With UK politicians returning to parliament this week after the summer recess, several outlets focus on the new government’s climate and energy commitments. Politico draws a parallel with John F Kennedy’s famous 1962 “moonshot” pledge to “get an American on the moon by the end of the decade. The outlet writes: “What JFK didn’t know was that 60 years later he’d inspire the UK to create its own ‘mission control’ unit at the heart of government, explicitly taking a leaf out of his book. It’s tasked with new prime minister Keir Starmer’s own hugely ambitious moonshot — getting the country’s antiquated power system off of fossil fuels and on to clean energy by 2030. It is a vast undertaking. The total cost, in private and public investment, is expected to run to hundreds of billions of pounds. And, whatever the eventual success of the Apollo space program, experts doubt Starmer can easily replicate Kennedy’s success. Starmer and his energy secretary Ed Miliband are promising to transform the energy supply so that people flicking switches in their homes will know their electricity likely comes from a clean power source such as wind or solar. But to do that, the new government will need to bulk up the UK’s creaking grid, overhaul the planning system to get infrastructure up and running, and reduce emissions from the squadron of gas plants using carbon capture, a technology largely unproven in the UK.” The article continues: “It will be ‘very difficult’, said John Gummer, former chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the watchdog tasked with scrutinising the government’s progress. ‘I personally don’t think it is achievable,’ Chris Skidmore, a Conservative former energy minister, said last year. Neil Golding, head of market intelligence at trade body the Energy Industries Council, expects Labour to miss its goal. Greater ambitions from the party are welcome but ‘the same issues remain in terms of hitting the targets’, he said. Gary Smith, head of the GMB labour union, one of Labour’s largest donors, has called it ‘impossible’. Starmer and Miliband disagree. And that’s where ‘mission control’ comes in. It’s a new delivery unit sitting inside the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), focused squarely on the 2030 goal and headed up by Chris Stark, former CCC boss and a highly respected figure in energy circles. ‘If it can be done, Chris Stark is the one to do it,’ Gummer said.”

On a similar theme, the Financial Times has an article headlined: “Green investors ‘positive’ about new UK government, but doubts remain.” It begins: “Britain’s new Labour government believes that its pivot towards green industries – and the chance of five years of political stability after its landslide election victory in July – will attract more low-carbon investment. But investors at home and abroad remain unsure whether to push more money into the UK because of concerns about the country’s sclerotic planning system, supply chain problems and skills shortages. For many, the question is whether Labour’s offering can possibly match the huge subsidies on offer in the US through the Inflation Reduction Act.” In what the Times is promising to be the “first of our four-part series on energy”, the newspaper’s energy editor Emma Powell looks at the “ambitions of and challenges facing Labour’s big hope for renewable power generation”. She writes: “The government is rushing through legislation to establish GB Energy, which will be based in Edinburgh, Aberdeen or Glasgow and will have taxpayer funding of £8.3bn to invest until the next general election. It will be led by Jürgen Maier, the former chief executive of Siemens UK. The bill to establish it is set to be voted on by MPs this week, although exact parameters remain fuzzy. It is still unclear how its money will be apportioned and what technologies GB Energy will back.”

Meanwhile, in other UK news, Reuters reports that the government has “published details…of a subsidy scheme worth up to £5.5bn ($7.2bn) to help support the Sizewell C nuclear plant being built by France’s EDF in south-east England”. The Daily Telegraph reports: “A project led by a former Chinese diplomat to build one of Britain’s biggest battery storage facilities has been given the green light after a national security review. Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, last week approved a deal for a joint venture to develop an 80-megawatt storage plant near Grimsby.” The Sunday Times writes: “A solar scheme investment sees £150m of taxpayers’ cash go up in smoke. Essex residents are paying a heavy price for their local authority’s foray into commercial investment with the businessman Liam Kavanagh.” And the Times reports: “The government must take action to close a significant disparity in electricity costs for British steelmakers compared with their European rivals, an industry body has warned. Steel producers in Britain are paying an average of £66 per megawatt-hour for wholesale electricity this year, while the cost in France is £43/MWh and in Germany is £50/MWh, according to an analysis by UK Steel. The lobby group said that such high prices would hamper the industry’s green transition.” Another Times article says “lower interest rates signal a revival in green energy investment”.

