A Guardian “exclusive”, frontpage story reports that, according to “party sources”, the opposition Labour party is set to drop its flagship pledge to spend £28bn a year on green investment by the end of its first term if it wins the upcoming election. According to the outlet, the party would maintain its “core mission of investing in green infrastructure”, alongside the creation of a publicly owned clean energy company called GB Energy and a mass home insulation programme. However, it notes that the change “will in effect cut its green ambitions by about two-thirds, given that the previously announced schemes are set to cost just under £10bn a year by the end of the parliament”. The article cites an anonymous shadow Labour minister who says: “The £28bn is definitely going as a figure. It will be changed to specific outcomes linked to specific investment, rather than being a random figure to be allocated at a later date.” However, the source also tells the newspaper: “It was always meant to be formally allocated before the general election, so this isn’t such a major departure really. It’s being firmed up, not dropped.” Moreover, the article states that polling released yesterday by More in Common found that among people planning to vote Labour, the £28bn is “the second-most popular potential manifesto promise”. It is worth noting that Labour has previously stated consistently that it will ramp up to £28bn of annual investment in the second half of the parliament, with the condition that this is subject to its own fiscal rules.

The story comes after interviews that saw senior Labour figures rigorously questioned about the pledge, including one with shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, covered by the Independent. He said it was Labour’s “ambition” to continue with the investment, but warned that “sometimes circumstances change”, the news website says. BusinessGreen covers Labour’s annual business conference, where it says shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves “faced repeated questioning” over the £28bn figure. It says Reeves also “reiterated the spending plan remained contingent on it being compatible with Labour’s fiscal rules and argued that with potentially two budgets before the next election it was too early to gauge how much fiscal headroom an incoming government would have”. According to BBC News, Labour leader Keir Starmer, speaking at around the same time Reeves was giving her speech at the business conference, repeated a similar statement, including a mention of £28bn. 

However, in an interview with Sky News, Reeves was asked “10 times” if the £28bn policy remained in place and “appeared to dodge the question”. The transcript of Reeves’ answer shows her again emphasising the importance of “fiscal rules” when considering Labour’s so-called “green prosperity plan”. Other outlets have picked up on this interview, including the Daily Express which calls it “cringeworthy” and says Reeves “fell back on blaming the Conservatives for the havoc surrounding one of Labour’s only firm policy commitments to date”. The Times quotes Reeves saying that when she originally set out the green prosperity plan in 2021 she did not “foresee the Liz Truss mini budget and the damage that would do to our economy and to our public finances”.

European farmers who travelled to Brussels to disrupt the European Council summit “finally got their moment with senior EU figures on Thursday evening”, according to Politico. It reports that European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen, alongside Belgian prime minister Alexander de Croo and Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, met with farm lobby organisations after the summit. The news website notes that “farmers’ protests have erupted across Europe in recent weeks, triggered by falling incomes, free-trade agreements and overall dissatisfaction with EU and national policies”. Specifically, as the Times reports, farmers have expressed their anger about the EU’s cornerstone “green deal” climate legislation, as well as a proposed trade agreement with Latin America. In response, the Financial Times says EU leaders “vowed to ease the burden of environmental rules”, with Von der Leyen stating that there would be more removal of red tape for farmers and a rethink of a “recent wave of climate-related legislation”. The newspaper notes that the farmers see policymakers as hypocritical for negotiating a trade deal that allows increased imports of beef and soybeans that lack the EU levels of stringency in their environmental regulations. However, it adds that “critics of the protests have pointed to the high level of subsidies and the influence that the farming lobby already holds over policymaking in Brussels and EU capitals”. Reuters notes that, prior to the meeting, farmers had “already secured several measures”, including commission proposals to limit farm imports from Ukraine and loosen some environmental regulations on fallow lands. 

Meanwhile, Politico reports separately that Von der Leyen is facing a “mutiny” in her own centre-right European People’s Party just days before the commission is set to endorse a new climate target for 2040. It says European Parliament members “fumed as to why the EU executive was issuing the target now, of all moments, with anti-green rage simmering, the far right pouncing, the EU election looming, and farmers blockading the front gates of the legislature”.

In more farming news, DeSmog reports on a recent study that has found it is “not feasible” for the global livestock industry to sequester enough carbon in soils to cancel out its planet-warming emissions – despite claims by the livestock industry. It quotes the study’s co-author, Prof Pete Smith of the University of Aberdeen, who puts it bluntly: “The overblown claims by the livestock industry, that you don’t need to worry about anything because we’re sucking up all carbon, we’re doing a climate-positive job – that’s just bulls**t.”

