New Zealand is in a national state of emergency in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle, the Guardian reports. The country’s prime minister, Chris Hipkins, called the cyclone “the most significant weather event New Zealand has seen in this century”, while emergency management minister Kieran McAnulty called it “an unprecedented weather event”, according to the paper. This is only the third time in New Zealand’s history that a national state of emergency has been declared, Le Monde reports. Separately, the Guardian quotes New Zealand’s climate change minister and co-leader of the Green party, Jame Shaw: “I don’t think I’ve ever felt as sad or as angry about the lost decades that we spent bickering and arguing about whether climate change was real or not, whether it was caused by humans or not, whether it was bad or not, whether we should do something about it or not, because it is clearly here now, and if we do not act, it will get worse…There will be people who say it’s ‘too soon’ to talk about these things…but we are standing in it right now. This is a climate change-related event.” Separately, the paper has published a video of his comments, which he addressed to parliament on Tuesday. Reuters reports that “​​about 225,000 people were left without electricity, while dozens of supermarkets closed, with Hipkins urging New Zealanders not to panic-buy supplies”. The Independent reports that Aukland – the country’s largest city – had “barely recovered from extensive damage caused by extreme flooding and record rain at the end of last month” before Gabrielle hit.

“New EU rules defining ‘green’ hydrogen have intensified a long-running disagreement between France and Germany over how to treat nuclear energy,” the Financial Times reports. According to the paper, the European Commission set out a framework on Monday which “allows hydrogen derived from electricity grids with high levels of nuclear power to be considered green as long as the producer buys a long-term contract for renewable energy equivalent to its consumption”. The paper calls the move “a victory for France”, noting that nuclear energy provides three-quarters of the country’s power production. However, a spokesperson of Germany’s economy ministry said that, in its opinion, “nuclear power is not renewable energy and hydrogen made from nuclear energy is not green hydrogen”. Reuters notes that three types of hydrogen will be considered renewable under the new rules: “These include hydrogen from production facilities directly connected to a new renewable electricity generator and those that take grid power if the local electricity zone had more than an average 90% share of renewable power in the last year. Facilities can also take grid power in regions that meet a low CO2 emissions limit – potentially based on nuclear – so long as the producer also signs a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) with a renewable electricity provider in their region.” This comes as Le Monde reports on “the resurrection of Sweden’s nuclear program”.

In other European news, the Financial Times reports that the European Commission will announce new rules today requiring heavy vehicles to reduce their emissions by 45% by 2030 and 90% by 2040. Meanwhile, Reuters covers a warning from France’s markets watchdog, which say that EU rules for labelling sustainable investment funds need tightening to cut greenwashing. Quartz reports that the EU, plus the UK and Norway, have spent or earmarked more than $800bn to support energy consumers and customers in total. The outlet adds that Germany is “by far the biggest spender”. And Reuters reports that a German project “expects to hit a key milestone of 30% ‘green’ energy blended with natural gas heating some households south-west of the country within weeks”.

Pakistan plans to “quadruple” its domestic coal-fired capacity to “reduce power generation costs” and will not build new gas-fired plants in the coming years as it seeks to ease a crippling foreign-exchange crisis, its energy minister has told Reuters in an “exclusive”. The newswire adds: “A shortage of natural gas, which accounts for over a third of the country’s power output, plunged large areas into hours of darkness last year. A surge in global prices of liquefied natural gas (LNG) after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and an onerous economic crisis had made LNG unaffordable for Pakistan. ‘LNG is no longer part of the long-term plan,’ Pakistan energy minister Khurram Dastgir Khan told Reuters, adding that the country plans to increase domestic coal-fired power capacity to 10 gigawatts (GW) in the medium-term, from 2.31GW currently. Pakistan’s plan to switch to coal to provide its citizens reliable electricity underscores challenges in drafting effective decarbonisation strategies, at a time when some developing countries are struggling to keep lights on.”

Reuters adds: “In addition to the coal-fired plants, Pakistan also plans to boost its solar, hydro and nuclear power fleet, Dastgir said, without elaborating. If the proposed plants are constructed, it could also widen the gap between Pakistan’s power demand and installed power generation capacity, potentially forcing the country to idle plants…It was not immediately clear how Pakistan will finance the proposed coal fleet, but Dastgir said setting up new plants will depend on ‘investor interest’, which he expects to increase when newly commissioned coal-fired plants are proved viable. Financial institutions in China and Japan, which are among the biggest financiers of coal units in developing countries, have been backing out of funding fossil-fuel projects in recent years amid pressure from activists and Western governments.”

