There is continued coverage of Joe Biden’s election victory and its repercussions for climate and energy policy in the US. While Biden has announced his transition teams, including the people overseeing transfer of power at federal environmental and energy agencies, the Trump administration is refusing to cooperate, the Independent reports. The piece notes that the transition “may be a bumpy one”, as some team members have histories of publicly condemning and even launching lawsuits against the current administration over its rollbacks of environmental regulations. The agency review team addressing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is being led by Patrice Simms, a vice president at environmental law organisation Earthjustice, which has “launched more than a hundred lawsuits to defend environmental and health protections during the Trump term”. The Daily Telegraph says “Joe Biden [is] expected to appoint John Kerry as special envoy on climate change”.

Meanwhile, a Washington Post article reports that David Legates, a meteorologist “who questions global warming” has been announced to run the US Global Change Research Program “as early as Thursday”, putting him “in position at least to influence” the authors chosen to craft the upcoming National Climate Assessment. The article quotes a scientist who says, although the Biden administration “could reverse any changes implemented” by Legates, he could create “messes that the Biden people are going to have to clean up”. The Hill reports that youth activist group the Sunrise Movement has criticised the Biden transition team for its inclusion of Neil MacBride, a former US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia who has represented the oil company ExxonMobil. A BuzzFeed article says that while climate activists “put aside their differences” with Biden during the election, “now they want results”. A Sunrise Movement co-founder tells the news website that the group will not rule out “aggressive and adversarial organising” when Biden is in power to get their point across. Another Independent article reports that climate activist Greta Thunberg has launched “thinly-veiled criticism” of Trump’s failure to concede the election to Biden.

The Financial Times reports that the first year of Biden’s presidency will likely see an increase in the burning of coal and a “record increase” in CO2 emissions, according to the US Energy Information Administration. The FT notes that, while this contrasts with the president’s clean energy agenda, it “reflects the vagaries of commodities markets and anticipated recovery from the severe coronavirus downturn, not energy policy”, owing to high prices for gas compared to coal.

Following reports yesterday that Biden had discussed climate change with various world leaders in his first official phone calls as president-elect, the Guardian says that Australian prime minister Scott Morrison told reporters that the “specific matter” of a net-zero emissions target was not discussed in his phone call. However, Morrison said “he had raised the similarity of their policies on emissions reduction technology”, the newspaper notes.

The UK government is delaying publication of its long-awaited energy white paper yet again, according to two government officials cited by Bloomberg. The policy document outlining the government’s approach to energy has been in the works for some time and was pegged for release in spring, but now is “unlikely to be published until after the Treasury’s spending review on November 25”, the website reports. The document will lay out a strategy for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and could include finance plans for nuclear, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS), and its absence leaves industry “uncertain about how ministers will shape markets to meet their green goals”, Bloomberg says.

Meanwhile, Sky News reports that the UK prime minister Boris Johnson, speaking to mark a year until the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, has described climate change as the most “enduring threat” to future generations if action is not taken. He called on world leaders to put forward more ambitious climate pledges, “but pressure is mounting on the UK government to show real leadership with its own climate commitments”, the piece says. The Daily Mail reports on the proposed government ban on petrol and diesel car sales beyond 2035, noting that “insiders believe he will pledge to bring forward the deadline to 2030”. And the Independent reports that “Boris Johnson picks pro-fracking Tory MP who has campaigned against wind farms as ‘climate change champion”.

Finally, the Guardian has an “exclusive” interview with Chris Stark, the chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), who says the cost of achieving the UK’s net-zero target is “surprisingly low – it’s cheaper than even we thought last year when we made our assessments”. Another “exclusive” interview with CCC chair Lord Deben in Infrastructure Intelligence quotes him saying the US has has now “rejoined the world” in the fight to achieve net zero.

Various publications have covered a new scientific paper in Nature analysing how global warming is impacting hurricane strength as the storms make landfall. BBC News notes it was previously assumed that hurricanes died down quickly once they hit the land, as they are powered by moisture coming from warm, tropical oceans. However, the news website reports that, according to the new study, this is no longer the case, quoting one of the authors who says hurricanes appear to “decay at a slower rate in a warmer climate” and that for North Atlantic hurricanes hitting the land, “the timescale of decay has almost doubled over the past 50 years”. The Independent describes the effect as hurricanes “remaining at their most destructive level for longer”, noting that the study suggests this is due to warming sea-surface temperatures, which provide hurricanes with a larger “stock of moisture”. The New York Times also has the story, noting that the findings could have implications for “how emergency-management agencies prepare for storms post-landfall”.

In separate news, the Independent reports that the storm dubbed Eta has regained strength and “become a hurricane again” off the southwest coast of Florida.

European gas power plants will not be classed as “sustainable” or “transition” investments unless they meet emission limits “so low that none are currently able to comply”, depriving them of of billions of euros in funding, according EurActiv. The new standards, laid out in draft EU rules seen by the news website, will be tabled in the coming weeks under the bloc’s sustainable finance taxonomy. The rules, which state plants must not emit more than 100g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour, were welcomed by environmentalists, according to EurActiv. However, the article also notes opposition from the industry, which says this action would “hamper Poland’s efforts to replace its ageing fleet of polluting coal power stations with cleaner gas plants”. In a separate story, EuraActiv reports that, according to the leaked draft of the green finance rules it has seen, from the start of 2026 all cars sold in Europe will need to emit no CO2 at all in order to be considered “sustainable”.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that EU governments have approved a €1tn (£890bn) green “roadmap” for the European Investment Bank’s (EIB) “Climate Bank”, which is the bloc’s lending arm. The piece states that the programme will see the bank ending financing for fossil fuel projects and airport expansions, but adds that the deadline to stop funding oil and gas projects had “slipped back a year” and activities like road-building will still be supported. “In practice, it means that the EIB will not become Paris-Aligned by the end of 2020,“ Xavier Sol of NGO coalition Counter Balance is quoted as saying.

