The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has “quietly removed the fact that human activity is driving climate change from a handful of pages on its website”, the New York Times reports. It continues: “The information was deleted from one webpage titled ‘Causes of Climate Change’ and another that tracks the impacts of global warming in the US. The changes come as the Trump administration takes aggressive action to boost oil, gas and coal, the burning of which is the main driver of global warming.” The newspaper quotes Rachel Cleetus, from the not-for-profit organisation the Union of Concerned Scientists, as saying: “EPA is trying to bury the evidence on human-caused climate change.” The Associated Press says that the “EPA altered some but not all of its climate change webpages, de-emphasising and even deleting references to the burning of coal, oil and natural gas”. It adds: “The website’s causes of climate page mentions changes in Earth’s orbit, solar activity, Earth’s reflectivity, volcanoes and natural carbon dioxide changes, but not the burning of fossil fuels.”

MORE ON US

• A commentary in Reuters says Texas has made a “clean power breakthrough” as solar output has overtaken that of coal power.
• The New York Times reports on how Texas is increasingly replacing oil drilling with geothermal energy production.
• The Associated Press continues to cover news that Donald Trump’s all-out ban on new wind projects has been struck down by a federal judge.
• The US Pacific north-west is facing floods and power outages amid a series of severe storms, the Associated Press reports.
• The New York Times reports on a solar company that has managed to succeed despite Trump’s crackdown on renewables, by leasing its products to consumers.

The European Union has agreed on a target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040, from 1990 levels, including the purchase of carbon offset credits to cover 5% of the reductions, Reuters reports. It continues: “The agreement will require EU industries to cut emissions by 85% and, from 2036, EU nations to pay non-member countries to cut emissions on their behalf to make up the remainder. The European Parliament and EU countries must each approve the target for it to become law, usually a formality that waves through pre-agreed deals.” The newswire notes that the target “goes beyond most other major economies’ emissions-cutting pledges”, but still “fell short of that recommended by the EU’s climate change science advisers and was weaker than an original goal, reflecting disagreement between EU governments over the speed and cost of their green agenda”. Bloomberg reports that a “key element of the deal is the EU allowing international carbon credits to account for a greater share of emissions reductions”. It continues: “The limit was set at 5 percentage points of emissions reductions, compared with 3 percentage points originally proposed by the commission.” Euractiv reports that the agreement “ends 18 months of arduous talks that repeatedly ran into political resistance from industry-friendly capitals and nervous MEPs”.

MORE ON EUROPE

• France has said its delayed energy planning law will be released before Christmas, Reuters reports, which notes that it will not include a moratorium on renewable energy despite a push from the far-right opposition.
• A separate Reuters story says that the EU is set to “fast-track power grids projects in a race to curb energy prices”.
• The Financial Times reports that the “vital EU-Mercosur trade deal hangs in the balance days before the deadline”.
• The EU has agreed state aid for Poland’s first nuclear plant, reports Reuters.

A largest-of-its-kind UN environment report “calls for a new approach to jointly tackle the most pressing environmental issues including climate change and biodiversity loss”, AP reports. The newswire says that more than 300 scientists contributed to the report, which was approved on Tuesday at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya. However, Agence France-Presse reports that, for the first time ever, countries failed to agree on a “summary for policymakers” to be published alongside the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) global environment outlook. The outlet says: “Since first being published in 1997, UNEP’s flagship outlook reports have been accompanied by a summary for policymakers: a political statement, negotiated line by line, that distils the science into plain language for governments. Under UN rules, this can only be approved by consensus, as it serves as a collective understanding of the latest science in a way policy leaders can act upon. However, at a five-day meeting in late October to approve the summary, sharp divisions over the text made consensus impossible. Major oil producers Saudi Arabia and the US opposed references to phasing out fossil fuels, which are used to make plastic and, when burned, are the primary driver of climate change, according to minutes of the meeting seen by AFP.” The newswire adds that UNEP chief Inger Andersen called the lack of a summary for policymakers “regrettable”, but added the “integrity of the report” remained.

US fossil-fuel company ExxonMobil has said it will cut planned spending on low-carbon projects by one-third, the FT reports. It continues: “Exxon said spending on low-carbon initiatives would be cut to $20bn over the next five years, down from about $30bn previously. The company also recently paused plans for a $7bn hydrogen plant in Baytown, Texas, citing low customer demand. Some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies are pulling back from low-carbon projects and returning their focus to fossil fuels, amid expectations that oil demand will remain more resilient and that the green transition will take longer than anticipated.” The Times notes that “ExxonMobil’s decision comes after BP reversed its push into clean energy, stating that it had gone ‘too far, too fast’, while Shell scaled back plans for offshore wind investments and weakened its 2030 emissions goals.”

MORE ON OIL MAJORS

• The Financial Times reports that “almost 60 major low-carbon hydrogen projects including by oil groups BP and ExxonMobil have been cancelled or put on hold this year, as the industry is hit by spiralling costs, policy uncertainty and a lack of buyers”.

Chinese firms have invested around $80bn in overseas “clean technology investments” in the past year as the sector in the country looks for “new markets to absorb a supply glut”, Reuters reports, citing a new report by Australian thinktank Climate Energy Finance (CEF). China’s total overseas direct investments in low-carbon technology have reached more than $180bn since the start of 2023, the report says. The increasing investments from China offer opportunities for “emerging economies seeking to reduce their dependence on imported fossil fuels”, it quotes Caroline Wang, report author and CEF China engagement lead, as saying. Bloomberg, which also covers the report, notes that south-east Asia remains the top destination for Chinese clean-technology capital, adding that the Middle East and North Africa have also “emerged as the fastest-growing regions for Chinese investment in the battery and solar sectors”. 

