A draft finance deal unveiled this morning at the UN climate conference has failed to make progress on the central question of “how much money should wealthy countries provide to poorer nations that are the most vulnerable to the ravages of a warming world”, reports the Washington Post. Developing countries are hoping for climate finance of at least $1.3tn from developed nations to help deal with the worsening impacts of climate change, the article continues. However, the draft released on Thursday morning does not specify dollar amounts, instead using the placeholders “[X] trillion of dollars annually” and “[X] billion per year,” it adds. (Carbon Brief’s Josh Gabbatiss explains the text in more detail on BlueSky.) The Associated Press quotes Mohamed Adow, director of the thinktank Power Shift Africa, who expressed disappointment at the draft finance text. He said: “We came here to talk about money. The way you measure money is with numbers. We need a cheque, but all we have right now is a blank piece of paper.”. Getting a deal on finance at COP29 has been “slow-going”, reports Reuters, with the latest draft of the text published less than 48 hours before the summit is supposed to close. AFP quotes EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, who said in response to the draft: “As for the text overall, I’m not going to sugarcoat it – it is clearly unacceptable as it stands now. I am sure there’s not a single ambitious country that thinks this is nearly good enough.” The “streamlined compilation of proposals” for the finance deal, officially known as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) is down from 25 pages to 10 in the previous version, explains the Hindustan Times. The text largely leaves two ministerial options on the overall goal, but does not include an actual number for the finance in either options, it adds. The “first [option] reflects developing-country preferences, and the second is what developed countries want to see”, reports Climate Home News. 

In other COP-related news, Australia is now “locked in a standoff with Turkey over which will host vital UN climate talks in 2026”, reports the Guardian. At COP31 the question of whether the world can limit global heating in line with scientific evidence is expected to be decided, it explains. 

The EU, together with 25 other countries, have agreed to commit to no new unabated coal power in the next round of their national climate pledges, reports Bloomberg. Signatories include Canada, the UK and Germany, but do not include the world’s largest coal-consuming nations China and India, or the US, it adds. The announcement at COP29 comes as the US, EU and others push for nations to reaffirm and implement the agreement from last year’s climate summit to “transition away from fossil fuels”, the article notes. Speaking at the summit on Wednesday, OPEC secretary general Haitham Al Ghais told attendees that oil and gas were a “gift from god”, reports Reuters, repeating a phrasing used last week by Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev. “The focus of the Paris Agreement is reducing emissions, not choosing energy sources,” he told attendees of the climate conference, the article adds. The Hindu highlights that host nation Azerbaijan has continued to “unapologetically” drill for oil near the COP29 venue. Politico explores how the gas deals Western countries have struck with Azerbaijan during the conference could “ultimately benefit Russia”. 

Meanwhile, COP30 host Brazil has called on the EU to “move up” its climate neutrality target, reports Politico. Brazilian climate chief Ana Toni tells the outlet that it would display EU leadership, in particular, given the “tense political momen”t. Politico quotes Toni, who says: “For us, Europe has been a leader on the climate issue. For them to come with a very strong NDC and perhaps bringing an earlier date for their net-zero target, and on time, I think that’s a strong signal. I hope they will do so.”

In other COP29 news, African delegates have expressed “deep disappointment over the lack of meaningful progress in negotiation”, reports Kenya’s Nation. In a joint briefing, delegates from a range of groups emphasised their frustration, in particular noting how many things remain stalled with just days left of the talks, it adds. African negotiators have urged world leaders to triple adaptation funds, as part of a meeting of the high-level ministerial dialogue, reports Nigeria’s Premium Times. 

Zhao Yingmin, head of China’s delegation at COP29, says that China “hopes developed countries will increase financial support and technology transfer to developing countries” for combating climate change, adding that COP29 could reach “new and more powerful funding targets to provide confidence and guarantee for global climate action in the next stage”, the Paper, a Shanghai-based news outlet, reports. The Guardian says that a “growing number of delegates” from “poorer” countries at COP29 demand that China and India “no longer be treated as developing countries in the same way as some of the poorest African nations are”. Dialogue Earth publishes an article under the title: “Will China assume more responsibility for global climate finance?” It says that China is “on a par with theUK, to become the joint fifth-largest provider of climate finance after Japan, Germany, the US and France…China’s climate finance goes mainly to developing countries in Asia and Africa…It is worth mentioning that China’s overseas climate investment is mainly in the form of loans.” 

