The UK Labour Party has not included its pledge to spend £28bn on green industries in its “campaign bible” – a 24-page document outlining its election strategy, the Daily Telegraph reports. The Daily Telegraph says Labour sources “insisted on Tuesday night that the party remained committed to the borrowing plan, despite it not appearing in the campaigning document”. BBC News also notes that, in the document’s “green energy” section, “lower bills are promised, while £28bn of borrowing isn’t explicitly mentioned”. Carbon Brief’s editor Leo Hickman on Twitter gives more detail on what the document says about Labour’s pledge to reach “clean power by 2030”. This includes ensuring at least 5 gigawatts (GW) of floating offshore wind, doubling onshore wind to 35GW, tripling solar to 50GW, quadrupling offshore wind to 55GW, getting the Hinkley and Sizewell new nuclear plants “over the line” and doubling the government’s target on green hydrogen to 10GW, according to the document. 

The Press Association reports that the government has approved Drax’s development application to install carbon capture technology at the UK’s biggest power station in North Yorkshire. It explains: “The company will be allowed to install equipment designed to capture the carbon created at the controversial plant, which burns wood pellets to produce electricity…In theory this should create carbon-neutral energy, because the trees and other plants burnt first absorb carbon, then are burnt and release the same carbon back into the atmosphere.” PA notes, however, that Drax has previously been accused of burning wood pellets sourced from “environmentally-important forests”. [Carbon Brief has previously examined whether burning biomass can help to tackle climate change.] The Guardian’s coverage of the news says that the go-ahead will cost an estimated £40bn for taxpayers. The Daily Mail says the project could cost “£1.7bn a year in subsidies”.

Elsewhere, several publications cover a new report finding London is “unprepared” for the impacts of climate change. The Evening Standard reports that an interim analysis from the London Climate Resilience Review, commissioned by London mayor Sadiq Khan, says that a “step change” in adaptation planning is needed to ensure the capital can withstand intense and frequent heatwaves, intense rainfall and flash flooding. The Financial Times says that the report issued a series of “urgent recommendations”, including that the central government should give local councils more funding and powers to adapt to global warming. It comes as a report by the Public Accounts Committee, a cross-party group of MPs, warns that the government must do more to protect homes in England from flooding, BBC News reports. The Guardian says that Environment Agency “budget shortfalls” are to blame for rising flood risks, according to the report.

The UK fossil fuel company Shell has agreed to sell its Nigerian onshore oil business to a consortium of local companies for more than $1.3bn, report Bloomberg and others. Bloomberg says: “If approved by the government, the deal would fulfil Shell’s long-term goal of extracting itself from a challenging operating environment in the Niger Delta. For decades, the company has been at odds with local communities over oil spills and accusations of human rights violations.” Even if the deal goes ahead, Shell “will retain many connections to Nigeria through its natural gas business and deep-water oil fields”, the outlet adds. The Times notes that Shell’s deadly oil spills in Nigeria have recently been the subject of high-profile lawsuits. [Carbon Brief took an in-depth look at the impact of fossil fuels in Nigeria in its Nigeria country profile.]

Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph reports that Shell has suspended all Red Sea shipments “indefinitely” amid escalating violence between the US and UK and Houthi rebels. The move “threatens a fresh spike in petrol prices for drivers”, the Daily Telegraph says.

Many publications cover research by a disinformation campaign group finding that a “new wave of denial about climate change is on the rise” on websites such as YouTube and Twitter. The FT explains: “The ‘new denial’ seeks to undermine confidence in green energy solutions, as well as climate science and scientists, the research led by a group of academics and the Center for Countering Digital Hate shows. These forms of denial made up 70% of falsehoods related to climate change in videos published on sites such as YouTube and X [Twitter] over a six-year period, said the report.” NBC News reports that the group uncovered evidence that YouTube’s policies for blocking advertising money from content that rejects the scientific consensus behind global warming are ineffective. The Guardian notes that, according to the findings, a third of UK teenagers believe that climate change is “exaggerated”. It says that the campaign group included the results of a nationally representative survey conducted by polling company Survation which found 31% of UK respondents aged 13 to 17 agreed with the statement: “Climate change and its effects are being purposefully overexaggerated.” Grist, CNN and Bloomberg are among publications covering the research in depth.

The general administration of customs announced China’s coal import volume in December “soared to a new historical high, reaching 47.3m tonnes”, which is “a year-on-year increase of 53% and a month-on-month growth of 8.7%”, reports China Energy Net. Energy outlet BJX News reports that in 2023, more than 80 “outdated” coal-fired power plants were shut down across China. Chinese economic newspaper Jiemian reports that Shaanxi’s Yulin city has developed “oil-rich coal” as an alternative to oil, which promotes “the clean and efficient utilisation of coal” and could, using the “fuel + raw material” concept, help “realise China’s ‘dual carbon’ goals”. The Communist Party-affiliated People’s Daily reports that according to the ministry of ecology and environment (MEE), as of the end of 2023, China has “completely eliminated the production, processing, use and import/export of eight key controlled new pollutants, including short-chain chlorinated paraffins”. 

