Reuters reports that Brazil’s top climate negotiator Andre Correa do Lago has said that the nation plans to propose a “huge” fund to pay for the conservation of tropical forests at the UN COP28 climate change summit that begins next week in Dubai. The newswire adds: “That potential financing mechanism, not previously reported, would be the latest in a proliferation of multilateral environmental funds. Countries agreed in the past year to establish a giant fund dedicated to biodiversity and another to pay for the destruction caused by climate change…Brazil presented the idea of a tropical forest conservation fund on Thursday at a meeting with ministers from seven other Amazon rainforest countries…’It’s a conceptual proposal with a view to create a fund to help conserve tropical forests around the world…in 80 countries,’ Correa do Lago said. He said that the proposal is not finalised and Brazil is seeking support and suggestions from the other rainforest nations. Asked if the fund would rival $100bn in annual funding previously promised by rich nations in climate financing, Correa do Lago declined to give the proposed size of the fund, but said it would be ‘huge’. The fund would not value forest conservation in terms of carbon, like many existing schemes, since protecting forests would primarily prevent further greenhouse gas emissions rather than absorbing additional carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere, Correa do Lago said. He said the value would likely instead be linked to the area of forest measured in hectares, or units of 0.01 square kilometres. The international proposal to conserve forests will be partnered with a domestic program to reforest destroyed areas. Brazil also will launch plans at COP28 for an ‘Arc of Restoration’ to counter the so-called arc of deforestation that is advancing ever deeper into the Amazon.” Relatedly, Reuters also reports that Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said yesterday that the nation could reach historically low levels of deforestation in “one to two years”. And another Reuters article notes that Lula said that Brazil will “focus on reducing hunger and poverty, slowing climate change and global governance reform when it heads the G20 group of the world’s largest economies starting next month”.

Meanwhile, in other COP28 news, Politico has a feature on “Britain’s identity crisis” at the event, where “King Charles III, David Cameron and Rishi Sunak will be jostling for prominence”. The feature continues: “The unlikely trio, each jostling for their place on the world stage, are symbolic of a wider identity crisis for the U.K. heading into the summit. The country staked a claim as a world leader on climate when it hosted COP26 just two years ago. But it is now viewed with uncertainty by allies pushing for stronger action on global warming, following Sunak’s embrace of North Sea oil and gas and his retreat on some key domestic net-zero targets. ‘There is a lot of confusion about what the UK is going to do this year,’ said one European diplomat, granted anonymity to give a candid assessment ahead of the summit. ‘It raises the question, which team are they on? I think we’ll need to find out during COP.’” The article refers to the “brain drain of experts working on climate” within the civil service after COP26 in Glasgow. [COP28 will also be the first COP in which the UK will sit within the “Umbrella” negotiating bloc of nations.]

Separately, the Times has an article about COP28 president-designate Sultan Al Jaber, under the headline: “Abu Dhabi’s censor-in-chief set to take charge at the Telegraph.” It continues: “Al Jaber is not named on the website of the Abu Dhabi fund bidding for the Telegraph titles and his Wikipedia page contains no reference to his role in shaping the country’s censorship regime. Al Jaber is, however, poised to become a prominent figure in UK media as chairman of International Media Investors (IMI) and led his nation’s censorship agency for five years. The boss of the UAE’s state oil company – who is now heading the COP28 climate talks – has been accused by human rights activists of overseeing laws against free expression.” The article ends: “RedBird IMI, the vehicle bidding for the Telegraph, has offered to pay off debt owed to Lloyds by the Barclay family, the previous owners. Al Jaber is its chairman. It did not respond to a request for comment. It has previously said it would be ‘fully committed to maintaining the existing editorial teams of the publications and believe that editorial independence for these titles is essential’.” [The Telegraph newspaper group, which includes the Spectator magazine, has a long history of promoting climate-sceptic views and misinformation.]

Finally, Reuters reports that “a UN-led conference wrapping up in Dubai on Friday is weighing goals to reduce carbon emissions from international aviation through less polluting fuel, as a rebound in traffic thrusts airlines into the hot seat over the environment”.