MORE ON CHINA

• People’s Daily carries an article under the byline Jin Sheping, used to signal the thoughts of party leadership on economic matters, saying China’s new energy vehicle sector has “rapidly turned its advantages into economies of scale”. People’s Daily also says “green trade” is becoming a “key direction” for China’s foreign trade.
• Ding Ding, deputy director of the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, writes that China should “fully leverage the guiding role” of its “dual-carbon” goals, based on the “binding targets under the NDC”, in an article for Outlook Weekly, an outlet under state news agency Xinhua.
• Bloomberg reports that half of China’s first-time auto buyers would choose an electric vehicle (EV), due to “affordability, range of models and improved charging”. China’s oil output is expected to reach 215m tonnes in 2025, a record high, CCTV reports.
• An editorial in China Daily argues that China and Germany are expected to “reinforce their strategic partnership to lead global efforts to address the climate emergency”.
• Hu Min, director of the Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress, writes in China Daily that China can help turn the “vision” of a global energy transition into “reality”.
• Increasing numbers of companies in China can purchase electricity “at market-based rates, with more flexible cost control and a faster transition towards cleaner energy” as the country accelerates its “power market reform”, Xinhua reports.

The UK energy regulator Ofgen has announced plans to bring forward the creation of three electricity “superhighways” to “help limit the amount that households pay for windfarms to turn off during periods of high power generation”, the Guardian says. It continues: “Current grid bottlenecks mean there is not enough capacity to transport the abundance of electricity generated in periods of strong winds to areas where energy demand is highest. The new high-voltage cable projects linking windfarms in Scotland and off the North Sea coast to densely populated areas in the south of the country could start operations by the early 2030s rather than towards the end of the decade, according to the sector regulator. This should help to cut the rising cost of paying windfarms to turn off when they generate more electricity than the grid can transport.”

MORE ON UK

• As Storm Bram hits the UK, BBC News reports that “thousands of flood defences are below standard” in England.
• The government’s plans for the Sizewell C nuclear plant are facing a high court battle over claims the project could harm a rare bird’s habitat, the Daily Telegraph reports.
• The Daily Telegraph also quotes an airline lobbyist saying the UK government is “addicted” to raising air passenger duty, “under the guise of helping the environment”.

Industry experts and analysts tell Reuters that “record-low bids” to build battery energy storage systems in India could make the country’s renewable energy push “economically unviable and even pose safety risks”. According to the industry body India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA), India had “just” 500 megawatt-hours (MWh) of battery storage systems operating in September, against a need for 236 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of storage by 2032, the story adds. Recent bids in renewable-rich Rajasthan “have come in at about two cents a kilowatt-hour”, a level a solar executive describes to the newswire as “bonkers”. IESA president Debmalya Sen tells Reuters the “race to provide lowest tariffs is killing the game”, warning that projects risk relying on “super cheap [solar] cells that raise safety and performance concerns in high-temperature regions”. India’s power secretary responded to the outlet saying that “the government is constantly reviewing policies around storage”.

MORE ON INDIA

• Following talks between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi on Friday, the Kremlin “expressed confidence” that India will continue to purchase energy from Russia, the Press Trust of India reports. India’s external affairs ministry said that India’s energy sourcing is dependent on “the imperative to provide energy at affordable rates to our 1.4bn people”, the Economic Times reports.
• According to another Economic Times story, energy billionaire Gautam Adani has said that India’s sovereignty and “second freedom struggle” will depend on “mastering the resources beneath its soil”, warning against “narrative colonisation” by historical emitters prescribing how India should develop.
• India’s former environment secretary Leena Nandan said that the country’s “decade-long opposition to using trade measures as climate instruments” was finally acknowledged in COP30’s outcome, ANI reports.
• A feature in the Quint says that “a quieter crisis is undermining the foundation of a fair green transition”, which is the country’s own economic data.
• Farmers across Punjab have been protesting against attempts to amend India’s main electricity act, burning copies of the bill that farm leaders describe as “anti-people”, Economic Times reports.

Guardian Australia climate and environment editor Adam Morton says that it has been “two years since the climate change minister, Chris Bowen, declared ‘the age of fossil fuels will end’ after nearly 200 countries agreed that the world should transition away from use of coal, oil and gas”, but so far the response from the Australian government has been “not much different”. He continues: “Australia is second only to Indonesia in shipping thermal coal, which is burned to create electricity. It rivals the US and Qatar as the biggest seller of [liquefied natural gas]. It is easily the biggest exporter of metallurgical coal, which is used in steelmaking. The country has not reduced this footprint since the then Coalition government signed up to the landmark Paris climate agreement in 2015. Instead, it has sprinted in the opposite direction.”

MORE COMMENT

• In a long read on how the UK government is struggling to deliver on objectives, the Financial Times notes that “one senior Whitehall official said that some ministers were starting to deliver, for example energy secretary Ed Miliband, who is approving a slew of wind and solar farms”.
• Daily Telegraph world economy editor Ambrose Pritchard-Evans says: “Britain cannot let China capture its wind industry.”
• The Observer examines the collapse of UK car-sharing platform Zipcar.
• An editorial in the Wall Street Journal covers the recent retraction of a journal article calculating economic damages from climate change.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Daisy Dunne, with contributions from Aruna Chandrasekhar, Anika Patel and Henry Zhang. It was edited by Robert McSweeney.

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