The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a 42-page “Pact for the Future” which, reports Reuters, UN secretary-general António Guterres has described as a landmark agreement that is a “step-change towards more effective, inclusive, networked multilateralism”. The newswire adds: “The pact, which also includes an annex on working toward a responsible and sustainable digital future, was adopted without a vote at the start of a two-day ‘Summit of the Future’. The agreement came after some nine months of negotiations…Guterres long-pushed for the summit and the pact, which covers themes including peace and security, global governance, sustainable development, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and future generations. It lays out some 56 broad actions that countries pledged to achieve…Global crises have spotlighted the need for UN reform and overhauling international financial systems. These challenges include ongoing wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan; lagging climate change mitigation efforts; widespread national debt issues; and concerns over technology advancing without governance…Russia failed in its bid to include an amendment – backed by North Korea, Syria, Nicaragua, Belarus and Iran – that would have spelled out that ‘the UN and its system shall not intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state’”. The Associated Press describes the “blueprint” as an attempt by the UN to “bring the world’s increasingly divided nations together to tackle 21st-century challenges from climate change and artificial intelligence to escalating conflicts and increasing inequality and poverty”. The newswire adds: “The pact’s fate was in question until the last moment. There was so much suspense that Guterres had three prepared speeches, one for approval, one for rejection, and one if things weren’t clear, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.” (The full document can be read as a PDF, where the climate section begins: “We are deeply concerned at the current slow pace of progress in addressing climate change.”) The Press Trust of India notes that the document “reaffirms [that the] transition away from fossil fuels [is] key to fighting climate change”. Reuters separately says that “some leaders warned of growing mistrust between nations as climate-fueled disasters mount”, adding: “Prime minister Mia Mottley of Barbados echoed Guterres’ warning and urged a ‘reset’ in how global institutions are governed so they can better respond to crises and serve those most in need.”

Meanwhile, several outlets note that the UN General Assembly coincides with the annual New York Climate Week. The Associated Press says that “for a week, New York will be [the] centre of [a] money-focused fight to slow climate change”. It adds: “The annual Climate Week NYC and United Nations General Assembly combination is putting special emphasis on how to generate trillions of dollars to help poorer countries move away from gas, oil and coal that emit greenhouse gases and heat the planet. They also need financial aid to deal with the damage the warming is already causing. There’s also a special UN summit of the future, which connects climate change and biodiversity to other pressing issues like war, and another UN special session on the threat of rising seas. And the presidents of climate negotiations in 2023, 2024 and 2025 are seeking to push nations into a new round of dramatic pollution cuts with their own efforts.” Reuters covers a new report by Net-Zero Tracker, which finds that, “with 93% of global GDP covered by [net-zero] targets, the world is on the road to net-zero, but…action is needed to turn pledges into credible plans”. The Financial Times notes a speech made in Washington DC on Friday by ECB president Christine Lagarde in which she warned that “inflation risks stemming from climate change, technological progress and ‘setbacks in global trade integration’ remain rampant”.

Separately, the Financial Times reports that “western philanthropies have committed to put up $10m in fresh funds to help the World Bank and African Development Bank accelerate investment in green energy in Africa, as positioning begins ahead of climate finance talks on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York [this] week”. It adds: “The Rockefeller Foundation, along with the Global Alliance for People and Planet, which counts the Ikea Foundation and the Bezos Earth Fund as members, said they would provide the money to accelerate 15 projects in countries including Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria.”

There is widespread coverage of the announcement by Constellation Energy in the US that it, reports the New York Times, “plans to reopen the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, the site of the worst reactor accident in US history”. The newspaper explains: “Microsoft, which needs tremendous amounts of electricity for its growing fleet of data centres, has agreed to buy as much power as it can from the plant for 20 years. Constellation plans to spend $1.6bn to refurbish the reactor that recently closed and restart it by 2028, pending regulatory approval. ‘The symbolism is enormous,’ said Joseph Dominguez, chief executive of Constellation, the nation’s largest nuclear operator. ‘This was the site of the industry’s greatest failure, and now it can be a place of rebirth.’” The Associated Press says: “The announcement by Constellation Energy comes five years after its then-parent company Exelon shut down the plant, saying it was losing money and that Pennsylvania lawmakers had refused to subsidise it.” BBC News adds: “Constellation Energy said the reactor it planned to restart was next to, but ‘fully independent’ of, the unit that had been involved in the 1979 accident. It caused no injuries or deaths but provoked widespread fear and mistrust among the US public, discouraging the development of nuclear power in the US for decades. However, there is renewed interest in nuclear as concerns about climate change grow – and companies need more energy due to advances in artificial intelligence.” The Washington Post says: “If approved by regulators, Three Mile Island would provide Microsoft with the energy equivalent it takes to power 800,000 homes, or 835 megawatts. Never before has a US nuclear plant come back into service after being decommissioned, and never before has all of a single commercial nuclear power plant’s output been allocated to a single customer. But the economics of both the power and computing industries are changing rapidly.” The Financial Times says that, “like many of its rivals, [Microsoft] has set an array of climate goals, including becoming ‘carbon negative’ and achieving ‘zero waste’ by 2030”. It adds: “The plant is set to come online in 2028 and stay operational until at least 2054. The location of the Microsoft facilities that will receive the output has not been specified.” An editorial in the climate-sceptic comment pages of the Wall Street Journal claims: “President Biden’s energy policies are so detached from reality that companies are scrambling to find more power on their own…Artificial intelligence is increasing demand for power while baseload plants that provide power around the clock shut down. New data centres are on hold because the grid can’t support AI systems with intermittent wind and solar. Hence, the Microsoft deal.”

