Making a number of frontpages, there is widespread coverage of the new measures announced by UK chancellor Rishi Sunak to counter a 54% rise in the energy price cap from April. Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, Sunak said the “government is going to step in to directly help people manage those extra costs” and that “we can take the sting out of a significant price shock for millions of families”, reports Bloomberg. The outlet explains that the trio of policies include “a £200 discount on domestic energy bills applied from October, financed by the government and repaid by households in annual £40 instalments over the next five years”, a £150 “council tax rebate for 80% of all homes in England, starting in April”, and “some £144m of discretionary funding for local authorities to help vulnerable people”. Sunak rejected calls for VAT to be cut, arguing that would disproportionately help wealthier households, notes Politico. Prime minister Boris Johnson described the support measures as a “mega package”, reports the Daily Express. The Guardian has an explainer on how the policies will work.

Sunak told BBC News that the support would help the majority of families to “adjust” to higher prices. However, the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the package would not stop average incomes and living standards from falling over the coming year. Similarly, the Guardian reports that the Resolution Foundation thinktank said cases of fuel stress – where energy bills in a household exceed 10% of disposable income – would double to 5m in April despite the steps announced by Sunak. Despite this, notes the Financial Times, “the chancellor is offering near-universal support, not targeted help”. Fuel poverty charity National Energy Action (NEA) described the package of measures as “woefully inadequate”, reports the Press Association. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves criticised the measures as a “buy-now-pay-later scheme that loads up prices for tomorrow”, reports ITV News. She added: “High prices as far as the eye can see – this year, next year and the year after that, give with one hand now and take it all back later.“ Sunak also received a mixed response from his own MPs, says the Press Association. In the Commons, Peter Bone MP asked if the chancellor was taking a “Conservative approach or a socialist approach?”, whereas Stephen McPartland MP said the package “lacks ambition” and represented a missed opportunity to “support families courageously”, the outlet reports.

Earlier in the day, as expected, industry regulator Ofgem raised its cap on bills to £1,971 “in response to a surge in gas prices that has pushed dozens of utilities out of business”, says another Bloomberg article. Jonathan Brearley, chief executive officer of Ofgem, is quoted as saying: “We know this rise will be extremely worrying for many people, especially those who are struggling to make ends meet.“ Sky News notes that “surging wholesale gas prices – currently about four times higher than at the same time last year – have driven the energy price cap increase”. Writing in the Sun, Sunak says the causes are “the steep rise in demand for gas in places such as China, which has pushed up global prices”, and “the fact that we have had a colder than usual winter so we have used up more of our own stores of gas here at home”. The Press Association also looks at why prices are rising. Sunak also warned households to brace themselves for further increases in energy costs in the autumn, reports the Guardian. He said: “There’s global forces at play here that drive up gas prices at the moment and I don’t have a crystal ball,” reports the Press Association. Steven Swinford – political editor at the Times – notes that “Sunak may find he has to act again in October when the price cap rises further”. Bloomberg says that gas and electricity providers “are expecting to meet UK officials in the coming days” to hammer out exactly how the chancellor’s proposals will work as they “were left out of the final round of talks on how to shield British households from a huge spike in bills”. It adds: “Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng and officials from his department had been in discussions with energy companies for months. Talks stopped abruptly in recent weeks, with the Treasury closing its doors as it hashed out a deal to soften the blow of a 54% increase in bills, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the talks were private.”

At the same time, the Daily Telegraph reports on its frontpage that “senior Cabinet ministers believe there should be a rethink of the government’s net-zero plans” in the wake of the “cost of living crisis”. One minister tells the paper that the UK “should not be running towards net-zero so aggressively”, describing the 2050 pledge as one of the “most aggressive targets in the world”. They added: “We’ve stigmatised gas, and that’s wrong…Gas has to be part of the answer.” Another Cabinet minister said: “The priority should be the cost of living – 2050 is a long way away, and our own gas is a valuable transition fuel in the meantime.” The paper notes that this “view is understood to be shared by at least another two Cabinet ministers”. At his press conference yesterday, Sunak “indicated that he may share these concerns”, the paper says as he highlighted that North Sea gas “plays an important part of our transition to net-zero”. Sunak added: “I want to make sure that people acknowledge that we should also exploit our domestic resources.” The Independent notes that “scientists said in the run-up to the COP26 climate summit last year that new fossil fuel exploitation is incompatible with reaching net-zero in time”. Politico warns that “green activists haven’t always loved Boris Johnson but they might miss him when he’s gone”. The outlet explains: “Even if he gets away with this scandal, Johnson is severely weakened, which makes many of his policy priorities – notably net-zero – targets for his opponents. His two most fancied successors – chancellor Rishi Sunak and foreign secretary Liz Truss – are known to be cool on the policy. Several agitators in the party, including former Brexit minister David Frost, who surprised Westminster by quitting in December, have also been vocal with concerns about the cost of reducing emissions.”