Many outlets cover the latest report from the International Energy Agency, which focuses on “the oil and gas industry in net-zero transitions”. CNBC zooms in on accompanying comments made by IEA chief Fatih Birol in which he says the industry needs to let go of the “illusion” that carbon capture technology is a solution to climate change and instead invest more in clean energy. He writes in the statement: “The industry needs to commit to genuinely helping the world meet its energy needs and climate goals – which means letting go of the illusion that implausibly large amounts of carbon capture are the solution.” The Wall Street Journal notes that the IEA report concludes that, “despite earning average annual revenues of $3.5 trillion since 2018, oil-and-gas companies are spending just 2.5% of their investment on clean energy, which is about 1% of the global clean-energy spend”. Reuters leads with a different angle: “The current $800bn invested annually in the global oil and gas sector could be halved by 2030 if a goal to limit global warming to 1.5C is to be reached, [says] the IEA.” BusinessGreen highlights how the IEA “warns the oil and gas sector has been a ‘marginal force at best’ in the transition to a clean energy system”. And, as is customary, the Daily Telegraph finds a way to frame its coverage as an attack on net-zero: “The oil and gas industry faces losses of more than $3 trillion (£2.4 trillion) because of net-zero, the IEA has warned.” it adds: “The IEA said companies will become increasingly risky investments, potentially losing half their overall valuation, as the world moves to restrict greenhouse gas emissions.” The Lex column in the Financial Times uses the IEA report to run a comment piece headlined: “Oil and gas and renewables: virtue is starting to look like its own reward. Investments are starting to yield a reasonable return – with a lot less price volatility.”

The Chinese energy outlet IN-EN.com quotes Lai Xiaoming, chairman of the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange, saying that China will “restart trading in its voluntary emission reduction market (CCER) this month”. [CCER trading was halted in 2017 due to a lack of standardisation and low trading volumes.] He adds that the country is “reconstructing the entire [CCER] mechanism based on changes in industrial structure and specific circumstances”. Chinese industry outlet BJX News reports that the state council, the highest office in the Chinese government, has issued a policy document calling for the Beijing Green Exchange to be supported in the construction of a “nationally unified greenhouse gas voluntary emission reduction trading centre”. IN-EN.com also covers a report by Greenpeace and Tsinghua Sichuan Energy Internet Research Institute, which assesses the strengths of “sleeved power purchase agreement” as a new model of “green electricity trading”. Representatives of the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) write in an opinion article in Nikkei Asia that China’s power market reforms merit “particular attention”, and that China needs “a road map and action plan to support effective interaction between its electricity market and its [emissions trading system]” to enhance its “green transition”. China Daily, the state-run newspaper, says that China’s demand for electricity is expected to continue increasing “considering substantial resilience and potential of the domestic economy, with total primary energy consumption in China expect[ed] to peak between 2035 and 2040”, according to the State Grid Energy Research Institute.

Separately, China Daily quotes Erik Solheim, former executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), saying that at COP28 China could share its “success stories” in developing “renewable energies, transport, greenery and the circular economy”. China Dialogue says that experts say the recent China-US climate deal could “inject momentum” into the COP28 negotiations, quoting one saying the ‘Sunnylands” statement will make it “harder for others to cite challenging geopolitics as a reason [to delay] progress”. The media outlet China Global South Project has published an article by 350.org’s Firdaus Cahyadi arguing that COP28 gives Indonesia a “chance to become more active by teaming up with China” to align on issues such as “downstreaming critical minerals”. The state news agency Xinhua interviews Petteri Taalas, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organisation, who says that the Xi-Biden meeting in California earlier this month has had a “positive impact on global efforts to address climate change”. China Daily reports that Xi said during the summit with Biden in San Francisco that China and the US have “extensive common interests in…emerging fields like climate change”. 

Elsewhere, the Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily reports that the Chinese ministry of ecology and environment (MEE) announced yesterday that the ecological and environmental protection inspection teams have been dispatched to inspect  five provinces. Finally, party newspaper the Guangming Daily publishes a commentary by Yu Xun, a professor at the East China University of Political Science and Law and researcher at the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era Research Center in Shanghai. He writes that the central government’s environmental protection inspection system, “through exerting top-down pressure”, aims to “break the environmental governance challenges faced by local governments and compel them to genuinely prioritise ecological and environmental work”. (See Carbon Brief’s 2021 article about China’s environment inspection teams.)