At the monthly meeting of China’s politburo, President Xi Jinping said that “green development is the undertone of high-quality development, and new quality productivity in itself is green productivity”, reports energy newspaper BJX News. It adds that Xi also said it is “necessary to accelerate greening of the development model to help reach [China’s goals in 2030 and 2060 to] reach carbon peaking and carbon neutrality”. The Paper also covers the news, quoting Xi as also emphasising that “high-quality development is the hard truth of the new era” and that China will “optimise the toolbox of economic policies to support green and low-carbon development, give full play to the pulling effect of green finance and create highly efficient ecological green industry clusters”. Elsewhere, in an article that paints Xi as a “leader in cultural inheritance and innovation”, state news agency Xinhua highlights innovations in the city of Shenzhen “from electric cars to new drones, from low-carbon pilots to smart cities” as examples of Xi’s effectiveness, adding that “under his leadership, China’s ecological environmental protection has undergone historic, transformative and comprehensive changes, with bluer skies, greener mountains and clearer water”.

Another BJX News article says that 18 local governments in China have released their regional government work reports, with energy and climate goals featuring heavily in most of them. For example, it adds, Shandong province plans that clean-energy installed capacity will reach 100 GW by 2025 and the city of Beijing plans for renewable energy consumption to grow by 0.5%, while in Shanxi province “advanced coal production capacity” will reach 83% next year. [Advanced coal production is defined as adhering to a high level of environmental protection and low energy consumption per unit of product, according to the People’s Daily.] Caixin reports that “more than half of the Chinese mainland’s 31 provincial-level governments have set lower GDP growth targets for 2024 than for last year”, although it adds that “the 2024 GDP growth targets of 13 provincial-level governments are higher than the actual growth rates they achieved in 2023”. Meanwhile, China’s ministry of state security called a case of “extreme environmentalism” that targeted the fishing industry a “threat to national security”, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports. It quotes the ministry saying that the accused man was “deeply influenced by extreme environmentalism while overseas” to “fabricate…materials to suggest there were environmental problems in the industry”.

The Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily reports that “a team of Chinese and New Zealand researchers has developed a type of membrane that can…efficiently convert carbon dioxide into formic acid, a useful liquid chemical”, adding that the process is “made possible by a catalyst derived from waste lead-acid batteries”. Industry outlet China Energy Net says that “the world’s first four-seat hydrogen combustion aircraft prototype” completed its maiden flight in the city of Shenyang. According to economic newspaper Jiemian, China also developed the world’s “first offshore grid-scale energy storage project”.

Finally, Philip Clayton, president of the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China, writes in the People’s Daily that “China is a global leader in building an ecological civilisation and has many practices that other countries should learn from”. He adds that the Chinese community party “regards the construction of ecological civilisation as an important part of the overall layout of the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics, and green development has become an important concept guiding China’s development”.  

The German newspaper Tagesspiegel examines the consequences of the decision by US president Joe Biden to place a “temporary pause” on liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal expansion. The article outlines that the German government has recently made “significant efforts” to achieve independence from imported Russian gas, which includes the construction of new LNG terminals to receive imports from alternative suppliers. The outlet adds that German media says Biden’s decision is “ominous”. Die Zeit says “Joe Biden is giving Europe the cold shoulder”, while Cicero argues that Biden has “shattered Germany’s gas dreams”. Berliner Zeitung asks: “Do the Russians benefit now?” However, Tagesspiegel also explains that, although Germany imported 83% of its liquefied gas from the US in 2023, the LNG share only constitutes 7% of German gas imports overall. The newspaper quotes Georg Zachmann, an energy market expert at the Bruegel thinktank, who says that, “in the short term, there will be no changes to the gas market in Europe because the moratorium only affects facilities that were expected to start operating no earlier than 2028”. Süddeutsche Zeitung adds that environmental groups have called for a review of LNG infrastructure development in Germany and an immediate halt to the terminal on the island of Rügen.

Meanwhile, Der Spiegel reports a new study commissioned by the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA) indicating that electric cars registered in 2020 are around “40% less harmful to the climate than gasoline-powered cars”. In addition, the study suggests that, based on the expansion of renewable electricity, a further reduction of up to 55% in climate harm is possible by 2030. 

Finally, Handelsblatt reports that the solar industry in Germany faces a “critical situation” with Heckert Solar, the nation’s third largest solar panel producer, questioning its presence on the German market due to the influx of cheap photovoltaic panels from China. 

Shell has reported annual profits for 2023 of $28.3bn – down around a third from the record set in 2022, but still higher than any other year since 2011, the Financial Times reports. According to the newspaper, the oil company forecasts “resilient demand for energy products to continue as it raised the dividend and announced another round of share buybacks”. It notes that, since taking over chief executive in January last year, Wael Sawan has “re-emphasis[ed]” Shell’s oil-and-gas business and “trimm[ed] less profitable parts of the company’s low-carbon portfolio”. The article adds that, last year, the company spent $5.6bn on low-carbon energy projects – representing 23% of its total capital expenditure – while also adding at least 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent each day to its production capacity. Specifically, the Guardian notes that Sawan has “reversed a plan to reduce Shell’s oil and gas production by 1-2% a year in pursuit of higher profits”. It adds that this decision “goes against advice from climate experts who have said there can be no new fossil-fuel development if the world hopes to avoid a climate crisis”. Reuters notes that much of Shell’s recent success has come from strong liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading, even as refining and oil trading show weaker results.

