The United Arab Emirates has confirmed that Sultan al-Jaber, head of state oil giant the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), will act as president of the COP28 climate conference it is hosting this December, reports Reuters. Jaber, who is also UAE’s minister of industry and technology as well as its climate envoy, will help to “develop the COP28 agenda and play a central role in intergovernmental negotiations to build consensus” according to his office. The newswire adds that the UAE and other Gulf energy producers have called for a “realistic energy transition in which hydrocarbons would continue playing a role to ensure energy security while making commitments to decarbonisation”. COP28 will see the first “global stocktake” take place under the terms of the Paris Agreement. The Guardian notes that Adnoc is the world’s 12th-largest oil company by production. The newspaper quotes Tasneem Essop, the executive director of Climate Action Network International, who says that if Al Jaber is appointed president of COP28, it will be “imperative for the world to be reassured that he will step down from his role as the CEO of Adnoc”. Essop added: “He cannot preside over a process that is tasked to address the climate crisis with such a conflict of interest, heading an industry that is responsible for the crisis itself.” BBC News says “campaigners say he must stand down from his oil business role while president as it is a clear conflict of interest”. It continues: “The appointment of a key figure in the energy industry as the president-designate of COP28 will likely increase the concerns that the global climate talks process is facing significant influence from fossil fuel interests.” The Financial Times and Bloomberg also cover the story. On the same topic, Nature carries an editorial which argues that “the COPs have created momentum and pressure for coordinated action, but the influence of oil and gas interests will continue to limit their ambition”.

Meanwhile, Climate Home News says that Brazil has officially launched a bid for the north-eastern city of Belem to host the COP30 international climate summit in 2025. It adds: “Former Brazilian environment minister Izabella Teixera told Climate Home that having a COP in the Amazon would be ‘amazing’. But, she added: ‘I’m concerned because of infrastructure, costs, digital infrastructure, hotels – everything that you need when you have a COP with 30,000 people.’ She said flying to the Amazon region was particularly expensive.”

The Guardian reports that a Nottinghamshire coal-burning power plant will stay open for two years beyond its planned closure date after a “call from ministers prompted by the UK’s energy crisis”. The newspaper adds: “Ratcliffe-on-Soar had initially been pencilled in to shut in 2022, but last year said it would have an initial extension until 31 March 2023. The planned closure forms part of the government’s attempt to remove coal from Britain’s energy generation to cut carbon emissions. Coal-fired plants provided more than 40% of Britain’s electricity a decade ago, but that figure had fallen to 1.5% by last year. Ministers have set a goal for Britain to stop using coal altogether. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led to countries boycotting Russian gas. Emergency contracts were drawn up between energy suppliers and National Grid to keep stations open as back-up options.” The Daily Telegraph describes the move as a “blow to net-zero”, but adds: “None of the coal-fired power plants asked to stay online this winter have so far been called upon to supply power. Mild weather has helped to lower demand for gas, as well as for heating in France.”

Separately, the Financial Times reports that “the UK has broken its record for wind power generation, as blustery conditions and a growing number of turbines enable renewable energy sources to provide more than half the country’s electricity”. It continues: “National Grid Electricity System Operator on Wednesday said the country had generated record wind-powered electricity at one point on Tuesday, with provisional data showing a ‘max wind generation record’ exceeding 21.6 gigawatts. UK demand on Wednesday lunchtime was about 35GW.” The Press Association and BusinessGreen also carry the news.

HSBC made a multimillion-dollar loan to an energy company that is “bulldozing a village in Germany to expand a huge coalmine – despite a pledge to ‘seek to withdraw’ from funding the fossil fuel”, reports the Times. The newspaper says that “senior figures” at the banking giant recommended that a $340m loan to the energy giant RWE should not be publicised by the borrower. It adds: “Before sanctioning the loan to RWE, one of Europe’s largest energy companies, HSBC bankers raised concerns about the expansion of the mine, according to an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The mine will cover an area about the size of Swindon and is expected to yield roughly 190m tonnes of lignite, the most polluting of all coal types.” It carries a response from the bank: “Details of this [deal] and all its participating banks are in the public domain, as is normal. We have processes to ensure our financing aligns with our policies, which include an expectation on clients to produce and implement credible transition plans.” In other financing news, the Guardian covers a new report which warns that “the UK could suffer 500,000 job losses and be forced to spend £674bn of taxpayer cash to rescue its banks, unless the City prepares for the value of fossil fuels to collapse as a result of climate crisis regulations, research shows”.

