The UK government has released long-awaited details of its post-Brexit farming subsidy system for farmers in England, the Guardian reports. Under the new scheme, funds will be available for up to 280 different actions that protect the environment, including conserving hedgerows, maintaining peatland and using less insecticides, the newspaper continues. The so-called “environmental land management schemes” (ELMs), which have taken five years to draw up, are worth £2.4bn a year for this parliament and are supposed to provide “public money for public goods”.

By contrast, BBC News notes that payments under the EU system were worth about £3.5bn annually and “most were based on how much land each individual farmer owned, leading to criticisms they benefited the wealthiest”. It lists the three main schemes in England, which are the “sustainable farming incentive”,  focusing on soil health and reducing “inputs” such as fertilisers and insecticides, the “landscape recovery scheme” that will pay landowners for ambitious large-scale “rewilding” projects and the “countryside-stewardship plus scheme” that will reward farmers for action to support climate change adaptation and help nature. The Independent notes that the activities covered by the sustainable farming incentive have been expanded and also brought forward by a year. According to BusinessGreen, the government says the update means farmers and landowners are “now able to plan ahead with clarity on payments” across that and the countryside-stewardship scheme in 2023 and 2024.

In an analysis article for the Guardian, environment reporter Helena Horton writes that following initial post-Brexit promise, the new subsidy system “has been mired in dither and delay, full of confusing acronyms, opaque pilot schemes and changes in direction”. She notes that after hints that its environmental aspected may be watered down last year, “thankfully, Thursday’s announcement shows the schemes have not in fact been stripped of nature policies”.

A piece in the Conversation looks at how focusing on remnants of the UK’s ancient woodlands – dubbed a “shadow woods” – gives a sense of where ”reforestation is most likely to succeed, with high levels of resulting biodiversity”. Finally, an article in the Times explores plans for the UK’s “biggest timber-built neighbourhood” in Lewes, East Sussex, which could be a “trailblazing model for how the UK might meet its net-zero goal”.

The UK asked Europe for emergency assistance to keep the lights on in southeast England yesterday “in the latest scare for the energy system”, according to the Times. The newspaper notes that a fault on the network in southern England was to blame for the scare, emphasising that “the issue did not arise because Britain had inadequate domestic power generation to meet demand”. It cites an analyst who says requests for emergency assistance over subsea power links are “pretty unusual”, but typically happen a few times a year.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that following the first rollout of the National Grid’s “demand flexibility scheme”, more than £1m was paid out to energy customers with Octopus Energy on Tuesday when they reduced their electricity use between 4.30pm and 6pm. The newspaper notes that the scheme kicked in “amid cold temperatures, meaning more energy was being used while less energy was being generated by wind power”. The Daily Telegraph reports that, at the same time, some windfarms were also being paid to stop generating power due to “bottlenecks in the system” which mean National grid cannot always get electricity where it was needed, even when supplies are low.

BBC News says that Wales is planning to meet the equivalent of 100% of its annual electricity consumption with renewable electricity by 2035, building on a previous target of 70% by 2030. Elsewhere, the Sun reports on a claim that chancellor Jeremy Hunt is to see that “billions of pounds of investors dosh freed from Brussels red tape will be used to fund new nuclear power stations” in the UK.

Finally, the Times reports on claims by the opposition Labour party that the UK government is set to miss its target of installing 300,000 new electric car chargers by 2030 “by 20 years”.

Climate policies announced over the past three months have been ambitious and set the world on the path for a global temperature rise of no more than 1.8C, according to  a new assessment covered by Reuters. The Inevitable Policy Response (IPR) group, a “climate transition forecasting consortium”, said recent months had seen a boost thanks to green subsidies in the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the EU’s plans to boost cleaner energy sources, the newswire states. IPR’s project director Mark Fulton describes a “race to the top in clean energy unleashed by the US IRA and…followed up by the EU Green Industrial Plan, combined with other positive policy announcements since COP27”. The Times reports that the EU “has started drawing up proposals to create a multibillion-euro fund” to compete with the US efforts.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times explains the repercussions of the US IRA, which has “delivered a big green bonus” for US business while “infuriating America’s trading partners”. The article says that business leaders and US climate envoy John Kerry have argued that “instead of expecting major concessions from the US, the EU and other partners need to take urgent steps to make their own green investment conditions more attractive”. The New York Times has a similar piece titled: “Climate change may usher in a new era of trade wars.” It takes a more negative tone, arguing that “policies aimed at staving off environmental catastrophe could also result in more frequent cross-border trade wars”. It notes that US officials are keen to reduce a “dangerous dependence on China in particular for the materials needed to power the green energy transition”.

In more US trade news, Reuters reports that a bipartisan group of lawmakers is seeking to repeal US president Joe Biden’s waiver on solar panels from four Southeast Asian nations, which was introduced so that US solar projects could proceed in line with the nation’s low-carbon energy goals. Meanwhile, Democrat senator Joe Manchin, who has consistently opposed attempts to introduce climate legislation in the US, wants to speed up the introduction of new restrictions to consumer tax credits for electric vehicles,  the Hill reports.

Finally, the Hill reports that the US Forest Service has finalised a rule restoring protections  for the Tongass National Forest in Alaska that were rolled back under the Trump administration.

