There is widespread media coverage of the UN’s new synthesis report which assesses the national climate plans submitted before the Paris Agreement’s deadline of 31 December 2020. Climate Home News notes that Patricia Espinosa, the UN climate chief, says the new analysis shows that every country, especially large emitters, needs to increase climate ambition this year to avert disaster. Climate Home News says: “Only 75 countries, including EU member states, met the deadline for updating their plans, accounting for about 30% of global emissions. Their combined plans achieve less than 1% emissions reductions by 2030 compared to 2010 levels, Espinosa said. ‘And that simply is not good enough.’” BBC News reports the views of UN secretary-general António Guterres who has described the report as a “red alert for our planet”. He continued: “It shows governments are nowhere close to the level of ambition needed to limit climate change to 1.5C and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.” Politico explains: “Many countries delayed their submission after COP26 was postponed by one year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Among the four largest carbon polluters, only the EU has submitted a new 2030 target.” The Financial Times quotes Niklas Höhne, partner at NewClimate Institute, a non-profit group that tracks action on climate change, who says more ambitious targets were expected from the US, China and India. “We have a huge gap, we are totally off target. But I’m hopeful that we see more movement in the course of this year.“ The Guardian, Independent, EurActiv and Bloomberg are among the other publications covering the UN’s report. Carbon Brief has also published a detailed summary of its findings.

In related news, Bloomberg reports on the new data published by the Chinese government over the weekend showing that “China’s use of coal in its energy mix continued to decline in 2020, but more aggressive measures may be needed to reduce emissions in order to meet Beijing’s climate goals”. The South China Morning Post says “the share of ‘clean’ energy – including natural gas, hydropower, nuclear and wind power – rose one percentage point to 24.3% of consumption”. A separate Bloomberg feature looks ahead to China’s forthcoming 14th five-year-plan, due in the coming days, that “could determine the fate of the planet”. And Associated Press, via ABC News, reports that the European Court of Human Rights is “forcing 33 governments to prove they are cutting emissions in line with the requirements of the 2015 Paris climate accord”.

Several publications cover the news that US president Joe Biden has restored an Obama-era calculation on the economic cost of greenhouse gases, which, says Politico, is a “step that will make it easier for his agencies to approve aggressive actions to confront climate change”. It continues: “But the administration stopped short, for now, of boosting the cost figure to higher levels that economists and climate scientists say are justified by new research. The interim figure – $51 for every ton of carbon released into the atmosphere – is well above the $8 cost used under former president Donald Trump, who declined to factor the global impacts of climate pollution into his calculation. It’s on par with a price based on analyses undertaken between 2010 and 2016 under former president Barack Obama, whose administration was first to calculate the figure known as the social cost of carbon.” Reuters describes it as a “major change”, adding that “economists Nicholas Stern and Joseph Stiglitz this week said that [it] should not ‘settle on anything much below $100 per ton by 2030 for the social cost of carbon’ when it replaces the interim number to be able to achieve the goals of the Paris agreement”. The Hill says that “move was met with swift backlash from Republicans”. The Washington Post explains that the “new policy could shape decisions ranging from fossil fuel leasing to what sort of steel and glass the federal government buys”. (See Carbon Brief’s 2017 Q&A on the social cost of carbon.) Meanwhile, MailOnline reports that “the Prince of Wales wants a face-to-face meeting with US president Joe Biden to discuss the ‘urgent issue of climate change’ and win support for his most ambitious environmental project to date”.

The Times reports that the UK government is facing questions over Mark Carney’s role in this year’s climate talks after his claims that the company where he works has “net-zero” emissions were dismissed as “greenwash”. The newspaper explains: “The former Bank of England governor is the prime minister’s finance adviser for the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow this November. He [has come under fire] after it emerged that he had been using an unrecognised and widely discredited definition of ‘net-zero’ to promote the green credentials of Brookfield Asset Management, the Canadian investment company he joined last year.” BusinessGreen says that Mark Carney has now responded to the mounting criticism of his claim: “the former Bank of England Governor conceded that ‘avoided emissions do not count’ towards science-based net-zero targets, despite previously appearing to suggest that Brookfield’s significant holdings in renewable energy effectively cancelled out its fossil fuels assets and secured it ‘net-zero’ status”. On Friday, Unearthed published analysis showing that it had “identified five major fossil fuel infrastructure projects in which Brookfield is a leading shareholder, including significant projects in the highly polluting coal and oil sands sectors”.

Aviva has become the first leading insurer worldwide to set a target to shrink its carbon footprint to net-zero by 2040, a decade earlier than most banks, reports the Guardian. It adds: “The firm, one of the UK’s top asset managers with £300bn of investments under management, said it had written to the 30 biggest CO2 emitters in its portfolio, comprising companies in the oil and gas, utilities and mining sectors, asking them to sign up to the science-based targets aligned to the Paris climate agreement and to set net-zero emission goals with fixed deadlines of 12 to 36 months. If they do not take action, Aviva said it would sell its shareholdings in those companies, but added that it had been getting some good responses. It will report on progress towards its target every year.” The Times says the move will “ripple through its operations, supply chain and investments”. The Financial Times interviews Aviva chief executive Amanda Blanc, who warns that the insurance industry cannot “speak with forked tongue” on global warming by doing one thing with its investment portfolios and another with the products it sells.