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that “14 of the world’s biggest banks and financial institutions are pledging to increase their support for nuclear energy, a move that governments and the industry hope will unlock finance for a new wave of nuclear power plants”. The newspaper continues: “At an event on Monday in New York with White House climate policy adviser John Podesta, institutions including Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will say they support a goal first set out at the COP28 climate negotiations last year to triple the world’s nuclear energy capacity by 2050. They did not spell out exactly what they would do, but nuclear experts said the public show of support was a long-awaited recognition that the sector had a critical role to play in the transition to low-carbon energy.” And the Associated Press reports that the Biden administration is “awarding over $3bn to US companies to boost domestic production of advanced batteries and other materials used for electric vehicles, part of a continuing push to reduce China’s global dominance in battery production for EVs and other electronics”.

The Financial Times reports that “banks have slashed the amount of loans to UK oil and gas producers since the introduction of the windfall tax on fossil fuel companies in 2022, according to lenders”. It adds: “The plummet in borrowing is fuelling worries that Britain’s oil and gas industry could become ‘impractical’ to invest in, threatening its closure before renewable power sources are available to fill the gap. The industry has been at a standstill this year, with not one well drilled in the UK’s section of the North Sea.” The newspaper continues to explain: “Debt available to UK companies under so-called reserve-based lending, a form of asset-backed borrowing secured against future cash flows, has fallen 40-50% since the introduction of the windfall tax, said Norwegian investment bank SpareBank 1 Markets. Fossil fuel companies often raise finance through reserve-based lending where loans are repaid with the proceeds of the oil produced by the borrowers. Companies will face a total tax burden of 78% in November after Labour announced plans to increase the EPL [energy profits levy], a temporary measure [introduced under the Conservative government] that has been extended until 2030, to 38%. They also risk losing capital expenditure and investment allowances after ministers said they want to close ‘unjustifiably generous’ tax loopholes. Independent oil and gas producer Ping Petroleum warned investing in the UK could become ‘impractical’ as a result of rising tax and loss of allowances, while energy consultants Wood Mackenzie said this month it could cause a halving of oil and gas production by 2030.” (See Carbon Brief’s recent analysis: “UK could approve 13 new oil and gas projects despite North Sea pledge.”) Similarly, the Daily Telegraph reports: “A crucial North Sea pipeline network is facing possible closure a decade earlier than planned because of the government’s North Sea tax raid. The Forties Pipeline System, which connects 80 offshore gas and oil fields to the UK mainland, may shut down as early as 2030 because Labour’s oil and gas tax policies will ‘suffocate’ the industry, its chief executive has warned. The pipeline, which is part of industrialist Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos empire, enables 29% of the UK’s oil and 30% of its gas to reach customers and was expected to keep running until the mid-2040s.” DeSmog covers comments made by Centrica CEO Chris O’Shea at a side-event at the Labour party conference that the “responsibility for energy and climate policy should be stripped from politicians”.

In other UK news, the Mail on Sunday reports that “Rolls-Royce is closing in on deals to build mini nuclear power plants in Sweden and the Netherlands”. The newspaper adds: “The British engineering giant was last week selected by the government of the Czech Republic as preferred supplier to state-owned power group CEZ, beating competition from French, American and Japanese rivals. Shares in the FTSE 100-listed firm hit a record high last week after it won the landmark contract, which will see it develop and construct small modular reactors (SMRs), with the first expected to be built by 2035…Pressure is mounting on energy secretary Ed Miliband to approve SMRs in the UK.” The Daily Telegraph says that Miliband has been “urged to preserve a 140-tonne stockpile of radioactive plutonium instead of burying it as dangerous waste”. The newspaper adds: “The material, which is made up of spent fuel from power plants, still has the potential to generate energy and disposing of it would amount to ‘economic vandalism’, an industry insider warned. Reusing the plutonium – currently stored at Sellafield in Cumbria – would go against proposals thought to be favoured by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which has been examining options for the leftover material for 20 years.” (The newspaper does not reveal the source of the comment, but it goes on to extensively quote the views of Moltex, a “UK-founded company now developing its waste-to-fuel reactor design in Canada”.) Another Daily Telegraph article says that “Norwegian energy giant Equinor has scrapped plans to produce so-called blue hydrogen, citing high costs and insufficient demand”. The newspaper adds: “The move will raise concerns over Equinor’s plans in the UK, where it is heavily involved in a number of hydrogen projects.”

