The second Africa Climate Summit wrapped up in Ethiopia on Wednesday “with a bold assertion of the continent’s ability to chart a path to green growth with homegrown resources”, Climate Home News reports. However, the outlet adds that “climate campaigners expressed disappointment that leaders had not taken a stronger stance on the COP28 pledge to transition away from fossil fuels”. According to the Independent, Africa’s 54 countries adopted the “Addis Ababa Declaration”, which “plans to provide power to 300 million out of the 600 million Africans currently without electricity access”, while “pushing to make the continent a ‘hub for low-carbon manufacturing’”. It adds that the document “also contains several references ‘demanding’, ‘urging’, or ‘stressing’ the need for more money from rich countries to help Africa tackle the climate crisis”. Time magazine and AfricaNews also cover the close of the summit. 

MORE ON AFRICA

• Macky Sall, president of Senegal over 2012-24 and now chair of the Global Center on Adaptation, spoke to Context about what cuts to adaptation funding could mean for the country. 

Chris Wright, the climate-sceptic US energy secretary, has told reporters that the “UK’s policy of boosting renewable energy production while winding down domestic oil and gas extraction is a mistake that has left the country poorer”, according to Politico. The Daily Telegraph says Wright “criticised British ministers for ‘strangling’ North Sea oil and gas by crippling companies with windfall taxes and drilling bans”. Reuters reports that the EU is sticking to its deadline to phase out Russian oil and gas imports by 2028, despite “pressure from the US to end Russian energy imports sooner”. Semafor reports that Wright planned to warn European leaders that “the EU’s climate regulations put the region’s energy security at risk and will get in the way of a recent commitment to buy $750bn in energy products from across the Atlantic”. Separately, Wright told BBC News not to worry about emissions because “within five years, AI will have enabled the harnessing of nuclear fusion”. 

MORE ON US

• Bloomberg reports that “the US financial stability oversight council voted on Wednesday to disband two committees focused on climate change’s impact on the economy and financial stability”.
• The Los Angeles Times reports that California’s legislative leaders have “reached agreement on a suite of climate and energy bills”, including “reauthorisation of California’s signature cap-and-trade programme and the expansion of a regional electricity market”. 
• E&E News reports that when writing its regulatory impact analysis, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “skipped basic practices it routinely uses when projecting the effects of new regulations”. The outlet adds that the EPA hopes to use the analysis for “killing the endangerment finding”.
• The New York Times: “In the Pacific, unkept US promises on climate cut deep”. 
• BBC News reports on fears of fires in battery storage facilities in New York.
• Axios follows up on reporting that the group of five authors who wrote the discredited Department of Energy climate report are being “disband[ed]”, adding that “battles over its influence on federal policy aren’t going anywhere”. 

Britain’s largest energy supplier, Octopus, has signed a deal with Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Ming Yang Smart Energy, which could see Chinese-made turbines installed in the UK for the first time, Reuters reports. The newswire says the partnership “will see the companies explore opportunities to use Ming Yang Smart Energy’s technology as part of Octopus Energy’s plans to develop up to 6 gigawatts of wind through its Winder initiative, which matches communities that would like wind farms with project developers”. The Times says the deal “has sparked national security concerns”. Bloomberg says: “Cheap Chinese turbines have long been touted as a way to contain the expense, yet importing the technology is politically fraught. Not only would such a move erode sales for European competitors; it feeds fears that granting Beijing access to critical energy infrastructure may pose a threat to national security.”

MORE ON UK

• In a story trailed on its frontpage, the Daily Telegraph reports that prime minister Keir Starmer has “effectively closed the door on the construction of a major hydrogen project on Teesside – believed to be backed by [energy secretary Ed] Miliband – by deciding to endorse a rival tech development near the site”. 
• In an interview with the Independent, new Green party leader Zack Polanski said he “had multiple conversations with Labour MPs about defecting to his party”. According to the outlet, Polanski “named Labour left-wingers Clive Lewis and Nadia Whittome as ‘obvious’ examples of the MPs he would welcome into the fold.”
• The UK’s electricity system achieved its cleanest three months on record between late spring and early summer this year, according to BusinessGreen. The outlet calls this “further evidence the government’s ambitious goal of building a clean power system by 2030 could yet prove within reach”.  
• BusinessGreen reports that the UK is “only a fifth of the way towards 2030 nature target”. Separately, the Press Association covers Carbon Brief analysis which finds that “the UK’s climate-aid spending on nature protection and restoration reached record levels of nearly £800m last year”.
• Politico reports that hard-right, populist Reform UK is being advised by the Heartland Institute – a “thinktank which denies the science of climate change”. Separately, the Guardian says that plans by Reform UK to “‘rescind’ the declaration of a climate emergency” in Kent “have been condemned by opposition parties”.
• Green entrepreneur and Labour donor Dale Vince has “called on the government to offer subsidies to North Sea oil companies to help support a ‘just transition’ to renewables that protects energy industry workers”, according to the Guardian. 