Meanwhile, Chinese president Xi Jinping has asked German chancellor Olaf Scholz on the sidelines of the G20 summit to “help the EU and China to resolve the issue of tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles as soon as possible”, Reuters reports, citing a report by China’s state broadcaster CCTV. Xi also says that “China always insists on resolving differences through dialogue and consultation” and it hopes Germany will “continue to play an important role in this regard”, according to state news agency Xinhua. The Guardian publishes an analysis under the title: “Trump tariffs are coming, but some Chinese companies may already know how to avoid them.”

Finally, Reuters reports that China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has “finalised investment guidelines” for solar projects in an effort to “rein in overcapacity”, adding that China’s “solar panel manufacturers have been calling for the government to step in and curb over-investment in the industry”. China has the “potential to drive decarbonisation in the global maritime industry because it has the ability to produce electric ships and vessels in addition to green shipping fuels at the lowest costs”, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports. Japanese news outlet Nikkei Asia publishes an article, titled: “Solar powerhouse: China holds the key to Asia’s green energy goals.”  Finally, the Sydney Morning Herald carries a comment piece by its economics editor Ross Gittins arguing that the return of Donald Trump may “leave China to save the planet”. 

Ford has announced it will cut 800 jobs in the UK over the next three years, reports BBC News. “The move is part of a major restructuring programme, which will see 4,000 posts closed across Europe as a whole,” the article notes. Ford said closures are due to difficult trading conditions, including intense competition and “weak demand” for electric vehicles, it adds. The cuts represent about 14% of the company’s 28,000 workforce in Europe and will be completed by the end of 2027, reports the Guardian. “Ford is the latest in a series of global carmakers to aim for cost savings as the industry struggles with waning demand while also trying to invest in the transition to electric cars”, the article says. Ford has also cut back on planned production of its new electric Explorer and Capri model cards, notes the Guardian. Ministers will consult on changes to rules around electric car sales as a result of “fierce opposition” from manufacturers to the penalties in place around EV sales, reports the Times. The UK government has said that it will consult on changing the zero-emission mandate to benefit manufacturers rather than lower emissions, it continues. The Times quotes a statement from the government, which says: “A manufacturer that lowers its average CO2 emissions across its vehicle fleet, for example by selling efficient hybrids, is allowed to sell fewer zero-emission vehicles.”

A new report from thinktank Ember suggests that, despite 2024 likely being another record year for fossil fuels, the global energy market is nearing a turning point, reports BusinessGreen. Half of global economies are already transitioning to renewables and are at least five years past a peak in power generation from fossil fuels, it continues. “The study suggested there was mounting evidence the world is closing in on peak global power-sector emissions, indicating emissions should start to fall in the next few years,” writes BusinessGreen. The report, however, warns that the global economy has not yet entered an era of falling fossil fuel generation and Ember has “urged ministers attending COP29 to urgently build on the UAE Consensus agreed at last year’s Dubai Summit, which set landmark targets to treble renewables generation and transition away from the use of fossil fuels in energy systems”.

The EU, US and others are “hammering out a plan to throttle tens of billions of dollars of financial support for foreign oil and gas projects”, reports Bloomberg. Weeks before US president-elect Donald Trump takes office, negotiators are working toward a deal at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) gathering in Paris, it explains. According to people familiar with the matter, an agreement would mark the culmination of more than a year of effort to expand the existing OECD rules that prohibit member nations’ export-credit agencies from financing unabated coal projects, it adds. “With Trump taking office in two months, it’s a last-ditch bid to lock in a climate policy that environmental advocates say will be difficult for the new administration to reverse while freeing up multibillion-dollar funds for global clean-energy projects,” adds Bloomberg. In other US news, Trump’s allies want to revive the idea of installing “red teams” to question climate science, reports E&E News. The idea, which was proposed during the first Trump administration but never happened, involves “pitting climate scientists against the handful of [climate-sceptic] researchers who argue climate change fears are overblown” in a red team/blue team exercise, the article explains. 

