Several publications cover new findings from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) showing that, says Axios, “temperatures in Europe are increasing twice as fast as in any other continent on Earth”. It adds that Europe has warmed by 0.5C per decade over the past 30 years, a rate only exceeded by the Arctic and parts of Antarctica. The outlet adds: “European warming is having sweeping changes on the environment, including melting mountain glaciers and more severe and persistent extreme weather events.” Reuters says Europe has warmed “more than twice as much as the rest of the world over the past three decades”, with the global average being just 0.2C per decade. It quotes WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas saying: “Europe presents a live picture of a warming world and reminds us that even well prepared societies are not safe from impacts of extreme weather events.” The Guardian says of the findings: “The European State of the Climate report, produced with the EU’s Copernicus service, warns that as the warming trend continues, exceptional heat, wildfires, floods and other climate breakdown outcomes will affect society, economies and ecosystems.” The Independent and MailOnline also have the story.

In related news, the European Central Bank (ECB) has “warned banks that failing to tackle their financial risks from climate change in the next two years will result in higher capital requirements and fines”, the Financial Times reports. Reuters reports: “Euro zone banks still largely fail to meet the European Central Bank’s climate disclosure and management expectations, and laggards who keep failing deadlines could be forced to hold more capital, the ECB said on Wednesday.” Politico says: “ECB ratchets up the pressure on banks to tackle climate risks.”

In a widely covered U-turn, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak will attend the COP27 summit in Egypt next week, Reuters reports, adding that the decision “revers[es] a much-criticised decision to skip the annual climate gathering to work on pressing economic issues at home”. The Press Association says Sunak “bow[ed] to pressure from activists, his own environment adviser and Boris Johnson”. It adds: “The prime minister’s official spokesman insisted it was good progress on the 17 November autumn Budget that changed Sunak’s mind on attendance.” The Financial Times says Sunak will join “more than 100 heads of state” in attending COP27. Politico says the decision “is bound to annoy those on the right of his Conservative Party who had celebrated his decision not to go”. The Guardian says the move “may open the door for King Charles to attend as well”. It says: “Sunak had come under sustained pressure to go to COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh from the many supporters of the UK’s net-zero goals in the Conservative party and parliament more broadly, as well as facing international criticism. The Egyptian government had voiced ‘disappointment’.” BBC News, the Sun, Sky News, the Hill, the National, the Daily Express, BusinessGreen and three separate Independent articles all cover the story. The Times says Sunak had “privately dropped the government’s objections to King Charles attending the COP27 conference in Egypt, but it was too late to arrange the visit”.

An editorial in the Daily Mail calls Sunak’s reversal an “embarrassing U-turn” and says he “had a perfectly valid reason for declining to attend”. It asks “what would such virtue-signalling achieve”. It adds: “How depressing, then, that pilloried by a hysterical Left and a hostile BBC, Sunak has performed a screeching U-turn.” An editorial in the Sun takes a similar line, saying: “Too many recent PMs have surrendered to the herd. By which we mean publicity-hungry Tory ‘wets’, the BBC, left-wing papers, Twitter and Labour…So we are sorry to see him cave in and agree to attend the COP27 climate summit.” (Both papers ignore that many within Sunak’s own party were calling for him to reverse the decision.) In the Daily Telegraph, columnist and assistant editor Michael Deacon writes: “Poor Rishi Sunak…perhaps he should have stood his ground. Because he could have used an excuse that even the most fanatical anti-Tory would have lapped up with a spoon. ‘The reason I’m not going to COP27,’ he could have said, ‘is that Greta Thunberg isn’t going, either.’” Deacon adds, in his article headlined: “It’s time for middle-aged men to stop grovelling to Greta,” that he is “not having a go at Thunberg herself” and that he has “nothing against her personally”. For the Hindu, R Srinivasan writes of Sunak’s U-turn: “This may help convince British voters that Britain’s voice still matters on the world stage but is unlikely to materially alter the outcomes of the world’s biggest climate jamboree.”

Meanwhile, Climate Home News reports that the leaders of India, China, Australia, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and others are “set to snub” COP27. Bloomberg says: “At least 16 high-level Biden administration officials will represent the US at the UN climate conference.”

Separately, the Associated Press reports: “A group of winners of the Nobel prize in literature urged world leaders on Wednesday to raise human rights issues as they visit Egypt for the COP27 climate change conference.”

According to an action plan published yesterday by the Ministry of Science and Technology and other government departments, China will “seek high-tech solutions to resolve its complex environmental challenges and make use of innovations in big data, biotech and artificial intelligence to tackle pollution, habitat loss and climate change”, reports Reuters. The plan says China will build a “green technology innovation system” over the 2021-2025 period to “tackle air, soil and groundwater pollution, reduce waste and protect ecosystems”. The plan also notes that current technologies are “not mature enough to serve the country’s long-term needs”.

