The UK government has delayed a policy forcing boiler manufacturers to sell a rising number of electric heat pumps over time, just weeks before it was meant to start, the Times reports. The clean heat market mechanism would involve manufacturers ensuring that at least 4% of their sales were heat pumps, to begin with, and facing fines if they failed to do so, the newspaper explains. Companies that are critical of the scheme have dubbed it a “boiler tax”, on the basis that they will simply pass the costs from the resulting fines onto consumers, the article adds. The Guardian reports that some boiler companies have already put their prices up by £120 in anticipation of the scheme, which one “government insider” described to the newspaper as unfair price “gouging”. The Guardian says the mechanism is now due to be delayed by a whole year until April 2025. It adds that energy secretary Claire Coutinho has also asked the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate the boiler market. This news comes only around a week after reports that the policy was going to proceed as planned, despite it being a contentious issue within government (see Monday’s Daily Briefing). Politico says the government justified a delay to the scheme by saying it was a bid to “protect consumers”. It describes the mechanism as a “central plank of government policy to decarbonise UK homes and help ministers hit the legally-binding target of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050”. The article notes that government climate advisors have warned that the UK is already off track in its rollout of heat pumps. The Daily Mail’s coverage of the story simply repeats the messaging from the boiler industry mentioned by other outlets, stating that “controversial plans for a new ‘boiler tax’ have been delayed for at least a year after pushing up prices by £120”. The Daily Telegraph reports that Conservatives MPs welcomed the move, but said the government must now “do the right thing” by abandoning the policy completely. Separately, Conservative MP Sir Bill Wiggin writes in BusinessGreen that heat pumps present a “major opportunity for British manufacturers”.

Politico has an article arguing that “the green Tory project is now dying a death”, with various “green-oriented” Conservative MPs leaving parliament, including former COP26 president Alok Sharma, former net-zero tsar Chris Skidmore and former prime minister Theresa May. “And nobody is coming through the ranks to take up the baton,” the article states. In more UK news, Bloomberg reports that HSBC is talking to investment funds about loans to help finance the construction of the UK’s long-awaited Sizewell C nuclear plant.

Meanwhile, in a frontpage story, the Daily Telegraph reports that the introduction of electric ambulances in the UK’s NHS is “raising concerns that its drive for net-zero is being put above patient safety”. It says concerns about the charging time of these ambulances are among a series of issues raised by “whistleblowers” who say climate measures in the health system have created a “bureaucracy that was diverting vast sums from the front line, and placing “grossly unethical” obstacles in the way of clinical decisions”. The newspaper has also published an accompanying editorial titled, “Patients must come before net-zero in the NHS”.

The US Export-Import Bank, which finances projects overseas, has voted to provide a $500m loan guarantee for an oil-and-gas project in Bahrain, Bloomberg reports. The move faced pushback from Democrats who said it would undermine US credibility on climate issues, after the US agreed alongside other nations to “transition away” from fossil fuels at the most recent UN climate summit, according to the news outlet. The financing agreement was “five times larger than lawmakers and others expected and will support a project to drill more wells in the prolific Bahrain field”, it adds. The bank said its action was aligned with its mission to support US exports and jobs, with new drilling in Bahrain potentially meaning “lucrative contracts for American engineering and construction-management firms”, the New York Times reports. The newspaper says the bank is also considering support for other fossil-fuel infrastructure overseas, including projects in Papua New Guinea and Guyana. 

Elsewhere, the biggest lithium-mining project in the US is on track for a $2.3bn loan from the Energy Department as part of the Biden administration’s effort to increase the domestic production of electric-vehicle batteries, the Wall Street Journal reports in an “exclusive”. The newspaper says this loan for Lithium Americas to build a refining plant at its Thacker Pass mine in Nevada will provide a “shot of energy into America’s flagging electric-vehicle industry”. It adds that the provision of federal funding for lithium production is “intended to help break the country’s reliance on China, which dominates global production of battery minerals”. In related news, Politico reports that the Biden administration is expected to produce the final version of its new regulation on passenger cars and light trucks – which could result in two-thirds of new passenger vehicles in 2032 being electric – next week. The new rule would require car manufacturers to cut their average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 52% between 2027 and 2032, it explains. The article says this legislation would be “cornerstone” of the administration’s climate action, adding that bringing it into force quickly could insulate it from rollbacks if Donald Trump wins the presidency. 

The New York Times reports on the rising demand for electricity across the US, which it links to “electric cars but also by battery and solar factories and other aspects of the clean-energy transition”. The article describes a growing trend of some utilities planning new gas power plants to keep up with supply. It says that “cleaner alternatives like wind or solar power aren’t growing fast enough and can be bogged down by delayed permits and snarled supply chains”.