Elsewhere, the Daily Mirror covers new analysis by Friends of the Earth (FOE) which reveals that  “‌England and Wales’ heat-leaking homes unleash the same amount of avoidable greenhouse gas CO2 as Denmark emits annually”. Citing Carbon Brief analysis, the article says FOE found that “more than a decade of stagnation on upgrading the country’s poorly-insulated housing stock is leaving nearly 30m tonnes of CO2 pouring into our atmosphere each year”. The Guardian has a news feature headlined: “Pylons v property: power line in Scotland caused divisions but did house price fears materialise?” The Financial Times notes that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has told his party’s conference that he will pledge to fight the next general election “bashing believers in the green transition and net-zero policies”.

China’s top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), has issued a notice promising to “improve the green and low-carbon development mechanism” under the “guidance” of China’s “dual carbon” goals. The mechanism will cover four aspects: make a list of “key tasks”, according to an “opinion” on “green development” from the central government; complete a carbon emissions accounting and promote budget management systems at regional and provincial levels; promote new low-carbon technology; and advance national pilot schemes around carbon peaking.

Meanwhile, energy news outlet BJX News reports that, according to China’s National Energy Administration (NEA), the total electricity consumption of the “whole society” reached 964.9 terawatt hours (TWh) in August, an increase of 8.9% year-on-year. Reuters reports that – as explained in July analysis for Carbon Brief – China’s monthly economic data “omits” the output of “small-scale renewables generation”. Japanese news outlet Nikkei Asia reports that “an investment boom” is happening in China for “perovskite”, a “light and flexible solar cell technology developed in Japan”. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) has published a comment piece by Andy Xie, a Shanghai-based independent economist, under the title: “How China is becoming the Saudi Arabia of renewables.” The article cites Carbon Brief analysis and says: “While total electricity production rose by 4.8% in the first seven months [of the year], the share of coal-fired generation fell to a record low.”

Elsewhere, a Bloomberg newsletter reports that China and the EU have “agreed to intensify” talks on electric vehicle (EV) tariffs before the bloc’s final vote on the matter on 25 September. State-owned Global Times also covers the news. China Daily, another state-funded newspaper, says that China’s promise to “launch 30 clean energy projects in Africa” has “struck a chord with African nations”. The Financial Times reports that a “rare-earth processing centre” has opened in the city of Saskatoon in Canada, as a “part of an effort to counter China’s global dominance in the supply of the critical minerals needed for the green technology”. A separate Financial Times report says Chinese electric-car maker BYD’s “expected expansion into Pakistan…marks the company’s first venture into south Asia after being blocked in India”. Finally, Australia’s ABC News has a feature headlined: “The rise of solar power and China’s staggering EV growth may have pushed global emissions into decline.” (The feature also cites Carbon Brief analysis.)

The Associated Press reports that in the US the Republican-controlled House has approved a resolution that “would overturn a new Biden administration rule on automobile emissions that Republicans say would force Americans to buy unaffordable electric vehicles they don’t want”. The newswire adds: “The rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in March would impose the most ambitious standards ever in the US to cut planet-warming emissions from passenger vehicles. The actions come as EV sales, needed to meet the standards, have begun to slow. While former president Donald Trump and other Republicans have lambasted the rule as an EV ‘mandate’,’ the rule would not force all sales of EVs. Under the regulation, industry could meet the limits if 56% of new vehicle sales are electric by 2032, the EPA said. The standard also would require at least 13% plug-in hybrids or other partially electric cars by 2032, as well as more efficient gasoline-powered cars that get more miles to the gallon than cars currently on the road. The projected EV sales rate would be a huge increase over current sales, which rose to 7.6% of new vehicles last year, up from 5.8% in 2022…Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the energy panel, called the House measure ‘yet another Republican effort to attack the Clean Air Act and roll back common-sense air pollution protections’. The [Republican] action ‘puts the profits of corporate polluters over the health and safety of the American people’, Pallone said, adding that the resolution is ‘ripped right out of Trump’s extreme Project 2025 playbook’.’’ Separately, the Guardian has published a news feature headlined: “‘A break from the heat’: Americans most affected by climate crisis head midwest. Unbearable heat and worsening storms prompt residents of states such as Florida to move elsewhere.”

