Fossil fuel companies are “planning to build a string of new gas-fired power plants worth £9bn”, which could “derail” the UK’s climate targets and raise household bills, the Guardian reports. The newspaper says that 17 gas-fired plants with a combined generation capacity of 14GW are planned. It adds that. according to new analysis by CarbonTracker, these plants would produce 24m tonnes of CO2 per year if built – the equivalent of 7% of the UK’s 2019 emissions. The i newspaper adds that the new gas power would help “fill the gap” in electricity supply that is expected as old coal and nuclear plants close. It also notes the government’s statement that gas power will not contribute to the UK’s power mix in 2050, meaning that any plants still operating then will need to close.

And in breaking news this morning, the Financial Times reports that Drax has informed the London Stock Exchange that is has now “abandoned a plan to build a gas-fired power plant in Yorkshire” after facing opposition from environmental groups. The Guardian adds that the “electricity generator confirmed that it would drop plans to build two combined cycle gas turbines in place of two old coal burning units at the Drax site, weeks after completing the sale of four other gas plants to a subsidiary of Vitol last month”.

Meanwhile, BBC News reports that campaigners are urging Rishi Sunak to “change the financial system to better protect the environment” in his upcoming changes to the Bank of England’s mandate. Sunak is expected to include a greater climate focus in the update, the outlet states, but campaigners want the new wording to prevent the bank from using its £20bn corporate bond purchase programme to buy debt from firms including Shell and BP. The news outlet adds that another group of campaigners want Sunak to impose a carbon tax and “use the proceeds to protect the poor from high energy bills”. Meanwhile, the Independent adds that a petition from campaign groups including 350.org which urges the Bank of England to “cut off the money pipeline” for fossil fuel projects has been signed by nearly 65,000 people. The Daily Express notes that Sunak has been urged to “scrap VAT on green products” to “kick-start” the UK’s green recovery in his budget next week. Another BBC News article says that “the Climate Change Committee – an independent body which advises the UK government and devolved administrations – says the struggling green homes grant must be rescued”.

In other UK news, HuffPost covers new YouGov polling showing that “voters in ‘Red Wall’ seats [in northern England] strongly support green policies and defy stereotypes that they aren’t interested in the environment”. It adds: “Some 94% said that the issue was very or fairly important to them, and support for policies to tackle climate change and cut waste have increased markedly in the past five years at the same rate in both towns and cities. Backing for new “green jobs” and energy efficient infrastructure stands at 79% for big cities, only narrowly ahead of the 75% support in small towns.”

Meanwhile, BusinessGreen reports that the government has approved the introduction of a new fuel made partly from bioethanol to be used in petrol stations across the UK from September. The Times adds that, according to official estimates, the petrol could “cut” CO2 emissions by 750,000 tonnes per year – the equivalent of removing 350,000 cars from the road. However, it notes that the E10 fuel – blended with ten per cent bioethanol – will drive up petrol prices and “may damage older cars”. According to the Daily Telegraph, the fuel would add 1.6% to all drivers’ fuel costs. Finally, the Guardian reports that former UK prime minister David Cameron has told the incumbent Boris Johnson to be “muscular” in delivering a green recovery from Covid-19. It adds that Cameron has called for “an active policy of industrial intervention”, pointing to the example of his government encouraging a German company to build a wind farm in Hull.

The American Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will review decade-old guidance on how companies disclose their risks from climate change, the Wall Street Journal reports. The SEC will review the extent to which companies are currently “complying” with existing guidance, the paper adds. It notes that the original guidance – issued in 2010 – “suggested” that companies disclose how their business could be affected by climate change, “including from severe weather, demand for carbon-heavy products and environmental regulation”, but that few companies did so in their SEC filings. Acting SEC chair, Allison Herren Lee, says that “now more than ever, investors are considering climate-related issues when making their investment decisions”, the Hill adds.

West Virginia’s Democratic Senator Joe Manchin III has announced his support of Deb Haaland to head the Interior Department, “most likely ensuring” that she will be confirmed to office, according to the New York Times. The paper notes that Manchin “could be crucial” to Haaland’s confirmation, as he is “from a fossil fuel state” and often sides with Republicans on energy issues. It adds that Haaland “would make history as the first Native American to head a cabinet agency” and would be charged with enacting Biden’s “controversial” ban on future leases for hydraulic fracturing on fracking on public land. The New York Times notes that in her second day of questioning yesterday, Republicans “expressed concerns” about her history of pushing to close fossil fuel drilling and pipelines – positions that “go further than those of Mr Biden”. During questioning, Haaland emphasised that Biden’s pause on new oil and gas leasing is just a pause and won’t be a “permanent thing”, the Hill reports. A separate piece in the Hill adds that Haaland “discussed the importance of finding a ‘balance’ between fossil fuels and fighting climate change”. Politico reports that Manchin is “the most pro-fossil fuels Democrat in the Senate” and is “seen as a crucial vote” in Haaland’s appointment. It adds that Manchin called Haaland “a secretary of the interior for every American” and stated that he “will vote to confirm her”. The Washington Post adds that Manchin praised Haaland’s “bipartisan accomplishments and sincere willingness to work collaboratively on important issues”.

