Members of the UN have agreed to draw up the world’s first plastic pollution treaty by 2024, Reuters reports, after more than a week of talks in Nairobi, Kenya. The newswire says the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) described the deal as the most significant environmental since the 2015 Paris Agreement. It says that the resolution “is written in broad strokes and an intergovernmental committee is now tasked with negotiating a deal that will have ripple effects on businesses and economies around the world”, adding: “Any treaty that puts restrictions on plastic production, use or design would affect oil and chemicals companies that make raw plastics, as well as consumer goods giants that sell thousands of products in single-use packaging.” Reuters quotes diplomats involved in negotiating the outlines of the new treaty saying there is much work ahead and division remains over how ambitious it should be. The Press Association says the deal was agreed among 175 countries and that work to draw up the treaty would begin later this year. BBC News says the treaty could set rules on the production, use and disposal of plastics. The Times quotes the unanimously agreed resolution, which says an intergovernmental committee will be convened “to develop an international, legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment”. The New York Times says the resolution “drew heavily from a joint proposal submitted by Peru and Rwanda, reflecting how, in recent years, developing nations have been at the forefront of efforts to tackle plastics pollution”. Associated Press, BusinessGreen, the Hill, Agence France Presse, New Scientist and the Guardian Seascape are among those reporting the news.

The EU will publish plans next week to end its dependency on Russian gas by building up its renewable capacity and diversifying supplies from elsewhere, EurActiv reports, saying it has seen a leaked draft of the communication. The outlet says the draft, which had been due for publication on 2 March, lays out actions including a “new energy compact” to boost renewables across the EU and quotes the document saying: “Reducing our dependence on a single supplier of fossil gas requires diversification of gas supply and using the full potential of green and low carbon energy sources.” It will also consider a legal minimum gas storage requirement, EurActiv adds, as well as accelerating the rollout of renewable hydrogen. It reports: “If the EU were to fully implement its climate legislation for 2030, it would reduce the reliance on gas by 23% by the end of the decade, according to the draft.” Reuters also reports on the EU plans, saying around 40% of the bloc’s gas demand comes from Russian imports. It says the draft includes a target of filling gas storage to 80% of capacity by the end of September each year to buffer against supply shocks in winter, supporting the production of biogas and speeding the permitting of wind and solar projects. It adds: “The commission will also tell EU countries they can tax the profits energy companies made from recent gas price spikes and invest the revenue in renewable energy or support for consumers and industries hit by high electricity prices.” Bloomberg says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means “its green push will face a setback, at least for now”. It adds: “Some of the region’s top economies plan to increase gas-import capacities, build new LNG terminals, stockpile more coal and reopen power plants that burn the dirtiest fossil fuel. That will inevitably lead to more emissions in the short term, just as countries are targeting long-term cuts to pollution.” Similarly, the New York Times reports under the headline: “War abroad and politics at home push US climate action aside.” The piece notes that climate change was “barely mentioned” in President Biden’s State of the Union address. (See Carbon Brief’s tracker of climate and energy in State of the Union addresses since 1989.)

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s deputy environment minister has called for an embargo on Russian fossil fuel supplies, reports Climate Home News, quoting Roman Shakhmatenko saying: “They’re using this money to kill people.” The outlet reports that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said yesterday the bloc would build new liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals to import gas by ship from countries other than Russia and quotes her adding that in the long run renewables would make the EU “truly independent” because “every kilowatt-hour of electricity Europe generates from solar, wind, hydropower or biomass reduces our dependency on Russian gas and other energy sources”.

A Financial Times article asks if the west will place an embargo on Russian oil and gas supplies. It says: “Hitting energy exports is no longer so unthinkable but the market is already ‘self-sanctioning’ in dealing with Moscow.” The paper continues: “[A]s the brutality of Moscow’s invasion has intensified, the idea of targeting oil and gas exports for sanctions is no longer off the table – even if it damages western economies in the process.” It notes how Canada “albeit a tiny buyer of Russian energy” has blocked imports of Russian crude, with US president Joe Biden also “under mounting pressure” to do the same. The paper adds that self-sanctioning means: “Roughly 70% of Russian crude was ‘struggling to find buyers’, according to consultancy Energy Aspects.” However, the FT says that a ban on Russian gas exports is less likely, given it covers about a third of EU demand for the fuel, reporting: “The EU has made clear it wants to reduce its dependency on Russian oil and gas by speeding up the search for alternative supplies and developing renewable capacity more quickly. Europe has boosted imports of liquefied natural gas and refilled some gas storage. But there is no source of alternative gas supply big enough to replace Russian flows in the short term.” Reuters reports: “The US is open to imposing sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas flows but going after its exports now could help Moscow, the White House said on Wednesday.”

