A climate change deal to be agreed in Paris in December will not be able to come up with a global carbon price, the United Nations’ climate chief, Christiana Figueres, told an investor event yesterday. Multinational companies and investors have called for a global carbon price to help spur investments in low-carbon energy. But the difficulties of bringing together different carbon schemes from countries around the world make the goal of a global carbon price elusive. “I agree it would be more simple … but it’s not quite what we will have,” Figueres said, adding that the world would work towards it in the future. Climate Progress also has the story.

Royal Dutch Shell is to take a $2bn writedown after cancelling its Carmon Creek project in the oil sands of western Canada. The company cites the lack of infrastructure to move Canadian crude to market, as well as “current uncertainties” in today’s low oil price environment, Reuters reports. Elsewhere, DeSmogBlog asks whether this signals “the beginning of the end” for the Alberta Oilsands.

Energy minister Andrea Leadsom told a parliamentary fracking group that she had to ask whether climate change was real when she started the job, in addition to considering whether fracking is safe. But the MP for South Northamptonshire told a parliamentary group that she is now ‘completely persuaded’ on both questions. In the past she has written to the Prime Minister calling for cuts to wind farm subsidies, and has criticised the pre-coalition Labour government for signing up to an EU target that called for 15% of the UK’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2015. The apparent admission is likely to further fuel criticism of the Government among green groups, who have accused the Conservatives of watering down their commitment to tackling climate change, the Telegraph writes.

Oil, gas and coal companies face the mounting risk of legal damages as global leaders draw up sweeping plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Bank of America has warned. Investors in the City are increasingly concerned that fossil fuel groups and their insurers could be swamped with exhorbitant class-action lawsuits along the lines of tobacco and asbestos litigation in the US, the Telegraph writes. Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank England, warned last month that by those who had suffered losses from climate change may try to bring claims on third-party liability insurance.

The UK government announced yesterday that it has successfully lobbied the European Commission to allow it to relax emissions rules for the steel industry, in an effort to curb costs for the crisis-hit sector. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said it was planning to change the way it implements the Industrial Emission Directive from January 2016, in order to allow a number of steel plants to be granted a four and a half year exemption to meeting stricter pollution standards. The Telegraph also has the story.

Rising temperatures and humidity due to climate change are likely to increase the number of days with unsafe “heat stress”, putting south-east Asia at great risk of significant drops in productivity, a report has found. It could lose 16% of its labour capacity due to dizziness, fatigue, nausea and even death in extreme cases, with Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia worst hit. British firm Verisk Maplecroft used climate projections to calculate the drop in labour capacity, based on the occurrence of conditions that prompt heat stress.

US and Japan have agreed to curb public financing of overseas coal projects, ClimateWire reported yesterday. A bilateral deal gets one of the most enthusiastic exporters of coal technology – Japan – on board to phase out controversial coal export credits. President Obama called two years ago for an end to coal financing overseas as part of his climate plan.

Delegates to a climate summit in December remain divided over fundamental issues, France’s envoy Laurence Tubiana told Reuters in an interview yesterday. They included disagreements over what range of carbon emissions to measure, with oil producing nations arguing that the focus should not only be on fossil fuels, as well as differences over how to measure and verify emissions, and over the issue of state contributions to fund greenhouse gas cuts in developing nations.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has signed off on a carbon market plan that includes setting up a pilot cap-and-trade scheme in Vietnam’s steel sector as well Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action. The $3.6 million plan, developed under the World Bank’s Partnership for Market Readiness, is part of Vietnam’s strategy to meet its target of keeping emissions 8% below business as usual levels throughout the 2020s.

There’s more to global warming than pollution from cars and power plants, argues Tim McDonnell, an associate producer of Climate Desk. On a global scale, land use is a source of greenhouse gas emissions, rather than a sink, and the biggest culprit is deforestation. According to the World Resources Institute, land use represents 61% of the Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions. The year a “dangerous” combination of El Niño and intentional deforestation are creating a “staggering” impact, he says. For Indonesia, getting a grip on palm oil producers will be even more important than going after power plants, he says.

Investors concerned about the risks of climate change, whether environmental or financial, are not aligning their investments with their concerns, argues Pauline Skypala in the Financial Times, due to risks such as uncertain political support. Whatever the outcome of December’s climate conference in Paris, investors need to push index providers for more and better options to benchmark portfolios to a lower carbon future, she argues.

If global carbon emissions remain high, the area of the Amazon currently affected by mild and severe drought will nearly double and triple, respectively, by 2100, a new modelling study suggests. The frequency of unusually wet periods is also expected to increase after 2040, the researchers say, as is the area affected by wet rainfall extremes – even into areas where average rainfall is likely to decrease. Overall, under high emissions, both dry and wet extreme periods will become more likely, which will alter and degrade Amazonian forests, the study says.

Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, is 3C warmer now than it was around a century ago, a new study finds. Researchers compared air and sea surface temperature data for the islands between 1865-1920 and 1981-2010. Land-based measurements show Svalbard is warmer in the present day in all seasons except summer – where temperatures are similar – while the surrounding seas are 0.4C warmer.