In his annual new year message, UN secretary general António Guterres has warned that the world has now endured a “decade of deadly heat”, reports the Guardian. The comment comes following the 10 hottest years on record, including 2024, coming in the past decade, the article continues. The World Meteorological Organisation has said “the past year was set to be the warmest on record, capping a decade of unprecedented heat fuelled by human activities and driving increasing weather extremes, while greenhouse gas levels continued to reach new highs, locking in more heat for the future”, the article notes. Guterres added: “We must exit this road to ruin and we have no time to lose. In 2025, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions and supporting the transition to a renewable future. It is essential, and it is possible.”

Separately, 2024 was Australia’s second hottest year on record, reports the Guardian. Data from the Bureau of Meteorology found that, last year, the country was 1.46C above the “long-term average” (taken over 1961-90), it continues. This is second only to 2019 when the average temperature was 1.51C higher, it adds.

In related news, climate change added 41 extra days of “dangerous heat” in 2024 reports the Associated Press. The analysis from World Weather Attribution and Climate Central researchers also found that “climate change worsened much of the world’s damaging weather throughout 2024”, the article adds. In response to the analysis, BBC News looks at the extreme weather events experienced over the last year.

Russian gas has stopped flowing into EU countries via Ukraine, reports BBC News. It comes as a five-year deal expired, marking the end of a decades-long agreement, it continues. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said his country would not allow Russia to “earn additional billions on our blood”, while Poland’s government says the cut-off was “another victory” against Moscow, adds the article. The end to the gas flows led to power cuts in parts of Moldova (which is not yet part of the EU) and concern in some EU capitals about how to make up the deficit, reports the Guardian in a piece that featured on its frontpage. The article quotes Ukraine’s energy minister, German Galushchenko, who said “Russia is losing its markets, it will suffer financial losses”. Russia is set to lose €5bn (£4.14bn) through the closure of the Gazprom transit pipeline, reports the Daily Telegraph. The pipeline was one of the last of two routes that were still carrying Russian gas to Europe, nearly three years into the war, reports the Financial Times. The end of the gas transit deal means EU countries will lose about 5% of gas imports in the middle of winter, it adds. This story was also covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Euractiv and others. 

In related news, on Christmas day Russia launched an attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, reports the Washington Post. “Ukrainian officials say Russia has launched a massive missile barrage targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure,” the article states. According to Ukrainian officials, Russia directed more than 70 cruise and ballistic missiles as well as 100 strike drones at the energy infrastructure just before dawn, reports the New York Times. President Zelensky dubbed the attack, which wounded at least six people and killed one, as “inhuman”, the article adds.

New York state will fine fossil fuel companies to pay for the damage caused by climate change, reports Reuters. State governor Kathy Hochul has signed into law a new bill that will see $75bn raised over the next 25 years, it continues. The legislation, known as the Climate Change Superfund Act, will require companies “responsible for the bulk of carbon emissions buildup between 2000 and 2024 to pay about $3bn each year”, reports the New York Times. The Associated Press quotes state senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, who said the act “is now law, and New York has fired a shot that will be heard round the world: the companies most responsible for the climate crisis will be held accountable”. 

In other US news, incoming president Donald Trump has told the EU to buy US oil and gas or face tariffs, reports the Financial Times. “Trump reignited fears of a looming trade war between the US and the EU in his first public statement regarding trade since he was elected president in November,” adds the Guardian. A separate piece in the Guardian speaks to experts about whether Trump can “stop the wave of frivolous litigation from environmental extremists” as he has promised to, finding that his “ability to block suits will be limited”.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Michael Regan, who has overseen the “widespread efforts by the administration of US president Joe Biden to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants” is stepping down, reports Reuters. Regan took the role in 2021 after the Trump administration had reduced the EPA to its smallest size in decades, and is “widely credited with helping to restore morale, staffing levels and scientific integrity at the agency”, reports the New York Times.