Separately, the Guardian covers the findings of the new paper published in Environmental Research Letters which says that fossil-fuel companies should be forced to “take back” the CO2 emitted from their products. The newspaper explains: “The principle that the producer of pollution should pay for its clean-up is established around the world, but has never been applied to the climate crisis. Yet technology to capture and store carbon dioxide underground is advancing, and is now technically feasible, according to Myles Allen, a professor of geosystems science at the University of Oxford. ‘The technology exists – what has always been lacking is effective policy,’ he said. ‘The failure has been policy, not technology – we know how to do this.’” The Independent describes the idea as a “carbon takeback obligation”.

Several outlets cover a new study published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, which, according to Axios, shows that ocean “heat content” hit a record high in 2022, in a “clear indication of continued global warming”. It says that the study “indicates that ocean warming is leading to widespread changes throughout the sea, with salty areas getting saltier and fresh regions of the ocean getting fresher”. Axios adds: “Study co-author Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research said warm waters in the Indian Ocean helped lead to both record heat in Pakistan and parts of India last year, as well as the deadly flooding that affected much of Pakistan in the late summer. Similarly, the ongoing atmospheric river events in California are being made worse by warm ocean temperatures in parts of the Pacific Ocean, Trenberth told Axios via email.” Inside Climate News says the study shows that “ocean heat content reached a new record high for the fourth year in a row” and that “the planet’s seas absorbed about 10 Zetta joules of heat – equivalent to 100 times the world’s total annual electricity production”. The Guardian says the study “demonstrat[es] the profound and pervasive changes that human-caused emissions have made to the planet’s climate”.

There is continuing coverage of the extreme flooding in California. Vox writes: “In less than a week, the story about California’s weather shifted dramatically. Just before New Year’s Eve, the state was running out of water following two decades of severe drought. Then, it started to rain and rain. Over the last two weeks, California was battered by a series of atmospheric rivers – narrow corridors of water in the sky – that utterly drenched the region, killing people and damaging homes and highways. From extreme drought, the focus on California has quickly pivoted to extreme floods. There’s a term for this: weather whiplash. It generally describes a quick shift from one weather extreme to another. And California is far from the only region to experience the effect. Places like Dallas and Michigan, as well as parts of Europe and Asia, have all experienced their share of whiplash, which often produces catastrophic results. A key question now is whether weather whiplash is getting worse as the planet warms – and how that might complicate disaster readiness…Yes, some scientists say: climate change could be making whiplash events more frequent in the decades to come, though there are some key uncertainties.” The New York Times also has a feature focused on “weather whiplash” which is headlined: “Will storms end California’s drought? That may be the wrong question.” Reuters says more extreme weather is on the way for the region: “The seventh consecutive atmospheric river since Christmas dumped more rain on northern California on Wednesday, offering little relief for a state already battered by floods, gale force winds, power outages and evacuations of entire towns. While Wednesday’s deluge was relatively minor, with less rainfall and mostly contained to northwestern California, another atmospheric river was expected to drench most of the state this weekend, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center.”

Meanwhile, in other US news, several outlets cover a political spat over a proposed ban on gas cookers. The Independent says: “White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has said that President Joe Biden doesn’t support a ban on gas stoves. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) was reported to be considering a ban on gas stoves over fears they cause indoor pollution linked to asthma in children. A separate Independent article reports that Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was “met with a wave of apoplectic conservative criticism when she shared the dangers of gas stoves in a post on Twitter”. It adds: “Republican Congressman Ronny Jackson took offence to the news, and vowed to never let the government take his gas stove. ‘I’ll NEVER give up my gas stove,’ he wrote. ‘If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT.’” A third Independent story explains how the gas stove “became the newest player in the Republican culture war”. Additionally, the New York Times has a story headlined: “Ban gas stoves? Just the idea gets some in Washington boiling.”

