A UN report says the world’s plans to cut emissions “fall drastically short of what is needed to stave off the worst of climate breakdown”, the Guardian reports. According to the newspaper, more than 60 countries have submitted new plans to curb emissions under the Paris Agreement, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). It says: “Taken together, these plans would cut carbon by only about 10% by 2035 compared with 2019 levels. This is only about a sixth of the drop in global emissions needed to limit global heating to 1.5C.” The newspaper notes that China and the EU have announced but not yet officially submitted their plans. It adds: “China’s pledge to cut its carbon output by between 7% and 10% of its peak by 2035 was widely denounced as too weak, while the EU has been squabbling over its commitment to a possible range of 62% to 72.5% within the decade.”

BusinessGreen notes that only 30% of global emissions are covered by the new NDCs that were submitted by the “end of September” deadline set by the UN’s climate body (UNFCCC). Reuters says: “To offer a more complete assessment, the UNFCCC said it had produced the global analysis, including targets countries have announced but not yet formally submitted, such as from China and the EU.” The Washington Post says the analysis “includes a US plan submitted in the final weeks of the Biden administration that president Donald Trump has said he has no intention of fulfilling”. Bloomberg says the analysis shows “the first decline [in emissions] ever forecast by the UN”. The outlet quotes UN climate chief Simon Stiell saying: “Humanity is now clearly bending the emissions curve downwards for the first time, although still not nearly fast enough…We have a serious need for more speed.” BBC News says: “The report underlines the scale of the task facing world leaders who head to Belém in northern Brazil next week for the COP30 climate gathering.” 

MORE ON COP30

• BusinessGreen covers new analysis from thinktank ECIU, which finds that “in the 10 years since the Paris Agreement was signed, clean tech adoption, green investment and climate policy have all advanced far beyond most predictions”. The outlet adds that “some analysts now reckon global emissions could have already peaked either last year or this year”. 
• Bloomberg has a piece with the subheading “as COP30 nears, the US’s pressure to keep fossil fuels relevant may empower petrostates, potentially giving them more leverage at the UN talks”.
• Reuters reports that billionaire Bill Gates “called on world leaders on Tuesday to adapt to extreme weather and focus on improving health outcomes rather than temperature reduction targets ahead of the COP30 climate talks in Brazil”. The Financial Times and the Daily Telegraph also cover the story.

Hurricane Melissa is moving towards Jamaica “at Category 5 strength”, Bloomberg reports. According to the outlet, the storm is “packing enough force to flatten homes and cause power outages that can last for weeks or months”. It adds that “the storm’s outer bands have already knocked out power to about 50,000 people, mostly in western Jamaica”. A disaster modeller estimates that that hurricane may cause losses of $5-16bn in Jamaica and $5bn in Cuba, the outlet says. It adds: “Melissa’s slow crawl across the region makes flooding worse because its heaviest rains will linger for days. In a warmer world due to climate change, the atmosphere holds more water, worsening heavy rains from tropical systems.” Reuters says Melissa could bring “days of never-before-seen catastrophic winds and as much as 3 feet [1m] of rain”. The Associated Press says the storm is “expected to make landfall early Tuesday and slice diagonally across the island”.

CNN calls Melissa “the strongest storm on the planet this year”. The Guardian reports: “Some parts of eastern Jamaica could receive up to a metre (40in) of rain while western Haiti could get 40cm (16in), the US National Hurricane Center said.” Sky News reports that a “’life-threatening storm surge’ of up to 4m above ground level is also predicted along the south coast of Jamaica”. Scientific American reports that 2025 is the second Atlantic hurricane season to ever record more than two Category 5 storms. It continues: “Melissa was able to reach its 175mph maximum wind speed by taking advantage of exceptionally warm waters in the Caribbean Sea. It underwent extreme rapid intensification, strengthening from a 70mph tropical storm last Saturday morning to a 140mph Category 4 hurricane on Sunday – twice the rate of the official threshold of rapid intensification.”

The Guardian adds: “Scientists say this is the fourth storm in the Atlantic this year to undergo rapid intensification of its wind speed and power. This sort of intensification has been linked to the human-caused climate crisis, which is causing oceans to become hotter.” It quotes Akshay Deoras, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, who said: “That part of the Atlantic is extremely warm right now – around 30C, which is 2 to 3C above normal…And it’s not just the surface. The deeper layers of the ocean are also unusually warm, providing a vast reservoir of energy for the storm.” The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Times also report on the storm.

Ministers have announced a £1.08bn “budget” for offshore wind contracts ahead of an upcoming auction round, the Financial Times reports. The newspaper continues: “Pranav Menon, senior research associate at Aurora Energy Research, said the allocation would be enough to procure slightly less than 5 gigawatts of capacity if offshore wind developers bid into the auction at a similar level to last year. However, it probably would not be enough to meet Labour’s flagship goal [for clean power by 2030], which would require extensive investment into new wind and solar farms, and electricity cables.” Bloomberg notes that “this is an initial budget and the government could increase funding in later stages”. The Guardian says the “budget” includes £900m for fixed-foundation offshore wind and £180m for floating projects. BusinessGreen adds: “The sealed bid auction for new Contracts for Difference (CfD) is now set to take place between 11 and 17 November, with the results due to be announced on 14 January.” Reuters, the Daily Telegraph and the Press Association also cover the story. Carbon Brief senior policy editor Simon Evans posted an analysis of the auction “budget” and its implications on LinkedIn.