Meanwhile, Associated Press reports that the Biden administration plans to allocate more than $120m to tribal governments to help Indigenous people in the US fight the impacts of climate change on their lands. The funds, which largely come from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will fund 146 tribal climate resilience projects, the Hill says. 

Finally, the Biden administration has also proposed plans to save the endangered greater sage grouse, in a move that would restrict where infrastructure, including renewable energy, is sited in the western US, according to the New York Times.

The new US climate negotiator John Podesta says that “[the US] just hope[s] that [China’s] transition away from coal would be a little faster than their current schedule”, reports Agence France-Presse, adding that he calls for China to “take their responsibility seriously”. The Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily covers comments by Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the US, who says that “cooperation between China and the US makes for a better future”, and that de-risking “means lost opportunities and lose-lose outcomes”. Quartz explores the challenges Italy’s car industry faces “figuring what kind of relationship it wants with China”. Industry outlet BJX News reports that commerce ministry spokesperson He Yadong says that China is “highly concerned about [EU requirements that Chinese cars register with customs], and the industry is extremely worried about the retroactive tax measures that the EU may make in the future”. The Daily Telegraph reports that the UK’s transport minister Mark Harper has said that the UK will use “robust” trade sanctions to prevent China from flooding the car market with cheap EVs. Bloomberg carries a commentary arguing that “if rich democracies wanted to build a clean-energy industry free of Beijing’s influence, they should have had their chequebooks out…during the 2010s”, and that “the global lithium industry is so interwoven with Chinese capital now that it’s going to be impossible to unpick”.

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports that “more frequent and severe global heatwaves will disrupt future supply chains around the world”, which could result in GDP loss of 3-5% in China by 2050, according to a new study. People’s Daily says that “the example of electric vehicles shows that China is catching up with the west when it comes to the green technologies of the future”. China Energy Net reveals that “in the past five years, the number of companies in the ‘new three’ industries has grown rapidly”, of which “new energy vehicles are the fastest growing”. Another People’s Daily article reports that “advanced green and low-carbon technologies” have empowered people across China to enjoy eco-friendly lifestyles”. 

Elsewhere, China Energy Net reports that the state council has issued an “action plan for promoting large-scale equipment renewal and the replacement of old consumer goods with new ones”, and that “the energy efficiency of major energy-using equipment in key industries” will reach an effective level. BJX News covers the same news, adding that it pledges to improve “the upgrading and decommissioning” of wind turbines and solar panels, “revise and improve the clean production evaluation index system” and “formulate revised carbon emission accounting standards for key industries”. 

The Scottish government will have to spend roughly 18% of its capital budget to meet its net-zero goals, according to a new report by Scotland’s independent financial watchdog, covered by the Herald. The Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC) concludes that the government would need to spend an average of £1.1bn a year and that the interim target of a 75% emissions cut by 2030 “could be difficult” to fund, the newspaper continues. According to a recent report from the commission, Scotland’s capital budget is expected to drop 20% in real terms between 2023-24 and 2028-29, it adds. BBC News explains that the UK’s financial burden for reaching net-zero may fall disproportionately on Scotland because so much of the nation’s tree planting is set to take place there.

The Scotsman says that Scottish National Party ministers “have been warned that funding from Westminster may not keep pace with the requirement for Scotland-specific policies to reach net-zero”. The spending estimates do not cover the money needed for climate adaptation, and the commission also points to “a risk that Scotland facing a more extreme climate to England in any given year could create a funding gap”, the newspaper adds. An accompanying editorial in the Scotsman says the news should not be seen as a reason to ignore the issue of climate change. It says the Scottish Fiscal Commission highlighted that taking no climate action would ultimately be more costly. Therefore, the editorial concludes, ignoring the issue would mean “future generations will pay a high price for our profound economic mistake”.

Germany “is complaining about high energy prices”, while German energy giants RWE and E.ON are announcing their substantial profits in 2023, reports Der Spiegel. The outlet details that RWE’s adjusted profit surged to over €4.5bn, a 39% increase from the previous year, while E.ON saw its net profit rise by 12%. Even the nationalised energy company Uniper, which the government had to rescue from bankruptcy in 2022, reports “a hefty” profit of €4.4bn, the article says. Such a profit surge is attributed to increased earnings from power plants, expansion of wind and solar parks, “successful” international energy trading, and government measures to cap energy costs, it explains. However, Manager Magazin reports that RWE anticipates a profit decline attributed to its transition to greener electricity, which relies on wholesale electricity prices that are currently experiencing a drop. In addition, E.ON plans to invest €42bn from 2024 to 2028 across Europe, focusing on building secure power grids, reports Die Zeit. Meanwhile, E.ON’s chief executive Leonhard Birnbaum notes that Germany “has swapped” the dependency on Russian gas to the dynamics of global markets for liquefied “natural” gas (LNG), Reuters reports.

