This winter’s mild temperatures in the US, a “result of climate change”, have “wrecked plans and disrupted local economies”, in the midwest, reports the Guardian. By mid-February, ice cover on the Great Lakes historically averages around 40%, but this year it was about 4%, the newspaper continues. Even before the official end of winter on 19 March, “three normally frigid cities – Grand Forks, North Dakota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota” – have already recorded their warmest winter on record, the article adds. The central US has “just witnessed what was probably its most significant February heatwave on record, after scores of records were not just broken, but demolished”, reports the Washington Post. Half a dozen states, along with more than 130 cities and towns, have now registered their highest February temperature on record, the article notes. An amplified and powerful jet stream featuring a deep dip or trough in the West and a ridge in the East, “helped to propel a warm air mass from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes beginning Monday”, reports Axios. Temperatures reaching 40F (4.4C) above average for this time of year, bringing highs over 100F (37.7C) in Texas and fueling wildfires, “while also felling records in Mexico and Canada”, it adds

Meanwhile, in the Texas Panhandle, the Smokehouse Creek fire has now grown to be the second-largest in the state’s history in just two days, reports CBS News. The wildfire broke out on Monday and has since extended to cover an estimated 344,000 hectares with just 3% containment by Wednesday, according to Texas A&M Forest Service, it adds. On Tuesday, the state’s governor Greg Abbott issued an emergency declaration for 60 counties following the outbreak of the wildfire, reports the Hill. Texas A&M Forest Service lists the 2006 wildfire known as the East Amarillo Complex as the largest in state history, burning 367,000 hectares at the time, but till now the second-largest was the Big Country wildfire in 1988 that burned 148,000 hectares, the article notes.

The outgoing US climate envoy John Kerry has accused asset managers of “turning away from science”, reports the Financial Times, just weeks after some of the world’s biggest investors stepped back from an industry group set up to tackle climate change. JPMorgan Asset Management, Pimco and State Street Global Advisors all announced that they would leave Climate Action 100+ this month, an initiative designed to encourage companies to take action on climate change, the article notes. In an interview with the FT, Kerry says such moves by asset managers, together with a decline in the pace of climate action was a “problem” and an “unnecessary reaction” to “disinformation and politics”. Kerry warns that the populist backlash against net-zero around the world is imperilling the fight against climate breakdown and must be countered or we face planetary destruction “beyond comprehension”, reports the Guardian. The rise of “disinformation” and “demagoguery” is damaging the transition away from fossil fuels and is being used as tactics by special interest groups to delay action, it continues. “People are not being told the truth about what the impacts are from making this transition [to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions]. They’re being scared, purposely frightened by the demagoguery that is oblivious to the facts or distorting the facts. And in some cases outright lying is going on,” Kerry said, the Guardian reports.

The UK will struggle to meet its commitment to spend £11.6bn helping poorer countries deal with climate change, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) has warned, reports the Press Association. The newswire continues: “In 2019, the Government pledged £11.6bn over five years to 2025-26 to help developing countries curb emissions and cope with climate impacts, including £3bn on restoring nature, half of which is for forests. But it has ‘moved the goalposts’ by changing how it calculates the target and reviewing existing aid programmes to include as international climate finance, ICAI said. This has produced an extra £1.724bn towards enabling the government to meet the target, none of which was new money for countries in need of help. The watchdog raised concerns that the changes mean the UK is offering less additional assistance than was originally promised. A rapid review from the watchdog, which reports to Parliament, also warns that even with the changes, the target will be ‘challenging’ to meet, with 55% of the funding still to be spent in the last two years of the pledge. Up to £3.8bn is due to be spent in the last year of the pledge, after the next general election and at least one spending review. That comes in the context of a squeeze on the overall aid budget and non-climate demands on the money.” (For more, see Carbon Brief’s article: Analysis: How the UK has fallen 40% behind on its £11.6bn climate-finance pledge.”)

In other UK news, farmers have descended on Cardiff to protest against the Welsh government’s new farm subsidy, reports BBC News. The farmers were objecting to a major overhaul of farm subsidies in Wales known as the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS), adds the outlet, which has been branded as “unworkable” by unions. The Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) proposal would require farmers to commit 10% of agricultural land to be used for trees and 10% of wildlife habitat, it notes. The requirement for 10% tree coverage in exchange for funding in the future, has “proved hugely controversial”, the article continues, with an economic impact assessment suggesting the plans could lead to a 10.8% reduction in livestock numbers and an 11% cut in labour needed on Welsh farms. But ministers say this analysis is outdated and does not take into account all parts of its new funding scheme, while supporters say the SFS’ rules are more flexible than they appear and “are vital to help Wales fight climate change and nature loss”, BBC News adds. The protesters, flanked by Welsh Tory and Plaid Cymru politicians, “gave emotional accounts” of trying to keep businesses going and accused the Labour-run government of betraying communities that produce the country’s food, the Guardian reports. However, there is growing concern that groups that deny there is a climate emergency and campaigners against net-zero plans are trying to exploit the farmers’ campaign, the article notes.