Separately, several outlets cover a warning by an offshore energy lobby group that, as Bloomberg reports, the “UK’s new tax regime for North Sea oil and gas could lead to an investment slump of more than 80%”. The outlet continues: “Changes already announced by the new Labour government, including an increase in a windfall tax and removal of an investment allowance, could mean a drop in capital spending on UK projects from 2025 to 2029 to just £2.3bn ($3bn), compared with an estimate of £14.1bn under the current fiscal regime, Offshore Energies UK said in a report on Monday. The tax changes “will trigger an accelerated decline of domestic production, and a corresponding reduction in taxes paid, jobs supported, and wider economic value generated,’ David Whitehouse, chief executive officer of OEUK, said in a statement.” Reuters quotes a response from a Treasury spokesperson: “We are committed to maintaining a constructive dialogue with the oil and gas sector to finalise changes to strengthen the windfall tax, ensuring a phased and responsible transition for the North Sea.” The Times runs the story under the headline: “Higher windfall tax on offshore oil will ‘lose the UK £13bn’.” BBC News, the Guardian and Daily Telegraph also cover the story.

Finally, the Sunday Telegraph carries an interview with the former Conservative energy secretary Claire Coutinho in which she claims that “[new energy secretary] Ed Miliband’s vote-winning pledge to lower household energy bills by £300 a year was a ‘betrayal’ of British families”. She is quoted saying: “I think Ed Miliband’s energy policy is based on ideology rather than fact. Otherwise he would have published an assessment of the costs of his net-zero plans, and of our reliance on Chinese imports, for example, on batteries, on cables, on critical minerals.” The newspaper, citing figures from a climate-sceptic lobby group, also claims that “Ed Miliband’s flagship wind farm has already been paid close to £2.5m to keep its turbines switched off”. The article is noteworthy because it signals the return after a hiatus of the so-called “Net-Zero Scrutiny Group”, a small cabal of climate-sceptic right-wing politicians in parliament: “Lord McKinlay, the chairman of the [group], said Mr Miliband’s approach to renewable energy was ‘a path of madness, no doubt about it’. He added that Labour’s net-zero plans ‘could be the one policy that could bring down the government in due course’.”

There are “tentative signs [that] the massive glut…plaguing [China’s solar] industry could be starting to ease”, Bloomberg reports, as analysts foresee an “imminent wave of factory closures that would help rebalance the market”. However, the outlet adds that “a meaningful rebound is unlikely until next year”. Leading Chinese solar producer Longi has reported a net loss of 5.24bn yuan ($739m) in the first half of the year, another Bloomberg article reports, due to, according to the company, a “‘mismatch’ of supply and demand”. Business news outlet Caixin reports that “several [solar] companies published first-half results on Friday, showing worsening profitability”. It adds that “in the first half of the year, prices for polysilicon, silicon wafers, solar cells and modules fell by 40%, 48%, 36% and 15%, respectively”, but that “a return to healthy competition by 2025 is seen as optimistic”, according to industry sources. Economic news outlet Jiemian reports that smaller industry players have followed the lead of Longi and other major producers to raise prices, causing “price fluctuations”. Industry news outlet BJX News reports that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has established a “carbon footprint basic database and calculation platform” for the solar sector. 

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that US trade representative Katherine Tai “applauded” Canada’s recent decision to impose a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs). The newswire also reports that the US “again delayed an announcement” on US tariffs for EVs, batteries, solar cells and other products, adding it “will make a decision public in the coming days”. A third Reuters article says Republican policymakers Marco Rubio and John Moolenaar have asked for Chinese battery maker CATL to be added to a “restricted list of companies allegedly working with Beijing’s military”. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports that Chinese EV manufacturers said they would be willing to “set a minimum price” and “put a limit on the volume of EV exports” to the EU in exchange for the EU to lower their tariffs on Chinese EVs, according to people familiar with the negotiations. Reuters says that Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez “will travel to Beijing and Shanghai on 7-12 September and meet Chinese president Xi Jinping during his trip”. The Financial Times reports that Chinese automaker Chery is “betting on continuing strong demand for petrol cars in the UK” in its Europe expansion plans.