Meanwhile, there is ongoing coverage of the power outages in Texas last week. The Guardian reports that the power outages have set up renewable energy as the next US “culture war”, noting that while the power outages were largely due to failures in coal, nuclear and gas, Republican leadership “sought to pin the crisis on wind turbines and solar panels freezing”. According to Reuters, the low temperatures were “reasonably forseeable” and the power outages were caused by “failures to winterise generating units”. The governor of Texas has promised to “overhaul” the state’s electric grid operator, according to Reuters, while the Wall Street Journal analysis has found that “deregulated Texas residential consumers paid $28bn more for their power since 2004 than they would have paid at the rates charged to the customers of the state’s traditional utilities”.

Meanwhile, US trade groups have urged Biden to “declare a gas emergency” and put a cap on the price of gas, according to Reuters, while the Guardian runs the headline, “‘I had to pay $500 a day’: freeze shows Texans true cost of unregulated power”. Reuters also notes that more than 1.3m Texans are “still facing disrupted water supplies”. According to Bloomberg, the frozen pipes are “warnings of yet another climate threat”. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that “what happened in Texas is a warming for the rest of America”. On a similar note, an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by the CEO of Bloom Energy argues that the blackouts “demonstrated the fragility of the nation’s electricity infrastructure” and that there are no “incentives for resiliency”. Justin Gerdes in Energy Monitor states that the state should focus on building a more “resilient, interconnected and diverse power grid”. Meanwhile, columnist Megan McArdle in the Washington Post says that “we should be spending a lot more” on preventing disasters, but that until now, we have “done the opposite, demanding the lowest price right now”.

In other US news, Bloomberg reports that Canada and the US are working together on environmental plans that “could include singling out countries with weaker climate laws”, according to an interview with Trudeau. The paper says that this could include carbon taxes on the exports of high-emitting countries, and that more details will be unveiled in the coming months. BBC News also has the story. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that the phrase “climate change” is “once again appearing on [US] government websites and in documents”. The Los Angeles Times notes that the Biden administration is deciding whether to accept the request from a San Diego company to send 5m tonnes of natural gas per year across the US-Mexico border, saying that Biden’s decision will “offer an early preview of how aggressively it will confront the climate crisis.” Finally, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that California has “overstated” its emissions reductions.

Xie Zenhua has been appointed as the China’s “special climate envoy”, Reuters reports. According to the newswire, Zhenhua served as China’s chief negotiator during important climate meetings in Copenhagen and Paris. Meanwhile, the South China Morning Post notes that China’s minister of commerce used his first press briefing yesterday to “remind Washington that both countries benefit from cooperation” on topics including climate change. Another article in the South China Morning Post asks whether the US can “catch up” to China, reporting that China has become “a clear front runner in clean energy technology” and became the “de facto climate leader” when the US withdrew from the Paris climate agreement. A separate Reuters piece reports that China’s new “five-year plan” is expected to tackle climate change, aiming to achieve net zero emissions by 2060. According to the newswire, vice premier Han Zheng said in October that the plans would be “dedicated to addressing climate change”, but experts say that new coal-fired power stations are still expected.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s finance secretary announced yesterday that a road map to ending the use of fossil-fuel-powered cars will be released next month, according to the South China Morning Post. The piece notes that the number of electric vehicles has grown to more than 18,500 and that the city aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. However, it adds the concern from green groups that the “real issue” is how electricity is generated in the first place.

The European Commission released an updated climate adaptation strategy yesterday, Bloomberg reports, as part of the EU’s “green deal”. The strategy includes “bolstering its $17tn economy against damage caused by the impacts of climate change”, improving planning to prevent damages and “incorporating climate risks into financial frameworks”, according to the outlet. The paper adds that only 35% of economic losses from the impacts of climate change are insured, and that the plan also aims to close this gap. Politico adds that in some parts of Europe, this figure is as low as 5% and that the strategy hopes to “prevent taxpayers from being buried in billions of uninsurable damages. The outlet also refers to the adaptation plan as “an acknowledgement that efforts to limit emissions aren’t working” and emphasises that the new strategy will also push blocs to make more drastic emissions cuts.

