US president-elect Joe Biden has discussed climate change in his first calls with world leaders, Axios reports, saying this is “an early sign of Biden’s intent to stitch climate into his foreign policy posture”. It reports that calls with the leaders of the UK, France and Germany all “touched on climate” and that Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said after speaking to Biden that they were ready to “tackle the challenges and opportunities facing our two countries – including climate change and Covid-19”. Reuters reports that French president Emmanuel Macron told Biden he was ready to work together on climate change, among other issues, according to a readout from the Elysee Palace. Reuters also reports that UK prime minister Boris Johnson used his first conversation with Biden to invite the president-elect to next year’s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. The Independent picks out mentions of climate change from the Downing Street statement on the Biden-Johnson call, which it says noted the US and UK’s “shared priorities” around “tackling climate change, promoting democracy and building back better from the coronavirus pandemic”. Climate Home News says the UK government “is likely to try and use the COP26 climate talks to rebuild its rocky relationship with US president-elect Joe Biden and his party, analysts have said”. Many other outlets, including the Financial Times, the Times and Sky News, report the readouts on climate from the first Biden-Johnson call. Politico reports the comments of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in a speech, where, the outlet says, she “advocated a new transatlantic partnership on a range of issues where Europe and America have often been at odds under the current US administration”. It adds that she said the response to climate change needed EU-US leadership and “hailed Biden’s commitment for the US to reenter the Paris climate agreement”.

Biden’s election victory “boosts preparations” for COP26, reports the Guardian, in a piece quoting Obama-era climate envoy Todd Stern saying: “The difference [between the US under Biden and under Trump] will be night and day.” Thomson Reuters Foundation says Biden’s win “puts [the] 1.5C global warming limit back within reach”. Bloomberg has a backgrounder on Biden rejoining the Paris Agreement. The Guardian has an interview with UK COP26 envoy John Murton.

Meanwhile, there is a continued coverage of what a Biden presidency will mean for climate change in the US and internationally. The New York Times has highlights of the Biden transition team, which says the president-elect “signalled on Tuesday that addressing environmental disparities in poor communities and embedding climate change throughout the government would be priorities”. It adds: “Mr Biden also appears to be embedding climate change experts throughout other agencies where the issue is not a core part of the mission. The Defense Department team includes Sharon Burke, an expert on climate and national security who served as an assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration. Helping manage the transition at the State Department is Susan Biniaz, who spent two decades at the agency as a climate change negotiator.” Bloomberg reports that former Iowa governor Chet Culver, a supporter of wind energy and biofuels, could be appointed to a senior Biden administration role in energy. A comment for the New York Times picks out “9 ways Biden could change America in January”, one of which is on climate change, where the piece says the next president will be able to rescind Trump administration executive orders as well as pursuing executive action of his own. The Hill says Biden is “expected to issue swift reversals on climate”, ending Trump’s environmental rollbacks as a way to “lay[] the groundwork for an administration that has vowed to sharply curb emissions”. Bloomberg has an article listing “the 39 things Biden should do first on climate change”. Writing in the Nation, 350.org co-founder Jamie Henn says that Biden could “use his presidential bully pulpit” to make climate action even more popular. Henn argues that Biden should “keep climate change and the clean-energy revolution in the spotlight”. In his “weekly planet” column for the Atlantic, Robinson Meyer offers “five ways to think about Biden and climate”, concluding: “He could have the best chance to fight carbon pollution of any American leader in a decade.” Bloomberg carries a lengthy interview with John Podesta, White House lead on climate during Obama’s second term, carried out before the election but published yesterday. Podesta argues that there is “we just don’t have enough time” for the incoming president to wait for Republicans to “go to science seminars”, meaning Biden will have to attempt to act on climate without their support. The Guardian looks at “five post-Trump obstacles to a global green recovery,” including “US political division”. The Wall Street Journal lays out the “headwinds” facing Biden’s energy plans. The Financial Times continues coverage of the International Energy Agency renewables report, published yesterday, under the headline: “Biden presidency to hasten global switch from coal to renewables.” CBC News has an analysis piece saying that Biden’s presidency “could change the terms of the climate debate in Canada” and “will ramp up the pressure on Canada to do more”.

Carbon Brief has an in-depth round-up of the media reaction to Biden’s win, as well as a separate article with a range of climate experts reacting to the prospect of a pro-climate action US president.

Several outlets cover the news that this year’s Atlantic hurricane season has broken the record for the number of named storms, according to the US National Hurricane Center. BBC News reports: “Subtropical storm Theta in the north-east Atlantic is the 29th, breaking the previous record of 28 set in 2005.” It says that there is “conflicting evidence” over whether hurricanes are becoming more frequent due to climate change but adds: “However, scientists expect climate change to make these storms stronger.” The Independent quotes climate scientist Prof Michael Mann saying: “As we continue to warm the planet and the tropical Atlantic, there is more energy to fuel more and stronger tropical storms and hurricanes.” The article also notes research suggesting that a 1.5C warming limit “could halve the risk of severe hurricanes for the Caribbean, when compared to a world where warming reaches 2C”. The Guardian quote Kerry Emanuel saying the science is “quite clear that we should expect more high intensity hurricanes and much more rain from them”. The Hill also has the story. Associated Press and Yale Climate Connections say there is a 70% chance that a weather system currently forming in the Atlantic will become this year’s 30th named hurricane. The New York Times has a story on “five things we know about climate change and hurricanes”.