Crowds of people in Mayotte have heckled French president Emmanuel Macron as he toured communities following the strongest cyclone to hit the French territory in nearly a century, reports the Associated Press. In response to the shouts from angry residents, Macron replied that “if it wasn’t for France, you would be in way deeper sh*t, 10,000 times more, there is no place in the Indian Ocean where people receive more help”, reports Reuters. A feature in Le Monde the week after the cyclone hit states that “the area’s devastated towns have still seen no sign of help. As well as anger and feeling abandoned, improvised acts of solidarity are being set up”. The cyclone, dubbed Chido, “not only ravaged Mayotte’s fragile infrastructure but also laid bare deep-seated tensions between the island’s residents and its large migrant population”, notes the Washington Post. Elsewhere, BBC News covers the growing death toll caused by Cyclone Chido, with 94 people having been confirmed dead in Mozambique since it made landfall. 

Meanwhile, severe climate shocks are contributing to more than 40 million people struggling to feed themselves in west and central Africa, reports the Associated Press. A new report from the UN food agency identified climate along with conflict, displacement and economic instability as the drivers for food insecurity, with 3.4 million people facing “emergency levels of hunger” in the region, it adds. The Guardian reports that the 10 most-costly climate disasters in 2024 caused $229bn in damages and killed 2,000 people. Analysis of insurance payouts by charity Christian Aid found that “three-quarters of the financial destruction occurred in the US”, it adds. Every one of these disasters caused more than $4bn in damages, with the true cost expected to be even higher, reports BusinessGreen. 

In Australia, an “uncontained bushfire raging” in the state of Victoria prompted the evacuation of hundreds of residents, reports Reuters. By Sunday 22 December, more than 600 firefighters were battling the blaze in the Grampians National Park, which covered more than 34,000 hectares at the time, adds ABC News. On Monday 24 December, continued coverage followed the damage caused by the bushfire, with the Guardian noting that it was the “worst fire conditions since black summer” and Bloomberg highlighting that temperatures were forecast to rise on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The combination of high temperatures and “erratic winds” have “presented the worst fire conditions in several years”, reports the Associated Press.

The UK risks a drastic slowdown of the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) due to a disparity in access to and the cost of chargers, reports the Guardian. According to new research from consultancy Stonehaven, the advances in batteries and car ranges mean persuading people to move to EVs is more an issue of “urban management and social equity” than of technology, the article explains. The report points to London as an example of “a lack of coherent strategy over on-street charging points, which are left to individual councils to install”, the article adds. As well as the provision of chargers, the report highlights that public chargers are between six and 10 times more costly than charging at home, it continues.

In the UK, the government has announced a consultation into how the phase-out of petrol and diesel cars by 2030 will work, BBC News reports. This follows “complaints from carmakers that electric vehicle sales were not rising fast enough to hit targets”, adds the Financial Times. The automotive and charging industries will now have eight weeks to submit their views on EV rules, including how existing “arrangements and flexibilities are working”, the article notes. Trade group EV UK has warned that failing to ban the sale of new hybrid cards with no plug from 2030 would be “a catastrophic misstep”, reports the Press Association. As part of the wider EV consultation, if the government decided to continue the sale of hybrid vehicles it would have a “profound” impact on consumer confidence, the article explains. Sales of EVs globally are now on track to reach 10.8m in 2024, marking a 7% increase on the previous year, reports BusinessGreen. These new figures from New Automotive show that the “transition is unstoppable”, it adds.

In a piece trailed on its frontpage, the Daily Telegraph reports that climate change “threatens to devastate the value of hundreds of thousands of homeowners’ properties”. According to a new report from the Bank of England, around 300,000 homes, or 1% of properties, risk having a fifth of the value of their properties “wiped out” due to climate change-driven flooding, it continues. A “critical factor”, the newspaper explains, “is the potential lack of flood insurance in areas prone to the disasters, which in turn undermines property values as buyers have to prepare to face potential costs of water damage themselves”.

In other UK news, grants and cheap loans will be offered to households in the UK to support the installation of solar panels, the Times reports in a piece on its frontpage. “In a bid to win over consumers to one of Sir Keir Starmer’s key missions, ministers are drawing up plans to subsidise the cost of fitting solar panels and batteries in homes across the country,” the article continues. The money will come from the previously announced £6.6bn warm homes plan and will be allocated in next year’s spending review. A Mail on Sunday “exclusive” reports that plans to make landlords meet new eco-targets for homes will leave “Sir Keir Starmer facing a bill of up to £28,000 for home improvements”. 

