Ahead of the G20 summit in New Delhi this weekend, climate campaigners are calling on leaders to “set more ambitious climate targets and remove barriers that stand in the way of the energy transition”, the Press Association reports. The theme of this year’s summit is “One Earth. One Family. One Future”, focusing on sustainable development and growth, it adds. The Times of India notes that the “One Earth” element of the summit will take place at the summit’s beginning on Saturday. But a Bloomberg newsletter says major economy leaders are “once again heading for a fudge on climate” at the meeting. It explains: “Host Narendra Modi is pushing for an agreement among members to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, after a similar proposal was blocked by oil titans Saudi Arabia and Russia in July. Sealing the deal would be a coup for India’s prime minister and boost momentum ahead of the COP28 climate summit due to take place in Dubai later this year.” Bloomberg adds that, according to people familiar with the negotiations, “G20 countries will make a commitment to ‘pursue and encourage’ efforts to meet the suggested clean-energy target”. It continues: “But even if they reach an agreement, the text’s current language is vague. It’s not clear what baseline they’ll be working from. And there’s a key caveat: The anticipated deal offers support to technology that allows factories and power plants to keep burning fossil fuels. Alongside the headline pledge to ramp up renewables, G-20 nations will push for a rollout of carbon capture, which traps emissions from the combustion of gas, coal and oil.” An analysis in the Guardian says that, according to some experts, there is a “strong risk” there will be no joint communique at all at the end of the meeting, amid fractious rifts between countries on issues such as Russia’s war in Ukraine. As well as Russia’s war, climate change has emerged as a major “stumbling block” for G20 leaders during preparatory sherpa meetings, six Indian sources tell Reuters. It reports: “The bloc is divided on commitments to phasing down fossil-fuel use, increasing renewable energy targets and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, five of the officials cited above said.” The Indian Express reports that Saudi Arabia has specifically opposed a reference to phasing down or phasing out “fossil fuels”. A second Reuters reports that Chinese leader Xi Jinping is shunning the summit and instead visiting a flood stricken region of China. Sky News reports on “one city in the Himalayas [that] shows why climate change is a top priority at the G20”.

Developing countries have proposed that a new UN fund unlocks at least $100bn by 2030 to address irreversible loss and damage caused by climate change, Reuters reports. It reports: “At a UN committee meeting last week, developing countries including those in Africa, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and small island states, proposed that the climate damage fund should programme at least $100bn by 2030. The published proposal said $100bn should be a ‘minimum’ and provide a safety net when climate impacts overburden a country’s capacity to cope.” Leveraging finance for loss and damage was a defining issue at the last UN climate summit, COP27, in Egypt in 2022 and is expected to play a major role at COP28 in Dubai this year, Reuters adds. Elsewhere, Bloomberg reports that US climate envoy John Kerry has once again suggested that China should pay into the loss-and-damage fund.

Almost half of the world’s population was exposed to at least 30 days of extreme heat driven by climate change between June and August of this year, according to new research reported on by the Independent. It reports: “Over 3.8bn people across the world suffered extreme temperatures for over a month, while ‘nearly every living human’ – around 98% of the world – was exposed to extreme heat at least once between June and August 2023, an analysis released on Thursday by researchers from Climate Central showed. The longest duration of extreme temperatures, approximately three months, was experienced by at least 1.5bn people who were exposed to unusually high heat on each day over the period of June to August, the study says.”

It comes as the UK continues to face unusual September heat, with BBC News reporting that a record has been broken for the number of consecutive days in September where temperatures have exceeded 30C. Thursday was the UK’s hottest day of the year so far, according to Met Office analysis reported on by Reuters.

A range of UK media outlets, including BBC News, report that a UK government renewables auction has failed to attract any bids for offshore wind, in what Bloomberg describes as “the latest sign of trouble in an industry that’s crucial to meeting net-zero goals”. It continues: “Only 3.7 gigawatts of fresh projects cleared in the government’s fifth auction round for new renewables, marking a huge drop from the almost 11 gigawatts that were given contracts in last year’s allocation round. The main reason for the huge fall in new capacity was the lack of offshore wind, which is facing rising financing and supply chain costs…The lack of offshore wind will put further pressure on the government’s target to have 50 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030. The UK is expected to fall short of the goal by nearly a third with just 34.4 gigawatts installed by the end of the decade, according to BloombergNEF.” The result was widely anticipated by UK media over recent days. Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that the “UK renewables industry has warned of low or even no uptake in the latest auction of state contracts for offshore wind projects with developers deterred by rising costs”. The Daily Telegraph also reported on the lack of new offshore wind yesterday evening, saying: “There were five major projects, with a total capacity of 5GW, that were eligible to bid for contracts to boost the country’s current 14GW of offshore wind. But industry sources said it was ‘likely’ that none had chosen to bid into the process, because the government failed to offer sufficient prices for their energy.” CityAm reported that the auction was likely to be a “major letdown” for the “green agenda”. The Guardian describes the results as a “blow to [UK prime minister] Rishi Sunak”.

