There is continuing coverage of the UK general election campaign as outlets pick up on yesterday’s launch of the Liberal Democrat manifesto of policy pledges. The Evening Standard reports the launch under a print headline that mentions Brexit and global warming, quoting the manifesto saying: “We are the last generation that can stop irreversible climate change.” The paper says the Lib Dem pledges include investing £130bn in transport, energy systems, homes and other infrastructure, as well as an earlier 2030 ban on the sale of non-electric cars. ITV News says the Lib Dems would bring forward the UK’s target to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by five years, to 2045, with 80% of electricity to be renewable by 2030. In the coverage from BBC News, analysis by science editor David Shukman says: “Even by the standards of an election busy with competing green claims, the Liberal Democrats’ target for renewable energy is ambitious.” He cites the 40% of electricity that came from renewables during the third quarter of 2019, drawing on recent Carbon Brief analysis. The broadcaster’s economics editor Faisal Islam says a pledged increase in air passenger duty would “go to the fight against climate change”, under the Lib Dem manifesto. The Guardian says the increase in air passenger duty would raise a predicted £4.8bn and would be “likely to hit frequent flyers”. It says the party would create a Department of Climate Change and Natural Resources, as well as having “a sustainability minister embedded in the Treasury [to] ensure targets were adhered to”. An analysis piece from ITV News picks up on Lib Dem plans to invest £15bn over the next five years to retrofit existing homes to improve their energy efficiency and the party’s aim to insulate all 26m homes by 2030. It mentions the manifesto’s promise to “take ambitious action to tackle the climate emergency”. BusinessGreen also covers the launch.

Separately, the Guardian reports that Oxford Dictionaries has declared “climate emergency” to be the word of the year for 2019. And EurActiv reports that Pascal Canfin, the MEP chairing the European Parliament’s environment committee, has called on the assembly to declare a climate emergency at its next plenary meeting in November.

Meanwhile, there are several previews of the Labour manifesto, due to be launched in Birmingham later today. The Guardian trails what it describes as a pledge “to create 1m green jobs in the energy sector and through nationwide home refurbishments in a bid to tackle the climate crisis”. It says that environmental protection is “expected to be a central theme” of the document. The paper adds that “the shift to a greener economy [under Labour] would involve the set up of a £250bn green transformation fund dedicated to renewable and low-carbon energy and transport, biodiversity and environmental restoration”. The Financial Times says an expected Labour manifesto pledge for a “windfall tax on the oil industry” has “prompted anger from some union officials”. It reports: “Senior figures inside the opposition party said the idea was very likely to feature in its election manifesto.” BBC News also covers this expected pledge. Finally, Metro reports on Tuesday night’s debate in which Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was “booed for standing up for the poorest on climate change”. It adds: “There has been a backlash against audience members in last night’s ITV debate who heckled Jeremy Corbyn when he talked about climate change.”

There is further coverage of a study on expanding coal capacity in China, first reported by the Financial Times and Reuters yesterday. The findings, from Global Energy Monitor, show that China has added 43 gigawatts (GW) to its coal fleet over the past two years, the Washington Post says. It compares this figure to the total fleet in Germany. BBC News says the expansion comes as coal capacity has shrunk in the rest of the world, adding: “Researchers say the surge is a major threat to the Paris climate targets.” However, the piece quotes head of climate change investment research at BNP Paribas Asset Management Mark Lewis saying the majority of the new coal plants being built in China will become “stranded assets” that will “never make the economic return on which they have been premised”. The Guardian is among those quoting Global Energy Monitor’s Christine Shearer saying: “China’s proposed coal expansion is so far out of alignment with the Paris Agreement that it would put the necessary reductions in coal power out of reach, even if every other country were to completely eliminate its coal fleet.” Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, Agence France-Presse and City AM are among those also covering the research.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that China plans to cut its renewable power subsidy to 5.67bn yuan ($807m) in 2020, from 8.1bn yuan this year. Due to falling costs, renewables are increasingly expected to compete with coal power prices, it explains, meaning they are reaching “grid price parity”.

