COP28 climate summit president Sultan Al Jaber has called for countries to take action on transitioning away from fossil fuels, which was the headline outcome of the Dubai summit in December, Reuters reports. According to Reuters, speaking at the headquarters of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, Al Jaber said: “We must now turn an unprecedented agreement into unprecedented action and results.” He added that countries must update their plans to tackle climate change, known as nationally determined contributions or NDCs, Reuters says. The Guardian also covers Al Jaber’s remarks, reporting that he also said that ever-growing demand for power could risk the world descending into “energy turmoil” if not addressed. According to the Guardian, Al Jaber said Al Jaber warned governments that they must be “honest and transparent” about the potential costs of transition and the trade-offs involved in transforming energy supplies. The newspaper quotes him as saying: “The energy transition will lead to energy turmoil…if we only address the supply side of the energy equation. We must be balanced, we must tackle the demand side…We cannot and should not pursue the energy transition by only looking and working on one side of the equation.” Agence France Presse reports that Al Jaber also called for “trillions” in investment to develop green technologies and tackle the impacts of climate change. It comes as Climate Home News reports on how countries are drawing “battle lines” over what a new climate finance goal could look like ahead of COP29 in Azerbaijan later this year.

A case against the UK government brought by several environmental NGOs kicked off at the high court on Tuesday, the Press Association reports. PA explains: “Three groups are taking joint legal action against the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s (DESNZ) decision to approve the carbon budget delivery plan (CBDP) in March 2023. The plan outlines how the country will achieve targets set out in the sixth carbon budget, which runs until 2037, as part of wider efforts to reach net-zero by 2050. Environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth (FoE), which is bringing the case alongside ClientEarth and the Good Law Project, claims that the then-secretary of state, Grant Shapps, acted unlawfully by approving the plan as he lacked information on whether individual policies could be delivered.” Reuters notes that the case comes “amid concerns Britain has lost its position as a global leader on climate action and as environmental groups around the world step up legal challenges to press governments and corporations to do more to tackle climate change”. It will conclude on Thursday, it adds. BusinessGreen notes that the risk assessment for the CBDP has just been released by the government. Elsewhere, the Press Association reports that the Greenpeace protesters that cloaked prime minister Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire home in black in protest of his fossil fuel policies have been charged with criminal damage.

Meanwhile, BBC News is one of several publications covering Sunak’s speech at the National Farmers Union annual conference. “The NFU broadly welcomed the plans but said they included no actual new money,” BBC News reports. He is the first prime minister to appear at the conference since Gordon Brown in 2008, notes the Daily Express. According to the Farmers Guardian, Sunak unveiled “further grant funding for agritech and clean energy, extensions to the sustainable farming incentive and plans to cut red tape to ease on-farm developments”. It notes that the incentive is a subsidy scheme to pay farmers to protect the environment. It is set to be extended from July, the publication says. The Daily Telegraph reports that Sunak faced a “backlash” from farmers for some of his remarks, including that farmers work for love not money.

Elsewhere, the Times covers a report from the Institute for Community Studies that finds the government’s plans for net-zero risk making “the poorest in society even poorer unless policies are made more inclusive”. Politico reports that UK energy bills could rise under government plans to fund nuclear. And the Daily Telegraph reports that Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, told a Lords committee that the energy transition was “necessary” but will be “much more expensive than people imagine” at the beginning.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the chairman of chemicals company Ineos, has written an open letter to EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen saying that Europe’s carbon taxes risk driving away investment and harming the continent’s chemicals industry, the Daily Telegraph reports. In his letter, he said Europe was “sleepwalking towards offshoring its industry, jobs, investments and emissions” without reforms to carbon taxes, the Daily Telegraph says. The Times also covers the letter, noting that Ratcliffe also said that “in contrast to Europe”, the US had “used the carrot not the stick” through its Inflation Reduction Act, providing incentives for technologies that can reduce emissions. Meanwhile, a Daily Telegraph story trailed on the newspaper’s frontpage says that the chief executive of Renault has warned that the UK and Europe must work together to “resist an onslaught of cheap Chinese electric vehicles”.

Elsewhere in Europe, Reuters reports that protests by Polish farmers have escalated, with a near-total blockade of all Ukrainian border crossings and disruption at ports and on roads nationwide. In addition, thousands of Greek farmers descended on Athens on Tuesday, a separate Reuters story reports.

In the “Gobi and other deserts” of north-western China, a “world-leading electricity production and transmission network” is being developed, says the South China Morning Post, citing Chinese scientists. The Hong Kong-based outlet quotes industrial experts as saying that a combined installation of 600 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy in the region “pumps cheap, clean power into the heart of Chinese manufacturing, raising the country’s living standards and bolstering China’s competitiveness in hi-tech races such as AI”. Meanwhile, power news outlet China Energy Net reports that a Shaanbei-Anhui ultra-high voltage direct current transmission project has “recently been approved” by the Chinese government and is set to start construction. 

In other news, the state-run newspaper China Daily reports that China State Shipbuilding Corp is constructing the world’s first ammonia-powered container ship” for a Belgian client, which is a “breakthrough” for China’s shipbuilding industry in “clean energy-powered maritime delivery”. The state-run newspaper China Energy News reports that the Chinese ministry of industry and information technology (MIIT) has released a policy document pledging to “carry out inspections on the implementation status of mandatory national standards for industry energy consumption quotas and energy efficiency” including in “key” energy-consuming enterprises in industries with “large energy consumption and rapid energy consumption growth”. 