Meanwhile, several outlets cover the news that dozens of African leaders are arriving in the Chinese capital for the three-yearly event known as the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit, which formally starts on Thursday. Reuters says: “China will urge a summit of 50 African nations in Beijing this week to take more of its goods, before western curbs kick in on its exports such as electric vehicles and solar panels, in exchange for more pledges of loans and investment…[Xi] is expected to pitch plugging into China’s burgeoning green energy industry to leaders from Gambia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe.” The Paper, a Shanghai-based news outlet, quotes Ministry of Ecology and Environment representative Cui Dandan saying that “sustainable energy transition and green investment and financing pose both a major challenge and a significant new opportunity for the sustainable development of China and Africa”. The Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily reports that “China does its utmost to share its green development experiences with African countries”. Xi has told African academics that China and Africa need to deepen collaborations “more than ever before”, state news agency Xinhua reports.

The “influence of Amazon and Jeff Bezos’s $10bn charitable group over the carbon credit market is raising alarm”, reports the Financial Times, in a “growing battle over how big tech and corporate groups seek to achieve tough climate goals”. The article continues: “The Bezos Earth Fund is among the largest funders of the Science Based Targets initiative, a globally-renowned body relied upon by groups such as Apple and H&M to set voluntary standards and strict limits on the use of carbon credits to offset emissions. Separately, Amazon is expanding its own voluntary pledging initiative, signed by more than 500 companies including Uber, IBM and Microsoft, which could provide an alternative way to hit climate goals and which has no limit on the use of carbon credits. The SBTi is also in the middle of a process of rethinking its approach to offsets, a decision that could prove crucial to big tech groups at a time when artificial intelligence is resulting in a leap in emissions caused by the greater use of data centres. Experts and campaigners have grown concerned about the potential of Amazon and the Bezos fund, whose chair and vice-chair are Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sánchez, to influence SBTi, which holds sway over whether many corporate groups can achieve a credible ‘net-zero’ label.” The FT adds: “SBTi insiders expressed concern about a ‘Hydra’ of carbon and energy credit lobbyists at meetings on climate policy. A person close to the Bezos fund hit back against this criticism: ‘They cannot stand the fact that they no longer have a carte blanche to set the rules…Welcome to a grown up world of standard setting.’”

Germany’s network agency has announced plans to spread the cost for investments of compensating grid operators in order to help integrate renewable power sources more evenly between consumers across the country, reports Reuters. The newswire adds: “Germany faces an estimated 450bn euros ($498.4bn) in grid expansion costs by 2045 in its push to cover 80% of its electricity consumption with renewables by 2030 and achieve climate neutrality by 2045. Those will be passed on to consumers through their energy bills. A dispute has intensified between northern and southern states, with northern residents complaining about higher electricity prices despite the region’s cheaper wind power production. The higher costs in the north are largely due to the expense of connecting wind turbines to the grid, which are distributed among fewer residents due to the region’s lower population density. The issue is affecting acceptance for renewables expansion in eastern Germany, where prices are already 22% higher than the west, adjusted for purchasing power.” Die Zeit says the new model, effective from 2025, aims to make grid fees “fairer” by redistributing costs across all regions, benefiting areas such as Saxony and Brandenburg, which have high concentrations of renewables. However, according to Der Spiegel, states such as North Rhine-Westphalia or Bavaria may face rising fees. Finally, Handelsblatt reports that the expansion of renewables in Germany will necessitate the construction of approximately 18,000km of new power lines in the coming years, with a significant portion planned to be laid as underground cables.

The US oil industry and Republicans are “demanding” that Kamala Harris “clarify” her energy and climate policies, reports the Financial Times, as the Democratic candidate “tries to please her progressive base without alienating voters in shale areas like Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state”. The newspaper adds: “The vice-president said [in a CNN interview] she no longer supported a ban on fracking, the technology that unleashed the shale revolution. But Harris’s reversal has not quelled attacks from Donald Trump or US executives that she would damage the country’s oil and gas sector. The heads of the US’s two biggest oil lobby groups [the American Exploration and Production Council and the American Petroleum Institute] said the Democratic candidate must also say whether she would keep or end a pause on federal approvals for new liquefied natural gas plants, and whether she supported curbs on drilling imposed by the Biden administration…Climate-focused voters are less vexed than energy executives by the lack of explicit policy from Harris. ‘Let’s be clear: the most important climate policy right now is defeating Donald Trump in November,’ said Cassidy DiPaola of Fossil Free Media, a non-profit organisation. ‘All the wonky policy details in the world won’t matter if climate deniers control the White House.’” The Associated Press has an article headlined: “Harris and Trump offer starkly different visions on climate change and energy.” And Reuters asks: “How would Trump seek to dismantle Biden’s climate legacy?”