The Financial Times reports that UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt has been criticised by environmental groups after he “removed climate change from a list of four key priorities in a remit letter issued to the Bank of England (BoE) committee responsible for financial stability”. The newspaper adds: “At least once a year, the chancellor makes recommendations about the responsibilities of the [bank’s] financial policy committee, which identifies and monitors risks to the resilience of the UK financial system, in a letter to the BoE governor. Hunt told [the BoE governor] Andrew Bailey on Wednesday that the FPC’s four priorities for supporting ministers’ financial services strategy should be growth and competitiveness, competition and innovation, home ownership and boosting productive finance. In his letter last year, Hunt’s four priorities were climate change and energy security, international competitiveness, competition and home ownership. In 2021, then chancellor Rishi Sunak named the same priorities. Hunt’s latest letter on Wednesday, by contrast, laid out four priorities that all concerned economic growth. There was only one reference to ‘climate’ elsewhere in the letter, where Hunt said the FPC should consider risks from climate change to be relevant to its ‘primary objective’.” Simon Youel, head of policy at campaign group Positive Money, is quoted describing the decision as “very concerning”.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni have signed an “action plan” in Berlin to deepen their cooperation in the energy sector, reports Die Welt. The outlet explains that the plan envisages the construction of a pipeline across the Alps to “expand the southern corridor for gas and hydrogen”. Additionally, the newspaper notes that a bilateral agreement on gas supply is expected to be signed. Der Spiegel adds that in the 37-page document, numerous initiatives were agreed. For example, Germany and Italy are to advance new gas and hydrogen pipelines through Austria and/or Switzerland, the gas pipeline infrastructure to North Africa is to be expanded, and the import of 10m tonnes of hydrogen by 2030 is to be realised. Meloni committed to “promoting climate protection worldwide and supporting ecological transformation”, notes the article. The Daily Telegraph says that the proposed pipeline will bring supplies from North Africa up through Italy, across Austria and into southern Germany. It quotes Scholz saying: “With a new pipeline across the Alps, we want to increase the security of supply of both our countries. At the same time, we want to quickly conclude a German-Italian gas and solidarity agreement.” 

Meanwhile, EurActiv reports that “Germany will suspend its constitutional ‘debt brake’ in 2023 by declaring a state of emergency”, German finance minister Christian Lindner announced on Thursday, following a constitutional court ruling that declared the transfer of unused debt from 2021 into a climate fund “unconstitutional”. Manager Magazin carries an article explaining the consequences of suspending the “climate and transformation fund” (KTF) for the German economy. For instance, the budget shortfall affects the planned extensive renovation of Germany’s rail network, Thyssenkrupp’s “ambitious green steel production” plans, the Swedish battery manufacturer’s plans for a gigafactory in Heide, the German government’s goal of having 15m electric vehicles on the road by 2030, Intel’s plans for a chip factory in Magdeburg, which is reliant on state subsidies, plus other climate initiatives. An editorial in the climate-sceptic comment pages of the Wall Street Journal remarks: “Things have gone from bad to worse in Germany this week after a court ruling that’s forcing the government to do something truly shocking: level with voters about how much the net-zero energy transition will cost. Please pass the smelling salts…The political shell game around net-zero is to claim that someone other than taxpayers will foot the bill. Germans are discovering otherwise, and the political uproar is a warning to other governments. If only the US had such a mechanism to stop green boondoggles like the Inflation Reduction Act.”

An editorial in the Economist begins: “The agreement at [COP21] in Paris in 2015, was somewhat impotent. As many pointed out at the time, it could not tell countries what to do; it could not end the fossil-fuel age by fiat; it could not draw back the seas, placate the winds or dim the noonday sun. But it could at least lay down the law for subsequent COPs, decreeing that this year’s should see the first ‘global stocktake’ of what had and had not been done to bring the agreement’s overarching goals closer. As the world gathers in Dubai for the 28th COP, the assessment of the first part of that stocktake is in some ways surprisingly positive. At the time of the Paris COP, the global warming expected by 2100 if policies did not change was more than 3C above pre-industrial levels. If policies in place today are followed, central estimates put it around 2.5-2.9C, though the uncertainties are large. That is still so high as to be disastrous for billions. But it is also a marked improvement.” On a similar theme, Emma Duncan in the Times writes: “There’s always a lot of breast-beating about collective failure at these conferences but through them governments have agreed on how much their countries need to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The framework that the UN set up is not the only reason emissions are about to start falling. Britain’s dash for gas, driven in part by politics, was the reason emissions here fell during the 1990s. But the slowing growth of emissions over the past 20 years is principally the result of co-operation between governments.”