Elsewhere, the Times reports that “The largest developer of onshore wind farms in Wales has said it is confident of erecting almost 200 new wind turbines across the country by 2030, some of them up to 200 metres tall, in projects that will help the government meet its stretching clean energy targets”. Cardiff-based Bute Energy gained consent in December for the Twyn Hywel wind farm, one of 18 it is looking to develop, the article adds. the Daily Telegraph reports – in a piece trailed on its frontpage – that “huge swathes of “unspoilt” countryside” are being threatened in Wales by plans to build more grid infrastructure according to campaigners. And Conservative MPs have warned that “Ed Miliband’s extreme green plans” will “spark anger” across the UK, reports the Daily Express.

Finally, the Daily Mail reports in a frontpage article that passengers “be hit with highest-ever levies on flights in multi-billion-pound raid”. The article suggests that due to planned increases in air passenger duty, there will be a £400 tax on the typical family holiday. [However, as James Ball, political editor of The New European highlights on Twitter, this figure was reached by looking at the tax on four people flying long-haul, which will increase in 2026 from £360, under current rules, to £408, noting that “to call [the £400 tax figure] dubious is generous”].

In other UK news, energy bills are expected to rise by a further 3% in April, reports Reuters. According to analysis by Cornwall Insight, geopolitical instability is keeping wholesale energy prices high, it adds. This would mark the second increase in Ofgem’s energy price cap in 2025, with the first 1% jump taking effect from 1 January, reports BBC News. Currently, the cap means the typical household will pay £1,738 a year for electricity and gas, with bills remaining around 50% higher than pre-Covid levels, it adds. The “rising price cap is expected to pile pressure on household finances during the coldest months of the year when millions of homes have already racked up record levels of debt to their energy suppliers”, says the Guardian. In the Daily Telegraph’s coverage of the increase to the price cap, which was featured on its frontpage, it quotes Claire Coutinho, the Conservative shadow energy secretary, who said: “Labour promised in the election that they would cut energy bills by £300, but instead bills are already going up by hundreds of pounds and are set to soar further under Ed Miliband’s reckless net-zero plans.” Similarly, frontpage coverage of the increase by the Daily Mail points to the £217 increase in the price cap since Labour took office six months ago.

Separately, an “exclusive” in the Mail on Sunday suggests that net-zero plans will cost £37bn in public money by the next general election in 2029. This number is the result of an “audit” by the newspaper of money earmarked for net-zero initiatives during this parliament – including subsidising solar and storage for homes, supporting clean energy industries and industrial strategy and more. 

It “almost beggars belief that cheap energy from Russia was still being piped across war-ravaged Ukraine” nearly three years after the beginning of the war, argues an editorial in the Independent. “Stopping it has triggered another global price spiral, and may yet have dire political consequences – but EU leaders cannot afford to maintain this habit,” the article states. While “price spirals” present a risk to European solidarity with regard to Russia’s war on Ukraine, “this must not be the last word”, it continues. The article encourages the EU to “do what it can to help Moldova, which is not in the EU and has no alternative supply” as well as to protect its own energy customers. “It is a happy coincidence that business, security and ethical considerations all converge to make Europe moving to end its reliance on Russian gas quite simply the right thing to do,” the article concludes. 

Elsewhere, a Times editorial argues that the “last of the Russian gas flowing through Ukraine is a winter warning for Europe”. Similarly an editorial in the Daily Telegraph explores the end to the flow of Russian gas through Ukraine, arguing “reliance on Russian gas shames the west”. And an editorial in the Daily Mirror suggests that the windfall tax on energy companies in the UK should be extended, as since the start of the energy crisis four years ago “oil and gas giants have made a jaw-dropping £483bn profit”. 

Former UK Labour party leader and independent MP for Islington North Jeremy Corbyn argues that “Labour seems gripped by a form of denialism” on climate change, adding that “the danger is real and incremental change won’t avert it”. Corbyn details the current and future impacts of global warming today, including heatwaves, flooding, biodiversity loss and more. “If our political leaders acted out of humanity, the plight of others would be enough to motivate them into action. In the absence of empathy, perhaps we need to be more direct: the climate crisis is coming for you, because it is coming for us all,” he continues. The current UK government “peddles” an “insidious” type of denialism, where it is not the existence of climate change that is questioned, but a “belief that incremental change can fix it” that is pushed, he argues. “A planet cannot be cooled by warm words; we need fundamental change, now,” Corbyn writes, pointing to the need for global solutions, climate activism and pushing back against “climate doomism”. 