Reuters reports that the world’s public development banks have pledged to align their “financial firepower” with the Paris Agreement, but have “avoided a firm commitment to phase out fossil fuel financing”. At a green finance summit organised by the French government, 450 public development banks, which currently invest around £1.7tn each year, said they would “increase the pace and coverage” of clean infrastructure investment. The Guardian notes that the banks “did not set out firm targets for how much funding they would devote to a green recovery. The newspaper notes that green campaigners were calling on the institutions to do much more to address the shortfall in finance to poor countries for emissions reductions and to help them “cope with the ravages of climate breakdown”.

The engineering company Rolls Royce is part of a consortium pushing the UK government to provide billions in funding to support the construction of 16 small nuclear plants. According to the newspaper the small modular reactors (SMRs), each of which would provide up to 440MW of electricity, have had interest from the government already and are thought to be part of an upcoming “10-point plan for the environment”. However, it notes that “to be cost-effective…the power generated by the reactors has to compete with renewable sources”, which are increasingly cheap. BBC News states that government says “new nuclear is essential” for the UK’s net-zero target and that prime minister Boris Johnson’s “powerful adviser, Dominic Cummings, is known to be taken with the modular nuclear idea”.

There is analysis of the plans by the Independent’s climate correspondent Daisy Dunne, as well as an opinion piece in the Times by Alistair Osborne calling them “too good to be true”. Nils Pratley in the Guardian says they may be “worth exploring”. He adds: “A 30-year energy policy needs to be able to adapt to ever-changing financial calculations. SMRs have the advantage of speedier construction times than Hinkley-style mega-plants.”

In a comment piece, Bloomberg founder and former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg considers what president-elect Joe Biden will feasibly be able to do to tackle climate change when he takes office. He emphasises the importance of actions taken independently of Congress, noting that even after the Democrats won both houses in 2008 they “spent nearly two years developing and debating a cap-and-trade bill that ultimately failed”. Many of the actions Biden can take “have nothing to do with the Environmental Protection Agency,” he says. Bloomberg proposes empowering cities, states and business, in part by ensuring that any stimulus funding provided to help with the nation’s economic recovery supports green industries and drives emissions cuts. He also says Biden should convene a group of financial representatives from around the world to adopt a set of climate-disclosure standards for businesses. “If Biden seizes the opportunity, it may prove to be one of the most important turning points in the global fight against climate change,” he writes. Bloomberg also emphasises the importance of a climate focus that runs throughout government, in key agencies and departments. “The president-elect should expect each member of the cabinet to prioritise climate action and integrate it throughout the agency’s operations,” he says.

A lengthy feature in the Washington Post suggests that this is indeed the approach that Biden will take. It quotes Stef Feldman, Biden’s campaign policy director, who says the president-elect “sees [climate] as an all-of-government agenda, domestic, economic, foreign policy”. The piece cites a “300-page blueprint” put together by former Obama administration officials and experts which lays out what the president needs to do “beyond just reversing the slew of Trump administration policies”, while “avoiding some of the pitfalls that hampered president Barack Obama”. Among the proposed measures are creating a White House National Climate Council, establishing a “carbon bank” that could pay farmers and foresters to store carbon in their land, pushing vehicle electrification through the transport department and developing a Treasury Department climate policy that promotes emissions cuts through tax, budget and regulatory policies. The piece notes that Biden’s team plans to move fast on its climate agenda. “The federal rulemaking and budgeting process takes time and the United States needs to show it’s taking action to cut greenhouse gas emissions to persuade other countries to ratchet up their commitments in advance of next year’s U.N. climate talks in Glasgow.” An article by Chelsea Harvey in E&E News considers how Biden might reverse Trump’s attack on climate research, including amending the administrations reduction of the social cost of carbon and removing officials “known to undermine or deny the science of climate change”.

Finally, a comment piece by the former Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren for the Washington Post says “what a Biden-Harris administration should prioritise on its first day”, listing “tackl[ing] climate change” as a key concern.

Several UK tabloids have expressed anger at the latest controversial action taken by climate protest group Extinction Rebellion – laying a wreath on the Cenotaph war memorial on Remembrance Day. An editorial in the Sun say the group’s “latest witless ‘statement’ is a new low…You could barely design an act more likely to harden ordinary people against environmentalism”. The editorial says most people do care about “emissions and the climate”, citing its own recent green campaign, but says the “key is to provide constructive ideas on how we can all help”. A comment piece by Paul Baldwin in the Daily Express expresses similar sentiments, and questions whether Extinction Rebellion have had any impact on climate change. There is also an angry editorial in the Daily Express and coverage in the Daily Mail (but they are not yet online).

Landfalling hurricanes are now taking longer to weaken as they move inland than they were 50 years ago, a new study suggests. The researchers analyse intensity data for North Atlantic landfalling hurricanes over the past 50 years. They find that “whereas in the late 1960s a typical hurricane lost about 75% of its intensity in the first day past landfall, now the corresponding decay is only about 50%”. This slowdown in decay is “in direct proportion to a contemporaneous rise in the sea surface temperature”, the authors note. They conclude: “Our findings suggest that as the world continues to warm, the destructive power of hurricanes will extend progressively farther inland.”