African leaders are meeting this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the second Africa climate summit, Climate Home News reports. It says Kenyan president William Ruto used the summit to launch a progress report highlighting how clean-energy shortfalls, a decline in manufacturing capacity and high debt levels are among the factors “holding back green growth on the continent”. It explains that this follows the “Nairobi declaration” at the first Africa climate summit in 2023, which had set out a “bold vision for the continent to become a clean energy hub”. Experts tell the outlet that to deal with “financial constraints” that are holding African nations back, this week’s summit should “tackle unsustainable national debt burdens and a global financial architecture that is skewed towards loan-based finance”.

The Financial Times says Ruto “accused” developed-country leaders of breaking a “climate blood pact” in failing to uphold promises to provide sufficient climate finance, amid widespread foreign aid cuts. African leaders are aiming to “offer a global model for tackling the climate crisis through green investments” at the summit, according to Reuters. As an example, the newswire notes that Africa’s development lenders and commercial banks have signed a deal at the summit to mobilise up to $100bn in order to power “green industrialisation” using renewable energy. Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed told the summit it was “time to replace climate aid with climate investment”, according to the Associated Press. The Guardian notes that “green energy is booming in Africa” – with many nations seeing record solar-panel imports – but adds that this is “ from a low base”. 

MORE ON AFRICA

• The Daily Telegraph reports on a new call from the African Union for “meaningful reparations” from “former colonial powers”, which the newspaper says could include “compensation for the effects of climate change”.
• Ethiopia is celebrating a “development milestone” as it formally opens Africa’s largest hydropower dam of 5,150 megawatts (MW), on the Blue Nile, the Financial Times reports. It says Sudan and Egypt warned of an ensuing “threat to water security”
• China has “racked up” a $60bn trade surplus with Africa in 2025 so far, largely due to exports of Chinese-made batteries, solar panels and electric vehicles to the continent, according to the New York Times.
• Semafor reports that executives and officials at the recent World Nuclear Symposium in London, UK, warned that African countries planning to develop nuclear power programmes “face talent and investment challenges”.
• Mozambique has “won World Bank backing” for the $6bn, 1,500MW Mphanda Nkuwa hydroelectric plant, which will be “southern Africa’s biggest such project in 50 years”, according to the Associated Press.

All European carmakers, except Mercedes-Benz, are on track to meet the EU’s 2025-2027 carbon dioxide (CO2) emission targets, due to an increase in sales of new electric vehicles (EVs), Agence France-Presse reports. Electric models are set to make up 18% of new cars sold in Europe by the end of 2025, up from 13.6% last year, according to analysis by NGO coalition Transport and Environment, the news outlet explains. It notes that this comes as the European Commission faces pressure to further loosen its climate targets for the automotive sector, amid “Chinese competition and US tariffs”. Transport and Environment forecasts that battery-electric vehicle sales would surpass a 30% share of the EU car market in 2027, Reuters reports. The organisation frames this as “a sign that targets were working”, noting that “any weakening of the next set of targets for 2030 and 2035 would dismantle investments in electric vehicles and allow China to extend its lead”, according to the newswire.

Meanwhile, top executives at more than 150 companies across Europe’s EV sector have urged the European Commission to “stand firm, don’t step back” on the EU’s 2035 goal for zero-emission cars and vans, BusinessGreen reports. These announcements come against the backdrop of the Munich car show, where companies are unveiling new EV models, according to Reuters. At the show, Stellantis executive Jean-Philippe Imparato announced that the company will no longer pursue its target of 100% EV sales by 2030, adding that he “said the EU’s aim to ban cars with petrol engines and allow only zero-emission vehicles to go on sale in the new car market from 2035 was unachievable”, the Times reports.