Meanwhile, Britain’s power stations are “to command record prices to keep the lights on later this decade” following the result of the latest capacity market auction, reports the Guardian. Plants in England, Wales and Scotland secured an all-time high price of £65 a kilowatt per year for 2027-28 in the auction, outstripping the £63 per kW a year planned for 2026-2027, National Grid’s electricity system operator said, the article continues. The annual auction sets a subsidy price to pay operators of power generators and battery storage facilities to cover the cost of meeting the three nation’s electricity demand, it explains. In total, power plants are expected to be paid £2.7bn to meet power demand for 2027-28, while longer-term 15-year contracts were also handed out, worth £1.7bn, the Guardian notes. The result represents the first time that energy companies have not “snapped up all the capacity offered up”, with 43.3 gigawatts of power secured against a target of 44 gigawatts, it adds. Elsewhere, critics have warned proposed electricity market reforms in Britain could create a “politically toxic postcode lottery”, with voters and businesses in England and Wales hit with higher bills than in Scotland, reports Politico. Advocates say the reforms could reduce bills by billions of pounds over the next 15 years, but ministers are being warned about how the public may react to the different models being proposed within the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements, it adds. The Daily Telegraph tries to argue that “dwindling domestic [energy] consumption plunges the UK back into the dark years of the 1970s”. While the government puts a fall in energy consumption down to unseasonably warm weather and continued improvements in energy efficiency, the article looks at drops in GDP alongside a drop in energy demand. It relies heavily on the views of Gordon Hughes, who is described as a “former senior adviser to the World Bank”, but who is more recently a regular contributor to the climate-sceptic lobby group known as the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

European nations must end the “repression and criminalisation of peaceful protest” and urgently take action to cut emissions in line with the Paris Agreement to limit global heating to 1.5C, according to the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, reports the Guardian. Following a year-long inquiry, which included evidence from the UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, Michel Forst said repression faced by environment activists was a major threat to democracy and human rights, it continues. All of the nations inspected are party to the Aarhus convention, the article notes, which states peaceful environmental protest is a legitimate exercise of the public’s right to participate in decision-making and those engaged in it must be protected. Meanwhile, thousands of farmers have marched in Poland’s capital and Spanish farmers have cut off traffic on highways near the French border, in the latest protests against food imports from Ukraine and the EU’s agricultural policies, reports the Associated Press. Some protesters want a withdrawal from the EU’s Green Deal, the article adds. (For more, see Carbon Brief’s article: “Analysis: How do the EU farmer protests relate to climate change?”)

In other European news, several countries have hit some of their sustainable energy targets for 2030 a decade early according to a new study, reports the Guardian. All EU member states made progress in the 2010s toward reaching the UN’s seventh sustainable development goal and several countries reached the targets by 2021, according to the study from Polish economists, it continues. Sweden tops the rankings, followed by Denmark, Estonia and Austria, Malta improved the most, while Bulgaria was the furthest from the goal, it adds. The EU’s wind power target for 2030 is now within reach due to a rebound in investment and improved permitting, according to trade association WindEurope, reports Reuters. In its outlook for 2030, it forecasts that the EU will install an average of 29GW in wind capacity each year, increasing installed capacity to 393GW, it adds. 

China could install as much as 190-220GW of solar power capacity in 2024, Wang Bohua, honorary chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA), said at a conference on the solar industry’s development, reports energy news outlet IN-EN.com. Centralised and distributed solar power will “advance simultaneously, with large-scale projects becoming a significant support for the growth of centralised projects”, Wang added. Chinese outlet Jiemian quotes Jin Lei, an official in the ministry of industry and information technology (MIIT), saying at the conference that “in the second half of 2023, it was already noticeable that the expansion of the domestic [solar] industry had slowed down”. Power news outlet BJX News quotes national energy administration (NEA) official Xing Yiteng, saying that the energy regulator is organising the “revision of the management measures for distributed solar power generation projects”. 