In other UK comment over the Christmas period, an editorial in the Sun argues that “for a government publicly committed to pursuing growth, Labour appears strangely addicted to net-zero policies which may well achieve the opposite”. A further editorial – published by the Sun the following day – argues that “net-zero is meant to be Labour’s aspiration for the environment, not economic growth”. 

Elsewhere in right-leaning newspapers, Matt Oliver, industry editor at the Daily Telegraph, argues that “Germany’s wind fiasco is a stark warning for Ed Miliband”, pointing to the economic impact of the country’s “basket-case electricity grid”, Separately in the Daily Telegraph, technology editor James Titcomb discusses “Britain’s driveway divide”, as the ability to charge an EV at home as opposed to using public chargers has a significant impact on the price of power. Senior features writer at the Daily Telegraph Rosa Silverman argues that “the future hangs in the balance for Aberdeen’s offshore workers” due to the UK government’s “war on oil”. A Daily Express column by writer and broadcaster Esther Krakue argues that “Ed Miliband’s net-zero policies are costing the UK taxpayer heavily”, pointing to the increase in the energy price cap. [The increase in energy bills in the UK over the last four years has been primarily driven by increases in gas prices, with historic cuts to green measures also contributing – as opposed to the price of renewable energy, which remains cheap.] 

Finally, in a piece in the Guardian, Rupert Read – author and co-director of the Climate Majority Project – argues that “with the climate crisis hitting Britain, we must build resilience at a local level by rewilding, saving water and fighting floods”. 

In the Financial Times, business columnist and climate journalist Pilita Clark argues that 2024 can be explained in one word: “greenlash”. She details how “the seemingly unrelenting rise of populism has spurred a retreat from environmental targets”. She details progress towards green policies in previous years, including the boom in renewables in the EU in 2022 and major legislation passed in the UK and US in years prior to that. However, in 2024, “the green march began to stumble”, Clark argues. “With an incoming Trump administration expected to reverse climate policies, and populism showing no sign of easing in Europe, it is clear that fraught green politics are by no means at an end”, she concludes. 

In other comment, chief economics commentator Martin Wolf interviews economist Mariana Mazzucato for the Financial Times’ Economics Show about how governments can “take on bold challenges such as climate change?”. A Financial Times Lex opinion piece asks “why the troubled carbon offset market is taking cover”. Similarly, Times financial editor Patrick Hosking questions whether challenger banks can make carbon offsetting a growth industry, after Atom Bank bought a wood to “counteract its footprint”. A piece in the Financial Times by Parag Khanna founder and chief executive of AlphaGeo discusses how climate change will “drag on [India’s] economic growth”. 

In US outlets, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal discusses how New York’s “new extraterritorial levy will hit workers across the US for fossil-fuel production”. And an editorial in the Los Angeles Times argues in favour of the case for keeping the federal tax credit for EVs, despite Trump’s plans to “eliminate” it.

New research finds that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could slow down more when CO2 is added to the atmosphere at a faster rate. The study notes that the AMOC – a system of ocean currents that moves water, heat and nutrients around the Atlantic Ocean and the globe – is projected to weaken under climate change. Using climate models, the author finds that the AMOC’s level of weakening “depends on the rate of change of CO2”. This has “substantial implications for how we evaluate the cost of future carbon emissions scenarios”, the study says. 

Climate change “significantly increased” the likelihood of the huge area burned in the record-breaking 2023 wildfires in Canada, a new study finds. The researchers use climate models to show that the long fire season was more than five times as likely due to human-caused climate change. Simulated CO2 emissions from the wildfires were eight times higher than averages over 1985-2022. The study authors note that “the likelihood of extreme fire seasons is projected to increase further in the future”. 

Around one-third of surveyed US adults are aware of the term “climate justice”, but about half support its goals after reading a short description, according to a new study. The nationally representative survey of 1,011 people shows that this support is predicted by several factors, such as worrying about global warming. The study authors say the findings suggest a need for greater awareness about climate justice and the “disproportionate harms of climate change, and how climate justice initiatives will address these harms”.