MORE ON EVs

• Volkswagen has announced at the Munich car show that it is pushing to strengthen its EV dominance in Europe “with a new lineup of compact and affordable” models, CNBC reports.
• Chinese electric-car manufacturer BYD plans to make all its EVs that are for sale in Europe locally within three years, helping it avoid EU tariffs, according to Reuters.
• A current EV “buying frenzy” in the US is “likely to be short-lived” as Trump administration rollbacks of climate policies, such as tax credits, kick in, the Washington Post reports.
• The Los Angeles Times reports that US car companies such as General Motors and Ford are shifting investments from cancelled EV manufacturing facilities into fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
• Tesla’s market share in the US has dropped to its lowest level since 2017 as, instead of focusing on cheaper EV like its rivals, the company turns its attention to “building robotaxis and humanoid robots”, according to Reuters.

China released a plan to accelerate the “integration” of artificial intelligence (AI) with the energy sector, with the goal of establishing an “innovation system for AI-energy integration” by 2027 and reaching “world-leading level” in AI applications in the energy sector by 2030, state news agency Xinhua reports. The plan aims to “enhance energy security, improve operational efficiency and support the country’s green and low-carbon transition”, the news agency says. The plan also calls for promoting the “deep application” of “specialised large models” in areas such as power grids, power generation, coal and oil and gas, energy news outlet China Energy News says. Industry news outlet BJX News highlights that the plan also calls for the development of AI applications in developing “smart carbon reduction coordination systems” and “smart ‘carbon-energy-cost’ coordination models”. 

A government official also told BJX News that integrating AI with energy still poses “significant challenges”, including “insufficient technical reliability, relatively weak data foundations and the inverse distribution of computational power and energy supply”, as well as “potential hallucination risks” that do not meet the “reliability standards” required for nuclear power and real-time grid dispatch.

MORE ON CHINA

• China’s sales of EVs and hybrids in August grew at the “slowest pace” since February 2024, Reuters reports. Some local authorities are “reining in” auto trade-in subsidies, “dealing a blow to auto sales”, Caixin says.
• A researcher at a state oil body said China’s oil demand is set to peak in 2027, with demand rising this year due to the petrochemicals sector, Reuters reports.
• Chinese investment in Brazil “more than doubled” in 2024, with electricity and clean-energy projects featuring heavily, according to a new report covered by SCMP.
• Rainfall in northern China has reached “unprecedented levels”, Xinhua reports, citing experts as saying it is a “localised manifestation” of climate change. More than 41,000 people were evacuated as Typhoon Tapah made landfall, Xinhua also says.
• CCTV reports that China has finished building 16,500km of oil and gas pipelines – a target set in its “14th five-year plan” – ahead of schedule.
• SCMP publishes a letter by Mike Teke, chairman of industry association FutureCoal, saying “coal remains the backbone of modern economies”, with Asia “leading the way” on “sustainable” coal.

Norway’s minority Labour party government has won a second term, while the nation’s populist right also achieved its best-ever election result, Reuters reports. The article notes that the “future path” of the Norwegian oil industry was “at stake in the election”. It explains that the nation has played an increasingly important role in supplying Europe with gas as the EU has faced out Russian supplies. Nevertheless, the newswire says the new Labour government will “remain heavily reliant” on its partnership with smaller left-wing parties, adding that some of them “want to gradually phase out oil exploration, which could limit new gas fields”. Norwegian business newspaper E24 says some of the smaller parties want increased taxes and “more for welfare and climate, among other things”. The Socialist Left party has already indicated that it is opposed to deep sea mining and wants to see “new reductions in emissions” of greenhouse gases, according to Agence France-Presse. The Norwegian election was “unusually close-fought and polarised”, with the national oil fund’s investments in Israel emerging as a contentious topic, the Guardian reports.

MORE ON OIL

• The Financial Times reports that “world’s biggest oil and gas companies are cutting jobs, slashing costs and scaling back investments at the fastest pace since the coronavirus market collapse”, due to lower oil prices.

