Many UK news outlets report on a letter sent from the chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), Lord Deben, to the planning minister Robert Jenrick rebuking the government’s decision to allow a new coking coal mine in Cumbria. BBC News says the CCC has “rapped” the minister, adding: “They say the site will increase global emissions and compromise the UK’s legally binding carbon budgets. They warn the decision could undermine its leadership of the vital COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November…Environmentalists have reacted with astonishment and disbelief, saying the carbon from burning coal is clearly a global concern.” The Independent says the CCC has “slammed ministers in a fast-escalating controversy over a new £165m coal mine set to be dug in Cumbria”. The publication adds: “In a dramatic intervention, it also said the site would compromise the country’s aim of becoming carbon neutral by 2050…Advocates point out that only coking coal – entirely essential in the production of steel – will be mined; not thermal coal for fuelling power stations.” BusinessGreen and the Press Association are among other outlets covering the story.

The Financial Times reports that the opposition “Labour party has called for a ban on UK North Sea oil operators burning or releasing gas ‘except in dire safety emergencies’ after data showed the contentious practice of ‘flaring and venting’ in the region is responsible for a coal plant’s worth of carbon emissions each year”. It adds: “Campaign group Greenpeace UK will [today] publish a report that for the first time names and shames the oil operators in British waters that are responsible for the most emissions from flaring and venting.” Greenpeace’s Unearthed has published its investigation under the headline: “Revealed: The North Sea oil giants fuelling climate change with millions of tonnes in preventable emissions.” Writing in the Times, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson and Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Sheehan argue that the “UK must prove its climate leadership by phasing out North Sea oil and gas production”. They add: “For all the political momentum behind its green agenda, the government has enshrined the objective of ‘maximising economic recovery’ of the UK’s offshore oil and gas reserves…To meet the Paris goals, complementary demand and supply-side measures must be deployed; otherwise it’s like using a one-armed pair of scissors.”

In other UK news, the Times reports that “ratesetters at the Bank of England will be asked to reflect climate change risks in their decision-making for the first time under Treasury plans”. It adds: “The chancellor is expected to introduce environmental clauses into the Bank’s mandate when he updates it at the budget in March. Treasury officials have been in talks with the Bank on the design of a green monetary policy but a final decision has yet to be taken. Climate change considerations are already in the Bank’s financial stability mandate, which includes stress testing lenders against global warming risks, but monetary policy remains strictly focused on price stability and supporting economic objectives.” The Financial Times focuses on Aviva Investors, saying: “One of Britain’s top asset managers has warned it will use the ‘ultimate sanction’ and ditch stakes in 30 of the world’s largest oil, gas, mining and utilities companies unless they do more to tackle climate change. The blunt message from Aviva Investors, which manages £355bn, marks a departure from the current blueprint of most asset managers, which is to stay invested in the oil and gas industry while urging companies to do more on global warming.”

Meanwhile, the Times says that “consumers are paying £250m a year for National Grid to procure extra back-up power stations to prevent the risk of blackouts from tens of thousands of small plants with faulty old settings”. The newspaper adds: “The settings cause the plants to shut down too easily when they detect a fluctuation in the frequency or voltage of electricity on the network, typically because of a problem elsewhere.” The Daily Telegraph has a news feature about how “start-up company Britishvolt has announced plans to build a £2.6bn factory to pump out 300,000 lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries each year”, but how it is now trying to “head off doubters”. Energy Monitor has a feature about how “at one month old, the UK emissions trading scheme remains a mystery”. (See Carbon Brief‘s recent Q&A on what the new UK-EU Brexit deal means for climate change and energy, which includes a section on the new UK ETS.) Finally, the Daily Telegraph reports that Stanley Johnson, Boris Johnson’s father who is today announcing that he is the new International Ambassador for the Conservative Environment Network, is arguing that “farming needs to go back to old-fashioned methods to help the environment”. The newspaper adds: “He is expected to lobby for wilder farming at the major climate change conference COP26, scheduled to take place in Glasgow this summer. [Note: COP26 is scheduled for November.] Mr Johnson, a passionate rewilder, told the Telegraph about his vision of farming, explaining: ‘It’s not rewilding as such but going back to methods of farming which are very much the way things were. Rain fed agriculture, grass fed agriculture, even not ploughing up. You may gain more in carbon terms from doing that than from planting a load of trees.’”

Germany’s grid operators have warned that the nation may need to double its renewable energy capacity by 2035 as Europe’s biggest economy goes electric in heating, transport and other sectors, reports Reuters. The newswire adds: “Presenting their capacity planning through to 2035, the four high voltage transmission grid firms said that Germany will need to have renewable power capacity of between 233 and 261 gigawatts (GW) by 2035, compared with just under 130 GW recently forecast for end-2021…The plan will be discussed with the energy regulator to get approval for the infrastructure, which is refinanced through charges levied on consumers.”