Australia has recorded its hottest August on record, reports the Guardian, with the “national temperature 3C above average, as September kicked off with total fire bans in parts of New South Wales on Monday”. The newspaper adds: “Bureau of Meteorology data showed average temperatures across the nation in August were 3.03C above the long-term average, easily beating the previous 2.56C record set in 2009. The 2024 winter also ranked as the second hottest on record going back to 1910, the data showed, coming in at 1.48C above average. The hottest winter on record was 2023 at 1.54C above average. On Monday, the NSW Rural Fire Service issued total fire bans for greater Sydney and the Illawarra and Shoalhaven region. Climate scientists have described the extreme temperatures across Australia since the middle of August as ‘gobsmacking’. ABC News says “Queensland’s last day of winter was the warmest we’ve felt in decades”. The Conversation has an article headlined: “‘It’s time to give up on normal’: what [Australian] winter’s weird weather means for the warm months ahead.” (See Carbon Brief’s recent explainer: “Why is climate change causing ‘record-shattering’ extreme heat?”)

Separately, the Guardian reports: “Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s ageing coal-fired power plants rose slightly in the first half of the year, reversing years of declining pollution from the power sector and raising questions about the country’s ability to meet its climate targets. An increase in electricity consumption across the country and lower than usual wind and hydro output led to an increase in coal generation. It pushed up emissions from the electricity grid between January and June.”

An editorial in the Washington Post argues that the “​​US should refocus its climate strategy to speed up the poor world’s access to clean energy technologies”. It adds: “The global discussion over climate change has been caught up for years in a dead-end argument between rich countries, which resist making sacrifices in the service of decarbonisation until poor countries join the effort, and poor countries, which point out that most of the carbon in the atmosphere today was put there by the rich. These positions open an opportunity for a deal: have rich countries pay poor countries for specific, verifiable emissions cuts. There are major challenges to [these] proposals, including how to put a price on carbon that would enable such a global trade, so far a political impossibility in the US. But it promises to provide the cheapest path toward worldwide decarbonisation. Short of that, the US should spend less time worrying about standing up subsidised domestic copies of foreign clean energy manufacturing industries. Absent bona fide national security concerns – such as preserving access to critical minerals used in batteries and other technology – the clean energy economy needs to be global.” Another editorial in the Washington Post is headlined: “If EVs are stalling, accelerate with hybrids.” It says: “Ford scaling back its EV plans is the latest electric vehicle setback. But this is not fatal for a smart green transition.”

In other comment, the Lex column in the Financial Times says: “Plug-and-play nuclear reactors remain a shot in the dark. A new UK state body might ease investor fears, but any renaissance is likely to be slow.” An editorial in the climate-sceptic comment pages of the Wall Street Journal bemoans that “obtaining permits for energy projects typically takes several years [in the US], but courts are putting developers on notice that they can cancel them at any time”. And the Daily Telegraph once again platforms the views of climate-sceptic commentator Matthew Lynn to claim that “Ed Miliband is putting Britain’s future in the hands of eco-fanatics” by “effectively [giving] Greenpeace control over elements of our energy policy”.

Greenhouse gas emissions from beef production in the US could be reduced 20m tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year and a further 58m tonnes could be sequestered each year, according to a new study. Overall, this equates to a 30% drop in emissions from the sector, it finds. The authors quantify the emissions reductions from 42 mitigation practices. They find that changes in the grazing stage have the largest impact on emissions.

Around 2.5 billion more people lived in areas with a “high climate suitability” for dengue fever in 2022, compared to 1979, according to new research. The authors investigated changes in historical temperature and humidity data, as well as population growth. They find that “in the global south, this increase was largely driven by population growth in areas with historically favourable climate suitability, while in the global north this increase predominantly occurred in previously unfavourable areas with limited population growth”.