Lord Deben, the chair of the Committee on Climate Change, has written to Greg Clark warning that the UK could break its emissions reduction targets if it continues with plans to build a third runway at Heathrow. In this case, aviation emissions could be 15% higher in 2050 than they were in 2005, the level at which the government has pledged to limit them. This would require “significantly more action” in other sectors to ensure the overall 80% reduction target can be met — additional cuts that the Committee has “limited confidence” can be achieved. The BBC and the Times also cover the story.

The UK has cut its team of climate diplomats again. There are currently 149 foreign office staff working at least part time on the issue — down from a high of 177 in 2014 and 159 in 2015. There are 72 people who now work on the issue full time. The information appears in a Freedom of Information request. DeSmogUK also has a reminder that the UK did not sent a secretary of state to the UN climate talks this year.

Ministers deliberately delayed a report on the impact of fracking on the rural economy until after crucial council decisions on planning permission, according to newly revealed documents. New documents released to Greenpeace under Freedom of Information rules show Andrea Leadsom, then energy minister, asked to delay the publication of the full report until after the a decision by Lancashire county council on fracking. An email from Leadsom’s private secretary to former energy secretary Amber Rudd said: “[Leadsom] suggests we do nothing before Cuafrilla’s [sic] planning decision if we have time.”

A feature in the New York Times looks at the impacts of climate change on coastal real estate in flood-prone areas of the US, including Miami. Rising sea levels are changing the way people think about waterfront real estate. “Though demand remains strong and developers continue to build near the water in many coastal cities, homeowners across the nation are slowly growing wary of buying property in areas most vulnerable to the effects of climate change,” the New York Times says. The real estate industry is learning to factor in the risks, it adds.

Protected forests are being felled across Europe to meet the EU’s renewable energy targets, according to an investigation by the conservation group Birdlife. Currently, up to 65% of Europe’s renewable output comes from bioenergy, but plants to not have to produce evidence that the wood products have been sustainably sourced. Birdlife found logging taking place in places such as Poloniny national park in eastern Slovakia and in Italian riverside forests around Emilia-Romagna, where it said it had been falsely presented as flood-risk mitigation.

James Dyke, from the University of Southampton, runs though some of the reasons why Donald Trump should not slash NASA’s climate budget, as he has threatened to do. This includes important data collection by NASA on the earth system in general, that NASA attracts some of the best scientists to the US, and that climate change could be a part of NASA’s legacy. These scientists alsohave some advise to Trump about the future of NASA.

President-elect Donald Trump’s brand of populism will do little to help the planet, but neither does it need to be the catastrophe that many fear, says an editorial in the Economist. The bad news is that Trump’s administration is not likely to do anything to galvanise action. On the other hand, he will struggle to deliver promises to embrace fossil fuels, as no one will drill anyway unless it is profitable to do so. It points out that coal as been displaced by shale rather than regulations, and that states such as California have their own rules on climate change.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito is responsible for spreading a number of different diseases in humans, including yellow fever. After a successful eradication programme in the 1940s and 50s, the mosquito is now reestablishing itself in its previous, or even a greater, range. A new study suggests the mosquito’s distribution is likely to continue to grow as trade and human movement increase and climate change increasingly alters ecosystems. This poses an important public health risk, say the authors, especially in light of evidence that two previously distinct subtypes are cross-breeding, which could mean both can target humans as well as animals.