BBC News reports this morning that there are fears that the world’s ambition to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels could “slip” amid slow negotiations at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt. BBC News says: “Senior figures here in Egypt are worried about backsliding on efforts to keep the 1.5C goal. There is a sense the Egyptian presidency is struggling to find common ground between rich and poor, and some delegates fear the focus on 1.5C may be softened to find agreement.” According to the UN’s climate chief Simon Stiell, not enough progress has been made so far, BBC News says. According to BBC News, Stiell said in a meeting over the weekend: “My observations are that there are too many unresolved issues. If we create a log-jam in the process, we will not deliver an outcome that is deserving of the crisis.” The story also references Carbon Brief analysis by Dr Simon Evans (see above), which BBC News says “shows widespread disagreement between parties”. Reuters also reports that “frustrations are starting to flare” as “negotiators worry about resolving myriad details in time for a deal by the summit’s scheduled close on Friday”. A second Reuters story notes that talks on carbon markets at the summit are particularly slow. And a third Reuters story says that US special climate envoy John Kerry has warned that a “few countries” are resisting mentioning the 1.5C goal in the final agreement from the summit.

Several outlets continue to report on how discussions around climate finance are shaping slow negotiations. Times of India reports that the UN Environment chief has warned that developing countries “need clarity” over promised climate finance. Reuters reports that the EU has warned the world will “not be ready” to agree to a new fund for loss and damage caused by climate change by the end of the talks on Friday. The Sunday Telegraph interviews the (UK-born) environment minister of Gabon, who says the UK should not be held financially responsible for past climate damage.

Many publications report on US president Joe Biden’s speech at COP27 on Friday. BBC News reports: “Biden spoke in Egypt after US mid-term elections delivered better-than-expected results for the president. He claimed the US is a global leader on climate after it passed sweeping laws to tackle global warming.” The New York Times reports that Biden also spoke of how he immediately returned the US to the 2015 Paris Agreement upon taking office after his predecessor, President Donald Trump, had withdrawn the country. “I apologise that we ever pulled out of the agreement,” he said, according to the New York Times. Bloomberg reports that Biden also used his address to tout recently announced rules for controlling methane from domestic oil and gas production. The Washington Post adds that Biden “sought to assure that the US is committed to confronting climate change”, but faced “pushback” from developing countries demanding that the world’s richest countries pay more to help”. The Independent speaks to Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister Gaston Browne, who accused the US of “subterfuge” over its approach to providing climate funding for developing countries. The Independent also reports on how youth activists on the ground protested Biden’s address and, separately, covers how Biden was briefly heckled by protesters during his speech. In its coverage, Politico says Biden “arrived here eager to solidify US leadership in the fight against climate change, but struggled to win over a global gathering that has grown wary of American promises”. Separately, the Washington Post examines whether Biden’s promises for international climate aid are likely to get through Congress.

In other US news, the Financial Times examines why some are “nervous” about the country’s proposal for international carbon offsetting.

India “is leading a push for the COP27 climate summit to conclude with a decision on phasing down all fossil fuels, a move that would expand the focus from just coal, but is likely to raise strong concerns from oil and gas-reliant countries”, according to a scoop from Bloomberg. The publication continues: “Indian negotiators formally called on the Egyptian presidency of climate talks for the expanded language to be included in the cover text, a political statement of how countries will seek to tackle the climate crisis, according to people familiar with the matter. The push stems largely from the coal-dependent country’s desire to not be singled out for its dependence on the dirty fossil fuel.” Commenting on the development, Tom Evans, a policy adviser at the climate thinktank E3G, says: “It would be the first-ever mention of this kind of term, but at the same time, if it’s vague enough to leave too much leeway on what that exactly means, it opens the door to a blurring of the lines.” The Independent also has the story.

The outcome of COP27 must pave the way for a “Paris moment for biodiversity” at the COP15 nature talks in Montreal in December, the UN biodiversity chief has said, the Guardian reports. It explains: “At the COP15 summit in December, organised by China but hosted in Canada, governments are expected to agree a UN agreement to halt the destruction of the natural world. Top officials have warned the nature agreement depends on strong climate commitments.” According to the Guardian, the UN biodiversity chief Elizabeth Maruma Mrema told a press briefing: “We’re seeing more and more biodiversity agenda appearing in the discussions under the climate COP. The outcomes from COP27 will be instrumental and will influence a lot the discussions and specific targets under the framework.”

Elsewhere, the Guardian also reports that “the world’s largest food companies, whose products have been linked to the widespread destruction of rainforests, have failed to come up with an adequate strategy to align their business practices with the 1.5C climate target, according to campaigners”. In addition, Reuters reports that the US and UAE have jointly announced $8bn boost to an initiative for reducing the climate impact of farming globally, which is called the “Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate” (AIM4C). Desmog has a detailed report on why campaigners are sceptical about the US’s commitment to AIM4C.