Elsewhere, in other COP28-facing comment, an editorial in Nature says: “Crucial talks on how richer countries should compensate poorer countries for the effects of climate-related extreme weather are stuck. The COP28 climate summit must make a breakthrough.” Adam Tooze, writing in the Guardian, says: “They may seem like staid and ritualistic affairs, but it is in such venues that the lethal connection between oil, gas and coal production, rich-world consumption and the lethal risks facing those in the climate danger zone can be articulated in political form.” Finally, a group of health academics have a comment piece in the Lancet under the headline: “Further delays in tackling greenhouse gas emissions at COP28 will be an act of negligence.”

The FT’s Simon Kuper says that, “like many others, my instinctive response is to change the subject, but collectively that has to change”. He continues: “I understood the ‘new climate denial’ only after hearing a talk about it by Wolfgang Blau, head of the global climate hub at the consultancy Brunswick. Most of us practise the new denial. We’ll activate it next week during [COP28], which will achieve almost nothing and be overshadowed by wars and nonsense. But saving my daughter’s generation will require ditching denial. Blau, speaking at the recent Faith Angle Europe conference, suggested how to do that…We made a civilisational blunder. Correcting it will require huge collective effort now. To help people understand this, Blau recommends learning to see ourselves ‘as a comparatively young species, as mostly well-intentioned highly gifted kids, who compared to most species have just arrived, and are still learning to live here without breaking things’. Then, he says, people need to know we can combat climate change. In other words, we need a sense of agency.”

Relatedly, BBC News carries a feature headlined: “I thought climate change was a hoax. Now I’ve changed my mind’. It is based on an interview with Sarah Ott. “[She] spent years believing climate change was a hoax, influenced by friends at church in the US south and a popular right-wing radio host. Here she shares her journey from being a climate sceptic to becoming an advocate for clean energy, with a passion for teaching teenage school students the science of climate change. She features on this year’s BBC 100 Women list.”

Finally, the Guardian has a long read by Ajit Niranjan on “how Norway brought heat pumps in from the cold”. And the Daily Telegraph has a comment piece by associate editor Ben Marlow in which he writes: “We remain unforgivably, and almost entirely, reliant on fossil fuels to heat our homes – gas is used to heat the vast majority – and too much of it is obtained on a volatile international market. Unfortunately, we have a government that thinks the answer is to double down on the North Sea, which is a giant red herring – oil and gas extracted from our own coastal waters is sold on the same global market. The real solution, of course, is to invest in domestic renewable energy sources so we can ‘start to break free from international market fluctuations and stabilise our energy prices’, as Craig Lowrey, chief executive of Cornwall Insight, puts it. But there seems little chance of that happening any time soon.”

Limiting global warming to 1.5C rather than 2C would lead to a smaller increase in drought frequency and intensity over eastern Africa, new research finds. The study uses climate model simulations to compare how multiple aspects of east African droughts could change under 1.5C and 2C of global warming. The projections also show that the increase in drought intensity and frequency is more linked to increased evapotranspiration, (the loss of moisture from plants to the atmosphere) than from reduced rainfall. The authors say: “Hence, the study suggests that to reduce impacts of global warming on future drought, the adaptation activities should focus on reducing evaporative loss of surface water.”

Climate change could cause a “mismatch” between Araucaria angustifolia (araucaria), a critically endangered tree in the Brazilian Atlantic, and the animals that disperse and predate on its seeds, research finds. The study uses models to assess how climate change could cause spatial mismatch between the endangered tree and its seed dispersers and predators. It finds that, under climate change, the araucaria tree could experience spatial mismatch with 83% of its seed predators and 70% of its seed dispersers. The researchers say: “Our study highlights that the climate-driven decoupling of geographical distributions may contribute to the disruption of biotic interactions, with potential implications for the conservation of A. angustifolia and the fauna dependent on its seeds as a food source.”