Finally, Reuters covers a new University of Michigan study which finds that “more than 90% of US households that own a vehicle would see a reduction in the percentage of income spent on transportation energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions if they switched to electric vehicles”.

The state-run industry newspaper China Energy News, citing a report by the state-run newspaper People’s Daily, writes that, under the “guidance” of China’s State Council, the majority of central enterprises (those supervised by the central government) should “resolutely” take up the “main responsibility to increase production and supply, stabilise the market and prices” to ensure energy supply. Another China Energy News report says that coal sales by the National Energy Group “exceeded 500m tonnes” in 2022, which the company says is a “positive contribution” to the national coal energy supply. The state news agency Xinhua reports that China’s “coal-rich” province of Shanxi “increased its power-transmission efforts in 2022, sending 146.4GWh of electricity to 22 other province-level regions, an annual increase of 18.55%”, according to the State Grid Shanxi Electric Power Company.

Meanwhile, Hellenic Shipping News writes that the “end of China’s zero-Covid policy and an anticipated recovery of the Chinese economy have strengthened expectations for the country’s coal imports in 2023”. It adds that a “return of import tariffs, the end of China’s unofficial ban on Australian coal and the energy transition in China could shape the coal shipment outlook”. Reuters reports that Chinese interest in Australian coal has been limited by the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday and high domestic inventories, meaning few deals have been completed since China lifted an unofficial ban on imports last week.

Finally, Reuters reports that “China’s chief climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua met his US counterpart on Wednesday and both sides agreed to maintain communication to jointly address the challenge of climate change, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said on Thursday”.

An editorial in the Financial Times argues that Brussels’ new carbon border levy is a step forward, but implementation will be tricky: “It could be vital for the bloc’s net-zero ambitions. If it galvanises other trading partners into pricing their carbon emissions, it could also be a pioneering stride forward in the global fight against climate change. While the levy makes sense in theory, its success will depend on how effectively the EU can navigate the numerous practical challenges of actually implementing it. The carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) requires firms in the bloc to pay tariffs on some carbon-intensive imports linked to the domestic carbon price under its Emissions Trading System (ETS)…Over time the CBAM could also lead to unintended consequences. Given its initial scope – covering a few imports including iron, steel, fertiliser, and electricity – EU businesses could adjust their supply chains to avoid the tax, for example by importing finished products instead. Companies outside could also simply send their cleanest products to the bloc and carbon-intensive ones elsewhere without slashing emissions. Indeed, the scope of CBAM may need widening to make it more effective, but this would also intensify the domestic and international challenges.”

Meanwhile, writing in the New York Times “Debatable” newsletter, staff editor Spencer Bokat-Lindell asks: “Should we block the sun to counter climate change?” He continues: “If humanity became dependent on aerosol injection as a substitute for decarbonisation rather than a complement, it could become a kind of civilisational addiction, impossible to safely stop.” And in his New York Times newsletter, David Wallace-Wells explains why “electric vehicles keep defying almost everyone’s predictions”.

Finally, in the Times Red Box, Andrea Leadsom, a former UK energy minister, writes: “Net-zero can offer a significant contribution to achieving energy independence in the UK, because it means generating more of our own energy from domestic sources that are not reliant on global oil and gas markets or hostile regimes. A win-win, in fact, because net-zero is also an inevitable direction for the planet as we seek to limit climate change and to protect and conserve valuable resources and habitats.” And the Guardian has published a “long read” by its US columnist Rebecca Solnit headlined: “‘If you win the popular imagination, you change the game’: why we need new stories on climate.”

More than 90% of vehicle-owning households in the US would see reductions in both greenhouse gases (GHGs) and the percentage of their income spent on fuels by adopting an electric vehicle (EV), a new study says. The researchers compare EVs to vehicles with internal combustion engines for GHG emissions and fuel costs across the US – excluding the costs of buying the vehicle. The reductions identified would be especially pronounced in the west – such as California and Washington – and parts of the north-east, the authors say, “primarily due to a varying combination of cleaner electricity grids, lower electricity prices (relative to gas prices), and smaller drive-cycle and temperature-related impacts on fuel efficiency”.