Separately, E&E News reports on the shift towards the use of more coal in south-east Asia, quoting the International Energy Agency’s Keisuke Sadamori saying it is “the only region in the world where coal is expected to increase its share” of the energy mix.

Australian government officials have told major business groups that there will have to be a diplomatic solution to the country’s plans for using “carryover credits” from overachievement of its target under the Kyoto Protocol to meet goals under the Paris Agreement, the Guardian says, adding that the EU, Canada and Pacific nations have objected to the idea. The paper reports: “British officials, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting, said everything was negotiable in the context of the UN talks, but using carryover credits should not become a substitute for climate action.” The matter could be discussed in the context of rules for carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the Guardian says, at the upcoming COP25 UN climate talks in Madrid at the start of December. [Carbon Brief is preparing to publish an in-depth explainer on the Article 6 negotiations.]

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports on comments from Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, regarding the question of links between the country’s rising greenhouse gas emissions and the severity of the wildfires “ravaging the continent”. It quotes him saying: “[T]he suggestion that any way shape or form that Australia, accountable for 1.3% of the world’s emissions, that the individual actions of Australia are impacting directly on specific fire events, whether it’s here or anywhere else in the world, that doesn’t bear up to credible scientific evidence either”. Reuters reports on firefighters battling hundreds of bushfires across Australia, saying the events – including thick smoke blanketing Sydney for a third day – are “stepping up pressure on prime minister Scott Morrison to tackle climate change”. It adds: “The early arrival and severity of the fires in the southern hemisphere spring follows three years of drought that experts have linked to climate change and which have left bushland tinder-dry.”

Finally, the Guardian reports on exchanges at the News Corp AGM, where executive chairman Rupert Murdoch responded to a question about time given to “climate deniers” by the company’s outlets in Australia. The paper quotes Murdoch saying: “There are no climate change deniers around I can assure you.” The Guardian adds: “[Andrew] Bolt, a political commentator and blogger for News Corp Australia, is known for promoting the views of climate science deniers, and for his own attacks on ‘alarmists’ and his derision of climate change science. Bolt also has a nightly show on Sky News where he often interviews guests who reject that humans cause climate change.”

Writing in the Financial Times, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Sir Ed Davey says that “instead of erecting trade barriers with the EU, Britain must foster the green economy”. Davey links Lib Dem plans on the EU and climate change, set out in the party’s manifesto yesterday, to the decision by electric car company Tesla to build its European factory in Germany, not the UK, as a result of Brexit. Davey says: “Rather than interminable wrangling over Brexit, we should be building on our successes and taking Britain to the forefront of the low-carbon revolution again. The UK could have been the first port of call for investments like Tesla’s factory. We could be encouraging the growth of world-leading innovation in climate technologies such as carbon capture and storage, tidal power and hydrogen fuel. We could become the green finance capital of the world.” He concludes: “The time is now for green innovation – and for that we need to remain at the heart of Europe, with the climate emergency at the forefront of our minds.” For the Guardian, writer Stephen Buranyi says that the public wants “actual solutions” to climate change rather than “lofty targets”.

“Unprecedented” atmospheric conditions drove the “exceptional” rate of melting over the Greenland ice sheet in 2019, a new study finds. Using a combination of satellite data, climate model outputs and artificial neural networks, the researchers find that the rate of surface mass balance loss from the ice sheet reached a record this year, while the rate of runoff was second highest in the 1948-2019 record, beaten only by the runoff rate seen in 2012. “Summer of 2019 was characterised by an exceptional persistence of anticyclonic conditions that, in conjunction with low albedo associated with reduced snowfall in summer, enhanced the melt,” the authors say.

The impact of frost damage on apple trees could increase by 10%, relative to today, if global warming reaches 2C above pre-industrial levels, a study finds.  The absolute number of frost days is actually declining, the researchers say, but warmer winters lead to earlier blossom of fruit trees, which in turn can lead to increased risks of the occurrence of frost days after apple blossom. “An improved understanding of ecosystem responses to changes in climate signals is important to fully assess the impacts of climate change,” the study authors say.