Theresa May has called tackling climate change and reducing its effects on poorer countries a “moral imperative”, as the Conservative party renewed its push to portray itself as environmentally friendly, reports the Guardian. Writing in the Guardian ahead of this week’s “One Planet” climate change summit in Paris, May said there is a “clear moral imperative for developed economies like the UK to help those around the world who stand to lose most from the consequences of manmade climate change.” May’s comments come as the Independent reports leaders from three indigenous Arctic communities have called on the UK Government to meet and exceed its commitments under the Paris Agreement.

French President Emmanuel Macron will today urge wealthy countries and global companies to increase climate financing to accelerate efforts to combat global warming and help poorer nations deal with the impact of climate change, Reuters reports. Macron is hosting the “One Planet” summit on the two-year anniversary of the Paris climate accord. Macron will host dozens of world leaders, writes the Financial Times as it again seeks to take the lead on climate talks as the US steps back from UN-orchestrated efforts to prevent dangerous global warming, though the Paris gathering is expected to be more symbolic than policy driven. BusinessGreen is running a live blog of the summit. On the eve of the summit, the Elysee Palace said 13 of an initial 18 “Make our Planet Great Again” grants will be awarded to scientists based in the United States to relocate to France, reports a separate Reuters article. A group of 50 world leaders will gather at the summit, but US President Trump was not invited, notes a Time article, making it one of the first examples that his decision to with the US from the Paris Agreement would leave it isolated on the issue. Associated Press and the Financial Times, the Independent, the Telegraph and the Guardian also cover the summit and grants.

Ministers missed out on tens of millions extra on the sale of the Green Investment Bank (GIB) in August, according to a new report from the National Audit Office (NAO). The spending watchdog said the £1.6bn paid in cash by Australian bank Macquarie came in at the low end of the government’s valuation. Macquarie agreed to spend a further £500m to cover the bank’s existing commitments. In addition, the government could have increased the value of the sale by £63m if it had waited until some of the windfarms owned by the bank had finished construction, it adds. The report also reveals that Macquarie only promised to secure the bank’s green mission for three years after a direct intervention from the state-backed bank’s board, reports BusinessGreen.

ExxonMobil, the world’s largest listed oil and gas group, will start publishing reports on the possible impact of climate policies on its business, reports the Financial Times. Exxon said it would introduce “enhancements” to its reporting, including analysis of the impact of policies designed to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2C. The decision is the biggest success so far for investors pushing firms to do more to acknowledge the threat they face from climate change and from policies that curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The Times reports that the kittiwake has been added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s red list of species facing global extinction after some UK populations of the small gull dropped by 90%. Climate change and fishing have reduced the supply of sand eels, the main source of the birds’ food, says the IUCN. The Guardian also covers the IUCN report saying: “The study found that overfishing and changes in the Pacific and north Atlantic caused by climate change have affected the availability of sand eels which black-legged kittiwakes feed on during the breeding season.” BBC News and the Daily Telegraph are among the other outlets reporting the story. Meanwhile, BBC News reports that scientists have presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans showing that golden eagle migration is “out of sync with climate change”.

President Trump has privately said he supports a public debate to challenge mainstream climate science, according to administration officials, reports E&E News. However there is infighting about how and if it should occur. Pruitt has been pushing the idea of a climate science critique for months, suggesting at one point that it could be a debate that’s aired on television. Pruitt last week said work on the initiative is “ongoing” but that details could be unveiled as early as next month. Meanwhile Reuters reports from a source that India’s government is in favour of banning imports of petroleum coke on environmental grounds, which could be a big blow to US refiners who export heavily to the country.

Climate change is increasing the risk of extreme weather events, including droughts, flooding and heatwaves, according to a new report from non-profit the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). The report analysed 59 studies which looked at climate change and extreme weather and concluded 41 of these demonstrated climate change had made extreme weather events more intense and more long-lived. “Just a few years ago it was hard to say more about any storm, drought or heatwave than it was ‘consistent with what science predicts’,” said the report’s author, Richard Black, a director of the ECIU. Earlier this year, Carbon Brief published a map of more than 140 studies looking at weather events around the world. Its analysis suggested 63% of all extreme weather events studied at the time were made more likely or more severe by human-caused climate change.

“Tackling climate change and mitigating its effects for the world’s poorest are among the most critical challenges the world faces,” writes British prime minister Theresa May in the Guardian ahead of the One Planet Summit in France today. “There is a clear moral imperative for developed economies such as the UK to help those around the world who stand to lose most from the consequences of manmade climate change.” May goes on to outline how putting the UK “at the forefront of efforts to cut carbon emissions and develop clean energy” means it can also make the most of new economic opportunities. In a seperate article in the Guardian, Rebecca Long-Bailey – shadow secretary for business, energy and industrial strategy – sets out how climate change is at the heart of Labour’s industrial strategy.

Wired magazine has a long read about negative emissions, particularly looking at BECCS, or bioenergy and carbon capture and storage. “Even if negative emissions of any kind turns out to be feasible technically and economically, it’s hard to see how we can achieve it on a global scale in a scant 13 or even three years, as some scenarios require. Looking at BECCS and direct air capture as case studies, it’s particularly clear that there’s only so fast you can act, and that modelers, engineers, politicians, and the rest of us must face up to the necessity of negative emissions together.” The article leans heavily on Carbon Brief’s extensive coverage of negative emissions, especially our interactive timeline of the history of BECCS.

Around 25,000 Earth, Sun, and planetary scientists from across the US and abroad flew to a conference in New Orleans this weekend – leaving a colossal carbon footprint in their wake, writes Peter Kalmus, an atmospheric scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory​. “As an Earth scientist and AGU member myself, I know the importance of their work. [But] [a]s scientists, our work informs us – with dreadful clarity and urgency – that burning fossil fuel is destroying the life support systems on our planet. There’s already more than enough science to know we need to stop. Yet most scientists burn more than the average American, simply because they fly more.” Kalmus argues when scientists make a “conscious effort to contribute less to global warming”, they can better communicate the urgency of the Earth system changes being seen.

Poor planning, competing interests and lack of manpower are to blame for the slow implementation of climate change adaptation strategies in small island states, new research finds. Small island developing states, a distinct group of 58 developing countries, are widely regarded as uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including sea level rise and extreme weather events. However, a number of barriers remain to implementing mainstream categories to cope with these impacts, the new research finds. “It also finds multiple barriers – the three most commonly reported are competing development priorities, poor planning/governance and insufficient manpower/human resources,” the author writes. “Building on this knowledge, this paper then proposes a seven-step process towards practically achieving mainstreaming in SIDS, which can be used by national governments and regional organisations to guide their actions in this regard.”