Several outlets continue to report on fossil-fuel lobbying at COP27. The Guardian reports that “Russian oligarchs and executives from multiple companies under international sanctions are among the lobbyists currently attending COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh”. Desmog reports that Russia has sent two sanctioned oligarchs to COP27: “Oleg Deripaska, who has large stakes in multiple coal companies, and Andrey Melnichenko, who transferred ownership of Russia’s largest coal producer to his wife in March as sanctions were brought in, are both set to attend.”

Elsewhere, Climate Home News reports that a UN agency has cancelled an initiative to mobilise African private energy investments, including for gas projects, after reporting by the site revealed that one of its coalition partners was led by “a convicted fraudster and alleged money launderer”. A second Climate Home News story reports on how fossil-fuel lobbyists are promoting carbon capture technology at the sidelines of COP27.

Elsewhere, the FT reports that COP27 is “the first to invite oil and gas companies to participate in the official programme of events at COP27 in Egypt, where Saudi Arabia says it does not see the effort to limit global warming as being ‘a discussion about fossil fuels’”. It adds: “Just a short bus ride away from the COP27 centre at the Sharm el-Sheikh resort town, the world’s biggest oil exporter [Saudi Arabia] has hosted its own ‘green initiative’ inside a domed structure with luxury eco-hotel aesthetics.” Another FT article is headlined: “Saudi Arabia emboldened at COP27 as energy demand ‘exposes hypocrisies’.”

The New York Times reports on the first climate protest to be held with permission on UN “soil”, which took place in the COP27 “Blue Zone” on Saturday. The NYT says: “Hundreds of activists held a loud, midday demonstration at the UN climate summit on Saturday. It was a tiny number compared with protests at past summits held in other countries, but an extraordinary showing in Egypt, where dissent is suppressed.” It adds: “Demonstrators were concerned not just with climate but also with the fate of Alaa Abd El Fattah, Egypt’s most prominent political prisoner. Abd El Fattah is an activist and software developer who has been imprisoned for most of the past nine years for his condemnations of Egypt’s authoritarian government.” The Big Issue adds that the COP27 protesters were joined by climate justice activists in London and around the world.

“Common ground on climate change between feuding superpowers US and China may shrink further,” analysts have “warned”, as Washington “tries to have Beijing join wealthy nations in paying reparations” to countries suffering the impact of global warming, the South China Morning Post writes. The US has “softened” its opposition to a “loss and damage” fund, but “insists that China be seen as a developed nation and pay its share”, the article adds. ABC News writes that “while all countries are equal at the UN meeting, in practice little gets done without the approval of the world’s two biggest emitters: China and the US”. The US special climate envoy John Kerry is quoted saying: “I think we’re [the US and China are] both waiting to see how things go with the G20 and hopefully we [the US] can return [to negotiations with China].” The broadcaster highlights that “one way to raise additional cash and resolve the thorny issue of polluter payment would be for those countries that have seen an economic boom in the past three decades to step up”, adding that the focus is “chiefly on China”. Sky News Australia notes that the Australian environment and water minister Tanya Plibersek has said that “very large emitters” such as China need to be brought “into the tent”. She adds: “If China and the US can have constructive talks about climate change, that’s good for everybody.”

In other news, Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s climate envoy, said on Friday that the list of countries who “pay towards helping poorer countries cope with climate change should be updated”, reports Reuters, adding that she indicated that countries like China “should be included to reflect their economic growth”. The state-run newspaper China Daily has an editorial, titled: “Carbon mechanisms should serve emissions fight.” It cites Carbon Brief’s recent analysis showing that the US is falling $32bn short on its “fair share” of the $100bn climate-finance goal. The Guardian says that, while China has launched “some big initiatives and appears committed to mitigating the effects of the climate crisis and increasing its use of green energy, its international commitments fall short of what experts say is needed”.

Additionally, CNN carries an analysis by Nectar Gan, who writes that the “stakes” of US-China’s “much-anticipated” meeting in Bali at the G20 summit are high. The article adds that in a world “reeling” from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Covid-19 pandemic and the “devastation of climate change”, the two major powers “need to work together more than ever to instill stability – instead of driving deeper tensions along geopolitical fault lines”. The analysis also highlights that “expectations for the meeting are low”, adding that “locked in an intensifying great power rivalry, the US and China disagree with each other on just about every major issue”. The state-run newspaper Global Times has an article, titled: “Bitter US partisan strife proliferates to global stage, hampers COP27 climate response.”

