Power supplies will be sufficient to keep the lights on this winter, says a National Grid forecast, but only because of emergency measures introduced to avoid blackouts. The National Grid predicts that the buffer between supply and demand during the winter months is likely to average 5.5% — similar to last year’s margin — and says this is “manageable”. However, without a scheme of payments to guarantee supply from some power providers, that capacity margin would have fallen to 0.1%, reports the Sunday Times. The National Grid bolsters supplies by paying 10 power plants £123m to stay open through an emergency scheme, says the Telegraph, and the plants receive additional payments if they are needed as a “last resort” to prevent blackouts. Last winter the emergency measures were only called upon once, in early November, notes the Telegraph. Director of UK market operations for National Grid, Cordi O’Hara, says she is confident “that we have the right tools and services available, including extra power we can call on if we need it, for times of highest demand”.

The latest draft version of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade agreement could sabotage European efforts to save energy and switch to clean power, according to MEPs. The 14th round of negotiations on the free trade deal between the EU and US is due to begin today in Brussels. A leak obtained by the Guardian suggests the EU will propose a rollback of mandatory energy savings measures, and put up obstacles to pricing schemes designed to encourage the uptake of renewable energies.“These proposals are completely unacceptable,” argues Green MEP Claude Turmes. “They would sabotage EU legislators’ ability to privilege renewables and energy efficiency over unsustainable fossil fuels.”

The Royal Navy has raised objections to a £590 million project to build a giant subsea electricity cable between Britain and France, amid concerns that it could affect military aircraft. The “IFA2 link”, a joint venture between National Grid and its French equivalent, RTE, will stretch 127 miles from Normandy to a site near Portsmouth. The proposed site for a transformer to connect the cable into the UK power grid is on the southern edge of a First World War naval airfield, Daedalus. In a letter seen by The Times, naval chiefs warn that the powerful electromagnetic field generated by the cable could interfere with the avionic systems of military aircraft that still use the airfield for maintenance and testing.

Britain’s vote to leave the EU and the ensuing political uncertainty is raising doubts over a £1.3bn tidal power project in Swansea Bay, says the company behind the project. A review by the Department of Energy & Climate Change of the prospects for tidal power generation in the UK is due later this year. However, Keith Clarke, chairman of Tidal Lagoon Power, says he is worried the decision could be delayed by political fallout from the Brexit vote. “Any political decision at the moment has a degree of uncertainty, if only on timing, because we do not know who is going to be prime minister,” Clarke tells the FT. “My concern is that people are too distracted to get on with the business of government.”

Britain’s climate will become increasingly extreme over the next few decades, with a growing risk of floods, drought and hotter temperatures, says a new evidence report to the government. The report, by the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Committee on Climate Change, is due to be published on Tuesday morning, but the Sunday Times appears to have broken the embargo. The document will provide an assessment of the most urgent risks and opportunities arising from climate change for the UK. The Daily Star appears to have followed the Sunday Times’ lead with an article of its own.

Germany and Saudi Arabia have announced plans to ratify the Paris Agreement by the end of the year. Speaking at the annual Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin, German chancellor Angela Merkel said she hopes German states could quickly agree on the country’s new climate plan, which is currently under consideration by the German parliament. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabian oil minister Khalid al-Falih reiterates that his country is “fully committed” to the COP21 deal, adding that it could formally join the Agreement ahead of the Marrakesh COP22 climate summit.

Energy companies are demanding that Ofgem improve scrutiny of new suppliers, after the regulator proposed making them pick up the tab if a rival goes out of business. Doug Stewart, chief executive of Green Energy, has written to Ofgem objecting to the plan, and calling for it to introduce “stress tests” on suppliers. Stewart argues that because companies are allowed to demand advance payment, a supplier could potentially keep offering unsustainably low prices, acquiring new customers to get more upfront payments to cover its losses, a model he says would be “not too far from a Ponzi scheme”. Stephen Fitzpatrick, chief executive of Ovo Energy, also raises concerns about scrutiny of new entrants and says Ofgem should “ensure they have a sustainable and robust business plan”.

EDF Energy has pulled out of Government subsidy contracts to keep its two coal-fired power stations running in winters 2019-20 and 2020-21, after scrapping plans for major upgrades to the plants. Under the Government’s capacity market scheme, power plants are offered subsidy contracts to guarantee their availability in future winters. But EDF says the refurbishments to its Cottam and West Burton A power plants in Nottinghamshire are no longer viable due to the fall in wholesale electricity prices since it was awarded the contracts in 2014. EDF says the plants will still run as part of the scheme in 2018-19, and it will seek one-year contracts for 2020-21 in future.

“Forget the old debate about peak oil,” says the FT’s Nick Butler, “now it seems we are approaching peak energy.” The latest data suggests EU total primary energy demand is down by almost 11% in the past decade, Chinese demand growth has slowed in the past three years, and total energy consumption in the US has been flat for the last decade. The crucial factor in the shift in the relationship between economic growth and energy use is technology, Butler argues: “Those thinking of the future should take note of the fact that the obvious gains in energy efficiency and intensity clearly have further to go.” With demand in the west beginning to fall, “the net result could well be that we will see peak global energy demand within the next decade,” he concludes.

The share of the world’s oil supplies coming from the Middle East has risen to its highest since the 1970s. This is a “salutary reminder of a weakness that is too easily forgotten at a time when crude is cheap: the world is still vulnerable to an oil supply shock,” says the FT in an editorial. “The more the world becomes accustomed to the idea that oil prices will stay low, the worse the pain will be if they rise sharply,” the article argues. One solution for consuming countries is to use “fuel taxes, efficiency standards and support for electric vehicles to discourage short-sighted responses to oil prices that may be only temporarily low,” says the FT, and that “subsidies for oil consumption should be cut wherever politics allow it.”

Scientist Dr Gergis describes the saga stemming from a typo in a paper published online by the Journal of Climate. Gergis’ paper showed that temperatures recorded in Australasia since 1950 were warmer than at any time in the past 1,000 years. However, a single-word mistake in the text of paper regarding the type of data used in the study was seized upon by bloggers and the mainstream media as evidence of conspiring to dramatise warming in their results. “Meanwhile, we set about rigorously checking and rechecking every step of our study in a bid to dispel any doubts about its accuracy,” describes Gergis. “After the exhaustive checking, the paper has [now] been published with essentially the same conclusions as before, but now with more confidence in our results,” Gergis concludes.

Warming and acidifying oceans are affecting the health and survival of kelp forests, particularly those in the warmest part of their range. A new mesoscosm study shows how elevated water temperatures are directly reducing kelp biomass while at the same time resulting in more sea urchins, which feed on kelp. Numbers of rock lobsters, which usually keep sea urchin numbers in check, are falling, putting yet more pressure on kelp populations. Communities will need to adapt to survive in future, say the authors, though it’s uncertain whether they will keep pace with the intensifying pressures.

A new study finds that net carbon emissions from land use change in Asia are responsible for 20-40% of global LULCC emissions since 1980, with Southeast Asia alone accounting for 15–25% over the same period. In the 2000s, three out of four models suggest land use in Asia was a net source of carbon to the atmosphere, while one suggests a net sink. The discrepancy highlights the need to better account for underreported emissions, such as those from carbon rich peatlands, shifting cultivation and wood harvesting.