The Times reports that the UK is “on track to spend more than £2bn” on importing Russian gas this year, despite this only making up around 4% of the country’s supplies. It adds that around a third of diesel sold in the UK also comes from Russian oilfields. A second Times article reports: “With Europe hooked on Russian gas, neither side has ‘weaponised’ the commodity – yet.”

Oil and gas prices “soared yesterday on fears of disruption to Russian supplies as the Ukraine conflict intensified”, the Times reports. It says that Brent crude rose 10% to $117 a barrel as western firms stopped buying Russian oil, while UK gas prices “jumped by 38%”. It continues: “Soaring gas prices reflected growing fears that Russian gas supplies to Europe may be disrupted, whether by deliberate Russian restrictions or by nations stopping buying it to inflict economic damage on the Putin regime.” The paper adds: “Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, said it was prepared for the potential for Russia to stop gas exports.” Bloomberg says European gas prices “as much as 60%” yesterday, before easing, with buyers “backing away from new deals with [Russian gas giant] Gazprom”. Reuters reports that US gas prices also rose by 4% yesterday, adding: “No matter how high global gas prices rise, however, the US, the world’s biggest gas producer, was already producing LNG near full capacity and cannot make much more of the super-cooled fuel.” Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that benchmark coal prices in Asia rose 46% “as concerns about disruption to supplies from Russia turbocharge concerns over tight energy markets”. Reuters reports that Australia “is helping coal importing nations find alternatives to Russia for supplies by connecting them with local producers, a government spokesperson said on Thursday”. It adds: “Poland is looking to stop buying coal from Russia and has been pressing the European Union to do the same.”

Oil and gas prices “soared yesterday on fears of disruption to Russian supplies as the Ukraine conflict intensified”, the Times reports. It says that Brent crude rose 10% to $117 a barrel as western firms stopped buying Russian oil, while UK gas prices “jumped by 38%”. It continues: “Soaring gas prices reflected growing fears that Russian gas supplies to Europe may be disrupted, whether by deliberate Russian restrictions or by nations stopping buying it to inflict economic damage on the Putin regime.” The paper adds: “Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, said it was prepared for the potential for Russia to stop gas exports.” Bloomberg says European gas prices “as much as 60%” yesterday, before easing, with buyers “backing away from new deals with [Russian gas giant] Gazprom”. Reuters reports that US gas prices also rose by 4% yesterday, adding: “No matter how high global gas prices rise, however, the US, the world’s biggest gas producer, was already producing LNG near full capacity and cannot make much more of the super-cooled fuel.” Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that benchmark coal prices in Asia rose 46% “as concerns about disruption to supplies from Russia turbocharge concerns over tight energy markets”. Reuters reports that Australia “is helping coal importing nations find alternatives to Russia for supplies by connecting them with local producers, a government spokesperson said on Thursday”. It adds: “Poland is looking to stop buying coal from Russia and has been pressing the European Union to do the same.”

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has published an action plan for China’s goals to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060, reports Global Times, a state-run tabloid. The paper says the plan: “[F]ocus[es] on breakthroughs and applications of key scientific technologies on topics including carbon sinking, cleaner and more efficient energy, and green development.” It quotes Yu Guirui, former deputy director of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of CAS saying: “The carbon peak and carbon neutrality goal is not only a political promise by China to participate in global environmental management and confronting climate change, but also a broad and deep systematic revolution in the economic society. It is more like a scientific and technological revolution for us.”

The UK government is to face a High Court challenge over its strategies for reaching net-zero and tackling emissions from heat and buildings, BusinessGreen reports. It says the NGO Friends of the Earth has been given permission to proceed with its case arguing that the plans do not comply with UK climate and equalities legislation, with legal NGOs ClientEarth and the Good Law Project each having been granted High Court hearings in separate legal challenges against the government’s plans.