China’s Xinhua newswire reports the comments of National Energy Administration official Wang Dapeng who has said that China’s renewable energy industry “continued to lead globally in 2022”, adding that “China-made photovoltaic modules, wind turbines, gear boxes and other key components accounted for 70% of the global market share last year”. China’s renewable energy development has made “positive contributions to global emissions reduction”, the newswire adds. It highlights that, in 2022, China’s renewable energy generation was “equivalent to a reduction of 2.26bn tonnes of domestic carbon dioxide emissions” and its wind power and photovoltaic products “helped other countries reduce emissions by approximately 573m tonnes”.

Meanwhile, the South China Morning Post writes that “24 of the world’s largest and richest companies, including three based in Asia, have failed to deliver on their climate pledge”, according to the “latest report evaluating the transparency and integrity of corporate environmental strategies”. The 2023 Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor, “jointly released” on Monday by the NewClimate Institute for Climate Policy and Global Sustainability and the NGO Carbon Market Watch (also see below), found that the climate strategies of those major global companies were “mired by ambiguous commitments, offsetting plans that lack credibility and emission scope exclusions”. Separately, Reuters says in an “exclusive” that China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) is “close to finalising a deal to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG)” from QatarEnergy “over nearly 30 years”, citing “three people with knowledge of the matter”. Another Reuters report writes that oil prices “edged higher” on Monday, “rebounding from early losses, as investors weighed Russia’s plans to cut crude production and short-term demand concerns ahead of US inflation data this week”. Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group, is quoted saying that “with China reopening, we will see more demand and Russia and OPEC has the same or less supply, which is bullish”.

Finally, Forbes reports that “Zeekr, an electric vehicle brand of Chinese billionaire Li Shufu’s Geely Holding Group, announced on Monday it raised $750 million from investors including Chinese billionaire Robin Zeng’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the world’s largest EV battery maker by production capacity”. And an editorial in the Daily Telegraph argues that, following the “spy balloon” tensions, the UK “should stop giving foreign aid to China”. It adds: “Aid-funded activities include research partnerships, technical support for development, climate change mitigation initiatives, health partnerships, human rights projects and scholarships. These may be laudable in themselves, but it is unacceptable that taxpayers’ money from a heavily indebted country should be diverted in this way.

Haitham Al-Ghais, the secretary-general of OPEC, has said the oil industry had been “plagued by several years of chronic underinvestment” and needs $500bn of investment annually until 2045, Bloomberg reports. Speaking at an energy conference in Cairo on Sunday, Al-Ghais urged negotiators to “look at the big picture” and “work towards an energy transition that is orderly, inclusive and helps ensure energy security for all,” the outlet says. He added that climate policies need to be more “balanced and fair,” the paper reports. 

This comes as Reuters covers comments from Russia’s deputy prime minister Alexander Novak, who said yesterday that Russia plans to sell more than 80% of its oil exports to “friendly” countries in 2023. According to the outlet, “friendly countries” are those that have not sanctioned Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that, according to Goldman Sachs, “Moscow’s trade partners have increasingly paid more for Russian crude than quoted prices suggest”. This comes as Bloomberg reports that Russia did the most drilling at their oil fields in more than a decade last year, with “little sign that international sanctions or the departure of some major Western firms directly harmed so-called upstream operations”.

The Daily Telegraph reports that hydrogen will be pumped into the UK’s main gas pipeline by 2025. It continues: “Between 2% and 5% of the fuel flowing through the country’s transmission network will be hydrogen in two years under plans drawn up by National Gas, which owns the pipelines. The blending would be the first step in plans to convert the network so that it can be filled entirely with hydrogen by 2050, as part of a national overhaul to cut carbon emissions.”

A new report has accused some of the world’s biggest companies of making “misleading” claims about their emissions reductions plans, warning that they are on course to miss their own net-zero targets, the Times reports. This is according to the “Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor” (see China section above) – which looks at 24 big companies with links to the “Race to Zero” campaign, the paper says. It continues: “At least 18 of the companies plan to rely ‘heavily’ on offsetting their emissions by planting trees and through similar projects designed to remove carbon from the atmosphere. The report says that this is problematic.” The 24 companies investigated in the report are responsible for 4% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, span eight sectors including automobiles, fashion, food and technology and have combined yearly revenue of more than $3tn, the Wall Street Journal reports. It adds that the combined net-zero pledges of the 24 companies “would reduce their total greenhouse-gas emissions by 36% by their respective target years, typically 2040 or 2050, compared with the at least 90% emission reductions needed”. BusinessGreen adds that the report “does not rate a single company in its sample study as having ‘high integrity’ net-zero plans”.

