European leaders yesterday reached a “breakthrough” on climate issues that “increases the likelihood” that the EU will be able to sign off on a 2040 climate goal and a climate pledge before COP30 in November, Bloomberg reports. The outlet notes that leaders at the EU Council meeting agreed on a raft of “enabling conditions” designed to help carmakers and other energy-intensive industries make the “green transition”. Reuters notes that leaders agreed “to proceed with the 2040 target, but [to] leave details for ministers to approve at a 4 November meeting”. France24 reports that the talks saw leaders discuss how to manage the bloc’s “competing goals” of supporting “ailing businesses including its cherished car industry” and playing a “lead role in the climate fight”. Meanwhile, Politico notes that Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk inserted a “revision clause” in plans to extend the EU’s carbon-trading system for heating and transport emissions that will give member countries the option to “delay or adjust” its rollout.

MORE ON EU

• France’s finance ministry has said the EU must retain a degree of “flexibility in terms of technological neutrality” as it considers new emissions rules for new car sales, according to Bloomberg.

French oil giant TotalEnergies lost a landmark greenwashing case yesterday after a French court found it misled consumers with claims about its contributions to tackling climate change, the Financial Times reports. The civil court found the company guilty of “misleading commercial practices” by saying that it planned to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and be a “major actor in the energy transition”. Reuters notes that the oil giant has been ordered to remove all “misleading” statements about carbon neutrality and energy transition from its website. The case – brought by a group of NGOs, including Greenpeace France and Friends of the Earth France – marks the first time France’s “greenwashing” laws have been applied to a fossil fuel company, the Guardian notes. Politico and Agence France-Presse also have the story. 

MORE ON LITIGATION

• Climate Home News and the Washington Post report that victims of a 2021 typhoon in the Philippines are seeking compensation from fossil fuel company Shell.
• Just Stop Oil protesters on trial in a court in England have said there was “no harmful intention” in their 2024 protest at Stonehenge, according to BBC News.
• A federal judge has granted the Trump administration’s request to pause a lawsuit over the US Department of Energy’s “contrarian” climate report, says Politico. [Carbon Brief found more than 100 errors in the report.]

The Trump administration has announced plans to open the coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, the Associated Press reports. It notes that the decision paves the way for future lease sales within a 1.5m-acre coastal plain that is “considered sacred” by the Indigenous Gwich’in. Reuters notes that the move reverses moves by former president Joe Biden’s administration to restrict drilling in the region, which it notes is home to polar bears, Porcupine caribou, migratory birds and other species. [See Carbon Brief’s reporting on how drilling in the refuge puts polar bears at risk of “lethal” oil spills.] Separately, Bloomberg reports that the administration is drawing up plans to open “almost all” US coastal waters to new offshore oil drilling, “despite opposition from state governors and the president’s previous efforts to close off some of the territory”. 

Meanwhile, there is widespread coverage of the fallout from the US administration’s imposition of sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies – Rosneft and Lukoil, including on the frontpage of the Times. The newspaper notes that China and India have suspended imports of “significant amounts” of Russian oil after the announcement of sanctions. It explains that the US sanctions mean companies buying Russian oil are in danger of “losing access to the dollar-based financial system that they need to raise capital”. The New York Times, Reuters, BBC News and the frontpage of the Financial Times all carry the story. 

The UK Treasury is reportedly considering scrapping the UK’s oil and gas windfall tax as soon as next year, according to Politico. An unnamed “industry figure” tells the outlet that government officials have asked oil and gas firms to “calculate the value of potential investment” if ministers ditched the energy profits levy four years before it is due to expire. Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reports that Downing Street has denied reports – covered by the Guardian on Wednesday – that the government plans to drop its 2030 clean power target. The Daily Mail says a spokesperson “dismissed the claims as ‘completely wrong’”. 

MORE ON UK ENERGY

• MPs on the Scottish Affairs Committee have warned that renewable energy jobs are “not being created quickly enough” to match a decline in the North Sea oil and gas industry, BBC News reports. The Scotsman also has the story.
• The Times: Leases in the 2021 ScotWind auction for offshore windpower developers were “dramatically undervalued”, according to a new report.
• The Daily Telegraph reports that China has threatened to cut investments in the UK if the prime minister blocks plans for a turbine factory in Inverness, Scotland.
• The Environmental Audit Committee select committee has told the government that backing Heathrow airport expansion would make it “significantly more difficult” to meet net-zero targets, according to the Daily Telegraph.
• An article in the print edition of the Times (not yet online) covers an independent review, commissioned by energy secretary Ed Miliband, into greenhouse gas removals. The outlet leads with the recommendation that airlines “help to fund” the development of removal technologies.

On Wednesday, the German federal government approved gas drilling by the Dutch company OneDyas in German waters through a new law, reports Die Tageszeitung. German economy minister Katherina Reiche “welcomed” the drilling, despite criticism from environmental activists, arguing that it would make Europe “less dependent on gas imports”, notes the newspaper. “The fact that the federal cabinet in 2025 is pushing forward an agreement in favour of a fossil gas drilling project on the edge of the Wadden Sea World Heritage Site shows once again how little importance the federal government places on environmental and climate protection,” said Julia Verlinden, deputy chair of the Green party parliamentary group in the Bundestag. However, the law still requires parliamentary approval, the outlet notes. Meanwhile, Der Spiegel reports that the European Commission opposes Reiche’s plan to build 20 gigawatts (GW) of gas-fired power plants, forcing the ministry to negotiate a much lower capacity of 12-12.5GW.