Meanwhile, the state news agency Xinhua reports on the remarks made on Thursday by Zhao Yingmin, the head of the Chinese delegation to the COP27 and vice minister of the ministry of ecology and environment (MEE), at a side-event themed: “China’s strategies and actions on climate adaptation.” He said that actively adapting to climate change is a “realistic and urgent” task, adding that “mitigation and adaptation are the two major solutions to dealing with climate change, which should be given equal attention and neither of them should be neglected”. The article notes that on the issue of “loss and damage caused by climate change”, Zhao said that it is a “major concern for developing countries”, stressing that China will also “make positive efforts and contributions to promoting the progress of the negotiations on loss and damage”. Another Xinhua report says that “some Chinese enterprises are discussing and trying to provide their solutions to achieve carbon neutrality” on the sidelines of the ongoing COP27.

Speaking to the Guardian at COP27, the UK’s shadow climate secretary Ed Miliband has said a Labour government would “form an ‘anti-Opec’ alliance of countries dedicated to renewable energy, to bring down energy prices and promote clean technology”. Potential partner countries would include Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Costa Rica and Kenya, Miliband tells the Guardian. He says: “I say anti-Opec because Opec is a cartel, a group of countries that works together to keep prices high. This would be a way in which countries join together to be the vanguard and say, ‘We’re going to deliver on clean power and it will help to cut prices, not just for us but for others’.”

In other UK news, the Independent reports on a poll by Opinium finding the UK public “overwhelming backs” new onshore wind farms, (banned under Conservative government rules). The results show that shows 74% of people support building more wind farms, including 72% of Conservative voters, according to the Independent. The Sun also covers the poll. And the Sun also reports that prime minister Rishi Sunak has implied he will keep the fuel duty freeze in his autumn budget. (Carbon Brief analysis shows the fuel-duty freeze has increased UK emissions by up to 5%.) Reuters reports that the UK is also “considering a big increase” in its energy windfall tax. And the Guardian reports that the Treasury is discussing raising the energy price cap from April.

The German government has agreed that the country should leave the Energy Charter Treaty, the pact designed in the 1990s which allows international investors in energy projects to sue governments for profits lost due to policy changes, reports Politico. It quotes Anna Cavazzini, a Green party representative in government, saying that “the energy charter treaty is a toxic treaty, which slows down the energy transition”. Tagesschau adds that German Free Democrats have announced that the exit from the energy charter is part of a broad agreement to achieve the European-Canadian free trade agreement CETA. Reuters also covers a story.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that German federal police have warned their nation’s delegation at the COP27 of “overt and covert surveillance through photography and videography” by “Egyptian agents”. The embassy has called on Egyptian authorities to stop the monitoring activity, reports Deutsche Welle citing Germany’s foreign ministry. The outlet notes that Germany’s conference area has hosted events focused on the human rights situation in Egypt.

In other news from COP27, Der Spiegel reports that German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock is expected to be in Egypt this week. The article says Baerbock “welcomes debate on financial aid for climate damage”. In an interview with Wochentaz, she states: “Finally, we can combine the financial issues with the reduction targets.” Die Zeit carries a piece about German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Vietnam, where he announced Germany’s support for Vietnam’s efforts to tackle the effects of climate change along its long coastline and the Mekong Delta.

Elsewhere in German media, ZDF reports that the German parliament, the Bundestag, has passed changes to the Atomic Energy Act, allowing the continuing operation of three nuclear power plants until 15 April 2023. The outlet says that extending the term of the nuclear power plants Isar-2, Neckarwestheim-2 and Emsland in Lingen had led to “a sharp dispute” between the FDP and the Greens in the government’s “traffic-light” coalition. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) carries an article saying that “renewables are not sufficient and require controllable background capacities” and that is why “inexpensive nuclear power must remain connected to the grid for as long as necessary”.

Finally, Der Spiegel reports about a climate protest held in Berlin on Friday by the group Last Generation, who stuck themselves to roads. The news explains that the activists’ demands include introducing a 100 km/h speed limit on German autobahns. Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he expects “legal consequences” for climate activists who block roads or throw food at works of art, reports RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND), quoting the chancellor saying that anyone who violates the law must expect penalties “and that will certainly happen”.

Writing in the Independent, Boris Johnson and Iván Duque, the former leaders of the UK and Colombia respectively, argue that the negotiators and world leaders at COP27 “must overcome the growing and corrosive political scepticism about the ambition for net-zero – a scepticism that is one of the most disastrous consequences of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine”. One area that they could help to “keep 1.5C alive” is to prevent the “grubbing up [of] forests at a terrifying rate”. They add: “We need to signal more clearly that nature is protected. We are proud that both Colombia and the United Kingdom have joined 100 countries in the High Ambition Coalition for People and Nature. That means we consecrate 30% of our surface area to the natural world. We hope other countries will join, and we would like to see biodiversity credits to encourage countries and governments to value the natural resources they possess. We are technological optimists.”