Elsewhere, the Associated Press carries a story about Germany’s vice chancellor Robert Habeck launching a programme worth up to €4bn to help heavy industry shift to more “climate-friendly” production over a 15-year period. The government says Germany is the first in the European Union to launch the so-called “carbon contracts for difference”, notes the outlet. It explains that the companies in the paper, glass, steel and chemical sectors have four months to bid for support under the contracts, which are supposed to compensate for the extra costs of “climate-friendly” production processes where they otherwise would not be competitive. 

Data from the thinktank Ember shows how Brazil’s electricity generators have cut their reliance on large hydropower dams by “sharply increasing output from solar and wind farms”, Reuters reports. It adds that power companies in Brazil have also significantly cut their use of coal and gas-fired power plants for electricity since 2018. The article says that low-carbon power reached record levels overall last year, with hydropower providing 67% of the nation’s power in 2023 and wind and solar providing 22%. 

Separately, the New York Times has an article about how Brazil’s government is aiming to both combat deforestation in the Amazon and also expand its oil production. It notes that the state-owned oil firm Petrobras is “planning such a rapid increase in oil production that it could become the world’s third-largest producer by 2030”. The article describes this as “an enormous predicament” for Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, “who has fashioned himself as the pre-eminent world leader on climate issues”.

An Economist editorial discusses the “profound geopolitical consequences” of the global shift away from oil, as demand – rather than supply – becomes the major influence on energy markets. It says that as governments around the world implement low-carbon policies that reduce demand for fossil fuels, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries are likely to benefit as they possess the least carbon-intensive and cheapest oil reserves. “Their piles of capital, and their desire to project their strength abroad, will only intensify,” the editorial states. In contrast, the editorial notes that oil producers across Africa, Asia and Latin America that are pumping more expensive and carbon-intensive oil will likely suffer. “Because governments in many producing countries are often unduly reliant on commodity revenues, the failure of some national oil firms could lead to debt crises, bankruptcies and a decade of lost development,” it explains. The article says that for these “unlucky” oil producers, “the priority must be to diversify while oil prices are relatively high and demand still strong”. On average, national oil firms allocate around 5% of their capital towards diversification away from fossil fuels, while “the west’s oil majors, by contrast, spend 15%”, it continues: “The supply-led oil shocks of the past half-century were a frequent source of geopolitical tumult. Unless the coming transition is approached with more foresight, the next-half century will be no less fraught.”

Following Shell’s decision to water down some of its climate commitments, the Lex column in the Financial Times considers a wider trend of companies seemingly “backsliding” on their pledges. It points to the news that 239 groups have failed to provide “industry standard-setter” the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) with net-zero targets within the 24-month period that they agreed. “This wave of corporate backsliding is not quite as bad as it sounds,” it assures readers, stating that Shell has made some progress in cutting emissions and “many SBTi laggards say they remain committed to the cause”. Equally, it says that many companies setting targets have chosen to focus on the short term – out to around 2030 – and only on their own emissions, rather than the so-called “scope 3” emissions of their suppliers and customers. The article explains: “It is not hard to see why. 2050 is well beyond companies’ typical three-to-five year planning cycle. Airlines can get to zero only if hydrogen-based fuels – currently but a twinkle in forecasters’ eyes – take off. And making a solid commitment to cut carbon from one’s value chain is tricky: suppliers are independent companies that may not have signed up to net-zero themselves.” The article concludes that “aspirational climate leadership – otherwise known as setting targets that one has no idea how to reach – is not as daft as it sounds. It creates momentum and helps get the ball rolling”. However, it says that “aspiration is now colliding with reality”.

A new study finds that warming sea surface temperatures in Mobile Bay – an estuary of the Gulf of Mexico – have increased the abundance of young bull sharks fivefold over the past two decades. Using data on a range of environmental conditions, including oxygen levels, salinity and temperature, researchers model the suitability of the estuary for bull shark habitat. They find that the average suitability has increased from 0.028 to 0.082 over 2003-20, coinciding with “substantial increases” in average temperatures. The authors conclude: “As climate change persists, coastal communities will continue to change, altering the structure of ecological communities and the success of nearshore fisheries.”