A new report finds that a record amount of global renewable energy capacity was added last year, but that still leaves countries “short of targets towards meeting a UN climate goal to triple capacity by 2030”, says Reuters. The report, by the International Renewable Energy Agency, the Global Renewables Alliance and the COP30 Brazilian presidency, finds that a record 582 gigawatts of renewable capacity was added globally in 2024, Reuters notes, which is a 15.1% annual growth rate. But, the newswire adds, “meeting the target by 2030 will require annual growth of 16.6%” over 2025-30. More than 100 countries pledged to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 at the COP28 climate summit in 2023, Reuters notes.

MORE ON RENEWABLES 

• In 2025 so far, global investment in “green technology” such as clean energy and electric vehicles, has surpassed the total investment in 2024, Bloomberg reports. 
• Apple is aiming to expand its renewable energy initiatives in Europe, Energy Monitor says.

A letter from the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) has warned that the country should “prepare for at least 2C of warming within just 25 years”, according to Sky News. The broadcaster reports that the letter “spells out the risk to the UK in the starkest terms yet”. Reuters quotes the letter as saying: “It is clear we are not yet adapted for the changes in weather and climate that we are living with today, let alone those that are expected over coming decades.” The newswire quotes Julia King, chair of the CCC’s adaptation committee who says: “We continue to believe that (limiting the rise to) 1.5C is achievable as a long-term goal, but clearly the risk that it will not be achieved is getting higher.” The Guardian adds that the committee recommends upgrading “buildings and infrastructure…to withstand temperatures of at least 2C higher than normal by 2050”. The Independent and BBC News also cover the story. 

MORE ON EXTREME WEATHER

• At least 14 gold mine workers have been killed in floods after heavy rainfall in Venezuela, according to Agence France-Presse.
• The Associated Press reports on the continued fallout from “deadly” landslides and flooding in Mexico, which has “cut off 300 towns…from the outside world”.
• A storm in California threatens to “pummel wildfire-scarred Los Angeles neighborhoods with heavy rain, high winds and possible mudslide”, the Guardian says.

A draft policy paper shows that the EU plans to cooperate with US local authorities and businesses, rather than the federal government, on clean energy and climate action, the Financial Times reports. The newspaper notes that this follows US president Donald Trump calling climate change the “greatest con job ever”, pushing for fossil fuel drilling, cutting clean energy funding and pulling out of the Paris Agreement. The Financial Times reports that the European Commission draft policy paper, due to be published tomorrow, “sets out the ways in which the EU will use its diplomatic heft to advance the clean energy transition worldwide”. Elsewhere, Reuters reports on a draft conclusion for an EU leaders’ summit on 23 October, which says leaders “plan to agree for the bloc to set a new climate change target for 2040, but demand the EU does more to support industries like steel and carmaking to meet it”. 

MORE ON CLIMATE DIPLOMACY 

• Brazil is working with Japan and Italy to gather support for a global pledge to quadruple sustainable fuel production by 2035, Bloomberg reports. 
• Bloomberg says the International Maritime Organization is set to decide on a global charge on the shipping industry’s emissions – which has “prompted the Trump administration to threaten tariffs in response”.
• Climate Home News reports that delegates at talks ahead of the COP30 climate summit are “disappointed by a lack of detail and limited opportunities” to discuss a climate finance roadmap. 

India’s climate minister Bhupender Yadav has said that “the time for continuous reviews without action has passed” and countries must now focus on “the urgent lack of resources for developing countries to deliver adaptation and mitigation”, Press Trust of India reports. Speaking at a pre-COP30 meeting in Brasilia, Yadav is quoted by the newswire as saying there “should be no rushing for the inclusion of scientific assessments” in future global stocktakes (GST) of climate progress “without proper discussion on their global relevance”. According to a government official quoted in the Times of India, India is still expected to submit its national adaptation plan and revised climate pledge ahead of COP30. Yadav called for COP30 to “send a resolute political message that multilateralism remains the cornerstone of global climate action”, Hindustan Times reports. The paper additionally quotes Yadav as saying: “With the Paris Agreement mechanism fully operational, now is not the time to undermine its architecture by insisting on post-global stocktake processes that seek to prescribe new mechanisms…Let us be informed by the first GST and do our utmost as per our national circumstances.” 

MORE ON INDIA

• On Thursday, India and the UK inked a free-trade deal with “a dozen outcomes across sectors ranging from critical minerals to climate change”, Business Standard reports. 
• Down to Earth looks at how India plans to “push adaptation finance to the forefront” of negotiations at COP30.
• The country’s government has notified “legally-binding” greenhouse gas emissions intensity targets for four “high emission sectors”, including cement and aluminium production, the Indian Express reports.
• A Mint feature examines how climate change is “unravelling th[e] assumption” that water is a steady industrial input and how water has “quietly become the new frontier of business risk”. 

In continued coverage of extreme weather in Alaska, more wind and rain has been forecast along the coast where “two tiny villages were decimated by the remnants of Typhoon Halong”, the Associated Press reports. At least one person was killed, two are missing and more than 1,500 people have been displaced across the south-western part of the US state, the newswire says. The outlet notes that Rick Thoman, an Alaska climate specialist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, believes that the storm was “likely fuelled by the warm surface waters of the Pacific Ocean, which has been heating up because of human-caused climate change and making storms more intense”. In New York City, a woman has been killed by a “solar panel that flew off a building in storms”, the Independent reports. 