The Guardian covers new analysis showing that “fossil fuel cars waste hundreds of times more raw material than their battery electric equivalents”. The newspaper continues: “Only about 30kg of raw material will be lost over the lifecycle of a lithium ion battery used in electric cars once recycling is taken into account, compared with 17,000 litres of oil, according to analysis by Transport & Environment (T&E) seen by the Guardian. A calculation of the resources used to make cars relative to their weight shows it is at least 300 times greater for oil-fuelled cars.” The Daily Telegraph reports on separate research showing that “some plug-in hybrid cars perform worse on environmental tests than diesel cars”. The Daily Telegraph also carries a comment piece by James Titcomb, its Silicon Valley bureau chief, who argues that “electric cars will survive, even if this bubble bursts”, adding: “Stock bubbles are often a precursor to massive investment in emerging technologies.” And another comment piece in the Daily Telegraph, this time by the paper’s head of technology Robin Pagnamenta, argues that carmakers are being “left in the dust as tech giants join [the] EV race”.

Meanwhile, the Independent has an “exclusive” about a “new global synthesis [which] adds up the hidden social, environmental and health costs of our largely fossil fuel-based energy and transport systems”. The news outlet adds: “The ‘hidden cost’ of our largely fossil fuel-based energy and transport systems could add up to around $25tn (£18tn) – the equivalent of more than a quarter of the world’s entire economic output.” The research is published in the journal Energy Research & Social Science.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the UK’s business and energy secretary of state, writes for Bright Blue’s Centre Write magazine – and republished by CapX – that “green growth is the only way forward to build back better”. He adds: “One of the major challenges on the sustainable agenda is ensuring proportionate actions across the country are taken in a timely and effective fashion on industrial processes. We need to redesign internal mechanisms and adapt our industries to new standards. Industrial sectors including cement, food and drink, iron, and steel account for approximately two thirds of industrial carbon emissions. Net-zero is challenging industries to reduce emissions without reducing their competitiveness. Our policymakers are aiming to create a net-zero carbon industrial cluster by 2040, focusing on a few industrial mechanisms and tools, such as energy and resource efficiency, electrification, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage…This translates into replacing inefficient incentives and restructuring obsolete strategies to encourage entire industries to transition into sustainable practices.”

In the Daily Express, Lord Deben, the former environment secretary who now chairs the UK’s Climate Change Committee, writes: “We’ve all seen the havoc that the Covid pandemic has caused and we know that climate change, the destruction of nature, and the pollution of our air and water will cause even worse long term damage…It is not easy after Covid to ask for tax cuts, so how about a tax shift? Big cars, which use more fuel and produce more emissions could pay more. The latest internal combustion engines are much more efficient but, in Britain, that’s not helped emissions one little bit because too many people now insist on buying bigger and more polluting cars. Manufacturers and dealers are keen sellers because it means bigger profits so they spend huge sums on advertising their SUVs. It’s a vicious circle. So let’s make it a virtuous one and put the tax up on the gas guzzlers and take it down on the clean electric cars.”

In the Financial Times, global business columnist Rana Foroohar argues that “liberals and security hawks can find common green ground” and that “Americans on both sides of the political spectrum stand to gain from co-operating on climate change”. Finally, motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson in his Sunday Times column attacks plans to spend £200m creating a new peatbog in the north of England: “Yup, it has apparently decided that, rather than build exciting new spaceports, it would prefer to remove all the brilliant Victorian drainage systems to create a staggering 2,700 square miles of ombrotrophic wasteland, where nothing but moss and heather will grow. And children inherit nothing but the curtains. Naturally, this has something to do with carbon dioxide.”

Permafrost degradation of 18% and 28% are expected by the year 2100 under 1.5C and 2C of warming, respectively, in a moderate emission scenario, according to new research. The study determines the sensitivity of permafrost to a warming climate by simulating permafrost loss over the 21st century under 1.5C and 2C of warming for both a moderate and a high emission scenario. The study highlights that permafrost in the south of the northern hemisphere is the “most vulnerable” to warming, and that spatial and temporal patterns of permafrost melt in the region will vary under different warming scenarios.

New research indicates that UK universities “recognise their role in creating demand for long-distance travel and sustaining high-carbon diets”, but that “few have specific emissions reduction targets or action plans that would rapidly and substantially reduce emissions in these areas”. This is according to an examination of sustainability policies in 66 UK universities, which focuses on “scope 3” emissions – “indirect emissions that occur throughout the value chain of the reporting organisation”.