In his regular column for BloombergNEF, the company he founded, Michael Liebreich questions “climate resilience” and the idea that climate change poses one of the most severe global risks over the next decade. Liebreich says: “Now, before you jump all over me, I’m not saying we should not be acting on climate change – far from it…What I am saying is that those who seek to recruit the concept of resilience purely in support of climate action are short-changing other, and potentially more catastrophic, near-term risks. In addition, in our haste to transition to net-zero, we may even be rendering our energy and transport system more fragile, rather than more robust.” Among the issues he discusses are the rapid increase in electrification that will come with reaching net-zero, along with the need to meet demand for electricity even during extended periods of low wind and sun, a role currently played by gas. Liebreich writes: “Shutting down investment in fossil fuels before you have a plan to replace their role in the energy system is neither resilient nor just.” He adds that there are “no easy answers”, with nuclear likely to be expensive, fracking in the UK “do[ing] little or nothing to protect consumers from price spikes” and importing liquid natural gas (LNG) not being a “resilient strategy”. In conclusion, Liebreich says infrastructure needs planning around the “four Rs” of resistance, reliability, redundancy and recovery.

Meanwhile in the Daily Telegraph, climate-sceptic Sunday Telegraph editor Allister Heath writes that in the face of Russia’s invasion: “The West is clinging to the delusion that its survival can be bought cheap.” He adds: “We will require a sensible energy policy: like in the 1970s, we have been caught out, this time by our idiotic decision, driven by green zealots, to shut down domestic production of oil and gas without building the nuclear capacity required to supplement renewables.” An editorial in the Sun is titled: “Get drilling.” It says: “The apparently plentiful shale gas under our feet can tide us over on the journey towards net-zero. Producing it will be greener and cheaper than using imports – and provide energy security…Downing Street must face down the fracking scaremongers and U-turn.”

In a comment in Nature, Johns Hopkins University’s Jonas Nahm, Scot Miller and Johannes Urpelainen write that in 2020 and 2021, G20 economies “spent at least $14tn – close to China’s annual gross domestic product” to escape the recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. This largely and “rightly, went to shoring up health-care, wages and welfare”. But despite the talk of “green new deals” and “building back better”, so far, climate “promises have not been met”, they warn, with governments spending only “one-ninth of what is needed on climate mitigation”. The authors, who created a fiscal stimulus inventory of Covid-19 spending in G20 economies, “found that only 6% of total stimulus spending (or about $860bn) has been allocated to areas that will also cut emissions”, while another 3% “ targeted activities likely to increase global emissions, such as subsidising the coal industry”. The authors conclude that “the view that emissions reductions and economic recovery are irreconcilable is incorrect”. They urge governments to “apply environmental conditions to stimulus bills, focus on recovery measures that have direct emissions impacts, position their economies strategically to compete in a post-carbon world”, and appeal to the “climate community” to take a closer look at why stimulus spending on climate is falling.

In a comment for the San Francisco Chronicle, David Helvarg and Jason Scorse write that the reason Russia “holds so much leverage is because we have done so little to decarbonise since the oil embargoes of the 1970s”. They add: “Even the EU countries (that have done much more to green their energy use) are incredibly dependent on Russian natural gas, particularly Germany, putting them in a very vulnerable position.” The pair continue: “A country that doesn’t have the wisdom – after decades of wars in the oil fields of the Middle East and tension with a Russian despot building his military capacity with oil and gas revenues – to make the needed investments to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels is a nation not up to the task of being a global leader…without an active climate strategy there can be no real national security.” They conclude: “Rapidly transitioning the US and global economies to renewable energy would not only weaken on=ur foes, it will also save millions of lives while strengthening our national security and protecting our common future.”

In an interview with BBC News, Ukrainian climate scientist and member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Dr Svitlana Krakovska says war is “closing the window of opportunity” for tackling climate change. She tells the outlet: “If we all unite against climate change, we can survive as a civilisation”. Krakovska also tells BBC News that Europe’s reliance on oil and gas from Russia was “funding the war”, adding: “The money that’s invested in fossil fuels, they’re using against us.”

New research “successfully detects” the influence of human-caused climate change on summer rainfall on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) “Asian Water Tower”. Using attribution experiments from the CLIVAR Climate of the 20th Century Plus Project (C20C+), the researchers find a human-caused impact on the increase in rainfall over the north TP during 1961-2013. In contrast, a drying trend over the south TP is “mainly controlled” by natural variability, the authors say, although “the anthropogenic forcing is favourable”.