German firm Siemens Energy will no longer build steam turbines for coal-fired power stations, Reuters reports, though it will honour existing contracts. The move “mak[es] it the latest firm to scale back fossil fuel-related operations”, with coal turbines representing “a low single-digit percentage of the company’s sales”. Power Engineering International also has the news. In related news, Nikkei Asia reports that Toshiba has stopped taking orders for coal power plants and plans a fivefold increase in renewable investment, in a move the publication links to Japan’s new net-zero target. Global Construction Review has the story and notes the move comes “[t]hree months after [Toshiba] began work on the $2.7bn Van Phong 1 thermal power plant in Vietnam”.

Meanwhile, in other coal news, Reuters columnist Clyde Russell writes that China’s coal imports in October fell to their lowest level this year “with supplies from Australia particularly hard hit”. Climate Home News reports that Asian development banks are “resist[ing]” moves to restrict finance for coal. The outlet says the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are not expected to sign a joint statement that would commit signatories to “work towards” ending coal finance. The Financial Times says Barclays is “under fire” over its financing of fossil fuel companies, which increased this year. A comment piece for Climate Home News says a new Japanese-financed coal plant in Indonesia “threatens our health and livelihoods”.

The UK’s plan to sell its first “green gilts” will “have a mostly symbolic effect on the nascent green finance market, but is still worth doing”, says an editorial in the Financial Times. It says: “Green bonds must finance projects that contribute to reducing carbon emissions…To work they must create a ‘green spread’, so low-carbon projects pay a lower cost of capital than so-called brown ones.”

In other green finance news, Reuters reports that the UK has backed the creation of a global standards board to set mandatory company disclosure requirements on risks from climate change, a move backed by the head of asset manager BlackRock according to a second Reuters report. The Financial Times says UK firms have so far fallen short on climate reporting, according to the regulatory Financial Reporting Council, while Bloomberg reflects on the news from earlier this week that such reporting will become mandatory from 2025. The Independent reports that the US Federal Reserve “has identified climate change as a risk to financial stability for the first time ever”. Reuters also reports that Prince Charles has called on companies to prioritise climate action. The Financial Times reports that the University of Oxford has “partnered with BlackRock in the development of a sustainable investment tracker fund”.

Writing for a Financial Times special report on energy efficiency, the paper’s former US energy and industry editor Ed Crooks looks at the thermodynamic limits on converting energy into useful work. Crooks writes: “In a sense, waste is the inescapable price we pay for organising energy into useful forms.” He cites figures showing that two-thirds of the energy put into the US economy is wasted, mostly as waste heat during the burning of fossil fuels. Crooks adds: “[T]here are two reasons why it is still worth thinking about all the energy we waste in our system. The first is because it gets us used to the idea that some losses are unavoidable…Second, although we cannot end energy waste, we can reduce it.” Other features in the FT special report include looks at efforts to “green” the production of steel, a piece saying the cement industry is “moving too slowly” to cut its CO2 emissions and a comment from Nick Butler warning that the reduction in costs as a result of the pandemic shock to the energy system “risks undermining efficiency gains”.

Human-caused climate change made Cape Town’s recent “Day Zero” drought around five or six times more likely, a new study suggests. Using high-resolution climate model simulations, the researchers assess the contribution of anthropogenic climate change to the probability of multiyear rainfall deficits in southwestern South Africa in past and future decades. The study estimates that the probability of another similar drought event will increase from 0.7 to 25% by the year 2100 under an “intermediate-emission scenario” (SSP2-4.5) and to 80% under a “high emission scenario” (SSP5-8.5).

A push to achieve air quality targets in China could lead to more reduction in CO2 emissions than set out in its existing pledge under the Paris Agreement, a new study says. Using an integrated assessment model and an air quality model, the researchers find that some Chinese cities will not be able to meet their “Beautiful China” air quality targets without taking steps that would see larger cuts to CO2 emissions. The study says: “Achieving the air quality target would require further reduction in emissions of multiple air pollutants by 6 to 32%, driving additional 22% reduction in CO2 emissions relative to the [Nationally Determined Contribution] scenario.”

New research investigates how sustainable irrigation could be rolled out around the world even under 1.5C or 3C of warming. Using projections of renewable water availability and irrigation water demand under warming scenarios, the study finds that “in up to 35% of currently rain-fed croplands, irrigation could be expanded as an adaptation strategy to climate change without negative environmental externalities on freshwater resources”. The authors conclude that irrigation expansion could “reduce vulnerability to water stress and improve crop productivity to feed up to 300 million additional people using small-scale water storage and up to 1.4 billion additional people using large-scale water storage”.