A week and a half of talks produced a slimmer but still-troubled version of a climate deal on Wednesday, says Reuters, with negotiators from 195 countries divided over how far to go in curbing global temperature rises – and how to pay for it. “We’ve made progress but still a lot of work remains to be done,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told delegates, adding that the new text snipped 14 pages from the previous 43-page draft and settled two-thirds of the disputes over wording. He set negotiators the task of coming up with a new draft by Thursday afternoon. A separate Reuters article listed the seven key sticking points yet to be resolved. Nature says that observers are nervous that delegates are rushing to meet a self-imposed Friday deadline. “Things are running suspiciously on time,” says WWF’s Samantha Smith. Negotiators “may create some drama at the end just so everybody feels like they had to work for it, but it looks like they have a landing space,” she adds. The Guardian says that the temperature goal remains divisive: “Rising economies of China, India, Brazil and South Africa were noted holdouts against the 1.5C goal. Todd Stern, the US State Department envoy, told negotiators: ‘There are some countries who seek a more minimalist outcome. We need a figure of 1.5C.'” The BBC said there could still be “fireworks” if compromises are not quickly found. Carbon Pulse says the new text “potentially paves the way for a new international carbon market”. Politico lists “5 climate summit takeaways as deadline nears”. Time reported optimism at the talks, whereas AFP says the gloves are now off.Climate Home live-blogged their way through a dramatic day in Paris. CarbonBrief deployed the medium of Storify.

The government has shocked the renewable energy industry, says the Guardian, by proposing a “massive hike” in VAT on solar panels and wind turbines from next summer. The moves, announced by HMRC, made “a mockery of (David) Cameron’s claims to climate leadership” say critics and come amid proposed cuts of almost 90% in some solar subsidies. HMRC blamed the planned increase in VAT from 5-20% on a European commission ruling covering energy saving materials used in the construction trade and said the EC decision had been upheld by the court of justice of the EU. BusinessGreen reports that the Solar Trade Association believes it is likely to add £900 to the cost of a typical 4kW installation, which is currently about £6,400.

The Independent has picked up the Greenpeace investigation into climate sceptic academics by focusing on the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which includes one of the academics on its advisory board. The sister paper ‘i” has the story as its frontcover splash. “Lord Lawson’s climate-sceptic think-tank is under review by the Charity Commission, it has emerged, as one of its leading advisers was revealed in an undercover sting to have offered to write an academic paper casting doubt on global warming on behalf of a sham oil company.” Lawson told the paper that “in many ways [its own “peer review” system is] better than the standard peer review system in most academic magazines”. The paper has a separate article on GWPF’s “wealthy backers”.

The US said on Wednesday it will double its assistance to poor countries struggling to cope with the effects of climate change. Secretary of State John Kerry Kerry said US annual spending on climate “adaptation” programs would increase from about $400m to at least $800m by the year 2020, with much of the money going to help vulnerable countries improve their infrastructure to help them cope with rising sea level, water shortages and extreme drought. The Guardian reported: “As Barack Obama worked the phones from Washington, calling the leaders of India and Brazil, Kerry praised countries moving towards renewable energy, and proffered more aid to countries already living with the impacts of climate change on the ground. ‘There are countries we know for which climate change is an existential threat today,’ Kerry said. ‘We have a moral responsibility today to adapt and prepare for those impacts.'”

The UK government was warned by its official climate change advisers in October that it needed to take action on the increasing number of homes at high risk of flooding but rejected the advice. The decision not to develop a strategy to address increase flooding risk came just a few weeks before Storm Desmond brought about severe flooding in Cumbria, Lancashire and other parts of the north west causing an estimated £500m of damage. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) also told the Guardian that, despite David Cameron’s promise to do so, the government had failed to learn lessons from the widespread flooding in the winter of 2013-14. The revelation came as George Osborne announced a £50m repair and renew scheme for Cumbria and Lancashire in the wake of the floods. Meanwhile, a Greenpeace EnergyDesk investigation reveals that “nearly half the areas earmarked for fast-tracked housing development by a flagship government scheme are at significant risk of flooding making thousands of homes potentially uninsurable”.

The Times reports Carbon Brief’s analysis published yesterday which found that, in total, developing countries say they will need $3.5tn up to 2030 to implement their INDC climate pledges. “The amount paid by rich countries is a key unresolved issue at the climate conference in Paris, which is supposed to end tomorrow. The latest version of the text has more than 360 points of disagreement. Developed countries have pledged to ‘mobilise’ $100bn a year by 2020 in public and private finance. This would have to treble to meet the latest demands from developing countries.”

A new £352bn coalition of investors including large insurer Aviva and major public and private funds in the UK, Norway and France has been launched to put pressure on some of the world’s biggest corporations to clean up their electricity sources. Aviva Investors – the £267bn arm of one of the UK’s biggest insurers – is one of 20 founding members of the initiative.

Le Page, the magazine’s environment editor, questions the idea that the Paris deal could express a 1.5C limit on warming: “An aspiration is all it can be. Flying bears are now rather more plausible than limiting warming to 1.5C. The evidence? We’ve already pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to warm the planet by 1.6C, and we will burn through the 2C carbon budget in just 20 years – even if countries keep to whatever they have pledged to do as part of any climate deal.”

Readfearn is not alone in questioning the feasibility of the temperature goal options on the negotiating table in Paris: “A key question is that even if a goal to limit global warming does shoot for 1.5C or well below 2C, is it actually possible to get there?” He quotes Dr Michiel Schaeffer, founder of Climate Analytics: “It needs to be zero global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by 2060 to 2080 for 1.5C or by 2080 to 2090 for 2C… that’s very simple. But I don’t think we’ll get it. I think there will be a compromise.”

Christiana Figueres sits down with Nature as the Paris talks enter their final days: “Of course I get tense. My daughters keep me fed, and they make sure that I’m sleeping. I wouldn’t say it’s the most restful sleep, but that’s not what we are here for. We are here to get a task done.”

A new study investigates how the costs of mitigating climate change are presented in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. It finds that the basic quantitative “findings” are misleading, partly because they don’t include an estimate of economic benefits from mitigating climate change, in terms of avoided impacts, improvements in health and reduced impacts on labour productivity, for example.

It’s been suggested that deeper reefs will avoid mass-mortality events as sea surface temperatures rise since they are cooler and are more shielded from localised human-caused stressors. But a new study finds that’s probably not the case. Deeper reefs may be cooler but any increase in average temperature can lead to stress and bleaching, suggesting it is likely that deeper coral reefs are as vulnerable to climate change as shallow water reefs, say the authors.