A month away from general elections in oil-rich Nigeria – and in spite of severe floods that hit the country last year – Climate Home News reports that climate change has not been a “decisive issue” in the elections so far. It runs through comments made by the leading presidential candidates, noting that frontrunner Peter Obi has “dismissed climate change’s importance” and that his closest competitor, Bola Tinubu, has promised to revive an abandoned coal mining project. The article notes that “polling carried out before the floods showed that two-thirds of Nigerians have not heard of climate change”. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the Norwegian company Equinor is selling its stake in an offshore Nigerian oilfield, “joining a retreat by Western energy firms from the West African country as they focus on newer and more profitable operations”.

Meanwhile, Senegalese president Macky Sall has told a summit that Africa must produce more of its own food instead of relying on imports and aid, according to Reuters. The piece notes that the continent is “facing its worst food crisis ever”, with the Covid-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine adding to “long-term causes of food insecurity such as climate change and conflict”.

The South China Morning Post reports that China, the world’s “largest carbon emitter”, has the potential to become a “major provider of green fuels” which can help in the “fight against climate change, but greater collaborative effort is needed to accelerate progress”, citing a senior shipping executive. Ludovic Renou, CEO of CMA CGM China, part of the French shipping “giant” CMA CGM Group, said that CO2 from the nation’s factories can be “captured and combined with green hydrogen to make low-carbon fuels, such as synthetic methane and green methanol”. 

Meanwhile, Reuters has a comment piece by John Kemp, a senior market analyst specialising in oil and energy systems, titled: “China’s diesel exports rebound easing global shortage.” He writes: “China’s exports of refined petroleum products, especially diesel, surged in the final two months of 2022, relieving some of the global shortage caused by unusually low exports since the middle of 2021.” He notes that exports of refined products totalled “54m tonnes in 2022, down from 60m in 2021 and 62m in 2020”, citing preliminary data from the General Administration of Customs (GAC).

In other news, China Dialogue has an article which quotes Shaoda Wang, assistant professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, saying: “Like other countries, China has set up various channels for citizens to report environmental violations, forcing local regulators to step up enforcement.” The Diplomat has a comment piece by Nurettin Akcay, a guest researcher at Shanghai University, who writes about the Arab countries’ “desire to expand cooperation with China on technology transfer, infrastructure development, and renewable energy”. Elsewhere, Caixin Global has an article, titled: “China shivers through freezing lunar new year as temperature records tumble.” Finally, the state news agency Xinhua carries an article, titled: “Clean energy warms up remote mountain village.”

Liz Leffman, the leader of Oxfordshire County Council, has released a video expressing “extreme disappointment” at the “misinformation” surrounding plans to tackle congestion in Oxford. The plan to create prioritise cyclists and buses on inner-city roads has attracted international attention, and the newspaper, which is hostile to the scheme, notes that critics have “likened it to the Berlin Wall, while thousands of angry residents [signing] petitions and police…called in over abuse directed at councillors”. In the video, the council chief says “these conspiracy theories are causing real-world harm and need to stop”. The Daily Mail, which is also hostile to the scheme, covers the proposals under the headline: “A car crash policy: an elderly man run down, another beaten with a traffic cone…how Oxfordshire Council’s green zealots sparked a violent civil war between motorists and residents.”

Separately, Byline Times reports that the UK’s Charity Commission is examining a “serious incident” at climate-sceptic lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, following “a complaint about the group engaging in alleged political campaigning”.

Coal tycoon Gautam Adani’s rise to the number two spot in global wealth rankings “deserves to be in the spotlight”, writes columnist Andy Mukherjee for Bloomberg. “Adani’s is not just any conglomerate. The coal he mines, moves through his ports, and burns at his power stations provides electricity to Indians. Adani supplies families with piped gas when they’re sitting down to dinner, in which the cooking oil is also his, and the wheat probably stored at his warehouses,” he says. Mukherjee continues, noting that “before you complain” about the impact of coal and other Adani ventures on the environment, he also says he will invest $70bn into “cooling the planet down” with green hydrogen, wind turbines and solar panels. “Throw in forays into media and money-lending to small businesses, and Adani may soon command a bigger share of an average Indian’s life than Amazon will ever garner from a typical American’s wallet,” he notes.

A Times editorial considers the need for a “Conservative plan to boost business and the economy” in the UK. “Britain cannot compete with the vast subsidies being mobilised by the US and EU in the battle to dominate the green tech and high-tech industries of the future,” it states. However, the editorial urges the government to “be bold on corporation tax” in the upcoming March budget, and include generous tax breaks for small company R&D. The article emphasises the need to be “nimble” and make the UK “the most attractive destination for investment”.

New research finds that high-income regions will see an improvement in “thermal comfort conditions” as the planet warms, while low-income regions will see a deterioration. The authors use projections from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) to determine the impacts of temperature, relative humidity and wind on “human thermal perception” as the planet warms. They find that in high-income regions – mostly distributed in cool mid-high latitudes – the number of “cold-uncomfortable” days will increase, and the number of “comfort” days will rise. Meanwhile, low-income regions – mostly distributed in warmer low latitudes – will see “a dramatic increase in the number of warm-uncomfortable days that greatly exceeds the decrease in the number of cold-uncomfortable days”. The paper adds that “the overall impact of future changes in thermal comfort conditions on the global population is negative”.