The UK government is not doing enough to meet its climate obligations, according to a report from official advisers the Climate Change Committee (CCC) covered by the Press Association. It reports that prime minister Rishi Sunak has “sent mixed signals” on his commitment to climate change and adds: “The Climate Change Committee said perception of the UK around the world as a leader on green issues was hit after Rishi Sunak weakened some of the country’s policies.” The newswire adds: “The committee also said the government should limit more oil and gas from being produced from UK waters.” It quotes the committee’s report saying: “Were all countries with fossil fuel reserves to increase future fossil fuel production, there would be an oversupply that would pose a risk to the aims of the Paris Agreement.” The Daily Mail also covers the CCC report under the headline: “Climate chiefs say thousands more wind turbines are needed to meet the UK’s COP28 pledges.” [In fact, more low-carbon electricity supplies are needed to meet the UK’s legally-binding domestic targets.]

Elsewhere, the Times covers a new poll which finds that “a majority of Scots believe the UK’s energy needs should be met domestically through oil and gas from the North Sea rather than relying on imports”. Separately, the Times reports that “residents in the City of Westminster have been told that from April electric cars will no longer be free to park and that other vehicles will be charged according to their carbon dioxide emissions”. This comes as the Daily Telegraph carries a story under the headline: “Renault scraps listing of ‘Tesla rival’ amid slump in EV demand”. [See Carbon Brief’s factcheck, which shows that sales of electric vehicles are not slowing.] Finally, a news article in the Daily Telegraph promotes a comment for the paper by climate-sceptic Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay, who is also chair of the fringe “net-zero scrutiny group”. The paper says Sunak is putting Britain on a “path to ruin” with his pursuit of net-zero targets, according to Mackinlay. The paper says Mackinlay’s piece “comes as Sunak faces pressure from restless backbenchers on a number of fronts”. It adds: “The prime minister has suffered several bruising rebellions on net-zero, including one of the biggest of his premiership on electrical vehicle (EV) quotas. He is set to face another mutiny within the next few weeks over plans to fine boiler companies that do not hit sales targets for heat pumps.”

“Activist investor” Bluebell Capital Partners wants BP to scrap its plans to reduce oil and gas output, the Times reports. The paper continues: “In a letter seen by The Times, the investor said that an ‘irrational’ strategy aimed at transitioning away from fossil fuels faster than society was destroying shareholder value…By aligning its strategy with the 2050 net-zero goal signed up to by governments under the Paris Agreement, BP had underestimated the scale of demand growth for oil and gas, Bluebell said. Achieving that key emissions goal was ‘increasingly unrealistic’, the hedge fund said.” The Financial Times reports that Bluebell is a  London-based hedge fund, which wrote to the chair of BP in October shortly after acquiring a small stake in the company. The Guardian continues: “BP was already undergoing significant changes under former chief executive Bernard Looney, who had set a course to cut oil output by a quarter compared with 2019 levels by the end of the decade – making it the only oil major to pledge to cut output, albeit having reduced its ambitions. The company has also invested in green energy such as solar, wind and biofuels, and it is looking at green hydrogen production as it considers ways to make money once oil demand falls.” One Bluebell co-founder “told the Guardian that the company was made up of ‘passionate environmentalists’, and that the fund manager was ‘not telling BP to stay away from clean energy’”, the paper says. However, it adds: “He said he wanted BP to ‘stay away from businesses in which they have no right to win’ and where investment returns are low, such as solar and offshore wind.” The Daily Telegraph notes that the 30-page letter from Bluebell to BP also called for BP to return an extra £12.6bn to shareholders this decade. The paper adds: “Bluebell said BP’s true worth was ‘at least 50% more’ than its stock market value, which stood at about £80bn on Monday, but had been dragged down by the ‘ill-conceived’ strategy.”

The US energy department has finalised “a scaled-back plan to make new stoves less energy-intensive”, the Washington Post reports. According to the newspaper, the rules reflect a “compromise with US manufacturers” and will not affect stoves in peoples’ kitchens or those currently on the market. The paper continues: “The standards, which would apply to stoves manufactured in 2028 or later, could increase the price tags of a few new models by a few dollars. But in the long run, the improved efficiency would save consumers money on their gas and electricity bills.” The Hill says: “Gas stoves exploded as a political issue last year after a regulator with the independent consumer product safety commission suggested that the panel would consider a ban on them due to health concerns related to pollution emitted by the appliances. After his comments, and rebuke from Republicans and centrist Democrats, the head of the commission and the White House stated that they do not wish to ban gas stoves.” Politico says that Biden’s new rule “appeared to please stove manufacturers, energy-efficiency advocates, consumer groups and utilities” but “didn’t quite quell the partisan row that had flared up over the stoves a year ago”. The Wall Street Journal notes that 97% of gas stoves on the market today already meet the new efficiency standards, though 23% of smooth-top electric stoves fall short.

