On the eve of UN talks in Paris, UK economist Lord Nicholas Stern has urged rich countries to strike an equitable deal that helps poorer nations adapt to the impacts of climate change and to finance the transition from fossil fuels to green energy. His comments come as new research by Climate Analytics and commissioned by Oxfam calculates climate change will cost developing countries £1.65 trillion a year by 2050, even factoring in the pledges made by more than 160 nations ahead of the Paris talks to cut their emissions. Stern said, “The defining challenges of this century are overcoming poverty and managing climate change: if we fail on one we fail on the other.” The Guardian has more on the new Oxfam research.

A new study examines how the phrase ‘hiatus’ or ‘pause’ evolved from online blogs through the media and into scientific literature. At least six academic studies have been published in 2015 that argue against the existence of a pause or hiatus, say the authors. At best, what occurred is a fluctuation in the warming rate that is not uncommon over the modern temperature record.InsideClimate News, The Daily Mail and The Guardian all have more on the new study while the authors explain their new research in The Conversation.

India would reject a deal to combat climate change that includes a pledge for the world to decarbonise this century, according to senior officials. The world’s third largest carbon emitter whose energy needs are heavily reliant on coal, says its economy is too small and its people too poor to end use of the fossil fuel anytime soon, reports Reuters. India may be focused on energy and poverty, but it can still sign a global climate deal, says an article by Australian researchers inThe Conversation. Elsewhere, Politico says the new conservative government in Poland will have to tread carefully in Paris to avoid upending the whole climate pact and Japan says advanced coal technology can help global emissions cuts, reports Reuters.

The former heads of BP and Royal Dutch Shell have taken their old industry to task for failing to deliver on actions needed to address climate change, despite professing concern for the issue. Lord John Browne and Sir Mark Moody-Stuart described a “significant disconnect” between current efforts by fossil fuel companies and the changes needed to curb climate change. A new report on which the two men advised says companies should be cutting further investment in fossil fuels, returning more profits to shareholders and taking the lead in developing new technology such as carbon capture and storage. Reuters also has the story.

The government’s spending review, due out today, looks set to cut the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s resource budget by 25-40% by 2019-20, with the expected loss of more than 100 climate diplomats. Much uncertainty still abounds but rumours are that the posts will be axed soon after a deal is struck in Paris, though it’s likely to be months before the full impacts of the cuts are known. Credited with bolstering China’s drive to a low carbon economy, loss of the climate attaches would decrease the UK’s influence in global negotiations on climate change, say sources.

A meaningful climate change agreement in Paris will build a better today and tomorrow, says the UN secretary-general ahead of talks beginning next week in the French capital. Echoing the Pope earlier this year, he says we have “a moral responsibility” to act in solidarity with the most vulnerable. While he recognises that the negotiation process has so far been “slow and cumbersome”, he expresses hope that we will see results this time in Paris, adding: “We will not get there overnight. The climate change conference in Paris is not the end. It must mark the floor, not the ceiling of our ambition.”

In a short video for Newsnight, the BBC looks back at past UN climate negotiations and why hopes are high this one could be different. Elsewhere, Climate Home has a podcast with Steve Cornelius from WWF-UK and Malini Mehra from Globe International looking ahead at what Paris is expected to achieve. The Independent has four things you need to know about the talks,BusinessGreen reports on work by analysts at think tank E3G to map out three scenarios for how things could turn out and Nature News asks if a 2C world is a fantasy. The Guardian has a guest post from a former ambassador of Grenada to the UN, looking at how Small Island States are at the mercy of sea level rise.

Traditional methods of measuring forests may overestimate their how much carbon they store, a new study says. Using laser-based measuring equipment aboard aircraft, researchers analysed tree height and crown size – the horizontal spread of the limbs – of millions of trees across six forests in the US. The results suggests that the small sample sizes typical of the conventional approach tends to overestimated the amount of biomass in forests by an average of 70%.