IN-EN.com also reports that, according to MIIT, the solar cell sector saw growth “exceeding 545GW, a year-on-year increase of 65%”. It adds that the production volume of silicon materials, silicon wafers, solar cells and modules have all significantly increased in November and December 2023, possibly due to the “large-scale expansion of solar enterprises in 2023 and the commissioning of many projects at the end of the year”. China Electric Power News reports that newly generated solar power reached “21.6 terawatts (TW) in 2023, among which centralised solar power accounted for 12TW”. Power news outlet Dianlian Media says that, as distributed solar installations surpass grid carrying capacity, the cost of grid connection “rises significantly”, adding that challenges in grid connection and absorption are inhibiting “uncontrolled growth” of the distributed solar sector. 

Meanwhile, business outlet 21st Century Business Herald quotes Ouyang Minggao, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, saying the market share of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China will reach “nearly 40%” in 2024 and is projected to reach “70% by 2030”. The state-run newspaper Reference News reports that Chinese minister of commerce Wang Wentao, in a meeting with EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, said that the EU’s probe into Chinese electric vehicles and other products “lacks factual basis”. 

The Diplomat has published an article by climate researcher Chris Qihan Zou, who writes that China’s new climate envoy Liu Zhenmin’s “background in foreign affairs and climate negotiation” shows how China’s leaders want to “better integrate climate policy and foreign policy [as] climate change and geopolitics are increasingly entangled”, but may not “mirror the focused dedication that Xie [Zhenhua] brought to the table”. Zou adds that new US climate envoy John Podesta may be well served by the fact he “participated in China-US track II dialogues and developed productive working relationships with Chinese officials during his tenure…[at] the think tank Center for American Progress”. The state-run China Daily carries a commentary by He Yun, associate professor at Hunan University’s School of Public Administration, who writes that “obstructing affordable technology from China would be a drag on the US’ own green transition while damaging the trust and goodwill vital for global climate action”. Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily carries a commentary arguing that China hopes the US “corrects its misconceptions about China, abandons zero-sum thinking and lets go of the illusion of ‘winning against’ China”. 

It is “perfectly possible to support, even enthusiastically, the objective of a carbon-neutral British economy and be deeply sceptical of the current net-zero agenda”, writes Henry Hill, the deputy editor at ConservativeHome, on CapX. There is more than one way to do net-zero, he argues, adding that he supports the “abundance approach”, which suggests that “​​net-zero ought to be a liberating prospect”. But this depends on building energy generation and transmission infrastructure, as well as factories and laboratories for the new industrial revolution, writes Hill, and this work is not being done. He explores arguments around energy efficiency, using the LED as an example, and concludes that at some point “it will be easier for governments to concentrate disruption in specific places, to build power plants and reservoirs, than to face the political costs of widespread rationing and a sustained fall in living standards”.

In other UK comment, in the Guardian, columnist George Monbiot explores the Welsh farmer protests, arguing that “farmers in Britain have real reasons to be angry, but this protest against reasonable green policy has become a culture war”. And Matthew Lynn, one of the Daily Telegraph‘s numerous climate-sceptic columnists, argues that “the net-zero delusion has reached a new low”.

Data centres are becoming some of the biggest consumers of water and energy, with artificial intelligence (AI) becoming a “big guzzler of natural resources”, says a Financial Times editorial. Data centres, cryptocurrencies and AI accounted for almost 2% of global power demand in 2022 and this could double by 2026 to nearly match the electricity consumption of Japan, the FT notes. But AI could help ease the transition to clean energy, with the article citing numerous examples of energy use being reduced through AI modelling. “AI could have a useful role in tackling climate change. But it needs to ensure it is seen as part of the solution – and not part of the problem”, the article concludes. 

Meanwhile, a Lex column in the FT argues that Europe’s emissions trading system is “too clunky to deliver the required impetus to decarbonisation”. The cost of emitting CO2 in Europe has crashed over the past year, the article adds, which is “sowing the seeds of a future carbon crunch”. A lot of the EU’s CO2 emissions are cyclical rather than structural, it argues. Therefore, the current market structure is one that does not “manage to look very far ahead”. The article concludes: “Imperfect markets are a fact of life. But volatility is particularly concerning in CO2 trading, given it is supposed to provide signals to incentivise structural, long-term projects.”

New research assesses the potential impacts of climate change on African apes across 363 sites. Projections suggest that temperatures will increase across all sites, the study says, with more heavy precipitation events for 288 sites. “All sites will be frequently exposed to wildfires and crop failures in the future”, the authors say, “and the latter could impact apes indirectly through increased deforestation”. In addition, “84% of sites are projected to be exposed to heatwaves and 78% of sites to river floods’. The study provides detailed results for each ape site on an open-access platform called “A.P.E.S. Wiki”.