In other US news, there is continuing media coverage of Biden’s decision to delay new gas export terminals. The Financial Times reports that the Biden administration hopes that the pause in LNG permitting will bring down household energy costs. Reuters says the decision has “raised pressure from environmental groups on the British Columbia and Canadian governments to do the same”. Elsewhere, the New York Times reports that “a bipartisan quartet of senators, led by two Democrats from the critical swing state of Georgia, are asking President Biden to toughen up tariffs on Chinese solar panels or face a glutted market just as the president’s clean-energy tax credits hit the market”. This comes as Bloomberg reports that “vulnerable Democrats in swing states are increasingly sounding the alarm about Biden environmental policies that risk turning off cost-conscious moderate voters they need to win at the ballot box”. Elsewhere, the Wall Street Journal touts the benefits of heat pumps, noting that they work well in cold weather, in an article titled: “Hate your heating bill? The new heat pumps could help.”

Chinese solar companies and other energy firms are keen to participate in Mauritius’ “ambitious target” of getting at least 60% of its energy from “green” sources by 2030, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post quotes Mauritian minister of financial services and good governance Mahen Kumar Seeruttun saying. It quotes him adding that “investors from China are also looking at Mauritius as a gateway to the African market”. Meanwhile, state broadcaster CGTN reports that China is partnering with Thailand on the southeast Asian nation’s first commercial “green hydrogen” project, a 25 megawatt (MW) electrolysis scheme. Bloomberg says that Russia’s steel, mining and metal industries are increasingly dependent on support from China, for example with “a new, 75bn ruble [$840m] coking plant in [Magnitogorsk] being built by a Chinese engineering giant and hundreds of Chinese workers”. Industry newspaper China Energy Net says that, at the end of 2023, China’s balance of “green loans” held in Chinese and foreign currencies, totalled 30tn yuan ($4.2tn), “a year-on-year increase of 36.5% and higher than the average loan growth rate by 26.4 percentage points”.

Elsewhere, economic outlet Caixin reports that China has appointed Wan Jinsong as deputy head of the national energy administration (NEA), adding that Wan “had a clear understanding of the pricing and systematic problems in the electricity market reform, and was a resolute decision-maker”, according to an electricity industry insider. Jiemian also profiles Wan, saying that he was recently director of the price department at the national development and reform commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner. According to the outlet, Wan was involved in reforms of the feed-in tariffs mechanism for coal-fired power generation, and his portfolio at the NEA may span the nuclear, electricity and “new energy” departments.

In China-related comment, an editorial in the state-run China Daily says that the EU “is reportedly planning emergency support measures…for Europe’s solar panel manufacturing industry”, which it argues “would create a ‘lose-lose situation’ and…leave the realisation of the bloc’s climate goals in question”. A Bloomberg editorial says: “Western leaders are grappling with what they see as a key challenge in the transition to greener energy: how to obtain all the copper, lithium and other critical materials that power grids and electric vehicles will require, without relying too heavily on China. They’re right to be concerned. But they shouldn’t squander taxpayer money trying to achieve what markets can do better.” It adds: “Given the uncertainties, governments should be wary of delving too deeply into industrial policy. To the extent that they manage to onshore significant mining or processing, they’ll risk wasting subsidies on capacity that proves obsolete and adding to already troubling levels of sovereign debt. They’ll also likely hinder the green transition by increasing its cost.” Finally, China Energy Net covers the views of several academics on the need to update China’s air pollution policy to account for public health factors, quoting Wu Fengchang, researcher at the Chinese academy of environmental sciences, saying “sustained scientific research and dynamic policy updates will allow China to be more flexible and effective in addressing the challenges of air pollution and climate change”.

