The company behind Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform is merging with TAE Technologies in a deal valued at more than $6bn, according to BBC News. The broadcaster says the combined company plans to begin constructing the “world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant” next year. Bloomberg describes TAE as a “closely held fusion developer founded in 1998”. The Associated Press says nuclear “has been seen as a promising solution to climate change caused by burning fossil fuels, but one that is a long way off compared to today’s clean technologies like wind and solar”. The Guardian adds that TAE is “backed by Alphabet’s Google and Chevron, the oil giant”. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Press Association, Reuters, Fortune and CNN all cover the story.

Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives yesterday approved legislation aimed at “speeding up permitting reviews for new energy and infrastructure projects that now take five or more years to complete”, reports the Associated Press. The newswire says that the move comes as “lawmakers seek to meet growing demand for electricity and other forms of energy”. Bloomberg adds that the “SPEED Act” would “expedite reviews and litigation under the 55-year-old National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law that critics say has delayed energy projects for years”. The outlet adds that the new bill has “drawn opposition from key Senate Democrats, who say it does too little to advance clean energy development”, adding: “At least seven Democrats would be needed in the Senate to overcome a filibuster.”

MORE ON US

• BusinessGreen reports that “two-thirds of voters think climate change is driving up the cost of living, a clear majority supports renewables development, and over three quarters want the US to stay in the Paris Agreement”. 
• The New York Times has a story under the headline “Trump’s claim that Venezuela ‘stole’ US oil fields touches nationalist nerve”.
• Reuters factchecks Donald Trump’s claim that he has reduced gasoline prices, increased power generation and boosted the coal industry. 
• The New York Times tells the story of Ana Vaz – a scientist who “monitored crucial fish stocks in the south-east and the Gulf of Mexico until she lost her job” at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
• Bloomberg has a piece under the headline: “Can Trump succeed in foiling the US wind industry he loathes?”

The Czech Republic’s new interim environment minister, Petr Macinka, has “scrapped the ministry’s climate protection section…saying the department needs to be ‘de-ideologised’”, reports Politico. The outlet continues: “Macinka had promised ahead of the country’s [October] election that ‘green blood will run’, and on taking office Monday announced that ‘the climate crisis is over today’.” It adds that Macinka is “leader of the right-wing Motorists for Themselves party, which is part of the country’s ruling coalition under new Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš”. 

Separately, Reuters reports that the new Czech industry minister has said the EU “must rethink its climate aims or risk losing out to China and the US”. It continues: “In one of its first acts, the government – which the populist ANO leads in coalition with right-wing and far-right parties – rejected the EU’s next-generation emissions trading scheme, ETS2, aimed at buildings and road transport and which is meant to provide market incentives for investments.”

MORE ON EUROPE

• According to industry representatives, the proposed changes to the European Union’s carbon border adjustment mechanism “are a step in the right direction for Europe’s steel and aluminium sectors, but not a complete solution”, Reuters says.
• The Guardian covers new research on “worst-case” climate scenarios for the UK, which cover unlikely, but “plausible” changes, such as a 4C rise in temperature and a 2-metre rise in sea levels.
• The Daily Mail reports that “billionaire investor Sir Jim Ratcliffe” has called carbon taxation “the most idiotic tax in the world”. The Sun also has the story.

Losses in China’s “slumping” solar industry “narrowed” by 47% quarter-on-quarter in the July-to-September period this year, but still reached 6.4bn yuan ($912m), reports Reuters, citing Wang Bohua, the honorary chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association. The newswire also quotes Wang as saying that the construction of new manufacturing capacity in China was down from last year, following “an array of regulations” passed in 2025. However, China’s solar-power sector still faces “arduous” challenges, with the “large-scale and high-proportion integration” of solar power increasingly placing “significant” pressure on the grid’s ability to “efficiently” absorb it, says Gui Xiaoyang, an official with the National Energy Administration (NEA), reports International Energy Net. The outlet says that, from January to October, the solar utilisation rate nationwide was only 95%, down more than two percentage points year-on-year, according to Gui, deputy director of the NEA’s new energy and renewable energy department.