Elsewhere, several outlets – including the Guardian and Associated Press – report on Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg going on trial in London after defying a police officer’s instruction to stop protesting outside an oil industry summit last year. The Times and the Daily Mail both report on Thunberg “laughing” in court. 

Bloomberg has analysed 30m UK windfarm records from 2018 to June 2023 to compare operators’ daily forecasts of the energy they planned to generate to their actual production when they were not being curtailed. The outcome, it says, is that dozens of facilities have “routinely overestimated how much power they’ll produce, adding millions of pounds a year to consumers’ electricity bills”. It notes that this points to a wider problem involving the country’s outdated electricity network, which means that when it is too windy and wind power risks overloading the system, grid operators must respond by paying firms not to generate power. The analysis has also been covered by the Times. 

Separately, Reuters reports that Google has “signed its largest ever power purchase agreement with offshore wind projects off the coast of the Netherlands as part of efforts to green its power supply and hit climate targets”. The Financial Times reports that the UK carbon price has “fallen to an all-time low, raising fears it will weaken the incentive to build cleaner renewable energy sources”. And the Guardian reports that a subsidiary of EnQuest, an oil-and-gas company owned by a major Conservative donor – which has been fined for illegal flaring – has been granted a licence to drill for fossil fuels in the North Sea by the government.

India will begin operating new coal power plants with a combined capacity of 13.9 gigawatts (GW) this year, according to Reuters. It notes that this marks the largest annual increase in six years, with the government citing “energy security concerns amid surging power demand and low per-capita emissions to defend India’s high dependence on coal”. Meanwhile, another Reuters story reports that India’s Adani Enterprises has more than doubled its third-quarter profit – “helped by strong performance in its coal trading and new energy divisions”. The company traded larger volumes of coal and made higher margins, leading to higher earnings despite a fall in coal price, the newswire adds.

“A split is emerging” between Labour leader Keir Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves on the party’s £28bn green investment plan, writes New Statesman political correspondent Freddie Hayward. He says: “Despite the party’s message discipline, this split has come into public view. Rachel Reeves, whose political reputation is becoming entwined with fiscal conservatism, refuses to mention the figure when asked,” he notes. In an editorial about Labour’s broader economic policy, the Times describes the £28bn proposal as “a gigantic hostage to fortune, ripe for attack by the Tories on grounds of profligacy, this rash commitment dare not be explicitly abandoned”. It adds that “doing so would hand the Tories a huge public relations victory, entrenching the idea that Sir Keir is a political bolter, prepared to ditch any policy”. However, it also opines that “demands for spending in areas such as social care and defence are likely to drown out the environment”. Writing in the Conversation, Dr Marc Hudson, an energy policy expert at the University of Sussex, says it is pointless for Labour to drop its plans in response to attacks from the right. He writes: “If Starmer sticks to the £28bn promise he can expect headlines decrying ‘tax and spend’ and ‘same old Labour’. If he dumps it, he will demoralise door knockers, unions and investors. He will also not stop the attacks on him from the Conservatives and right-wing newspapers. They will add ‘flip-flopper’ (something they’ve already been saying) to the list of his perceived sins.”

Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee criticises what she sees as a discrepancy between the scrutiny applied to Labour’s plan to spend £28bn each year on green investments and the Conservative government’s “new round of painful austerity”. She points to chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s “recent talk of £20bn of ‘fiscal headroom’, which will be spent on pre-election tax bribes”. Given this, Toynbee states: “Why is every Labour shadow minister stepping into a broadcast studio grilled, griddled and roasted on that £28bn investment plan, but hardly any government ministers are asked the far more important question about where their mighty £20bn spending axe will fall?”. 

Meanwhile, the Times chief business commentator Alistair Osborne comments on the lack of a critical response from shadow net-zero secretary Ed Milliband on Shell’s latest profits. “Is a wannabe Labour government, also pledging not to restore the bankers’ bonus cap or lift corporation tax above the present 2%, finally adapting to what’s known as the real world?” he asks. And Katy Balls in the Spectator has a piece about concerns in the Labour party about the Green Party. “Concern about a threat from the Greens tends to be code for saying Starmer is not radical or left-wing enough,” she writes.

A new study finds that wheat blast – a “devastating” fungal disease – will reduce global wheat production by up to 13% by 2050 under a very-high emissions scenario. Researchers use a crop simulation model alongside models of crop disease risk to determine what parts of the world are currently vulnerable to wheat blast and where may become vulnerable in the future. They find that the warmer, more humid climate will “likely” increase the amount of land suitable for infection, particularly in the southern hemisphere. The authors conclude: “Vigilance and urgent action are needed to prepare for the increasing wheat blast threat through multiple mitigating strategies.”