MORE ON UK

• The Guardian covers a new study, which finds that “wind power has cut at least £104bn from energy costs in the UK since 2010”, with the cost of avoided gas and gas-fired power plants significantly outweighing subsidies for wind power. 
• BusinessGreen: “National Grid green skills campaign reaches almost 150,000 students.”
• Defra has “confirmed wide-ranging plans to simplify and streamline environmental permitting processes, as it continues its push to fast track clean energy and housing projects”, according to BusinessGreen.

China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said in a speech that climate change has become an “urgent issue” and that no country can “be a deserter” in addressing it, state-run news outlet China News reports. Wang also urged developed countries to fulfil their emission-reduction commitments and provide “financial and technological support” to developing countries, it adds. Meanwhile, Wang Yi, vice-chairman of China’s national expert committee on climate change, tells the Shanghai-based newspaper the Paper that, amid the US’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and rising geopolitical tensions, the “core” of current climate negotiations lies in preventing the situation from “turning negative”. It quotes Wang saying that China will not pursue “leadership status” in the global energy transition and instead will play a role of “cooperative leadership”. Wang also says that China’s 2035 climate goal is not about “pursuing higher or lower numbers but ensuring that the pathway is feasible and achievable”, according to the outlet.

Elsewhere, Chinese premier Li Qiang told European Council president Antonio Costa in Malaysia that China is “ready” to create “new growth points” for bilateral cooperation in the “green” sector, state news agency Xinhua reports. Costa told reporters that he “emphasised that climate action must always remain at the top of [the EU-China] agenda” and that COP30 “will provide an opportunity for the EU and China to lead with ambition”, according to Radio France Internationale. Separately, National Energy Administration head Wang Hongzhi met with UK climate envoy Rachel Kyte, saying China is willing to deepen cooperation with the UK in the electricity market, hydrogen energy and energy storage, International Energy Net reports. German foreign minister Johann Wadephul cancelled a trip to China in which he was expected to “address Chinese curbs on rare earth exports”, Bloomberg says.

MORE ON CHINA

• China’s total installed power capacity has increased by 18% year-on-year, reaching 3,720 gigawatts (GW), China Daily reports, adding that solar and wind capacity grew 46% and 21% respectively.
• “Self-discipline” among China’s solar manufacturers has led to a “recovery” in the sector, Bloomberg says.
• China’s hydrogen fuel cell vehicle market is poised to expand to “over 4m units by 2040”, according to China Daily.
• “High temperatures and longer-than-expected summers” are disrupting farming of hairy crabs, “one of China’s most esteemed culinary delicacies”, Reuters says.
• China contributed the single-largest gain in the “global underground gas storage expansion” in 2025, adding 6bn cubic metres of capacity, Reuters reports.

There is continued coverage of the news that North Sea oil and gas contractor Petrofac has filed for administration, according to the Guardian. The newspaper says that Petrofac employs about 7,300 people globally, including 2,000 in Scotland. It continues: “Any uncertainty over the company’s continued viability could add to political pressure on the UK government, as it faces a backlash over plans to tackle the climate crisis by blocking new North Sea oil licences for exploration. Energy secretary Ed Miliband’s department said on Monday it was leading efforts across ‘all parts of government’ to support Petrofac’s UK arm, which employs about 2,000 people at its North Sea hub in Aberdeen.” The Financial Times says the company “has been embroiled in a near-decade-long crisis”.

The Times adds: “A planned restructuring of the heavily indebted company was torpedoed last week when its biggest client, the Dutch grid operator TenneT, cancelled a multibillion-pound contract for work on windfarm infrastructure, accusing Petrofac of breaching contractual obligations.” The Daily Telegraph says: “Petrofac maintains and operates platforms belonging to BP, Shell, Ithaca, EnQuest and other major oil and gas producers, making it crucial to UK energy supplies. It also has a central role in building and maintaining UK windfarms, including some of the largest, such as the Sofia project, now under construction in the North Sea.” BBC News, Bloomberg, the Press Association and Sky News also cover the story. 

In an interview trailed on the frontpage of the Guardian, UN general secretary António Guterres tells the Guardian and Amazon-based news organisation Sumaúma that overshooting 1.5C is now “inevitable” and will have “devastating consequences”. According to the newspaper, Guterres said the priority at COP30 is “to change course in order to make sure that the overshoot is as short as possible and as low in intensity as possible to avoid tipping points like the Amazon”. It continues: “He did not give up on the target though, and said it may still be possible to temporarily overshoot and then bring temperatures down in time to return to 1.5C by the end of the century…He said a transition away from fossil fuels was a matter of economic self-interest, because it was clear that the era of fossil fuels was coming to an end.” The article concludes: “Next year will be Guterres’s last as secretary general. Looking back on his nine years in the post, he said he wished he had focused on climate and nature earlier, though it was now a priority.” Separately, interviewer Wajã Xipai has a piece in the Guardian with the headline “I am the first Indigenous journalist to exclusively interview António Guterres. How many others will listen?”

MORE COMMENT

• An editorial in Le Monde says: “With planning on environmental projects at a standstill since 2023, France’s political leaders are only reinforcing the idea that they are unable to think long-term, even when it comes to such crucial issues as climate change and biodiversity collapse.”
• Atticus Fleming, chief executive of NGO the Great Southern Land Conservancy, has written a comment piece in the Guardian with Prof Andrew Macintosh, co-director of the Australian National University’s Centre for Environmental Markets, with the headline: “Biodiversity is in catastrophic decline. Here are three ways to ensure Australia’s conservation law actually works”.
• Russell Borthwick, the chief executive of the Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, writes in the Daily Telegraph that “more North Sea collapses are coming unless Labour ditches its toxic energy policy”. 

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Ayesha Tandon, with contributions from Anika Patel and Henry Zhang. It was edited by Simon Evans.

Subscribe for free.