Finally, Sunak also said that the new measures are worth £290m in funding for Scotland, reports BBC News. First minister Nicola Sturgeon has pledged that “every single penny” will be used to support people with the cost of living crisis, reports the Press Association. Speaking at first minister’s questions, Sturgeon said: “I’ve not heard all of the detail…but the chancellor has just announced what sounded like welcome steps to help mitigate [the rising price cap] but steps that, in my view, do not go far enough…They seem to offer around £350 of help against energy bill increases of around £700.”

Russia’s energy supplies to China have “reached record highs”, Russian news agency Tass reports, citing “Kremlin Aide” Yury Ushakov. Ushakov is quoted telling reporters: “More than 15bn cubic meters of gas have been exported via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline since its launch, the construction of the transit gas pipeline through the territory of Mongolia from Russia to China is under consideration.” (Ushakov’s statement comes before Russian President Vladimir Putin travels to Beijing on 4 February for the Winter Olympics 2022. The Global Times – a Chinese state-run newspaper – reports that China’s president Xi Jinping and Putin “will hold in-depth talks covering a wide range of bilateral and international issues”.) Reuters is reporting this morning that “Russian president Vladimir Putin told Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing…that Russia has prepared a new deal to supply China with 10bn cubic metres of natural gas”.

Meanwhile, the South China Morning Post says that “a series of” recent studies have “shed light on the potential agricultural impacts climate change could wreak” on China and East Asia. The publication focuses on two papers published since December. Sixth Tone – a Shanghai-based news website – runs an article titled: “How to make snow for a Winter Olympics in a dry city.“ The outlet interviews Wang Feiteng, a glacier researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences whose team are in charge of producing artificial snow for the Winter Olympics 2022 in Beijing. Separately, the Los Angeles Times analyses how climate change “is threatening the future of the Winter Olympics”.

Elsewhere, Quartz reports that, since China won the bid for the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2015, the country has seen “a renewables building boom that has exceeded expectations”. The website says that the renewable “boom” has “put China ahead of the rest of the world as it moves closer to its goal of peak carbon emissions by 2030”. Finally, Bloomberg says that “Gen Z and millennial consumers in China, India and other emerging economies are more environmentally conscious”.

MPs have warned that UK motorists will have to pay by the mile to make up a £35bn tax shortfall that will arise from the shift to electric vehicles, reports the Guardian. The cross-party Commons transport select committee said it saw “no viable alternative” to road pricing and work should start immediately on creating a replacement for fuel duty, the paper explains. In a new report published today, the committee said new charges should entirely replace fuel duty and vehicle excise duty and be “revenue neutral”, with most motorists paying the same or less than they do now. The committee also said that people should be encouraged to use public transport, walk or cycle, the paper reports, and that incentives to purchase cleaner vehicles must remain. The report warns that “without reform, policies to deliver net-zero emissions by 2050 will result in zero revenue for the government from motoring taxation”, notes the Daily Mirror. The Times reports the comments of Huw Merriman, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, who said: “We need to talk about road pricing. Innovative technology could deliver a road pricing scheme which prices up a journey based on the amount of road, and type of vehicle, used.” The Independent and BBC News also have the story.

Meanwhile, a report from the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) Committee warns that the UK’s efforts to cut carbon emissions “lack strategic direction” and are not ambitious enough to hit the UK’s legally binding net-zero targets, reports the Independent. The reports “urges a greater level of support for decarbonising heat in homes, which contributes 14% of all of the UK’s emissions, and said engineers need to re-skilled to undertake this work”, the outlet says. Darren Jones, the chair of the Committee, said: “Replacing gas boilers is a huge task and we are not making anywhere near enough progress. As it stands, we will miss our net zero target. The government must act urgently to help speed up delivery and support bill payers and workers who will be affected by the change.“ A committee also said the proposed ban on gas boilers in new homes in England should be brought forward by two years to 2023, reports New Scientist.