Elsewhere, a letter in the Times from Dr Laurence Stamford, senior lecturer in sustainable chemical engineering at University of Manchester, explains why the UK should be doing more to ramp up onshore wind. He says: “We are still in the following dubious position: by the government’s own estimates onshore wind costs 4.4p/kWh whereas gas costs 11.4p/kWh. Even including pessimistic grid balancing costs with much more intermittent renewables than we at present have, the total cost for wind would very likely be less than 10p/kWh. So it is cheap, plentiful and has one of the lowest carbon footprints available: lower than solar, lower than biomass, and 98% lower than gas. We should be introducing it out as fast as possible.” Meanwhile, the i newspaper reports on why the UK government’s nuclear fusion investment is an “attempt to undo Brexit damage”.

Between January and July 2023, Chinese power generation companies across the country have invested 401.3bn yuan ($56bn) into the construction of power engineering projects, a year-on-year increase of 54%, writes the sector news outlet China Energy Net. China’s electric power engineering sector is developing “rapidly” in order to accelerate progress towards its goal of carbon neutrality by 2060, it adds.

Meanwhile, the Chinese financial news outlet Caixin reports that China’s largest mega solar-to-hydrogen factory in Xinjiang is now fully operational. It says the project marks “a milestone for the country’s – and potentially the world’s – effort to produce more green hydrogen”, adding that the commissioning of the project points to hydrogen’s importance in China’s efforts to build net-zero industry chains. The People’s Daily writes that China has already built the world’s largest electricity supply system and clean power generation system. Hydropower, wind, solar and biomass power generation, plus the scale of nuclear power under construction, have “consistently ranked first in the world for many years”, the Communist Party-backed newspaper states. BJX News quotes Xiang Haiping, chief engineer at the National Energy Administration, China’s top energy regulator, who says that hydropower has played a “significant role in providing clean energy and supporting green development”. He adds that it is estimated that, by 2030, the installed capacity of hydropower (including pumped storage) will exceed 540 gigawatts and that China will continue to lead on global hydropower development in the long term.

Finally, the independent outlet Earth.org has published a commentary by Mitota P Omolere, an environment, health and safety specialist, who writes that China has become a “major influencer” in promoting renewable energy projects across Africa, investing billions in large-scale renewable energy projects to harness the continent’s clean energy potential. Nevertheless, the projects also bring about negative economic, environmental and social impacts, he adds.

Germany’s federal states are supporting industries affected by high energy prices with a so-called “industrial electricity price”, reports Der Spiegel. It explains that Germany’s economy and climate action minister Robert Habeck (from the Green party) aims “to prevent the production of steel or chemicals from moving abroad” by introducing the state-subsidised low electricity price to help energy-intensive industries. Some members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) agree with him, but many economists disagree, notes the outlet. The Financial Times also covers the story, detailing that Germany’s 16 federal states took “a rare unified stance” regarding electricity subsidies, which are opposed by German chancellor Olaf Scholz and his finance minister. Der Spiegel’s editorial quotes a German entrepreneur saying that “the current coalition government is creating competitive disadvantages with its misguided energy policies”. 

Meanwhile, Die Zeit reports that Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, is set to decide today on the “controversial” building energy act, often referred to as the “heating law”, which aims to make heating more “climate-friendly” by gradually replacing oil and gas boilers with heat pumps. The outlet adds that the law requires every newly installed heating system to be powered by at least 65% renewables and is set to come into effect in early 2024. However, the opposition parties have expressed concerns about increased construction and housing costs. Politico notes that “months of pained negotiations over the heating bill caused public infighting within Germany’s ruling coalition and sparked an unexpectedly sharp backlash across much of the country”. It adds that the adoption of the bill will likely “prove a pyrrhic victory”, with the popularity of the government now near record lows.

Finally, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reports that the German economy has significantly increased its electricity imports since the shutdown of the last three nuclear power plants. However, FAZ also notes that, from an economist’s perspective, it is “completely normal” and is not considered a risk to energy security due to the rising share of renewables.

Hurricane Lee has “powered up to a category five storm, packing wind speeds of up to 160mph (260km/h) as it churns through the Caribbean”, BBC News reports. It adds: “On its current path the storm is not projected to make landfall anywhere. Lee is the 12th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June to November. It rapidly intensified from a category one within the span of hours.”