The US Environmental Protection Agency wants to “empower private citizens to police oil wells and pipelines for methane leaks”, under its proposed “super-emitter response program”, Bloomberg reports. Under the programme, individuals with agency-approved expertise and equipment would be authorised to monitor oil industry operations for methane emissions and notify companies of any high-volume leaks, the outlet says. It continues: “Environmental activists have cheered the proposal, saying it boosts the incentive for oil and gas companies to stifle methane leaks. But the oil industry’s main lobbying body lashed out against it, saying it raises a raft of legal, logistical, commercial and safety risks, in addition to potentially setting a precedent of tapping private citizens to do the government’s job.”

In other US news, Reuters reports that the Biden administration will sell 26m barrels of crude oil from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve – pushing the reserve to its lowest level since 1983. This has caused a drop in oil prices, Reuters reports elsewhere. Separately, the newswire reports that US crude oil and natural gas production from the seven biggest shale basins is expected to rise to record highs in March.

Meanwhile, Climate Home News reports that Biden has promised to “work with Congress” to fund the protection of the Amazon rainforest, after meeting Brazil’s president Lula da Silva. This includes helping to fund the Amazon Fund – a pot of money administered by the Brazilian Development Bank which is spent on forest protection projects like small-scale farming and management of forests by indigenous people – the outlet says. It adds: “The $1.2bn fund was suspended under Bolsonaro but revived on Lula’s first day in office. It is funded by Norway and Germany and the UK is considering a donation too. The US has never financially backed it before.”

Elsewhere, the Financial Times reports: “The Biden administration’s $370bn package of subsidies for clean energy is generating a surge of activity for consultants, lawyers and brokers, after allowing green tax credits to be sold on the open market for the first time.” And Politico says: “​​Republicans are seizing on anti-China fervour in Washington to attack President Joe Biden’s hundreds of billions of dollars in climate spending – by jumping on any possible links to Beijing.”

The Financial Times’ Lex column weighs the advantages and disadvantages of proposed EU legislation to limit subsidies for hydrogen energy. The legislation would subsidise “green hydrogen” made by electrolysers powered wind or solar generation, but not hydrogen “made by hooking electrolysers up to the power grid,” which relies predominantly on fossil power, the FT writes. The column continues: “This could mean good news for big renewable generators such as Spain’s Iberdrola, should the EU’s strict approach lift demand for pure renewable power. An unexpected green light for nuclear power [the EU would waive the new strictures if the grid were to be largely renewable, or nuclear] would give the French hydrogen industry a head start.” It counter-argues: “But the strict rule-book will prove a setback for the European hydrogen industry as a whole – from electrolyser manufacturers to energy companies hoping to switch clients on to hydrogen. Worse, if the US settles on a more flexible approach, that will energise the transatlantic tussle for green investments.”

Elsewhere, the Los Angeles Times have adapted an essay from Greta Thunberg’s book “The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions,” in which she criticises the failure to implement adequate climate finance. Thunberg writes: “[I]n June 2021, the International Energy Agency concluded that out of the historic [Covid-19] global recovery plan, only a bleak 2% had been invested into green energy, whatever ‘green’ means in this case.” She continues: “If the people in power were the least bit honest about their strategies for staying below 1.5C or even 2C of global average temperature rise, they would be pouring money into projects like the world’s biggest direct air carbon removal plant in Iceland. But there are still only 20 or so small carbon capture and storage plants running worldwide, some of which have been shown to actually emit more CO2 than they capture.”

Naomi Klein, the author, activist and professor of climate justice at the University of British Columbia, is interviewed by journalist Madeleine de Trenqualye in the Guardian. Speaking on the “loss and damage agreement” brought into being at COP27, Klein says: “There’s definitely been a breakthrough in accepting that there is a climate debt owed…My concern is that if damage payments are finally breaking through at a time when more countries are slipping under authoritarian rule, and these governments are at war with their own people, then it isn’t really a political breakthrough.”

New research reveals a mechanism by which some coral reefs in the eastern tropical Pacific (ETP) may “be more resilient than previously thought” and shows “how future reefs might still maintain high cover for several decades, albeit with low diversity”. To understand changes in thermal tolerance in the ETP, the researchers compile four decades of temperature, coral cover, coral bleaching and mortality data – including three mass bleaching events. The study proposes that increasing abundance of a “thermotolerant symbiotic alga” – known as Durusdinium glynnii – hosted by the corals has “facilitated the maintenance of high coral cover after three mass coral bleaching events”. The authors note that “although the low-diversity, high-cover reefs of the ETP could illustrate a potential functional state for some future reefs, this state may only be temporary unless global greenhouse gas emissions and resultant global warming are curtailed”.