Shell “triggered renewed calls for a windfall tax on oil and gas producers yesterday after cashing in on soaring prices to quadruple its adjusted profit to $19.3bn last year”, reports the Times. Shell made $6.4bn in the final three months of last year alone, the paper says –”16 times more than in the same period of 2020, thanks to a near-doubling in oil prices”. Labour and the Liberal Democrats both reiterated calls for windfall taxes on North Sea oil and gas producers including Shell yesterday, with several Labour MPs describing Shell’s profits as “eye-watering”, the paper explains. In response, Ben van Beurden, Shell’s chief executive, said: “I am not convinced that windfall taxes, popular though they may seem, is going to help us with supply, nor is it going to help us with demand. But of course we stand ready to be in dialogue with the government on all the measures that we can collectively take.” Reuters also reports on what van Beurden describes as “a momentous year for Shell”. The Financial Times Lex column says “rampant oil profits reduce [the] incentive to cut carbon”. And its Energy Source column “looks at ExxonMobil’s and Chevron’s plans to increase supply in the world’s most prolific oilfield”.

Elsewhere, BBC News reports that “huge plumes of the warming gas methane have been mapped globally for the first time from oil and gas fields using satellites”. It continues: “The new research found plumes covering vast areas, sometimes stretching to 200 miles – the leaks are thought to be mostly unintended…Methane usually leaks from oil and gas facilities during maintenance operations, while fixing a valve or pipeline, for example, or from compressor stations – facilities that maintain the flow and pressure of natural gas.” The Washington Post adds: “The researchers documented enormous releases around the globe, primarily from fossil fuel operations in places such as Russia, Turkmenistan and Iran, as well as in the United States and parts of the Middle East.”

In other fossil-fuel news, Reuters reports that “after a month in which oil prices surged 15% and geopolitical tensions seethed around the world, [the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries] and its allies took a record-quick 16 minutes to decide that they would stick to their previously planned output increase”. The Hill notes that crude oil prices reached $90 per barrel for the first time since 2014 yesterday afternoon. A Reuters analysis piece says that “Russian coal merchants are proving to be the winners as European buyers, nervous a feared Russian invasion of Ukraine could lead to disrupted gas supplies, stock up on the dirtiest fossil fuel”. Bloomberg reports that “the US and the European Union are preparing to address any risks to Europe’s energy supplies amid rising geopolitical tensions related to Ukraine.” At a meeting to be held on 7 February in Washington, “the allies plan to declare that they will work to avoid disruptions to fuel flows on the continent, according to a draft statement from the EU-US Energy Council seen by Bloomberg”.

Finally, Reuters reports that an “oil production and storage vessel exploded off the coast of Nigeria early on Wednesday with 10 crew members on board though it was not yet clear if there were any casualties or how much crude might have spilled into the sea”. And also that “board members of four major oil companies declined to appear at a US House oversight panel hearing scheduled for 8 February to answer questions about their companies’ climate change plans”.

An editorial in the Financial Times says “the government is taking a punt on energy prices eventually falling” in the measures announced by UK chancellor Rishi Sunak. It continues: “While it is sensible to smooth the impact of the gas price rise, the Treasury has no special powers to forecast the cost of gas next year, and the higher bills from which Sunak intends to recoup the cost of this year’s discount may equally come at a bad time. The chancellor’s moves are unlikely to be the last time the government has to intervene to ease the cost of living crisis.” While the package of measures “could have been better targeted”, the government “deserves credit for resisting siren calls to cut the 5% rate of value added tax on energy bills”, the paper says, which “would have mostly benefited the better-off”. Similarly, “a mooted cut in ‘green levies’ would have done more to reassure rightwing backbenchers than address the problem”, the paper adds: “If anything, the UK’s vulnerability to higher gas prices underlines the costs of a decade’s failure to insulate its draughty homes, a necessity to hit its net-zero target by 2050.” A Guardian editorial also warns that the “Treasury is gambling that global wholesale gas prices will start coming down next year”.