Meanwhile, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top economic planner, says that it will “promote construction of large wind power and hydropower bases, ramp up renewable energy consumption and increase support for foreign investment in advanced and new technologies”, the state-run Global Times reports. Additionally, the South China Morning Post has an article, titled: “China set to strengthen carbon emissions standard-setting and measurements to ensure hitting 2060 climate goals.” Another South China Morning Post article reports: “Carbon reduction is a $50tn business opportunity for Asia, says UN special envoy Mark Carney.”

Separately, an article by Catherine Early published by China Dialogue quotes senior fellow at the World Resources Institute Taryn Fransen: “If China were to set a concrete target to cut methane emissions, that would have a notable impact on the global temperature trajectory.” Climate Home News carries an article which quotes Tom Evans of thinktank E3G, who says: “The absence of [Chinese president Xi Jinping] and [Indian prime minister Narendra Modi] doesn’t help inject much-needed political momentum into the talks.” Nature writes that the past two decades have seen a “welcome expansion” of international collaborations on science between China and the US, adding that the collaboration now “seems to be ending, in large part because of rising tensions between the two nations”.

Finally, Bloomberg runs a comment piece by Hal Brands, a columnist, titled: “The green-energy revolution will make the world more dangerous.” He writes: “China, which has long pursued loans-for-resources deals in developing countries, is investing heavily in production of methanol and other non-traditional fuels at home, while paying close attention to sources of renewable energy abroad.”

The UK’s prime minister Rishi Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt are, reports a frontpage story in the Times, “planning to extend windfall taxes on oil and gas companies to raise an estimated £40bn over five years”. The paper says the pair “want to maximise revenues from the windfall tax by increasing the rate from 25% to 30%, extending the levy until 2028 and expanding the scheme to cover electricity generators”. It continues: “Internal government estimates suggest that the approach would increase revenues from the existing tax, which is due to end by 2026, by 50% to £40bn. However, there is uncertainty over the potential income because of volatile gas prices.”

A related comment for the Sun by pro-motoring lobbyist and climate-sceptic Howard Cox is titled: “How many more chancellors need to be told that only a fuel duty CUT will get Britain going?” Cox writes: “Since 2010, along with the Sun, I have been championing the positive benefits of cutting Fuel Duty to help deliver more disposable income to UK’s 37 million motorists, van drivers and truckers. But BP and Shell are currently wallowing in yet more obscene profits while drivers are struggling to pay the big oil corporations’ escalating and uncontrolled pump prices.”

In other comment from the UK, in the Times, columnist Iain Martin says: “A cheap, reliable supply of power is everything, but the chaos in Westminster has left in disarray plans to fix the crisis.” He adds: “What’s needed? Interconnectors, construction strengthening the grid, storage for gas, onshore wind, faster nuclear. We need more of just about everything. And it’s not going to be free. If there is an area along with defence that the chancellor should prioritise, it is this. From it flows all else.” For BusinessGreen, the Energy Saving Trust’s Mike Thornton says: “Ministers should act now to make buildings more efficient and reduce the nation’s dependency on fossil fuels.” In the Financial Times, columnist Cat Rutter Pooley comments on the financial woes of battery startup Britishvolt: “Government support is needed for Britain’s battery sector – but not necessarily for this particular start-up.” Another Financial Times comment by columnist Helen Thomas criticises the housebuilding industry for its “gripes” over the Future Homes Standard, which she describes as “overdue requirements on low-carbon heating and energy efficiency and other measures related to the energy transition”. She adds: “[I]ndustry lobbying helped kill the last iteration of zero-carbon housing regulation in 2015. As a result, about 1m new homes had been built with lower efficiency standards, said Carbon Brief, which alongside the cuts to subsidies for retrofitting houses has hurt in this energy crisis.”

Some of the world’s most famous glaciers are set to disappear by 2050 as a result of climate change, Reuters says, citing a UNESCO report. It says UNESCO monitors 18,600 glaciers across 50 of its World Heritage sites, of which a third are set to melt by midcentury. These include in the Dolomites in Italy, Yosemite and Yellowstone in the US and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. BBC News reports: “Glaciers across the globe – including the last ones in Africa – will be unavoidably lost by 2050 due to climate change, the UN says in a report.” Axios also has the story.

The Guardian covers new research on the Congo peatlands that it says show the region is “a huge carbon ‘timebomb’ that could be triggered by the climate crisis”. The paper says the peatlands span the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo, are the largest in the tropics and cover 17m hectares. It adds that they “store a vast amount of carbon – the equivalent of three years of global fossil fuel emissions”. (Study lead Prof Simon Lewis explains his team’s findings in a guest post for Carbon Brief.)

The world’s capacity for carbon capture and storage (CCS) grew by 44% during the past year, Energy Monitor reports, citing figures released in October by the Global CCS Institute. It adds that the project pipeline has grown by 61 to reach 196 facilities, of which 30 are in operation and 11 are under construction. Separately, Reuters reports: “The Netherlands’ highest court on Wednesday ruled that a major carbon capture project might have to be halted because it did not meet European environmental guidelines.” It adds: “The planned ‘Porthos’ project in the Rotterdam port area would be Europe’s largest carbon capture and storage facility, expected to reduce the country’s annual CO2 emissions by about 2%.”

