Bloomberg reports that the German utilities company RWE AG, “Europe’s biggest CO2 emitter”, is aiming to become climate neutral by 2040. According to the business news outlet, the firm’s CEO Rolf Martin Schmitz said they would cut emissions by 70% by 2030 compared with 2012 levels, decommissioning its last remaining coal plant in the UK next year and converting two more in the Netherlands into biomass facilities. The company’s six remaining coal plants operating in Germany will close down by 2038, in line with the German government’s target to phase out coal entirely by that date, according to BusinessGreen. The Financial Times includes comments from Schmitz in its coverage, in which he describes “the era of the new RWE” and announces “every energy has its time. Now comes the era of renewables”. To make up for lost coal-powered generation, the company has plans to invest €1.5bn a year in additional renewables capacity, according to the FT. Bloomberg also notes that the move comes after the closure of an asset swap with E.ON SE, which will see the firm boost the share of renewables in its portfolio and eventually generate 60% of its earnings from green power. “This figure could rise to between €2 and 3bn by joining forces with partners,“ said company CFO Markus Krebber, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that a group of villagers living near one of Germany’s biggest surface coal mines plans to mount a legal challenge against any attempt by RWE to “oust them from their homes”

UK transport secretary Grant Shapps has announced that the government’s ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars could be brought forward by five years to accelerate uptake of electric vehicles, according to the Times. The minister told the Conservative Party conference in Manchester the current 2040 date could be shifted to 2035 under new plans, the Times says. It notes that environmentalists had “previously said the existing target was unambitious”, but also said the move is “likely to prove controversial with the motor industry”. The Sun quotes Shapps, who alluded to the Committee on Climate Change’s advice that “2035 is a date for which we should aim”. However, the paper also says the move “risks the fury of millions of motorists”, and includes a comment from Howard Cox of lobby group Fair Fuel UK who accused the minister of “not understanding there’s a better way to improve air quality without hitting hard pressed drivers with draconian bans”.

Equipment is being moved off a shale gas site in Lancashire where operations had been suspended due to a series of earth tremors, according to BBC News. A statement released by Cuadrilla confirmed that no more fracking would take place before 30 November, and it has no plans to renew its licence at the Little Plumpton site, the BBC reports. Fracking at the initial site has been halted following the tremors, while regulator the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) carries out analysis. Reuters notes that the company also confirmed plans to begin testing a second horizontal shale gas well at its site in northwest England in “a few weeks”. The Times includes a statement from Cuadrilla chief executive Francis Egan stating the company “believe[s] that this will further demonstrate the huge commercial opportunity here”, but the paper notes “no more fracking is expected to take place in Britain this year”. The Independent’s coverage includes a comment from Friends of the Earth chief executive Craig Bennett, who said the environmental group “[thinks] this hopefully means the end of fracking in the UK…If they want to frack again they’d have to reapply for planning permission, it’s unlikely they’d get it, and already we’re really seeing moves against fracking”.

Many outlets around the world have covered the news that a large iceberg has calved off the Amery ice shelf in East Antarctica. The Guardian notes the D28 iceberg, which is 1,636 square kilometres in size or “about the size of greater London” was recorded breaking away by the Australian Antarctic Division. The BBC, which says the structure is “a little smaller than Scotland’s Isle of Skye”, notes its scale means it will have to be monitored because it could prove hazardous to shipping. The Daily Mail described the iceberg, which is known as “loose tooth”, as “five times the size of Malta”, and said researchers had been expecting it to break away from the shelf. Deutsche Welle notes that the last major calving event at the shelf occurred in the early 1960s, but also says that scientists do not believe it is linked to climate change.

Boris Johnson has told a Scottish reception at the Conservative conference in Manchester that he does not want to see Nicola Sturgeon at next year’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, according to the Daily Telegraph. The paper reports that the prime minister said he did not want to see Sturgeon “anywhere near” the event “because the Scottish Nationalist Party didn’t secure that summit in Glasgow, it was the UK Government”. (The Telegraph notes the comments came “despite [the first minister’s] constituency being Glasgow Southside”.) A spokesperson for Sturgeon told the Times Johnson’s behaviour was “childish”, emphasising their party’s commitment to working “in partnership with other governments” on climate change. The Scotsman and the Scottish Sun also have the story.

In his latest piece, Financial Times innovation editor and columnist John Thornhill recalls a clash he once witnessed between an “eminent neoclassical economist” and a “passionate environmentalist”. “With icy logic, the economist dismissed warnings about irreversible climate change. By definition, unsustainable development could not be sustained, he argued. If global warming became a big enough problem in the future, then demand for a solution would conjure up remedial supply. The market would magically produce an answer,” he writes. Thornhill says that such “blind-faith thinking” is still behind the “laggardly response” from world leaders to climate change, on display at the UN summit in New York last week. “There is an outside chance that the free market ideologues may be right.…But to bet everything on that happening soon is one heck of a gamble with the future of our planet,” he continues. While emphasising that technological advances in areas like electric cars and solar power remain essential, “we cannot rely on the market alone to solve a problem it has helped fuel”. He concludes by noting the importance of governments, civil society and consumer behaviour to tackle the issues at hand.

A new study investigates different metrics to forecast coral bleaching events in response to high ocean temperatures. The researchers assessed the response of corals at 226 sites from East Arica to Fiji during the 2014-16 El Niño event. Typically, the metric of “degree heating weeks” is used to quantify thermal stress. However, the study finds that “the best models” suggest that “peak hot temperatures, the duration of cool temperatures and temperature bimodality” more accurately explain the variation in thermal stress across the corals. “The results of this effort are impressive,” says an accompanying News & Views article, “with their top models predicting about 50% of variance in the global bleaching patterns triggered by the 2014–16 El Niño event”.