Striking a different tone, an editorial in the Daily Mail criticises the “self-inflicted misery of our energy insanity”. The paper takes the opposite view of the FT, suggesting “a better way…of helping struggling families” would be to “scrap the unpopular national insurance hike or axe VAT and ludicrous ‘green’ subsidies on domestic fuel? That would leave more money in their pockets”. In the very next sentence, the paper admits that “it’s true that the trigger for this crisis has been the sudden surge in gas demand”, rather than any subsidy costs. (Carbon Brief analysis published in January showed green levies are expected to fall even as the price cap goes up, which is what Ofgem’s update showed yesterday.) Accompanying the editorial is a whole-page article from climate-sceptic columnist Ross Clark, who “analyses the state of Britain’s energy reserves”. He writes: “For a variety of reasons, international wholesale prices are soaring – not least because of artificially implemented pressure from President Vladimir Putin, who is said to be inflating the price of gas coming out of Russia. And yet, this mess makes little sense when Britain is sitting on ample gas, oil and coal reserves.” (As Richard Black – senior associate at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit – recently pointed out, fossil fuels extracted in the UK are not necessarily used in the UK.) The paper also has a comment piece by its city editor Alex Brummer, who writes that the “steep rise in the wholesale price of natural gas as the world emerged from the pandemic” has blown “the price cap to smithereens”, adding: “And the problem is all the more serious due to the government’s obsession with reaching its zero-emissions target. In its haste to move away from fossil fuels, it made us more dependent on unreliable renewables such as wind and solar power.”

An editorial in the Sun takes a similar stand, saying Sunak “should have scrapped VAT on bills, a Brexit promise. But that alone would not make a huge difference. More important was to axe the looming National Insurance hike AND slash green levies making up a quarter of our bills”. A Daily Telegraph editorial hands out blame to “successive governments” that have “handled energy policy so badly”. The paper says: “The Conservatives abandoned the nuclear programme proposed by the Thatcher government in a ‘dash for gas’; Labour intervened in the market on environmental grounds, loading costs on to energy production that were carried forward by the Coalition government. Legislation supporting this approach was backed by most Tory MPs 12 years ago and has been reinforced by the current government’s carbon reduction targets.”

In related comment, Nils Pratley – the Guardian‘s financial editor – notes that “at least part of the blame falls on a rotten regulatory system that allowed undercapitalised companies to try their luck by operating with skimpy hedging policies on energy-purchase contracts…Some £68 of the £693 increase in the cap, note, relates to industry-wide “supplier of last resort” levies – in other words, the cost of moving customers of failed companies to new suppliers. That’s £1.5bn in real money.” And John Rentoul – the Independent’s chief political commentator – writes: “Sunak and his cohort of supportive Tory MPs tried to explain why a windfall tax is a bad idea – it would deter investment in North Sea oil and gas – but that is a hard message to sell, especially when the other half of the government’s brain is trying to close down the carbon-based fuel industry in 28 years’ time.”

“Ultra-emitters” are responsible for between 8-12% of the total methane emissions from oil and gas production, according to new research. The authors use observations from the satellite platform TROPOMI to quantify “very large” releases of atmospheric methane by oil and gas industry ultra-emitters over 2019-20. They conclude that “mitigation of ultra-emitters is largely achievable at low costs and would lead to robust net benefits in billions of US dollars for the six major oil and gas-producing countries when considering societal costs of methane”.

A new study projects that future changes in tropical cyclone climatology may cause “drastic” increases in the frequency of “extreme rainfall-surge compound events”. The authors use “a physics-based approach” to simulate current and future tropical cyclone-driven “rainfall–surge joint hazards”, under the high-emissions RCP8.5 scenario. They project that the joint extreme events will become 7–36 times more frequent in the southern US and 30–195 times more frequent in the northeast by the year 2100. Changes in tropical cyclone climatology will be a larger driver of increased joint hazard risk than sea level rise, the study adds.

New research estimates that “compound droughts” could become 60% more likely by the late 21st century. The authors run multiple large ensemble simulations to investigate future changes in compound drought risk during the boreal summer, over ten global regions, using the high-emission RCP8.5 scenario. They find that North America and the Amazon will see a “disproportionate increase” in drought risk. The increase in drought frequency will contribute to a ninefold increase in agricultural area and population exposure to severe compound droughts, they add. The study also analyses the role of the El Niño Southern Oscillation in driving compound drought risk.