An editorial in the Financial Times begins: “Economists are rarely ever unanimous. But one matter on which they almost all agree is the need for carbon pricing. Their support is paying off. The principle that polluters should pay is in increasing force around the world. In an interview with the Financial Times last week, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the head of the World Trade Organization, said that globally there were 78 different carbon pricing and taxation mechanisms. They cover close to one-quarter of international emissions, up from just 5% in 2010, according to the World Bank. The expansion of carbon pricing policies is welcome.” It adds: “There is a way forward. First, more governments should realise that hesitancy over carbon pricing is increasingly futile. The world is shifting away from fossil fuels, and green subsidies are expensive. Politicians can build support at home by using revenues from carbon taxes to cushion their impact, reduce debt, or raise public investment…Carbon pricing is just one part of the large policy arsenal needed to tackle global climate change. But failing to build on recent momentum would be a missed opportunity.”

Elsewhere, the Guardian has published a comment piece by Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda, Malawi’s health minister, who writes: “People must understand: we in Malawi are paying for the climate crisis with our lives. From flooding to drought, extreme weather is devastating our communities. It is time for the world’s heaviest emitters to help mitigate the impacts of climatic breakdown on the countries most affected.” Writing for Time magazine, Vanessa Nakate, the Ugandan climate-justice activist and UNICEF goodwill ambassador, explains why a fossil fuel phase-out is the “only way to protect future generations”. The New York Times carries a comment piece by Robert Langellier, a “writer and a field botanist who fought wildfires in California for the US Forest Service in 2020”. He argues that “we are running out of firefighters at a perilous time”.

Writing in the Independent, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby argues that “when we hear the command of Christ to treasure God’s creation, it is up to us to heed the call”. He adds: “It dismays me when I hear Christians disputing scientific facts or saying that it is simply God’s problem. That is to misunderstand the awesome responsibility that God entrusted us with in caring for his planet and its people. It is a moral imperative to do as much as we can not to destroy the green world that God created for us. And we must act now, before it is too late…We must seek to persuade the powerful that it is in their interest to do good and be green. Some never will, and we have to accept that. Cynics – some of whom even call it a ‘hoax’ – will accuse us of interfering in politics. If it is interfering to seek to avert the catastrophe of climate change, especially as it affects the poorest, then let us interfere. I call it humanitarian care.”

In other UK comment, Joss Garman, executive director of the European Climate Foundation (which funds Carbon Brief), writes in the Guardian that “showing climate delivery can be done effectively and fairly would be an extraordinary climate legacy for Keir Starmer”. In contrast, an editorial in the climate-sceptic comment section of the Sun argues: “Why should ordinary families be made to pay the price for Ed Miliband’s heat-pump nonsense?” Finally, an editorial in the Times uses some contested analysis to try and say: “Why force the end of pure petrol and diesel in 2030 when 2035 is clearly more realistic? At the very least, hybrid cars should be kept in production for the foreseeable future. The average UK car journey is eight miles, perfect for EVs. The relatively small number of long-range trips could be handled by hybrids until battery technology and ubiquitous charging finally makes them obsolete. Labour now needs to ditch this doctrinaire target, along with the production quotas that go with it. Governments will not make the EV revolution happen but competitive electricity pricing, robust infrastructure and letting carmakers plan production will.” The editorial relies on analysis published by the Times on Saturday with the misleading headline: “Cost of driving electric car up to twice the price of petrol or diesel.” (A chart in the article shows that driving an electric car charged at home costs around a third of petrol or diesel.) The letters page in today’s edition includes a response from Vicky Read, chief executive officer at Charge UK, who writes: “Your article correctly highlights the need for affordable charging to encourage electric vehicle adoption but overlooks why public charging is more expensive, as well as possible routes to affordability.” On LinkedIn, Ian Johnston, the CEO at Osprey Charging Network and founding chair of Charge UK, begins: “Given the thread of headlines in the broadsheets over the last few days, let’s address this up front: why is public charging not currently cheaper in the UK?” And an editorial in Le Monde is headlined: “Europe must stay on course with electric car development.”

Coal-fired power plants supported by foreign investment have produced 26bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) cumulatively, and still produce 0.53GtCO2 per year, according to a new study. The authors analyse investment data from 908 “overseas coal-fired power plants”. They find that “developed nations account for 78% of these cumulative emissions on the basis of investments, while emissions from developing nations have surged from 8% in 1960 to 39% in 2022”. The authors estimate that overseas coal-fired power plants could produce an additional 15-30GtCO2 by 2060. Furthermore, they could “stimulate local coal power growth in emerging economies”, adding 6-45GtCO2 indirectly, they say.