An editorial in the Washington Post says that even though gas “[i]s a fossil fuel and, as such, a source of carbon dioxide emissions, gas still provides baseload grid power needed to complement renewable electricity, and it’s generally cleaner than coal”. The editorial describes the Biden administration’s pause on approvals for new gas export terminals as “an election-year sop to climate activists that will do much more to unsettle vital US alliances than to save the planet”. It adds that in the short run, “there will be little disruption to Europe’s economy or…to what is generally a well-supplied market around the world”, but that the “administration’s obviously political decision” damages the US’s “reputation for rational, fact-based policymaking, and for wise consideration of climate control in the context of geopolitics”. According to the paper, the effect on global carbon emissions “is likely marginal” and concerns that further export capacity would raise domestic gas prices are “overblown”. It maintains that “you cannot change demand for energy by destroying supply”. The editorial likens Biden’s latest move to “a reenactment of the political theat[re] over the Keystone XL pipeline”, stating that there is “still time to work out a more sensible and sustainable approach in the next presidential term”. It concludes that “[a]ny such approach would understand that the US needs to help save the planet from two threats: climate change and autocratic regimes that use energy as a geopolitical weapon”.

In a comment in the Wall Street Journal, the Republican senator from Louisiana John Kennedy says he will “​​fight back against Biden’s LNG pause” by “block[ing] every state and energy department nominee until he relents”. Kennedy says that “[c]limate warriors want Biden to destroy America’s fossil-fuel industry, but he doesn’t want to pull the trigger himself” and that by “withholding permits, the president can scare away investors, bleed these projects of capital, and claim to have clean hands if the terminals close”. Meanwhile, a comment in the Daily Telegraph by US energy analyst David Blackmon with close ties to the gas industry calls Biden’s pause a “desperate [move] to shore up support from climate hawks ahead of November”, ​​saying that “such a pause…could result in untold hardships on nations that are supposedly American allies”. According to Blackmon, “Bidenomics amounts to little more than economic cronyism”. He claims “another Biden term will bury our energy security for good”. 

Finally, another Wall Street Journal opinion piece by William McGurn, George W Bush’s former speechwriter, compares the defamation lawsuit brought by climate scientist Prof Michael Mann to a case brought by immunologist Dr Anthony Fauci. He says: “With both Dr Fauci and Mr [sic] Mann, the real issue is not so much that they got things wrong but that they tried to suppress the robust debate that is necessary for scientific truth.”

The Financial Times Lex column comments on the news that “activist investor”, Bluebell Capital Partners has asked BP to scrap its climate targets. The piece says that it is “no surprise” that BP has become the target of activist pressure, adding: “Since BP set out its ambition in 2020 to become a net-zero company by 2050, its shares have lost 3%. Total and Shell have meanwhile climbed 31% and 21% respectively. Some of BP’s investments in offshore wind – in particular the US – have looked misguided.” However, it says that BP’s strategy has evolved, noting that through its focus on biofuels and electric vehicle charging, the company can “offer rates of return at least equal to the 15 to 20% seen in its core hydrocarbons business”. It concludes: “A focus on the highest return investments in renewables coupled with predictable shareholder payouts should prevent any activist discord from spreading.” Elsewhere, Daily Telegraph associate editor Ben Marlow writes that BP is “lost in net-zero no-man’s land”. Marlow says: “The simple reality is that for BP to truly become a clean energy trailblazer, it must direct a far greater proportion of its profits away from the lavish dividends and buybacks that investors expect into green ventures. Yet, if those same renewables activities are riskier and less profitable than plundering the earth’s natural resources, the dwindling payout pool will only continue to shrink, stoking shareholder unrest further.”

Using solar geoengineering to keep temperatures at 1.5C could help restore dwindling water supplies over the Mediterranean, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, when compared to a very high warming scenario, new research finds. The study uses modelling to examine how a type of solar geoengineering called “stratospheric aerosol intervention”, which involves releasing aerosols into the stratosphere in order to reflect away sunlight, could affect terrestrial water storage in the water-stressed MENA region, when compared to a very high emissions scenario (“SSP5–8.5”). The research finds that, under a very high warming scenario, terrestrial water storage is expected to significantly decrease across the MENA region, excluding the Arabian Peninsula, where some increases are expected in wetter areas. Using stratospheric aerosol intervention could reverse these expected losses while not affecting expected gains in water storage around the Arabian Peninsula, the research says.

Balearic shearwaters are shifting their post-breeding migration further northwards in response to rising sea surface temperatures, according to a new study, which uses long-term bird-tracking data. The researchers show that individual shearwaters are able to respond to warming temperatures by choosing to migrate to a new destination, suggesting that they have “individual plasticity” – the ability to change their own behaviour in response to the changing conditions they face. The researchers add that the birds “apparently judge the increased distance that they will need to migrate via memory of the migration route, suggesting that spatial cognitive mechanisms may contribute to this plasticity and the resulting range shift”.