Britain’s energy secretary, Ed Davey, has hailed a European
deal on climate change as a blow to Vladimir Putin as it will
reduce the region’s dependence on Russian gas imports. “This is a
big shot across his bows,” Davey said, referring to the Russian
president. “We are strategically moving away. Europe will not be as
dependent on Mr Putin as before and I think that’s a very important
national security and energy security message.”

A deal to use market forces in the fight against climate
change on a truly global scale is close, United Nations officials
have claimed. So far, 74 countries, including the EU, China and
Russia (but not the US, Canada, Japan or Australia) have signed up
to a UN declaration in support of carbon pricing. It is also
supported by 1,000 businesses, from oil firms BP and Statoil to
giant corporations such as Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Unilever. This
means that an international carbon market – in which companies buy
and sell the right to produce harmful emissions – is now close to
becoming a reality.

The Mail reports on a new study that says the major cooling
of Earth and continental ice build-up in the Northern Hemisphere
2.7 million years ago coincided with a shift in the circulation of
the ocean. The research suggests that changes in the storage of
heat in the deep ocean could be as important to climate change as
other hypotheses – tectonic activity or a drop in the carbon
dioxide level – and likely led to one of the major climate
transitions of the past 30 million years.

Britain will no longer be forced to build wind and solar
farms from 2020, reports The Telegraph. Current legally-binding
targets require the UK to generate 15 per cent of its energy from
renewable sources by 2020, but following UK lobbying, the EU 2030
deal does not impose binding national targets for renewable energy
or energy efficiency. That leaves countries free to choose how to
cut their carbon emissions.

Climate change may have “serious, pervasive and
irreversible” impacts on human society and nature, according to the
draft UN Synthesis Report due for approval this week. Delegates
from more than 100 governments and top scientists meet in
Copenhagen on Oct 27-31 to edit the report, meant as the main guide
for nations working on a UN deal to fight climate change at a
summit in Paris in late 2015. They will publish the final report on
November 2nd.

The energy secretary, Ed Davey, has sought to reassure
households that there will be no energy shortage this winter, after
a series of fires at power stations raised fears about Britain’s
lights going out. Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Davey said: “There
will be no blackouts. Period.” He makes his pledge shortly before
the energy regulator Ofgem publishes its assessment of the UK’s
energy supplies on Tuesday.

The real story behind the fire at Didcot B power station is
that half of the energy we use to make electricity is not used,
says Christopher Booker in The Telegraph. Next month, the Combined
Heat and Power (CHP) Association will publish a report highlighting
that heat waste from power stations is “very significantly” more
than all the heat we get from the gas used to warm Britain’s 25
million homes. Booker argues that Britain should follow the example
of Denmark’s local power stations, but that it would be impossible
until the Climate Change Act was repealed.

BusinessGreen compiles reaction to the EU 2030 climate and
energy deal from different sectors. Thomas Becker, chief executive
officer of the European Wind Energy Association, says: “The 27 per
cent target is disappointing and is contrary to the incoming
Commission’s plans to make Europe the world leader in renewables.”
While John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, says:
“No-one can realistically claim this package is ambitious enough to
tackle the twin challenges of climate change and energy security.”

Christopher Booker criticises the Government’s Chief
Scientific Advisor, Sir Mark Walport, for his warnings of ocean
acidification on Radio 4’s Today programme last week. Booker says
talk of “the ocean turning to acid” and absorbing more carbon
dioxide is “scientific bunkum”.

At least 3,700 major dams, each with a capacity of more than
1 megawatt, are either planned or under construction, a new study
finds. The dams, primarily in countries with emerging economies,
are predicted to increase the existing global hydroelectricity
capacity by 73 per cent to about 1,700 gigwatts. But the
researchers argue that even such a dramatic expansion in hydropower
capacity will be insufficient to compensate for the increasing
electricity demand.

Researchers have found that circulation of the ocean plays
an equally important role as the atmosphere in regulating the
earth’s climate. The new study finds that it was the establishment
of the modern deep ocean circulation – the ocean conveyor – about
2.7 million years ago, and not a major change in carbon dioxide
concentration in the atmosphere that triggered an expansion of the
ice sheets in the northern hemisphere.

New research shows that as a result of sea-ice reduction in
the Barents-Kara Sea, the probability of severe winters has more
than doubled in central Eurasia. Climate model simulations suggest
that sea-ice decline leads to more frequent Eurasian blocking
patterns, which pulls cold air over Eurasia and hence causes severe
winters. However, their analysis also suggests that sea-ice-driven
cold winters are unlikely to dominate in a warming future climate.