MORE ON CHINA

• An article by Xinhua says that China is “spearheading” the global energy transition in terms of scale, industrial chains and cutting-edge technologies.
• Jiemian reports that, from 2019 through the first three quarters of 2025, China’s cumulative installed capacity of distributed energy storage grew from 570 megawatts (MW) to 3,638MW, an increase of 5.4 times, according to a newly released report by the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) and the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA). The outlet adds that it puts distributed energy storage at under 4% of China’s total new-energy storage capacity.
• BJX News reports that the NDRC and the NEA have jointly issued a notice requiring the provincial electricity markets to ensure the annual mid- to long-term contract volume of “supporting power sources”, such as coal-fired generation, to not be less than 70% of the “actual grid-connected generation” in the previous year.
• China Daily reports that the China Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) has released a draft guide to “rein in” Chinese automakers’ “pricing practices”, a move to promote “healthier growth” of the industry.
• Bloomberg publishes an opinion article by columnist Juliana Liu under the headline: “China’s carmakers must avoid home mistakes overseas.”

There is widespread reaction to the news, reported yesterday, that oil giant BP has abruptly replaced its CEO. Bloomberg has a feature on incoming CEO Meg O’Neill, in which it says the choice has “signalled more than a leadership change”. It continues: “It marked a recalibration for BP, bruised by a failed pivot toward renewable energy, years of uneven financial performance, and pressure from activist investor Elliott Investment Management to return the company to its core oil and gas focus.” The Guardian has a profile on O’Neill, calling her the “hard-nosed’ outsider who will head BP’s pivot away from green energy”. It adds: “O’Neill has condemned young people who oppose fossil fuels, suggesting they are hypocritical for also freely using tech and ordering cheap online consumer goods.” 

In the comment pages, the Daily Telegraph’s Ben Marlow, associate editor and frequent net-zero critic, says that “everything about [former CEO] Murray Auchincloss’s exit as chief executive is absurd”. He continues: “[Auchincloss] was part of the old regime that had insisted a whole-hearted embrace of all things green was the right strategy for an organisation that had spent the last 100 years furiously extracting oil and gas from every corner of the globe.” The Financial Times’s Lex column says: “On the face of it, this doesn’t look like a knockout hire – but the oil major needs a clean-up not a new vision.” It says that “BP’s ills stem largely from its flip-flopping green strategy” and argues that O’Neill “won’t have that problem” as she is an “oil and gas specialist”. Alistair Osborne, chief business commentator at the Times, writes: “If BP was looking for a statement hire who makes a clear contrast with Auchincloss, O’Neill fits the bill. Auchincloss never lived down his earlier championing of the green energy farrago of Bernard Looney: his predecessor sacked in September 2023.”

MORE ON BP

• In a story trailed on its frontpage, the Daily Telegraph reports that activist investors have said O’Neill “must abandon net-zero and steer the company decisively back to oil and gas”. 
• The Daily Telegraph has a feature under the headline: “How BP’s disastrous embrace of net-zero cost it yet another boss.”
• Forbes reports that “investors can expect a revival of speculation about a merger of global oil giants BP and Shell” as O’Neill “successfully managed the merger of Australia’s two biggest oil companies” several years ago.

Pilita Clark, associate editor at the Financial Times, writes that “net-zero is difficult enough – but an age of net-negative emissions goals would be far tougher”. Clark calls the “overshoot” of global warming beyond 1.5C “politically fraught” and says COP30 was the first climate conference to “formally acknowledge the probability of overshooting and the need to limit its magnitude and duration”. She says that once 1.5C is exceeded, “climate action sceptics” will “pounce on the categoric failure of the Paris Agreement” and may argue that temperature targets are “pointless”. She adds that once 1.5C is crossed, “some governments may push for targets even more burdensome than the already heroic goal of reaching net-zero by mid-century”. Speaking about negative emissions, she says the “technical challenges alone would be large”. She adds: “More broadly, today’s debates on which countries should bear the financial burden of climate action, and how much emerging economies like China should cough up, would go on steroids.” She concludes: “One way or another, overshoot is set to upend climate politics. Ignoring this is convenient, but ultimately helps no one.” [For more on overshoot, see Carbon Brief’s coverage of a recent international conference.]

MORE COMMENT

• In Backchannel, Andreas Sieber, the associate director of policy and campaigns at 350.org, outlines five principles for an “effective” fossil-fuel transition roadmap.
• Climate change journalist Bud Ward and scientists Kristie Ebi, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, Benjamin Santer and Gary Yohe write a piece in Climate Cafe looking back at “some of the key developments in climate change policy and science in the year just ending”.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Ayesha Tandon with contributions from Henry Zhang. It was edited by Rob McSweeney.