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports on how Europe saw a “surge in popularity” for electric cars in 2020. The newspaper adds: “Of the nearly 730,000 battery electric vehicles sold in western Europe during 2020, over 300,000 were delivered in the last three months of the year, according to research by Bernstein. Some carmakers, such as Daimler, only crossed the line after a concerted effort to drive sales right at the end of the year. Volkswagen narrowly missed its target, despite teaming up with over-compliant rivals such as MG and the London EV Company.” The New York Times has a feature, titled: “Electric cars are coming, and fast. Is the nation’s grid up to it?” It continues: “That shift will have sweeping implications for the companies that produce and sell electricity and manage the grid. Analysts generally agree that it is entirely feasible to power many millions of new cars with electricity, but it will take careful planning.”

There continues to be a substantial volume of commentary and analysis reacting to US president Joe Biden’s sweeping new climate agenda. An analytical feature in the Guardian notes how Biden is framing his plans as a source of “job creation”, continuing: “The Trump years may well have been the death rattle of influential denialism. The American public’s concern over the climate crisis is at record levels, with even a majority of Republican voters supporting government intervention in the wake of a year of unprecedented wildfires and hurricanes that cost hundreds of lives and tens of billions of dollars. The question is now whether the US is able to change quickly enough to avert further disaster, rather than if it will change at all.” An editorial in the Guardian says: “Delays and prevarications on climate action thus far mean that change must now happen very fast. The most useful move that Mr Biden could now make would be to announce that April’s talks will be the launch pad for a global green recovery. This is no time to sit back. Instead, the world must press on, and speed up.” An editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle says that “Biden’s climate shift is a break and a test for [California governor Gavin] Newsom”, adding: “Newsom, and indeed the state, country and world, are right to celebrate Washington’s return to reality after four years of relentless rollbacks of environmental policies. But the Biden era also means the governor and other state policymakers will be called on to explain what they’re doing – and not doing – to stem pollution beyond doing battle with Trump.” The Economist says that “problems abound” for Biden’s agenda: “The Biden administration believes it has to co-operate with China to make sufficient progress on reducing global greenhouse-gas emissions, but arguments over security, trade and human rights make that difficult. COP26, the UN’s climate summit scheduled for November in Glasgow, will be a crucial test of the new president’s skills. But he seems committed to the task.” BBC News‘s Justin Rowlatt asks whether Biden’s climate agenda is the “beginning of the end for fossil fuels” and speaks to John Kerry. Writing in Foreign Policy, Timothy Naftali – a CNN presidential historian – and Christopher White – national correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter – argue that, working together, Biden and Pope Francis “could make a climate change miracle”. Washington Post columnist Henry Olsen says the Republicans should now embrace an “operation warp speed” for climate change: “Climate change is increasingly becoming an issue that the right cannot ignore. While it remains low on the list of public policy priorities, it is a relatively higher priority among younger and female voters. Its importance is also likely to rise rather than fall as the consequences of a changing climate mount. It’s wiser, then, to get ahead of the political curve than to constantly play catch-up with Democratic politicians.”

Meanwhile, an editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald says the Joe Biden’s occupancy of the White House “change the balance in Australia’s climate wars”. It adds: “Australia will have no-one to hide behind if it argues against stronger action at [COP26]. Mr Biden could also apply bilateral diplomatic pressure on prime minister Scott Morrison over his failure to produce a serious emissions reduction policy despite the Coalition’s seven years in power. It is not an issue that will split the US alliance but it could lead to uncomfortable moments.” Adam Morton – Guardian Australia’s environment editor – says Biden’s agenda “underscores the scale of the international pressure the Morrison government is likely to face this year if it maintains its resistance to making the science-based commitments expected under the 2015 climate pact”.

Separately, the Financial Times has a “big read” on whether a “leaner” US shale oil industry can “ever lure back investors”. And the Financial Times’s “climate graphic of the week” shows how storms are intensifying in the Atlantic basin.

Every decade, the maximum point of intensity for tropical cyclones moves 30km closer to coastlines, a new study finds. The study investigates changes in global tropical cyclone activity in coastal regions between 1982-2018, and finds that cyclone activity is moving poleward and westward – closer to coastal regions. It also concludes that “two additional cyclones per decade” have been observed over this period.

A new study finds that Arctic sea ice could stop insulating the atmosphere from oceanic surfaces as early as the mid-2020s. As the climate warms, Arctic sea ice shifts from “thick multiyear ice”, which limits heat flow between the atmosphere and sea, to thinner ice which cannot do this as effectively. The authors evaluate the threshold for this change by simulating the atmospheric response to sea ice at varying thicknesses. They find that the threshold occurs when ice reaches a thickness of 0.4-0.5m. The resulting “effective” ice area is between 4-14% lower than reported total ice area, the study finds, as between 390,000–970,000 km2 of total ice area “falls below the threshold throughout the twentieth century”.