The UK government has announced it will relax noise restrictions on heat pumps, along with several other measures to boost the uptake of the technology, reports the Daily Telegraph. Ministers “will scrap current rules that block homeowners from installing a heat pump less than a metre from their property’s boundary”, a measure brought in to reduce noise “that can annoy neighbours”, it adds. (A factcheck on heat pumps by Carbon Brief highlights that heat pumps are no noisier than a fridge.) The government will also lift the limit on the size of heat pumps and increase subsidies, the Daily Telegraph notes. The funding available will be increased by £30m this financial year and then double to £295m for 2025/26, reports Reuter​​s. The article quotes Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy, who says: “More than a third of customers who order a heat pump drop out because of planning issues…Removing outdated and unnecessary red tape is an urgent priority to grow this sector.” The Financial Times, meanwhile, reports that the UK government is set to cut the level of planned fines for boilermakers who do not sell enough heat pumps. “The easing follows intense lobbying from industry, which has warned the plans were out of step with market demand and would push up prices for consumers and risk jobs”, the article notes.

Pilita Clark writing in the Financial Times explores how, at COP29, governments and not just activists are pushing for so-called “solidarity levies” to “plug a gaping finance gap bogging down efforts to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement”. Levies on shipping, aviation, fossil-fuel production and financial transactions are “under the microscope”, as well as charges on things such as cryptocurrency trades, she explains. “Precisely what all this will add up to is unknown,” she concludes, adding: “Even if more countries adopt levies on things like air tickets, diverting revenues from national treasuries to poorer countries needing climate finance is a big step. But one thing is clear. The days when new carbon levies were deemed too politically impossible to be on the table are well and truly over.”

Writing in the Guardian, columnist George Monbiot argues that “our climate ‘solutions’ are now the stuff of total delusion”. While it is easy to point to “counter-qualified, science-denying fanatics”, he says, the “war against reality is everywhere”. He critiques the carbon-market rules agreed at COP29, which “amount, in effect, to permission to carry on polluting”. Underlying the notion is a “kind of substance dualism” he writes, concluding: “At a moment of existential crisis, governments everywhere are retreating into a dreamworld, in which impossible contradictions are reconciled. You can send your legions to war with reality, but eventually we all lose.”

In other COP comment, journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo in Kenya’s Nation questions the “damp squid” that is COP29. In the Financial Times’s Moral Money newsletter, Simon Mundy examines the “selfish case” for climate finance, highlighting a “new academic paper [which] argues climate-focused grant finance is in rich countries’ economic interest”. And in the Guardian, Australia climate and environment editor Adam Morton looks at the country’s bid to host COP31.

In a joint article for Brazil’s Folha de São Paulo, Brazilian president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva and UK prime minister Keir Starmer hail the Global Clean Energy Alliance, an initiative to triple the renewable energy production capacity by 2030. Both leaders call on G20 economies to scale up their climate pledges and private investments in clean energy, as well as recall Brazil’s “new investment platform to mobilise private funds for climate-transition projects”.

In continuing coverage of the G20 meeting in Brazil earlier this week, Excélsior reports that Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum has proposed “investing 1% of military expenses in a reforestation programme”. She said the proposal could “unlock $24m to fund reforestation globally while creating temporary employment and reducing poverty and migration”.

In other Latin American news, Coquetá, a Colombian department holding key connectivity areas between the Andes and the Amazon, lost more than 18m hectares of forest during 2023, El Espectador reports citing Global Forest Watch data. Elsewhere, El Comercio reports that the extreme flooding that devastated Valencia in Spain in late October this year resembles what Peru underwent years ago and could continue to face. The newspaper stresses the need to strengthen adaptation and resilience strategies in Peru’s Piura region, where a similar event occurred last month.

Ocean temperature estimates from the early 20th century are “too cold”, according to a new study. The researchers find that, on average, a statistical reconstruction of global average surface temperature from ocean data is 0.26C colder than the reconstruction from land data between 1900 and 1930. The study authors note: “Although estimates of global warming since the mid-nineteenth century are not affected, correcting the ocean cold bias would result in a more modest early-20th-century warming trend.”