China Energy Net reports that the latest global report recently released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) indicates that, in both the short and long term, the greatest risks “faced globally include extreme weather events”, among other challenges. Meanwhile, as the WEF Davos meeting continues in Switzerland, state broadcaster CGTN publishes infographics explaining how China is “progressing in its scaled-up response to climate change”. Separately, the state-run industry newspaper China Electric Power News reports that the Chinese electric utility company State Grid held its 2024 work conference, in which it says the foremost responsibility in 2024 is to “ensure a reliable power supply”, while ensuring the security of the large power grid and serving the “dual carbon” targets. The state-run industry newspaper China Energy News writes that, according to industry insiders, a “virtual power plant” is considered a novel power coordination and management system that can “effectively integrate and optimise resource utilisation, achieving peak shaving and valley filling as well as enhancing power supply reliability”. 

Finally, People’s Daily carries a commentary by MEE party secretary Sun Jinlong and minister Huang Runqiu, in which they explain the recent opinions issued by the central committee and state council on “comprehensively promoting the construction of a beautiful China”. They write that, according to the opinions, during the 14th five-year-plan period (2021-2025), China should deepen efforts to “overcome challenges” and “achieve sustained improvement in the ecological environment”; in the “15th five-year-plan period (2026-2030), China should “consolidate and expand achievements”; in the “16th five-year plan” period (2031-2035), the country should “achieve fundamental improvement in the ecological environment”. They also say that China should promote “green and low-carbon economic and social development, accelerating the transformation across all sectors, including energy, industry, transportation, urban and rural construction and agriculture”. 

The heat in the south Atlantic is expected to worsen through March, likely producing drier and hotter weather and elevating the risk of disasters, such as flooding, Brazil’s O Globo newspaper reports. The outlet points out that the southern Atlantic Ocean “directly influences Brazil’s climate”. The beginning of 2024 has also been marked by high temperatures in Bogotá, which could extend until March, Colombia’s El Espectador reports. The newspaper notes that these temperatures pose a risk to people’s health. Dr Ghisliane Echeverry, director of the government-funded Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies, explains to the newspaper that the high temperatures are being driven by climate change, El Niño and the onset of a dry season in several regions. Likewise, Peru’s El Comercio reports that the first days of this month were the hottest in Lima in the past five years, reaching up to 30C. In an interview with the Peruvian newspaper, meteorologist Matt Nieto says temperatures are linked with “coastal El Niño and the presence of winds that keep the sky clear”. Maximum temperatures “above normal throughout the country, except for the south coast” are expected from January to March, the newspaper adds.

Elsewhere, after a severe drought in the Argentinian province of Santa Fe last year, the first days of January broke rainfall records with up to 508 millimetres, which has affected farmers in the region, Argentina’s La Nación reports. Meanwhile, Mexico’s Excélsior reports that global warming will also make “cold waves more frequent” in the country. Alfredo Sandoval, of the department of physics and mathematics at Ibero-American University, explains to the newspaper that some scientists say extreme cold can be produced as higher temperatures retain less Arctic air mass, allowing cold air to descend to lower zones.

In Time, Laurence Tubiana, a key architect of the Paris Agreement and current CEO of the European Climate Foundation [which funds Carbon Brief] and Catherine McKenna, former Canada environment minister and current “greenwashing tsar” for the UN, say that 2024 must be the year to “make it clear that the fossil fuel era is at an end”. They outline five “exponential outcomes” needed for 2024, which include: “implement the IEA net-zero pathway”, “phase out fossil fuels”, “scale financing to the global south”, “align national and subnational net-zero action” and “empower people”. They write: “This is especially true for women. In spite of the lack of women heads of state as captured in the dispiriting COP28 family photo, globally, women are leading the way on climate action. We need to support even more women and girls to lead in their communities and mobilise funding, mentorship, and skills training to scale the women-led climate solutions the world needs.” 

A Lex opinion article in the Financial Times says that a “big upswing” in liquified natural gas (LNG) capacity is expected. It says: “Projects capable of producing 140m tonnes per annum (mtpa, equivalent to 200bn cubic metres, bcm) are set to come on stream between 2025 and 2027, according to Bernstein. That’s more than 30% of the current market…New projects are likely to leave the market amply supplied and drive spot gas prices down, at least until demand catches up towards the end of the decade.” A slump in prices could “squeeze” the profits for “portfolio” LNG companies, often oil and gas majors such as Shell and Total, “whose large bets on natural gas form part of transition strategies”, it says. It adds that “an influx of gas well into the next decade would be an unhelpful headwind for the energy transition”.

Melting of glaciers on Svalbard has the potential to compromise the use of ice cores drawn from the archipelago, a new study warns. Comparing four different ice cores collected in 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2019, the researchers show a “progressive deterioration” in the oxygen isotope (18O) signal. The paper explains that 18O “is commonly used as a proxy for past atmospheric temperature reconstructions, and, when preserved, it is a crucial parameter to date and align ice cores”. Starting from 2015, “there has been an escalation in melting and percolation resulting from changes in the overall atmospheric conditions”, the study says, which “has led to the deterioration of the climate signal” preserved within the ice.

New research unpacks how personal experience of wildfire shapes Twitter discussions relating to climate change. The study examines Twitter conversations around climate change during the onset of 20 wildfires in California between the years 2017 and 2021. After the onset of fire, the researchers find a significant increase in tweets linking wildfire to climate change and also in those attributing other “adversities” to a warming climate. While tweets suggesting climate action also increased, this was not statistically significant, the study notes. The analysis also shows that “discussion increased after the onset of a fire but persisted typically no more than two weeks”.