Carbon Brief walks you through the new document – or “tool”
– released late last week by the United Nations which outlines what
the wording of the Paris climate deal could look like. The new text
is based on the Geneva negotiating text – an 86-page document that
countries constructed in February, following a major round of talks
in December 2014 in Lima. The new text has been reduced to 76 pages
through a process of careful streamlining and is now divided into
three distinct categories.

Renewable energy goals announced by Hillary Clinton, who
hopes to succeed President Obama in 2017, could significantly raise
US climate ambition, according to Carbon Brief analysis. Clinton
wants renewables to supply a third of US electricity by 2027,
enough to power “every home in America”. Our analysis shows this
could shave a further 4 percentage points off US emissions, against
its existing pledge to cut carbon by 26-28% by 2025.

A strategic review is under way at Drax, which runs the UK’s
largest coal-fired power plant, after it admitted that uncertainty
over green subsidies for its co-burning of biomass has left a
question mark over the half of its North Yorkshire power station
that still burns coal. Dorothy Thompson, the chief executive, said
that burning coal would remain a viable business over the next four
years but could not predict how long that would persist after 2019.
She said that the conversion of the remainder of the station to
burning wood pellets would depend on a study being conducted for
DECC on the total cost of different forms of low-carbon energy,
including the cost of accommodating intermittent output from wind
and solar. The Telegraphsays Drax has “sparked a
row” with other green energy producers for “attacking” wind and
solar for being “costly and unreliable”. Carbon Pulsefocuses on Drax’s
financial results which reveal that the company saw its CO2
emissions fall 12.8% in the first half of 2015 compared to the same
period last year. This was as a result of bringing a second biomass
unit online. Bloombergnotes that Drax’s
earnings were up 18% as its biomass investments shielded it from
rising carbon prices.BusinessGreenalso carries the
story. In May, Carbon Briefpublished an in-depth
investigation into whether burning biomass can help solve climate
change.

The final version of President Obama’s signature climate
change policy is expected to extend an earlier timeline for states
to significantly cut emissions from power plants, according to
people familiar with the plan, says Davenport. The initial proposal
would have required that states to submit plans for cutting carbon
pollution by 2016, with an option to extend the deadline to 2017,
and it would have required states to put their plans in place and
start demonstrating emissions cuts by 2020. However, an extension
could see the deadline for states to submit their plans lengthened
to 2018, and it would give states two more years, until 2022, to
comply with those plans. But, adds Davenport, “a person familiar
with the rules said they would include incentives designed to
reward states that comply as early as 2020.”

Turning street lights off late at night to save money does
not seem to trigger an increase in either traffic accidents or
crime according to a survey of local councils in England and Wales
where such cuts have been made. Data gathered from 62 out of 174
local authorities on road casualties and on crimes that may have
benefited from streets being in the dark has failed to find a link
with reductions in street lighting, scientists said.
The BBCadds that the researchers said
the findings could help save money and reduce carbon emissions. The
AA said the results were “extremely surprising” and differed from
their own analysis of inquest findings. The Timesalso carries the
story.

Lawyers for Friends of the Earth have written to Amber Rudd
calling on her to extend the consultation period for the
government’s proposed changes to solar subsidies, warning the
current consultation is “unfair”, contrary to the government’s
consultation guidelines, and potentially in breach of
administrative law. The letter argues that DECC should immediately
move to extend the consultation by four weeks in order to give all
interested stakeholders sufficient time to respond.

Ticks are spreading further north in the US and Canada with
the potential to transmit diseases to dogs and humans, reports the
Earth Island Journal. “Clearly ticks are expanding farther north,”
says Dr Janet Foley, a professor and researcher at the School of
Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis.
“[W]e’re finding a lot of tick species moving into new areas. And a
lot of that has to do potentially with climate change [and] animal
husbandry practices if we’re cutting forests or recreating
grasslands.”

Why is the world addicted to energy subsidies? There are
several different ways governments do this, says the Economist. For
example, “rich countries subsidise -the IMF says America is the
world’s second biggest culprit, spending $669bn this year-but
mostly by “post-tax” systems which fail to factor the costs of
environmental damage into prices. This is a problem because it
wastes fiscal resources and hardly benefits the poor, as the
wealthy drive more and guzzle more power. The IEA believes that
only 8% of subsidies accrue to the poorest fifth of the
population.” It adds: “Most countries realise this is not
sustainable, but removing subsidies can be a political hot
potato…The real test will come when oil prices start rising, and
demands to keep prices low begin again.”

The EU’s emissions target will require a step change in
decarbonisation, according to analysis by PwC’s Jonathan Grant and
Rob Milnes. They say: “The EU will need to nearly double its
current rate of decarbonisation to achieve the 40% reduction target
by 2030. By 2022 European countries will need to have the same
carbon intensity as France today, which is the lowest of the G20
countries, and then cut this by a quarter by 2030.”

Cuff says that questions are surfacing over the legality of
the government’s plans to halt onshore wind farm development. She
says: “Some commentators suggest the cutting of Renewables
Obligation subsidies could lead to compensation claims worth
millions of pounds…In addition, there is discussion within the
industry over the legality of excluding onshore wind from the next
round of CfD auctions, an action the government is widely thought
to be considering…DECC officials will be anxious to placate
onshore wind developers with a generous grace period, to avoid any
embarrassing international investment disputes.”

Although gas is less carbon intensive than coal, says
Ottery, the “numbers and the rhetoric don’t match”. She adds: “The
reality is that gas is extremely unlikely to boom nearly as much as
energy giants are hoping…Shell and BP seem to have some rather
dodgy assumptions on energy demand, carbon intensity, renewables
uptake, and CCS.”

A new study examines how the findings of a 2005 on hurricane
activity are affected by ten years’ more data. While Webster et al.
(2005) found a large increase in the number of strong (Category
4-5) hurricanes for all global basins from 1970-2004, the new study
says the number actually decreased a bit from 1990-2014. However,
category 4-5 events now make up a slightly bigger proportion of
total hurricane events than they used to, the paper
adds.

Scientists have used field measurements, eyewitness accounts
and video recordings alongside climate models to better understand
the severe flooding that swept Tacloban City in the wake of Typhoon
Haiyan in 2013. The paper also looks at an event in 1987 that had a
similar wave height out in the Pacific and took a similar path, but
whose storm surge was only half as big as Haiyan’s.
B