MORE ON GERMANY

• Germany is seeking an exemption from US sanctions on Russian oil company Rosneft’s German business, which remains Russian-owned but under German state control, Reuters reports.
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes that German chancellor Friedrich Merz is pushing for relief for energy-intensive industries by extending free emission certificates to help them adapt.
• Handelsblatt reports that the German trade union Industrial Union of Mining, Chemical and Energy (IG BCE) has adopted a plan to reform the EU emissions trading system, with its president saying the current concept “isn’t working”.

China released a readout of a major meeting on drafting the 15th five-year plan, which listed “making new major strides in building a Beautiful China” as a “primary objective” during this period (2026-30), energy news outlet International Energy News reports. The readout also says China will “persistently deepen the battle against pollution…accelerate the development of a new energy system [and] actively and steadily advance and achieve carbon peaking”. At a press conference, Zheng Shanjie, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, outlined key tasks for China’s energy transition, stating that “by the end of the 15th five-year plan period, the vast majority of new electricity demand will be met by new clean energy generation”, according to power news outlet BJX News. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post quotes Zheng noting that “Beijing aims to double” the value of China’s “green and low-carbon industry”, which currently is valued at around 11tn yuan (U$1.5tn). Zheng also listed “hydrogen energy and nuclear fusion energy” as “future industries” that are seen as “new economic growth points”, International Energy News reports. 

A commentary on the frontpage in the Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily under the byline Jin Sheping – used to signal approval from party leadership on economic matters – says “advancing green development” shows how China has “combined an effective market with an active government, efficiently organising all undertakings and advancing all tasks”. Current affairs outlet China.com says the “green dividends” of China’s economy in 2025 “forcefully refute” the “misconception” that “green and environmental protection measures would increase costs and hinder economic growth”. 

MORE ON CHINA

• State-run newspaper China Daily reports that the “duration of winter, spring and autumn is shrinking” across China with “climate change [meaning that] rising temperatures across various regions have become an indisputable fact”.
• China’s wind turbine manufacturers must choose between “scaling up or scaling down”, as pricing reforms remove guarantees of “stable returns”, Bloomberg says. 
• Reuters publishes a commentary by columnist Ron Bousso arguing that Europe has no choice but to “counter…China’s dominance” in offshore wind. Meanwhile, in response to scrutiny of a wind turbine manufacturer’s investment in the UK, China has warned against “‘politicisation” of investment deals, Bloomberg reports.
• “Rising resource nationalism” and geopolitical competition are key challenges for China’s development of cleantech supply chains, finance outlet Caixin reports.
• China Daily reports new energy vehicles (NEVs) will account for 85% of sales by 2040. Bloomberg says “losses are piling up” among China’s NEV insurance firms.
• Power news outlet Dianlian Xinmei discusses how China’s renewable portfolio standard system could evolve.

In his column for the Daily Telegraph, world economy editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard criticises the “surreal timing” of the Conservatives calling for a “doubling down on gas” at a moment when the waiting list for heavy-duty gas turbines is more than seven-years long. He notes: “Even if Britain were able to extract much more gas from the North Sea at a globally viable cost – which it cannot because the field is heavily depleted – it would have to pay an arm and a leg to get anybody to build a new fleet of combined-cycle gas plants.” Evans-Pritchard also criticises shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho for mixing “apples and oranges” when quoting the cost of gas-fired power, noting she “cherry picks variables and wishes away the ‘whole system’ cost”. He quotes Carbon Brief’s Dr Simon Evans on how this cost includes paying for building new plants and the year-round price of gas. 

Meanwhile, a few pages away in the Daily Telegraph, Coutinho has a column in which she misleadingly claims it is renewables, not gas, that are “piling on the pain” for energy consumers. [Carbon Brief analysis has shown that expensive gas is keeping UK electricity prices so high.]

MORE ON UK COMMENT

• In an article for the Guardian, the newspaper’s former environment correspondent Paul Brown writes that climate change is “especially bad news for frequent flyers” given that a more volatile atmosphere is making turbulence worse.
• In the Daily Mail, climate-sceptic columnist Richard Littlejohn argues that Keir Starmer’s travel emissions – including to take part in the upcoming COP30 climate summit in Brazil – are hypocritical given upcoming rises to air passenger duty. 
• Hugo Gye, political editor of i newspaper, argues that “without action on energy bills, the net-zero agenda will appear increasingly ugly to the general public”. 

An editorial in the Economist argues that lessons from tackling deforestation in Brazil should be “applied in other countries with rainforests”. While Brazil lost “more rainforest than any other country” last year due to wildfires, it is also an example of how “policy can make a difference”, according to the outlet, which points to a raft of measures introduced by returning president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The article states: “Since preserving rainforests is a public good, the world should help pay for it.” However, the outlet concedes that “this is easier said than done”, noting that rich countries have “soured on aid” and markets for carbon credits have “failed to take off”.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Cecilia Keating, with contributions from Henry Zhang and Anika Patel. It was edited by Robert McSweeney.

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