Chinese industry outlet BJX News reports that in the 2024 national government work reports of various provinces, “six major nuclear power provinces, including Shandong, Zhejiang, Liaoning, Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian”, have announced their nuclear power development plans for the coming year, involving a total of 11 projects. Chinese outlet Jiemian reports that a 7.2GW nuclear power project in eastern China’s Zhejiang province has begun construction – once fully completed the plant, which is the “largest cluster of advanced nuclear energy units” in China – will reduce the equivalent of around 50m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year. Elsewhere, BJX News reports that the China Nuclear Engineering Corp reports that in January 2024, it achieved “a total of 11.6 bn yuan ($1.6bn) in newly signed contracts”.

The state-run newspaper China Daily carries a commentary by Prof Satyajit Bose, professor of sustainability management at Columbia University, who writes that, according to the “China sustainable development assessment report” compiled by researchers from China and the US, the country’s sustainable development level has “significantly improved”. He says China should “intensify its efforts to share its experience in sustainable development with other countries”. Another commentary in China Daily by Wei Ke, research fellow at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, argues that “China has to make better preparations to handle an increase in climate-related incidents this year”, as “El Niño will cause land warming in 2024 [and] heatwaves, droughts and forest fires will become more frequent”. He adds that “global warming will intensify along with heat waves in oceans, ocean deoxygenation, marine ecosystem disruptions and continuous loss of marine biodiversity”.

Most of Mexico saw a rainfall deficit during January this year, reaching 16.2mm – nearly 33% below the average recorded in past years, Excélsior reports. It cites a report that points out that the country faces a long-term drought and has reached “the sixth driest season” between August 2023 and January 2024. The newspaper adds that Mexico’s general water law is to be discussed today and aims to “end the privatisation of large users, as 108 basins and 115 aquifers are over-concessioned”.

Folha de S. Paulo reports that rainfalls in the Amazon caused an epidemiological alert for oropouche fever in Manaus. This year, 672 cases of the disease were confirmed. Symptoms resemble dengue fever and include fever, headache, nausea and vomiting. Oropouche fever is transmitted by insects such as mosquitoes, spiders and ticks, the outlet says.

Elsewhere, Chilean farmers have undertaken better irrigation practices and “preventative measures” after fruit – such as apples, table grapes, kiwis and wine grapes – have been impacted by heatwaves, according to El Mercurio. High temperatures, which have soared since January, affect the growth of the fruits, said Víctor Catán, table grape producer and vice president of Fedefruta. 

Meanwhile, in the Cajamarca region in northern Peru, farmers are “leading the way” to grow “carbon neutral” coffee through forestry systems, El Comercio reports. It notes that Cajamarca, known for producing high-quality coffee in the country, has implemented initiatives to measure coffee’s carbon footprint and boost agroforestry systems, allowing trees to capture CO2.

Finally, Colombia is re-exploring the potential of geothermal resources to produce energy with lower environmental impact, El Espectador reports. The outlet writes that this source of energy is currently used in more than 20 countries and could meet more than 80% of national demand.

An editorial in the Times says that “the government is right to cut general subsidies to farmers”, “but it needs to do better at incentivising them to clean up their activities and protect the environment”. It says: “The sector is a big contributor to climate change, being the main source in the UK of two of the most powerful greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide and methane. Properly incentivised, farmers will turn to less polluting forms of cultivation, and the government promised to embed such incentives in the subsidy system. That, however, has been happening far too slowly. Four years on from Brexit some of those schemes are still not in place. The result is that farmers are annoyed and their farms continue to churn out pollution.” Elsewhere, an editorial in the Daily Telegraph takes a different tact, saying: “[Ensuring food security] means letting farmers do what they are supposed to be doing – growing crops and raising livestock. Yet they are often assailed by regulations and demands to make a contribution to net-zero by rewilding and investing in other environmental initiatives. Many are happy to do so but say they are not given the financial incentives and are even fined.” 

Elsewhere, an editorial in the Washington Post argues that investor climate activism is not working. It says: “If activists want to affect what matters – emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases – they should devote most of their effort to the political process, to get policymakers to build regulations, incentives and constraints that will force companies into line. As it stands today, even the most heralded investor activism has done next to nothing to move the needle. The divestment movement – which counts on 1,550 organisations representing more than $40tn in assets committed to getting rid of fossil-fuel-related investments – has proved irrelevant or even counterproductive.”

Guardian columnist George Monbiot has written a “three-point plan” for how the UK Labour Party can tackle climate change and other environmental issues. This includes “strong and honest climate policies”, “real protection to vulnerable areas of land and sea” and “implementing a genuine progress index in the place of GDP”. Of the Labour party, Monbiot says: “I know they want it. So I’ll just keep sitting here waiting for the call. Hello? Whenever you’re ready guys. Damn signal must have gone down again.”

Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph carries a comment article by David Blackmon – [who has fossil-fuel industry links, according to DeSmog] – saying that US president Joe Biden is “realising just how unpopular green electric vehicles are”.

A new “brief communication” paper investigates the impact of used vehicles being sent abroad on policies to reduce transport emissions. The researchers quantify the rate at which used vehicles generated CO2 and pollution for all used vehicles exported from the UK during 2005-21. The study concludes: “Destined for low–middle-income countries, exported vehicles fail roadworthiness standards and, even under extremely optimistic ‘functioning-as-new’ assumptions, generate at least 13-53% more emissions than scrapped or on-road vehicles.”