MORE ON US

• General Motors has said it will record a $1.6bn earnings loss, mainly due to a drop in value of equipment and assets related to its electric vehicles, the New York Times reports. Globally, sales of electric and hybrid vehicles hit record-highs in September, according to a report covered by Reuters. 
• Bloomberg reports on comments from JPMorgan’s global head of sustainable solutions who says the US will struggle to generate enough energy to “power growth in the tech industry” without wind and solar power. 
• The New York Times says Trump will “preside over a renewable energy boom”, despite efforts to pull back progress. 
• The US rejected a company’s bid to acquire 167m tonnes of coal in Montana, in “what would have been the biggest US government coal sale in more than a decade”, the Associated Press reports. 
• A US government shutdown “threatens home sales in flood-prone areas”, according to a report covered by Reuters.

Western companies have warned that the “renewed US-China dispute over rare-earth materials will lead to ‘broken’ supply chains” in many sectors, including automotives, the Financial Times reports. The newspaper says that China’s latest export controls “could delay production of some weapon components and push up prices despite recent stockpiling efforts”. Another article by the Financial Times says the US treasury secretary Scott Bessent has accused China’s export control could hurt the world’s economy. Reuters, however, reports Bessent saying the relationship between US and China have “substantially de-escalated” and the two leaders will meet in South Korea later this month as planned. In a comment for the Financial Times, reporter Hakyung Kim says that China’s “global rare earths monopoly raises longer-term concerns”. China’s state news agency Xinhua says the Ministry of Commerce has “urged the US side to correct its wrongdoings as soon as possible, demonstrate sincerity in trade talks, and work with China in the same direction”.

MORE ON CHINA

• China and Iceland will work together to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote energy transformation and create green jobs and business opportunities, according to a joint statement”, Reuters reports. Xinhua carries the full text of the statement.
• Huang Runqiu, head of China’s MEE, has met Chris Bowen, Australia’s minister for climate change and energy, in Beijing, to discuss “bilateral cooperation in the climate field”, Securities Times reports.
• The NDRC has issued the draft of measures for implementing the country’s “minimum renewable energy consumption targets” and “renewable electricity consumption responsibility weights”, BJX News reports.
• Jiemian: “As power generation cost advantages gradually disappear, nuclear energy faces a strategic transformation.”
• A commentary published by Caixin says: “As the US balks, China and Europe can lead on climate.”

The UK government has approved plans for a “huge” solar farm in Lincolnshire, BBC News reports, which the applicants say would span around 3,000 acres (1,200 hectares) and power about 300,000 homes. The broadcaster says: “A letter outlining the decision said the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband had concluded the benefits of the proposed development outweighed any potential adverse impacts.” The Guardian notes that the project “will be the largest ever built in the UK” and in a county where “Reform UK’s anti-renewables agenda has won rising support”. Reform says it will “fight to reverse the decision”, according to the Times. The Press Association reports that some local residents “who fear the loss of land” oppose the project. The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and the BusinessGreen cover the story. 

MORE ON UK 

• BBC News reports that energy secretary Ed Miliband says the UK government’s “drive to deliver clean power is ‘the best way’ to bring down energy costs. 
• A “prominent sustainability professor” was “axed” from a Labour party conference panel for “criticising energy policy”, according to the Guardian.

An editorial in the Guardian explores how the “bleak future faced by one small town” in England “offers a cautionary tale about the threat from global heating”. Based on its reporting on UK flood risk, which is included on the newspaper’s frontpage today, and an article specifically about Tenbury Wells “being abandoned by insurers”, the editorial says that flood risks in the market town are higher than many other places, but “not unique, and will become more common in future”. The newspaper writes: “After seven floods in four years, and with plans for new flood defences around the town abandoned after costs rose to £30m, the town council announced this month that three buildings it owns, including a theatre and historic pump rooms, no longer have insurance. Independent retailers are in a similar situation, and some are packing up as a result. The number of empty properties is growing.” The bigger picture, the Guardian says, is that “flood defences nationally are in an alarming state of disrepair following years of underinvestment”.

MORE COMMENT 

• The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes that a carbon tax on shipping would be the “ultimate taxation without representation”, saying Trump would do “Americans and the entire democratic world a favour” if he can “scare” the International Maritime Organization into “thinking twice” about the tax. 
• An opinion piece from various NGO contributors to Climate Home News says that rules on shipping fuel emissions “must account for their indirect impacts on forests and food production, otherwise owners may rush to use soy and palm oil to power their vessels”. 
• Gavin Maguire, a global energy transition columnist, says in Reuters that cuts to US clean energy projects and support for fossil-fuelled power will “trigger a swell in North America’s emissions in the coming decades as the US generation mix remains fossil fuel reliant”. 
• Writing in the Guardian, the newspaper’s Australia climate and environment editor Adam Morton says that Queensland’s government has “gone out of its way” to make it “much harder” to meet Australia’s national climate targets. 

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Orla Dwyer, with contributions from Aruna Chandrasekhar, Wanyuan Song and Henry Zhang. It was edited by Robert McSweeney.

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