“Ever since the term [‘tragedy of the commons’] was first coined in 1968, we have been acting it out to its fullest with devastating consequences for our land, water and atmosphere,” writes former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres in a comment for the Guardian. “It’s time to halt the tragedy, and focus on the necessity of the commons. Every drop of water we drink, every molecule of oxygen we breathe and every morsel of food we eat comes from nature. The evolution of the human race shows that we need nature much more than she needs us.” Figueres continues: “The major challenge in front of us is not technical or financial. What’s needed is a mindset shift…It’s only by changing the way we think, from competitive towards collaborative, that we will be able to work together and accelerate these efforts.” She concludes: “Radical collaboration is hard. It requires us to adopt a different mindset; it requires us to listen to, share and work with people who we may have previously seen as competitors. Radical collaboration pushes past the status quo and shakes up power dynamics. In the face of approaching climate tipping points and the collapse of the living world as we know it, we cannot afford to continue without it.”

Guardian columnist George Monbiot writes that the Devon coastline contains “the most frightening cliffs on Earth” because of the story they tell: “For they capture the moment at which life on Earth almost came to an end. The sediments preserved in these cliffs were laid down in the early Triassic period, just after the greatest mass extinction in the history of multicellular life…Around 90% of species died.” Monbiot continues: “[T]hough there were no humans on the planet, this disaster seems to have been caused by fossil fuel burning.” He adds: “The story the cliffs tell is of planetary tipping points: Earth systems pushed past their critical thresholds…Could it happen again? Two parallel and contradictory processes are in play. At climate summits, governments produce feeble voluntary commitments to limit the production of greenhouse gases. At the same time, almost every state with significant fossil reserves – including the UK – intends to extract as much as they can.” He concludes: “Everything now hangs on which process prevails: the sometimes well-meaning, but always feeble, attempts to limit the burning of fossil carbon, or the ruthless determination – often on the part of the same governments – to extract (and therefore burn) as much of it as possible, granting the profits of legacy industries precedence over life on Earth.”

A feature for Climate Home News previews COP27 discussions on loss and damage finance and says the issue of litigation and liability “hasn’t gone away”. It says: “In fact, the floodgates of litigation feared by wealthy nations have now well and truly been opened – as a result of international inaction rather than action.” The piece adds: “Climate lawsuits have been most successful in getting governments to cut national emissions. Increasingly, many are seeking compensation from historic polluters.” Axios says: “Climate damages will dominate UN summit.” Bloomberg explains “why loss and damage is a climate talks battleground”. Reuters says US Republicans will attempt to use COP27 “to press need for minerals”. In the Boston Globe, columnist Joan Vennochi writes under the headline: “At stake for John Kerry at COP27: Climate and his legacy.” BBC News looks back at what has happened over the past year since COP26. Reuters says Mexico is to make a “major climate commitment” at COP27, according according to Kerry.

In his column for the Atlantic, Robinson Meyer looks ahead to the US midterm elections, writing: “If the looming GOP majority sabotages climate policy, its own voters will suffer. The party might do it anyway.” Bloomberg says climate spending under the US Inflation Reduction Act “may end up as high as $1tn, says political science Prof Leah Stokes”. Meanwhile, Energy Monitor also previews the vote, under the headline: “Positive outlook for US energy transition ahead of midterm elections.” Politico has a piece titled: “The oil and gas paradox threatening Biden’s party at the polls.” Reuters says a windfall tax on oil companies proposed by President Biden is “unlikely to pass US Congress”. Another Reuters article says the White House “will make $13.5bn available to help low-income US households lower their heating costs this winter”. The Washington Post says Republicans plan to “probe ‘cancer’ of climate-friendly investing after midterms”.

A Financial Times special report on chemicals and manufacturing includes coverage of hydrogen, asking: “Is it finally lift-off for green hydrogen?” It looks at policy developments including supportive moves in the EU and the US and says, citing the International Energy Agency, that electrolysers for hydrogen production could fall in cost by 70% by 2030 and that production of low-emission hydrogen could reach 16-24m tonnes per year, up from less than 1Mt today. Another article in the report looks at plastic recycling.

Natural and semi-natural protected areas (PAs) can provide a “thermal buffer” for species as the climate warms, a new study says. Compared to non-protected areas, the vegetation in these PAs “effectively cool the land surface temperature, particularly the daily maximum temperature in the tropics, and reduce diurnal and seasonal temperature ranges in boreal and temperate regions”, the researchers find. They also note that the warming rate in protected boreal forests can be “up to 20% lower than in their surroundings”. The findings highlight “the importance of conservation to stabilise the local climate and safeguard biodiversity”, the authors conclude.