There is continued coverage of National Grid analysis finding wind power provided a record amount of the island of Great Britain’s energy last year, while gas use also increased. (Northern Ireland is not included due to it being on a different grid.) The Guardian reports that wind power accounted for 26.8% of all generation in 2022, up from 21.9% the year before. In January 2022, wind-power gained its highest ever share of the energy mix, accounting for 64% of generation, it adds. Daily Express coverage of the analysis cites Carbon Brief analysis showing that building wind power was nine times cheaper than gas at that time.

Elsewhere, the Times reports that Tory MPs have called for communities living near wind and solar farms to get their energy bills paid for as an incentive to gain local approval. The 1922 backbench committee on business, energy and industrial strategy has recommended “a tiered system to provide an incentive and compensate people for renewable energy facilities”, says the Times. It continues: “It says all new onshore wind farms and solar farms should be subject to a local referendum. Those living within a mile of a proposed scheme should be given free energy, it argues. Those within three miles should get a 50% discount and those within four miles 25% over the lifetime of the project.” It comes as the Guardian reports on analysis from the energy firm Octopus showing that households in Yorkshire, the Midlands and the north-east of England are most willing to live near a windfarm in return for cheaper power.

In addition, Bloomberg reports that the UK government plans to to reform its flagship electricity security programme in order to achieve its goal of having a carbon-free power grid by 2035. It reports: “Proposed changes would mean emissions limits for fossil fuel plants from 2034 and offering multiyear contracts for large consumers in order to cut demand…Bolstering a dwindling buffer of spare capacity is a priority for Britain after the network operator issued several market warnings this winter.”

It comes as the Financial Times reports on a preliminary assessment from the UK’s Environment Agency finding that England will face another drought this summer unless the country receives above-average rainfall in the coming months.

The Daily Telegraph interviews Nick Boyle, the head of BP’s joint solar venture Lightsource BP, on its plans for building renewable power. The articles notes that BP is currently planing to build its first solar farm with battery storage on a site in Tiln Farm, Retford. In addition, the company wants to develop four gigawatts of battery capacity at projects around the world by 2025, the article says.

Elsewhere, the Times reports that Shell has paid tax in the UK North Sea for the first time in five years after facing the windfall tax. The Times says: “The oil giant said it had incurred an undisclosed tax bill under the levy in respect of its profits for last year and that some of this cash had been paid out to the exchequer. It received tax rebates from the UK in the previous four years.”

The Times also reports that oil prices are forecast to break free of a recent slump and rise during the second half of this year “as tight supply and the full benefit of China loosening Covid restrictions outweigh the impact of global recessions”.

In addition, the Times reports on analysis finding that falling gas prices related to unseasonably warm weather could save the UK government £13bn in energy subsidies and debt interest payments.

The Guardian interviews Nigel Topping, who served for two years as the high-level champion for the UK’s presidency of COP26, passing on the role to Egypt’s Mahmoud Mohieldin late last year at COP27. He tells the newspaper he believes that the world could meet net-zero in the 2040s, if governments set “bold policy decisions”. He tells the Guardian: “Governments could be way bolder in setting targets, and back their scientists, engineers, businesses, banks, cities to come up with solutions. The moonshot analogy is not inappropriate.” Topping also notes that the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) produced a scenario by which the UK could reach net-zero by 2042 as part of its sixth carbon budget report. He adds: “Given that we’ve now got California and Germany saying 2045 is their target, I think you can argue quite strongly that the whole world could get to net-zero in the early 2040s, and in many sectors in the late 2030s.“ (CCC chief Chris Stark previously explained to Carbon Brief’s special correspondent Daisy Dunne that reaching net-zero by 2042 would require enormous shifts to British society.)

