed by three environmental groups against South Africa’s energy minister, energy regulator and president Cyril Ramaphosa after the government announced the expansion plans in its 2019 energy plans, Bloomberg continues. “Those decisions are ‘unlawful and invalid’, the judge said, ordering the minister and regulator to pay costs to the complainants,” the article continues. South Africa relies on coal for 80% of its electricity and has some of the world’s worst air quality, it notes. 

The small town of Carrboro in North Carolina has launched the US’s first-ever climate accountability lawsuit against a utility, reports the Guardian. The town has accused Duke Energy of waging a “deception campaign” leading to delays in efforts to curb planet-heating pollution, which has pushed up the costs of climate action, it continues. The article quotes Carrboro’s mayor, Barbara Foushee, who helped bring the suit and says: “When you’re dealing with something like the existential threat of climate change, that requires us to make bold moves.” The town, which is about 30 miles from the state capital of Raleigh, said it is “on the hook” for millions of dollars in road repairs, increases to energy bills and other infrastructure costs required to mitigate the impacts of climate change, reports Reuters. Duke Energy is one of the US’s largest utility companies, providing electricity to more than eight million customers in six states and natural gas to almost two million customers in five states, as well as being a major operator of coal and gas power plants, reports the New York Times. In a statement, the company said it is reviewing the complaint and would “continue working with policymakers and regulators to deliver reliable and increasingly clean energy while keeping rates as low as possible”, the article notes.

Kristalina Georgieva, the director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has warned that climate change threatens the Caribbean and that the region will need $100bn in the next two decades to be “climate resilient”, reports Spain’s La Vanguardia. During a three-day summit for boosting the Caribbean’s energy transition, the IMF director said such a process needs “solid macroeconomic frameworks, prudent fiscal management and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies”, among other measures.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, Greenpeace is opposing fauna management in the Maya rainforest which is being carried out by the national defence secretary and the company Tren Maya to “contain and deter animals” threatening the “railway operations of the mega project”, El Universal reports. The campaign group condemned that the Maya Train project sorted wildlife, such as jaguars, as “noxious” and said the decision has “prioritised economic benefits above the ecological balance” as it has cleared more than 10m trees in the region.

Finally, the uptake of electric vehicles is rising in Brazil, but the country lacks charging infrastructure and “38% of drivers are now considering switching back to combustion cars”, according to a McKinsey report covered by Folha de São Paulo.

According to a new report from climate group Reclaim Finance, a new “wave” of gas projects worth more than $200bn could lead to a “climate bomb”, reports the Guardian. This would be “equivalent to releasing the annual emissions of all the world’s operating coal power plants”, it adds. There has been a “sharp rise” in the number of gas projects in recent years, driven by a shift from coal to gas in developing countries and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine leading to European gas challenges, it explains. As such, large banks have “invested some $213bn into plans to build terminals, to allow chilled gas to be exported and imported around the world in ocean tankers”, the article continues. It quotes Justine Duclos-Gonda, a campaigner at Reclaim Finance, who says: “Oil and gas companies are betting their future on LNG projects, but every single one of their planned projects puts the future of the Paris agreement in danger. Banks and investors claim to be supporting oil and gas companies in the transition, but instead they are investing billions of dollars in future climate bombs.”

Adam Tooze, professor of history at Columbia University and director of the European Institute, argues in the Financial Times that, when it comes to environmental concerns, “the US has an irretrievably split personality”. He lists a number of examples of fractured policy in the US, such as the Clinton administration helping to prepare the first global climate agreement, but the Kyoto principle never being put to the Senate. “The inescapable conclusion of the past 35 years is that it is foolish to treat the US as a reliable partner in global climate policy,” Tooze notes. Given its history and the reelection of Donald Trump, if there is to be a global climate leader, it could only be China, he argues. If the country’s government can override its fossil-fuel interests, “[China] will not single-handedly solve the climate crisis, but it will assert a claim to leadership that the west will find hard to answer”, Tooze concludes.

Elsewhere, an editorial in the Times argues that those “decrying” the Bovaer additive should “know better”. This follows a backlash by some conspiracy theorists after some dairy farmers began using the feed additive to reduce methane from cows, with Bovaer cutting the greenhouse gas from cows by 27%, the piece notes. An editorial in Nature looks at the “degree to which humans can influence whether a meteorological extreme develops into a disaster”.

New research presents an artificial intelligence-based weather model which has “greater skill and speed” than top existing forecasters. The researchers claim that GenCast, a machine learning weather prediction method, “significantly outperforms” more traditional weather forecast methods which use physics-based simulations of the atmosphere. These findings “open a new front in weather forecasting, promising greater accuracy, efficiency and accessibility across a wide range of settings”, they conclude.