In the Guardian, Bill McGuire, a professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL, claims: “Continuing to argue for the viability of 1.5C is misleading and raises false hopes. As such, it is vital that COP27 squashes claims that the goal is still alive. Not only this, it needs to hold up its hands and acknowledge the fact that missing this critical target represents a colossal failure for the whole COP apparatus.” He continues: “The failure of the COP process to avert the arrival of Hothouse Earth conditions doesn’t mean that it’s all over, that the battle is lost. Far from it. Above and beyond 1.5C, each and every 0.1C rise in global average temperature that we can forestall becomes critical; every ton of carbon dioxide or methane we can prevent being emitted becomes a vital win.” In the New York Times, Ani Dasgupta, the president of the World Resources Institute, focuses on the fraught issue of loss and damage at the talks: “The US and European Union must get behind this movement now. Specific details on how much money, where it comes from, who gets it and what qualifies take time to work out. But what’s critical at the current climate conference is that wealthy countries agree to a process, with clear deadlines, to pay for the damage. It’s not a matter of charity. Taking action is firmly in rich countries’ own interests.”

In the Independent, UK climate justice activist Scarlett Westbrook writes: “Year on year, we brace ourselves for the absolute absurdities we will experience at the [COPS], and this year is no different. It is the first week of COP27, and just like the past 26, it is proving to be anything but a success so far…COP27 should see the removal of the underwriting on fossil fuel companies and place sanctions on the the biggest polluters. COP27 must see the funds promised to island nations at COP27 materialise, and more. COP27 needs to see an international green new deal and an the phasing out of fossil fuels, immediately. We’re not asking for the world. We’re just trying to save it.”

Finally, an editorial in the Times looks to this week’s G20 summit in Indonesia and the expected meeting between the presidents of China and the US: “No one expects any breakthroughs on any area of disagreement, but it might prevent the relationship deteriorating further into open conflict by reducing risks of misunderstanding while paving the way for future progress on areas of mutual interest such as climate change.”

Guardian columnist John Harris notes that for the “first time in years, there is no top-tier minister [in the UK government’s cabinet] focused on the climate crisis”. He adds: “Even if outright climate denial is now taboo, mainstream Tory politics is brazenly focused on delay and dilution…Given their apparently likely defeat at the next election, a spell of introspection and soul-searching awaits the Tories. Or perhaps not: whether the Conservative party has any appetite for the gravity of the climate crisis and the anxieties of voters beyond an ageing and reactionary core is an interesting question. Amid fires and floods, and an electorate whose fears about a heating world will only increase, will it find a way back towards reality? Or is its trajectory now set: beyond Thatcher, past even Johnson, into a political netherworld it will share with the most disreputable and dangerous people?”

Providing evidence of Harris’s thesis, the right-leaning newspaper carry a range of climate-sceptic comment pieces. The lead opinion slot on today’s Daily Mail is given to Dominic Lawson to attack both the BBC and the Just Stop Oil protestors: “If broadcasters fail to challenge the hysterical claims of the eco-zealots, they might as well join them on the M25.” Also in the Daily Mail, the new UK business and energy minister Grant Shapps aims his ire at the “eco-zealot” protestors: “Do these self-appointed guardians of the planet think we in government don’t get it about climate change? Of course we do. Global warming is the primary threat to our long-term national security and it must be tackled. This country is leading the way on greening energy and transport, and the UK remains committed to net zero by 2050. But we are an economy in transition, still reliant on gas for much of our energy generation and oil to feed petrol and diesel engines. Yes, we need to change this, switching to sustainable, carbon-free sources such as offshore wind and nuclear. The thing is, it takes time.” Daily Telegraph columnist Zoe Strimpel writes: “Eco-nuttery is a deluxe form of millenarianism that most people, quite simply, can’t afford, either in time or cost – to say nothing of the effort it takes to learn their mad theories.”

Meanwhile, the Financial Times carries the first offering from its new columnist Stuart Kirk, the former editor of the FT’s Lex column who recently left his role as head of “responsible investment” at HSBC Asset Management after downplaying the risk of climate change in a speech. He writes: “The banking approach to net zero is just claptrap. The numbers are hokum, the clients are left in the dark and the real world impact is negligible anyway.” And the Sunday Telegraph has published a lengthy feature under the headline: “How Britain’s electric car revolution took a wrong turn.”

New research suggests that climate models have trouble capturing the recent strengthening of the North Atlantic jet, leading to “unreliable” projections of winter atmospheric circulation and associated precipitation over Europe. The authors run a series of climate models over 1951-2020 and find that “wintertime North Atlantic jet has strengthened, while model trends are, on average, only very weakly positive”. They say the difference between models and observations “is now much more apparent because of a very strong jet observed over the past decade”.