Huang Runqiu, head of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, has said that “China is on track to meet its 2030 nationally determined contributions targets for reducing carbon intensity and increasing non-fossil energy consumption”, reports state-run newspaper China Daily. Speaking as a report on the state of China’s climate response was submitted for review to Chinese lawmakers on Wednesday, Runqiu added that China “has already surpassed its 2030 nationally determined contributions targets ahead of schedule for wind and solar power capacity, as well as forest stock volume”, according to the outlet. State-owned media outlet Science and Technology Daily also covers the story. Meanwhile, at a meeting for the National People’s Congress yesterday, Zheng Shanjie, head of the National Development and Reform Commission, urged the promotion of green and low-carbon development through “comprehensive transformation and dual carbon emissions control”, says state news agency Xinhua.

MORE ON CHINA

• Mexico, the largest buyer of Chinese vehicles, is imposing a 50% tariff on Chinese car imports to “preserve a free trade deal” with the US, the Financial Times reports.
• Xinhua says “China has made significant strides in green development” over the 14th “five-year plan” period (2021-25), with “increased forest coverage, improved biodiversity and closer harmony between humans and nature”.
• Shandong province listed China’s first “market-oriented” renewable electricity prices yesterday, according to BJX News. [China entered the ”stage of market-based pricing” in June, after the government announced price reform in February.]
• Bloomberg says that “China plans to more than double its energy storage capacity in the next two years to further accelerate the deployment of renewables”, according to a work plan issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration for 2025-27.

Canadian prime minister Mark Carney yesterday announced a “series of major projects meant to lessen Canada’s reliance on exports to sustain its economy”, the New York Times reports. It adds: “Several of the first batch of projects focused on increasing fossil fuel production and mining, however, which is likely to anger environmentalists and put the government in conflict with Indigenous people who have land and hunting rights over territory that would be used for some of the infrastructure plans.” The outlet says the projects include doubling the capacity of a liquefied natural gas plant and developing a nuclear reactor. The Guardian says that “notably”, the list “does not include any new oil pipelines – projects which have proven to be deeply divisive and politically fractious in recent years”. 

An editorial in Bloomberg says the “Trump administration is driving up Americans’ electric bills by blocking clean energy and forcing old coal plants to keep operating”. The editorial says the administration “has been blocking certain sources of energy – solar and wind – from reaching the market, in hopes of bolstering the fossil-fuel industry”. It adds: “Preventing new energy supplies from entering the market isn’t the only way the administration is pushing up prices. It’s also forcing old and antiquated coal plants to continue running, rather than allowing them to be replaced with cheaper (and cleaner) energy.” The editorial notes that “forcing old and uneconomical fossil-fuel plants to continue operating past their planned retirement dates” could cost consumers $3bn a year by 2028. It concludes that the “government should get out of the business of trying to prop up uncompetitive old coal plants and instead focus on converting them to clean energy”.

MORE COMMENT

• The Financial Times Lex column says that heat pumps are “unfairly being left in the cold” in the UK. It says there are two problems – electricity “tends to be” more expensive than gas and installing a heat pump is costly. 
• Jen Kiggans, who represents Virginia’s second district in Congress, has penned a comment piece in the Hill with Erik Milito, president of National Ocean Industries Association. They write: “To build America’s energy future, we need to fix permitting now.”
• Bloomberg columnist Lara Williams writes that “a lack of storage space doesn’t sound the death knell for carbon capture and storage, but it adds to a long list of reasons why we must carefully consider which industries and generations get to use the resource”.
• In the second part of a so-called “pragmatic climate reset” (entitled “a provocation”), Michael Liebreich – a senior contributor at BloombergNEF – presents his thoughts on how to reset climate politics, climate targets, energy priorities, hydrogen, diplomacy, science, finance and policy. He warns that some of his ideas “might make you uncomfortable”.
• In the Daily Telegraph, prominent climate-sceptic Matt Ridley argues that “people are beginning to realise the truth about net-zero”, while Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Joseph Sternberg writes that “Europe has been going cold on net-zero”.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Ayesha Tandon, with contributions from Wanyuan Song and Henry Zhang. It was edited by Robert McSweeny.

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