There is continuing coverage in right-leaning media of US scientist Dr Patrick Brown’s claims that he was forced to focus on climate change to get his wildfires study published in the high-profile journal Nature. Brown’s claims have received pushback from much of the scientific community and the editor-in-chief of Nature has released a statement denouncing the allegations. As well as the Times, the story appears in the Daily Mail and the Sun. The Sun article quotes Craig MacKinlay, the Conservative MP who leads the small “net-zero scrutiny” group of Conservative politicians and has known links to climate-sceptic lobbyists. He says: “There are many eminent voices across the spectrum of climate science, from scepticism to full adherence to the new religion. Scientific study in this area has diminished to making the most hyperbolic claims. I hold a science degree and my training was one of reaching a conclusion after full analysis and after following evidence, not writing the conclusion and then selectively using data to make it fit, ignoring anything inconvenient. We need honesty if we are to spend multiple trillions of pounds, change the way we’re expected to live and reduce our freedom on the net-zero pathway.” The Daily Telegraph gives space to the climate-sceptic commentator Matt Ridley who says the incident shows “the public isn’t being told the full truth about climate change”. E&E News reports that “conservative media [have] celebrated” Brown’s admission of malpractice. NASA climate scientist Dr Gavin Schmidt tells the publication that Brown’s actions are “monumentally unethical”.

An editorial in the Guardian warns that the UK’s “EV boom could run out of juice before it begins”. It says: “Part of the problem is how market mechanisms coordinate the necessary decarbonisation investments to transform society. To reach its emissions targets, virtually all UK transport will need to be greened. Incentivising electrification of public transport and bolstering its role as the backbone of city mobility systems will be essential to reduce congestion and improve air quality…The state will need to play a bigger role, because corralling animal spirits with light-touch regulation hasn’t yielded the required results. The pro-market argument falls down partly because its Tory proponents have lost their reputation for competence.” It comes as the Daily Telegraph publishes a piece by columnist Matthew Lynn titled: “Nobody wants an electric car.” [An EV was sold every minute in the UK in July, according to the Daily Mail.]

Elsewhere, an editorial in the Sun takes aim at efforts to tackle climate change and air pollution. It ridicules research from Channel 4 finding London’s expanded ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez) will add 13 minutes to the average Londoner’s life expectancy this year. It retorts: “[London mayor Sadiq] Khan pretends this is ‘transformative’. Only to his empty coffers. Now a top scientist admits overhyping the link between global warming and wildfires – omitting other causes like arson – claiming the journal Nature wouldn’t publish his study otherwise. The eco movement rewards extremism.” [London is the first city in the world where a coroner deemed dangerous levels of air pollution played a definitive role in the death of a nine-year-old schoolgirl.] The Sun also carries an op-ed from right-wing political researcher Matt Goodwin that claims only 16% of voters “want to prioritise net-zero” and urges Sunak to scrap the Ulez. [Some 73% of Conservative voters back the UK’s net-zero target.] In response, Dr Adam Corner, a climate researcher, has posted an article on his blog in which he says: “New polling from Matthew Goodwin seems explicitly designed to engineer a sense of culture-war-crisis around net-zero, when in reality there isn’t one.” In addition, the Daily Mail carries a full-page comment piece by climate-sceptic columnist Richard Littlejohn which takes aim at heat pumps. And the Daily Express reports on a column from Daily Telegraph writer Allison Pearson that is critical of the UK sourcing much of its gas from Norway. [The UK has long been a net importer of oil and gas, with its reserves in the North Sea now in decline.]

A new pair of papers examines marine ice sheet instability – a “tipping point” after which glaciers enter a period of irreversible retreat – in west Antarctica. A team of researchers uses a suite of three ice-sheet models to simulate the stability of ice sheets in the Amundsen Sea under both present and future climates. In the first study, they find that the current retreat of the west Antarctic ice sheets “is not yet irreversible or self-sustained”. In the second, they find that an irreversible collapse of the ice sheet would begin “at the earliest” in 300-500 years “and is not inevitable yet”.

The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has published its annual review of the previous year’s extreme weather. The bumper release includes analysis of the “triple dip” La Niña in the eastern Pacific Ocean and heat domes that caused extreme heat around the world, among many other events. An introduction to the special edition notes: “Global surface temperature across land and oceans was still among the six highest in records dating as far back as the mid-1800s. It was the warmest La Niña year on record. Many areas observed record or near-record heat. Europe as a whole observed its second-warmest year on record, with sixteen individual countries observing record warmth at the national scale.”