A new study has found that “polar bears and narwhals are using up to four times as much energy to survive because of major ice loss in the Arctic”, the Guardian reports. According to the paper, polar bears are “sit and wait” hunters, and typically catch seals by breathing holes. However, the sea ice on which polar bears hunt has shrunk by 13% per decade since 1979 and that polar bears now swim for 3 days on average to find a seal to eat. Meanwhile, the “reliable breathing holes” in the ice that narwhals need to breath have “shifted” or even “disappeared” due to the changing ice sheets, according to the piece. MailOnline adds that polar bears are “being forced to migrate to nearby solid land in the Arctic circle”, where they have to “work up to four times harder to catch prey with the energy intake provided by a single sea”.

The Guardian reports that bats are becoming “heat-stressed”. It adds that, according to a bat biologist, “bats walk a tightrope because a one-degree change can make a difference as to whether they live or die”. Meanwhile, Scientific American reports that, according to new research, the warming climate is making trees “less resilient to pests”.

The UN climate summit is coming to the UK in November, but “no one organising it – including prime minister Boris Johnson – knows precisely what it is supposed to achieve”, writes Politico senior climate correspondent Karl Mathiesen in a news feature. By the time world leaders arrive in Glasgow, “they will have already made their big commitments to cut carbon emissions”, says Mathiesen, and “unless the hosts, or someone else, come up with a vision for something specific they can agree on in Scotland…the meeting could end up as little more than a photo opp, speeches and drinking Scotch”. Mathiesen notes that “if you ask British officials what COP26 will achieve, the answer is a treacle of broad aspirations”. In a recent off-the-record briefing with COP26 officials, one reporter warned “it’s gonna be a comms mess”, adding: “I genuinely have no idea what they want out of COP26 in terms of actual outcomes. It’s a mystery.” A senior climate campaigner who informally advises the UK government warned that “the COP26 communications team is hamstrung by a lack of political leadership at No 10, and until No 10 can demonstrate what this meeting is about and its importance, the COP communications team will struggle to deliver a coherent story”. Two questions “arise from the vacuum”, says Mathiesen – “what to do and whose job is it?”. Looking at the possibilities, Mathiesen says they include “mandating a date for when national pledges will align with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement” and also “deals to align financial regulation or phase out coal power, internal combustion engines and international funding for new fossil fuel projects”.

Meanwhile, geologist Bryan Lovell writes in the Times that “too many influential opponents” of the proposed coal mine in Cumbria say that “if it’s coal, it must be bad”. Lovell, a former adviser to mining company BHP, writes that it is an “oversimplification” to say the new mine would threaten the success of COP26 and that “metallurgical coal remains essential for the manufacture of steel”. Lovell argues that the mine could be a “natural starting point in the debate” around “coping with the emissions from the essential continuing use of metallurgical coal”. He highlights the “application of proven expertise in carbon capture and storage (CCS), expertise that the UK has in abundance”. However, writing in BusinessGreen, Andrew Warren – a former special advisor to the House of Commons environment select committee – says that “steel industry will soon have little use for Cumbrian coal”. He writes that supporters of the mine “blithely assume that burning coking coal is the only possible way that steel can be made, and this is simply no longer true. So untrue, in fact, that the new mine may well shortly turn out to be the biggest White Elephant in Cumbria since Sellafield.”

In other UK comment, Evening Standard columnist Anne McElvoy discusses the potential influence that Carrie Symonds – fiancée to Boris Johnson and senior advisor to ocean conservation charity Oceana – might be having on Johnson’s “climate change credentials”. Tom Peck – the Independent’s political sketch writer – says: “Johnson loves shiny new things, be they a cable car, a garden bridge, or whatever else. The free market is good but not as good as Boris. He will hardly need to be told twice to build brand new, green infrastructure, ideally that he can contrive to have named after himself.” And, finally, the Daily Telegraph’s chief city correspondent Oliver Gill writes that the government “must restore faith in the railways if it wants a green Covid recovery”.

A new study provides the “first high-resolution geospatial assessment” of permafrost soil organic carbon (SOC) in the northern hemisphere and “their relationships with environmental factors”. Analysing a dataset combining more than 2,700 soil profiles with environmental variables in a geospatial framework, the researchers estimate that the upper three metres of permafrost soils contain just over one trillion tonnes of carbon. The researchers find that “soil wetness index and elevation are the dominant topographic controllers” and surface air temperature and rainfall “are significant climatic controllers” of SOC stocks.