EU member states are still “wrangling” over the bloc’s 2035 climate target, “with no sign of agreement”, according to a leaked draft text seen by the Guardian. The EU’s next “nationally determined contribution” (NDC), under the Paris Agreement, should be set around 74-78% to put the bloc on a path to its mid-century net-zero target, the newspaper explains. However, the negotiating document seen by the Guardian “leaves blanks marked with square brackets and placeholder text where the key numbers laying out new targets should be”, the article says. It adds that with only “weeks to go before a UN-set deadline”, a perceived lack of commitment from the EU “would cause problems” at the COP30 climate summit later this year, amid strained geopolitics.

MORE ON EU

• US energy secretary Chris Wright is quoted by the Financial Times claiming that the EU’s “exaggerated activist view of climate change” and “heavy handed” bureaucracy has undermined its energy security, caused deindustrialisation and led to higher energy prices.
• In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, president of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) Manfred Weber describes the EU’s net-zero plans as too “ideological” and says petrol and diesel cars “definitely” still have a future in the EU.
• EU officials are discussing sanctions against China and other third countries for purchasing Russian oil and gas, the Financial Times reports.

Leeds North West MP Katie White has been announced as the UK’s new climate minister, “as prime minister Keir Starmer continues to manage the fallout of his cabinet reshuffle”, Edie reports. The Ilkley Gazette says White “has spent more than two decades campaigning to tackle climate change”, working for the government and with environmental NGOs such as Friends of the Earth and WWF. BusinessGreen notes that she replaces Kerry McCarthy, who is “among a number of junior ministers to leave the government”. The news outlet says that energy security and net-zero secretary Ed Miliband “has been handed a largely new ministerial team” at the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). It notes that there were also significant changes at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), marking “major changes” to the teams “tasked with delivering on the government’s net-zero and nature agendas”. The Daily Express states that the cabinet reshuffle was  “aimed at prioritising economic growth over net-zero regulation”, describing it as “humiliating” for Miliband. At the same time the Daily Express also describes prime minister Keir Starmer as being “humiliated” because he “tried and failed to sack” Miliband.

MORE ON UK

• The Daily Telegraph has an article referring to “net-zero’s dirty secret”, in which it explains the well-known phenomenon of “curtailment” of windfarms in the UK.
• Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s “energy empire” Ineos has announced it will stop investing in the UK because the country has become “one of the most unstable fiscal regimes in the world”, the Times reports.

A pair of articles in Foreign Policy consider issues with foreign aid and the global financial system, including climate finance. The first, by Adam Tooze, director of the European Institute at Columbia University, explores issues with “the west’s aid model”, which he says “was always a mirage”. He reflects on how the current US administration has rejected the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), alongside climate cooperation under the Paris Agreement. He also discusses efforts to scale up private finance through “blended finance”. Tooze writes: “This optimism – or should we call it hype? – reached its high point at the 2021 UN climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland, where global financial institutions touted the possibility of leveraging billions in public funds to unlock more than $130tn in private finance for green energy and sustainable development.” In conclusion, Tooze says that, amid the growing influence of China, “if the rest of the west wants to both compete and cooperate with China over questions of global development, it will need to come up with its own, more practical and realistic alternative both to the SDGs and to Trumpian atavism”.

Another Foreign Policy article, by economics professor Daniela Gabor, also criticises current models of development. She writes about how, at a recent conference in Seville, “around 6,000 corporate lobbyists (nearly half the attendees) swarmed plenary halls, peddling private capital for ‘investible development’ while delegates from the global south pleaded for debt relief and climate finance”.

MORE COMMENT

• An editorial in the Times takes aim at UK energy secretary Ed Miliband following the recent cabinet reshuffle, stating that “Miliband’s survival suggests that Labour’s net-zero zealotry still outweighs the need to free business from the straitjacket of its obligations”. The Sun also criticises “eco-zealot” Miliband in an editorial.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Josh Gabbatiss, with contributions from Henry Zhang and Anika Patel. It was edited by Simon Evans.

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