The Financial Times reports that, according to its sources, Russia is trying to block the reappointment of the head of the UN Environmental Programme “following a highly critical report about the impact of the war on Ukraine”. The FT says: “Russia has agitated for several months against the reappointment of Inger Andersen, an economist with a long career at the World Bank, as the executive director of UNEP, according to two UN sources. The move is seen by diplomats as part of a broader effort by the country to exert influence on the world stage and undermine the objectives of western nations that have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

During German vice-chancellor Robert Habeck’s visit to Norway last week, the two countries agreed to a “green” partnership, which will likely include the construction of one of Europe’s first hydrogen pipelines, reports EurActiv. It quotes Habeck saying: “Today we get most of our natural gas from Norway, in the future we want to increasingly import offshore wind energy and hydrogen.” However, Deutsche Welle notes that German environmental groups have warned that the development of “blue hydrogen” facilities is “a step in the wrong direction” due to their reliance on fossil gas. In addition, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reports that the German government wants to utilise Norwegian carbon capture and storage technologies, which are not covered by German legislation. Habeck’s visit to the Norcem cement plant in Brevik, Norway, represents a shift in German policy back towards efforts to deal with planet-warming emissions by capturing them and making use (CCSU) of them in industrial processes, Reuters reports.

Meanwhile, Habeck stated that Germany is now recovering its energy capacity after breaking its gas relationships with Russia, even though “half of our [Germany’s] eggs were in the basket of Putin”, the Guardian reports. Habeck is focused on scaling up renewable electricity from about 46% to 80% by 2030, he said, adding: “I would advise everyone to focus on one plan and not disrupt everything again”, notes the outlet. Die Zeit adds that the gas storage facilities in Germany “will be more than 50% full by the end of winter”, said the Federal Network Agency’s president Klaus Müller. Reuters also covers the story, adding that Müller said gas prices, which soared during 2022 but have recently come down again, had reached a “plateau” level that would persist for the next couple of years.

In addition, BBC News reports on activists’ efforts to prevent the construction of a new coal mine in Lützerath, in western Germany.

In the Guardian, Pakistan’s prime minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif urges countries to support the country as it faces the aftermath of 2022 floods and other climate extremes. He writes: “International attention has receded, but the waters have not. Large parts of Sindh and Balochistan provinces remain inundated. The number of food-insecure people in Pakistan has doubled to 14 million; another 9 million have been pushed into extreme poverty. These flooded areas now look like a huge series of permanent lakes, transforming forever the terrain and the lives of people living there. No amount of pumps can remove this water in less than a year; and by July 2023, the worry is that these areas may flood again.” He adds that he will today co-host the International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan in Geneva, along with UN secretary-general António Guterres.

Bloomberg’s senior climate reporter Akshat Rathi examines what 2023 could hold for climate action. He says that 2023 could see European countries “race to green” in response to the US Inflation Reduction Act, the country’s largest-ever climate bill passed in 2022. In addition, this year could also see the release of new low-carbon technologies and greater scrutiny of carbon offsetting schemes, he adds. Elsewhere, Joe Lo at Climate Home News examines 13 “critical questions” for action on climate change in 2023. Among them are: “Will World Bank and IMF move the big bucks to climate? Who will pay and who will get loss and damage funds? Will Lula save the Amazon?”; and “Who will win COP28’s fossil fuel fight?”

Elsewhere, Observer science editor Robin McKie factchecks a misleading column by climate-sceptic Matt Ridley in the Times, which incorrectly states that the Arctic sea ice has “hardly” declined in recent decades. (See Carbon Brief‘s detailed explainer on how climate change is devastating Arctic sea ice.) It comes as the Daily Telegraph publishes a column by climate-sceptic commentator Zoe Strimpel who describes efforts to warn the world about environmental problems as “anti-humanism” and “rooted primarily in the desire to destroy human progress”.

In addition, Sunday Times columnist Giles Coren explains why he got rid of his electric car.

The area of the Amazon favourable to “extreme storms” will increase 15% by the end of the century, under the “highest emission scenario” SSP5-85, according to new research. This will cause a 43% rise in “windthrow density” – forest mortality caused by convective storms – the paper finds. Using Earth system models, the authors find connections between strong convective storms and forest dynamics in the Amazon. “These results indicate significant changes in tropical forest composition and carbon cycle dynamics under climate change,” the authors say.